Star Wars_ Tales From the Mos Eisley Cantina - Kevin J. Anderson [182]
The Kitonak turned out to be a member of a newly formed subversive movement called the Whiplash. She’d loudly sung his praises and made much of his bravery to her comrades in arms, and so he’d been asked to join them in their struggle against the new regime. No pay, little rest, and much danger—Nick couldn’t see a lot of difference between this and the resistance movement back on Haruun Kal.
But he’d agreed. He was a military deserter and a killer, after all, subject to being shot on sight, and there was safety—or at least a spurious sense of it—in numbers. What other choice was there? He was a soldier; it was all he knew, all he had ever known. Call it the Upland Liberation Front or the Army of the Republic, it really made no difference. The uniforms were different, but the job was the same.
It wasn’t that he enjoyed fighting this war, or any war—he hadn’t been shortchanged in the fear category, like all the clones had been. And thank whoever was ultimately in charge for that. Nick had once watched a phalanx of clones on Muunilinst fearlessly attack a hill against the blasterfire of three times as many droidekas. None of the clones so much as faltered, even though the droidekas’ lasers, plasma rays, and particle beams had torn through the majority of them as if they’d been flimsiplast cutout dolls. Three-quarters of the phalanx had been shredded in that charge.
But they’d taken the hill.
Yet, despite the dangers of war, there had been a certain odd security, almost comfort, in the rules and regs of the military life. Nick was by no means one of those snap-click officers with little to no field experience, just time in simulation holos and heads-up trainers. Even when commander of his own unit, he’d had to follow the asinine orders of a few desktop generals, and he’d nearly gotten his head shot off more than once as a result. A rather large proportion of those pressed-and-polished newbie warriors tended to not come back from their first or second campaign in top working order, if they came back at all.
He’d looked forward, like many others, to a lasting peace after Dooku, Grievous, and the others had been disposed of properly. A time in which he could at last lay down his arms and relax a bit. A time to heal.
Instead here he was, couched behind the rusting fender of an abandoned construction crawler, along with six others, waiting tensely as a quintet of stormtroopers hurried by. From the snatches of conversation Nick heard as they passed, it didn’t take a Tatooine brain spider to figure out that they were hot in pursuit of a Jedi. Whether it was a Padawan, Jedi Knight, or Master wasn’t clear.
During his service, and because of his acquaintance with Mace Windu, Nick had come to know a number of Jedi quite well, including a few members of the Council—all of whom, as far as he knew, were now dead. Or, as the Jedi themselves often put it, “Returned to the Force.” Whatever. Nick had little patience with any and all theories and philosophies that included speculation on an afterlife. The life he was living now was more than enough work; the thought of doing it all over again just made him tired.
He glanced back at his group, signaling with a head jerk that they were following the pack. There was no hesitation among his team as they fell in behind him.
Keeping the troopers in sight, Nick moved stealthily through the deserted streets. There was never much foot traffic down here at this time, and what little there was had prudently relocated when the armed stormtroopers had come marching down the thoroughfare. Before too long they stopped before