Sacrifice

by Karen Traviss

  Normally, it would have been the obvious place to enter and do as much damage as possible—the generator room. This time it wasn’t. Fett ran on and they reached an intersection in the corridor where they were met by blaster fire.

  Beviin jumped back and took the opportunity to reload. “Good. Someone’s at home.”

  “Now to get them to stop shooting long enough to explain we have an errand for them.” Fett and Briika leaned out of cover and laid down fire. Another volley of hot blue-white bolts skimmed the crown of Fett’s helmet, adding another black streak to the green paint. “If they won’t answer the door, we have to get in.”

  “We’re good at that.”

  “Without killing them.”

  “Now there’s the awkward bit.” Beviin pulled a holo-probe out of his sleeve pocket and edged it cautiously around the angle of the wall. The image it relayed back to their HUDs showed a galley area: tables, stacks of metal trays, a couple of upended chairs, abandoned plates. People had scrambled. This had been a meal-break for aircrew, maybe. They’d have made a run to the airstrip to get the fighters airborne.

  Someone was still there, though. He saw a flash of orange movement. Flight suit. Pilot. Pilots could get word out. Pilots needed not to be left too injured or stunned to fly out of here under Vong attack. “Bob’ika, let me reason with him.”

  “I can do that myself.”

  “Who’s got durasteel armor, and who’s got the beskar version? As in almost lightsaber-proof beskar?”

  “If he gets a lucky shot in, that fancy antique won’t save you.”

  “I never understood why you didn’t go for beskar,” said Beviin. “But save that for later. In three …”

  Beviin jumped to his feet and ran for all he was worth toward the blaster fire. He had a detached moment of thinking that Medrit would go crazy at him for taking such a risk and worrying about that more than the bolt that hit him in the chest plate and sent searing hot air into the breather in his visor. Adrenaline was a wonderful thing. He thought that just as he threw himself on the flurry of orange-suited limbs and was deafened by his own voice yelling, “Drop it! Shut up and listen!”

  Armor crashed against his. Dinua and Briika landed on top of him. He was almost at the bottom of a heavy pile subduing one pilot.

  “Get off, we’ll crush him—”

  “Got his blaster?”

  “I got it.”

  “Got his arms?”

  The pilot yelped. Dinua had certainly grabbed something. That was a trick he hadn’t seen used in quite a while. Beviin eased back and hauled the pilot into a sitting position to find he was in fact a she, an angry-looking blonde with razored hair and now a welt on her right cheekbone that was turning into a black eye.

  “Mando’ade,” she spat. “You’re fighting for those things? You filthy—”

  “Yeah, we love you, too. Now listen to the Mandalore.” Beviin jerked her around to face Fett. “Where’s your helmet? You’ve got some flying to do.”

  “Why?” There was a helmet on a nearby table, and it was going to fit her whether she liked it or not. “For you?”

  “Get this data to your nearest command,” Fett said. He pulled the data chip from his belt and held it in her face, too close for her to focus. “You need this data on the Vong. Ship layout, some bio-data, and two mission plans that show where they’re headed next and their op orders. It’s whatever we could grab. Just get it to someone who’ll make good use of it. And we don’t have time to do the theatrical gaze of stunned silence. Shift it. Now.”

  Fett helped her up and she zipped the chip into the pocket on the thigh of her suit, eyes wide and wary. “So whose side are you on?”

  “Ours,” said Briika. “I want my daughter to have daughters. She won’t be doing that with the Vongese running the show.”

  “Cham, get her to her fighter or whatever’s still flying, and see her past the Vong,” Fett said, indicating the exit with his blaster. “If there’s nothing airworthy on the strip, purge your Gladiator’s security data and give her the keys. I’ll buy you a new one.”

  “Better make it look like we’re pursuing her, then.” Cham handed the pilot her helmet and pushed her ahead of him. “And I’ll be wanting a yellow one to match my plates this time. Custom job.”

  There was nothing left to do now but get out. The crab-boys wouldn’t know if they’d been beaten back or not: the squad was only supposed to shut down the tower and cause a diversion anyway. They’d done that. Dinua set off at a sprint, rifle in both hands, and when they emerged from the building they saw why they hadn’t come across any resistance inside.

