It was chaos. She had to go. She had to walk away, to get past that barrier, to get out now.
Etain—the Jedi didn’t sense her, or maybe there were other Jedi in the crowd, but from behind, she heard the clatter of boots over the screams as more troopers rushed in, and she looked up, saw Darman on the other side of the barrier—so close, so very close to grabbing freedom with him—and for a moment, torn by instinct to do something instead of save her own skin, she turned back.
A frozen moment; a clone trooper—a man like Darman—seemed paralyzed in mid-lunge, but it was just the way time lied in a crisis.
They put his first weapon in his hand at four years of age. Like me. Like Dar.
The young male Jedi spun and raised his lightsaber to the clone, desperate to get past him, through him. Etain snapped. Pure reflex, animal and instant: she blocked the Jedi, every bit as fast and Force-agile as he was. Her hand went for her weapon, unbidden. Her body took over. “Don’t touch him!” She felt it was unraveling in slow motion. “Don’t!”
Because she knew what a lightsaber could do, because she’d killed with one, because the trooper was a man, a living breathing man—she stepped into the clone’s path, and into the downward arc of a lightsaber.
It might have been meant for her.
It might have been meant for him.
The screams were suddenly a long way away. The pain—it took moments to register on her brain, but she was now staring up at a smoke-hazed night sky, and every cell in her body felt on fire. She saw chaotic lights above her, a white helmet, the T-shaped visor so familiar and so loved, and for a moment… for a moment she thought things were going to be all right.
“Kad! Dar!” But it was not Dar, and the clone couldn’t save her, and Kad was out of reach. She couldn’t hear her own cries, but she was sure her lips were moving. The pain—she couldn’t breathe.
“Dar!”
And then the pain stopped forever.
Chapter Twenty-Two
All right. Let’s go.
—Jango Fett, last Mandalorian left at the Battle of Galidraan, to the Jedi who killed Myles
Skirata took off.
Darman’s screaming filled his helmet; or maybe it was his own voice. “Etain! No, no, no, no, no! Not my girl! Not my girl!”
He was aware of another scuffle starting to his left, but he was targeting, and he was running, and now he had to kill or be killed, nothing in between.
He cannoned into the melee, pushing troopers aside, and swung with a vibrobladed left fist. He knew he’d hit a Jedi. The man staggered, turned, and swept the lightsaber across him, but it skidded off his neck plate. The Jedi hesitated, because that wasn’t supposed to happen.
Skirata’s three-sided knife was in his hand already. He brought it up into the Jedi’s chest, under the rib cage, in that fraction of a second’s pause. It was hate; it was an explosion of loathing and grief. He wanted to destroy the world and every breathing thing in it that wasn’t his.
The yelling and screaming was outside his helmet as well as inside. A trooper captain shoved him aside and dropped to his knees beside Etain, hands crossed, flat on her chest, trying to pump. It was Ordo. He tried, he really tried, but she was dead, eyes staring, sliced from shoulder to spine, dead, dead, dead.
Skirata’s brain shut down. Something else seized control. He drew Jusik’s lightsaber, snapped it alive, wading into the crowd in pursuit of another Jedi. They seemed to be everywhere. He saw six, seven of those shabla blades, those filthy cold things, and he saw nothing else. Jedi were still trapped in the press of bodies. People were being trampled. It was a battlefield; he saw only what he needed to kill. And Jedi needed to die. He got one square in the back, kidney level, and those burning blades worked on a Jedi every bit as well as on a chakaar like him. One got away. Skirata swung around to chase.
Darman was still screaming names, but it was Niner now—Niner, Niner, where are you Niner?—and that was when Skirata saw that Darman was way back behind, looking down over the edge of the bridge, frantic.
Darman saw the Jedi too late, and Niner hadn’t even been trying to stop the kid escaping. The Jedi leapt; Niner fell.
If it had been Darman in his way when the barve tried to jump clear, he would have had a vibroblade in his throat now, killing for killing, death for death, because—even though Darman’s brain was saying it couldn’t have happened, that Etain would be coming through the barrier now because she’d been so close, so very near, just a few meters and minutes from putting her hand in his and leaving forever—he’d seen the lightsaber strike.
