Star Wars - The Clone Wars - Secret Missions #3 - Duel at Shattered Rock

by Ryder Windham

  7

  “I’ve found something,” Cleaver said. Standing with Lalo Gunn and Chatterbox atop the Hasty Harpy, the droid held out a small, weathered strip of metal with a clamping mechanism on one end. “It was stuck along the upper edge of a heat vent. Could it be the transmitter?”

  Gunn said, “That is a durasteel patch, and the only thing it’s transmitting is your lack of brain waves. Put it back where you found it and keep looking.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  On the landing pad, in the Harpy’s shadow, Nuru Kungurama walked quietly back and forth.

  He was alternately watching the perimeter of Vaced Spaceport and the sky overhead. He glanced at Knuckles and Sharp, who were still busy searching every nook of the Harpy’s belly for the mysterious transmitter.

  Sharp moved away from one of the Harpy’s landing legs. Looking past Nuru, he said, “Where’s Breaker?”

  “He went to look around over there,” Nuru said, gesturing to the tall trees at the edge of the wooded area beside the spaceport.

  Sharp stepped closer to Nuru. Lowering his voice so Knuckles could not hear, he said, “Commander, I’m not sure that was a good idea. So long as Breaker is a suspect, he shouldn’t be allowed to—”

  “I trust him, Sharp,” Nuru interrupted. Keeping his own voice low, he continued, “I realize there may be a saboteur among us, but I trust Breaker just as much as I trust you.” He looked again to the forest. “If anyone is watching us, we wouldn’t want to find out the hard way.”

  “No, sir,” Sharp said. “That we wouldn’t.”

  Breaker moved quietly and kept low, making sure his helmet never poked above the high grass that grew at the edge of the forest. He could still hear the noises of workers and a few vehicles from the spaceport, which was now nearly half a kilometer behind him. Moving up a low slope, he held his rifle ready and kept his eyes on the trees ahead.

  Snap.

  Breaker stopped and swung his rifle to his right to see what had made the sound. He saw a group of medium-sized reptavians with shimmering green-and-blue scales around their long, unfeathered necks. One reptavian had just broken a twig that it was adding to its nest. The reptavians glanced at Breaker, then looked away, apparently disinterested.

  Breaker pressed on, moving through the grass until he arrived at a cluster of tall trees. Listening carefully, he realized the noises from the spaceport had become less distinct. He stepped cautiously around the wide trunk of one tree and let his helmet’s optical sensors adjust to the shadowy forest floor.

  Something moved to his upper left, and Breaker instinctively took aim with his rifle. He found himself staring at a pair of reptiles that were slithering around the lower limbs of the nearest tree. The lizards’ dark leathery skin blended almost perfectly with the tree’s bark. Breaker lowered his rifle but kept his finger close to the trigger.

  He moved between the trees to a rise that offered a clear view of the spaceport. He was able to easily pick out the Hasty Harpy from the other ships across the distance, and he could also see a few small specks that he knew were actually people near the trading post. Activating his helmet’s built-in comlink, he said, “Breaker to Kungurama, do you read me?”

  A moment later, Nuru’s voice responded, “I read you. Breaker. Find anything interesting?”

  “Just flora and fauna. But I’m still looking.”

  “Keep me posted.”

  Breaker turned off his comlink and looked around his position. Knowing his view of the spaceport would be better from a higher elevation, he tilted his head back and looked up to study the thickness and location of the branches that weaved between the trees. He was still plotting his climb to one particular branch when he noticed what appeared to be a gouge in the bark of one tree, just below a freshly broken branch.

  The gouge looked as if it had been made by the heel of a boot.

  Breaker backed up, carefully and silently. Keeping his rifle leveled at the tree in front of him, he looked up and down, searching for any sign of the person, creature, or droid that must have stepped on the branch and broken it.

  As he moved backward, he was surprised to bump into something behind him. He spun around to see he had struck a speeder bike that was parked at a dead hover above the ground.

  And then something hit Breaker hard against the back of his helmet and everything went dark.

  Hudu Shiv hung upside down, his jetpack’s missile aimed at the ground. He peered through his helmet’s visor and watched the clone trooper fall. Still mostly concealed by a Mandalorian camouflage net, he had his legs wrapped around a strong branch that extended directly above the trooper. His boots were outfitted with the tree-climbing spurs he had brought from his ship.

