Star Wars_ Jedi Trial Part 9

Halcyon had not wasted any time maneuvering to get a position of advantage over the Rodian; he just waded right in, and Grudo advanced to meet him. Halcyon's party formed a large circle, and some of them took bets on who would win. Their attention was fully focused on the contest before them, "Halcyon seemed unwilling to use Jedi tricks"-Anakin a.s.sumed he meant the Force-"and fought like an ordinary warrior. So I used his momentum against him. Many times I flipped him to land jarringly on the hard gound. But Halcyon sprang back up every time and came right back at me."

He hooted a soft laugh. "He was fast enough to get through a few times, and he hit hard enough to bruise-including a couple of bone bruises."

Covered in perspiration, his clothes torn in many places where Grudo had grabbed him to throw, Halcyon had pressed home his advantage of speed and dexterity while the Rodian, hurting from the many blows the Jedi Master had rained upon him, managed to keep out of Halcyon's grasp. Each time one or the other struck a blow or made a throw, Scarlet Thrantds crew sent up a roar of approval. Soon the ground the two fought on had been churned into a mora.s.s. Both contestants had lost any sense of time, and as the fight dragged on they began to stumble and miss opportunities as physical exhaustion began to take its toll.

The fight stopped when Slayke stole Ploorwd Bodkin. You should have seen Halcyon's mouth drop, like a door opening: plop! Everyone stared as the ship rose up on a pillar of fire, getting smaller and smaller and then disappearing. Halcyon froze, eyes on the sky. n.o.body moved. I could have killed him then, but I didn't. I knew the fight was over, that Captain Slayke's plan had worked. There's no honor in killing an opponent when he's looking away, and I respected Nejaa Halcyon for fighting like he did-he never once called on the Force during the fight, as far as I could tell." He hooted softly for a moment, then said, serious again, "I don't understand why he didn't kill me after his ship was taken, but he didn't."

Slayke had disabled the drives on Scarlet Thranta, leaving Halcyon and his men stranded on Bpfa.s.sh for several months until a repair ship could arrive. Grudo had been taken without further struggle as Halcyon's prisoner-the only quarry to show for the whole mission. As the weeks dragged by in idleness, they had gotten to know each other fairly well.

Finally one day Halcyon said, "Grudo, I'm letting you go when we get back to Coruscant. I'd be the laughingstock of the whole galaxy if I returned from this mission with only one prisoner. Here's the deal: for your freedom, you stay put until I can find some use for you."

In the meantime the Senate relented on its charge of treason and piracy, and Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, bowing to the inevitable and making the best of the situation, commissioned Slayke to continue raiding Separatist shipping and outposts.

"So," Grudo concluded, "I found rooms at the Golden Slug and there I waited until you and Halcyon came for me."

The shuttle had been parked in the loading bay on the Ranger for some time before Grudo finished his story, its pilot fuming in the c.o.c.kpit.

"Strange, isn't it, how fate arranges our lives?" Grudo pondered. "Here we are now, very near to where I first met Halcyon and where I last saw Captain Slayke. Two very great men, and I have been honored to serve them both. Now, soon, we all meet again, and this time we're all allies. Life is good!" He paused for a moment, then said, "I wonder what Captain Slayke is doing down there on Praesitlyn right now."

13.

They could smell the battlefield before they ever got in sight of it.

L'Loxx pulled his speeder into the shadow of a rock outcropping. "Now's where it really gets hairy," he told Erk and Odie. "There's about a kilometer of open terrain we've got to cross to get to our positions.

It's constantly under observation, and the enemy is always directing hara.s.sment and interdiction fires onto it. Our labor droids have built a series of bunkers connected by deep trenches throughout the area-once we get inside our defensive perimeter, we'll be all right. But it's that race across the open ground where you'll have to really be on your toes.

I've done it several times. Zig and zag a lot. Follow me-I know where to cross our lines. The challenge for today is widow and the countersign is orphan, in case we get separated."

"What is that smell?" Erk asked, wrinkling his nose.

