Star Wars - Republic Commando - Hard Contact

by Karen Traviss

  Darman stabbed both needles into Atin's thigh in quick succession. Then he scrawled something on Atin's helmet with a marker and replaced the thigh plate.

  Etain stared at the letters p and z now written on the fore­head of the helmet.

  "P for painkiller," Darman said. He laid Atin flat on his back. "And Z for blood-loss control agent, because B looks too much like P when you're in a hurry. It's for the medics, just in case they don't scan him, so they know what I've dosed him with. Now, this is going to look really odd, but trust me ..."

  Atin was flat on his back, breathing heavily. Darman slid on top of him, back-to-chest, then slipped his arms through Atin's webbing and rolled both of them over so he was lying underneath. Raising himself on his arms, he drew his legs to a kneeling position and then stood up with Atin secure across his back. He tottered slightly. But he didn't fall.

  "Easiest way to lift and carry a heavy man," Darman said, his voice sounding a little strained.

  "I could have done that for you," Etain said.

  "Yeah, but he's my brother. Besides, you're going to carry Doctor Uthan."

  Etain felt momentary guilt for not checking on her. But the scientist was still lying there trussed, quite silent, and no doubt bewildered. Etain leaned over her.

  "Come on, Doctor," she said. She went to lift her, but her hands touched something cold and wet. There was a jagged sliver of pale gray plastoid alloy protruding from just under her ribs. It was shrapnel from Atin's armor. The doctor was bleeding heavily.

  "Oh no. Not this. Look. Darman, look."

  "Fierfek After all this rotten—"

  "No, she's alive."

  "Just get her to the extraction point. They better have a medic on board."

  The disappointment was sudden and crushing. Etain felt it. It almost made her stop in her tracks, too overwhelmed by the unfairness of it all to move, but it didn't stop Darman, and so she was determined to go on. His absolute discipline was tangible. In a few days she had learned more from him than she had ever been able to learn from Fulier. Being sec­onds from death so many times drove the lessons home that much harder.

  Etain also knew it had forged a bond that would cause her enormous pain in years to come. It was worse than falling in love. It was a totally different level of attachment: it was shared trauma. Master Fulier said you could fall out of love, but Etain knew you could never fall out of this, because his­tory could never change.

  She lifted Uthan across her back by her own arm and jerked her forward until she was comfortably across her shoulders.

  "Let's move it, Darman," she said, and hardly recognized her own voice. For a moment, she didn't sound like a Jedi at all.

  Hokan was still on the loose. Niner knew it. He'd seen him—or at least someone in his armor—come out of the fa­cility. The officer whom Darman had shot had just been a young captain. And Hokan was probably doing what the dead captain seemed to have done, and tracked them by the

  gunship. Their salvation might also prove to be their undo­ing.

  "About one more klick," Fi said. "Any word on Atin?"

  "Haven't you got your long-range switched through?"

  "No. It's one more distraction I can't face right now."

  Niner was beginning to understand how Fi coped: the man just switched off, sometimes literally. He wondered who or what had taught him to do that, because it wasn't Skirata. Kal Skirata felt, all too visibly sometimes.

  "I hope we get an urban deployment after this," Niner said. Stay positive. Look ahead. "A nice, noisy, confusing city with places to hide and lots of running water. Surveil­lance. Data extraction. Easy Street."

  "Nah, jungle."

  "You're sick."

  "Jungle's like a city. Lots going on."

  "You're worried about Atin."

  "Shut up, Sarge. I'm just worried about me, okay?"

  "Of course you are."

  "Why didn't we just pound this whole region from space?"

  "No intel. Virus could have been at several locations. We might not have hit them all and we'd never have known until it was too late."

  "Just when we were making a good team."

  "He's still alive, Fi." Niner began walking backward, play­ing the tail role. "He's still alive. Jedi can heal. Darman's done all the right first aid—"

  Niner never did like being tail on patrol, especially at night. He liked it even less when the point man shouted, "Down!"

  He dropped flat in the grass and looked where Fi was aim­ing his Deece.

