Star Wars_ MedStar 01_ Battle Surgeons - Michael Reaves [62]
The ship’s hull began to warm as it arrowed its way into the atmosphere. The sensors noted this and ad-justed the environmental control systems. He was only a few minutes away from the ground medical HQ, tra-ditionally called Rimsoo One. There didn’t seem to be any fighting in this quadrant today, so he didn’t expect any real trouble. Now and then, some pilot from the Confederacy would try a suicide run, braving the spores in order to get a chance to attack a Republic vessel out-side his operational range. He had never been attacked himself, and the lighter was equipped with a pair of fire-linked ion cannons, as well as laser cannons he could use from the cockpit. He sometimes wished one of the Separatist fighters would try him so that he could demonstrate he was no rear-guard admiral, but such an opportunity had never presented itself. Too bad.
"This is Landing Control. We are assuming com-mand of your vessel in thirty seconds, sir."
Bleyd nodded to himself. "Acknowledged, Landing Control." He would prefer to bring the lighter in himself on manual, but this was not standard procedure, and Tarnese Bleyd would not risk his future on pure ego-driven matters of such small consequence. Let them land the ship. He had bigger game to slay...
22
Bleyd liked to vary his inspections. Sometimes he would stick to one planetary sector; other times he would travel across an entire region. On one trip he might visit Rimsoos in numerical order; another time he’d hit only the even - or odd-numbered ones. There were a dozen of the emergency medical bases, one for practically every major battlefront, spread far and wide over Tanlasso. There was no way he could see them all in a single visit, unless he was willing to stay on the ground for a month of constant travel. Republic Mobile Surgical Units were technically able to pick up and move quickly, either to avoid danger or to follow the advance or retreat of the front lines. Once established, however, the units tended to stay put for weeks or months, and some of them were still in the same spot where they’d been initially dropped. There wasn’t a lot of variation among them, since they all had the same primary purpose: the repair and maintenance of the clone trooper army and what-ever other casualties might occur.
Not that it made any difference how he conducted his inspections; whichever manner he chose, the word would be there long before he arrived. Some leaders liked to drop in unannounced, but for him, surprise was not part of the process. He wasn’t looking for something unpleasant to have to deal with. As long as nobody fouled up, he didn’t worry about the day-to-day operations.
As the landspeeder ferrying him from the area’s tem-porary hub spaceport approached the current location of Rimsoo Seven, Bleyd watched faint speckles of red-dish spore dust glitter over the vehicle’s transparisteel canopy. Even though the spores were much less danger-ous at ground level most of the time, zipping along in a speeder with the top down was hardly a good idea.
The unit was just ahead; they’d covered the two hundred or so kilometers of marshland and bayous separating it from his landing pad quickly. His driver was a young, four-armed Myneyrsh male, which was something of a surprise. Most Myneyrshi had an aver-sion to technology, and Bleyd assumed that this ap-plied to powered ground-effect craft such as this one. The driver also had an issue blaster on the seat beside him, though if attacked, Bleyd was fairly sure the trooper would reach first for the big garral-tooth knife he wore in a sheath strapped to his translucent blue leg. There was a Myneyrsh saying: "A knife never runs out of ammunition." Bleyd understood that well