L'Loxx smiled wryly at the pilot. "Right, you don't have any experience with fighting up close." It was the disdain of the infantry soldier, who lived and fought and bled in the mud, for those who slept in beds and fought in what foot soldiers considered clean environments. "You don't know. There are tens of thousands of troops down there, all stuck in one area, without running water. They start to smell after a while." He looked away, and his face went blank for a moment. "Besides, we haven't had time to bury all our dead." He shook it off and returned to the matter at hand. "Here's what we'll do. I'll go in first on Jamur's speeder. They'll recognize me as friendly. Once I'm in, you two come on the seventy-four-Zs. You can't see it from here, but there's a redoubt down there that's got this whole area covered in case the enemy flanks us and comes in from the rear. I'll tell them not to fire on you, and the other outposts will direct counterbattery fire on the enemy guns. That should distract them enough so you can get through with no problem.

Remember the pa.s.swords because they tuill challenge you. Can you handle that speeder there, flyboy?"

"Sarge, one of these days I'll get you in the backseat of a fighter and show you some real handling," Erk said.

L'Loxx grinned. "I look forward to that day, Lieutenant. One final thing.

We've determined that whoever's controlling the enemy guns only reacts to movement, so if you fall or are wounded, lie still and you won't be a target."

"How long do we lie there?" Odie asked.

"Until we come out and get you. Ready?"

Slayke's army had dug in along a dry riverbed that faced the plateau on which the Intergalactic Communications Center sat. Various strongpoints connected by a trench-and-tunnel complex had been constructed. The remains of uncounted thousands of destroyed battle droids and war machines littered the complex, mute evidence of the heavy fighting that had been going on. Right now the lines were relatively quiet.

Occasionally high-energy weapons directed their beams into the defenses, or Slayke's artillery lanced out at the enemy positions, but otherwise there seemed to be no movement at all.

Almost from the instant L'Loxx headed down the slope, high-energy ranging weapons began to take him under fire. It took him a full thirty seconds to cross the intervening open s.p.a.ce, zigging and zagging without any apparent pattern, and disappear into the safety of a trench line where he was protected from the enemy guns.

"Ohboy, ohboy," Odie muttered, putting her speeder into gear and roaring down the slope. She made it halfway to the trench line before the enemy opened fire, confused momentarily by the presence of one of their own speeders crossing no-being's-land. Obviously, whoever or whatever was operating the enemy fire-control system was slow to make the connection that the bikes couldn't belong to their side, since no lone recon trooper would be making a dash for the enemy lines. At that point Slayke's own artillery responded to the enemy fire, which had slackened considerably by the time Odie made cover.

Erk swallowed nervously. The palms of his hands were sweaty on the speeder's controls. He'd quickly learned how to operate the machine on the long trek across the desert, but what was required of him now would be a degree of skill in riding that he wasn't sure he possessed. One mistake he would not make was to exit his position in the same place as the other two had; by now every enemy gun would be trained on that spot.

Carefully, he guided his speeder down the ridge about a hundred meters.

That meant he'd have to aim for the trench line at an acute angle. Would the terrain look so different approaching from that angle that he'd miss the entrance? Would the violent maneuvering disorient him?

He gunned the speeder, cleared the ridgeline by ten meters, and slammed down on the other side with enough force to jar his teeth. Caught off guard, the enemy gunners didn't fire at him at first, but after a few seconds beams began lancing down all around him, slagging the ground where they struck. Erk zigged and zagged, left, right, right, straight ahead for a few meters; stop for a one-second count; then straight ahead for a few more meters, executing sharp turns every few meters. He could feel the heat of the near hits as the enemy gunners tracked him. They could have laid down a curtain of fire between him and the trench but didn't. Instead they kept tracking him as an individual target, as if trying to score points in a game.

Erk never saw the depression in the ground. Just as he crossed the depression's forward edge, a bolt struck the speeder's fuel cell and it exploded in a violent orange blossom, but he had already pitched headlong over the controls and slammed down into the ground with enough force to knock him unconscious. Those few seconds saved his life because the enemy gunners, or whoever was controlling them, seeing him lying on the ground and not moving, apparently thought he had been killed in the explosion.

The next thing Erk knew someone was hauling him to his feet. "Come on!

Come on!"

It was Odie. Groggily, he straddled the machine she guided him to and held on to her for his life. The speeder leapt forward at top speed, almost throwing him off. She swerved sharply to the right and again to the left, the speeder cutting the turns so close that his knee dragged along the ground. In seconds they were inside the trench. Odie switched off her engine, and willing hands emerged from the bunkers to help the pair off.

"Fine work!" Sergeant L'Loxx shouted. "Flyboy, I sure hope you navigate that fighter of yours better than you did that speeder! You should have a medic see to that knee."

