It wasn't going too badly, Den thought. This place should be loaded out in twenty or thirty minutes and on its way to a more secure location. By the time the droid army arrived, all they'd find was a dry patch in the swamp, with nothing remaining behind in the fading evening light. With any luck at all, anyway.

The big problem, of course, lay in giving up the bota fields. Even though it grew like-well, like weeds-all over Tanla.s.sa, official policy was to prevent Separatist access to it in any way possible. Even as Den continued on his way, watching the base literally coming down around his ears, harvesters both mechanical and or-ganic were gathering up as much of the precious plant as possible-what little was still viable after all the heavy artillery pounding. A transport was standing by to carry the harvesters and their cargo to safety, while several modified decon droids waited to douse with her-bicide the bota that had to be left behind. If you couldn't have it, you didn't want your enemy to have it, either. A shame to destroy stuff that valuable, but casu-alties of war and all that.

Five hundred meters away, there came a bright, ac-tinic flash, followed by a loud boom!

and the sense of air rushing in that direction. Then a wave of heat, no-ticeable even in this h.e.l.lish place, washed over him.

Den grimaced. Had that thermal bomb drifted a de-gree or two in this direction on launch, he and the rest of the Republic personnel here would be charred his-tory. It was definitely time to leave.

He saw part of the surgical crew in the rapidly dark-ening camp as they scrambled to get to their pickup points. Jos, Zan, Tolk, and a couple of the techs hurried through the gathering darkness toward a surgical evac shuttle that hovered a few feet above the ground. I-Five was with them.

More smoke blew into what was left of the camp. The heat rose as the fires grew, creating pockets of unique weather. An occasional charged particle or blaster beam lanced through the gathering gloom, still distant but all too visible, eerie green or red shafts of ionized air that Den imagined he could hear sizzling through the burning swamp.

Noise, heat, explosions, the stink of fear in the air. Different each place he'd been, but exactly the same.

Run! Fast! Hide! You could taste it.

Personnel transports floated into view, repulsor turbines thrumming and burbling, and worker droids began herding people onto them. Good, good-Den hurried toward them.

Something blew up on the far side of the camp-it sounded like a generator flywheel coming apart, judging from the metallic whistles that followed. Den hunched down lower as he scuttled along. Wouldn't want to be in front of those hurtling chunks of metal-sometimes a high-rev flywheel could send shrapnel screaming for kilometers before it buried itself deep into whatever it hit-be that dirt and mud or flesh and bone.

There were a thousand ways to die in a war zone, but the results were all the same...

38.

The evac point for Jos, Tolk, and several others was just ahead, and Jos saw there was a vessel waiting for them. He didn't recognize the type, but it looked big enough, fast enough, and empty enough to suit him just fine. He felt a sense of relief. They were going to make it!

Through the smoke and the gathering gloom he could just make out Zan, Tolk, I-Five, and one or two other med techs hurrying along with him. "You people doing all right?" he called. "Anyone need help?"

"Yes-all of you," the droid replied. I-Five was strid-ing rapidly along, more sure-footed on the uneven ground than any of them. "For example," he said, look-ing at Jos and pointing ahead of him, "you're about to walk into a large patch of purple stingwort."

Jos drew up short. The droid was right-a swath of the venomous plant, one of the nastier examples of Drongar's indigenous flora, coated the ground directly ahead of him. I-Five's warning had saved him from days of excruciating pain, if not possible anaphylactic shock and death.

Before he could change course, the droid's right index finger, which was pointed at the stingwort, fired a nee-dle beam of bright red coherent light at it. Without slowing his pace, I-Five carefully moved his finger back and forth, incinerating a one-meter-wide path through the dangerous growth as he pa.s.sed through it.

"Thanks," Jos said as he moved quickly along the trail the droid had cleared for him. "I didn't know you packed a laser."

"I didn't either, until about thirty minutes ago," I-Five replied. "Another link in my grid became accessi-ble. I also have some unique harmonic vocalization abilities, it seems."

"Really," Zan panted as he tried to keep pace-the Zabrak had never been big on physical fitness, and was paying the price for that now. "We'll have to try some duets together-a.s.suming we make it through this move in one piece."

"Don't worry," Jos said. "This time tomorrow you'll be serenading us all with that thing you've been work-ing on-you know, the one that sounds like someone strangling a Kowakian monkey-lizard?"

"If you're referring to my latest tone poem," Zan replied somewhat stiffly, "All I can say is-"

Whatever he was about to say was lost as another par-ticle beam blast, perhaps a hundred meters away, show-ered them all with mud from the nearby bog. The organics cried out in disgust-I-Five just kept on walk-ing as the effluvium slid from his metallic skin.

"Nice trick," Tolk said as she tried to wipe her face with her sleeve, which merely moved the thick sludge from one place to another. Jos resisted an urge to try to help her-after all, he wasn't any cleaner than she was.

"Isn't it? I'm rather pleased with it," I-Five said smugly. "My integumentary sensors a.n.a.lyze the mud's chemical composition and viscosity coefficient, then electrostatically repel it. Another little trick of which I am capable that I discovered only recently."

