“I’m not a medic.”
“Oh, Darman …”
“Ma’am, this is a war. People try to kill you. You try to kill them first. There are no second chances. Everything else you need to know about warfare is an amplification of that.” She was horrified, and he really wished he hadn’t upset her. Had they given her a lethal lightsaber and not taught her what it really meant to draw one? “I’m sorry. He was in a bad way, anyway.”
Death seemed to shock her. “I killed that Umbaran.”
“That’s the idea, ma’am. Nicely done, too.”
She didn’t say anything else. She watched him attach the armor plates, and when he finally replaced his helmet he knew he didn’t care how conspicuous he looked in it, because he wasn’t going to take it off again in a hurry. He needed that edge.
“No more safe houses,” Darman said. “There’s no such thing.”
Etain followed him into the woodland at the back of the house, but she was preoccupied. “I’ve never killed anyone before,” she said.
“You did fine,” Darman told her. His shoulder was throbbing, gnawing into his concentration. “A clean job.”
“It’s still not something I would care to repeat.”
“Jedi are trained to fight, aren’t they?”
“Yes, but we never killed anyone in training.”
Darman shrugged and it hurt. “We did.”
He hoped she got over it fast. No, it wasn’t enjoyable, killing: but it had to be done. And killing with lightsaber or blaster was relatively clean. He wondered how she’d handle having to stick a blade in someone and see what ran out. She was a Jedi, and with any luck she’d never have to.
“Them or us,” he said.
“You’re in pain.”
“Nothing major. I’ll use the bacta when we reach the RV.”
“I suppose they turned us in.”
“The farmers? Yeah, that’s civilians for you.”
Etain made a noncommittal grunt and followed silently behind him. They moved deeper into the woods, and Darman calculated how many rounds he’d expended. If he kept engaging targets at this rate, he’d be down to his sidearm by nightfall.
“It’s amazing how you can sense people,” Darman said. “Can you detect droids, too?”
“Not especially,” she said. “Usually just living beings. Maybe I can—”
A faint whine made Darman turn in time to see a blue bolt of light streaking toward him from behind. It struck a tree a few meters ahead, splitting it like kindling in a puff of vapor.
“Obviously not,” Etain said.
It was going to be another long, hard day.
A warning siren sounded: three long blasts, repeated twice. Then the peaceful fields northwest of Imbraani shook with a massive explosion, and terrified merlies bolted for the cover of the hedgerows.
“Blasting today, then,” Fi said. “Lovely day for it.”
Niner couldn’t see anything but droids—industrial droids—moving around the quarry. He ran his glove across his visor to clear the droplets of rain and tried several binoc magnifications, flicking between settings with eye movements. But if there were organic workers around, he couldn’t see any.
The quarry was a massive and startling gouge in the landscape, an amphitheater with stepped sides that allowed droid excavators to dig out rock for processing. The depression sloped gently at one side; it was a towering cliff on the other. A small site office with alloy-plated walls and no windows sat beside a wide track at the top of the slope. Apart from the steady procession of droids laden with raw rock for the screening plant, the area was deserted. But someone—something—was controlling the detonations. They had to be in the building. And structures with solid alloy walls like that tended to have interesting contents.
The all-clear siren sounded. The droids moved in to scoop up the loose rock, sending spray and mud flying as they rumbled up the slopes.
“Okay, let’s see what we can liberate from the hut,” Niner said. “Atin, with me. Fi, stay here and cover.”
They darted out of the trees and across a hundred meters of open land to the edge of the quarry, dodging between giant droids that took no notice of them. One droid, its wheels as high as Niner was tall, swung its bucket scoop unexpectedly and struck his shoulder plate a glancing blow. He stumbled and Atin caught his arm, steadying him. They paused, waiting for the next droid to return up the slope, then jogged alongside it until level with the site building.
They were now exposed, pressed close to the front wall.
The building was only ten meters wide. Atin knelt at the door and studied the single lock.
“Pretty insubstantial if this is where they store the explosives,” he said.
“Let’s take a look.”
Atin stood up slowly and placed a scope on the door to listen for movement. He shook his head at Niner. Then he slid a flimsi-thin flat endoscope around the jamb, working it back and forth, slowly and carefully. “Now that’s a tight fit,” he said. “Can’t get it in.”
“We could always just walk in there.”
“Remember, we’re probably heading into a store full of explosives. If I could get a probe through it could at least get a sniff of the air and test for chemicals.”
“Okay, let’s walk in carefully, then.”
There was no handle. Niner stood to the hinge side, Deece in one hand, and pressed silently on the single plate that made up the door. It didn’t yield.
Atin nodded. He took out the handheld ram, ten kilos that had seemed like dead, useless weight in their packs until now. He squared it up to the lock.
Niner raised one finger. “Three … two …”
It applied a force of two metric tons.
“Go.”
The door fell open, and they both leapt back as a stream of blasterfire shot out. It stopped suddenly. They squatted on either side of the entrance. Usually this was simple: if someone inside didn’t want to leave, a grenade coaxed them out, one way or another. But with a high chance of explosives being inside, that method was a little too emphatic. Niner shook his head.
Atin moved the endoscope carefully, getting a glimpse of the building’s interior. Then he edged the probe into the doorway, drawing another stream of blasterfire.
“Two moving around,” he said. “Light’s out. But the probe got a sniff of explosives.”
“Spot-lamp and rush them, then?”
Atin shook his head. He took out a grenade and locked it in the safety position. “How nervous would you be if you were sitting on enough stuff to put this quarry into orbit?”
“Drink-spilling nervous, I’d say.”
“Yeah.” Atin hefted the grenade a few times. “That’s what I thought.”
He bowled the disabled grenade into the doorway and jerked back. Three seconds later, two Weequays rushed out. Niner and Atin fired simultaneously; one Weequay dropped instantly, and the other’s momentum carried him on a few meters farther, until he fell in the path at the top of the ramp. The quarry droids trundled on, oblivious. If the shot hadn’t killed him, the advancing droid did.
“Sarge, you need some help down there?”
Niner motioned Atin inside. “No, Fi, we’re set here. Keep an eye out in case we get company.”
The building reeked of cooking and unwashed Weequay. A small droid, lights blinking on standby and caked in dried mud, stood by a console. The rest of the space—three rooms—was taken up by explosives, detonators, and various spare parts and stenciled crates.
“There’s your demolitions man,” Atin said, tapping the droid on its head, and retrieved his grenade. He wiped it with his glove and put it back in his belt pack.
“I’d rather have Darman,” Niner said. He studied the inert droid, which seemed to be waiting for the dislodged rock to be cleared. It jerked suddenly into life, made its way toward a crate of explosives, opened the safety lid, and took out several tubes. Then it turned toward the room where the detonators were kept. Niner reached out and opened its control panel to deactivate it. “Take some time off, friend,” he said. “Blasting’s over for the day.”