Erk nodded dumbly, still dazed from being thrown. Then he gathered himself and asked, "Where's the aid station?"

"Fifty meters or so that way there's a connecting trench." L'Loxx pointed to the right. "Follow it, you can't miss it." He turned to one of his soldiers. "Frak, show him the way. Wait for him and bring him back. If the docs can't take care of him right away and you think he's all right, bring him back-he can get treated later."

While the sergeant was instructing Private Frak, Erk pulled himself to his feet. He looked to see how high the lip of the trench was. Confident that he was protected from direct fire, he followed Frak down the trench.

Odie's concerned eyes followed Erk for a moment, then decided he was going to be all right and asked a more immediate question. "Any chance of getting something to eat?"

"That's what all of us would like to know," L'Loxx answered.

What I can do is offer you a place to rest out of the elements."

He showed her into a small bunker with a cot. Odie didn't care that the cot was filthy from the many unwashed soldiers who had slept on it-at least it was off the ground. She was asleep as soon as she closed her eyes.

Sergeant L'Loxx woke her an hour later. "Come on," he said. "Captain Slayke wants to see you and the flyboy."

Odie sat up and rubbed her eyes. She mumbled something - the only word L'Loxx could make out was "Erk."

"He's back and he's been taken care of Lets go.The captain's waiting for us."

Slayke's army, composed of volunteers from all over the galaxy, was a polyglot conglomeration of species. As far as possible, Slayke had organized his units to keep individuals of a species together. As the trio negotiated the narrow trenches, at one point they squeezed past a squad of Gungan engineers rebuilding a caved-in bunker; in another sector a company of Bothans staffed observation posts. And everywhere was the detritus of war: destroyed battle droids, discarded weapons, abandoned personal items, and empty supply containers of all kinds littered the positions; engineer and labor droids scurried everywhere, collecting weapons and ordnance for salvaging, rebuilding damaged walls, helping living beings scavenge for supplies.

The command post was in a bunker deep underground. It was a hubbub of organized disorder, officers and noncoms taking reports from the outposts, others pa.s.sing on orders, staff officers dealing with the myriad details required to keep an army operational in combat. At the center of it all was the commanding figure of Zozridor Slayke.

Sergeant L'Loxx approached the captain, came to attention, and saluted.

"Recon report, sir," he announced.

"Omin, I see you made it back again." Slayke nodded for him to proceed, and L'Loxx made his report, concluding with the discovery of Erk and Odie and the trip back to their lines.

Slayke held out his hand. "Welcome to my victorious little army. Do you know if there are any other survivors of General Khamar's force?"

"Nossir," Erk answered. "That doesn't mean there aren't any, just that we didn't see anyone else."

Slayke shook his head. "Too bad. We could use the reinforcement, but since you're all there appears to be, you'll have to do. You're a fighter pilot, Lieutenant? I'd like to a.s.sign you to an aircraft, but we're all out of them just now. But you, trooper, you're recon? Reconnaissance is my eyes and ears. I rely heavily on troopers like Omin here." Odie was surprised at how Slayke used or even knew the first names of his soldiers. "The enemy is constantly trying to outflank us and take out positions from the rear. That's why recon troopers are so important to me. I need someone to replace Corporal Nath. He was a good man, Jamur, but he's gone now. Would you be willing to take on the job?"

With Slayke standing there looking straight at her with his penetrating eyes, it was very difficult for Odie not to shout out Yessir! but she didn't. Instead, she said, "If you don't mind, sir, I'd rather stay and fight alongside Lieutenant Erk." She swallowed hard but couldn't stop her face from turning red at the words. "He's a pilot, sir-he doesn't know how to fight on the ground. He needs someone to hold his hand." She blushed more brightly when she realized how what she said could be taken.

Slayke raised his eyebrows, glanced at Sergeant L'Loxx, who just gave a noncommittal shrug, and turned to Erk.

"Um, she's my copilot, sir, sort of, that is," Erk said.

"Oh?" Slayke answered. "Come over here with me." He gestured at a hologram map table behind where they stood. On it was a three-dimensional display of Slayke's troop dispositions. "Here, this dry riverbed is no-being's-land, the dividing line between our armies. The lines are very close together there." He grinned wolfishly. "I had us move in so close that his ships in orbit don't dare fire because they'd destroy his own droids. That's a.s.suming any of his ships can break contact with my fleet to pay attention to what's happening down here. He caught on quickly and keeps his forces just as close to mine so my ships can't fire on his ground forces.