"I'll remember to ask for that when I have my next upgrade," Tolk said.

"Of course, some of the same effect can be accom-plished by ultrasonic vibration. Please allow me."

"Wow!" Zan put both hands to his ears as he stum-bled slightly. "Easy, will you? That hurts!"

After a moment's puzzlement, Jos realized that Zan, whose ears obviously accommodated notes his own could not hear, was reacting to an ultrasound that I-Five was producing. A moment later he realized why - the result was much the same as a sonic shower. A considerable amount of the muck and mire seemed to magically evaporate from their skin and clothes. They weren't clean, but at least they no longer looked like Fondorian mud puppies.

"I-Five, I take back every nasty thing I ever said about you," Jos told him. "Except for the times you beat me at sabacc."

They reached the evac vessel's boarding ramp and hustled into the vehicle. A few people were already on board, including Klo Merit and Barriss Offee. Jos blew out a soft and quiet sigh. Safe.

"Are all your memory gaps closed now?" Zan asked I-Five as the ship lifted on its repulsor beams and began its ponderous journey.

I-Five said, "Not quite. But the process seems to be heuristic-the more connection nodes my cyberinfor-matic programs implement, the faster the process goes."

"Good," Tolk said. "I'm looking forward to learning about your heroic moments."

"You and me both," the droid said.

Jos glanced through the viewport, but there was noth-ing to see save an occasional flicker of what might be ei-ther heat lightning or Separatist weaponry. Other than that, the Drongaran night was as black as an a.s.sa.s.sin's heart.

"How does the idea of being a hero make you feel?" he asked I-Five, and it was only after the question had left his lips that he realized that it had not felt odd in the least to ask a droid about its feelings. Welcome to sto-chastic hypers.p.a.ce, where all bets are wild...

I-Five seemed to be giving the answer some thought. "It's intriguing," he said at last.

"Somewhat exciting as well. As I explained to Padawan Offee, human behavior fascinates me, and a big part of that is your ability to choose the path that harms the least. Not all species have that option.

"Obviously my emotional and intellectual parameters were determined by human manufacturers. My fear is that I've been programmed-or reprogrammed-to sac-rifice myself, if necessary, for the greater good. If a mo-ment for such a heroic act comes, I would want to make the decision, not some predetermined algorithm. And I'd like to believe I'd choose the greater good."

A utilitarian droid, Jos thought. Who'd have thought it?

A burst of sickly greenish light from above leaked through the viewports. It didn't fade, and after a mo-ment Jos realized that the Separatists had fired one or more hover-flares.

A moment later an explosion, un-comfortably close, rattled the vessel's framework.

"I hope they're not getting our range," Zan said. He glanced through the still-open cargo bay entrance-and suddenly froze, his face registering stark horror in the putrid light.

"No!" he screamed, and leapt for the open ramp.

39.

Den saw his transport idle to a halt at the pickup point just ahead. At least the big, rectangular vessels had some armor plating-once you were inside you would have a little more protection than being out in the open afforded. He aimed for the transport. In the pallid lights of the hover-flares he saw his favorite pubtender, Baloob the Ortolan, clamber up the boarding ramp into the craft. He grinned. Good. A being who can mix drinks that well deserves to survive-Another ear-smiting explosion rocked the area, knocking Den from his feet. A good thing, too-before he could get up, several chunks of metal, one the size of a landspeeder, hurtled just above him like meteors, the shrieks of their pa.s.sage splitting the air. Den grabbed his ears in pain.

A freighter barge went past on his other side, repul-sors humming. Two of the smaller flywheel chunks. .h.i.t it hard enough to embed themselves in its hull. The im-pacts momentarily canted the barge, and whoever had packed it had apparently missed a pressor field node or two, because several pieces of luggage fell off and went bouncing over the wet ground.

Somebody'll be looking for clean underwear tonight, Den thought. Too bad-"No!" somebody screamed.

Den glanced at the surgical evac vehicle, fifty meters or so ahead. He saw I-Five restraining Zan, who looked like he was trying to jump from the vessel. Den fol-lowed Zan's frantic gaze and saw the reason: one of the fallen pieces from the cargo carrier was an instrument case-the one Zan carried his quetarra in.

Most of the base's personnel were loaded and moving away from the chaotic scene now, and Den was about ten meters away from joining them on his waiting transport.

"Stop!" Zan screamed again, nearly breaking free. If it wasn't for I-Five holding him, the Zabrak would have leapt from the carrier in a futile attempt to save his que-tarra.

Futile, because by the time he'd reached the in-strument all the transports would be too far away and moving too fast for him to catch. He wasn't an athlete, the Zabrak. And what pilot would risk a ship filled with patients and doctors to rescue just one man, no matter how impressive his music?

As Den watched, I-Five and Jos Vondar hauled the stricken Zan back into the carrier, which continued to move off into the twilight, slowly picking up speed.

