by Various
“You’re certain?”
The trooper was expressionless. “Yes, sir.”
Joram sighed inwardly. He didn’t like secrets. Other peoples’ secrets, anyway. He couldn’t imagine that these men, conditioned to obedience, would withhold something from him under these circumstances—unless they were obeying previous orders. So he let it drop.
* * *
The macrobinoculars gave Joram a clear view of Tur Lorkin from the hilltop he and the troopers were now using as their base of operation.
The community was a small town, unwalled, most of its buildings being constructed from prefabricated or mold-blown permacrete painted in white or light blue. The buildings all looked to be of recent years’ construction, well maintained. The largest buildings were a dome that appeared to house city government and a set of truncated domes sliding with doors on top—the town’s tiny spaceport. Joram placed the town population at a few hundred. Numbers automatically began to run through the back of his mind—annual cost of the town’s power requirements, estimated cost of consumable imports, value of the buildings that made up the community. He swept the macrobinoculars around, but again he saw no more distant lights, no sign of nearby communities or even outlying farms or ranches.
He passed the viewing device back to Tooth. “What do you think?”
The trooper stared down at the town. “I think it will be comparatively simple to get down in among the buildings. There’s not much foot traffic. I wonder why?”
“Pretty typical for a small f—, uh, a small town.” Joram had almost said “small farm community” before remembering that wasn’t what this place was. “People in such places tend to starting work before dawn and then go to bed early.”
“Oh.”
Back at the airspeeder, concealed under vegetation at the bottom of the other side of the hill, Joram described the situation for the other troopers. “Who has the best infiltration skills?” he asked.
Mapper, of the splinted leg, raised his hand.
“Right. Well, I guess it will be Tooth and me. Wrench, how are the modifications coming?”
The trooper with the highest level of mechanical expertise looked up from the partially disassembled STAP he was working on. “I’m rigging a cable net to act as a sling so the pilot won’t fall off. The modifications to the controls, so a human can pilot it, are almost done.”
“Great.”
“But are we going to need it, if we’re just going to steal a transport and run?”
Joram shrugged. “I don’t know. But both sides of my personality, the coward and the accountant, say that it’s a good idea to maximize your resources whenever possible.”
“Yes, sir. Maximize. Question, sir. What do we do if someone, one of the townsfolk, stumbles across this camp while you’re gone?”
“You catch him, kill him, cook him, and eat him.”
Wrench frowned. All the other troopers frowned. It was the same frown.
“Pardon me, sir,” Tooth said. “Cannibalism is very definitely against procedures.”
Joram snorted. “That was a joke.”
Tooth shook his head. “That wasn’t a joke. Nobody fell down.”
Mapper shook his head. “Nobody said, ‘What’s the difference between. . .’”
Digger shook his head. “Nobody said, ‘Three Separatists walk into a bar.’”
“Guys, guys, there are more types of jokes than the ones you’re familiar with.”
Tooth looked dubious. “If you say so, sir.”
* * *
Joram and Tooth lay at the very edge of the tendril vegetation, a mere 20 meters from the nearest of Tur Lorkin’s buildings. Tooth wore only his undersuit, a dark one-piece garment that would pass as a jumpsuit at a distance.
“Sir, I have a question.”
Joram, macrobinoculars to his eyes, slowly swept his attention from light-post to light-post. He didn’t see any sign that there were holocams or other surveillance devices on the posts. “Go ahead.”
“Are you really a coward?”
“I think so, yes. Lazy, too. I try to avoid work, pain, and danger whenever possible. I’m willing to risk some loss of face by walking away from a fight instead of getting my guts stomped out to impress people. I prefer to be operated on while under anesthesia.”
“But, logically, you’re risking death with this mission. Whereas you could have avoided all danger by ordering us to surrender back at the crash site. Then you’d spend the rest of the war in prison, away from the fighting.”
“Even cowards have goals, Tooth. How big or small a coward you are sort of depends on what you’re willing to risk to accomplish your goals. One of my goals is to be free. To go where I want to go, to do what I want to do.” A twinge of discomfort tugged at Joram. He was talking about personal freedom with someone who probably had no notion of the concept.
“What about duty, sir? Do you recognize duty?”
“I suppose I do. I could have tried to wriggle out of this assignment, and I didn’t, even though my aunt didn’t want me to go.” He shrugged. “Part of freedom—a civilian’s freedom, anyway—means being able to evaluate and choose the duties you acknowledge rather than just believing what someone tells you your duty is.”
“You’re talking about judgment.”
“That’s right.”
“What happens when judgment and orders clash?”
“I don’t know. I’m kind of new to orders. I guess you have to decide what’s right, and take that as your goal, even if you know it’s going to cause you trouble.”
“Did you ever think that maybe you were chosen for this assignment because you were lazy?”
Joram frowned. He set aside the macrobinoculars to look at Tooth and tried to work through the answer to that question. “Meaning that, since someone was aware of my reputation, whoever chose me for the mission was counting on my laziness.”
“Yes, sir.”
“My conclusion was that the clone troopers were worth the credits spent. Well worth additional investment. Even if I am lazy, I think that’s the correct conclusion. I don’t think someone who works harder than I do would arrive at a different answer.”