She’s dead. No, she can’t be.
Even though he was looking down onto the maintenance walkway below the bridge and could see Niner lying at an awkward angle, his vision was filled with that split second of Etain and the lightsaber.
She’s gone, she’s gone, she’s gone—
It wouldn’t stop. But his hard-wired training interrupted him and he swung out from his rappel line, on autopilot, dropping down beside his brother.
“Shab…”
“Can you move? What hurts?” Darman defaulted to being another Darman, RC-1136, because that was what he did under fire, what Skirata had drummed into him to stay alive. “Atin, down here! Man down! Atin! Below the bridge, maintenance parapet!”
“Dar… Dar, what’s happened to Etain?”
“Can you move?”
“Shut up about me.” Niner’s voice was hoarse, a gasp. “Where’s Etain?”
She can’t be dead. She can’t be. She was right there, right in front of me. “Can you—”
“Dar! For shab’s sake, what’s happened to her?”
“Shut up. Can you move?”
Niner lay at an odd angle, legs bent. “I can’t feel my feet. Shab, Dar, what’s up with you? Etain! The shabla Jedi hit her. What happened? Is she okay?”
“She’s dead. She’s dead.” Darman said it, heard it, and hated himself. He’d said it; he’d made it real. How could he be here? How could he be moving, talking, dealing with Niner? Why wasn’t he doing something about Etain? He didn’t know what. “It’s over. Nothing matters.”
“What about Kad? What about your kid? Go! Go to him!”
How do I tell him I couldn’t save his mother?
“It’s my fault.” A minute ago, maybe two, Etain had been alive and now she wasn’t. It was such a fine, cruel, implacable line. It seemed impossible that he couldn’t push it back. He couldn’t believe she wasn’t there anymore, and that nothing he could do would ever change that. “I should have done this different.”
The if-only started right away—if only she hadn’t gone to Kashyyyk, if only she’d gone straight to Mandalore, if only she’d told him sooner—and he slapped it down almost before he dared think about it. Another Darman took over. It was the Darman who had been drilled and drilled and drilled to keep his head when the very worst happened, to evaluate, and to save who was savable.
There was only one way he was going to get through even the next few minutes, let alone a day or the rest of his life. Niner. He couldn’t think beyond that. He couldn’t even begin to think straight. His hands and eyes were going through the numb motions of checking his brother. The world had ended for him, but he was still moving like a decapitated animal. Something warned him that he’d have to wake up after this crisis was over and live with the reality of life without Etain.
“Dar, run,” Niner said. “Get out now. Kal’buir’s ready to go. Run.”
Darman flashed the priority override in his HUD. He cut across all local comm circuits within his unencrypted frequency range. “We need a casevac right now, people—spinal trauma, bridge parapet—look for the kriffing rappel line, I’ve got my spot-lamp on. Medic!”
“Look, get out now. Get to the RV point. Leave me.”
“I’m not leaving you. They’ll do to you what they did to Fi.”
“She’s dead. They killed her. Kad needs you.”
“I know, I know, shut up—”
> “If you don’t get out now, Dar, you’ll be stuck here.”
Darman could hear Atin yelling over the edge of the bridge. It was all in their helmets, no external sound, and inside the confines of his bucket, Darman was on a screaming, shouting, confused battlefield.
“Dar! Can you move him? Can you get Niner moving? We’ve got to get out—now.”
“He’s broken his spine. I can’t.”
“Shab. Shab. Wait one—”
Kad was his son, all he’d ever have left of Etain. Kad had everyone to look after him; Niner would have nobody if Darman left him now. They’d pulled the plug on Fi when he was hurt, but he didn’t die. He lived because Besany wouldn’t abandon him to callous scum who saw him as nothing more than a flesh machine. If Darman left Niner this badly hurt, maybe beyond recovery, he’d be leaving him to that fate. He couldn’t go.
Kad’s okay. Kal’buir’s got him. He’ll be safe. Niner won’t.
“Get out, At’ika. We’ll work out a way to get home when Niner’s okay again.”