  "Speeder," Fi said. "Guess who. Crossing right-to-left ahead. It's got to be Hokan."

  "Can you take him?"

  "Clear shot when he passes the trees."

  "Don't hang about, then."

  Niner counted the seconds, following the speeder bike with his rifle scope. The speeder's movement behind the ave­nue of kuvara created a strobe effect. A flare of energy lit up his night vision and the rider was thrown off the vehicle in a cloud of vapor.

  "That's the way to do it," Niner said.

  They waited the mandatory few seconds to check that Hokan was truly down. There was no movement at all. Niner could see the glint of gdans' eyes in the grass, a sign that at least someone thought the fighting was over and that it was safe to come out again.

  Niner was on his feet and Fi was up on one knee when Hokan rose from the grass like a specter. He staggered a few steps and raised his weapon.

  Niner didn't hear him fire. But he heard a projectile whis­tle pass him and hit something with a loud crack. Verpine shatter guns were silent, and they were accurate. If Hokan hadn't been winded by Fi's round, then Niner would have had the same hole blown in him as Atin."Sarge, when I kill him, can I have his armor?" Fi asked.

  "You get to take it off him personally."

  "I needed that motivation. Thanks."

  "Still see him?"

  "No..."

  A blaster round hit the grass a meter in front of Fi and sent sparks swirling. Their enemy wasn't a mindless tinnie or a stupid Weequay. He was a Mandalorian, a natural-born fighter, dangerous even when wounded.

  He was very much like them.

  "You think that gunship's going to wait?" Fi asked.

  "Not once they have Uthan."

  "Fierfek." Fi snapped on the grenade attachment and aimed. "Maybe we shouldn't have ditched the E-Web." The night lit up with the explosion. Fi raised his head a little and blasterfire flowed back, a meter farther off target than before. "You go right of him while I keep him busy."

  Niner edged forward on his elbows and knees, Deece crooked in his arms. He'd moved about ten meters when the

  air above him made a frying noise and a blaster bolt took the seed heads off the grass above him.

  If it hadn't been for that Verpine, things would have been a lot simpler.

  Majestic wouldn't wait much longer. The stims had worn off fully now, and Niner was feeling the impact of days of hard tabbing, little sleep, and too much noise. He made him­self a promise there and then. If he and Fi weren't getting off Qiilura, then neither was Ghez Hokan.

  But Mandalorian or not, Hokan was just one man, and he was facing two men who were at least his match. Niner didn't underestimate him, but the end result was almost cer­tain: sooner or later he would deplete the power cells. Still, time wasn't on their side right then.

  "Not good at all," Niner said. "Darman, Niner here. What's your position?"

  He sounded out of breath. "Slow going, Sarge. About ten minutes from the EP."

  "Ask them if they'll keep the meter running, will you? Just saying good-bye to Ghez Hokan."

  "I'll drop Atin off and—"

  "Negative, Dar. We can handle this once we crack his armor. Stand by."

  Fi was edging forward looking for a clear shot. Niner, run­ning out of patience, looked about for some cover he could use to get a position to the side of Hokan. The flash of a weapon discharge caught his eye but he didn't hear anything except Fi beginning to say something over the comlink and
then a very brief searing peak of high-pitched noise.

  Then everything went silent and black.

  For a moment Niner thought he'd been hit. He couldn't hear Fi and he couldn't see the data from his HUD. There was no green image of the field and the trees behind it in his night-vision visor. But he could feel his elbows squarely braced in the soil and he could feel his Deece still in his hands. No pain—but if you were hurt badly enough you sometimes didn't feel a thing.

  It took him several slow seconds to realize his helmet's

  systems were totally dead. His face felt hot. He wasn't get­ting air.

  He pulled off the helmet and squinted through the scope of his DC-17. The night-vision scope picked up his image; Fi had taken his helmet off, too, and had his hand inside it, pressing controls frantically.

  EMP grenade, Niner thought. Hokan's droided us.

  You used electromagnetic pulse charges against droids. But they were equally effective against delicate electronics attached to wets. The enhanced Katarn helmets, three times the price of an ordinary trooper's version, were packed with sophisticated prototype systems, vulnerable systems.

