“We really must talk to procurement about hardening our electronics,” Fi said mildly.

“I fear we might be back to old-fashioned soldiering.”

“I’m fresh out of bayonets.”

“Sergeant Kal would have an idea.”

“You got his number on you?”

“I’m going to scream.”

“What?”

“Don’t laugh. This man’s a nut. If he thinks I’m down and badly injured, he won’t be able to resist coming over and slit­ting my throat.”

“And then I give him a surprise party?”

“Anything that resolves this fast.”

“Okay, kid. Off you go.”

Niner suddenly realized he didn’t actually know how to scream. But he’d heard enough terribly wounded men to make a fair stab at it.

He threw back his head and let go.

I don’t know who the good guys are anymore. But I do know what the enemy is. It’s the compromise of principles. You lose the war when you lose your principles. And the first principle is to look out for your comrades.

–Kal Skirata

The gunship was the most beautiful craft Darman had ever seen.

It came into view as he staggered through the line of bushes and into the newly plowed field. Its cockpit bubbles gleamed like a holo of Cloud City, and its cannon turrets had the symmetry of the finest Naboo architecture. He even loved its rust and the dents in its wings.

“Look at that, Atin,” he said. “Sheer art… Atin?”

“… yeah.”

“Nearly there.”

“… uh.”

White trooper armor came running toward him with a Gran in a medic’s uniform just behind them. Atin’s weight lifted from his back, and he struggled to pull his arms free of the webbing. He followed the stretcher, trying to talk to the medic.

“Verpine projectile, right side of his chest,” he said. “Painkiller, five ccs of—”

“I can see,” the Gran said. “Neat job, Private. Now get in that ship.”

When he looked around, troopers had taken Uthan from Etain and she was walking toward the gunship, stopping to look over her shoulder every few steps. General Arligan Zey stepped down from the troop cabin and bowed his head very slightly in her direction. She slowed down and stopped to re­turn it.

It struck Darman as a remarkably formal greeting under the circumstances. Behind this tableau of Jedi etiquette was a scene from a nightmare, with medics working on both Atin and Uthan, removing armor, cutting garments, hooking up transfusion lines, calling for more dressings. It was like watching two parallel worlds, each wholly oblivious to the other.

Zey didn’t look at Darman at all, but the ARC trooper who jumped down beside the general took off his helmet and sim­ply stared at him in silence. Something black moved in the shadows of the ship and then emerged slowly to sniff the air with a long glossy snout.

It was Valaqil. He had come home. Darman could hardly say that he recognized the Gurlanin, because this one looked indistinguishable from Jinart. But he could guess.

“Private Atin is still collecting scars, I see,” Valaqil said. “And my consort is impatient and waiting for me. I have to go.”

“Jinart?” Darman shrugged, embarrassed. “She’s been an extraordinary help to us, sir. A fifth—a sixth member of the squad, in fact.”

“I’m sure she will tell me all the details of what has made her so very excited for the past few days.”

And then he was gone, loping across the field and into the bushes. Darman hoped the Republic wouldn’t disappoint the Gurlanins. They’d served as well as any soldier.

“You’ve done remarkably well, Padawan,” Zey said. “Es­pecially without the guidance of a Master. Quite exceptional, in fact. I think that this may hasten your progress toward your trials as far as the Council is concerned. With the super­vision of a Master, of course.”

Darman expected delight or embarrassment or something equally positive to soften Etain’s expression. He knew she believed she was unfit to be a Jedi Knight, or even a Padawan at times. He knew it was the one thing she lived for.

But the elevation didn’t appear to move her at all. She didn’t even appear to hear what Zey had said.

“Master, where are Niner and Fi?” Etain asked.

Zey looked bemused. “Who?”

“Sorry, Master. The two other men from Omega Squad.”

Darman felt the scrutiny of the ARC even more keenly now. He’d only seen ARCs a couple of times before, and they came as close to scaring him as anyone supposedly on his side ever could. Zey shook his head. “You’re the first to make it here.”

“They’ll be here, sir,” Darman said. He flicked open his helmet-to-helmet comlink. If the ARC was listening in, it was too bad. “Sarge? Fi? Time to get a move on.”

There was no sound at all in his ear, not even static. He switched to the alternative frequency, and still there was nothing. “Niner, Fi, are you receiving?” He checked the di­agnostics mode of his HUD: his helmet was fully functional. He could see the crevasse on Geonosis again, standing be­hind the cooling, ticking E-Web, trying to raise Taler, Vin, and Jay. He couldn’t see the biometric data from their suits on his HUD.

No, not again. Not again, please…

“Ma’am, I’m not getting any response.”

“What does that mean?”

He could hardly bear to say it. “Their helmets are offline. I don’t think they made it.”

“They’re dead?” Zey asked.

“They’re not dead,” Etain said firmly.

“Ma’am, I can’t raise them at all.”

“No, I don’t care, they’re alive. I know they are.”

“You have to go,” Zey said. “If you don’t go now, you could be flying straight into a battle with Trade Federation vessels. We’ve attracted a lot of attention.” The general turned back to the two medics working on Uthan. “Is she going to survive?”

“She’s in a very bad way, sir. We need to move her.”

“Keep her alive any way you can. Prepare to lift off. Etain—”

“Master, there are two men still out there.”

“They’re dead.”

“No, I can feel them. I know them, sir, I know where they are. They’re not even hurt. We must wait for them.”

“We must also save Uthan and get you two out of here.”

“They’ve destroyed the virus. Isn’t that what matters? You can’t abandon them now.”

Darman could see she was at that point where she would either collapse or do something extreme. Her face was drawn tight, and her pupils were dilated. It was an expression that scared him. He’d seen it a few times in the last few days.

The gunship’s drives were throbbing now. Etain still had one boot on the platform and the other firmly on Qiiluran soil.

Etain swallowed hard. Oh, Darman thought. Just bite your tongue, ma’am. Don’t react. But he felt what she was feeling. All that sweat and terror and pain for nothing. All that, when they could have bombed the facility and gone home. All that—and Atin fighting for his life, and Niner and Fi ei­ther dead or marooned here.

“I will not leave without them,” Etain said. “I regret dis­obeying you, Master, but I must.”

Zey registered visible annoyance. “You will do as I order,” he said quietly. “You’re compromising the mission.”

“We need these men. They are not expendable.”

“We are all expendable.”

“Then, sir, I’m expendable, too.” She lowered her head slightly, looking up at Zey, more challenging than coy. “An officer’s duty is the welfare of her men.”

“I see that Master Fulier taught you little about obedience but a great deal about sentimentality—”

Darman dared to interrupt. He couldn’t stand seeing Jedi Masters arguing. It was painfully embarrassing. “Look, I’ll stay, ma’am,” he said. “Go with Atin. See he’s okay.”

Despite Skirata’s frequent assurances that their lives had meaning, Darman had accepted the hierarchy of expendability: it was not only natural in the Grand Army, but also nec­essary and inevitable. His life was a more valuable defense asset than a clone trooper’s; the ARC’s life was more valu­able than his. But the mirror that Etain’s loyalty and care held up in front of him had made him see himself as a man. Yes, Niner and Fi deserved better. They all did.