Republic Commando: Hard Contact

3

CLASSIFIED, HIGHEST: ENCRYPTION ONLY

You’re the best in your field–the best soldiers, tacticians, sappers, communicators, survival experts. I picked you personally because I want you to train the best commandos in the galaxy. You’ll have everything you need, whatever you want, except one thing–home. This is a top-secret project. You’ll not tell anyone where you’re going and you’ll not leave Kamino, ever. As far as your friends and family are concerned, you’re already dead.

–Jango Fett, recruiting his handpicked commando instructors, the Cuy’vul Dar—in the Mandalorian tongue, “those who no longer exist”

The Neimoidians had a taste for elaborate and wholly inap­propriate grandeur, and Ghez Hokan despised them for it.

Lik Ankkit’s huge villa was set on top of a hill overlooking a kushayan plantation—a foolish choice given the prevailing winds, but it seemed to satisfy the Neimoidian’s need to show he was boss. The location might have made sense from a military perspective, but—as Ankkit was a bean-counting coward like all of his kind—he didn’t need defensibility, ei­ther.

No, the Neimoidian was a di’kut. A complete and utter di’kut.

Hokan ran up the hedge-flanked steps of the veranda span­ning the entire front of the building, headdress tucked under one arm, his shatter gun, knives, and rope-spike provoca­tively visible in his belt.

He wasn’t rushing to see his paymaster, oh no. He was just in a hurry to get the meeting over with. He ignored the ser­vants and minions and swept into Ankkit’s spacious office with its panoramic view of the countryside. Qiilura’s com­mercial overlord was watering pots of flowers on the win­dowsill. He paused to flick one with his fingertip, and it sprayed a powerful, sickly scent into the air. He inhaled with parted lips.

“I do wish you would knock, Hokan,” Ankkit said without turning around. “It’s really most discourteous.”

“You summoned me,” Hokan said flatly.

“Merely checking on the progress of your conversations with the Jedi.”

“Had there been any, I would have called you.”

“You haven’t killed him, have you? Do tell me you haven’t. I need to know if his activities will affect market prices.”

“I’m not an amateur.”

“But one has to do the best with the staff one has, yes?”

“I do my own dirty work, thanks. No, he isn’t talking. He’s rather… resistant for a Jedi.”

If Ankkit had had a nose, he would have been looking down it at Hokan. Hokan controlled an impulsive urge to cut this glorified shopkeeper, this grocer, down to size. For all his height, the Neimoidian was soft and weak, his only strength contained within his bank account. He blinked with passionless, liquid red eyes. Hokan almost—almost–reached for his rope-spike.

“Jedi do not visit worlds like this to take the therapeutic waters, Hokan. Have you confirmed that he has an associ­ate?”

“He’s a Jedi Master. He was seen with a Padawan.”

“Not a very discreet Jedi Master, it seems.”

Fulier couldn’t have been good at calculating odds or he’d never have started on Gar-Ul in the tavern. But at least he was prepared to stand up for himself, despite all that soft mystical nonsense he spouted. Hokan admired guts, even if he rarely tolerated them. They were always in short supply.

“We’ll find the Padawan, and we’ll find out what intelli­gence Fulier has, if any.”

“Make sure you do. I have a lucrative contract resting on this.”

Hokan had become practiced at controlling his urge to lash out, but he saw no reason to subject his mouth to the same discipline. “If I succeed, it’ll be because I take pride in my work.”

“You need the credits.”

“For the time being. But one day, Ankkit, I won’t need you at all.”

Ankkit gathered his robes a little closer and drew himself up to his full height, which had no effect on Hokan at all.

“You must learn to accept your reduced station in the galactic order, Hokan,” Ankkit said. “This is no longer the hierarchy of brute force in which your warrior ancestors thrived. Today we need to be soldiers of intellect and com­merce, and no amount of strutting around in that museum-piece uniform will revive your… glorious past. Alas, even the great Jango Fett succumbed to a Jedi in the end.”

News traveled fast. Fett was a source of pride among the remaining handful of Mandalorians in diaspora. Even if he fought for money, he was the best. Ankkit must have known perfectly well how much that comment would sting.

