“Do you ever wonder what happened to the four million creds that Sergeant Kal scammed out of the terrorists?” Atin asked. They were at the limits of the woods now. Eyat had a skirt of open land around it: they were ready for the lizards. “Do you think he handed it over to General Zey?”
“No,” Darman said. “I don’t wonder.”
They finally broke cover and sauntered like a couple of ordinary, overconfident young men toward the main route into the city. The defenses mentioned in the intel reports were now visible, watchtowers with laser cannon emplacements. The Marits had no air assets apart from speeders. Eyat was set up to repel simple infantry assault.
It wasn’t expecting the Grand Army of the Republic. If it was, evidence of its Separatist allies was nowhere to be seen.
They’d been walking in the open for a matter of minutes when a repulsor truck looped off course and drew up alongside them. The driver leaned out of the cab: male human, middle-aged, dark, bearded.
“Are you nuts?” he yelled. “You can’t walk outside the city-how did you get here?”
Darman fell into the role effortlessly and shrugged. “Had to dump the speeder bike kilometers back.”
“Get in.” He gestured to the rear of the truck. “I’ll drop you off inside the boundary. You’re not local, are you?”
“No. Looking for work.”
The driver opened the hatches and Atin scrambled in, giving Darman a hand up. Almost as soon as they’d found somewhere to sit among the crates of food-board, the truck lurched to a halt. A fist banged on the bulkhead. Darman leaned out of the hatch and found they were inside Eyat, at an intersection with a speeder bus station on one corner of the quadrant.
“Off you go, and make sure you get transport back home, wherever that is,” said the driver, and shook his head. “Dumbest thing I ever saw…”
“Thanks.” Darman waved. The vehicle lifted off and disappeared across the intersection. “At’ika, this is just a test run. Let’s see how far we get today.”
Atin consulted his datapad. The good thing about the rebels was that they’d built Eyat, and so they still had the plans-drainage and service channels as well as the surface infrastructure. “Speeder bus to the city center.”
“And pick up a city-registered airspeeder on the way out. Easier to get back in next time.”
It was, as Darman had decided from the bay of the Core Conveyor, an ordinary place where people got on with their lives. It was a small town by comparison with Coruscant, all low-rise buildings and modest houses: he could grasp the scale. It didn’t overwhelm him. He watched from the viewport of the speeder bus, head resting on the transparisteel, and saw human beings like himself.
And I’m fighting for a different species-for lizards-against humans. Sergeant Kal says species doesn’t matter to Mandalorians. Why doesn’t the fact that I’m human matter to human beings on Coruscant?
Darman knew of only one community where he felt at home, and that was with his brothers and the few nonclones who had thrown in their lot with them. The rest of the galaxy was alien, regardless of species.
Now he finally understood the concept of aruetiise.
“Look sharp, Dar.” Atin nudged him in the ribs. “This is our stop.” He slipped his datapad back into his pocket. “So far, so good. Nothing’s changed as far as the layout goes.”
“Well, their builders haven’t shown up for a while, have they? No wonder nothing’s changed.”
According to the plans, the government building-the Assembly House-had a public gallery. Darman and Atin stood in front of the portico, admired the colonnade with appropriate out-of-town awe, and sheltered from the rain while they read the notice next to the huge pairs of doors.
“Sessions start at fourteen hundred, then, Dar.”
“It’s ten forty.”
“Time to kill.”
It wasn’t time wasted. They had time to wander around the block, plant a few bead-sized surveillance holocams outside the Assembly House, and assess the point of entry for politicians attending parliamentary sessions. They took up position in a tapcaf opposite the building and settled in to eat themselves to a standstill while watching the comings and goings of delivery vessels and official-looking speeders. Darman sat side-on to the window; Atin faced outward to the road.
“I’m never eating meat again,” Atin mumbled, staring at the trickle of traffic. “Ever.”
“What’s that in your hand, then?”
“Fish patty. Fish doesn’t count.”
“Reptile meat is a lot like fish.”
Atin looked down at the patty, sighed, put it back on the plate, and turned to summon a server droid. He seemed a lot happier when a pile of sweet pastries turned up.