  Two minutes earlier, Shiv had been halfway up the tree when he had spotted the top of the trooper’s helmet moving through the high grass near a bunch of reptavians at the edge of the forest. Shiv had then descended to his current position, concealed himself with the camo net, dangled from the branch, and waited for the trooper to move beneath him. When that moment came, he had used his rifle’s butt to bring the trooper down with a single blow.

  Clutching his rifle, Shiv swung down from the branch and landed between the parked speeder bike and the unconscious trooper’s crumpled body. He brushed back the camo net so it was draped over one shoulder, slung his rifle over his back, then bent down and pulled off the trooper’s helmet.

  Although members of the Death Watch had become aware of the origins of the Republic’s clone army, Shiv found himself impressed by the unmasked clone’s remarkable resemblance to Jango Fett. Shiv had known Fett, and from what he could see, the only physical difference was that Fett’s face had been heavily scarred.

  Shiv placed the trooper’s helmet on the ground. He could see the clone was still breathing.

  Dooku’s instructions had been very specific: Shiv was to refrain from killing anyone until after the ship from Kynachi arrived on Vaced, and he was to leave Vaced without being seen. And so he reached to his belt, uncoiled a long, thin strand of plastifiber, and quickly bound the trooper’s wrists and ankles. Tearing off a length of the camo net, he wrapped it tightly across the clone’s mouth, gagging him, and then continued wrapping it around the clone’s eyes. He shoved the clone up against a tree and used another strand of plastifiber to tie him to the trunk.

  He picked up the troopers helmet, looked inside it, and saw the embedded comlink. Not wanting to waste precious time prying out the comlink, he tucked the entire helmet into his camo net, then moved past his speeder bike and went to the tree that he had already selected as his firing point. As sturdy as it was tall, the tree’s upper branches swayed only slightly, not enough to pose any problems for a sniper of Shiv’s caliber. Although his jetpack could have carried him swiftly to the top of the tree, the jets would have been visible from the spaceport. He dug his spurs into the tree’s bark and scurried upward.

  Arriving at his perch, Shiv strapped himself to a thick bough. He removed the trooper’s helmet from the camo net and jammed it over some twigs that jutted out from a branch near his own head.

  Shiv looked down at the grassy field that stretched out below the trees. He spotted the reptavians, still at rest. He hoped they would remain where they were for a while yet.

  He unslung his rifle and popped its retractable targeting scope. The electronic scope transmitted visual data directly to an optical sensor inside his T-visor, enabling him to clearly see the scope’s focal point without removing his helmet. He braced the stock up against his right shoulder and let the rifle’s barrel rest upon another branch to steady his aim. Shiv shifted the rifle slowly, letting it pivot on the branch as he searched for the ship that had delivered the clone trooper to Vaced.

  Sweeping the scope from ship to ship, Shiv passed over an Arcona who appeared to be mending a thruster plate on an old courier, and then spied a man who wore a poncho and was kneeling atop a Corellian YT-1760 transport. The man turned his head. Shiv saw his face was ident
ical to the captive clone’s.

  Two more figures became visible atop the Corellian transport. Much to Hudu Shiv’s surprise, one was a Separatist BX-series droid commando. The other was a human female.

  Behind his helmet’s visor, Shiv scowled. Count Dooku had not mentioned anything about a droid commando. Shiv wondered if Dooku had known about the droid, or if there were anything else that the Separatist leader had failed to tell him.

  Shifting the scope, Shiv saw two more clone troopers moving beneath the transport. And then he saw a third figure, standing on the ground near the boarding ramp: a young blue-skinned boy he recognized immediately from the hologram that Dooku had shown him. The boy was Nuru Kungurama, the Jedi.

  Shiv took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly. His education had included history lessons about Mandalorian encounters with the Jedi, and he knew it was best if he remained calm. Jedi were notorious for their ability to detect powerful emotions. Some scholars maintained a Jedi could sense an enemy’s anxiety and rage as easily as a microbarometer could measure atmospheric pressure.

