Skirata said soldiers always complained. Niner was not given to complaining, but he was definitely not satisfied with the situation. This wasn’t what special forces were best designed to do. They should have been there to gather intel themselves, identify the target, call in air strikes, and maybe recover hostages or data. They might even carry out assassinations. They weren’t meant to be artillery and infantry as well.
If the Republic hadn’t wanted Uthan alive, they needn’t have been here at all. Majestic could have targeted the facility from orbit, and everyone would have been home in time for supper. Nobody would have needed to get their backside shot at, or spend days hauling forty-five-kilo packs across farmland.
“I’m glad you’re not just accepting this,” Etain said.
Fi shrugged. “If you can’t take a joke, you shouldn’t have joined.”
“I didn’t join,” Atin said.
At least they all managed to laugh. It was the first time that anyone had found any humor in the situation, apart from Fi, of course.
“What do we normally do?” Darman said suddenly. “How do we normally take a target? Break it down.”
Niner concentrated. “We isolate a target, go in, and neutralize it.”
“Okay, say we don’t fight our way in.”
“Not with you.”
“We’re expected to pull off a rapid entry and fight our way in. What if we fought our way out?” Darman prodded his finger into the hologram. “Can we get in under the facility to this central room?”
“This plan only shows drains. The bore’s too narrow to get a man down there, and this really isn’t a job for Jinart.”
The Gurlanin twitched visibly. “I wasn’t offering, but if there was anything I might do—”
“You’ve done more than enough already.” Darman tilted his head this way and that, studying the plans. “The main drain chamber is nearly a hundred centimeters wide here, though. It only tapers to thirty centimeters at the wall. Is there any other way of getting into that main?”
“Short of walking up to the wall and digging under it like a gdan, in full view of the droids, no.”
Jinart sat upright. “Gdan warrens.”
“They tunnel, don’t they?”
“Everywhere. They even cause subsidence.”
“Are there tunnels around there? Could we locate them? Would they be wide enough?”
“Yes, there are warrens, because it was once a farm site and gdans like eating merlies. The tunnels can be quite wide. And I can certainly locate them for you. In fact, I will lead you through the warrens. You might have to excavate some of the way, though.”
“Basic sapper procedure,” Darman said. “Except we don’t have proper equipment, so we’ll be digging with these.” He took a folding sharp-edged trowel from his belt. “Entrenching tool. Also used for’freshers. Apt.”
“What is it between you and the gdans?” Etain asked. “Why do they avoid you and your scent?”
“Oh, we eat them,” Jinart said casually. “But only if they try to approach our young.”
“That’s it, then,” Darman said. “Get me into that central chamber from below, and I’ll work my way out through the facility.”
“Take Atin with you,” Niner said. He didn’t want to say in case you get killed, but he wanted another technically minded man in there to lay charges and blow doors. “Fi and I can lay down fire out front and deal with any droids we see. When you bring Uthan out, Etain can help us get her clear and then you blow the place. Then we do a runner for the extraction point.”
“Gets my vote,” Atin said. “You okay with that, ma’am?”
Etain nodded reluctantly. “If that’s plan C, it sounds as impossible as plans A and B.” She patted Darman’s arm, not quite focusing, as if she was lost in thought about something. “But I don’t have a better suggestion.”
“Okay,” Niner said. “Everyone take a stim now. Be ready to move out at nightfall. We’ve got four hours to prep for this. I’ll notify Majestic.”
“What if this fails?” Etain asked.
“They’ll send in another squad.”
“And lose more men?” She shook her head. “If it’s down to me, I’ll happily give the order for Majestic to pound this facility to dust, with Uthan inside or not.”
“Do you think we’re going to fail?”
Etain smiled. There was something mildly unnerving about the way she was smiling. “No. I don’t. You’re going to pull this off, believe me.”
Niner kept a tight grip on his breathing. If he gave the slightest hint of a sigh of doubt, they’d pick it up. It was crazy. But, as Skirata said, they went where others wouldn’t, and did what nobody else could.
And fighting your way out from the heart of an alloy-plated, heavily guarded facility designed to be impregnable to any life-form certainly lived up to that boast. For some reason he felt fine about it all.
You’re going to pull this off, believe me.
He wondered if his thoughts were actually his own. If Etain was influencing his mind to improve his confidence, that was okay by him. Officers were supposed to inspire you. Right then he didn’t much care how she did it.
16
What do I think about it? I don’t know, really. Nobody’s ever asked me for my opinion before.
–Clone Trooper RC-5093, retired, at CF VetCenter Coruscant. Chronological age: twenty-three. Biological age: sixty.
An autumnal mist had settled over the countryside. It wasn’t dense enough to provide cover, but it did give Darman a sense of protection. He tabbed behind Atin as Jinart led the way.
He was a walking bomb factory. Why was he even worried about being spotted? The ram and its attachments clunked against his armor and he adjusted them, fearing discovery. Atin walked ahead, Deece held in both hands with his finger inside the trigger guard, a small but significant expression of his anxiety level.
“Matte-black armor,” Darman said. “First thing we ought to slap in for when we get back. I feel like a homing beacon.”
“Does it matter?”
“Does to me.”
“Dar, it’s one thing for the enemy to spot us coming. It’s another thing entirely for them to do anything about it.” Atin was still checking all around him, though. “I was knocked flat by a round and it didn’t penetrate the plates.”
Atin had a point. The armor might have been conspicuous, but it worked. Darman had taken a direct hit, too. Maybe in the future the sight of that armor alone would deter enemies, a touch of what Skirata called assertive public relations. Myth, he said, won almost as many engagements as reality.
Darman was all for a little help from the myth department.
They were four hundred meters southeast of the facility. Jinart stopped in front of a gentle slope and thrust her head through a break in the foliage. Her sniffing was audible.
“We enter here,” she said.
There didn’t even appear to be a hole. “How do you know what’s in there?”
“I can detect solid surfaces, movement, everything. I don’t need to see.” She sniffed again, or at least Darman assumed she was sniffing; it occurred to him that she might have been echolocating. “Do you want to stand here and present a target all night?”
“No ma’am,” Darman said, and got down on all fours.
Jinart might not have needed to see, but he did. He could have relied on the night-vision visor, but he felt the need for real, honest light. He switched on his tactical spot-lamp. He switched it off again, fast.
“Uh…”
“What’s wrong?” Atin asked.
“Nothing,” Darman said. It was natural not to like confined spaces, he told himself. With the light projected forward, he could see just how suffocatingly small a space he was in. With his night vision in place, he was simply looking down a narrow field of view, safe inside his armor, cocooned from the world in a way he was not only used to, but actually needed.