Star Wars_ Jedi Trial Part 2

He had been so involved in the dogfight, however, that he'd had no time to gather useful intelligence on the strength of the enemy force or its intentions.

"Bad luck about Waterboy," Pleth said. They were both thinking of that young ensign.

Yeah, Erk thought, very bad luck.

Skill, not luck, had brought Odie Subu and her speeder bike undetected to a spot just behind the crest of a ridge where she could observe the enemy landing force deploying on the plain below. She was a member of a reconnaissance platoon General Khamar had spread out before his army to develop intelligence about the enemy landing force. The orbital surveillance system had been destroyed or was being electronically jammed, and the recon drones the defense force had sent out earlier had failed to report. Even communications with the army's main force were being successfully jammed-only short-range, line-of-sight transmissions via tactical communications nets were possible. So General Khamar was forced to rely exclusively on his living recon detachments.

Odie lay p.r.o.ne beside her speeder, just below the military crest of the ridge. She lifted her faceplate to wipe perspiration from her forehead.

Her face was burned a dark red from constant exposure to wind, sun, and sand, but the area around her eyes, protected from the elements by the faceplate, had remained perfectly white. She ran the tip of her tongue over her parched lips. Water? No, no time for that now.

Inside her helmet a tiny voice whispered, "Droids." It was another soldier from her squad, deployed somewhere farther down the ridge from her position. The recon trooper was too excited by what he saw to use proper comm procedure and, because of the distortion caused by all the jamming equipment in use, she didn't recognize his voice. Probably Tami, she thought. But they were all excited. Except for Sergeant Makx Maganinny, the recon squad leader, this would be their first taste of combat.

Evidently Tami had already been able to bring his electrobinoculars to bear and was directly observing the a.s.sembling army below the ridge. From her position, Odie could clearly hear the roar of landing s.h.i.+ps and the rumble of heavy equipment rolling into position.

Cautiously she crawled to the top of the ridge and deployed her electrobinoculars, making delicate adjustments. Suddenly a sharp image of thousands and thousands of battle droids leapt into view. The screen readout indicated a range of 1,250 meters. Odie's TT-4 binocs, the only pair in the squad, began recording images that would be invaluable to General Khamar when she got back-//"she got back-to the main body. Given the cost of the data cards that recorded the hologram images, only one set of TT-4s had been issued to each squad. Sergeant Maganinny had given her this pair because she was the best rider he had.

"It'll probably never happen," he had told her, "but if the comm breaks down or gets jammed in a tactical situation, we'll need someone who can ride like the wind to get the word back to battalion, and that's you, young soldier." The old noncom had smiled and rested his hand on her shoulder. "Remember this. In real war the best plan evaporates soon as the first shot's fired. Could be you on that speeder of yours could save the whole army one day."

"Lots of them!"Tami whispered.

Odie's heart began to beat faster. She had never seen real fighting machines up this close. Rills of nervous perspiration rolled down from her forehead and dripped off the tip of her nose. She felt nauseated, but she kept the electrobinoculars steadily focused on the scene below, slowly sweeping back and forth as she'd been trained to do.

"Use proper procedure and keep the comm open!" Sergeant Maganinny grunted.

Every second any portion of Odie's head remained exposed above the ridgeline upped the chance that an enemy surveillance device would spot her and she'd be fired at. Her heart was racing like a beamdrill. Another s.h.i.+p landed on a vast plume of fire and smoke. Huge clouds of dust rose into the air to obscure the craft. She increased magnification to reveal any markings on the landing s.h.i.+p.

Ker-'whump! A concussion wave like the side of a Wookiee's hand slapped up against the left side of Odie's helmet from a hit a hundred meters down the ridge from her position. Momentarily the image in her electrobinoculars blurred. A huge cloud of dust rose up from the impact area, and even this far away she was pelted with falling dirt and stones.

Other hits began impacting all around her and then she was being buffeted left and right. Her body shook like a rag; the concussions were so powerful, the breath whooshed out of her lungs. The entire ridgeline exploded in huge gouts of fire and dirt. The tactical channel inside her helmet erupted with screams and shouts. Someone began to wail in a high-pitched wavering screech, and suddenly Odie realized it was her! But she never took the electrobinoculars from her eyes. Even if she couldn't see anything, they could still record valuable data. She could feel moisture gathering inside her suit. Was it blood or-?