Hokan was determined that the Neimoidian would see no evidence on his face to prove it. He’d certainly tried to keep that out of his mind when he was interrogating Fulier, much as he wanted to blame all Jedi for the humiliation of a cul­tural hero. He had to be clear why he was smashing the Jedi’s bones. Revenge was unprofessional.

He took a careful breath. “Do you keep gdans as pets, Ankkit? I hear some offworlders do try.”

“Gdans? No. Filthy little creatures. Most savage.”

“But if you did keep one, and didn’t feed it well, would you be surprised if it bit you?”

“I suppose not.”

“Then feed me well.”

Hokan turned and walked out without being dismissed, deliberately unbidden, and deliberately fast so that Ankkit couldn’t have the last word. He replaced his helmet and ran down the steps of the ludicrously extravagant villa.

He didn’t care if Ankkit rented the whole planet out to Separatist scientists. They weren’t honorable enough to fight with real weapons, either: they got bugs to do their work for them. It was a disgrace. It was unnatural.

Hokan felt in his blood-red jacket for the Jedi’s weapon. It didn’t look like much at all. And it was surprisingly easy to activate, even though he suspected that fully mastering it might be another matter. A humming blue shaft of light, vivid as day, shot out from the hilt. Hokan swept it scythe-style along a neatly clipped tarmul hedge, cutting its height in half.

The lightsaber wasn’t bad for a soft Jedi weapon.

Hokan suspected the lightsaber looked at odds with his traditional Mandalorian helmet and its distinctive T-shaped eye slit. But a warrior had to adapt.

And Fulier had questions to answer.

Docking Bay D-768, Fleet Support Air Station, Ord Mantell

The Nar Shaddaa agri-utility crop sprayer on the pad looked as if only its rust was holding it together. It was, to use Jusik’s uncharacteristically colorful description, an old clunker.

And—somehow—it was taking them to Qiilura. It wouldn’t attract much attention flying over farming country, unless, of course, it broke up in flight. This didn’t seem out of the ques­tion.

“Well, they don’t build them like that anymore,” Fi said.

“That’s because not even the Hutt Aviation Authority would certify this Narsh dirt-crate airworthy,” Niner said, straining to prevent his pack from bending him over back­ward. He was laden with nearly double the twenty-five-kilo weight he was used to carrying, along with a powered emer­gency chute. Niner had never actually come across the HAA, but he’d absorbed every scrap of intel read, seen, or heard in his life. “Anyway, all it has to do is get us down there.”

“It’s making a noble sacrifice,” Jusik said, suddenly right behind them. He smiled and murmured dirt-crate to himself as if it amused him. Niner wondered for a moment if he’d broken protocol by using the phrase. “Are you certain you can do this? I could ask Master Zey if he would allow me to accompany you.”

Niner wanted to laugh, but you didn’t laugh at a Jedi, es­pecially one who seemed to care what happened to you. “We lost too many officers at Geonosis, sir. They can’t grow you to order.”

The Padawan lowered his eyes for a second. “It’s consider­ate of you to think of me as an officer, Sergeant.”

“You’re a commander now, sir. We won’t let you down. There’s nobody better prepared for this than us.”

“This is your first special operation, isn’t it?”

“Yes sir.”

“Doesn’t that worry you?”

“No sir. Not at all. The six P’s, sir. Proper Planning Pre­vents Pi… Inadequate Performance, sir.”

Jusik appeared to be counting and then raised his eye­brows. “This is real, Sergeant.”

Ah. For all their skills and wisdom, there were still some things that even Jedi didn’t know. Niner hesitated to lecture Jusik.

Real. Oh yes, Niner knew what real was, all right.

Padawan Bardan Jusik had certainly never seen the Killing House on Kamino. He’d never stormed the building, with its twisting corridors and innumerable flights of stairs; he didn’t know how many commandos died in training when the rounds were live and the terrorists—or whoever the di­recting staff were being that day—aimed to kill, and fre­quently did.

He also had no idea what it was like spending four days lying prone in a scrape in the undergrowth on observation, rifle ready, urinating where you lay because you couldn’t move and give away your position. He had no idea how you learned to judge the amount of charge required for rapid entry to a building the hard way, because if you didn’t get it just right, in a hurry and under fire, it could blow your head clean off. Two-Eight had learned that way.