“I hope not, sir.”
Tooth’s idea bothered Joram, but he was pleased that Tooth had asked the question. It showed the man did have intellectual processes.
“I don’t think there are any security cams. Let’s move out.”
* * *
Tooth took the lead, moving out surely and silently as a jungle predator. They reached the outmost town buildings without incident, and, by ducking down dirt alleys, staying in shadowy patches, and keeping alert for the rare pedestrian, they remained unseen across the hundred meters or so between them and the spacecraft bays.
They stood in an alley mouth directly opposite the entry door into the smallest of the bays. The area was poorly lit. Joram could barely see the oval of the door itself; beside it, a security keypad glowed. “Can you decode or bypass that?”
“I think so, sir. I’ll have to look at it, but it appears to be a simple design.”
“Why three bays?”
“What?” Tooth looked at him, puzzled.
“Why does a one-nerf town like this have three spacecraft bays? That means at least three spacecraft are here routinely. The town probably just needs one big bay for cargo vessels, for export of whatever it produces. . .” The numbers running through the back of his mind moved to the front and he fell silent again.
“I don’t understand, sir.”
“This town has no evident industry. Its biggest buildings are the government center and the largest ship bay. There are no farms. No ranches. What purpose does the town serve?”
Tooth shrugged. “It’s where the factory workers lived before the factory was shut down?”
“No. That factory was shut down a long time ago. Reactivated just to serve as bait for our assault. Its workers probably lived at the factory. All these buildings were built since it was deactivated.
So, what is this town for? What’s its economy?”
“It’s been here too long just to have been built as a trap.” Tooth looked around, eyes narrowed. “So it must have a secondary purpose. And if it has too many spacecraft facilities, the purpose probably has an offworld significance.”
“Very good.”
“The answer’s going to be with the spacecraft. The biggest spacecraft. Let’s go there instead.”
* * *
The largest spacecraft bay was also the best-lit. With his new suspicions about this site, Joram wasn’t anxious to have Tooth, who admitted to being technically competent but not a security expert, make an attempt at the security keypad at the bay’s main access.
So they waited a long, tedious hour in nearby shadows and watched that access. Finally, two men in stained jumpsuits arrived on foot. One keyed in a lengthy access code.
As the doors slid open, Tooth and Joram leaped for them. Tooth, faster, hit the farther man in the jaw with the butt of his blaster rifle before the nearer man was even aware of his presence. The nearer man jumped away from Tooth, backing toward Joram, opening his mouth to shout—and Joram drove the butt of his own rifle into the back of the man’s head. The second worker hit the ground only a moment after the first.
Tooth and Joram dragged their respective victims inside, into darkness, and waited until the outer doors had slid shut again before switching on their personal glowrods.
This was a primitive spacecraft bay. The antechamber they’d entered was empty except for a few old foam seats and a caf dispenser, which was powered down. One secure door led into what had to be the bay’s control chamber; a larger one led into what had to be the main hangar. There was a window into the hangar as well, but a blast plate behind it was in place, preventing anyone from looking in.
Joram looked over the door security while Tooth searched the prisoners. “Identicard slot and fingerprint scanner,” Joram said. “On both doors.”
“We have their identicards, and we have their fingers. We also have small blaster pistols, modern comlinks, a flask with some sort of alcohol.”
Joram indicated the door into the control chamber. Tooth obligingly dragged one unconscious man over to it by the wrist. Joram inserted the identicard into the security slot while Tooth held the man’s hand in place over the reader. The reader glowed and the door slid open. Both Joram and Tooth aimed their trooper rifles into the space beyond—but it was dark, unoccupied. They dragged their prisoners within.
It was a standard control chamber—three seats allowing access to sensor and comm boards. A large window would provide a view into the bay, but it, too, was sealed behind a blast plate. Rather than open it, Joram switched on a holocam viewer labeled MAIN.
It snapped into instant focus, showing a nearly empty bay. The angle showed the closed observation window, and the floor was well below that, indicating that much of the bay was underground. The wide-open area was brightly lit, and vacuformed cargo containers were piled at the far end. As Joram watched, a man and a woman maneuvered a repulsorlift dolly into place and wrestled another pair of containers off it atop one stack. Then they retreated behind the stacks with their dolly.
Tooth finished binding and gagging the two unconscious prisoners. He moved to an unoccupied console seat.
“We’ve got holocams on the other two bays,” Joram said, “which means that this is probably the main spacecraft control.” He snapped the other holocam monitors on, then, as they snapped into focus, whistled at what he saw. Mo< One bay was occupied by a hammer-shaped Corellian transport, smaller than, but of the same general design as, the well-known Republic cruiser. Its hull was a neutral gray, puckered in places by mynock scars. But the other bay was occupied by a sleek, silver-reflective space yacht whose lines and obvious state of maintenance suggested speed. “We are in luck. Some proud owner is going to miss one of these ships.”
“Both,” Tooth said. He was now frowning over a comm board, reviewing screens of data. One of the prisoners’ datacards occupied a security slot on the board. “We destroy the one we don’t take. Procedure. Correct?”