  Increasing the Targeting scope’s magnification, Shiv zoomed in on Kungurama’s head. The boy turned and looked toward the forest, his red eyes drifting until he seemed to be looking directly at Shiv. The sniper did not panic, and his index finger, already curled around his rifle’s trigger, did not twitch. The boy’s gaze drifted again, and then he tilted his head back to gaze skyward.

  Keeping Kungurama’s head at the very center of the scope’s crosshairs, Shiv licked his upper lip. He would not deny he was tempted to squeeze the trigger but he was obliged to obey Dooku’s instructions. It was a matter of honor.

  A sound caught Shiv’s attention. Without moving his rifle, he lifted his gaze to the sky to follow Kungurama’s gaze at an incoming ship—a Suwantek Systems TL-1800 freighter. Evidently, the commissioner from Kynachi was arriving right on schedule.

  Shiv did not take any pleasure from killing. As a Death Watch assassin, taking lives was simply what he did, and what he did best. Still, as the TL-1800 flew toward the spaceport, he did find himself pleased with the progress of his current assignment.

  He liked it when his targets were punctual.

  “Heads up, fellas,” Lalo Gunn said from atop the Hasty Harpy, where she stood near Chatterbox and Cleaver. Chatterbox looked up to see the TL-1800 freighter descending to Vaced Spaceport.

  Cleaver rose from a section of hull behind the Harpy’s cockpit. Holding up a small gray cylinder with a magnetic strip on the side and a single black metal rod sticking out of one end, he said, “I’ve found something.”

  “Save it for later, Cleaver,” Gunn said as she moved to the edge of the ship.

  “But I think—”

  “Not now!” While Cleaver continued to study the gray cylinder, Gunn leaned out over the side of the ship and called out, “Hey, kid! The commissioner’s ship is coming in!”

  Nuru stood on the landing pad near the Harpy’s boarding ramp. He had already heard and spotted the ship, which now hovered over a vacant landing pad just beyond the Arcona’s courier ship. Knuckles and Sharp stepped out from under the Harpy and moved up beside Nuru.

  “I should alert Breaker,” Nuru said. He activated his comlink. “Nuru to Breaker, do you read me?”

  Through his rifle scope, the Mandalorian saw Kungurama speaking into the comlink at the same time that he heard the boy’s voice emit from the helmet he had taken from the knocked-out trooper. Keeping his right hand gripped on the rifle and his eye on the scope, Shiv reached into the trooper’s helmet and dragged his gloved fingers back and forth across the embedded comlink. He spoke in short, fragmented bursts. “Barely hear … is fine but interference in … maybe trees.” Then he stopped talking but continued scratching the comlink, waiting for the boy’s response.

  “What’s wrong with Breaker’s voice?” Knuckles said.

  “Too much static,” Sharp said. “Sounded like he said maybe the trees are causing interference.

  “Quiet,” Nuru said as he adjusted the comlink. “Breaker, if you can hear me, return to the spaceport. The ship from Kynachi has arrived.” He returned the comlink to his belt.

  Nuru took a few steps away from the Harpy, then turned and looked up to see Gunn, Chatterbox, and Cleaver on the upper hull. “I sent Breaker to scout the woods, but something’s interfering with our comlinks. You three stay here and watch the perimeter, see if you can spot him while the rest of us greet the commissioner.”

  Gunn said, “Say please.”

  “Please, Captain Gunn.”

  “Okay.”

  Nuru led Sharp and Knuckles around the Arcona’s pad, but stopped short of the next one, where the TL-1800’s landing jets were kicking up a circle of dust. The ship’s articulated legs were still settling onto the ground as a hatch opened on the port side and then a boarding ramp extended.

  Shiv could not have anticipated which landing pad the TL-1800 would touch down upon, or which way its boarding hatches would be facing. From what he could see, Kungurama and two clones faced the ship’s extended boarding ramp. He could not see the hatch that he knew must be at the top of the ramp, but a moment later, he saw two men step down toward Kungurama.

  Two broad-shouldered pilots in green uniforms exited the TL-1800’s hatch and descended the ramp. Nuru noticed KynachTech insignias on their tunics. The ship’s engines were still winding down as Langu Sommilor stepped out after the pilots. Sommilor smiled. Raising his voice so he could be heard over the engines, he said, “Nuru Kungurama, I presume?”

