“I asked to be out through to CO CISCom ten minutes ago, di’kut.”
“I realize that, Major. He’ll be with you as soon as he’s free.”
“Enemy forces have infiltrated and I need to speak to your commanding officer. Do you understand what we have on Qiilura? Could you possibly shift your di’kutla shebs long enough to find out why this is so vital to the war?”
“Sir, we have Republic troops infiltrating more places than I care to name right now, so—”
The screen flickered and broke up in noise. Hokan switched to another channel and got the same crackling, shimmering display. It was the same for every channel he tried. His first thought was that someone had disabled his receiver. They were closer than he’d thought, and a lot more daring. He put on his helmet and edged cautiously down the passage to the exterior door, his Verpine shatter gun in one hand and a hunting vibroblade in the other.
The droid sentry stepped aside to let him pass. On the roof, the comm relay was intact. Hokan took out his personal comlink and called Hurati.
All Hokan could hear was the chatter of static. It struck him that the Republic troops might well have done what he would have, faced with the same target.
“Droid, can you make contact with your fellows?”
“Affirmative sir.”
The droids had their own comlink system. They could communicate instantly on any battlefield. What they didn’t need was the main relay at Teklet in order to do it.
“Can you contact Lieutenant Hurati?”
The droid paused for a few moments. “I have him, sir.”
“Ask him if he has any news of Teklet.”
Pause. A much longer pause.
“Large explosion seen in the direction of Teklet, sir.”
It’s what I’d do if I was preparing an assault, Hokan thought. I’d render my enemies blind and deaf.
There was nothing he could do on the ground to deal with an invasion, if one was coming. There was a Republic assault ship in Qiilura space, and that didn’t bode well.
He had two options for his immediate task. He could defend Uthan’s project—the technical knowledge invested in her and her staff, and the nanovirus itself—or, if he was overrun, he could prevent it falling into enemy hands to be studied and neutralized.
It was a big planet. If he had to run, they’d have to find him. In the meantime, he’d sit tight and wait for them to come.
“Tell Hurati I want every functioning droid back here now,” Hokan said. “We’re digging in.”
12
Coruscant Command to Republic Assault Ship Majestic,
Qiilura Sector
Cruiser Vengeance will RV with you at 0400. You have clearance to intercept any vessel leaving Qiilura space, prevent landing by non-Republic vessels, and engage any vessel failing to comply. Have biohazard containment standing by.
Niner struggled to his feet and stared back at the ground station.
It wasn’t there anymore. Neither were the few small huts scattered along the approach road. There was billowing smoke and fires burning, including one that looked as if it were a blowtorch. Another explosion made him shield his head, and more debris peppered his armor.
Apart from that, the area was silent. He set off through the trees again, feeling as if he’d been picked up and shaken hard by someone really angry. A small pack of gdans began chasing him, snapping on his leg armor, but they caught on fast that he was going to be impossible to eat and fell back. He opened his long-range comlink for the first time in days.
“Niner here, anyone receiving?”
He could hear his own breath rasping as he ran. He was down to a stumbling jog now and feeling the reality of his exhaustion. He’d take a stim or two later. He had to.
“Sarge? Fi here. Target acquired, then.”
“Wow. P for plenty.”
“You sound busy.”
“On my way to the RV.”
“You’re running.”
“You bet. Sitrep?”
“Had to dump the droid and cache a lot of stuff. But the Weequay can carry a surprising amount if you ask him nicely. ETA an hour or so.”
“Call Darman, in case Jinart hasn’t caught up with him yet.”
“Copy that. ETA?”
“Depends. Looking for transport right now.”
“You sure about that?”
“You can do fast or you can do covert. Right now fast looks good to me. Out.”
Niner kept close enough to the road to hear vehicles. He needed a speeder. The mangled chassis of a personal transport of some kind was upended at the side of the road, testimony to the force of the blast.
Eventually, someone would show up to take a look at the damage. Then he’d have his chance.
After a few minutes Niner was starting to see intact buildings through the trees. He was nearing the farthest edge of the blast zone. Farther ahead he could see lights coming toward him, and his visor told him they were approaching fast. He dropped down into the cover of the grass. As they got nearer, he could pick out one landspeeder and a speeder bike.
Niner couldn’t face walking back into the blast zone to take one. He’d have to stop them here. And he’d have to stop them with minimum damage, or else he’d still be hiking back to the RV point.
He aimed his rifle on sniper setting and waited until the landspeeder was within three hundred meters. It didn’t surprise him that it wasn’t an emergency vehicle. He could see the driver clearly: a Trandoshan. They didn’t have a record in humanitarian public service. He was probably rushing to see if his slave traffic had been affected by the blast. The speeder was carrying a Trandoshan as well.
Niner squeezed gently, and the bolt shattered the landspeeder’s screen. The vehicle veered right off the road, spraying mud and gravel in the air, and the speeder bike swung left and pulled up dead. For a moment the rider hesitated, instinctively looking around in the dark as if unsure what had happened, but then he appeared to work it out just as Niner’s second bolt caught him full in the chest. The speeder bike hung motionless a meter above the ground.
There was a lot to be said for night-vision visors.
Niner ran from cover and swung onto the speeder, catching his pack on the back of the seat. He savored the moment. Taking the weight off his feet ranked near the top of the list of primeval human needs, along with a long drink of ice-cold water. The relief was wonderful.
A good night’s sleep and a decent hot meal would have rounded it off perfectly. The sooner he got back to his squad and finished the job in hand, the sooner he’d be able to indulge. He steered the speeder into the woods and headed south with newly uplifted spirits.
Pinpricks of light formed a small constellation ahead of Etain. They might have been a kilometer away, or they might have been within arm’s reach: she couldn’t tell by sight alone.
But she could certainly smell their breath. It was a cloying, sickly scent of raw meat. She swiped her lightsaber across the entrance to the shelter, and the gdans scattered. She had tried using the Force to persuade them to bother someone else, but it only succeeded in making them more curious, although they had stopped trying to take bites out of her.
How do you do it, Jinart? How do you keep them at bay? She sat huddled under the covering Darman had constructed and listened to the water working its way down through the leaves. The rain had stopped, but the runoff was still trickling through and plopping on the sheet of plastoid above her head. She could hear again, at least in one ear.
She could also see very clearly. What she saw was the face of the Umbaran she’d almost decapitated with her lightsaber. Panic and fear had pushed the event from her mind, but now that she was quiet and tired, it flooded back and wouldn’t go away.
Etain tried to meditate for the first time in days, shutting out the irritating drip of water on her head. Darman prowled around outside, silent and unnerving. She could feel him ebbing and flowing; anxious, even a little scared, but focused and devoid of violence or inner conflict.