Part 6 (2/2)
”Done,” A'den said. ”But scrub the scaly look, because Mar-its don't go into the cities now, except to shoot the locals. That's why a human's best suited to do a.s.sa.s.sinations. Once you've got your bearings, I want two of you to recce Eyat again and get a few spycams planted. The Marits can't go in unnoticed, and whatever intel Sull put together went with him.”
”Sull?” said Fi.
”Alpha-Thirty,” A'den said. ”That was his name. Sull.”
Darman finished his stew and watched A'den. He wasn't pleased, that much was obvious. Maybe it was having to fol-low up on an Alpha ARC when he thought he had more important business. Maybe it was just normal irritation at being tasked to carry out a mission that looked pointless and wasn't resourced. He worked alone, and that had to take its toll on any man's will.
Niner sc.r.a.ped out his mess tin and rinsed it clean with water from his bottle. ”I think we should be concentrating our forces on kicking the osik out of the main Sep home-worlds,” he said suddenly. ”Because if we keep this up, we'll be down to one clone per planet, showing the locals a field manual on how to throw stones.”
A'den turned his head slowly and parted his lips as if to speak. He paused. He seemed to be measuring his words.
”You're in good company,” he said. ”Lots of us do, including General Zey. But the Chancellor wants to avoid too much collateral damage. No pounding, no surging, no offending the civvies.”
”No resources.”
”Enough resources not to lose, but not enough to win,” A'den said. ”He's just feeding a stalemate, the moron.”
Darman thought it was time they got on with making friends with the Marits. He stood up and ambled over to the lizards, wondering if there might be anything in Eyat that he could acquire for Etain. It was hard to think of anything that a Jedi might want. They avoided possessions.
”You know what's been bothering me?” Fi's voice drifted across the center of the camp. The Marits had finished calibrating the artillery piece and were admiring it. ”What if the war had broken out when we were five years into our training instead of eight, nine ... ten?”
”What?” A'den asked.
”n.o.body knows when a war's going to start, not years ahead, anyway. It's not like you can book one in advance. So there we are, fully trained, and then it all kicks off. Very lucky. What if it had all gone to poodoo years before? What if we'd been half trained, still just kids?”
”Then we'd have been fighting in diapers,” Atin muttered. ”Because the Republic didn't have any other army worth a mott's backside.”
Fi raised an eyebrow. ”Shabla lucky, if you ask me.”
”Time to move it,” A'den said sharply, and Darman suspected he was breaking up the speculation for a reason. Judging by the expression on Fi's face, he felt that, too. ”I'll bring you up to speed with the local situation, and you can spend the rest of the day getting to know our allies.”
The longer the war went on, the less sense it made to Dar-man. After years of clear certainty in training-knowing what he had to do, and why he would have to do it, because there had never been any doubt in anyone's mind that they would one day be deployed-the reality of the war didn't match any of it. Shambolic organization, indecisive leader-s.h.i.+p from the top, and... too many gray areas. The more places he was sent, the more things Darman saw that made him ask why they didn't just let planets cede from the Re-public. Life would go on.
Fi's thinking was getting to him. Every thought now started with a why.
Stay busy. There was nothing he could about it now except get on with his job. He smiled at the Marits. ”I'm Darman,” he said, holding out his hand for shaking. ”Want me to show you how to make shrapnel out of a droid?”
Chapter 3.
No, General Zey-finding Chief Scientist Ko Sai is as much a priority as locating General Grievous. Our survival depends on a strong army, and that means the highest-quality clones-conscription of ordinary citizens is a poor second and would be politically unacceptable. Find her, if only to deny the Separatists her expertise. You have the best intelligence a.s.sets the Republic has ever known. So I'll accept no excuses.
-Chancellor Palpatine, to Jedi general Arligan Zey, Director of Special Forces, Grand Army of the Republic * * *
DeepWater-cla.s.s s.h.i.+p Aay'han, Mygeeto s.p.a.ce, 471 days after Geonosis Fierfek.” Skirata sighed, watching the transponders mapped on the c.o.c.kpit holochart. The picket of s.h.i.+ps around Mygeeto made it look as if it were ringed by its own constellation. ”I know Bacara's keeping them busy down there, but that's still quite a gauntlet to run.”