“Dar! You’re crazy. You can’t stay. Niner can’t stay.”
“Can’t move him. Three-six out.” Darman cut the comms. He hadn’t signed off as Three-six for years. It was his autopilot speaking for him. He could see his call for a medic had been heard, because a LAAT/i gunship was hovering, edging closer, and he could see a clone trooper in the doorway, in the open hatch, getting ready to jump across and give Niner the help he needed. It had always been such a reassuring sight. Now it was also the end of his brief, fragile, shattered, not-meant-to-be dream of family.
Darman had his hand under Niner’s head. “You’ll be okay, Ner’ika,” he said. “Look what they did for Corr.”
“You shabuir,” Niner hissed. “Don’t you shabla well stay with me. Go with Kad. You can’t leave him.”
“And I can’t leave you,” Darman said, his heart not just broken but utterly destroyed forever. How could he feel so much pain twice? The LAAT/i medic thudded onto the permacrete beside them and started putting a brace on Niner’s neck, immobilizing his spine. The man had no idea what was going on; he couldn’t possibly have known they were talking about desertion. “Kad’s fine. You’ll be fine. One day—we’ll all be fine. I can’t leave you. You never left me. You came for me on Qiilura. You didn’t even know me then.”
Niner could still move his arms. He hit Darman hard in the chest. “Go. Get out. I don’t need you.”
Darman watched the medic assembling a metal tubular gurney under Niner and strapping him to it. “Hey, careful with him.”
“Get the shab out, Dar. You can’t leave that kid. What kind of a father are you? What would Etain say if—”
“Don’t you dare use her name like that,” Darman snarled. He almost lashed out but managed to pull up short. He knew his sanity was temporary, and once the pressure was off and Niner was in the medcenter, he’d fall apart.
That couldn’t happen. He had to hold it together. He had to plan. He didn’t know what, but he had to have a plan.
“Shabuir,” Niner said quietly. “You stupid, stupid shabuir. I’m not worth this.”
“Too late,” Darman said. “It’s over. It’s all over. But nobody’s going to pull the plug on you.”
“Don’t worry,” the medic said, almost as if he’d heard him. “Your buddy’s going to be fine.”
They always said that.
Darman could still see Etain and the lightsaber like a freeze-frame in his HUD when the holoimage emitter had gone haywire. He let it stay, switched off all comms, and screamed Etain’s name over and over in his silenced private purgatory until he couldn’t scream anymore.
Ordo dragged Atin back from the edge of the bridge by his shoulder.
“He’s cut me off,” Atin yelled. “He’s cut his comm.”
There was nothing they could do to extract Niner at that point, unless they wanted to kill him. Could they wait? Did they dare hang about after this night? The LAAT/i lifted into the air, and the last thing Ordo saw was Darman staring out from the open hatch, just a blue-lit T-visor in the darkness, and then he was gone.
Kal’buir was frantic. Corr had him by the arm, almost twisting it up his back, trying to calm him down. It was all silent; the drama was entirely on private comm circuits within the confines of their helmets, and all that onlookers could see of the unfolding private agony was gestures that made no sense, exchanged between a bunch of clones and a kill-crazy Mando.
Ordo’s chest felt crushed with pain for him, and for Etain, and Darman, and Niner. Like Kal’buir, he wanted to destroy everything in his path to stop the agony. But he couldn’t, because Skirata needed him to keep his head and get them out.
Jaller Obrim sprinted across the bridge, now a scene of bedlam. There were civilian medics tending to people who’d been crushed in the stampede, hit by deflected bolts, and even clipped by lightsabers. HNE news droids were arriving. Having their images all over the news was the very last thing Skirata’s team needed.
“Ordo, you’ve got to go, now.” Obrim stopped to bark at two cops who were trying to move Etain’s body. Her face was covered with a CSF jacket. “Hey, you two! No! Did I tell you to move her? I did not! Leave that body. Leave it!” He swung back to Ordo. “Get Kal away from here now. It won’t take long for these wooden-tops here to find out she’s a Jedi, and then you’re all in really deep dwang. I’ll keep an eye out for Dar and Niner, but you have to go.”