Someone cursed foully over the comm. Only Sergeant Maganinny talked like that. "Get out!" he yelled. The transmission ended in a painful grunt.

That was all Odie needed to get going. She slithered back down the ridge, carefully put the precious electrobinoculars with their invaluable recordings inside their case, and righted her speeder. It had been knocked over by the explosions but was otherwise undamaged.

The speeders used by the recon squad were not made for military purposes, but were a civilian version that the military techs on the Praesitlyn defense force had modified-yet another economy measure that the force had been required to adopt. If the enemy had speeder scouts riding 74-Zs and they came after her she would be in trouble-her speeder was no match for the 74-Z with its high maneuverability, speed, armor plate, and onboard weapons. All she had with which to defend herself was a hand blaster. But Odie knew the ground between here and General Khamar's army, and she could use that to advantage if she were pursued by ground troops, or even by aircraft.

She also had another advantage: she could outride almost anyone in the galaxy. When Odie mounted a speeder she turned into someone else. Often, traveling at top speed in training exercises, she could not even remember making course corrections, they came so naturally to her. Her comrades marveled at her skill as a rider. In the many long months she had been a.s.signed to the defense force on Praesitlyn she had honed her natural skills to a fine point. Armies train and train some more to keep their fighting skills sharp. Soldiers complain about their training bitterly, even as they go through the sequences they know will save their lives in combat. But Odie loved every moment of it.

The run she was about to attempt was what she lived for.

Using the ridge behind her as cover, she roared off at top speed, 250 kph, hugging the ground contour, less than a meter above it. At that speed, so close to the ground, even the slightest mistake could spell disaster. About a kilometer from the ridgeline she drove into a deep arroyo and reduced her speed. Suddenly her heart froze: just above her but out of sight over the lip of the canyon she heard the roar of another speeder bike. Her practiced ear told her the bad news: it was not one of hers.

She pulled to a stop in the deep shadows beside the canyon wall and took off her helmet to hear better. The only sound was the pulsing of the blood in her own veins: the other speeder had stopped.

Carefully, she eased her blaster out of its holster. Because of her very small hands, Odie had asked army ordnance technicians to modify the weapon for her grip. They'd removed the scope and emitter nozzle to permit a quicker draw and reduced the length of the barrel, which lightened the weapon considerably. They'd narrowed the grip and installed a smaller power pack so her fingers could get a better hold on the weapon. A three-dot iron sight system replaced the c.u.mbersome scope.

All this made the blaster much lighter and easier to draw, but its effective range in the hands of an ordinary shooter was reduced from twenty-five meters to only ten-but Odie was no ordinary shooter. The other members of her platoon had good-naturedly ribbed Odie about her "popgun" because the smaller power pack reduced the number of shots it could fire, and they delightedly pointed this fact out to her. But an old ordnance sergeant had told her, "If the first shot counts, you don't need all that firepower the bigger models have. Let those guys blast away with their hand cannons."

The techs had proudly described their reworked blaster as a "belly gun,"

to be used only at very close range. Even firing it one-handed, however, Odie had learned to hit targets out to sixty meters with impressive accuracy and after that display her comrades' jibes had turned to respect. Accurate shooting with a hand weapon requires good hand-eye coordination, and that was a talent Odie had plenty of. But reconnaissance troops weren't intended to engage the enemy in firefights anyway, and the modified pistol was just what she needed to travel light and fast.

Odie slung her helmet behind her. She shook out her short brunette hair.

It was damp with perspiration and gritty with sand. From here on she'd need 360 degrees of visibility, and since she was now probably completely on her own, communications didn't matter. Safety off her blaster and her finger off the trigger, she drove her speeder with one hand, easing it forward cautiously. Ahead, the ground rose steeply. She paused, looking up the slope, over a jumble of fallen rock, to where the canyon rose to the surface.

