[Republic Commando] - 03(86)

Unlike the holovids, there was no quick blow to the head to render someone conveniently unconscious while you made your getaway, with no harm done beyond a headache when they regained consciousness. This was just a poor cop, like any of Obrim’s team. He’d stopped the wrong men at the wrong time. Darman’s eyes met Niner’s, and he knew he should have simply shot the cop as his instinct told him to, but he couldn’t.

Fi stepped in and rifled through the array of weapons on the officer’s belt. “Ah,” he said-the only word spoken in the whole incident-and selected a stun baton. He shoved it into the cop’s armpit; it crackled just as Niner let go of him. The man stopped struggling and convulsed a couple of times.

“There,” said Fi. He hauled the officer onto the curb, where he slumped in a heap, hidden from the oncoming traffic by the other speeder. “Sorry about that, Sarge.”

“It’s okay, I broke contact before I got a shock …”

“Time to bang out, fast”

“Sorry.” Darman jumped back into the passenger’s seat. There was more traffic around than he expected, but Niner shot straight out into it and burned toward the city exit. “Sorry, I should have…”

“No harm done,” Niner said.

Fi overtook them and disappeared into the distance. Darman took out his DC-15 and kept it cradled in his lap, checking in the rearview until they were clear of the city limits. He was starting to worry that he’d lost his nerve. He’d never hesitated over taking a shot before. His thought process wasn’t supposed to kick in and start arguing with his risk assessment.

I could have compromised this mission. And that means I put my brothers at risk.

“If you’d shot him, it would have been another mess to clean up,” Niner said, veering away from the road and weaving through the trees. “Can’t leave civvy cops dead all over the place. It’s not Galactic City, is it?”

“You’re telepathic, Sarge.”

“I was thinking what Skirata would have said, actually.”

“We’ve still left a cop in Eyat who’s seen us up close.”

“Well, next time he sees us we’ll have our helmets on, so a fat lot of good that’ll do him.”

A’den and Fi were already waiting in the makeshift ops room when they reached the rebel camp, which appeared to be in darkness like the rest of the base. All the windows were shielded by blackout material. Inside the fragile-looking house, the two of them were sitting at the table and gazing forlornly at a datapad, and A’den had his hand held against his ear as if he was concentrating on a signal he could barely hear.

Fi didn’t look up. A’den did.

“Wow, you’re good,” the Null said wearily. “How many stiffs have you racked up tonight? Two troopers and a cop. You’re going to beat your own dumb record at this rate.”

“We never killed a cop,” Niner said.

Fi simply looked over his shoulder at them. “I didn’t plan to. Stun batons are tricky things if you don’t know the medical history of your target.”

“Oh, great. Great.”

Fi tapped his datapad, and a crackling stream of audio filled the room: it was voice traffic from a police control room, judging by the jargon and codes.

“Say again, three-seven. Last call shown on the onboard log was a vehicle stop on Bidean Way.”

“No dear surveillance holocam view available …”

“Confirm ID on the suspect speeder. Rental, fake identichip used to secure it…”

“Hey, did anyone know he had a heart problem? “

Fi silenced it again and got up. “Atin’s digging a hole. I’ll go and help him. I’m good at digging holes, really deep ones.”

A’den shrugged and went back to listening to the circuit. “I think the cops got excited when they found the stun baton burn on their buddy. Joining up the dots to work out that it was actually a covert commando team cleaning up a spillage is a step too far for them, thankfully.” He leaned backward as far as his chair would go and grabbed another datapad. “Now take a look at these aerial recce images.”

Darman took the pad, but Niner was still focused on the previous issue. “So, Sergeant, what would you have done differently?”

“I’d have shot the cop,” said A’den.

“And that would have solved the problem how, exactly?”

“It wouldn’t have changed a thing. It just worries me that you put being nice before doing the job right. We do extreme stuff. That means some unlucky saps get caught as collateral damage. Deal with it.”

Darman knew A’den was right, and he was troubled by the fact that he’d hesitated; he was reacting to an internal template of police as Jailer Obrim’s kind-allies, comrades, friends-and it was wholly wrong and a recipe for disaster at some point in the future. He couldn’t afford to judge anyone by their uniform. He couldn’t even assume all Jedi were on his side now. If he found out that Zey was tasking Special Operations personnel to deal with deserters like that, he wasn’t sure how he’d take it.