Hard Contact

by Karen Traviss

  There was a pause, a long pause, and Zey looked along the row of three helmets and a damaged face as if waiting for something. The Jedi had said he hadn’t worked with clones before; maybe he was expecting a dialogue. He stopped at Darman. The potential embarrassment to the Master prompted Darman to fill the silent void.

  It was an obvious question to ask, really.

  “What’s the nature of the nanovirus, sir?”

  Zey’s head moved back just a fraction. “An intelligent and significant question,” he said.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “The answer, then, should be of great interest to you personally. It appears to be specifically aimed at clone personnel.”

  The sleek black Gurlanin drew itself up to a greater height. “They fear you, and with good reason,” it said in a deep, liquid voice. “So they wish to kill, as all ignorant beings do when they encounter something they fear and misunderstand.”

  It continued elongating and now appeared to be standing. It had changed shape.

  “Yes,” Zey said slowly, dragging the word into two syllables, and he looked away from the spectacle of molecular rearrangement. “At this time you still have an advantage—the Separatists almost certainly aren’t aware of your potential as clone commandos. They have no idea what you can achieve, and perhaps we have no idea, either. But you have been created for excellence, and trained to realize that potential by the most experienced instructors in the galaxy. We have very high expectations.” Zey slipped his hands into his cloak, head lowered slightly. “If you happen to find Master Fulier safe, we would be relieved, but Uthan and the facility are your main priorities. Do you understand everything I have said?”

  “Yes sir.” Darman nodded once and so did the others, but it wasn’t quite a synchronized movement. We’ll get it right, he thought. A couple of days’ training, that’ll sort it. Train hard, fight easy.

  “I’ll leave you to my Padawan, then,” Zey said, and swept out, pausing briefly at the door to look back at the commandos, tilting his head as if he was either amazed or amused.

  Jusik swallowed hard. The Gurlanin flowed from a column back into a four-limbed thing, and moved to sit beside RC-3222, gazing up at him. The commando didn’t react.

  “Ahhh,” it sighed. It had a voice like running water. “My, that’s indeed Fett’s face. Fascinating.”

  Jusik gestured to the exit. “I’m your armorer,” he said. “Weapons and data. Follow me and I’ll show you what you’ll have at your disposal.”

  The commandos rose as one—more or less—and followed him through the door and down a passage still strewn with victualing containers. The place smelled of stewed nerf even through Darman’s filtration mask. The Gurlanin flowed before them, now a sinuous predator, now a trotting quadruped, shifting shape as it went.

  Jusik stopped at a door at the end of the passage and turned to them.“I wonder if I could ask the rest of you to remove your helmets.”

  Nobody asked why, and they all obeyed, even though it wasn’t phrased as the unequivocal order they were expecting. The helmet seals made faint ssss sounds as they opened.

  “Oh,” Jusik said, and stared for a second. Then he opened the door and they stepped into a makeshift armory.

  It was a cache of treasures. There were upgrades and boltons that Darman knew might fit his existing gear, and ordnance that he didn’t recognize but looked like Republic issue, and there were … exotics. Weapons he recalled from his database as belonging to a dozen different species—and quite a few that he couldn’t place at all—were laid out neatly on trestle tables. It was inviting, almost as inviting as a meal.

  “That all looks rather useful, sir,” Niner said.

  “Delta Squad has been collecting a few things here and there,” Jusik said. The commandos were focused on the weaponry, but Darman was also noting Jusik’s behavior with growing interest. The Padawan stood back to let the men get a closer look at the armaments but he was watching them carefully. “You’re nothing like droids at all, are you?”

  “No sir,” Fi said. “We’re flesh and blood. Bred to be the best.”

  “Like Advanced Recon Commandos?”

  “Not quite ARCs, sir. Not like clone troopers, either. We don’t work alone and we don’t work in formations. We just look the same.”

  “This is your unit of four, then? A squad?” He seemed to be recalling a hurried lesson. “Almost like a family?”

  Niner cut in. “It is now, sir.” He picked up a portable missile launcher that looked slightly different from the standard-issue plex. “Light. Very light.”

