by Various
The second gravedigger summed up: “So we drew strands.”
The first gravedigger turned to Joram. “Feeling better?”
“Yes, thank you.”
The trooper held his shovel out to Joram, handle first. “Then dig.”
Joram frowned. “I don’t think so.”
The trooper smiled. “All of us are banged up, so you can’t opt out on account of physical condition. We’re military, and you’re a civilian, so under these circumstances you’re attached to us in an inferior capacity. Dig.”
Joram reached under his tunic and pulled out the object held on the chain around his neck. It was an oversized locket bearing the Republic insignia—a symbol like a cross-section of a gear with eight sprockets, surrounded by a dotted line. Joram popped it open and presented the datacard held within it. On the card’s surface was a holo of Joram’s face; below that were lines of information. “Sorry, guys. I’m temporarily a lieutenant with Republic Intelligence. Meaning I can opt out on account of rank.”
Both troopers snapped to a salute. The one who’d been holding out his shovel dropped it and winced as it hit the ground.
“Uh, as you were, I guess.” Joram waited until the second gravedigger retrieved his shovel. “So which one is the guy in charge?”
The first digger gave him a curious look. “That would be you, sir.”
“Uh, no. This identicard just means I’m outside your command structure.”
“No, sir. You’re a military officer. We’re a military unit without an officer. That puts you in charge. That’s procedure.”
“Great.” Joram heaved a sigh. “Back to my original question. Which one of you was in charge until just a moment ago?”
* * *
They summoned another trooper, indistinguishable from the rest, and at Joram’s request, he explained their situation. “The Sea Legacy has to have lifted, sir, so we’re stranded on Pengalan IV. Procedure gives us two branching paths to choose between. The goal of the first is surrender; the second is escape. I was going to set us down the escape path.”
“I like the sound of that,” Joram said. “I’m a career coward. So what do procedures dictate that we do?”
“Step One: Destroy any materiel we don’t want to fall into enemy hands. I’ve got one of the men rigging a warhead in the wreckage now. Step Two: Time allowing, bury our dead.” The trooper nodded toward the line of graves. “Step Three: Get clear of pursuit. Step Four: Signal our command structure. Since we can’t, we go down a new branch. Step Four-Sub-One: Get to a transportation center and acquire a means to rejoin our unit.”
Joram nodded. “Pretty straightforward. How soon is pursuit likely to get to us, and how far is it to the nearest transportation center?”
“Pursuit, unknown. I have a trooper at the cliff top with a pair of macrobinoculars watching for incoming vehicles. Distance, about a hundred kilometers back to the assault site, which is likely to be loaded with unfriendlies, and a little more, about a hundred and twenty clicks, to the nearest inhabited community, Tur Lorkin.”
Joram thought about that. “Let’s say we chose Tur Lorkin. That’s still three or four days marching through hot, difficult terrain.”
“More than that, sir, unless we sacrifice our injured man. Let him be captured or put him down ourselves. He can’t walk.”
“‘Put him down.’” Joram winced at the cold-blooded terminology. “How do you feel about the prospect of putting him down, Trooper?”
The trooper looked uneasy. “If we have to, it’s his duty, and ours, sir. But we won’t do it if we don’t have to. If we don’t, though, it doubles our travel time.”
“I have an idea,” Joram said. And he described it.
The trooper frowned. “Sir, that’s not approved procedure.”
* * *
Joram lay in the shade under an overhang of rock, peering down at the wreckage of the gunship. He held a clone trooper blaster rifle.
He wished he could have appropriated a set of trooper armor, too, but he was centimeters taller than the troopers, narrower in the shoulders, leaner overall. Even his face was leaner and more angular, with features that were friendlier, less intimidating. The form-fitted trooper armor would chafe in some directions, be loose in others, and make him awkward while walking.
Below, all signs that there had been survivors from the crash had been erased—all but the presence of a clone trooper, backing away from the wreckage, using a handful of vegetation to erase the footprints he’d left in the sand-like canyon soil. But that trooper had reactivated the wreckage’s inertial compensator, a power surge that nearby Confederacy sensors might be able to detect.
The shallow graves had been smoothed over by the gravediggers. The armor belonging to the dead, now empty, was strewn about the wreckage site, indistinguishable at more than a few dozen meters from bodies thrown clear of a crashing gunship.
The trooper who had briefly led the survivors of this unit lay beside Joram. Joram cleared his throat to ask a question, then thought better of it. He’d meant to ask, “What’s your name?” But clone troopers didn’t have names, just alphanumeric designations. Come to think of it, how was Joram supposed to keep straight which trooper was which?
“Trooper,” Joram said, “it’s time for you and the others to have nicknames.”
The trooper looked at him suspiciously. “Sir, nicknames aren’t procedure—”
“Oh, yes, they are. They’re unofficial procedure. Besides, following orders is procedure, and I’m ordering you to come up with a nickname for yourself. Then you and I are going to come up with nicknames for the others.”
The trooper opened his mouth. Joram, knowing what he was about to say, shot him a look—he didn’t want to hear “But that’s not procedure” again. The trooper shut his mouth again.