  Niner crawled slowly and carefully toward Fi. A couple of blaster bolts went wide. He lay flat, head-to-head with him.

  "He's fried our helmets," Fi whispered. "Don't they test these things properly?"

  "I bet some civvy thought nobody would use EMPs against wets."

  "Yeah, I might look him up when we get back."

  "They should reset."

  "How long?"

  "No idea. Deece still works, though."

  "As long as he puts his head up."

  "I could do with one of Dar's flash-bangs."

  "Doesn't fit the Deece anyway."

  "Can you see him at all?"

  "No ... no, wait. There he is."

  Niner had to track back and forth a couple of times before he spotted Hokan through the scope. "Got any of the IEDs in easy reach?"

  "Six."

  "How far can you throw?"

  "Far enough."

  "Wide as you can. Scatter them across him."

  Niner laid down suppressing fire while Fi bounced up and down, lobbing the little makeshift bombs and dropping flat again. Niner took the detonator control.

  "When I hit this, you go wide that way and try to get side-on to him."

  Fi rolled slightly to one side, bracing on his right arm for a quick start. Niner hit the det. Fi bobbed up.

  Nothing happened. A blaster round seared the grass be­tween them, and Fi threw himself down again.

  "We really must talk to procurement about hardening our electronics," Fi said mildly.

  "I fear we might be back to old-fashioned soldiering."

  "I'm fresh out of bayonets."

  "Sergeant Kal would have an idea."

  "You got his number on you?"

  "I'm going to scream."

  "What?"

  "Don't laugh. This man's a nut. If he thinks I'm down and badly injured, he won't be able to resist coming over and slit­ting my throat."

  "And then I give him a surprise party?"

  "Anything that resolves this fast."

  "Okay, kid. Off you go."

  Niner suddenly realized he didn't actually know how to scream. But he'd heard enough terribly wounded men to make a fair stab at it.

  He threw back his head and let go.

  20

  I don't know who the good guys are anymore. But I do know

  what the enemy is. It's the compromise of principles. You

  lose the war when you lose your principles. And the first

  principle is to look out for your comrades.

  —Kal Skirata

  The gunship was the most beautiful craft Darman had ever seen.

  It came into view as he staggered through the line of bushes and into the newly plowed field. Its cockpit bubbles gleamed like a holo of Cloud City, and its cannon turrets had the symmetry of the finest Naboo architecture. He even loved its rust and the dents in its wings.

  "Look at that, Atin," he said. "Sheer art... Atin?"

  "... yeah."

  "Nearly there."

  "... uh."

  White trooper armor came running toward him with a Gran in a medic's uniform just behind them. Atin's weight lifted from his back, and he struggled to pull his arms free of the webbing. He followed the stretcher, trying to talk to the medic.

  "Verpine projectile, right side of his chest," he said. "Painkiller, five ccs of—"

  "I can see," the Gran said. "Neat job, Private. Now get in that ship."

  When he looked around, troopers had taken Uthan from Etain and she was walking toward the gunship, stopping to look over her shoulder every few steps. General Arligan Zey stepped down from the troop cabin and bowed his head very slightly in her direction. She slowed down and stopped to re­turn it.

  It struck Darman as a remarkably formal greeting under the circumstances. Behind this tableau of Jedi etiquette was a scene from a nightmare, with medics working on both Atin and Uthan, removing armor, cutting garments, hooking up transfusion lines, calling for more dressings. It was like watching two parallel worlds, each wholly oblivious to the other.

  Zey didn't look at Darman at all, but the ARC trooper who jumped down beside the general took off his helmet and sim­ply stared at him in silence. Something black moved in the shadows of the ship and then emerged slowly to sniff the air with a long glossy snout.

  It was Valaqil. He had come home. Darman could hardly say that he recognized the Gurlanin, because this one looked indistinguishable from Jinart. But he could guess.

  "Private Atin is still collecting scars, I see," Valaqil said. "And my consort is impatient and waiting for me. I have to

  go."

