“This gets worse by the second,” she said wearily. “First we have four. Now we might be down to one.”
“Two. Unless you have other duties.”
“You’ve seen me fight.”
“You’re a Jedi. A commander.”
“That’s a title, not an assessment of my ability. I’m not exactly the best of the best.”
“You must be. I know what Jedi can do. Nobody can defeat you as long as you have the Force.”
She gave him a very odd smile and picked up the holo-chart sphere. She seemed to be struggling to find her thread again. She swallowed a few times. “Show me where your RV point is—that’s right, isn’t it? RV? Show me where it is on this chart.”
Darman took out his datapad and linked his mission charts with the image projected from the sphere. He pointed to the coordinates.
“It’s here,” he said. “Before we set out on exercises or missions, we agree where we’ll meet up if anything goes wrong. We had to bail out when our transport crashed, so we’re scattered, and the procedure is that we go to an RV point for a set time window.”
He zoomed in on the area northwest of Imbraani. Etain tilted her head to follow.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Primary target. Uthan’s facility.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Intel said—”
“No, that’s the Separatist base. Their garrison.” Her eyes darted back and forth, scanning the chart. She pointed. “This group of buildings is the facility. You can see. Look.” She superimposed the floor plans of the facility with the layout of the farm buildings and shrank the image to fit. They lined up perfectly.
Darman’s stomach knotted. “My squad will be heading for the Separatists, then.”
“We’d better make sure we intercept them,” Etain said. “Or they’ll run smack-bang into a hundred droids.”
Darman was suddenly on his feet in one move, even before he’d realized that he’d heard someone coming.
“I don’t think so,” a woman’s voice said. “Because the droids are all heading for Imbraani.”
Darman’s sidearm was out of his belt and aimed before Etain could even turn her head.
9
There is something very touching about them. They look like soldiers; they fight like soldiers; and sometimes they even talk like soldiers. They have all the finestqualitiesof the fighting man. But behind that is nothing–no love, no family, no happy memory that comes from having truly lived. When I see one of these men killed, I weep more for him than for any ordinary soldier who has lived a full and normal life.
–Jedi General Ki-Adi-Mundi
Darman had flattened Jinart’s face against the wall and put his blaster to her head in the time it took Etain to jump to her feet.
“Steady there, boy,” Jinart said quietly. “I mean you no harm.”
He had her pinned securely. The expression on his earnest face was entirely benign, so far divorced from the potential violence he was ready to mete out that Etain shuddered.
“Let her go, Darman,” she said. “She’s a fellow Jedi.”
Darman stood back instantly and let Jinart go.
“I’m not a Jedi, I tell you,” Jinart said irritably. She looked up into Darman’s face. “So you’d shoot an old woman, would you?”
“Yes ma’am,” Darman said. Etain stared, horrified. “Threats come in all guises. Not all soldiers are young males, and not all soldiers wear uniforms.”
Etain waited for Jinart to aim a kick at his groin, but the old woman broke into a satisfied grin. “There’s a sensible boy,” she said. “You’ll do well. Trust this one, Etain. He’s very good at his job.” She peered at the blaster, still firmly in his grip. “DC-seventeen, I see.”
“There are four of them,” Etain said, expecting Jinart to react with the same disappointment she had.
“I know.” The woman handed Etain a bundle of rags. “A complete squad of clone commandos. Here, dry clothing. Nothing chic, but at least it’s clean. Yes, I know all about them. I’ve been tracking the other three.”
“They’re okay?” Darman was all anxiety again, still emitting that same sense of child that Etain found hard to bear. “I’ve got to rejoin them. Where are they?”
“Heading north.”
“To RV Gamma.”
“Whatever you say, lad. You’ve all led me on something of a dance. You’re a challenge to track.”
“That’s how they trained us, ma’am.”
“I know.”
Jinart was still staring at Darman’s face. “You really are a perfect copy of Fett, aren’t you? In his prime, of course.” Her voice had become lower, with less of the hoarse cracking typical of the very old, and Etain wondered if this was the moment at which she would reveal that she was a Sith. The Padawan slid her hand slowly into her sodden cloak.
Jinart suddenly became black as Coruscant marble, and then devoid of texture and hair and fabric and wrinkles, as if she were wax poured into a crude mold. Her form began flowing.
Darman’s incongruously innocent face broke into something like a familiar smile. Etain was ready this time. She was focused; she visualized the lightsaber as part of her arm. She was prepared to fight.
“You’re the Gurlanin,” Darman said. “We weren’t told you were on this mission. How did you manage that?”
“I’m not Valaqil,” said a soothing liquid voice. “I’m his consort.” Jinart, now a four-legged, black-furred creature, sat up on her haunches and seemed to simply extend upward like a column of molten metal. “Girl, you do look surprised.”
Etain couldn’t argue with that. Even if you’d encountered the full diversity of nonhuman species—and she certainly had, even within her own Jedi clan—seeing a shapeshifter metamorphose before your eyes was mesmerizing. On top of that, even this naive clone soldier knew what this creature was. She didn’t.
“You’re quite a revelation, Jinart. But why can I sense something about you that feels like the Force?”
“We’re telepaths,” the Gurlanin said.
“Oh…”
“No, I’m not delving into your mind. It doesn’t work like that. We communicate only with each other.”
“But I heard your voice that night, in my mind.”
“I was standing near you, actually. Not in any shape you’d notice, of course.”
“And me, ma’am?” Darman asked, seeming totally absorbed by the conversation.
“Yes, I told you to get some sleep. I make a convincing fallen tree, don’t I?” Jinart flowed and changed and reassembled herself into the epitome of a crone again. “I know, stereotypical, but effective. Old women are invisible. Like you, Darman, we go where others won’t and do what others can’t. The communications network here is totally controlled by the Trade Federation, and in practice that means a single relay and monitoring ground station at Teklet. And while my kind cannot transmit details over interstellar distances, we can communicate broad ideas and notions to each other. My consort and I are your comlink. Not perfect, but better than silence.”
The Gurlanin made a liquid sound like water boiling. “I’ve spent the last two days running myself ragged to gather this intelligence, and it’s as much for this young man as it is for you. Ghez Hokan now has command of the armed forces here, such as they are, and he’s no fool—he realizes Republic troops are here for Uthan’s box of tricks. Darman, he’s tracking your comrades.”
“We’re pretty good at evasion.”
“Yes, but they do tend to leave bodies and parts behind them. He admits he doesn’t know how many of you there are, and that troubles him.”
“You’re privy to his concerns, then?” Etain said. She trusted nobody now. She still didn’t know who had betrayed Master Fulier, and until she did she would keep an open and cautious mind. Although her Master hadn’t told her about the clones, he must have known if he had discovered Uthan’s activities. But he hadn’t trusted her. For all his kind words, when it came down to it he simply confirmed—even from the grave—that she was not fit to become a Jedi Knight.