Jusik didn’t know just how far and how long you could carry a wounded comrade when you had to. He probably didn’t even know how to perform an emergency field tra­cheotomy with a vibroblade and a clean length of fuel line.

It wasn’t Jusik’s fault. He had far bigger issues to worry about. There was no reason for a Jedi commander to concern himself with the details of a clone commando’s life. But Niner thought he probably would, and he admired the Padawan all the more for that.

“We’ll be fine, sir,” Niner said. “The training is quite real­istic.”

Inside the shabby Narsh vessel, the tanks had been stripped out, and the bulkheads lined with securing straps and stealth sheeting that would render the ship’s cargo invisi­ble to any probe or scan.

Niner realized that four men would be pretty cramped in there with packs and weapons. A couple of BlasTech E-Web repeating blasters were already stowed, and, at Atin’s request, two Trandoshan LJ-50 concussion rifles.

Atin’s livid face wound was looking less alarming now, but he’d always have a scar: the bacta spray could fix plenty if you used it soon enough, but it couldn’t reverse scarring. He pulled himself through the open hatch with an APC array blaster in one hand and his DC-17 strapped across his chest, just about keeping his balance under the weight of his pack. Darman, acting as loadmaster, gave him a helpful leg up and eyed the blaster.

“Got a thing for Trandoshan technology?” Darman asked.

“This’ll deal with shields better than our E-Web,” Atin replied. “And the LJ-fifty is a nice backup when we take out the facility. Just in case. Republic doesn’t make all the best gear.”

Niner wondered if Atin ever talked about anything but gear. His squad must have been a miserable bunch, with a miserable instructor. Clones might have looked utterly stan­dardized to outsiders, but every squad was altered slightly by the cumulative effects of its experiences, including the influ­ences of the individual trainers. Every commando battalion had its own nonclone instructor, and seemed to take on some of his—or her—unique characteristics and vocabulary.

We learn, Niner thought. We learn fast, and unfortunately we learn everything. Like dirt-crate.

Every squad developed its own dynamics, as well. It was part of their hardwired human biology. Put four men in a group, and soon you’d have a pecking order defined by the roles and foibles that accompanied them. Niner knew his, and he thought he knew Fi’s, and he was pretty sure he knew where Darman was heading. But Atin wasn’t sliding into place just yet.

Fi had a Geonosian force pike. He hefted it and smiled.

“Where’d you get that?” Atin asked, suddenly interested.

“Souvenir of Geonosis,” Fi said, and winked. “Seemed a shame to waste it.” He flipped it over in his hand and twirled it, arm outstretched, missing Atin by a calculated handspan. He didn’t react. “You wouldn’t even need to use the power setting, would you? This thing’s heavy” He brought it down in a slicing movement. “Wallop. That’ll make their eyes water.”

“I don’t think I need any souvenirs of Geonosis,” Atin said. His tone was distinctly frosty. “Indelibly etched, you might say.”

“Hey—”

Niner cut in. “Chat later,” he said. “Shift it, people.”

Niner already knew he would have his work cut out with Atin and wondered if anything would trigger his natural urge to be one of the squad. He also wondered about his apparent negativity. He’ll shake down, sooner or later. He’ll have to.

Backing up to a convenient ledge on the port bulkhead, Niner unclipped his backpack. Forty-five kilos lighter, he eased between Fi and Atin, and peered into the cockpit.

An R5 droid was at the controls. The unit was still fueling up the vessel from a droid bowser, burbling and whistling to itself. Niner leaned across to plug his datapad into the con­sole to confirm the flight plan and synchronize it with the vessel’s actual path.

The R5 didn’t take any notice. It would fly the route it was given.

Improvising, thinking on his feet, making the most of the resources at hand, were all part of operating as a commando. But so was acquiring adequate intelligence. What they had wasn’t enough to plan a mission, and that meant they would either have to acquire it in the field, or fail. Niner didn’t want to fail Padawan Jusik. He ejected his datapad and edged back to the hatch, trying not to clip Fi or Atin.

“Comm silence from the time you take off,” Jusik said, leaning through the open hatch. “The assault ship the Majes­tic is diverting to Qiilura, and will remain on station a parsec from the planet until she receives your request for extraction. Then gunships will be at your transmitted location within the hour.”

