Part 8 (1/2)
Scorch chuckled approvingly as they clunked their way down the corridor toward the mess with Maze at their heels. ”You think Skirata would really eat a Kaminoan?”
Fixer managed a sentence, which was good going for him. ”Only if he had hot sauce.”
”What do you think they serve us? That isn't rollerfish on the menu.” Scorch half turned as he walked, trying to drag Sev into the conversation. ”You okay, Sev?”
”Terrific.” They couldn't mention Vau in front of Maze. As far as Zey was concerned, Vau had done the Mygeeto recce and banged out. He certainly hadn't robbed a bank and plunged down some ice hole to freeze to death, if he hadn't already broken his neck. ”Never better.”
The sound of boots walking briskly down the corridor be-hind them broke into a clatter. Jusik caught up, looking flushed and almost pleased with himself. ”I'll keep this lot in line, Captain,” he said to Maze. ”I'm sure you've got better things to do than make them finish their greens.”
Maze turned on his heel immediately and began walking back to the command center. ”Whatever it is you're doing,” he said, ”thank you for not involving me in it-sir.”
Maze wasn't stupid. He didn't want to stand between two Jedi generals playing a game. n.o.body in their right mind would. Boss stood back to let Jusik enter the mess first.
”Well, General?”
”I feel that Vau is alive.”
”And we left him behind,” Sev said. ”We don't do that.”
Jusik took Sev's arm discreetly and applied a little pres-sure. ”And you were out of options, Private. If he'd wanted extracting, he'd have asked.”
Scorch grabbed a plate of seedbreads and slapped them on a table to mark his territory. Few of the other commandos sat near Delta at mealtimes because they were one of the last complete squads who'd been decanted together in Tipoca City and stayed together this far. Heavy casualties in the early days of the war-Sev hated himself for believing all that guff about Jedi being invincible military geniuses- meant that most commando squads had been re-formed at least once and just didn't have that extra cohesion that Delta did, Sev was sure. All but one of Vau's squads had stayed in one piece; he might have been a savage instructor, but it was all for their own good. He said so. It was true.
”So what now, sir?” Boss asked. ”How do we make this disappear? The voice traffic with Skirata?”
”Don't kid yourself that Zey doesn't know something went on.” Jusik could switch from being a goofy kid to a hard man in an instant. He seemed to be learning a lot from Skirata. ”He has to at least pretend to stick to the rules. Leave it to me. Those comlink records will vanish before anyone knows they exist.”
”Thank you, sir.”
”You made the right call to pa.s.s the problem to me instead of Zey,” Jusik said. ”You might feel disloyal, but what he doesn't officially know can't get him in trouble.”
”Will you let us know when they find him?”
” 'Course I will. If anyone can extract him, Kal'buir and Ord'ika can.” Jusik grabbed a seedbread from Scorch's plate and got up to leave. ”The Force tells me things will work out.”
Sev watched him go. If the Force was that chatty, it should have been telling the Jedi about useful strategic stuff, not vague fortune-telling.
”Kal'buir,” Fixer mocked.
Boss didn't seem too upset about Vau to eat. ”Wow, he's got it bad, little Jusik, hasn't he?”
”Regular little Mando 'ad...”
”Hey, our sarge is missing.” Sev clenched his teeth to keep his voice as low as he could. ”Vau could be dead, and you can eat and joke? We abandoned him. We left him to die. We never leave a man behind, guys.”
The other three stared at him like he was telling them something they didn't know. ”Take it easy, Sev. We're all worried.”
”Best thing we can do,” Scorch said, ”is do our job and let everyone else do theirs.”
”You get that gem of wisdom off a ration pack label?” Sev snapped.
”Shut up and eat. You'll think straighter on a full stomach and a few hours' sleep.” Scorch grabbed a pa.s.sing server droid. ”Full Corrie breakfast for the young psychopath here, tinnie.”
Sev ate too fast to taste the food, but at least it filled a hole, as Fi would have said if the annoying little jerk had been here. Sev wasn't sure if he missed Omega or not. On balance, he did.
And it was all for a few credits. There weren't enough credits in the galaxy to make it worth leaving a comrade be-hind. Sev could imagine nothing worse.
If he ever saw Vau alive again, he wondered if he'd have the guts to apologize to him.
Mygeeto, DeepWater submersible Aay'han, depth fifty-eight meters, 471 days after Geonosis Skirata wasn't sure if the fluid dripping off his nose and chin was spray from the melting ice or his own sweat.
They'd been hacking at the ice face for an hour now, and the s.p.a.ce was too confined for both of them to work at the same time. They took turns. Skirata found he needed it: it was hot, damp, and numbing labor. Melting was useless. It seemed to be freezing again as fast as it thawed. He put his full weight against an inadequate hydrocutter and took an-other chunk of ice out of what he saw as a six-meter tunnel. His hands were numb and tingling from the vibration.
I'm getting too old for this.
Vau, why the shab are we even bothering? I put my boy at risk for this?
Ordo tapped him on the shoulder. ”Break, Kal'buir.”
Skirata put the cutter on standby and found he could hardly move his legs. Ordo, with that perfect silent under-standing, grabbed him by his boots and hauled him out of the air lock tube. Skirata leaned against the bulkhead and then slid down it in exhaustion. His hands felt lifeless. He shook them hard to stop the tingling.
It wasn't the time to say that they could have left Vau. They were both at the stage where they couldn't think of much beyond the next minute and the next chunk of ice pulled free and pushed out onto the deck. The cargo bay deck was scattered with wet gravel freed by the melt: the pristine white landscape disguised how much debris there was in the compressed snow.
There was another thunk from the air lock like a brick falling off a wall. Skirata struggled to his feet and stepped in to clear the ice out of Ordo's way. Even the noise of the cut-ting disc couldn't drown out Mird's whining and yelping, and he wondered if the strill would claw clean through the hatch to get out of the locked storage compartment. Even if no-body else loved Vau, that animal certainly did.
The good thing about repet.i.tive and desperate physical labor was that it stopped you from speculating too much on things like the ice that had refrozen across the lake, the possibility that the lake wall would collapse under the weight of the water anyway, and that, working now without their sealed armor, they'd drown if the boarding tube gave way.
Clunk.
Ordo was young, strong, and fit. He was removing the ice a lot faster than Skirata could.
”Rewarming,” Ordo yelled. Skirata was partially deaf from too much time spent around loud explosions without a helmet, but he could hear him. ”When we get Vau out, he's bound to have hypothermia, however good his armor is. Got to get him thawed.”
”What?”
”Rescue breathing. Warm air in the lungs. Mouth-to-mouth.”
Skirata wasn't thinking fast enough. ”Osik.”
”Maybe Mird can do it...”
The one thing they had plenty of now was hot water. The tanks were full. Vau could at least have warm compresses.
”Warm sugar water.” Ordo grunted with effort, and there was another clunk. He was going well. ”It's all about raising core temperature.”
Skirata broke out his ration pack. He never imagined he'd give Walon Vau his last energy blocks. Here he was, worrying about a chakaar who'd beat his men badly enough to put them in a medcenter, when he had his boys, Jusik, a pregnant Etain, and now Besany Wennen to fret over, and they all deserved his efforts a lot more than Vau.
”Chakaar,” he said to himself.