"This redoubt," he said, pointing at a fortified outpost, "is the most advanced part of our lines. It's called Izable, and it's there to warn us of any change in the enemy's dispositions, any preparations he might be making to attack us. About six hundred meters behind Izable, but out on the flanks, are two more forts, Eliey and Kaudine. Here, where we are now, is the main position in our defenses. About six hundred meters behind us is the final redoubt, Judlie, where you came into our lines.

Judlie covers our rear. These five strongpoints are ma.s.sively dug in, and each has a three-sixty-degree field of fire, fully interlocked with the fields of fire from the other positions, so if the enemy gets through anywhere along our lines all the forts can bring fire on him. Here, here, here, and here are artillery positions, equally well dug in, but their guns are registered on every square meter of our own lines, so if the enemy breaks through they'll be taken under direct fire. The redoubts are connected by a series of tunnels and trenches to allow us to shift soldiers and supplies from one point to another as needed. This place is an engineering marvel. We built it in just two days while under fire.

That's thanks to our engineers and hundreds of labor droids. Engineers saved this army.

"On the other side of this riverbed are the enemy's positions, occupying this large, flat plain. This mesa, back here, is where the Intergalactic Communications Center is located. That was the enemy's objective, and I'm sure he's holding it in considerable strength. I'm sure that as members of General Khamar's army you're familiar with how this place is laid out.

Whoever's in command over there is smart. He tried six times to take us by storm and we beat him off each time. Not without losses on our side, but we cut his droids down by the thousands. He took Izable twice, and we took it back from him each time. Now he's content to probe our lines looking for weak spots, attempting to outflank us, and digging tunnels.

Yes, he's got one going right now, at a depth of about one hundred meters, headed straight toward Izable. When he gets there he'll set off a mountain of explosives and blow Izable sky-high. So we're digging a countermine to go under his and blow it before it reaches Izable. Be interesting to see who gets there first, won't it?" Slayke grinned fiercely.

"What are our chances?" Erk asked.

"Before we attacked I sent a message to Coruscant asking for help. Maybe it'll come in time, maybe not. Until then we're on our own, but we've really messed up this guy's timetable." He gestured at the enemy positions on the holomap. "My guess is he's waiting to be reinforced, too. Whoever's opposing me over there was sent here to secure the center, not garrison it, so there's got to be a large follow-on force coming along soon. If lt: gets here before we're reinforced..." He shrugged.

"What are you planning to do until then, sir?" Odie asked.

"Do? Well, I'm going to kick them as hard as I can." The officers standing around the map laughed. "And you two-I can always use a pair of gunners up at Izable. How about it?"

"Yessir."

"Sergeant L'Loxx, get them fed, issue them some equipment, and get them up to Izable. They can report to Lieutenant D'Nore for further a.s.signment. Good luck." He held out his hand and they shook.

The meal they were given consisted of field combat rations designed to sustain life at a high rate of metabolism, not to satisfy epicurean tastes. When they were finished eating, L'Loxx gave them each an equipment belt. "They're standard infantry load-bearing equipment harnesses, but we've added some extra tools we've found useful in the field. Check out the pouches first chance you get and familiarize yourself with their contents. Could save your life in a pinch."

Lieutenant D'Nore was a hara.s.sed Bothan struggling with the responsibility of maintaining his outpost on 100 percent alert. It was he who had led the a.s.sault party that had most recently recaptured Izable from the battle droids. Since then, the only sleep he'd been able to get was in brief s.n.a.t.c.hes. "I'm not letting them retake Izable," he told his two new fighters. "You'll work in an advanced listening post covering sector five." He didn't bother to indicate where "sector five" in the outpost might be before he was off to confer with the soldiers in sector three, shouting over his shoulder as he left, "I'll talk to you two more later. I had three people down there, but they were all wounded and evacuated. So whatever you do, don't fire your weapon unless you're attacked. I don't want the enemy to know we've reoccupied the listening post." With that he disappeared down a communications trench.

A sergeant standing nearby said, "Come on, you two, I'll take you down.

Be sure not to expose yourselves above the trench line, or you'll get zapped for sure." Crouching low, the pair followed him off in the opposite direction from the one the lieutenant had just taken. After some twistings and turnings, the trench ended at a fortified embrasure.

