Star Wars_ MedStar 01_ Battle Surgeons - Michael Reaves [103]
Den hurried toward his assigned evacuation spot, us-ing what available cover there was along the way. Al-ready big clouds of greasy smoke boiled up from the swamp as high-oxy fires raged. You wouldn’t think a swamp could burn, but you’d be wrong-dead wrong-if you based your survival on that. He’d once seen an entire continent aflame on-what was the name of that planet? He’d suddenly gone blank. Well, now was not the time to worry about old dangers, not when the stink of burning vegetation and ash falling like hot black snow told him that a droid army was slashing and burning its way closer every minute. Now was the time to leave the party; he could jet down the memory space lanes later-if he had a later.
Everywhere, transport droids, ASPs, and loadlifters performed their tasks, breaking down shelters, packing crates, working fast and efficiently. Also working in company with the disassemblers were several small wrecker droids, which shoveled up debris or used their built-in plasma torches to melt down scrap metal, plas-teel cables, and other rubble considered not worth haul-ing away, but still too valuable to leave behind as raw materials for the enemy. Classic scorched-dirt policy, and practiced by both sides.
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 Tanlassa, 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 hellish 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