”And we're a forty-five-meter cargo s.h.i.+p,” Ordo said. ”Just a laser cannon by way of armament. Mandalorian crew in full beskar'gam. Definitely not a Republic vessel.”
”What d'you think, just walk in?”
”Could do. Nothing links us to the Republic. And I always carry a range of current transponder codes, so that's an easy fix.”
”Well, we won't win a battle with a wars.h.i.+p, so that's our choice made for us.”
”Of course, a submersible's sensors are perfect for getting an accurate three-dimensional scan of the site.”
”In we go, then, Ord'ika.”
Ordo studied the long-range orbital scan of the landing site. It was a vast glacier in a landscape of sheet ice and crystal rock. The penetrating scan showed few creva.s.ses, but the sheet was honeycombed with irregular tunnels that meandered around one another like tangled yarn and occasionally crossed. The straight, uniform outlines of the ventilation shafts were easy to identify by contrast. Around the warm shafts, underground lakes of melted water had formed, capped by thinner ice sheets. Ordo copied the section of holochart to his datapad and didn't even have to do the calculations to realize that searching each tunnel in the site that Delta had pinpointed would take days.
Too long.
An idea formed immediately in his mind, as well as a theory on what had happened to Vau. He might have fallen into the warren of tunnels-or through the ice into the liquid water beneath.
It wasn't good either way.
”Crystal-worm runnels,” Ordo said. ”It's fascinating how life-forms survive even in the most extreme places.”
”If Vau's out in those temperatures,” said Skirata, ”he won't be one of them. It's been hours. Even in his beskar'gam, the seals won't keep out that kind of cold indefinitely.”
Ordo slid his electronic tool case out of his sleeve and took out an overwrite probe. He selected a randomly generated transponder code with a Mandalore prefix, and Aay'han ceased to register as licensed on Mon Calamari.
”Okay, Kal'buir, now or never.”
He maneuvered Aay'han into a landing trajectory and wondered whether to brazen it out by pinging Mygeeto Traffic Control and requesting permission to land. No water on board, a civilian vessel that anyone could scan to confirm its configuration-he'd sort that the moment they got out of here-and a couple of wandering meres at the helm: even with a battle going on, he might get away with it.
He opened the traffic frequency. ”Mygeeto TC, this is Mandalorian cargo vessel Aay'han. Request permission to set down for replenishment.”
The pause was longer than he expected. ”Aay'han, this is Mygeeto TC. For Mandalorians, you're remarkably slow to notice we have hostilities ongoing.”
”Mygeeto, scan our tanks for water.”
The next pause was even longer. ”Aay'han, we note your tanks are zeroed. Unfortunately, our city facilities are closed. Remember the hostilities?”
If he was turned away now, he'd blown it. They'd drawn Mygeeto's attention to them. ”Mygeeto, there appears to be water just under the surface west of the hostilities, and Mandalore does give a.s.sistance to the CIS. We'll refill at our own risk.”
”Aay'han, okay, go ahead, and don't try to sue us if you sustain damage or injury. Make sure you're off the planet in two standard hours.”
Ordo felt his shoulder muscles relax. He hadn't realized he'd tensed them. ”Mygeeto, understood.”
He closed the link. Skirata winked at him and grinned. Kal'buir was proud of him, and it made him feel as safe and confident now as it had when he was a small child.
”It's amazing how rarely you need to use force,” he said, relieved.
Without the coordinates from Delta, Ordo knew he wouldn't have known where to start the search for Vau. Mygeeto's surface was a windswept icescape, dazzlingly pretty for a few minutes and then fatally disorienting. Ordo set Aay'han down between cliffs on the edge of the underground lake and sealed his armor, and as he opened the hatch the wind shrieked and howled. He slid off the hull, and Skirata dropped down beside him.
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