Hero of Cartao Part 8

"What show?" Doriana asked. "What are you doing?"

"You'll see," Roshton said, s.h.i.+fting his eyes to the mansion and the ring of droids. "Ever seen a droideka go bounce?"

"Uh... no."

"Then you've got a treat in store." Roshton pulled the front of his tunic slightly back to reveal a comlink hidden behind the flap. "Number seven, stand by... now."

And from the direction of the house came the thundercrack of anexplosion. Doriana twisted around in time to see one of the droidekas, stillin wheel form, soaring over the heads of its startled companions. Behind it, ablackened hole in the ground trailed a strand of smoke. "Number ten: now,"Roshton said.

There was a second explosion, this one squarely at the feet of one of thea.s.sault droids. The big machine lost its balance and toppled backward to landwith a sickening thud. "Where are they firing from?" Doriana demanded, lookingaround in bewilderment. There were no clone troopers in sight, and preciouslittle cover anywhere nearby for them to be hiding in. "Roshton?"

"Later," Roshton said. "Five and eight: go."

Two more explosions ripped into the defensive line, each sending a pairof battle droids flying across the neatly trimmed lawn. "And here come thesoft ones," Roshton added as the brightly colored Neimoidian robes appeared inthe doorway. "This should be fun."

"Hold it," Doriana said, squinting across the distance. Nearly hidden in the folds of the robes... "Hold your fire, Roshton," he repeated urgently.

"They've got Binalie's son with them."

Roshton muttered something under his breath. "Rotten cowards," he said contemptuously. "They can't just..."

He broke off, a tight smile suddenly twisting his lips. "Well, well.

Cowards and fools both."

"What?" Doriana asked, frowning.

"They've got Corf Binalie, all right." Roshton gestured. "They've also got Jafer Tories."

He lifted his eyebrows at Doriana. "Like I said. This should be fun."

Two more explosions, the third and fourth by Tories' count, shook thehouse as Ashel and Gehad hurried them down the entry hallway to the mansion'smain door.

"I do not understand," Gehad said nervously as they peered outside."Where are they shooting from?" "What does it matter?" Ashel bit out,gesturing to the droids. "Droids! Form a cordon to the transport!" Obediently,the droids abandoned their encirclement positions, scurrying or rolling orlumbering, as their capabilities allowed, toward the vehicle squatting a dozenmeters away. They were lining up into two rows, their weapons pointingoutward, when another explosion caught the transport's right front corner,bouncing the vehicle a meter into the air and leaving a section of armorplating black and twisted.

"This is impossible!" Gehad shouted. "How do they do this?"

"Ask questions later!" Ashel growled, pointing toward the Spaarti plant.

"Look! Here is our air support."

And impressive air support it was, too, Tories had to admit. A hundredSTAPs had appeared in the sky, sweeping in from both east and west as theyconverged on the Binalie estate.

But the STAPs were still out of range, the droids in their cordon hadtheir weapons and sensors aimed outward as they searched for their unseenattackers, and the Neimoidians were far too preoccupied with their own safetyto be watching their prisoners. Time to go to work.

"Now," Ashel said, ungluing himself from the partial protection of thedoorway and sprinting between the rows of droids toward the transport.Grabbing Corf s arm, Gehad started to follow, tugging the boy along behindhim. They didn't get far. Reaching forward, Tories caught the boy's other armand planted his feet solidly into the ground just outside the mansion'sdoorway. For a moment, Corf was stretched between them like a pull-war cable,and then Gehad stopped and spun around. "What do you-?" he snarled. He never finished his question. In that same brief second, the two combat droids thathad been marching along a meter behind them, caught offguard by Tories' suddenhalt, arrived at either side of the Jedi. And in a single smooth motion,Tories reached beneath his robe, pulled out his lightsaber, and ignited it.Gehad gave a little deep-throated scream, letting go of Corf's arm as if he'dbeen burned and scuttling away from him. Tories gave the boy a quick shoveback through the doorway as he slashed the lightsaber across the upper chestof the droid to his left. The brilliant green blade sliced through the thickacertron armor like it was wrapping plastoid, and the top third of the droidslid off and fell with a crash onto the ground. The rest of the machine,caught in a trick of balance, remained standing stolidly upright like abeheaded corpse patiently awaiting further orders. Tories didn't wait to seewhether or not it would fall. The a.s.sault droid to his right was alreadyreacting to this unexpected threat, twisting at its hips to try to bring itsblasters to bear. Tories swiveled to his right to meet it, swinging hislightsaber around and down across the raised forearms above the mountedblasters and dropping them onto the ground. His second cut took off thedroid's legs; even before the pieces clattered to the ground, he leapedbackward through the doorway into the mansion. "Go!" he ordered theNeimoidians, lifting his lightsaber into guard position. As if in emphasis,another nearby explosion blew clouds of dirt into the air. The two aliensdidn't need further encouragement. Turning, they sprinted down the line ofdroids and scampered into the transport. The surviving droids followed,closing up the cordon neatly behind them. A minute later the transport, joinednow by three more of the vehicles, was heading east at high speed. "Wow," Corfbreathed.

Tories turned to see the boy gazing up at him, a stunned expression on his face. "You all right?" he asked.

Mechanically, Corf nodded. "I never saw anything like that," he said."Just doing what I was trained for," Tories said. With one last look outside,he closed down his lightsaber. "Let's go tell your father you're all right,"he said. "And after that," he added grimly, "you may both want to go to yoursafe room. This could get nasty."

There they go," Roshton commented as the last of the droids piled intothe transports. The first vehicle, the one with the Neimoidians aboard, hadalready left the ground and was clawing for distance, the STAP escort formingup around it. "They won't be trying that again for awhile."

