Part 6 (1/2)
”Sep force strength?” Niner asked.
”Apart from the locals, minimal.”
”I thought this was a hotbed of Sep activity that had to be neutralized p.r.o.nto.”
”Oh dear, ner vod, you've been taking intel at face value again, haven't you?” A'den built the fire with meticulous care, stacking branches and dry gra.s.ses on the mound and watching the flames grow. ”We better cure you of that.”
Fi peered into the pot of stew. ”It's okay, I've been teaching him sarcasm. He'll be ready for comic exaggeration soon.”
”Looks quite a nice peaceful place,” Atin said. ”Not exactly strategic.”
”Eyat?” A'den stirred the pot with a stick. It really did smell good. ”Lovely city. Clean, pretty buildings, lots of harmless fun to enjoy. And of no military use to us whatsoever.”
Darman kept an eye on the Gaftikari. Now that the sun was coming up, he could see that their light beige scales were slightly iridescent. They had sharp muzzles and small black eyes with disturbing red slit-like pupils. And he'd never seen so many varied weapons strung on one belt: they were more tooled up than Sergeant Kal in a bad mood. Their blades, blasters, and metal bars jingled like wind chimes. One tall lizard provided his own musical accompaniment as he walked, swinging his tail to balance under a load of E-Web parts.
”I see you taught them all about stealth, then,” Atin said.
A'den stared at him. ”Prudii warned me that you were an awkward customer.”
”Funny, Ordo warned Prudii I was argumentative.”
”Your reputation precedes you, then,” said A'den. ”They're good fighters. Trust me.”
”I hear a but coming,” said Niner. ”We're specially trained to hear that coming at a hundred klicks.”
”But.” A'den slopped the stew into their waiting mess tins. When Darman was this hungry, he'd eat flimsi packing cases. ”Yes, the but is that this is going to end in tears. Eyat-human city. All the cities are human settlements. But... scruffy little villages-lizard land.”
”So who are the Gaftikari?”
”They all are. Neither species is native. The human colonists brought in the lizard lads to build the place, and now the lizards want to run the show, on account of their numbers. Actually, the lizards are Marits.”
”Why are the Seps supporting the humans, then?”
”Because the Republic wants the kelerium and norax deposits here, or at least Shenio Mining does, and the humans are happier without Shenio moving in.”
”I'm lost,” said Niner.
”The Seps have offered to save Gaftikar from us.”
”So we're going to give them something to object to?”
”I don't make the policy. I just train guerrillas and slot bad guys.”
They lapsed into silence and ate the stew, which was actually remarkably tasty. The rebels-the Marits-had started a.s.sembling an E-Web without the manual, and the way a group of them cl.u.s.tered around the heavy blaster and handled the components gave Darman the impression that they swarmed over their enemies. There was something about the rapid and coordinated movements that reminded him of in-sects and unnerved him.
”Why are you a sergeant and the rest of the Nulls are officers?” Fi asked. ”Didn't you pa.s.s your promotion board?”
A'den didn't seem offended. It was hard to tell what would provoke a Null; sometimes it took nothing at all. ”I preferred to be an NCO. If it's good enough for Kal'buir, it's good enough for me.”
Fi seemed satisfied with the explanation. Atin was concentrating on his stew, and Niner was watching the Marits getting to grips with the large artillery piece.
”They're good at a.s.sembling things,” A'den said. ”Good visuospatial ability.”
It was the first time any of them had met A'den, and Dar-man was always keen to get the measure of another of Skirata's Nulls. How had he managed to keep them apart from the commandos during training for so many years? The young Nulls terrified the Kaminoans by running wild around Tipoca City, and that was about the only time the commando squads saw them: stealing equipment, sabotaging systems, and-Darman had never forgotten this-even scaling the supports of the huge domed ceilings, swinging around hundreds of meters above the floor and placing blasterfire to within centimeters of the Kaminoan technicians. The Nulls never cared, never seemed afraid: even then, they answered only to Kal Skirata, and the Kaminoans wouldn't dare cross Kal'buir.
Kal'buir said the Kaminoans had messed up the Nulls, and so they deserved what they got. If the Kaminoans com-plained, he said, he'd sort them. Skirata used sort as a euphemism for any form of violence, his specialist subject.
A Marit trotted over and peered into the stew, head jerking slightly like a droid. ”You like it?”
Atin, kneeling down to help himself to another portion, looked up innocently. The scar across his face-the one that Vau had given him-was a thin white line now. ”It's very tasty.”
”My great-grandmother!” the Marit beamed. It was weird to watch a lizard smile like a human. They seemed to have a double row of small triangular teeth. ”She'll be happy.”
Darman noticed A'den slide forward a little and try to interrupt the exchange. ”Atin...”
But Atin was off, being polite to the locals and taking his hearts-and-minds role seriously. ”Is it her recipe, then?”
”Atin...”
”It's her,” said the Marit, and wandered off. Atin stared into the bowl. There was a moment of complete silence, and A'den sighed. Fi put his knuckles to his mouth to stifle nervous laughter, but it didn't work. Niner chewed to a halt. Darman tried to be culturally sensitive and all that, but he was hungry, and the Marit seemed pleased they were enjoying the meal.
”Oh fierfek...” Atin put his mess tin down on the ground and sat back on his heels. He screwed his eyes shut tight, and judging by the way his lips compressed he was in serious digestive crisis, as Ordo called it. Then he rocked back on his heels, stood up, and bolted for the nearest bushes.
”He's throwing up,” Niner said, and went on eating. The faint sound of retching confirmed his diagnosis.
A'den shrugged. ”It's not like they killed her to eat her. It's how they dispose of their dead. They like to think they do their families some good after they're gone. It's rude not to tuck in.”
”Cultural diversity's a wonderful thing,” Fi observed, but he looked quite pale. ”What do they do for desserts?”
Niner fished out a chunk of lean meat and gazed at it, then popped it into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. Darman didn't know he could be so daring. ”I never thought I'd resort to cannibalism.”
”It's not cannibalism for us, Niner,” A'den said. ”Just for them.”
”That's the Grand Army for you.” Fi's face seemed back to its normal color again. ”See the galaxy, meet fascinating new species, and snack on them.”
”Well, we wouldn't be alone.” A'den looked up, all concern, as Atin walked back unsteadily from the bushes, wiping his mouth. ”You okay?”
”You did that deliberately. You could have told me before I started eating.”
”I said don't ask, and I said I hadn't.” Atin-quiet, methodical Atin-had been one of Vau's training company, not Skirata's. It showed. A'den stared at Atin, and Atin stared back. Niner rolled his eyes as if he was shaping up to separate them, and it wouldn't have been the first time that Atin needed hauling out of a confrontation. There was something about the way Vau trained his men that gave them a core of wildness, a complete inability to see sense and back down when pushed too far.
A'den almost broke into a grin. ”You tried to vibroblade Vau, didn't you? We all heard about that.”
Atin gave him the silent routine. Darman waited for A'den to run out of patience and give Atin a good slap, as Fi liked to call it, but he just shrugged and rummaged in his pockets. ”Okay,” said A'den. He found what he was looking for and tossed a ration bar across to Atin, who caught it. ”First, you can grow a shabla beard. Because you're going to have to in-filtrate Eyat, and they're not used to seeing quads. Mix your-selves up a bit and choose who gets to stay looking normal.”
Fi perked up immediately. ”I'll dress up as a lizard if I can have a trip into town.”