  Shiv watched the two men lead Sommilor down the ramp. He expected Kungurama would bow his head in greeting to Sommilor and was not surprised when the Jedi did just that. Kungurama had just lowered his head as Shiv thumbed his rifle’s ammo-select button and quickly shifted the weapon down and to the side. The resting reptavians appeared in his scope. He squeezed the trigger.

  His selected projectile was an explosive compressed-air pellet. It smashed into the ground between the reptavians and detonated with a quiet pop that send a blast of air in all directions,

  As the alarmed but unharmed creatures screeched and took flight, Shiv had already thumbed the ammo-select button again and swung his rifle back toward Sommilor’s ship, just in time to view Kungurama, through the scope, lift his head to face Sommilor.

  Facing Sommilor, Nuru was momentarily distracted by a flock of reptavians that rose from the field before the forest. He wondered if Breaker had stumbled upon the creatures’ nesting grounds.

  Shiv locked his target in the scope’s crosshairs. He exhaled. He squeezed the trigger. This time, his selected projectiles were not compressed-air pellets.

  Standing before Nuru at the bottom or the TL-1800's boarding ramp, Commissioner Sommilor winced as he reached up and slapped the back of his own neck. For a moment, Nuru thought the man had been stung by an insect, but then Sommilor gasped and fell to his knees.

  Nuru took a quick step forward to catch Sommilor, wrapping his arms around the man’s torso to hold him upright. Sharp, Knuckles, and the two KynachTech pilots leaned in as Sommilor’s head lolled onto Nuru’s shoulder. Sharp said, “Did he faint?”

  Nuru moved his hand up behind Sommilor’s neck and felt a tiny object sticking out. He plucked the object our and held it up for inspection. It was a dart, its sharp rip smeared with blood.

  “Sniper,” Sharp said as he swung his blaster rifle out from under his poncho and jumped beside Nuru and Sommilor, positioning his own body as a shield to protect the others.

  Knuckles was already brandishing his rifle. Looking at the two KynachTech pilots, he said, “Take cover!” Before either pilot could obey the command, one slapped at the side of his own neck, and then the other did the same. Both men gasped and collapsed.

  “Help them!” Nuru said urgently as he shuffled backward, hauling Sommilor with him. He wanted to draw his lightsaber, but he needed both hands to drag Sommilor to safety. While Knuckles and Sharp grabbed the two fallen pilots, Nuru repri
manded himself for having been temporarily distracted by the reptavians that had taken flight a moment before Sommilor had been hit. He did not pause to check Sommilor’s pulse as he shoved the man’s body under the boarding ramp.

  Staying close to the side of the ship, Nuru drew his lightsaber, ignited its blue blade, and prepared to strike any more incoming darts. Because the Arcona’s courier ship blocked his view of the Hasty Harpy, he did not know whether Chatterbox, Gann, and Cleaver were aware of the attack. With his free hand, he activated his comlink and said, “Chatterbox! Get everyone off the top of the Harpy. A sniper hit the Kynachi landing раrtу.”

  Nuru looked away from the ship, visually calculating the darts’ firing point to the high trees at the edge of the forest. And then he remembered …

  Breaker?! Nuru felt suddenly queasy.

  Sharp moved close to Nuru and said, “Keep your head down. Commander!”

  Has Breaker been killed? Or did he fire the darts? Nuru felt overwhelmed and unsure of what to do next. He took a breath and relaxed his mind.

  “Commander, please step back to the—”

  Nuru deactivated his lightsaber. “Secure the perimeter and don’t let anyone else get hurt,” he said quickly. “I’m going after the sniper,”

  Sharp started to protest, but Nuru was already sprinting away from the TL-1800, heading for the trading post. Although his Jedi powers enabled him to run faster than ordinary humanoids, Nuru knew that he might not reach the forest in time to stop the sniper from escaping, especially if the sniper had a transport. He ran a zigzag path past the landing pads until he arrived at the swoops parked outside the trading post.

  Nuru did not waste any time selecting a vehicle. He jumped onto the saddle of the nearest swoop. In less than a second, he assessed that the controls were not very different from the speeder bikes used for training exercises at the Jedi Temple. Unfortunately, the swoop’s customized handlebar controllers were beyond his grasp. He realized he had landed on the swoop that belonged to the orange-skinned giant.