Niner almost asked just how long the Majestic might wait, but he feared it would look as if he doubted his squad’s com­petence. He knew the answer: the ship would wait until Uthan was taken, even if that was several commando missions down the line. It wasn’t waiting for them.

“We won’t keep the Majestic waiting,” Niner said.

“Anything else you need?”

Niner shook his head. “No, Commander.”

Darman stood to one side of the ramp, like an honor guard, waiting for the Jedi to leave.

“Very well,” Jusik said, looking hesitant, as if he wanted to walk away but thought better of it. “I hope to debrief you on your return.”

Niner took that literally, although Jusik was looking at him as if it meant something else. It made sense for the Padawan commander to process whatever intel they might gain. Jusik turned and walked away, and Darman jumped inside. The hatch closed with a slight shudder, sending fine fragments of rusting metal to the deck.

It only has to land, Niner thought.

He switched on the holoprojection in his datapad and studied the three-dimensional flight path over fields, lakes, and forest. It was part real image, part simulation. Projected onto an existing chart, they were looking at an area thirty klicks north of a small town called Imbraani.

A single-story building with shabby sheet-metal roofing—ringed by an incongruously well-cut expanse of grass—nestled in a plantation of kuvara trees. Some of the image was blurred, but it was the best resolution that a surveillance remote could manage at that distance above the planet. Specks—people—wandered around an encircling path.

“It’s the capture alive bit that complicates matters,” Dar­man said, gazing at the image over Niner’s shoulder. “Or else we could just bomb it back into Hurt space.”

“That’s why they created us,” Niner said. “For the compli­cated jobs.”

He closed his eyes for a few moments to visualize the inser­tion: he saw it from takeoff to landing, smooth and planned, every detail, or as many details as their incomplete intel could furnish and his own experience of a hundred exercises could confirm.

In this detached state, something occurred to him. He pic­tured Jusik’s face and his awkward, nervous shrugs. He real­ized what the Padawan had meant when he said he was hoping to debrief them personally on their return.

He meant Good luck. He wanted them to survive.

Niner, who had known for as long as he could remember that he was a soldier bred to die, found that intriguing.

Gdans were about thirty centimeters long, fully grown, and it took a whole pack of them to bring down even a mer­lie calf. But at night—when they emerged from their warrens and hunted—the farmers locked their doors and stayed clear of the fields.

It wasn’t so much their teeth that the locals feared. It was the deadly bacteria the animals carried; a minor scratch or a bite was almost always fatal. And Master Fulier had used their entire supply of bacta spray in administering first aid to villagers, so Etain was as housebound at night as any of her hosts.

She could hear the little predators outside, squabbling and scrabbling. She sat cross-legged on the mattress and chewed on the thin-breads, almost hungry enough to gulp down the stew, but not that hungry. A few bacteria are good for your immune system, she thought. You’ve probably eaten worse without knowing.

But she knew this time.

Leaving the bowl where it stood, she rolled the holochart sphere over and over in her palms, running through all the possibilities for getting the information to the Jedi Council. Stow away in a transport—possible. Transmit the data from ground? No, all transmissions were tightly controlled by the Neimoidians; any other message traffic from Qiilura to Coruscant would draw instant attention. There was always the possibility of finding the right droid courier, but that was a long shot, and it might take so much time as to be useless.

Perhaps she’d have to do the job herself.

Lightsabers were superb weapons, but right now she needed an army. The realization that she had beaten the odds to obtain valuable information but was now unable to get it to those who needed it almost crushed her.

“I’m not done yet,” she said aloud. But she feared that she was, at least for the night. Her eyelids felt heavy and she braced her elbows on her knees, letting her head rest in her hands.

A good night’s sleep. She might have a better idea in the morning. Her eyes closed. Images of Coruscant, her clan practicing passing a ball by thought alone, a nice hot bath, food she trusted to be clean …

Then, suddenly, every fiber in her body leapt at once. Heart pounding, Etain thought at first that she’d had one of those half dreams of falling that sometimes came when she was dozing off. But now she was fully awake and knew that she hadn’t.

