Part 2 (1/2)

”Hoping to avoid that, ma'am.”

”They've got DC-fifteens, remember. We armed them.”

”Not full spec, though.”

A cordon of clone troopers stood between Etain and the crowd, as white and glossy as the snow around them. In the distance, she could hear the grinding of gears as an AT-TE armored vehicle thudded around the perimeter of the temporary camp set up to oversee the human evacuation. The clone troopers, each man with Darman's sweetly familiar face, had their orders: the farmers had to leave.

They handled humanitarian missions surprisingly well for men who'd been bred solely to fight and had no idea of what normal family life was like. Well, not much different from me, then. As she came up behind them, they parted without even turning their heads. It was one of those things you could do with 360-degree helmet sensors.

In the front of the crowd, she recognized a face. She knew nearly all of them, inevitably, but Hefrar Birhan's eyes were the most difficult to meet.

”You proud of yerself, girl?”

Birhan stared at her, hostile and betrayed. He'd given her shelter when she'd been on the run from the local militia. She owed him more than kicking him out by force, tearing him away from the only home he'd ever known.

”I'd rather do my own dirty work than get someone else to do it,” said Etain. ”But you can start over, and the Gurlanins can't.”

”Oh-ah. That's the government line all of a sudden, since we served our purpose and cleared the planet for you.”

The farmers had weapons, as farmers always did, most of which were old rifles for dealing with the gdans that attacked grazing merlie herds, but some also had their Republic-issue Deeces. They held them casually, some just gripped in their hands, others resting in the crooks of their arms or slung across their backs, but Etain could feel the tension rising among both them and the line of troopers. She wondered if her unborn child could sense these things in the Force yet. She hoped not. He had enough of a war waiting for him.

”I preferred you to hear it from me than from a stranger.” Not true: she was here to hide her pregnancy. She couldn't help thinking that the awful duty served her right for deceiving Darman. ”You have to leave, you know that. You're being given financial aid to start over. There are established farms waiting for you on Kebolar. It's a better prospect than Qiilura.”

”It's not home” said a man standing a little behind Birhan. ”And we're not going.”

”Everyone else left weeks ago.”

” 'Cept two thousand of us that haven't, girl.” Birhan folded his arms: the sound of the AT-TE had stopped, and every wild noise carried on the still, cold air. Qiilura was so very, very quiet compared with the places she'd been. ”And you can't move us if we don't want to be going.”

It took Etain a moment to realize he meant violence rather than Force persuasion, and she felt a little ripple of anxiety in some of the troops. She and Levet had been authorized- ordered-to use force if necessary. Jinart slipped forward between the troops and sat on her haunches, and some of the farmers stared at her as if she were some exotic pet or hunting animal. Of course: they'd probably never seen a Gurlanin, or at least hadn't realized they had. There were so few of them left. And they could take any form they pleased.

”The Republic will remove you, farmer, because they fear us,” Jinart said. ”In this war, you now count for nothing. We use the power we have. So go while you can.”

Birhan blinked at the Gurlanin for a few moments. The only four-legged species the farmers saw were their animals, and none of them talked back. ”This is a big planet. There's plenty of room for all of us.”

”Not enough for you. You wiped out our prey. We've starved. You're destroying us by wiping out our food chain, and now it's our turn...”

”No more killing,” Etain snapped. Level eased through the line of troops and stood a little in front of her to her left: she could sense his readiness to intervene. Gurlanins didn't have weapons, but nature had made them efficient killers. They'd all seen plenty of evidence. ”These are difficult times, Birhan, and n.o.body gets a happy ending. You'll be far safer where you're going. Do you understand me?”

His gaze fixed on hers. He was frail and worn out, his eyes watery and red-rimmed from age and the biting, cold air. He might have been only the same age as Kal Skirata, but agriculture here was a brutal existence that took its toll. ”You'd never shoot us. You're a Jedi. You're all full of peace and pity and stuff.”

”Try thinking of me as an army officer,” she said softly. ”and you might get a different picture. Last chance.”

There were only so many ultimata she could give them, and that was the last. The compound gates opened with a metallic sc.r.a.pe, and Level moved the troops forward lo edge the crowd away. It was cold; they'd get fed up and wander home sooner or later. For a moment the sense of hatred and resentment in the Force was so strong that Etain thought the Qiilurans might start a riot, but it seemed to be just a staring contest, which was unwinnable against troops whose eyes they couldn't see. There was also the small matter of penetrating a wall of plasloid-alloy armor.

Levet's voice boomed from the voice projector in his helmet. Etain could have sworn that nearby branches s.h.i.+vered ”Go back to your farms and get ready to leave, all of you.

Report to the landing strip in seventy-two hours. Don't make this any harder than it is.”

”For you, or for us?” someone yelled from the crowd. ”Would you abandon everything you had and start again?”

”I'd willingly trade places with you,” Levet said. ”But I don't have the option.”

Etain couldn't help but be more interested in the clone commander for a moment. It was an odd comment, but she felt that he meant it, and that unsettled her. She was used to seeing Darman and the other commandos as comrades with needs and aspirations that n.o.body else expected them lo have, but she'd never heard a regular trooper openly express a wish for something beyond the GAR. It was uniquely poignant.