She’s a Jedi. Was; she was gone. A few minutes, even a second, and she was alive but only in a slip of the tongue.
Skirata managed to pull off his helmet, revealing a face utterly white, all rage, a man you would never want to meet, let alone cross. “Not without Dar and Niner. And not without Etain, not without my girl.”
“Your cover’s as good as blown, Kal—I won’t be able to keep them off your back unless you get out now.” Obrim shoved him. “Please, buddy, do it for me.”
Skirata was proving too much for Corr to subdue. When he was enraged, he was simply an animal, with all the strength and fury that went with it. “I’m not leaving without my boys.”
“You will.”
“I will not, you shabla will let me go and I’ll get them—”
“Sorry, old friend,” Obrim said, “but it has to be this way.” He took out a small pistol, pressed it to Skirata’s neck, and fired. Skirata dropped like a stone; Corr took his weight. Obrim switched into an obvious show to throw any onlookers off the scent, just a cop yelling at Mando heavies who’d got out of hand on his turf. “Get that kriffing crazy Mando out of my face, and move that body.”
“Yes, Captain,” Ordo said. “Stay with the body until A’den comes.” He signaled on his link; A’den was cruising around now with Ny Vollen in her transport, looking for stragglers, and they could pick up Etain. “A’den, you getting this? Obrim’s going to guard Etain. Get over here now.”
Obrim looked down at Corr and the crumpled Skirata. “Tell him I’m sorry I had to do that. Tell him I’ll do whatever I can to see Dar and Niner are okay. Now go, and look after yourselves.”
“Thank you, Jaller.”
“The honor’s mine, Ordo.” The CSF captain’s face was stricken. “And I’m so sorry about Etain.”
Ordo put Kal’buir’s right arm over his shoulder, and Corr took his left. They bundled him into the speeder with Atin, and then lifted clear in what should have been a moment of relief, of triumph, but that was simply black desolation.
Ordo understood vengeance better than anyone, but there was nobody alive now to take it out on. Some Jedi, though… some might have made it.
He’d know what to do when he met them.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Kyrimorut, Mandalore,
1,090 days ABG
It’s entirely possible that the Jedi’s increasingly clouded vision was the result of their own moral degeneration. They’d let so many of their principles slip that the reason they couldn’t see the dark side was so close to them was the lack of sh
arp contrast with themselves, like trying to see a gray nerf in fog. They turned off the light themselves.
—Bardan Jusik, former Jedi Knight
It had been the worst night of Fi’s life, and he’d had an awful lot of bad nights in a short career.
But he couldn’t imagine what it had done to Skirata—or Niner, or Dar. As soon as Aay’han settled on her dampers, Fi heard the sound of boots on the hull, and both the top and port-side cargo hatches popped open from outside.
Mereel jumped down from the top hatch like a medic hauling casualties from a larty, but even he froze as soon as he looked around. The sense of defeat that hung in the air was almost solid enough to bail out like water.
Nobody said anything for a few moments. Then Laseema stood and scooped up Kad—still awake, still craning his neck and gazing around as if he was looking for something—and stepped out through the cargo hatch. Besany got up and took Kal’s left hand.
“Come on, Kal’buir.” She glanced over her shoulder, then gestured to the rest of them with her free hand. “Everyone, into the house. I know none of us feels like it, but the first thing we do is get a meal inside us, and then try to get some sleep. We won’t get far without that.”
It was an order, however gently spoken. The females were taking command now, as if this was the second phase of a battle. It was; and it would be far harder than the first. Fi waited for Atin, Corr, Ordo, Vau, and Jusik to exit. Jilka sat with her hands in her lap, staring at Skirata as if she didn’t know what came next. But Mird nudged her with its nose, then caught her sleeve carefully between teeth that could crush cranial bone, and led her out. The strill was even more intelligent than Fi had thought. It was diplomatic.
“It’s okay, Fi, I’ll see to Kal,” Besany said. “Parja’s going to be waiting. Go greet your wife. We’ll be along shortly.”
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