Atin’s mud-smeared chest plate was a different color now, matte black with streaks radiating from the center. “I can’t breathe properly,” he said, utterly matter-of-fact, in the way badly injured men often were. He gulped in a breath. “My chest hurts.”
Fi propped him up against the trunk of a tree and took his helmet off. There was no blood coming from his mouth: he was bone white, and his raw scar looked dramatic, but he wasn’t bleeding out. His pupils looked okay: he wasn’t in shock. Fi released the gription on his chest plate and eased the armor off.
The bodysuit was intact.
“Sure it’s just your chest?” Fi asked. He didn’t have a tally scan to check Atin’s status. You didn’t start removing armor or embedded objects until you knew what you were dealing with. Sometimes that was all that was holding a man together. Atin nodded. Fi peeled away the section of suit starting at the collar.
“Phwoar,” Fi said. “That’s going to be a monster of a bruise.” There was a livid patch from his sternum to halfway down his chest. “You collecting distinguishing features or something?”
“Hit me square on,” Atin said, panting. “Not a regular round. Armor works though, eh?”
Fi took his helmet off and listened to Atin’s breathing with his ear pressed to his chest.
“Ow.”
“Shut up and breathe.”
Atin took shallow breaths, wincing. Fi straightened up and nodded. “Can’t hear any pneumothorax,” he said. “But let’s keep an eye on him. The air trapped inside can build up. Might be fractured ribs, might just be a bad bruise.” He took out a canister of bacta and sprayed the rapidly developing bruise. Atin lifted his arms slightly as if testing them.
Fi sealed the bodysuit and armor back in place.
“I’ll take your pack,” Niner said, and unclipped it. It was the least he could do. “I think we can skip RV Beta now. Let’s leave some souvenirs around there so Darman can spot them if he shows up. You never know if more tinnies will follow. They’re not original thinkers.”
They probably had a few minutes, even if any of the droids had managed to call in to base. Fi sprinted off through the trees with a few pieces of debris to leave them at the RV point. Niner searched the remains of the Aqualish officer and took everything that looked like a key, a data medium, or proof of ID. Then he dragged Atin’s pack behind him on a webbing strap, heading for the place they’d left the entry equipment.
It was going to be a tough slog to RV Gamma, at least until Atin could carry his pack again.
The whole engagement had lasted five minutes and eight seconds, first shot to last, including running time. He had no idea if it had been one second or half an hour. Funny thing, time perception under fire. Niner’s boots crunched over droid shrapnel and he wondered how long a firefight felt to a droid.
“Is that how they see us?” Niner asked. “Ordinary people, that is. Like droids?”
“No,” Atin said. “We don’t have any scrap value.” He laughed and stopped short with a small gasp. It must have hurt him. “I’m going to slow you down.”
“Don’t go gallant on me. You’re coming the rest of the way because I’m not lugging all that gear around with Fi. I want a break sometime.”
“Okay.”
“And thanks. I owe you.”
“No. You don’t.”
“Thanks anyway. Want to explain why you’ve been Darman?”
Atin was holding his rifle carefully, a handspan clear of his chest. “I’ve been the last man left standing in two squads now.”
“Oh.” Silence. Niner prompted: “Want to tell me how?”
“First squad tried to rescue me on a live range exercise. I didn’t need rescuing. Not that badly, anyway.”
“Ah.” Niner felt instantly appalled at himself for thinking Atin didn’t care what happened to Darman. He was just caring too much. “My training sergeant said there was something called survivor’s guilt. He also said that in those cases, having you survive was what your squad wanted.” “They bred a lot of stuff out of us. Why not that as well?” Niner stopped dragging Atin’s pack and slung his rifle over his shoulder. He lifted the pack and was glad to carry it. “If they had, I might not be here now,” he said, and knew Darman would be waiting for them tomorrow.
Ghez Hokan surveyed the scrap heap that had been a functioning droid platoon a few hours earlier. Whatever had hit them had hit fast and hard. And—judging by the precisely placed sniper shot and the blast pattern of only two grenades– they had been taken out by experts.
It might have been one man or it might have been a platoon. You typically couldn’t ambush battle droids like that with a handful of men, but that depended entirely on who the men were. It was a shame the captain hadn’t called back with a sitrep as instructed: if he hadn’t been killed, Hokan would have had him shot for disobeying operational procedure. He studied the droid escort lined up neatly by the speeder bikes and wondered if they felt anything when they saw dismantled comrades.
“There’s no sign of a camp, sir.” Lieutenant Cuvin came jogging back from the woods opposite the clearing. It was curious to see the Umbaran’s deathly pallor tinged pink by the exertion. “Some broken branches at knee height and crushed grass from troops firing prone, but I honestly can’t tell how many men we’re dealing with.”
“You can’t tell much, can you, Lieutenant?” Hokan said.
“Sir, I’ll check again.” He was white-faced now, white even for an Umbaran.
“Sir! Sir!” Second Lieutenant Hurati was enthusiastic, no doubt keen to be elevated to Cuvin’s rank. He sprinted to his commander, an attitude Hokan appreciated. “I’ve found the most extraordinary thing.”
“I’m glad one of you has found something. What is it?”
“A pile of droid parts, sir.”
“And this is extraordinary because … ?”
“No, sir, they’re some way from here and they’re sort of arranged, sir.”
Hokan strode off for the speeder. “Show me.”
The trees had been cut down a few days earlier because there was already klol fungus growing on them in a pale-pink mesh. One broad stump—the flattest one, almost like an altar—supported the remains of a droid.
The torn pieces of its trunk were laid flat. The arms were neatly arranged on one side of the thorax and the legs on the other. Part of the faceplate was propped up as if looking skyward.
“That’s how the droid pilot was left, too, sir.” Hurati was a good man. He’d obviously studied the report the militia had filed, however appallingly inadequate its presentation had been. “I think it’s a sign.”
It was a long way to move a dead droid from a battle. There were no drag marks leading to the stump. It was a heavy load to carry on foot; they might even have a transport, although he could see no signs that a repulsorlift had passed over the ground. Hokan stared at the ritually arranged debris and tried to think who would want to send the Separatists a message—and what it might mean.
“It’s a trophy,” Hokan said. “They’re taunting us. They’re showing how easy this is for them.”
That made him angry. He was Mandalorian. Being an easy enemy wasn’t his way. “A curfew, Hurati. Declare a permanent curfew on all powered vehicles until further notice. Anything moving under power is either ours or the enemy. We can track all friendly transports.” He paused. “You have made sure all our vehicles have their own transponders, haven’t you?”
“Yes sir.”
“Why the delay, then?”
“It’s—it’s harvest, sir. How will the farmers get their produce to Teklet for shipping?”
“I imagine they have handcarts,” Hokan said. He swung his leg over the speeder’s saddle. “Ankkit will have to find an alternative means of conveyance for his crops.”
Hokan pondered on the carefully arranged droid debris all the way back to his new headquarters in Ankkit’s villa. He feared that moving into that vulgar Hurt bordello of a house would make him soft and decadent, too, so he set up his office in an outbuilding. He didn’t care for fancy drapery and useless ornaments. It just happened to be convenient for the research facility, and close to his troops.