She came out of the canyon at two hundred kph. A trooper sat on a speeder bike right in front of her. She snapped one shot at his center of ma.s.s but didn't wait to see the bolt slam into him and knock him completely off his speeder. Instantly she wondered if she should return and take his vehicle, but her training took over, and that saved her life. She zigged sharply to the left and then back to the right just as a high-energy bolt zapped over her shoulder, fired by a second trooper she hadn't seen off to one side. He roared after her. With its superior speed his machine shot past in a blur of speed. He made a tight turn and came charging straight back at her. She stopped abruptly and fired, but missed as he flashed by. The trooper's shot went far wide. She could have sworn he grinned as he pa.s.sed her.

A hundred meters ahead rose a jagged rock formation weathered into a jumble of bantha-sized boulders that extended several kilometers in the direction Odie wanted to travel. She had noted the formation on the way out from the main body of the army. She drove her speeder into it and hid behind a huge boulder, waiting to ambush the trooper if he was stupid enough to come in after her. He wasn't. Something flashed overhead. It was the military speeder, traveling at top speed about twenty-five meters above the rocks-too fast for her to get off a shot.

The shadows had begun to lengthen. She glanced at her wrist chrono. Not too long until sunset. If she could stay concealed among the rocks until full dark, her chances of getting out would be somewhat improved. But that was not an option. The intelligence she had gathered had to get back to headquarters quickly. She had to operate on the a.s.sumption that she was the only rider to have survived the attack. She'd have to chance making another break for it. It would already be dark by the time she made it back.

She moved farther forward into the rock formation, cautiously edging her speeder ahead at slow speed. A series of huge boulders blocked her path.

She could see no way around them and dared not take a chance of going over even if her speeder could make the height. The only way through was via a gap about fifteen meters wide. It was very dark inside the pa.s.sageway. She hesitated. Ambush alley, she thought. The hairs on the backs of her arms bristled and a cold chill worked its way down her backbone. She took a deep breath and entered the narrow declivity.

The shadows deepened into twilight between the rocks, plunging some areas into near-total darkness. Odie considered putting her helmet back on so she could take advantage of its night-vision function, but rejected that idea. She just felt enc.u.mbered wearing it. Slowly, she moved farther into the darkness, carefully skirting or riding over obstructions.

Her heart suddenly skipped a beat. Was that a noise off to the left in that patch of darkness? She froze and reached for her blaster.

"Freeze!" a voice commanded. The trooper stepped out of the shadows, holding a blaster aimed directly at her chest. "Don't move," he ordered.

Odie leaned forward, preparatory to making a break for it, and the trooper fired a warning blast in front of her. In the brief flash of light she was surprised to see another figure lurking in some shadows just a little way behind the trooper, heading toward him. Two of them?

The trooper's head turned slightly in the direction of the approaching figure. At the same instant the figure fired his blaster, Odie gunned her speeder forward. Amazingly, the blaster bolt was aimed not at her but at the other trooper, who staggered back into the shadows, a jagged, steaming hole in his chest.

"Odie!" a man's harsh voice called out. She applied the brakes instantly.

She'd know that voice anywhere-it was Sergeant Maganinny! He staggered toward her, his blaster hanging loosely in one hand. Even in the dim light she could see that he was hurt. The flesh on the left side of his face hung in loose strands and his left ear was gone, the hair on that side of his head burned away. And by the way he was limping, she could tell that he'd sustained other wounds, as well.

He swayed in front of her, a twisted smile on his face. "Good to see you again," he rasped.

"Sergeant Maganinny!" Odie dismounted from her speeder and helped him into a sitting position on the ground.

"I thought-I think they got everyone else. My speeder-"

He paused to catch his breath and gestured behind him. "I thought it was all over for us, kid," he said.

"Sarge-"

He shook his head. "My face isn't as bad as it looks. It's mostly superficial. Leave me here. You can send help. Get back to HQ.' "No."

Odie shook her head firmly. "You can ride with me. I won't leave you here."

