"Dead, or scattered," Tories said quietly, and Doriana could hear thepain and self-reproach in the Jedi"s voice. "Except for the ones Roshton tookinto Spaarti with him." Binalie sighed. "And they"re as good as dead, aren"tthey?"
"I can"t see it any other way," Doriana agreed, gazing out toward SpaartiCreations. Above the plant, a hundred STAPs were circling through the nightsky like carrion-eaters, glinting with the light from a dozen distant fires.On the grounds around the plant, invisible from where the three men stood, athousand combat droids and a dozen battle tanks stood their own silent watch.
And between the Binalie mansion and the plant, acrid smoke still rosefrom the crater where the Separatist hailfire droid had emptied both of itsmissile pods into the ground, collapsing the tunnel and cutting off the clonetroopers" last avenue of escape. The Separatists had been nothing if notthorough. "The only reason they"re still alive is that the Separatists don"twant to wreck the plant trying to force them out," he added.
"But then, they don"t have to, do they?" Tories said quietly. "By thetime General Tiis can return with enough ground troops, they"ll likely havestarved in there."
"Yes," Binalie said. "Ironic, isn"t it? Commander Roshton spent all that effort to retake the plant. And he succeeded.
"And that"s where he"s going to die."
Hero of Cartao.
Episode III.
Hero"s End.
by Timothy Zahn.
The streets of Foulahn City were dark and deserted as Kinman Dorianapicked his way through the litter of broken droids, small missile craters,shattered buildings, bodies, and the general clutter of war. The militarycomlink he"d borrowed from Commander Roshton had allowed him to listen in onthe Republic side of the battle, and he"d known the fighting here and at theTriv s.p.a.ceport had been fierce. But even that knowledge hadn"t prepared himfor the actual carnage the soldiers had left behind.
A half dozen craters overlapped each other across the street in front ofhim, half filled with rubble from the buildings the missiles had destroyed anda few mutilated bodies of the civilians who"d been caught in the crossfire.The fighting here must have been particularly bad, he decided, with a higher-ranking officer directing the Republic side of the attack. Maybe here he"dfinally find what he was looking for.
He hoped so. It was well after midnight, he was achingly tired, and thenew Separatist masters of this part of Cartao undoubtedly had a curfew inplace for the citizenry. The first patrol that spotted him would be trouble,and he wasn"t in the mood for arguing with combat droids. Despite the dramaticevents and reversals of the past few hours, things were still adheringreasonably closely to Lord Sidious"s plan, but that didn"t mean Dorianahimself had to enjoy the situation. He"d had his fill of battles a long timeago, and very much preferred to stay at his desk in Supreme ChancellorPalpatine"s office and handle his schemes and manipulations long-distance.
A glimmer of white to the left caught his eye, and he picked his waycarefully toward it through the shattered road material. Probably just anotherpiece of the deco-rative white roof trim Foulahn"s residents were so fond of,he thought sourly, but it still had to be checked out.
But it wasn"t a piece of roof trim. It was the half buried body of a clone trooper. A lieutenant, from the markings on his armor.
Finally.
Under normal circ.u.mstances, it would have been the work of perhaps twominutes to dig the body out of the rubble. With the need for absolute silence,it took Doriana closer to ten. But it was worth the effort. Hidden away in theback of one of the survival pouches on the lieutenant"s utility belt was anunlabeled datacard. Slipping it into his pocket, Doriana resealed the survivalpouch and started to straighten up.
"Halt," a flat mechanical voice ordered from behind him. Doriana froze in mid-crouch. "Don"t shoot," he called, stretching his hands slowly to the sides so that the droids could see they were empty. "I"m an official medical observer."
"Turn and identify," the voice ordered.
Doriana obeyed, turning carefully on the uncertain footing. It was acomplete patrol, all right: six of the old-style battle droids, one of themstanding slightly in the lead. In the dim light, Doriana couldn"t tell whetherthere was anyone of command rank among them. "Identify," the droid in the leadrepeated.
"My name is Kinman Drifkin," he told them. "I"m a member of the AargauMedical Observer Corps. We"re a neutral power sworn to observe and report onany atrocities taking place during this conflict."
The droid seemed to digest that. "Come forward," he ordered. "Do you have official identification?"
"Of course," Doriana said, slipping his hand into his ID pocket as hewalked toward the group. The droids lifted their blasters warningly as he withdrew his hand, relaxed slightly as they saw he held only a datacard.
"Which of you has a reader?" he asked.
"I will take it," the spokesman said, shifti ng h is grip on his blaster and extending a claw-like hand.
Doriana stepped to him and handed him the datacard. So this one wasdefinitely the leader; and at this distance, he could see now the pale yellowmarkings of a command officer on its head and torso. Excellent. "I believeyou"ll find my credentials are in order," he added, glancing casually around.There was no one else in sight, human or droid.
"We will see," the officer droid said, taking the datacard and sliding it into a reader slot set into the lower part of its jaw line. "It says here that your a.s.signed observation area is..."
"Barauch seven-nine-seven," Doriana said in a low voice. "Filliae gron one-one-three."
The officer broke off in midsentence. Doriana eased a few centimeters tohis right, watching to see if the droids and their weapons would track hismovement.
They didn"t. To all appearances, the entire squad was frozen andoblivious. "I"ll be crocked," Doriana murmured to himself, feeling musclesrelax that he hadn"t noticed were tense. So, the magic backdoor lockout codethat Sidious had given to him actually worked.
And if the lockout code worked... "Pinkrun four-seven-two aprion one-eight-one-one," he said, reaching out to the spokesman"s jaw and retrievinghis false ID. "Backskip three minutes; pause one minute; restart. Execute."