After several minutes, during which slow, strong winds rustled along the canyon top and spilled sand down the cliff slopes, the trooper asked, “What is a nickname supposed to be like?”
“Well, usually it points to one of your features that is distinctive, or some event from your past that is more about you than anyone else. What is unique about you?”
“I lost a tooth once.” He opened his mouth wide and pointed at an upper molar. It looked no different from the corresponding molar on the other side. “They fixed it, but it was out for a while. One of my platoon mates struck me harder than he meant to in hand-to-hand combat training and out it came.”
“Well, that’s something. Now you can be Tooth. See?”
“I see. Tooth.” The trooper probed at the restored molar with his tongue. “If I may ask, sir. . .”
“Go ahead.”
“What’s your nickname?”
“Well, I’ve had several. Most recently, Dodge.”
“Because that was your greatest proficiency in martial training?”
“No, because my greatest proficiency has always been in getting out of work assignments.”
“Oh.” Tooth frowned, thinking that over.
Mentally, Joram kicked himself. That sort of admission, which entertained most people, probably wouldn’t go over too well with this unit of hard-working soldiers.
A stone fell past his place of concealment and hit the soil below. It was followed by another, then a third, at quick regular intervals.
Tooth pulled his helmet on. Joram moved handfuls of vegetation—dry, root-like tangles recently harvested from another part of the canyon wall—in front of them, concealing the two of them.
The three rocks were a signal from the clone trooper atop the cliff, who should now be concealing himself just as Joram and Tooth were. Joram had expressly forbidden use of comlinks while they were at this site; their use might be detected.
For another few minutes Joram and Tooth lay silent. The wind above kicked more sand down on the canyon floor, sometimes sending little streams of it past their place of concealment.
Finally Joram heard a faint roar, and a figure mounted on a flying apparatus r
ode into view from the left—the west. The figure was spindly and distorted in comparison with human proportions, and the device it rode was similarly spare—it consisted of a vertical housing, obviously kept aloft by a combination of repulsorlifts and thrusters, with brackets for the feet, handlebars for the hands, forward-mounted blasters, and not much else, not even a seat or windscreen. This was the Single Trooper Aerial Platform, or STAP, designed for use by Trade Federation battle droids. Joram doubted a human being could even fly the thing.
Its operator was a battle droid, the sort Joram had seen in the holos, with a head like a drooping game fowl bill, a short-barreled blaster weapon held by a sling to its back. It stopped the STAP 20 meters from the gunship’s wreckage and dismounted, leaving the thing hovering there. It advanced toward the nearest set of empty clone trooper armor, its billhead turning from side to side.
The battle droid deliberately aimed and fired a single blast into the faceplate of the clone trooper helmet. The blast burned through. A plume of black smoke rose from the helmet. Methodically, the droid aimed at the other figures lying near the wreckage and fired at each; its blasts battered and blackened the empty suits of armor.
Satisfied, the droid advanced on the gunship. A moment later, Joram heard the drone of more oncoming craft. More droid-operated STAPs roared in from the west—10, by Joram’s quick count, two units of five flanking a lumbering, disk-shaped airspeeder at least four meters in diameter.
Joram smiled. Here was transport they could actually use.
The STAPs stopped near the one left by the advance scout and their riders dismounted. The droid operating the airspeeder set it down nearby. It did not leave its vehicle, but did stand to obtain better visibility, and held its blaster at the ready.
Joram could feel Tooth’s gaze on him. Joram had made it absolutely clear that no trooper was to fire before he did, and now was the time.
He checked his blaster rifle to make sure that its safety mechanism was disengaged. Carefully, he moved the vegetation aside so he could move forward a few more centimeters. He aimed at the droid nearest, but not on, the speeder, and pulled the trigger.
His blaster bolt hit the sand next to the droid, missing by a handful of centimeters.
But a fraction of a second later, seven more bolts leaped out from the clone troopers’ positions of concealment—vegetation-shrouded stands of rocks, the top of the cliff, mounds of sand as artfully draped as any child’s sand citadel, and precisely-placed chunks of gunship wreckage. Seven battle droids exploded into irredeemable trash in that instant, including the one on the airspeeder, hit expertly from the side by one of the troopers half-buried in sand.
The other five battle droids spun, brought up their weapons, sought out targets—and clone trooper blasts converged on them. The five droids were torn to metallic shreds, parts of them bouncing across the canyon floor.
Joram let out a thoroughly unmilitary whoop.
* * *
The airspeeder, with Tooth at the controls, with Joram, the other troopers, and two STAPs piled into the back, rose into the air and headed eastward. Behind them, the wreckage of the gunship detonated as the warhead the troopers had activated finally counted down to zero. Chunks of metal flew up nearly the height of the cliffs, reached the apex of their flights, and descended as burning fireballs. “What now, sir?” Tooth asked. “Head to Tur Lorkin?”
“Close.” Joram leaned back against the airspeeder’s rail next to the controls. The speeder had no seats, but he could stretch out his legs and let the wind rush across him. “We need to keep to the canyons to make it harder for flyovers to spot us. Who’s your navigator?”
The troopers, all with helmets off, exchanged looks.
“No navigator.” Joram sighed. “Who has a working datapad with a planetary map?”
