“Look at that,” Darman said, assessing the skyline. “That flame front must be four klicks, at least.”
“That’s a million or more credits’ worth of barq going up in smoke. The farmers are going to be furious. The Neimoidians are going to be even angrier.”
“So will Birhan,” Jinart said. “That’s a fair whack of his barq you’re using for camouflage, girl. Get going.” The Gurlanin took Darman’s datapad and inserted a mem-stick. “These are all the relatively safe homes I could chart. Don’t advertise your identity, either of you. Even if the master of the house you call on knows who you are, do him the favor of not compromising him by admitting it.”
Etain had covered her distinctive Jedi cloak with an Imbraani ankle-length tunic. Jinart indicated her hair. “And that,” she said.
“The braid, too?”
“Unless you want to advertise what you are.”
Etain hesitated. She had once heard someone say they could never remove their betrothal ring, not until they died. Her Padawan’s braid felt equally permanent, as if her soul was woven in with it, and that removing it after so long—even temporarily—would rend the fabric of the universe and underscore her belief that she was not Jedi material. But it had to be done. She unfastened the single thin braid and combed the strands of wavy hair loose with her fingers.
She felt less like a Jedi than ever, and not even remotely close to a commander.
“I imagine you never thought a Jedi commander would run away from a fight,” she said to Darman as they made their carefully unhurried way up the track.
“Not running away,” Darman said. “This is E and E. Escape and evasion.”
“Sounds like running to me.”
“Tactical withdrawal to regroup.”
“You’re a very positive man.” The child was almost completely absent now. She could mainly sense focus and purpose. He shamed her without intention. “I’m sorry that I lost my composure earlier.”
“Only in private. Not under fire, Commander.”
“I said not to call me that.”
“Where we can be overheard, I’ll obey your order.” He paused. “Everyone loses it now and then.”
“I’m not supposed to.”
“If you don’t crack sometimes, how do you know how far you can go?”
It was a good point. For some reason he was far more reassuring than Master Fulier had ever been. Fulier, when not getting caught up in putting the galaxy right, was all effortless brilliance. Darman was expert at his craft, too, but there was a sense of hard-won skill, and there was no randomness or mystery to that.
She liked him for being so pragmatic. It crossed her mind that she might be saving clone soldiers from death by biological agent so they could die from blaster and cannon round. It was a horrible thought.
She didn’t like having to kill, not even by another’s actions. It was going to make life as a commander exceptionally hard.
The droids advanced along the edge of the wood with flamethrowers borrowed from the same farmer whose fields they were burning. Ghez Hokan and his lieutenants Cuvin and Hurati stood in the path of the blaze, staring back at it from three hundred meters.
“We’ll have to burn a great deal of land to deny all cover to the enemy, sir,” Cuvin said.
“That isn’t the point,” Hurati said. “This is as much to create the impression of protecting the facility as it is to flush out troops.”
“Correct,” Hokan said. “There’s no point alienating the natives, and I can’t afford to compensate them all for lost production. This is sufficient. We’ll use droids on the remaining boundaries.”
Cuvin seemed undeterred. “May I suggest we use hunting strills? We could bring in a pack with their handlers in two days. The Trade Federation won’t welcome the disruption to the barq harvest, and a shortage of the delicacy will be noticed by some very influential people.”
“I don’t care,” Hokan said. “The same influential people will be even more inconvenienced by the arrival of millions of Republic clones on their homeworlds.”
Hokan was in full Mandalorian battle armor now, not so much for protection as to convey a message to his officers. Sometimes he had to indulge in a little theater. He knew that the glow of the flames illuminating his traditional warrior’s armor made a fine spectacle, calculated to impress and overawe. He was at war. He didn’t have to prostitute his martial skills as an assassin or bodyguard for weak and wealthy cowards any longer.
Cuvin was right about the strills, though. It didn’t mean he wouldn’t have to deal with his dissent, but finding the Republic troops wouldn’t be easy.
“How many do you estimate now, Hurati?” he asked.
Hurati flicked a holochart into life and a fly-through image shimmered in the dark. “Vessel downed here, confirmed Republic R5 military droid.” He pointed. “Remains of two Weequay militia found here, here, and here—but gdans had dismembered and dragged the cadavers over a five-klick range, so the exact location of the kill is estimated. The air-speeder was brought down here. The speeder circuitry was found dismantled here, but as it was at the entrance to gdan burrows, there’s no telling where they might have found it to start with. The engagement with the droid patrol was here, because we deployed the patrol based on that finding.”
“That’s pretty much all in a five-klick corridor spanning forty klicks. Looks obvious to me that they’re heading for Teklet, probably to take the port before targeting the facility.”
“It would look that way, sir.”
“Numbers?”
“I would have said no more than ten, sir. We have reports from farmers who’ve found evidence of movement across their land. They’re very protective of their crops, so they notice these subtle signs—unlike droids, sir.”
“And what does that suggest, then?”
“Multiple tracks crossing an area forty klicks by thirty klicks, sir. Expertly done, too—the locals thought it might be wildlife, but these tracks are not random. I’d say we’re being decoyed.”
Ten troops. Ten—pathfinders, special forces, saboteurs? Were they preparing the ground for more troops, or were they tasked to complete the mission on their own? Hokan wished he had a few Mandalorian mercenaries, not droids and career officers. He kept his concern well hidden behind his full-face helmet. He also wished he had more airspeeders; he’d never needed more than one to police farms, and it would take days to have any shipped to Qiilura. “Farmers can be pretty cooperative, can’t they?”
“Remarkably so, ever since that one found the circuitry, sir.”
Hokan turned and started walking back toward the research facility that was now empty but lavishly and conspicuously guarded. He beckoned Hurati to follow him. Cuvin started to follow, too, but Hokan held up his hand to motion him to stay put.
“Lieutenant,” he said quietly. “Any sign of my former employee, Guta-Nay?”
“Not yet, sir. Patrols have been briefed.”
“Good, and keep an eye on Cuvin for me, won’t you? I don’t think he’s going to make captain.”
Hurati paused, but briefly. “Understood, sir.”
It was amazing what the unspoken promise of an extra rank insignia could do. Hokan wondered what had happened to the code of conduct.
So there were perhaps ten commandos operating in the region. Hunting them down would be enormously time-consuming. Barring luck, Hokan would never catch them, not with droids and these young academy theorists. Sooner or later, the enemy would need to resupply; sooner or later, they would show themselves.