"Look, trooper," he said, a note of the old noncom command presence creeping back into his voice, "you do what-"

"No." She put a hand under his armpit and helped him to his feet. "We can ride tandem. It'll be dark soon and we can use the terrain to cover us. "

Maganinny groaned, partly from the pain of his wounds, but partly because he was too weak to argue. "One thing, though, trooper," he said. "I'm not riding with any soldier who's out of uniform."

"What?"

"Get your helmet on," he said.

Odie stared at him in disbelief for an instant, and then they both burst into hysterical laughter.

General Khamar turned to his chief of staff. "Let's move. We can take these droids. Get our armored infantry and artillery onto this high ground here-" He jabbed a finger at a three-dimensional terrain map. "Dig in. Get them to come to us. Hit them with every fighter we've got right now to cover our advance." He turned to his staff officers. "If we get to that high ground first, we can hold them."The officers dispersed to their various commands to issue the necessary orders and get the army on the move.

Odie had stood quietly at attention while the general and his staff used the information she had gathered to plan their attack. She wondered about the fate of her comrades, none of whom had been heard from. She struggled to control the lump in her throat when she realized they were probably dead. Occasionally someone would nod at her, or give her a thumbs-up gesture, and these silent acknowledgments helped soften the sorrow she felt-and the physical exhaustion that was now taking over-by causing her chest to swell with pride.

At last Khamar turned to her. "At ease, trooper. You are one brave soldier, and pretty lucky to boot."

She had never been this close to high-ranking officers before and was impressed at the quiet efficiency with which they laid their plans. Now the general himself was talking directly to her! She had not been able to clean up; her face was stained with dirt and sweat, and her hair hung in dirty strands about her face. Her voice sounded too high-pitched when she spoke, but she did not hesitate in her reply. "I was scared all the time, sir, and I didn't need any luck: Sergeant Maganinny backed me up when I needed him."

The general looked at her for a moment, then nodded. "Well," he said, "now you know what really makes an army work."

5.

General Khamar and several of his princ.i.p.al staff officers were observing the invaders from the same ridge where Odie had watched them barely hours before. Khamar had succeeded in reaching the ridge before the enemy deployed and quickly established a strong defensive position. So far, the invaders had been content to direct only hara.s.sing fires against Khamar's force, but had made no attempt to attack him. "We're too well entrenched," one of the officers remarked. "They're mostly droids anyway, no match for our troops," another observed.

General Khamar glanced at him. No match for our troops? Obviously, that was an officer who had no idea how deadly the droids were. He briefly considered replacing him with someone more in touch with the realities of their situation, but realized there was no time to call up a replacement.

He returned his thoughts to the situation before him. There was something odd about all of this. An army of an estimated fifty thousand droids was sitting down there without making a move against him. What could they be waiting for?

"Sir, they can't flank us-we have strong forces to both sides/' an officer observed. "If they're going to attack, they have to come at us straight up this slope. We'll cut them to pieces if they do. They must be waiting for reinforcements."

General Khamar frowned thoughtfully as he rubbed the stubble on his chin.

He had not slept in the past forty-eight hours. That was a big problem about going to war: one never got enough sleep. Many times Khamar had requested more troops from Coruscant-as well as capital s.h.i.+ps to protect the planet from orbit-but his requests had been refused. The Republic, he knew very well, was engaged on a vast scale, and the forces he felt he required to defend Praesitlyn had been denied because they were needed in other theaters. When he pointed out how strategically important the Intergalactic Communications Center was, he'd been told merely that he'd have to make do and to prepare his defensive plan with the forces at his disposal. Not even the Sluissi, who had the s.h.i.+ps, would help him; they needed all their s.p.a.cecraft to protect their s.h.i.+pyards.

It was almost as if the Republic wanted the Separatists to attack Praesitlyn. The general had kept this thought to himself, of course. It was ridiculous anyway. Everyone knew how important Praesitlyn was.

Everyone knew how dangerously thin the Republic's forces were spread.

But...

Suddenly the general knew with absolute clarity what was about to happen.

He turned to the hologram map of his positions and the surrounding terrain and put his finger on a vast, jumbled rock formation about ten kilometers behind his line.