  “Merr-Sonn prototype,” Jusik said. “Novel alloy, heavier payloads, extra range. It has a microrepulsorlift stabilizing unit, but they haven’t resolved all the more challenging technical issues yet. So consider it shoulder-launching.” He peered at 3222’s face. “Is that painful?”

  “Not too bad, sir,” the commando said. But the wound had to hurt like fire. The abraded skin was still weeping. “I’ll see to it later.”

  It didn’t seem to be the answer Jusik was expecting, judging by the slight uh sound he made. Maybe he thought clones didn’t feel pain, like droids. “Do you have names? I don’t mean numbers. Names.”

  Now, that was a very private thing. You kept your name to yourself, your squad, and your training sergeant. Darman was embarrassed for him.

  “My squad called me Atin,” the wounded commando said.

  Niner glanced at Fi but said nothing. Atin was Mandalorian for “stubborn.”

  Jusik held up two reels of line that looked like matte ribbon, one black, one white. He took a ribbon of each color, twisted two short lengths together, and held up the braid in one hand and a bead-sized detonator in the other. “One meter is the equivalent yield of a thermal detonator, but it’s directional. Ideal for making a frame charge. But be cautious with the quantity if you want to enter a building, rather than destroy it completely. You have some special implosion ordnance for that purpose.”

  “Any useful hand-thrown stuff?” Darman asked. “Stun grenades?”

  “We have a few Geonosian sonic detonators, and a box of EMPs for anti-droid use.”

  “That’ll do me fine. I’ll take the lot.”

  Niner was watching Darman intently. “You’re obviously our demolitions man,” he said. Then the sergeant turned back to the Padawan. “We’ve been thoroughly trained, sir. You can have complete confidence in us.”

  That was true, Darman thought. They had been very thoroughly trained, day in, day out, for ten years, and the only time they weren’t training was when they were sleeping. Even if they were untested as a special forces unit—apart from playing infantry three months ago—Darman had no doubt that they would perform to expected standards. He was happy to have the demolition role. He was proud of his skill in what was delicately known as rapid entry.

  “What do you think happened to Master Fulier, sir?” Darman asked. He wouldn’t normally have posed unnecessary questions, but Arligan Zey had seemed to approve of his curiosity, and Darman was conditioned to do whatever Jedi generals wished.

  Jusik opened a case of Kamino saberdarts and held it out as if offering a tray of uj cakes. “Valaqil believes he was betrayed by a native,” he said. “They’ve been known to do anything to earn food or a few credits.”

  Darman wondered how a Jedi could be taken by anything less than an army. He’d seen them fight at Geonosis. His warfare was a science; theirs appeared to be an art. “Didn’t he have his lightsaber?”

  “He did,” the Gurlanin said. “But Master Fulier has, or had, some discipline issues.”

  Darman—a soldier able to withstand every privation in the field, and whose greatest fear was to wither from age rather than die in combat—felt inexplicably uncomfortable at the idea of a Jedi having failings.

  “Master Fulier was—is a courageous Jedi,” Jusik said, almost losing his composed manner for a moment. “He is simply passionate about justice.”

  Niner defused the moment.
Darman felt reassured by his effortless authority. “Sir, how long have we got to plan the mission and attempt a few dry runs?” he said.

  “Eight standard hours,” Jusik replied, almost apologetic. “Because that’s how long the journey to Qiilura will take. You’re embarking now.”

  Etain emptied her bag on the straw mattress in the drying barn.

  Despite appearances, this was the guest suite. Livestock wasn’t allowed in the barn at this time of year because animals had a tendency to eat the barq grain, and that was an awfully expensive way to fatten merlies for the table. The animals were allowed in the main house, and in the winter they even slept there, partly to keep the place warm and partly to protect them from prowling gdans.

  The house had smelled like it, too. Nothing of the merlies—not even their body heat or their pungent odor—was ever wasted. “Keeps them bugs away,” Birhan had told her. “It’s a good stink.”

