Star Wars_ MedStar 01_ Battle Surgeons - Michael Reaves [53]
When your name is called, you go - doesn’t matter where you’re standing, does it?"
Zan chuckled. "No. No matter where you are, you’re always at the head of the line."
Den chuckled as well, and for a few minutes the two were silent, enjoying the rest of their food. At length the Sullustan drained the last of his ale, burped, and leaned back.
"Let me tell you a story," he said. "A long time ago, I was assigned to cover a little insurrectionist brush war on some backrocket world in the middle of the Gordian Reach. I was hanging around the exit base-a prefab muster station where the troops shipping out for home were staged for lift into orbit. It was way behind the lines, a day’s ride by crippled bantha from any shooting, as safe as your mother’s lap-or creche, or pouch, or whatever.
"So I’m talking to this human pup. Tall; I’m not even chest-high to him, even though he’s real young. Seems he lied about his age to get into the army, so he’s no more than sixteen standard years old, and by the maker’s grace he’s survived his tour without a scratch in the middle of some very heavy action. Seventy percent of his unit got fried blacker than carbonite, but he’s still breathing, and on his way out. Just a child. A child who now knows about war.
"So I’m running my thumb cam, recording the kid, getting some basic how-does-it-feel-to-be-going-home? stuff for the viewers. All of a sudden, braap-zap!
some-body cuts loose with a pulse carbine, just waving it back and forth like a pressure hose and cutting troops down, left, right, and center. One of the insurrection-ists, undercover on a suicide run.
"The security guys come running, but they’re not get-ting there fast enough. The shooter is walking right at us, he sees me, and I can see that he sees me, and I know I’m about to have my datachip pulled. Everyone’s yelling, ’Run!’ at me. Are they kidding? I’m so milking terrified I can’t even breathe, much less run.
"But then this kid, who isn’t even armed, steps in front of me, quite deliberately. He catches a bolt in the gut-it was meant for my head-and goes down. The shooter’s carbine runs dry right then, the secs open up on him, and that’s the end of that.
"I squat down next to this poor human kid and I see he’s not going to make it. So I ask him, ’Why’d you do it?’
"And the kid says, ’You’re so little.’"
Yant stopped chewing and looked at Den, puzzled.
"I think he knew I was an adult, intellectually," Den continued. "But at that moment, when danger threat-ened, he equated small stature with youth. He jumped in front of me because that’s what humans do-they protect their young. I thanked him before he died." Den paused.
"Know what he said?"
Yant shook his head.
"He said, ’It’s okay. Would you tell my mother I love her?’"
They were both quiet for a moment. Yant ran one hand lightly over his stubby horns and sighed. "That’s so sad."
"There’s more." Den looked at his hands, saw they were knotted together. He unlaced his fingers, feeling them crackle.
"The shooter? He was also a human. He was four-teen. I didn’t get to him before he died, but one of the secs did. The shooter’s last words were, ’Tell my mother I love her.’
Brothers in death, children saying good-bye to their mothers."
Yant shook his head again.
"These are the stories you get on the front, my friend. These are the stories that people need to know." Den shrugged. "Not that it slows war down a microsecond, but at least they know it isn’t all grand fun-not when you have children killing each other, and mothers’
hearts breaking over it."
Somehow, the potential skewering of Filba didn’t seem as bright and shiny now as it did when Den had sat down to eat.
"I’m sorry," Yant said.
"Yeah," Den said. "Aren’t we all?"
19
Jos sometimes-not often, these days-felt as if he could call a dying patient back to life; that by dint of pure will, he could keep someone critically injured alive, refusing to let Death claim him.