Fi stared at Darman and Atin as they hauled Sull out of the speeder and half carried him to the center of the camp. The ARC trooper was hobbled, but it hadn’t stopped him from taking a good kick at Atin when they had bundled him into the vehicle. He looked ready to kill now.
Darman felt guilty. I’d be doing the same. I wouldn’t let Anyone take me alive.
Fi stood with hands on hips. “So he followed you home, and now you want to keep him?” He looked Sull up and down and tutted loudly. “I suppose you couldn’t resist his big appealing eyes.”
Atin peeled off Sul’s gag.
“Shove it,” snarled the ARC.
Darman held up his bandaged hand. It was swollen and throbbing despite bacta and a one-shot of antibiotic. “He bites, too.”
“Just keep him off the furniture.” Fi turned toward the camp buildings, two fingers in his mouth, and delivered a piercing whistle. “Now watch A’den lose his temper. It’s very entertaining.”
A’den came at a run from one of the buildings, now wearing his ARC armor with its dark green sergeant’s trim, helmet clipped at the small of his back and rattling against the belt of his kama. Sull stared. A small circle of curious Mar-its started to form.
The Null skidded to a halt and wheeled around on them, face like thunder. “And you lot can clear off. This is trooper business. Get lost! Usenye!”
Even the dominant lizards with their red frills scattered as if he’d lobbed a grenade among them. A’den had that edge, just like Ordo and the others, the look and the tone that said he was a man who would erupt into unpredictable violence: even nonhumans picked it up and heeded the warning.
“So … you took a prisoner,” A’den said, all the scarier for suddenly being softly spoken. “Did you think it through at all? You make a habit of this. I heard it was Fi who brought home strays last time.”
“Dynamic risk assessment,” Fi said.
“Making it up as you go along.”
“Same thing.”
“Di’kut.”
But Darman had done what he had to. He didn’t plan on apologizing for that. “He was supposed to be MIA, not AWOL.”
“Well, he was missing, and he is in action. Just not for the Republic.” A’den looked Sull over, and Darman wondered it he was looking for injuries or just finding a fresh spot to make a bruise. “And you can’t be absent without leave if you don’t get leave. So nobody lied to you, did they?”
Atin seemed to get it a few moments later than Darman. “You knew he’d gone over to the Seps?”
“Some things are best left alone,” said A’den. “I worked it out.”
“Sure you did.” Sull seemed to latch on to A’den as a brother ARC and decided he ran the show. He turned his back on Darman. “I haven’t gone over, as you put it. I’m just not fighting for the Republic anymore.”
“Subtle legal point. You’ll have to explain it.”
“So now that you’ve got me, what are you going to do? You don’t have a long list of options for a deserter.”
Deserter. Darman wished A’den had shot him. Somehow Sull would have seemed more honorable if he’d taken up arms for the Seps rather than sitting out the war while brother clones like Sicko-he never forgot Sicko, none of them did-died at the front. But Sull didn’t strike him as a coward. Niner jogged across the clearing in his black undersuit, towel draped around his neck, and Darman braced for a lecture on doing things by the book. Fi moved in to intercept him.
“What I do next depends on how much grief you’ll create for me and my brothers,” A’den said. He took a look at the ARC’s bound wrists as if he was thinking of untying them and then seemed to change his mind. “So we can stand here like the cabaret at the Outlander, amusing the Marits, or discuss this in private.”
Sull was unbowed. “Why not just shoot me now while I’m still trussed, spook? Because I’m not going back to the GAR. If you want to make me, one of us is going to have to kill the other.”
“Fierfek, what are you two?” Niner said. “Hibel spiders? Cut the osik. Regulations are clear. He’s a traitor. We take him in.”
“Niner, shut it.” A’den took out a vibroblade, ducked down, and sliced through the plastoid tape around Sull’s ankles. “And any kicking or biting, ner vod, and I’ll remove something you’re very attached to. Civilized chat, like comrades. Got it?”
Sull paused, seemed to consider dismemberment, and then nodded.
They had an audience again. The Marit rebels had edged nearer, one lizard at a time, and were now standing in earshot with their heads cocking back and forth in curiosity. A’den turned with slow menace, and they scattered again. He hadn’t said Omega couldn’t follow, though, so the four of them trooped after him and sat down on the long bench in the sparsely furnished ops room to .watch the conversation. It was a grand name for the place. The Marits had built their camp like they built the homes for the humans in Eyat, and the HQ building was a comfortable little house with sliding interior walls and shutters made from translucent luet bark, utterly unmilitary in every respect. It would vanish in a ball of flame if anything bigger than a stun round hit it.