Den headed for his own transport at a trot. He looked at the quetarra case. It was only a dozen meters away - if he changed course now, he might possibly be able to grab it up and still reach his transport-Something else blew up, much closer this time. He heard the unmistakable thwip! of shrapnel zipping past him, mere centimeters away. Not as big as the flywheel fragments, but big enough to punch a hole through him and let his life out very quickly.

Your ride is over there, Den! Go, go, go!

But Zan's anguished cry echoed in his mind-the cry of someone who had just lost a big part of himself.

Without further thought, Den turned and trotted toward the fallen instrument case.

His inner voice went straight to lightspeed: Are you milking insane? Get on the transport, now!

"In a minute," he said aloud. "Just got to grab one more thing-"

His inner voice was not placated. Fool! Moron! Idiot! You would risk your life for a-a-musical instrument? This is beyond lunacy!

"You heard him play," Den said. "A guy like that needs his art to survive."

His inner voice called him names that would make a Slime Sea sailor blink.

But by then, he was there. He grabbed the case with-out slowing down, even though it felt as if his arm was being pulled from its socket-how could such light and beautiful music come out of such a heavy instru-ment? - and veered back toward the transport.

He could see several beings gathered at the open cargo gate, among them Zuzz, the Ugnaught who had spilled his guts-or whatever Ugnaughts used for guts-about Filba. It felt like months ago; hard to believe it had only been a week. They were all waving frantically at him to hurry. And he was trying, but the blasted case seemed to be increasing its ma.s.s exponentially every minute. And it was too awkward to carry by the handle. He swung it up and over his head, hanging on to the case's neck with both hands and letting the body cover his back like a bizarre carapace.

Something big and heavy slapped the case from be-hind suddenly, knocking it into Den's back and sending him sprawling. The sound of the explosion took half a second to reach him after he was up and moving again, so it wasn't that close, he told himself.

Just close enough to almost kill him.

Den set his teeth, grabbed the case with both hands, and ran for all he was worth.

Eager hands reached down, grabbed him, pulled him on board. The transport swooped up and forward, leav-ing most of Den's viscera back on the ground, or at least that's how it felt. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that the ground where buildings had stood only mo-ments before was now scorched and pitted dirt. As he watched, another mortar hit, producing a blast that nearly burst his eardrums and almost fried his optic nerves. He realized that both of his droptacs were gone-probably knocked out of his eyes when he was. .h.i.t by that concussion wave. Ditto his sonic dampeners.

Everything was far too bright and noisy. But at least he was alive to notice.

He looked at the case and saw that the top was scorched and pitted with shrapnel. Not enough to pene-trate to the instrument within, but, had that been his back, he probably would not have survived.

"See?" he said quietly. "It saved my life."

If you hadn't gone after the milking thing, you'd have been in the transport when the blast hit! Fool! Don't ever try to be a hero again!

Den looked at the case, startled. A hero? That was the last thing he'd wanted to be. He didn't grab the instru-ment out of any n.o.ble gesture, he'd just done it... well, because...

Because....?

"Because to lose Zan's music would be a real tragedy of war," he murmured. His words were low, and he doubted anyone heard him over the rumble of the thrusters. But his trusty Inner Voice evidently heard, be-cause the condemnations inside his head stopped.

Den shook his head. Yar, he was a fool. But it still felt good. At the very least, Zan owed him a drink. Several, in fact. And here was a war story he could dine out on for a long time. I ever tell you about the time my hide was saved by a quetarra...?

"Did you see that?" Tolk asked in disbelief.

"I did," Jos said, shaking his head. "I don't believe it, but I saw it. This from the guy who swore he'd never risk his life for anything or anybody? He must have bent a drive rod."

"Carbon-based life-forms," I-Five said. "Just when you think you've got them figured out..."

The three of them looked at Zan. "When this war's over," he said, "if Den wants it, he can have a position in any of my family's companies-high enough that he'll need an air tank to breathe-for as long as he likes. I'm forever in his debt."

"Zan," Leemoth said, "it's just a quetarra."

"No, it isn't. It's much more than that. I wrote my first conserlista using it. Learned the first of the Berl-tahg Sonatas on it. It's as much a part of me as my arm. I will never forget what Den Dhur did, not as long as I live."

Jos grinned. He'd never tell Zan, of course, but he would have missed the playing almost as much as his friend would have, even though he'd have to put up with more of that demented meewit screeching that Zan called Zabrak diaspora music-And then something smashed into the carrier, harder than an extinction-level meteor. Jos felt the vessel drop and hit the ground. He instinctively reached for Tolk to protect her, but before he made contact, the world van-ished in a red haze.

40.

Jos swam up out of unconsciousness. His head hurt - hurt really wasn't the word, but he doubted any lan-guage could describe how it felt-and his vision was blurry. He was aware of the transport listing slightly to starboard, and of Tolk kneeling next to him where he lay on the floor. She was wiping his face with a damp pad.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey, yourself."

"How do you feel?"

"Like I was fanned over by a transport. What hap-pened?"