  Etain knelt beside the mattress and tried to think her way out of her predicament. Master Fulier was probably dead: if he weren’t, he would have returned for her. He was—had been—brilliant, magnificently skilled when he was focused on being so. But he was also impatient, and inclined not to walk away from matters that weren’t his concern, and those were two factors that didn’t mix well with a covert mission.

  He’d decided one of Hokan’s thugs needed to learn a lesson in how to respect the local population. All it took was for one of the Mandalorian’s lieutenants to offer the same locals more than the price of a bottle of urrqal to say where and when Fulier was in town.

  Town. That was a joke.

  Imbraani wasn’t Coruscant, not at all. The only infrastructure in the rambling collection of farmsteads was devoted to what it took to grow, harvest, and export its cash crops, and to the comfort of its commercial overlords. Etain had grown up in a world where you could travel at will and send messages easily, and neither of those taken-for-granted facilities was readily available here.

  Etain needed one of two things right now: to get passage off Qiilura, or to get a data transmission out in her stead. She still had a mission to complete, if only to justify Master Fulier’s sacrifice. She took a small sphere from the scattering of possessions on the mattress and opened it in two halves like a shef’na fruit.

  A holochart blossomed into three dimensions in her cupped hands, then another, then another. She had layouts of half a dozen Neimoidian and Separatist buildings in the surrounding region, because Fulier hadn’t been the only one who was careless. After a few bottles of urrqal, the local construction workers dropped their guard.

  Etain was neither a natural warrior nor a great charmer, but she was aware of her talent for spotting opportunities. It made up for a lot.

  She wasn’t sure if her Master’s fate was tied in to the holoschematics, or if he’d been seen as a direct threat to Uthan. She suspected Ghez Hokan might even have done something simply because he didn’t much care for Jedi. Play warriors, he called them. He despised anyone who didn’t fight with hard metal or their fists. Mandalorians were tough; but Hokan operated at a totally different level of brutality. Etain had realized that the moment she and Fulier had walked through what was left of a four-house village that must have displeased him in some way.

  She would never erase those images from her mind. She meditated hard twice a day. It still wasn’t helping. Settling down on her knees, she tried again, slowing her breathing, calming her heart.

  The gravel outside the barn crunched.

  Etain picked up her lightsaber from the mattress as she stuffed the holochart sphere in her tunic. Her thumb hovered over the controls set in the hilt. She should have sensed someone coming, but she had allowed her fatigue and despair to get the better of her. I didn’t check for another exit, she thought. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I might have to use this …

  As the plank door swung open, she flicked the button and the blue light pierced the dusty air. The merlie that wandered in didn’t appear impressed. Nor did the small elderly woman who followed it.

  “You’re jumpy,” she said. She had a covered tray in her hands and something bundled under one arm. The merlie nuzzled Etain’s knees, seeking attention. They were distressingly intelligent animals, nearly a meter high at the shoulder and covered with long brown ringlets of wool; their round, green eyes were too disturbingly human for Etain’s peace of mind. “Here’s your dinner.”

  “Thank you,” Etain said, watching as the woman put the tray down on the mattress and placed the bundle of brown fabric beside it.

  “Quite a job getting that dung off your cloak,” the woman said, eyeing the lightsaber the way Birhan had. “Still a bit damp. But clean.”

  “Thank you,” Etain repeated. She turned off the blade and peeled the cloth back from the tray. Two rough clay plates held a couple of thin-breads and a mush of stew, on top of which whole barq grains were visible. She could smell their cloying musky scent.

  That quantity of barq was a week’s earnings for these people. “You shouldn’t have gone to that trouble for me,” Etain said, embarrassed.

  “You’re a guest,” the woman said. “Besides, once I’d scraped the dung off, shame to waste the grains stuck to it, eh? Oh-ah.”

  Etain’s stomach rolled but she kept a steady expression. Coruscant’s food hygiene regulations certainly didn’t apply here.

  “Very kind of you,” she said, and forced a smile.

  “They’re coming, you know,” the woman said.

  “I’ll be ready,” Etain lied, and indicated the lightsaber.

  “No, not them Hokan thugs. Not them at all.”

  Etain wondered whether to press her, but decided against it for the time being. She had no idea who she’d be asking for answers.