The most seriously injured trooper, whose broken leg had been braced and splinted, raised a hand.
“All right,” Joram said. “You, plot us a route that will keep us in the canyons until we get as close as possible to Tur Lorkin. When we get there, we’ll bounce out of the canyon, hide this speeder, and wait until dark. By the way, your nickname is now Mapper. Don’t forget it.” He closed his eyes.
“Excuse me, sir,” Tooth said. “Procedure says we need to find the most efficient route to our destination and travel that way.”
Joram nodded. “Listen, I’m not going to kid you. I’m not a military expert, and you are. But some of the stuff I’ve heard from real Intelligence people says the enemy knows a lot about the clone troopers, which to me suggests that they probably know your procedures, too. So what does that mean?”
Tooth was silent for a few moments, during which Joram just enjoyed the breeze blowing across his face. “That they might lie in wait for us on the most efficient route.”
“Correct!”
“I see.”
* * *
The Pengalan sun was higher now, reaching its noon zenith, and the troopers’ stolen speeder was safely tucked away in a glade surrounded by tall tendril-plants. One of the troopers—the first one Joram had spoken to upon awakening, now nicknamed Digger—had gathered tendrils from several of the plants and stretched them over the top of the speeder, tying them together to conceal the vehicle’s presence from the air. Two troopers, Spots and Spade, were out at a distance of 30 meters or so, acting as guards. It was, according to Mapper, less than 50 clicks from Tur Lorkin.
Tooth paused over the rations he was eating. As soon as they’d set up temporary camp here, the troopers had broken out the meals, trays with heating elements at the bottom of each compartment. “If I might ask, sir—”
“Go ahead.”
“You don’t seem to have had any military training. Why were you attached to us as an observer?”
“You mean, what qualifies me to pass judgment on you, when I’m so obviously out of my depth?”
The other troopers grinned. Tooth merely said, “Something like that, sir.”
“The Republic paid a lot of credits for you—to create this clone army. That money is gone, but there are a lot of people in government who want to know if it was well-spent. . . and whether they ought to throw any more credits into the same program, to expand the clone ranks.”
“I see. So you are—”
“An accountant. But I’ve been all over. I managed to persuade my doting, rich aunt Tagdel to support me in educational programs all over the Republic until she wised up and insisted that I start work, which is when she got me the appointment at the Department of Cost Accounting—she’s with the Ministry of Finance. I’ve been through the Airspeeders For Bodyguards and Security Specialists training course on Coruscant, the Success Through Charismatic Influence regimen on Commenor, Xenoecoengineering Financial Principles on Muun, Subaquatic Manufacturing Economies on Mon Cal—”
“Why so many places?” asked Digger. “Isn’t one good enough?”
Joram thought about that. “I guess not. If a place isn’t somehow yours, it’s just not going to be good enough. My parents died in an airspeeder accident when I was three, and after that I was bounced around among all my other kin, so no place ever became home.” He glanced among the troopers and found little comprehension on their faces. He knew the notion of parents, and what they meant to a child, was something the troopers had no perspective to appreciate. Even the notion of childhood was alien to them. “Guys, imagine that the war is really bad and every one of the troopers but you perishes. The only time you ever get to see that face is in the mirror. Wouldn’t that be strange?”
They all nodded. “Yeah,” said Digger. His tone was solemn.
“Well, that’s kind of what it’s like.”
“Ever been to Kamino?” asked Mapper.
“No, I haven’t.”
“That’s where we’re from, Kamino. It’s somehow ours.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Very rainy there.”
“Yes, I know.”
Tooth cleared his throat, silencing Mapper.
“We’re all curious about what sort of conclusions you came to.”
“As in, were you worth the credits?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I would say, very much so. Your calmness and courage under fire, your fighting skills, your physical resilience, and especially the way you coordinate things, each of you just knowing what the next is about to do. . . these are all very valuable traits. I’d say my review is very favorable. If you lack anything, it’s. . .” A realization that he was about to say something counterproductive hit Joram, and he shut up.
If the troopers lacked anything, it was individuality, and an associated ability to think in nontraditional, nonlinear ways—traits Joram valued very highly. But would individuality make them more valuable, or less? Wouldn’t it foul up these troopers’ extraordinary unit coordination if they all thought a bit differently from one another?
And wouldn’t that, in turn, make them less effective, less valuable to the Republic? It hit Joram that in pushing them to become more distinct, to think outside their beloved military procedures, he might just be sabotaging them. And in this war, that might actually constitute treason.
The troopers all stared at him, waiting for his next words. Mapper’s spoon, dripping blue gravy, was poised halfway between his plate and his open mouth.
Joram forced a smile for them. “Come to think of it, you don’t lack anything I can think of.” The men relaxed, and Mapper’s spoon continued its interrupted journey. “And since you men are exactly like all the other thousands of clone troopers, the Republic obviously has one magnificent army.”
He’d thought the comment would be taken as a compliment, but the troopers froze and exchanged looks, communicating something that no one not sharing their DNA and training could interpret.
“What is it?” Joram asked.
Tooth returned his attention to Joram. “Nothing, sir.”