  The Yuuzhan Vong ground forces were swarming toward the spaceport, with small craft that looked like disembodied organs flying over them. Facing them along the perimeter was a wall of shattered speeders, repulsor trucks, and anything that could be commandeered to provide a defensive barrier. Fleet personnel in a variety of uniforms—even catering corps—were taking position next to civilians, armed with a selection of weapons that smacked of desperation.

  In the green images of Beviin’s night visor, the clawed armor of the advancing Vongese warriors looked like a walking forest. There was nothing more he or his comrades could do. But fighting alongside those New Republic troops—yes, his gut not only wanted him to do that, it demanded that he did. But he turned away to follow the others back to their fighters and hated himself for it.

  “And what happens when the New Republic praises its brave Mando allies for slipping intel to them?” he asked Fett. “It’s going to happen. And ‘oops’ won’t cut it with the Vong.”

  “Then I’ll swallow my nausea, and payday with the Vong is over.” Fett put his glove to his visor, and for a second Beviin thought he might actually take his helmet off. Instead he just wiped away a scrap of debris. “But we grab as many opportunities as we can to beat them. A day at a time.”

  “At least the New Republic can evacuate the next target before they show.”

  “Yes,” Fett said. “Let’s see what happens at New Holgha.”

  “When the crab-boys finally decide to remodel Mandalore, we’ll be the last to know.”

  “That’s what they’ll think, too,” said Fett. “Now let’s see if Cham got that pilot away safely.”

  The pilot had, and they rendezvoused with Cham a few hours later. But Beviin couldn’t stop himself checking the status of Birgis. He knew he shouldn’t, but he had to find out.

  He found out. There were no survivors.

  Nom Anor: evaluation of the New Republic’s reaction to the invasion.

  I hadn’t realized how much the New Republic despises the Mandalorians.

  Their role in the attack on Birgis is known to the New Republic command, judging by a message we intercepted, and the infidel seem to find greater release in hating their own kind even than in hating us. They seem to think this is just another mercenary group, though. They don’t know that Fett is leading them. That may be an extra psychological weapon I can exploit later.

  Shirb system, Outer Rim: New Holgha, three standard months into the invasion.

  The Five Holy Cities of New Holgha should have been evacuated by now, but it was clear that the New Republic hadn’t acted on the warning, even though they’d denounced its source.

  Could have been worse, Fett thought. They could have lauded us as Republic heroes and spoiled the fun.

  With its long-range planetary defense radar sabotaged overnight, New Holgha became another world to fall to the Yuuzhan Vong almost without a struggle. Its troops had been diverted elsewhere, but Fett had the feeling that they would have made very little difference in the long run.

  He watched the Yuuzhan Vong warship, another miit ro’ik type, as it moved across the shattered city skyline looking as if it was … feeding.

  “Shab, it is,” said Beviin, uncomfortably close to reading his thoughts. “It really is.”

  A giant dark-specked tube—at least double the length of the vessel—hung from the ship’s hull
and trawled through the city below, sucking up everything in its path. It reminded Fett of a tornado. He watched through his macrobinocular setting as it inhaled buildings, trees—and people. The more he watched, the less he could take in what he was seeing. In a galaxy full of bizarre ways to die, this was a whole new level of the grotesque.

  “They’re refueling.” Beviin was transfixed. “The thing is actually digesting everything. Disgusting.”

  The Sarlacc parallels were strong. Fett had been convinced he’d shrugged off the nightmare of being digested alive. Now he wasn’t so sure. But if he was appalled in any way by what he was watching, he suspected it was for himself and not for the New Holghans.

  “The New Republic didn’t believe us. Well, maybe they’ll believe us now.”

  “They redeployed troops to defend Pedd Four,” said Beviin. He had his helmet under one arm and rubbed his forehead with the back of his gauntlet. He looked tired, probably from spending too much time flying back and forth to Mandalore between missions, where he seemed to be making preparations for the worst scenario—that although the “crab-boys” he’d come quickly to hate had pledged to leave the sector alone, they were going to break their word sooner rather than later. “So they think we gave them misinformation.”