Something had changed. Something in the Force had been altered, and forever. She jumped to her feet, suddenly clear what it was; she needed no training or education to under­stand it. Every instinct coded in her genes cried out.

Something—someone–was gone from the Force.

“Master,” she said.

She had suspected he was dead. Now she knew he was, and she knew it had happened right then. It was impossible not to wonder how and where, but she knew enough about the Neimoidians’ hired muscle and their techniques to guess.

Ignoring the ever-present gdans, she went to the barn door and swung it open. It was an act of helplessness. There was nothing she could do, now or ever.

Something rustled in the grass. It was a solitary some­thing, and it sounded larger than a gdan. She noticed for the first time that the constant snuffling and squabbling of the gdan packs had stopped. They’d gone.

Etain felt for her lightsaber, just in case.

Loud squawking and a flurry of wings made her start. A disturbed flock of leatherbacks rose into the air and scattered in the darkness, trailing sparks of light from their scales. Through the Force, she detected only small creatures with simple desires, and a male merlie wandering along the fence, armed with such fearsome tusks that not even gdans would risk approaching him.

She looked up at the night sky. It appeared unchanging, constant: but she knew it never was.

They’re coming.

She thought she heard the old woman’s voice. Putting it down to grief and lack of sleep, Etain stumbled back inside and barred the door.

It was just another crop sprayer hired to dress the fields after the barq harvest, laden with bug killers and soil en­hancers and piloted by a droid. At least, that was what the Narsh crate’s transponder had told the Qiilura traffic controller, and judging by the absence of a missile up the tailpipe, he had believed it.

Darman was still exploring the enhancements to his hel­met and suit. “I used to think I wore this armor,” he said. “Now I think it’s wearing me.”

“Yeah, they spent some credits upgrading this since last time,” Fi said. “Wow. Walking weapons system, eh?”

“Two hundred klicks,” Atin said, without looking up from his datapad. He’d propped his helmet beside him with the tactical beam pointed up to provide some light in the closed bay. Darman couldn’t hear him over the noise of the vessel’s atmosphere engines, but he could lip-read easily enough. “Let’s hope everything works.”

It was helmets on at one hundred klicks. The squad was prepared both for a controlled landing and an early bailout and free fall if they were picked up by Separatist ground units. Darman hoped their luck would hold. They were landing heavy, with more gear than they’d ever used in training, and they’d have to hit the drop zone accurately to avoid an impossible trek across country. Accurate, if they had to jump for it, meant high-altitude low-opening procedure. They could drift for fifty klicks if they opted for the safer, slower high-opening technique.

Darman didn’t relish being defenseless in the air for that long.

Niner was studying his datapad, balancing it on his right thigh. A three-dimensional shimmering holo of their flight path played out a handspan above it. He glanced up at Dar­man and gave him a silent thumbs-up: On course and on target. Darman returned the gesture.

There was an art to loading up for a mission when carrying the firepower of a small army among four men. Darman had loaded his pack to capacity. The rest of his weapons and ordnance was in a second shockproof container that stood knee-high. The bowcaster—he loved that weapon—was strapped across his chest plate with jury-rigged webbing, to leave his hands free for the DC-17. He had an assortment of detonators, kept safely separate from the charges and other ordnance in the lower section. He was now so heavy even without the extra equipment that he had to bounce to get up­right from a sitting position. He rehearsed standing a few times. It was tough. Fortunately, the squad would be inserted close to the target. He didn’t have to haul it far.

“One hundred klicks,” Atin said. He switched off his spot-lamp. “Helmets.”

The compartment was suddenly dark, and there was a col­lective hiss of helmet seals purging and reengaging. They could only talk to each other at very short range now: on Qiilura, anything more than ten meters risked detection. The only visible light was the faint blue glow from the heads-up display in their visors, a group of ghostly disembodied T-shapes in the gloom, and the shimmering landscape playing out from Niner’s datapad. His head was tilted down slightly, watching the actual position of the utility vessel in the simulated landscape.

The sprayer started to lose height, exactly on course. In a matter of minutes, they would be—

Bang.

A shudder ran through the airframe, and then there was no engine noise at all.