"I want a redoubt established here," he said, speaking rapidly. "Start moving our troops on the double. Move fast but in small increments, infantry and support troops first. If the enemy gets wind of a retrograde movement and attacks, I don't want the bulk of our troops caught in the open. Have the combat engineers go in with the first group, to fortify the area. Armor and mobile artillery will lay down a barrage on the enemy to keep his head down. They'll move last, to hold on to this ridge until the last possible moment until we can secure that area, then withdraw into it. How many fighter craft do we have?"

"A full wing is operational, sir, but-"

"Good! We can use the air a.s.sets to cover our withdrawal."

"But, sir," another officer protested, "we have a cla.s.sic defensive position where we are. They can't possibly break through here." Other members of his staff murmured their a.s.sent, glancing nervously one from the other and casting questioning looks at their commander.

"They aren't going to break through here, and that is not the main force," the general announced quietly. "We've been duped. The main force hasn't landed yet. When it does, it'll land behind us, between this position and the center. This force"--he nodded down the ridge-"is the anvil. The hammer is about to strike-from behind us."

Absolute silence enveloped General Khamar's command post for a full five seconds as the meaning of his words sank in. "Oh no," someone whispered.

General Khamar sighed. "Listen carefully. There's no easy way to put this except we're retreating. Call it what you want, but it's vital that morale not be affected."

"General," an officer said, "let's not say we're retreating, then. Let's just say we're moving our position to attack from a different direction!"

General Khamar smiled and clapped the officer on his shoulder.

"Brilliant! All right, hop to it. I intend to save what I can of this army, and if the Separatists succeed in capturing this planet, which they will if I'm right about this, at least I'm going to make them pay for it.

Just hope we aren't too late to make it to those rocks."

Pors Tonith didn't bother even to glance up at Karaksk Vet'iya, his chief of staff, when the Bothan brought him the news. "So he's not as stupid as we thought," Tonith commented, a tight smile on his purple-stained lips.

"How long has this retrograde movement been going on?" His tone was deceptively mild.

Karaksk's fur rippled softly as he searched for the proper words to make what he had to say appear in the best possible light. "About an hour, sir, but we-"

"Ah!" Tonith finally looked at Karaksk, holding up his forefinger for silence. "We, you say? We? Have you by any chance a dianoga stuffed in your pocket? Who is this we who are making decisions in my command?"

Karaksk swallowed nervously. "I meant, sir, that our staff observed this retrograde movement on the part of the defending forces and we, the staff and I, that is, we decided to observe it for a time to, ah, determine the enemy's plan." His fur rippled less gently as his fear moved closer to the surface.

"You did?" Tonith carefully set his teacup on a saucer and stood. "The plan seems to be to withdraw, wouldn't you say?" He smiled. Then: "You idiot!" he screamed. Spittle flew from his lips, and a damp spot appeared on Karaksk's fur. "They've figured out what our plan is. They're moving to a more defensible position! A droid could have figured that out!"

Tonith managed to calm himself. "How much of their force remains in the original position? How far is the main body from the communications center?"

Feeling more confident now, Karaksk replied, "Their mobile artillery and armor remain in place, sir. Some of the infantry and support troops have reached the redoubt, a natural barrier some ten kilometers behind their original main battle line. The rest seem to be en route. They are about one hundred fifty kilometers from the center."

Tonith was beginning to sense a challenge here. "Interesting. We shall proceed to the bridge. I'm ordering the main force landed immediately. I have two choices, it seems: I can let this garrison fort up, and isolate them while I move with the rest of my army to take the center; or I can first destroy the garrison and then move on the center. Which course would you advise, my dear fellow?"

"Well, sir, if I may. Isolate them and move on the Intergalac-tic Communications Center. We do not need the entire army to take the place.

Your plan, sir, is working perfectly!"

"And leave an enemy force in my rear? Really?"

"Well..."

"Dead enemies cannot fight back. We will destroy this army in detail and then take the communications center. We have the strength, we have the time. Now leave," he finished with a glare.

Tonith smiled at Karaksk's rapidly retreating back. Bothans were duplicitous, opportunistic, and greedy-characteristics he well understood and could manipulate. And the rippling of their fur allowed the astute person to read them so easily.