  Fett realized the New Republic didn’t know as much about Mandalorians as it thought. It’d judged them wrong. “And they’ll think a little bit of accurate intel was lobbed in for effect.” He checked the charge level on his blaster. “I’ll find a better way to convince them. I’m not giving up on the barves yet …”

  “How long does it take to evacuate a planet anyway? Where do you put displaced worlds at a few weeks’ notice?”

  “I don’t need you to make me feel better about it.”

  “Just saying it wouldn’t have made much difference numerically if the Republic had believed the intel we gave them. Millions were still going to die either way.”

  Fett thought of the other information he’d handed over to the New Republic, the plans of the warship and analyses and samples of the random scraps of biological material he and Beviin had grabbed. The Republic could have been working on ways to counter the Yuuzhan Vong’s organic technology. But they’d ignore it. He just knew they would.

  “We keep handing it over until they get the message.”

  “As long as Pretty-Boy Nom doesn’t catch on,” Beviin said. “And sooner or later he’s going to realize we ought to be more efficient and that there should be more of us.”

  Fett was still pondering a better way to pass intelligence to the New Republic when his comlink chirped.

  “Infidel! This is Subaltern Bur’lorr. I need your assistance. I hunt a Jeedai.”

  “Jedi?” Fett ignored the warrior’s jibe and clung to the one word he never thought would give him hope. “You sure about that?”

  “He has a light weapon. He leapt from a high built-thing and was not harmed.”

  “Leave him to me,” said Fett. “Jedi are my specialty. They killed my father.”

  Beviin shoved his helmet back on and adjusted his belt, scabbard and sheaths rattling. “Oya. Yes, indeed, oya …”

  “I shall drive him toward you,” said the subaltern. “His light weapon made no impression on my armor, which seemed to surprise him.”

  I’ll bet. “Send me the coordinates.”

  “Have your troops cut him off. Our shapers want a live Jeedai to examine.”

  Fett relayed the coordinates to the rest of the squad and switched to the secure comlink channel. “We need him alive more than they do. A Jedi will be able to tell we’re not lying, and he can take the data back.”

  “I’ve never seen a Jedi before,” said Dinua.

  Beviin cut in, playing his father role. He seemed to like it. “He won’t be too pleased to see us, so don’t take any chances with his lightsaber.”

  “What’s a Jedi doing here, anyway?”

  “He’s here. That’s good enough. Now let’s get to him before they do.”

  The subaltern’s coordinates took them to a long road branching off what had been the main marketplace of the Five Cities. Large parts of it were now scoured down to the soil as if the buildings and trees had never been there, evidence that the dread weapon—as the Yuuzhan Vong called the warship’s scavenging tube—had passed this way. Fett’s penetrating radar and sensors picked up erratic movement and an organic target with human body temperature, moving in a row of bombed houses that were still smoking from the fires started by magma weapons.

  “Okay, we can track him, but he can sense us, remember,” said Fett. He gestured the Detta brothers to the south end of the alley and Briika and Dinua to the broken roof overlooking it. “Beviin, go and stall the subaltern. Buy us some time. Tiroc, with me.”

  The Jedi was in a section of alley about ten meters long that ran along the rear of the houses. Rubble had partly blocked it; Fett tracked him with his motion sensor almost to the end of the alley. Then the movement stopped.

  “Briika?”

  She patched her view of the scene through to Fett’s HUD. Judging by the angle, she was lying flat on the roof with her head hanging over into the alley. “See him? He’s in a bad way.”

  The Jedi was a middle-aged, solidly square man in dark gray civilian pants and a battered blue jacket. He was slumped against a wall, eyes closed, face blackened and burned. Clutched in one hand was the hilt of a lightsaber.

  Fett primed his jet pack and slipped a stun round into the dart thrower on his wrist. With any luck, the shock would be enough to subdue the Jedi without killing him. Fett needed the man to be fit enough to make it back to New Republic lines.

