Yes, he was sure enough now where he was. He was ten klicks east of the small town called Imbraani, about forty klicks northeast of RV point Beta and forty klicks almost due east of RV point Gamma. They’d picked RV points along the flight path because the Separatists would expect dispersal, not a retracing of their steps. Between RVs Alpha and Beta was a stretch of woodland, ideal for moving undetected by day. If the rest of his squad had landed safely and were on schedule, they would be making their way to Beta.

Things could be looking up again. All he had to do was get to RV Gamma and wait for his squad. And if they hadn’t made it, then he’d need to rethink the mission.

The idea produced a feeling of desolation. You are nothing on your own, and everything together. He’d been raised to think, function, even breathe as one of a group of four. He could do nothing else.

But ARCs always operate alone, don’t they?

He pondered that, fighting off drowsiness. Leaves rustled suddenly behind him, and he turned to scan with the infrared filter of his visor. He caught a blur of moving animal. It fled. His database said there were no large predators on Qiilura, so whatever it was could be no more troublesome than the gdans—not as long as he was wearing his armor, anyway.

Darman waited motionless for a few moments, but the an­imal was gone. He turned back and refocused on the road and the surrounding fields, struggling to stay awake. Lay off the stims. No, he wasn’t going to touch his medpac for a quick boost. Not yet. He’d save his limited supply for later, for when things got really tough, as he knew they would.

Then something changed in his field of vision. The frozen tableau had come to life. He flipped down the binoc filter for a closer look, and what he saw made him snap it back and gaze through the sniperscope of his rifle.

A thin wisp of smoke rose from a group of wooden buildings. It was quickly becoming a pall. It wasn’t the smoke of domestic fires; he could see flames, flaring tongues of yellow and red. The structures—barns, judging by their construction—were on fire. A group of people in drab clothing was scrambling around, trying to drag objects clear of the flames, uncoordinated, panicking. Another group—Ubese, Trandoshan, mainly Weequay—was stopping them, standing in a line around the barn.

One of the farmers broke the line and disappeared into a building. He didn’t come out again, not as long as Darman watched.

Nothing in his training corresponded to what he was wit­nessing. There was not a memory, a pattern, a maneuver, or a lesson that flashed in his mind and told him how this should be played out. Civilian situations were outside his ex­perience. Nor were these citizens of the Republic: they weren’t anyone’s citizens.

His training taught him not to be distracted by outside is­sues, however compelling.

But there was still some urge in him that said Do some­thing. What? His mission, his reason for staying alive, was to rejoin his squad and thwart the nanovirus project. Breaking cover to aid civilians cut across all of that.

The Separatists—or whoever controlled this band of as­sorted thugs—knew he was here.

It didn’t take a genius to work it out. The sprayer had exploded on landing, detonating any demolition ordnance that Darman hadn’t been able to cram into his packs. The Weequay patrol hadn’t called in when their masters had ex­pected. Now the humans—farmers—were being punished and threatened, and it was all to do with him. The Separatists were looking for him.

Escape and evasion procedure.

No, not yet. Darman inhaled and leveled his rifle carefully, picking out an Ubese in the crosswires. Then he lined up the rest of the group, one at a time. Eight hostiles, forty rounds: he knew he could slot every one, first time.

He held his breath, forefinger resting on the trigger.

Just a touch.

How many more targets were there that he couldn’t see? He’d give away his position.

This isn’t your business.

He exhaled and relaxed his grip on the rifle, sliding his forefinger in front of the trigger guard. What would happen to his mission if they caught him?

In the next two minutes, reluctant to move, he targeted each Ubese, Weequay, and Trandoshan several times, but didn’t squeeze the trigger. He wanted to more than he could have imagined. It wasn’t the hard-drilled trained response of a sniper, but a helpless, impotent anger whose origin he couldn’t begin to identify.

Don’t reveal your position. Don’t fire unless you can take out the target. Keep firing until the target is down and stays down.

And then there were times when a soldier just had to take a chance.

They could be Republic citizens, one day.

They could be allies now.

Darman wasn’t tired anymore, or even hungry. His pulse was pounding loud in his ears and he could feel the constric­tion in his throat muscles, the fundamental human reflex to flee or fight. Fleeing wasn’t an option. He could only fight.

He targeted the first Weequay, a clean head shot, and squeezed the trigger. The creature dropped, and for a mo­ment his comrades stared at the body, unsure of what had happened. Darman had nothing against Weequays. It was only coincidence that this was the third one he’d killed in a few hours.

And, suddenly unfrozen, the band of thugs all turned to stare in the direction of the shot, drawing their weapons.

The first bolt hit the bushes to Darman’s left; the second went three meters over his head. They’d worked out where he was, all right. Darman snapped on the DC-17’s grenade at­tachment and watched through the scope as the civilians scattered. The grenade sent a shower of soil and shattered wood into the air, along with four of the eight militia.

He’d certainly pinpointed his position now.

When he sprang to his feet and began the run down the slope, the four remaining enemy stood and stared for a cou­ple of seconds. He had no idea why, but they were transfixed long enough for him to gain the advantage. A couple of plasma bolts hit him, but his armor simply took it like a punch in the chest and he ran on, laying down a hail of parti­cle rounds. The bolts came toward him like horizontal luminous rain. One Trandoshan turned and ran; Darman took him down with a bolt in the back that blew him a few meters far­ther as he fell.

Then the white-hot rain stopped and he was running over bodies. Darman slowed and pulled up, suddenly deafened by the sound of his own panting breath.

Maybe they’d managed to report his presence via their comlinks in time, and maybe they hadn’t. The information wouldn’t have been much use on its own anyway. He ran from barn to barn, checking for more hostiles, walking through the flames unscathed because his armor and body­suit could easily withstand the heat of a wood fire. Even with the visor, he couldn’t see much through the thick smoke, and he moved quickly outside again. He glanced at his arm; smoke curled off the soot-blackened plates.

Then he almost walked straight into a youth in a farmer’s smock, staring at him. The boy bolted.

Darman couldn’t find any more of Hokan’s troops. He came to the last barn and booted the door open. His spot-lamp illuminated the dim interior and picked out four terri­fied human faces—two men, a woman, and the boy he’d just seen—huddling in a corner next to a threshing machine. His automatic response was to train the rifle on them until he was sure they weren’t hostiles. Not every soldier wears a uni­form. But his instincts said these were just terrified civilians.

He was still trailing smoke from his armor. He realized how frightening he looked.

A thin, wavering wail began. He thought it was the woman, but it seemed to be coming from one of the men, a man just as old as Sergeant Skirata who was staring at him in horror. Darman had never seen civilians that close, and he’d never seen anyone that scared.