"Sector five," the sergeant announced. Bloodstains and shreds of clothing marked the spot where medics had treated the last crew operating the gun.

"I've never even seen a weapon like this, much less know how to operate it," Erk said, looking at the E-Web repeating blaster.

"I've been trained on all types of infantry weapons," Odie replied. "I'll fire the blaster, you monitor the power generator." She turned to the sergeant. "When will we be relieved?"

"When you're relieved, and I don't have any idea when that will be," he answered. He handed them each a ration packet. Make them last-they're all we have left. Sleep in shifts. One of you monitor the tactical net at all times. Comm check every thirty minutes. Don't miss one. Fire your weapon only when you have a target. You aren't down here to stop an a.s.sault, only to give us a warning if one comes and slow them down a little. When they start closing in, that's the time to go back up that trench to the main defensive position as quick as you can. It's up to you to decide when to bug out, but don't wait too long. Your communications call sign is Hope Five; the command post is Izzy Six. Synchronize your chronos-it's sixteen fifteen.

Check in at sixteen forty-five." With that, he scuttled back up the communications trench.

Despite her brave words, Odie hadn't trained exhaustively with the E- Web repeating blasters, and it took her several minutes of examination to refamiliarize herself with the system. When she felt confident enough, she began explaining it to Erk.

"This blaster should be connected to the other ones in the outpost by its built-in long-range secure comlink," she said, pointing out each component as she mentioned it. "That means if we come under attack, the targeting systems on the other blasters will automatically zero in to give us supporting fire and vice versa." She rapidly checked the comlink.

"Good, it's working. Everything's still powered up, so we don't have to go through that sequence-that can take up to fifteen minutes."

"What'll this thing do?" Erk asked, looking at the blaster. He unfastened his equipment harness and tossed it in a corner.

"Might want to keep that on, Erk," she warned. "You never know when you might need something in there."

"Yeah, I've glanced at it-mostly groundpounder beauty aids, most of which I don't even know how to use. So what's in those pouches?"

"Neat stuff. I haven't had a chance to inspect everything yet but-"

"I want you to teach me how to use this blaster, Odie. I dont need all that junk slung over me to do that-it'll only get in the way. You tell me if there's anything hanging on here I might need, all right?"

"Sure. Well, this blaster, see, it's a pretty deadly antipersonnel weapon. Its effective range is only two hundred meters, but its maximum range is out to half a kilometer. With the interlocking fields of fire, I don't think any droids will get through. Your job will be to monitor the power flow so the gun doesn't overheat during action. If I get disabled, just switch to the power generator's preset mode-this switch here.

That'll prevent dangerous surges, but it also reduces the weapon's rate of fire considerably. I'll teach you everything you need to know about how to use it, then we can spell each other."

"How'd you learn all this stuff?"

"Recon troopers are infantry, too," Odie answered, "so I've been trained on weapons, even if I don't carry a blaster rifle."

The embrasure had been drilled out of the rock in a way that allowed for plenty of overhead and flank protection. Forward observation was through narrow slits cut in the stone. Erk peered through one of the viewing ports. In the fading light he could still clearly make out the blasted ground between sector five and the dry riverbed, which was littered with destroyed droids. He wondered what had happened to the defenders of this position when it had been overrun. For the first time, a feeling of hopelessness began to possess him. How could anyone expect them to survive in this position? "We'll have to sleep with our headgear on," he remarked, "since we'll need infrared capability once it gets dark."

Right. The blaster has an infrared target acquisition system. Before it gets too dark to see, I'll show you some more things about it."

The night pa.s.sed quietly. The lines were probed in other sectors, resulting in intermittent blasterfire. At those times the tactical communications net came alive with reports and orders, and both Erk and Odie became fully alert, but once the shooting died down they took turns trying to catch some sleep. They divided the night into two-hour watches.

Odie had taught Erk enough about their weapon that he could operate it by himself and deliver immediate fire if anything moved in their sector.

Even watching through his night-vision devices, Erk's eyes played tricks on him: irregular mounds seemed to move if he stared at them long enough.

He found himself rubbing his eyes and shaking his head frequently to clear his vision. He fought to stay awake. As a fighter pilot he knew very well how fatal inattention could be, but he wasn't in a high-performance fighter now, he was sitting in a damp, rocky crypt that smelled of blood and feces, hunger gnawed at his stomach and made him faint, he hadn't slept in ages, and he ached all over. His knee, in particular, throbbed painfully.