  Fett hit the burner controls and soared over the scorched wall as the Jedi looked up and went for his weapon. For an injured man, his reflexes were sobering: his lightsaber was humming a heartbeat before Fett dropped into the alleyway and fired the stun round. The projectile streaked past the Jedi’s slashing lightsaber and stuck fast to his chest, sending a disruptive charge through his body. It dropped him instantly and the lightsaber fell to the ground, but he still struggled to reach for his weapon, fingers splayed, hand shaking uncontrollably.

  “Don’t push your luck,” Fett said. He kicked the lightsaber hilt into the air with the spiked toecap of his boot and caught it one-handed. “I’m short of a green one for my collection.”

  The Jedi wasn’t in any shape right then to use it, anyway. Fett beckoned Cham over to give him first aid, but the Jedi tried to fight him off. It took Suvar and Tiroc to hold him down while Cham sprayed bacta over his face and hands. Gratitude wasn’t his strong suit: he brought his knee up hard in Suvar’s groin. Briika stepped in to subdue him with an armlock around his neck.

  “Show some respect,” she said, gritting her teeth. “The Mandalore’s talking to you.”

  The Jedi’s burned face managed a sneer. “So you’re Boba Fett. And I didn’t believe that Manda—”

  “For once, I need a live Jedi,” Fett interrupted. “You’ll do. Cut the speech and listen up.”

  “Shoot me. You know what the Vong will do to me.”

  “I said shut up.” Fett squatted over him. “We gave you a heads-up on this attack and Vong technology but your people ignored it. I’m offering again. Set up a secure message system and we’ll supply the intel until our luck runs out.”

  Cham, still administering first aid, rammed a one-shot of painkiller into the man’s exposed neck. Fett had to hand it to the Jedi. He didn’t even flinch.

  “You’re slipping, Fett,” he said hoarsely. “Feeding us misinformation is amateurish.”

  “I’m risking the life of every Mandalorian to get you this, barve-face.” Fett was so exasperated that he pulled open the Jedi’s jacket and stuffed the latest data chip into his belt. “Do your magic tricks. See what your precious Force tells you about our intentions. Now take it and run. We’ll stall the Vong, but get it back to your intel people and don’t blow our cover. We’re traitors, okay? As long as we’re traitors, we
can get intel. Keep your source secret.”

  The Jedi struggled to prop himself up on his elbow. His nose was millimeters from Fett’s visor. Fett still didn’t like Jedi, not even real soldiers like this one. “But you’re crippling us. You’re killing people. Why not just fight?”

  “Because the mindlessly heroic last stand is great for holovids but it’s not how wars work.” Fett hauled the Jedi to his feet. He was a solid man, vividly gray-haired in the way of those who’d once had jet-black curls. Fett pressed the lightsaber into his hand; the hilt seemed dwarfed by it. “The crabs have to believe we’re serious. A few lives against the whole galaxy, including keeping them away from the Mandalore sector. Do the math.”

  The Jedi stared at his weapon. “You finally grew a conscience?”

  “No. I took the job of protecting Mandalore, and a contract is a contract. There’s no future for any of us if the Vong take over.”

  “I never—”

  “No speeches. Move it. We’ll get you past the Vong.”

  Tiroc nudged him. “Crab approaching, Mand’alor. Check your HUD.”

  “I see him. Got a vessel, Jedi?”

  “That’s where I was headed.”

  “Tiroc, see he gets to it and escort him out of the sector.”

  The Jedi stopped dead in the narrow exit from the alley, almost jamming Tiroc in it. He turned his head to Fett.

  “Kubariet,” he said. “I’m a Jedi Knight. Kubariet. Only the one name.” Then Tiroc shoved him in the back and they were gone.

  So far, so good. But it couldn’t last, and it didn’t. In the next breath Beviin came in through the rubble-strewn breach in the wall with exaggerated slowness, a custom Merr-Sonn heavy blaster in one fist and the Yuuzhan Vong subaltern on his heels. The creature pushed past Beviin and one of the claws protruding from his armor caught his shoulder plate, scoring a line in the blue paint.

  It could have ripped Beviin open like a canister. But his armor was forged from beskar, real Mandalorian iron that even Yuuzhan Vong weapons might not penetrate. He reached into his belt and drew his ancient beskad, a short razor-edged saber forged from the same iron as his armor.