He scrambled out of the trench, and Etain threw her arms around him without thinking. Her blaster clunked against his armor plates. It was odd to hug something that felt like a droid, but she was overwhelmed by relief that he’d made it. She let go and stepped back, suddenly embarrassed.

“Yeah, I’ve been in a sewer,” he said, all guilt. “Sorry.”

Atin’s voice carried from the trench. “Dar, are you going to stand there all night posing for the commander, or are you going to help me lift this?”

“As if I could forget,” Darman said.

After some grunting and cursing, the two commandos managed to lift a thoroughly trussed body onto the edge of the trench. Etain pulled off the hood and stared into the half-closed eyes of Dr. Uthan. She was drifting in and out of con­sciousness.

“How much did you give her?” Etain asked.

“Enough to shut her up,” Darman said.

Etain hoped the woman didn’t vomit and choke to death.

It was always a risk with heavy sedatives. They hadn’t come this far to lose her. Atin leaned forward, and Darman heaved Uthan onto his back.

“Ten-minute shifts,” Atin said. “And I’ll be counting.”

“I hope she’s worth the effort,” Etain said.

“So do I,” Jinart said. “You must make your own way now. I’ve done all I can. Remember us, Jedi. Remember what we have done for you, and that we expect your help in reclaiming our world. Honor that promise.”

Jinart looked the Padawan up and down as if measuring her, and then the Gurlanin lost her outline and became black fluid again, vanishing into the undergrowth.

“To think I nearly shot her,” Darman said, shaking his head. They moved off toward the extraction point across country remarkably empty of gdans.

Ghez Hokan lined up the young scientists on the other side of the door. He gestured to Hurati.

“On my mark,” he said. “Kill the lights.”

“Sir, if the speeders have been destroyed, what are we going to do?”

Hokan thought it an unusually stupid question for such a fine officer, but perhaps he was thinking about just how far untrained civilians might get on foot before falling to the enemy.

“Run,” he said. “Just run.”

He turned to the four biologists, hoping terror would speed them up, as it often did. “What’s your name?” he asked the woman.

“Cheva,” she said.

“Well, Cheva, when the lights go out, hang on to me and run like crazy, understand?”

“Yes.”

“And if the captain or I shout drop, you drop down flat. Got that?”

“I can assure you I have.”

“Hurati, you take the rear. Don’t lose any of them.”

Hokan was expecting more laser bombardment. It was quiet outside, but he felt that it would begin again as soon as they emerged. He couldn’t defend a facility with its doors jammed open. There was at least one squad of enemy com­mandos still out there. His last chance was to make a run for it with the remnants of Uthan’s team and hide them some­where. Then he would look for Uthan.

One way or another, he would salvage what he could of the nanovirus program. Beyond that, he hadn’t made plans.

“Ready, Hurati?”

“Ready, sir.”

Hokan slid on his Mandalorian helmet, as much for com­fort as protection.

“Lights!”

CO Majestic to Coruscant Command

Standing by to retrieve LAAT/i from Qiilura. Be aware we have de­tected two Trade Federation warships approaching from the Tingel Arm to reinforce Qiilura. Vengeance is moving to protect our flank.

“We’re almost at the one-klick line,” Darman’s voice said. “Ready when you are.”

Niner clapped his glove to the left side of his helmet. He feared it was becoming a nervous tic. “Good. See you at the EP.”

“Give me a few minutes.”

Fi made a casual thumbs-up gesture and adjusted his shoulder plate. Five minutes felt like forever right then.

“Whoa, what’s happening here?” Niner said. “Dar, hold off. Wait one.”

The light from the front doors had died, and his night-vision visor kicked in.

He thought he saw Darman or Atin, another odd flashback now that the stims were wearing off, but then he realized the T-slit visor coming out the door was Hokan’s. He opened fire. The hesitation had cost him half a second, an eternity, and he didn’t see anyone fall.

Fi laid down a burst of plasma bolt rounds, and they waited. Nothing. Then there was another flurry of movement and someone yelled “Drop!” but the three shapes didn’t, at least not until the plasma rounds hit them.

It was silent again. Niner paused. As he and Fi began edging forward to check, someone got up from the blast-cratered ground and sprinted around the far side of the building.

Niner and Fi sprayed more rounds and paused again. But there was no more movement.

“If there’s more inside that lobby, Sarge, can I put a bit of anti-armor in there? I don’t fancy running with droids behind us.”

Standard grenades wouldn’t trigger the thermal detona­tor. “Lob in six,” he said. “And then set the E-Web to self-destruct.”

Fi lined up the blaster, easing it a little on its tripod. Niner heard a high-pitched noise like a repulsorlift drive starting up, but then it was drowned out by the whump-whump– whump of the first three grenades launching and exploding.

The doorway of the facility belched black, rolling flames and smoke.

“Now that’s endex,” Niner said, and they ran. They ran over rutted fields and crashed through two hedges and were into the trees before Niner managed to open his comlink and gasp out the take-take-take command to Darman.

The white flash illuminated the track before them a second or two before the shock wave smacked Niner hard in the back. It threw him forward. His mouth smashed against the interior of the visor and he tasted blood. When he turned his head and tried to get up, Fi was also flat on his chest, arms out in front, head turned toward him.

“No, Sarge,” Fi said, still seeming totally pleased with life. “That was endex.”

Ghez Hokan found himself on the ground with his speeder bike upended, its drive still running. The blast was ringing in his ears. He froze, head covered, waiting for incoming can­non fire. But only silence followed.

He struggled to his feet and managed to heave the speeder upright again. A steering vane was slightly bent, but it was serviceable. He dusted himself down and then swung back into the rider’s seat.

He could see his hands gripping the bars. The tan glove on his left hand looked black; it was still wet. Cheva had hung on to him. She’d run, as he’d told her. Her blood had sprayed over him when she was hit. It was the closest he had come to feeling pity in many years.

Enough of this. You’re going soft, man. Concentrate.

“Sir.” It was hard to identify the voice from a single shout. Hokan turned to check, but there was really only one man who would have struggled to stay with him. “Sir!”

Hurati rode up from behind and stopped his speeder level with his. He had no second rider. Hokan didn’t need to ask.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Hurati said. “They froze when the shooting started. They didn’t even drop.”

“Civilians tend to do that,” Hokan said wearily.

“That blast was the facility. Judging by the color, that was a high-temperature implosion. Not laser cannon.”

“Does it matter?”

“Nothing could have survived that, even in a blastproof container. If there were any samples of the nanovirus, they’re gone now.”

So there was now no nanovirus in Separatist hands, and no scientists with any degree of expertise in the program, either. That made it imperative to retrieve Uthan.

Given the blast area of an implosion device, they were using sensitive remote detonators. Hokan was relieved that he had some EMP grenades in his cargo pannier.