"Probably not," Doriana agreed, his eyes still on the remains of the D60s that had taken Tories maybe half a second to turn to sc.r.a.p. He'd beenaround Jedi much of his life, but never before had he actually witnessed onein full combat mode.

And for the first time he began to truly see why Sidious wanted them eliminated.

"Estate units, secure," Roshton was saying into his comlink. "City, forest units: stand ready."

With an effort, Doriana pulled his attention back to the militarysituation. "What do you mean, stand ready?" he asked. "And how did you managethose shots?"

"Don't be dense," Roshton chided. 'That was nothing but a set ofstrategically placed, remote-controlled land mines. You must not have noticedall the landscaping being done around the grounds the past two days."

"I had other things on my mind," Doriana said tartly, watching thefleeing transports. Instead of taking the straightest route back to SpaartiCreations, they were swinging far to the east. What in?...

And then, he got it. 'They're avoiding the south lawn," he said. 'They don't want to risk anything else cras.h.i.+ng on it and irritating the Cranscoc."

"Exactly what I thought they'd do," Roshton said with grim satisfaction.

"Forest unit: secure. City unit: fire at will."

Abruptly, a dozen blaster bolts sizzled up from the northern edge of

Foulahn City, blowing apart STAPs and peeling chunks of armor from the transports.

"What are you doing?" Doriana demanded. "You've chased them away. Isn't that enough?"

"No," Roshton said. "City unit: take them down."

The STAPs were returning fire now, and that whole section of sky seemedto be filled with multicolored blaster fire. Doriana found himself holding hisbreath as he watched the transports dodging and staggering, trying desperatelyto reach the safety of the plant. If Roshton's zealousness got the Neimoidianskilled - or worse, if it panicked them into pulling their droids out of thefactory for a counterattack...

And then, something else in the sky caught his eye. Just a pair ofspecks, but as he watched they grew visibly larger. "Roshton!" he snapped,fumbling out a compact set of electrobinoculars and switching them on. "We'vegot company."

"Let me see," Roshton ordered, reaching for the instrument.

Doriana twitched it away, pressing his eyes against the lenses.

A single glance was enough. "It's a pair of C-9979 landing s.h.i.+ps," hetold Roshton, handing over the electrobinoculars. "Looks like all your littlestunt accomplished was to persuade the Separatists to bring in reinforcements."

The Neimoidian commander's careless choice of a landing spot two daysearlier had enabled Roshton's clone troopers to slow down their troopdeployment long enough for the Republic forces to evacuate the SpaartiCreations complex. With this second wave, the Separatists made no such error.The landing s.h.i.+ps put down to the west and northeast of the city, in openterritory where no close-in attack would be possible, and immediately begandeploying their troops and vehicles.

Roshton had barely enough time to order his men to pull back before theMTT transports and AAT battle tanks made their orderly way through the streetsof Foulahn City, along the serviceways of Triv s.p.a.ceport, and even into themostly uninhabited wooded hills west and north of the Spaarti complex. TheAATs took up position at official buildings and strategic road intersections,while the MTTs quickly found places to dump their deadly cargos of battledroids, super battle droids, a.s.sault droids, and droidekas. By late afternoon,every square meter for fifteen kilometers around Spaarti Creations was inSeparatist hands. With one small exception.

"One of the C-9979S is here," Roshton said, tapping a spot on the holomapdue west of Foulahn City. "Its droids and AATs are occupying western Foulahn,plus all the territory west and north of the Spaarti complex. The other one'shere-" he indicated a point near the Quatreen River where it meandered its waybetween the city and the Triv s.p.a.ceport to the northeast of it"-where they cancover the eastern city and the s.p.a.ceport. I hear some units have gone a waysup the Quatreen and into Navroc City, too, but I don't have independentconfirmation of that."

Tories looked over at Binalie. The other's face looked pale, but thatcould have just been the lighting. With only limited power supplies availablehere in the depths of the Binalie family safe room-and with no desire toattract notice from the droids occupying the main house upstairs-Binalie hadelected to shut down everything except the permlights. "So where does thatleave us?" Tories asked.

"Basically, stuck in here," Roshton said heavily. "My troops are doingwhat they can to hara.s.s the droids, but we don't have nearly enough manpowerto push them back to the landing s.h.i.+ps. Master Doriana tells me SupremeChancellor Palpatine has promised help, but that could be as much as severaldays away.

"And meanwhile, your clones and the droids tear Foulahn City to shreds,"

Binalie growled.

"We're keeping the war out of your plant, aren't we?" Roshton retorted.

"Isn't that what you wanted?"

"What I wanted was for the whole cursed war to stay off my world,"

Binalie shot back.

"I'm afraid those choices aren't always ours to make," Doriana spoke up calmly.

"It certainly wasn't Commander Roshton's idea to bring the war here."

"So we just sit here and let them wreck our city?"

"If I were you, I'd focus on the central issue," Roshton said tartly."Namely, once the sun sets they'll be able to get the Cranscoc to retool theplant. Once that happens, you can wave goodbye to any hope for your city oryour world."

"What do you mean?" Corf asked, huddling a little closer to his father.

"The Separatists are about to launch a brand-new line of a.s.sault droids,"Roshton told him. "Once they get it up and running, every hour they spend inthere means a stronger droid army on Cartao. If they're not stopped, sooner orlater they'll have enough troops to defeat anything the Republic can spare tothrow against them."

He looked back at Binalie. "And at that point, the only way to stop them.

"No," Binalie said flatly. "Don't even think it."