“They're just so … ordinary.”
“And now they're so dead,” said Sev.
Ordo cut in. “We're done here, vode. Time to go.” He put his gloved hand on Skirata's shoulder. “Nine minutes, Kal'buir. Could have been faster, but it's done. Let's go.”
Skirata caught Darman's arm and followed Jusik. I can still fight: I'm still pretty good. But he wasn't as good as young men at the peak of their abilities, and he needed to do something about that if he wasn't going to be a liability to them one day.
He'd worry about that later, like his ankle. Now they had to wait on Vati and Etain, who were still out hunting.
Quadrant F-76, somewhere north of the CoruFresh depot, 2305 hours, 385 days after Geonosis
The strill was a little bright light of pure joy as it raced along the walkway ahead of Etain and Vau. There were still a few pedestrians around, leaving factories and workshops for the night, and Vau had taken off his helmet. A dull black armored chest plate didn't attract attention, it seemed, but this wasn't a neighborhood where a distinctive Mandalorian visor would pass unnoticed.
The strill had the man's scent. He had a head start on them but Mird was not to be shaken off, and Etain could follow the trail of panic and fear almost as well as the animal could. She could locate the area: Mird could track by scent once she had narrowed down a search zone for it.
This is a strange thing for a pregnant woman to be doing. Can my son sense whats happening around him yet? I hope not.
Vau kept close behind her, jogging at a steady pace.
“I'm very impressed,” he panted. “You and the strill work very well together. I do wish Kal could see this.”
Etain imagined this was how Vau hunted with Mird, silent and persistent, covering the ground hour after hour until they had cornered their prey or run it down. The man who had managed to flee the attack on the landing strip had led them into a maze of run-down apartment towers on the edge of the industrial zone.
After a while Etain caught up with Mird and found it crouched impatiently by a set of doors leading into a shabby residential building. A couple of unpleasant-looking youths lounging on the corner of the walkway began ambling toward her, leering, but then Mird opened its huge maw and let out a warning rumble. Vau appeared around the corner, the Verpine rifle raised in one hand.
The youths fled.
“And they say young people today have no intelligence,” Vau said. He took a hand disrupter out of his belt and thrust it into the door panel. The doors parted. “In you go.”
Mird raced ahead and skidded to a halt at the turbolift, turning its head to gaze pleadingly at its master. Vau put a finger to his lips and pointed up. They got in the turbolift and the strill pressed its nose to the small gap between the doors as the car ascended. As they passed the 134th and 135th floors, it grew frantic and its tail thrashed the floor, but it didn't make a sound. Vau stopped the lift at the 136th floor and they got out. There was an emergency staircase between floors. Etain broke the seal with a Force-assisted push and started down the stairs.
“Oya, Mird! Hunt!”
Mird shot past her. She could feel the disturbance in the Force, and their respective instincts took them both to the 134th floor. Mird snuffled along the passage and came to a halt outside an apartment door, settled on its haunches, and stared intently at the door panel.
Vau put a restraining hand on her arm. “I know a Mandalorian regards a female warrior as his equal, my dear, but I feel I should offer to do this job myself.”
“I'll do it,” she said. She had to.
Vau disrupted the lock. The strill ran into the hallway, almost flat to the floor, and Etain followed it, drawing both lightsabers.
It occurred to her that she might have stumbled upon a family here, and then been presented with a dilemma: a Jedi with two drawn lightsabers, a room full of witnesses, and a cowering terrorist. What would I do? What will I do? But she sensed that would not be the case. It was just another fear of how far she might be prepared to go.
She burst open each door with the Force, moving at a slight crouch, looking inside.
A stream of blasterfire spat out of one door and caught the strill on its quarters. Etain heard Vau gasp. Mird shrieked and spun around, one leg dragging, and then made to go in after its assailant, but she held out one arm and it stopped dead.
“Leave, Mird!” she whispered.
Etain took a breath then stepped into the room to meet another hail of blasterfire. She crossed the blue blades of energy and batted the bolts aside with a parting motion of her arms. I didn't know I could do that. It was pure instinct, drawn from deep within her and many years in the past.
She lunged forward for the kill. As always, she saw little and felt nothing tangible, no shock up her arms, no resistance as she swept the blades, but she felt the Force change. A brief light blazed and died.
She thumbed off Master Fuller's lightsaber and slid it into her tunic one-handed while keeping her own drawn just in case. She sensed nobody else. Mird limped into the room after her and she knew it was looking up into her face even though there was only the scattered light through the window from a city that was never completely dark.
“Oya,” she whispered, not knowing quite what the command might mean in this case.
But Mird rumbled quietly and sprang onto the body of the man she had killed. She shut down her lightsaber and walked out of the apartment, and Mird limped out a few moments later, crunching happily. She didn't look too closely at what it had in its jaws. It swallowed noisily.
“Poor Mird.” Vau sighed. “Here, baby, come here.” He scooped the strill up in both arms and carried it to the turbo-lift. One of its legs had been seared raw by the blaster.
Etain opened her comlink. “Kal, everyone is accounted for.”
“Good work,” Kars voice said. He sounded tired. “See you at the RV point.”
Mird let Etain place her hands on its leg to heal it as the lift made its way down to the ground floor. Vau carried it all the way back to the speeder. It was a big, heavy animal, but he refused to let it walk. Etain took it on her lap and eased its pain as Vau started the speeder and they headed for the RV point.
There seemed to be nothing Vau wouldn't do for Mird. He loved that animal.
RV point, two kilometers from CoruFresh depot, 2320 hours, 385 days after Geonosis
The strike team rendezvoused at a droid-operated construction site to the north of the depot. The droids needed no light to work by and the presence of a few strangely dressed humanoids in the near darkness would draw no attention.
Skirata counted the six speeders back in, gut churning until the last of the speeders arrived with Mereel and Corr astride. Corr was clutching the rotary blaster like a long-lost friend.
Good lad. I'll shift Coruscant and all its rotten moons to hang on to him, Zey. We can always train more troopers as commandos. Just watch me.
“All thermal plastoid accounted for?”
“Yes, Sarge.” Boss leaned against the bodywork of a speeder. “Want to check?”
“I trust you to count. Ordo can slip that back into stores tomorrow after it's been neutralized.”
“What's the final score?” Fi said.
Niner eased off his helmet. Even with the environment control inside his sealed suit, he looked as if he'd sweated out an ocean. He rubbed his face slowly with the palm of his glove. “Er … I think we took out twenty-six bad guys.”
“Twenty-four at the site,” Mereel said. “We swept the site and did a tally. It was a bit hard to tell in some places but we logged the blasters that had been fired by their EM traces. So I say twenty-four.”
“Plus Perrive and our friend in the apartment block,” Etain said.
“Definitely twenty-six.” Jusik was subdued. “I felt them.”