  The woman sighed and shooed the merlie out the door with impatient hands. “They’re coming, all right,” she said, and smiled, closing the door behind her.

  3

  CLASSIFIED, HIGHEST: ENCRYPTION ONLY

  You’re the best in your field—the best soldiers, tacticians, sappers, communicators, survival experts. I picked you personally because I want you to train the best commandos in the galaxy. You’ll have everything you need, whatever you want, except one thing—home. This is a top-secret project. You’ll not tell anyone where you’re going and you’ll not leave Kamino, ever. As far as your friends and family are concerned, you’re already dead.

  —Jango Fett, recruiting his handpicked commando instructors, the Cuy’vul Dar—in the Mandalorian tongue, “those who no longer exist”

  The Neimoidians had a taste for elaborate and wholly inappropriate grandeur, and Ghez Hokan despised them for it.

  Lik Ankkit’s huge villa was set on top of a hill overlooking a kushayan plantation—a foolish choice given the prevailing winds, but it seemed to satisfy the Neimoidian’s need to show he was boss. The location might have made sense from a military perspective, but—as Ankkit was a bean-counting coward like all of his kind—he didn’t need defensibility, either.

  No, the Neimoidian was a di’kut. A complete and utter di’kut.

  Hokan ran up the hedge-flanked steps of the veranda spanning the entire front of the building, headdress tucked under one arm, his shatter gun, knives, and rope-spike provocatively visible in his belt.

  He wasn’t rushing to see his paymaster, oh no. He was just in a hurry to get the meeting over with. He ignored the servants and minions and swept into Ankkit’s spacious office with its panoramic view of the countryside. Qiilura’s commercial overlord was watering pots of flowers on the windowsill. He paused to flick one with his fingertip, and it sprayed a powerful, sickly scent into the air. He inhaled with parted lips.

  “I do wish you would knock, Hokan,” Ankkit said without turning around. “It’s really most discourteous.”

  “You summoned me,” Hokan said flatly.

  “Merely checking on the progress of your conversations with the Jedi.”

  “Had there been any, I would have called you.”

&
nbsp; “You haven’t killed him, have you? Do tell me you haven’t. I need to know if his activities will affect market prices.”

  “I’m not an amateur.”

  “But one has to do the best with the staff one has, yes?”

  “I do my own dirty work, thanks. No, he isn’t talking. He’s rather … resistant for a Jedi.”

  If Ankkit had had a nose, he would have been looking down it at Hokan. Hokan controlled an impulsive urge to cut this glorified shopkeeper, this grocer, down to size. For all his height, the Neimoidian was soft and weak, his only strength contained within his bank account. He blinked with passionless, liquid red eyes. Hokan almost—almost—reached for his rope-spike.

  “Jedi do not visit worlds like this to take the therapeutic waters, Hokan. Have you confirmed that he has an associate?”

  “He’s a Jedi Master. He was seen with a Padawan.”

  “Not a very discreet Jedi Master, it seems.”

  Fulier couldn’t have been good at calculating odds or he’d never have started on Gar-Ul in the tavern. But at least he was prepared to stand up for himself, despite all that soft mystical nonsense he spouted. Hokan admired guts, even if he rarely tolerated them. They were always in short supply.

  “We’ll find the Padawan, and we’ll find out what intelligence Fulier has, if any.”

  “Make sure you do. I have a lucrative contract resting on this.”

  Hokan had become practiced at controlling his urge to lash out, but he saw no reason to subject his mouth to the same discipline. “If I succeed, it’ll be because I take pride in my work.”

  “You need the credits.”

  “For the time being. But one day, Ankkit, I won’t need you at all.”

  Ankkit gathered his robes a little closer and drew himself up to his full height, which had no effect on Hokan at all.

  “You must learn to accept your reduced station in the galactic order, Hokan,” Ankkit said. “This is no longer the hierarchy of brute force in which your warrior ancestors thrived. Today we need to be soldiers of intellect and commerce, and no amount of strutting around in that museum-piece uniform will revive your … glorious past. Alas, even the great Jango Fett succumbed to a Jedi in the end.”