They'd all rather be somewhere else even if they're not sure what it is. All of them, like Dar, like me, like anyone.

She felt Levet's brief embarra.s.sment at his own frankness. But there was no gesture or head movement to indicate to anyone else that he was being literal.

I can't think of the whole galaxy any longer. My thoughts are with these slave soldiers, and that's as much caring as I can manage right now. I want them to live. Sorry, Birhan, I'm a bad Jedi, aren't I?

Etain had made that mental deal a long while ago. It wasn't the Jedi way, but then no Jedi had ever been faced with leading a conventional army and making brutally pragmatic combat decisions on a daily basis. No Jedi should have, as far as she was concerned, but she was in it now, and she'd make what difference she could lo the men around her.

”I'll give you three more days lo report lo the landing area with your families, Birhan.” Etain wanted to look a little more commanding, but she was small, skinny, and uncomfortably pregnant: the hands-on-hips stance wasn't going lo work. She put one hand casually on her lightsaber hilt instead, and summoned up a little Force help lo press insistently on a few minds around Birhan. I mean this. I won't back down. ”If you don't comply, I will order my troops to remove you by any means necessary.”

Etain stood waiting for the crowd to break up. They'd argue, complain, wait until the last moment, and then cave in. Two thousand of them: they knew they couldn't resist several dozen well-trained, well-armed troopers, let alone a whole company of them. That was the remnant of the garrison. They were keen to finish the job and rejoin their battalion, the 35th Infantry, ft was one of those things Etain found most touching about these soldiers: they didn't want to be doing what they called a ”cushy” job while their brothers were fighting on the front line.

She knew the feeling all too well.

Birhan and the rest of the farmers paused for a few moments, meters from the line of troopers, and then turned and trudged away in the direction of Imbraani, silent and sullen. Jinart sat watching them like one of those black marble statues on the s.h.i.+r Bank building in Coruscant.

Level c.o.c.ked his head. ”I don't think they're going to go quietly, ma'am. It might get unpleasant.”

”It's easier to charge battle droids than civilians. If it does, we disarm them and remove them bodily.”

”Disarming can be the rough bit.”

Yes, it was quicker and simpler to kill. Etain didn't enjoy the amoral pragmatism that always overtook her lately. As she lost her focus in the unbroken carpet of snow ahead of her, she thought the black specks that began to appear in her field of vision were her eyes playing the usual tricks, just cells floating in the fluid. Then they grew larger. The white blanket bulged and suddenly shapes began forming, moving, resolving into a dozen or so glossy black creatures exactly like Jinart.

They were Gurlanins, proving that they could be any-where, undetected. Etain shuddered. They trotted after the farmers, who seemed oblivious to them until someone turned around and let out a shout of surprise. Then the whole crowd turned, panicking as if they were being stalked. The Gurlanins seemed to melt into the snow again, flattening instantly into gleaming black pools that looked like voids and then merging perfectly with the white landscape. They'd vanished from sight. Several farmers were clutching their rifles, aiming randomly, but they didn't open fire. They didn't have a target.

It was a clear threat. You can't see us, and we 'II come for you in the end. Jinart had once shown what that meant when she'd taken revenge on a family of informers. Gurlanins were predators, intelligent and powerful.

”You can't feel them in the Force, can you, ma'am?” Levet whispered. One of the clone troopers seemed to be checking his rifle's optics, clearly annoyed that he hadn't spotted the Gurlanins with the wide range of sensors in both the weapon and his helmet ”At least we're working with the same limitations for a change.”

”No, I can't detect them unless they let me.” Etain had once mistaken the telepathic creatures for Force-users, feeling their presence tingling in her veins, but they could vanish completely to every sense when they chose-silent, invisible, without thermal profile, beyond the reach of sonar . . . and the Force. It still alarmed her. ”Perfect spies.”

Levet gestured to one of the troopers, and the platoon fanned out beyond the perimeter fence. ”Perfect saboteurs.”

General Zey thought so, too. So did the Senate Security Council. Gurlanins were on Coruscant, in the heart of the Republic's intelligence machine, maybe in a hundred or even a thousand places where they couldn't be seen, and where they could do immense damage. If the Republic didn't honor its deal with them sooner rather than later, they could-and would-throw a huge hydrospanner in the works, and no-body would see it corning.

”I'm new to this,” Etain said. ”Why do we seem to create enemies for ourselves? Recruiting spies and then alienating them? Isn't that like handing someone your rifle and turning your back on them?”

”I suppose I'm new to this, too,” said Levet. They headed back lo the headquarters building. Poor man: he'd only seen a dozen years of life, and all he'd ever known was combat. ”I stay away from policy. All I can do is handle what comes down the pike at us.”

Etain had to ask. ”Would you really swap places with a farmer?”

Levet shrugged. But his casual gesture didn't fool her Jedi senses. ”Farming looks quite challenging. I like the open s.p.a.ces.”