“Correct. . . I suppose.” Joram winced at the thought of the yacht being destroyed. “We could steal both. I can pilot one. Can any of you serve as pilots?”
“Wrench and I have gone through a set of simulator classes.”
“Well, that may be enough.”
“Sir, those containers on the monitor. They contain anti-starfighter missiles.”
Joram moved to look over Tooth’s shoulder. The screen of data there referred to a cargo of 128 test missiles—type AS-X-DB. Anti-Starfighter, Experimental, he guessed. Diamond Boron.
He whistled again. “The spy’s report wasn’t a mistake, or a leak. There really is a facility here for making those things.”
“Yes, sir.”
“But there’s no place on this rock that could produce them—no place visible from orbit, anyway. Intelligence’s orbital scans would have detected it. All they detected was the site we assaulted this morning. Which means the facility is probably here, underground. The town exists to house its workers and to provide a cover for heat signatures and the like, So. . .”
“So,” Tooth said, “they caught the spy in the act of transmitting. They realized they’d been found out. They fired up that old plant to draw in the forces they knew would be coming, and prepared it as a trap. They let us discover that it wasn’t a missile plant so, once they’d kicked us in the teeth, we’d have no reason to come back here. They made us think the whole thing was just a trap, when it was really a cover-up.”
Joram nodded. “All right. Here’s the plan. We seize one or both of those transports, lift off, pick up the others, outrace whatever pursuit they send after us, get into space, and report to the Republic that they need to come back here and finish this place off.”
“I don’t think so, sir.”
“What?” The edge in Tooth’s voice had sounded suspiciously like defiance. Joram took a step to the side to give the man another look.
Tooth spun his chair around to face Joram. “Sir, if we leave and report, the Republic will have to evaluate our story. They’ll question us, determine that we’re telling the truth, plan a return, come back, and blow up this site. But in the meantime, the Separatists will know that their secret is out—someone knocked out their workers and stole their transports, less than a day after the Republic assault. So while the planning and interrogating are going on, they’re dismantling their plant, moving their stockpiles. Whatever gets blown up will be just what they left behind. The least important part of this facility.”
“True.” Joram offered Tooth an expression of sympathy. “So what are you saying?”
“We’re not going.”
Joram blinked. “Tooth, I’m getting kind of tired of saying ‘What?’ all the time.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll explain. I’m bringing in the men. We’re going to blow this place up. Otherwise we’ve failed in our mission, which was to destroy the missile plant. Otherwise every one of us who died today died for no good reason.”
Joram tapped his chest, where his locket lay under his tunic. “Have you forgotten something? Like, who’s in charge here?”
“I haven’t forgotten. If you don’t agree with me, I’m going to have to. . . to defy your orders.” Tooth looked as though the words he was saying had made him ill, but did not relent. “I can’t give you orders. You can steal whichever of those ships you like and take off. But I’d like to ask you to wait until I bring the men in.” He tapped the monitor where it showed the stacks of missile containers. “Somewhere behind those, there has to be an access to the plant. We’ll go in there, taking some of those missiles, and blow everything up. Once we’re inside, you can take off. Please don’t order me not to do this. I’d hate for my last action as a clone trooper to be in direct violation of orders.”
* * *
Half an hour later, the rest of the troopers except for the injured Mapper were in the antechamber.
Joram, out of the loop on the mission planning, stayed in the control chamber, methodically performing a remote warm-up on the yacht. He could hear Tooth struggling back into his armor as he briefed the troopers; a few snatches of the briefing were audible to Joram. The briefing turned into discussion, and then discussion turned into argument—something he hadn’t heard among the clone troopers in the days he’d been assigned to them. Surreptitiously, he moved to the door into the antechamber and listened.
“It’s his right,” one of them said. His voice was in dominant mode. It was probably Tooth. “I can’t issue him orders.”
“You can’t issue me orders,” said another. His voice, too, was in dominant mode. “And I say we ask him.”
“Don’t—”
Armored feet thudded toward the antechamber. Joram stepped out into view and confronted the trooper. The man’s helmet was off and there was a rag tied around his forehead, red with white dots, so this was Spots. He reared back at seeing Joram so close, then recovered. “Lieutenant, I have to say something to you.”
“Go ahead.”
“I think you should come on this raid.”
“Why?”
“To show you approve of it. We don’t think you do. We’re not sure what that means. And for another reason, a tactical one. You’re the only one of us who doesn’t look like us. We’d work better if we had someone moving in front of the main body as a scout. If the Separatists know as much about us as you say they do, they’d recognize any of us instantly.”
“You’d give us a much better chance of success,” said another. The burns on his cheek, from the crash, marked him as Hash.
“Let it go,” Tooth said.
“Why aren’t you with us, Lieutenant?” asked Digger.
Joram stared at the man. How did he know it was Digger? He just did.
He looked between the troopers. They weren’t the same as they had been in the hour after the crash. Now, they were distinct, individual. . . but not united. How could they hope to pull off a raid against an unknown facility, against unknown opposition, if they weren’t a cohesive unit?