For a second Darman thought they’d been hit by anti-aircraft fire. Niner was on his feet instantly, moving forward to the cockpit, accidentally whacking Atin with his pack as he turned. Darman, without conscious decision, grabbed the emergency hatch handle and prepared to activate it for a bailout.

Darman could see the droid clicking and flashing, appar­ently engaged in a dialogue of some kind with the vessel. The ship wasn’t listening.

“AA, Sarge?”

“Birdstrike,” Niner said, deceptively quiet. “Atmos en­gine’s fried.”

“Can the R5 glide this thing down?”

“It’s trying.”

The deck tilted, and Darman grabbed at the bulkhead to stay upright. “No, that isn’t gliding. That’s crashing.”

“Bang out,” Niner said. “Bang out now.”

The Narsh dirt-crate hadn’t let them down. It had just suc­cumbed to being in the wrong airspace at the wrong time, and met the local avian species the hard way. Now they were plummeting toward the kind of landing not even the latest Katarn armor could help them survive.

Darman blew the hatch, and the inrush of air sent dirt and debris whirling through the cargo bay. The door fell away through the opening. It was pitch black outside, a challenge for a free-faller even with night vision. Darman was starting to experience serious doubt for the second time in his life. He wondered if he was becoming one of those despised crea­tures that his training sergeant had called cowards.

“Go go go,” Niner shouted. Fi and Atin eased through the hatch and stepped out. Don’t try to jump, just let yourself fall. Darman stood back to make way for Niner: he wanted to salvage as much gear as he could. They needed the repeating blasters. He grabbed some of the dismantled sections.

“Now,” Niner said. “You first.”

“We need the gear.” Darman thrust two sections at him. “Take these. I’ll—”

“I said jump.”

Darman wasn’t a rash man. None of them were. They took calculated risks, though, and he calculated that Niner wouldn’t leave him. His sergeant was standing at the open hatch, arm held out imperiously, a clear sign to get on with it and jump. No, Darman had made up his mind. He lunged forward and shoulder-charged Niner out of the hatch, grab­bing the door frame just in time to stop from plunging after him. It was clear from the stream of expletives that Niner was not expecting this, nor was he happy about it. The extra pack jerked out after him on its tether. Darman heard one last profanity and then Niner was out of range.

Darman grabbed a strap and peered down, but he couldn’t see his sergeant falling, and that probably meant nobody else could, either. He now had a minute, more or less, to salvage what he could and get out before the utility hit the ground.

He switched on his helmet lamp. He couldn’t afford the time to listen to the rushing wind and the complete absence of reassuring engine noise, but he heard it anyway. He dropped the bowcaster and began lashing the blaster sections together with a line. It was a shame. He loved the bowcaster, but they needed those cannons more.

Knotting lines was hard enough with gloves on, but was even harder when you were seconds from crashing. Darman fumbled a knot. He cursed. He looped the line again and this time it held. He let out a sob of relief, dropped the weapon, and dragged the gear down to the hatch. Nobody could hear him at this range, and he didn’t care what the droid thought.

Then he stepped out into black void. The wind took him.

There was no rushing landscape beneath him yet to take his attention from the heads-up display. He was free-falling at nearly two hundred kilometers an hour, trailing sections of heavy, heavy cannon. He maneuvered into tracking position, pack square across his back, rifle tight into his side, the re­mainder of his gear on the container that rested on the backs of his legs. When he deployed the canopy at eight hundred meters, he would release the container. And he’d use the powered-descent option, because that might save him from the unsupported, potentially lethal weight of cannon that was falling with him.

Yes, he knew exactly what he was doing. And yes, he was scared.

He’d never jumped with so much unsecured load in training.

The canopy deployed, and it felt like he’d slammed into a wall. The power pack kicked in, heating up the air around him. He could steer now. He counted down fifteen seconds.

Something flared into brilliant white flame beneath him, off to his right—the Narsh vessel crashing some thirty klicks short of the target zone.

Darman realized he had thought nothing of leaving the R5 on board the stricken utility. It was expendable.

And that was how he was seen, he supposed. It was sur­prisingly easy to think that way

He could see the ground now. His night vision could pick out the tops of trees, right beneath.

No, no, no.

He tried to miss. He failed.

He hit something very, very hard in the air. Then he hit the ground and didn’t feel anything at all.