  "Jinart?" Darman shrugged, embarrassed. "She's been an extraordinary help to us, sir. A fifth—a sixth member of the squad, in fact."

  "I'm sure she will tell me all the details of what has made her so very excited for the past few days."

  And then he was gone, loping across the field and into the bushes. Darman hoped the Republic wouldn't disappoint the Gurlanins. They'd served as well as any soldier.

  "You've done remarkably well, Padawan," Zey said. "Es­pecially without the guidance of a Master. Quite exceptional, in fact. I think that this may hasten your progress toward your trials as far as the Council is concerned. With the super­vision of a Master, of course."

  Darman expected delight or embarrassment or something equally positive to soften Etain's expression. He knew she

  believed she was unfit to be a Jedi Knight, or even a Padawan at times. He knew it was the one thing she lived for.

  But the elevation didn't appear to move her at all. She didn't even appear to hear what Zey had said.

  "Master, where are Niner and Fi?" Etain asked.

  Zey looked bemused. "Who?"

  "Sorry, Master. The two other men from Omega Squad."

  Darman felt the scrutiny of the ARC even more keenly now. He'd only seen ARCs a couple of times before, and they came as close to scaring him as anyone supposedly on his side ever could. Zey shook his head. "You're the first to make it here."

  "They'll be here, sir," Darman said. He flicked open his helmet-to-helmet comlink. If the ARC was listening in, it was too bad. "Sarge? Fi? Time to get a move on."

  There was no sound at all in his ear, not even static. He switched to the alternative frequency, and still there was nothing. "Niner, Fi, are you receiving?" He checked the di­agnostics mode of his HUD: his helmet was fully functional. He could see the crevasse on Geonosis again, standing be­hind the cooling, ticking E-Web, trying to raise Taler, Vin, and Jay. He couldn't see the biometric data from their suits on his HUD.

  No, not again. Not again, please . . .

  "Ma'am, I'm not getting any response."

  "What does that mean?"

  He could hardly bear to say it. "Their helmets are offline. I don't think they made it."

  "They're dead?" Zey a
sked.

  "They're not dead," Etain said firmly.

  "Ma'am, I can't raise them at all."

  "No, I don't care, they're alive. I know they are."

  "You have to go," Zey said. "If you don't go now, you could be flying straight into a battle with Trade Federation vessels. We've attracted a lot of attention." The general turned back to the two medics working on Uthan. "Is she going to survive?"

  "She's in a very bad way, sir. We need to move her."

  "Keep her alive any way you can. Prepare to lift off. Etain—"

  "Master, there are two men still out there."

  "They're dead."

  "No, I can feel them. I know them, sir, I know where they are. They're not even hurt. We must wait for them."

  "We must also save Uthan and get you two out of here."

  "They've destroyed the virus. Isn't that what matters? You can't abandon them now."

  Darman could see she was at that point where she would either collapse or do something extreme. Her face was drawn tight, and her pupils were dilated. It was an expression that scared him. He'd seen it a few times in the last few days.

  The gunship's drives were throbbing now. Etain still had one boot on the platform and the other firmly on Qiiluran soil.

  Etain swallowed hard. Oh, Darman thought. Just bite your tongue, ma 'am. Don't react. But he felt what she was feel­ing. All that sweat and terror and pain for nothing. All that, when they could have bombed the facility and gone home. All that—and Atin fighting for his life, and Niner and Fi ei­ther dead or marooned here.

  "I will not leave without them," Etain said. "I regret dis­obeying you, Master, but I must."

  Zey registered visible annoyance. "You will do as I order," he said quietly. "You're compromising the mission."

  "We need these men. They are not expendable."

  "We are all expendable."

  "Then, sir, I'm expendable, too." She lowered her head slightly, looking up at Zey, more challenging than coy. "An officer's duty is the welfare of her men."

  "I see that Master Fulier taught you little about obedience but a great deal about sentimentality—"

  Darman dared to interrupt. He couldn't stand seeing Jedi Masters arguing. It was painfully embarrassing. "Look, I'll stay, ma'am," he said. "Go with Atin. See he's okay."