It was an order. It came from a Jedi. “I injured my leg when I landed. Apart from that I’m just tired and a bit hungry.” Bit hungry? He was ravenous. “Nothing at all, Commander.”
“Landed?”
“I free-fell from a vessel.”
“With all that equipment?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“You astound me.” He couldn’t tell if that was good or bad. “Two things, though. Please don’t call me Padawan or Commander–I don’t want to be recognized as a Jedi. And I’d rather be called Etain than ma’am.” She paused, no doubt thinking of some other failure on his part. “And please take your helmet off. It’s rather disturbing.”
So far Darman had met three Jedi and they all seemed to find him distracting in some way, with or without his helmet. All his life he had been taught that he and his brothers were created for the Jedi, to help them fight their enemies; he’d expected some recognition of that bond, or at least an expression of satisfaction. He removed his helmet and sat feeling confused, torn between the absolute clarity of his military expertise, and the confusion of dealing with the civilian world he had been thrust into for the first time.
The Padawan—no, Etain, she’d made her orders clear—took a small sphere out of her cloak and opened it in both hands. Layer after layer of holographic images spilled out of it, stacking neatly like plates.
“Plans,” she said. Her voice had changed completely. She radiated relief. “Plans of all the Separatist and Neimoidian buildings in this region. Floor plans, utility layouts, wiring diagrams, drainage, ducts, specifics on materials used—every detail of how the contractors built them. This is what you need, isn’t it? What you are looking for?”
Darman wasn’t tired anymore. He reached out and broke the beam of the projection, flipping a plan vertically so he could read it. He looked through them all and heard himself let out an involuntary breath.
Etain was right. It was nearly every bit of intelligence they needed, apart from more fluid details such as personnel numbers and routines. With these plans they knew how to cut power to the buildings, where to insert nerve agents into air ducts or water supplies, and exactly what they would see and where they would have to go when they gained entry. The plans showed the construction of walls, doors, bulkheads, and windows, so they knew precisely what size of charge or type of ram would be needed to breach them. This was a set of clear instructions for achieving their objective.
But Etain didn’t seem to know that objective. “What are you going to do with this?” she asked.
“We’ve come to abduct Ovolot Qail Uthan and destroy her research facility,” Darman said. “She’s developing a nanovirus intended to kill clones.”
Etain leaned closer. “Clones?”
“I’m a clone. The whole Grand Army is composed of clones, millions of us, all commanded by Jedi generals.”
Her face was a study in blank surprise. It was also fascinating in a way he couldn’t define. He had never seen a human female this close, this real. He was astonished by the dappling of small brown dots across the bridge of her nose and her cheeks, and the different strands of colors in her long, unkempt hair—light browns, golds, even reds. And she was as thin as the locals. He could see blue veins in the backs of her hands, and she smelled different from anyone he’d ever shared space with. He wasn’t sure if she was pretty or downright ugly. He just knew she was utterly alien and utterly fascinating, as alien as a gdan or a Gurlanin. It was almost stopping him from concentrating on the job.
“All like you?” she said at last, blinking rapidly. She seemed unsettled by his scrutiny. “What have I said?”
“No ma’am—sorry, Etain. I’m a commando. We’re trained differently. Some people say… that we’re eccentric. I realize you haven’t received much by way of intelligence.”
“All I knew—all my Master would tell me—was that Uthan was here and that the plans were critical to the Republic’s safety. Clones didn’t come into the conversation.” She was staring at him just as Jusik had. “There’s an old woman who told me you were coming, but she didn’t tell me much else. How many of there are you on Qiilura now?”
“Four.”
“Four? You said there were millions of you! What use is four going to be?”
“We’re commandos. Special forces. You understand that term?”
“Obviously not. How are four ten-year-olds going to storm Uthan’s complex?”
It took him a few moments to realize she was being sarcastic. “We fight differently.”
“You’re going to have to be very different indeed, Darman.” She looked absolutely crushed, as if he’d let her down simply by showing up. “Are you really ten years old?”
“Yes. Our growth is accelerated.”
“How can we possibly train competent soldiers in that time?”
“It’s very intensive training.” He was finding it hard not to say ma’am each time. “They created us from the best genetic stock. From Jango Fett.”
Etain raised her eyebrows, but said nothing else. Then she stood up, reached for a basket balanced on a low beam, and handed it to him. It was full of odd round items that smelled edible, but he thought he’d check anyway.
“Is this food?”
“Yes. The local bread and some sort of steamed cake. Nothing exciting, but it’ll fill you up.”
Darman bit into a lump that yielded slightly in his fingers. It was glorious. It was strongly flavored and chewy and among the most satisfying meals he had ever eaten: not quite on the scale of uj cake, but so far from the odorless, tasteless, textureless field rations that it might well have been.
Etain watched him carefully. “You must be starving.”
“It’s wonderful.”
“That doesn’t say much for army food.”
Darman reached into his belt and pulled out a dry ration cube. “Try this.”
She sniffed it and bit into it. The expression of vague disbelief on her face changed slowly into one of revulsion. “It’s appalling. There’s nothing in it.”
“It’s the perfect nutritional profile for our requirements. It has no smell, so the enemy can’t detect it, and no fiber, so we excrete minimal waste products that would enable us to be tracked, and—”
“I get the idea. Is that how they treat you? Like farm animals?”
“We don’t go hungry.”
“What do you like doing?”
He really didn’t know what answer she was after. “I’m a good shot. I like the DC-seventeen—”
“I meant in your free time. Do you get free time?”
“We study.”
“No family, of course,” she said.
“Yes, I’ve got squad brothers.”
“I meant—” She checked herself. “No, I understand.” She pushed the basket of bread closer to him. “My life hasn’t been that much different from yours, except the food was better. Go on. You can finish the whole lot if you want.”
And he did. He tried not to watch while Etain wrung water from her robe and shook out her boots. She made him feel uncomfortable but he didn’t know why, apart from the fact that she wasn’t quite the Jedi commander he had been so thoroughly trained to expect.
The only females he could recall were Kaminoan medical technicians whose quietly impersonal tones intimidated him more than a yelling drill sergeant. And his platoon had once experienced an unpleasantly memorable lecture in encryption techniques from a female Sullustan.
He feared females. Now he feared his Jedi officer and was also agitated by her in a way that he didn’t even have a word for. It didn’t feel acceptable.
“We need to move on,” he said. “I have to make the RV point. I’ve been out of comm contact with my squad for nearly two days, and I don’t even know if they’re alive.”