The patrol gave a group shiver. "Accessed," the spokesman said, his mechanical voice sounding somehow even flatter than it had before.
Smiling tightly, Doriana sidled past them, heading back the directionthey"d come from as quickly as he could manage without twisting his ankle onthe loose stone. He had just one minute to disappear before the droids cameout of their freeze and restarted their patrol, with this little incidentconveniently erased from their group memory. He reached the nearest corner andducked around it, pausing there to listen. A few seconds later he heard thedistinctive clunk as the droids came to life again. With more clattering, theycontinued on their patrol, their footsteps fading off into the night breezes.Smiling again, Doriana detached himself from the wall and headed back towardthe Binalie estate.
"You all right?" a voice asked softly from the shadows. Doriana jumped violently. "Who"s there?" he hissed.
"Relax," Jafer Tories calmed him, stepping into view from a doorway, his lightsaber ready in his hand. "It"s just me."
Doriana took a deep breath. "You nearly stopped my heart there," he saidreproachfully. "In the future, kindly practice your Jedi skulking techniqueson someone else."
"Sorry," Tories said with a faint smile. "But for a moment there Ithought I was going to have to demonstrate more than just skulking. Whathappened over there?"
"What do you mean, what happened?" Doriana hedged, wondering uneasily just how much the Jedi had seen. "It was just a standard security patrol."
"Who looked at your ID and then let you go," Tories said pointedly.
"Since when do the Separatists give free pa.s.ses to Palpatine"s advisors?"
Doriana started breathing a little easier. So, the Jedi had been closeenough to see the confrontation, but not to hear what was said. Good enough."No free pa.s.ses for advisors, no," he told Tories, digging out his false IDagain. "But plenty for neutral observers. Kinman Drifkin, Aargau MedicalObserver Corps, at your service."
"Cute," Tories said. He took the ID, peered at it, and handed it back.
"Holds up to baseline scrutiny, does it?"
"As you saw," Doriana reminded him, putting the datacard away again."Supreme Chancellor Palpatine can hardly afford to let his people get pickedup by the enemy in the middle of a war zone. Speaking of which, what are youdoing out here, anyway?"
"Funny; I was going to ask you the same question," Tories said, his voice suddenly going a little odd. "Lord Binalie said you"d gone into the city and asked me to see if you might be in trouble. So what are you doing?"
"Feeling mildly pleased with myself, and ready to get out of here,"
Doriana told him. "Has Lord Binalie found a place to settle in yet?"
"We"ve got one, yes," Tories said.
"Good," Doriana said. "Take me there, and we"ll all sort it out together.
For just the briefest moment Tories continued to gaze at him in thatdiscomfiting way Jedi all over the galaxy seemed to have learned toperfection. Then, reluctantly, Doriana thought, he nodded. "All right. Followme."
He headed off down the deserted streets. Doriana followed, scowling tohimself. It was Tories" fault, after all, that the situation had ended up theway it had, with Roshton and his clone troopers holding the plant while theSeparatist droid armies waited uselessly outside. It wasn"t at all the wayDarth Sidious had planned this operation, and he winced as the thought of whatthe Sith lord would say about it the next time Doriana contacted him.
Still, the situation was far from lost. Republic reinforcements were undoubtedly days away, which gave Doriana time to put things back on track.
And as for the Jedi...
He gazed at Tories" broad back as the other picked his way around yetanother missile crater. Now that he thought about it, Tories" unabashedheroics tonight might actually work to Doriana"s advantage. Certainly theother had risen to new heights of respect and prestige in the handful of dayssince Doriana had landed on Cartao.
Which would make it that much more of a pleasure to bring the Jedi down.
With the tunnel under the Spaarti Creations" south lawn collapsed andimpa.s.sible, there was no longer any reason for the Neimoidians controlling theSeparatist forces to occupy the Binalie estate. They had occupied it anyway,probably out of spite for the way Tories had helped chase them out of themansion not too many hours earlier. With his home occupied by battle droids,it had become necessary for Lord Binalie and his son Corf to find otheraccommodations.
The estate"s greenhouse had been probably the least likely possibility,given the near-complete visibility through the building"s long transparisteelpanels. Which was precisely why Tories had suggested it. What any searcherswould a.s.sume-at least, what Tories hoped they would a.s.sume-was that there wasno chance of anyone hiding in such an open place and move on to more likelyprospects.
What any such searchers would have forgotten was the profusion of plantsinside the greenhouse, plants that could be shifted and adjusted and layered to form hidden areas as sheltered and invisible as a military camp in deep forest.
Binalie and Corf had nearly finished setting up their new quarters when
Tories and Doriana arrived. "Ah; Master Tories," Binalie said, setting apackage of emergency food rations beside three more against a line of tallplants with wide overhanging fronds. "Did you find Doriana? Oh-there you are,"he added as he caught sight of Doriana in the dim starlight. "Any trouble?"
"None," Tories said. "I found him bluffing his way past a droid patrol."
"Really," Binalie said. His voice was casual, but Tories could sense the sudden suspicion in his sense. "And how exactly do you bluff battle droids?"
"With the judicious use of false credentials," Doriana told him briefly.
"But never mind that. I have something to show you that should be considerably more interesting. Is there a place where we can have a little more light?"
"I suppose," Binalie said reluctantly. "Master Tories-?"
"Why don"t you go ahead and take him downstairs," Tories suggested. "I"ll go take a quick look around outside."
"Thank you," Binalie said, sounding a bit relieved. "This way, Master
Doriana."