It wasn't the welter of disturbed minds that left him most unsettled or even coming face-to-face with a woman whose job was, effectively, genocide.

It was finding that she was not the only wholly sane person being imprisoned in Valorum. And there was nothing he could do about the other one. He couldn't pursue the man's case, because Herris now had to disappear. He'd made too much of a splash as it was.

There were always casualties in war. Not all of them occurred in combat.

Hadde-Rishun road, Haurgab, 1510 hours local time "Dar! Dar! Get down!"

Hordes of heavily armed Maujasi had come out of nowhere, and now Omega were stuck in the remains of the ancient fort, under fire and running out of luck.

The convoy had vanished except for the vehicles still burning in the pass. Darman threw himself flat as another mortar whooshed overhead and detonated somewhere behind the crumbling wall, ripping more chunks out of it. Darman found himself looking at the world from a ninety-degree angle, noticing that the front wall providing cover didn't look so solid now, either. Voices filled his audio link.

"Where the shab did they come from?"

"Told you, kriffing tunnels."

"At'ika, can you move the remote? Come on, look for a route out. We can't sit up here all shabla day waiting to get picked off."

"On it, Sarge-can you see that?"

"Oh shab..."

Niner rarely swore. Things had to be worse than Darman thought. He scuttled on all fours across the ground, pushing the ammo crate out of the way. When he checked his HUD icons, the view from the remote wasn't encouraging. From a position nearly two hundred meters above them, it showed the terrain in all its depressing reality: a sheer drop on three sides, and a long rocky slope down to their rear, the only access to the old fort. It was also the only route out. The fort had been a great vantage point in its heyday and easy to defend, but even four Republic commandos couldn't hold out here forever against hundreds of Maujasi.

"I'm calling for extraction," Niner said.

Darman began calculating how far they'd get if they tried to storm their way out. "Who the shab is going to lift us out of this?"

"The Eighty-fifth have larties."

"Let's see if they have a window in their busy manicure schedule."

The view from the remote showed Maujasi moving around to the rear of the peak. It would take them maybe half an hour to pick their way up the long slope, longer if Darman made life more interesting for them by bringing down some rock on their heads.

He reloaded with grenades and began crawling toward the path, which fell away sharply as if the peak had been sawn off by a giant hand to create a level base for the fort.

"I'll delay them while you call a cab," he said.

Niner had his right hand cupped to ear level. He always did that when comming in a tight spot, as if it made voice traffic easier to hear, despite the sophisticated audio in his helmet. "Roll a det down, for fierfek's sake, Dar. Don't expose yourself."

Corr, propped on one elbow as if he was sunning himself, listened with a cocked head. "They sound like they've got another repeating blaster or a cannon down there."

"They could just blow the top off this stump, then ..." said Atin. "But that would kill us, and that means they want us alive."

Darman had a good idea what taken alive meant around these parts. It wasn't how he planned to bow out of this life. "Let's hope they don't manage to conjure up their own air support."

"Hadde Base, this is Omega. Hadde Base, this is Omega. Request immediate extraction." Niner kept repeating the call, but it didn't sound as if he was getting a response. Darman could hear the fizz and crackle of the comlink. "Hadde Base, repeat, this is Omega. We're pinned down at the old Churt fort, twenty klicks southwest of your position. Low ammo, enemy strength estimated at... between one fifty and two hundred, with cannon and heavy repeaters. No anti-air that we can see. Hadde Base, this is Omega ..."

Darman had reached this point in combat several times over the last couple of years. There was a very good chance that he was going to die. The more times that happened, the more confident he was that he could get out of it, but there was also the realization that this time might well be the last.

It was a long way down and there were an awful lot of Maujasi down there. In the way of knife-edge moments, he found himself thinking things unconnected with the prospect of an unpleasant death. He hadn't called Etain and he hadn't spoken to Fi in months. Apart from that, he'd made his peace with the world.

It was suddenly quiet. Niner, leaning back against the mud bricks, checked his ammo. "Well, even if we get past that lot, we're on foot, and that's not exactly a fast getaway. And Fleet Met says sandstorms are on the way."

Darman checked his HUD. Nobody liked flying in a sandstorm even if they had the filters and other countermeasures to venture out in it. It was a lousy time to need extraction.

"How many thermal dels have we got?" Darman asked.

"I've got three."

"Two," said Atin.

Corr pulled three out of his belt and held them in a cluster like fruit. "Being a man who knows about things that go bang, I estimate we have enough baradium yield between us to reduce this peak to rubble, or make a hole big enough to swallow it."

Darman's mind raced. Lots of bad guys, one way down, not enough ammo, but a big explosive capacity. "Yeah, I was hoping that would be the result."

"Only problem is ... we're sitting on it."

"I'm still thinking."

"Well, it beats being interrogated by the locals."

"Quitter," said Darman, but Corr had a point, and he wondered when he'd take off his armor so that he died outright and didn't linger injured like Fi. If he was going to go, he wanted to go clean. Suddenly he wasn't just bothered that he hadn't said good-bye to Etain; he was devastated that he might never see her again. "Look, if they're going to come and take us, then they've got to come up that slope. The path's two meters wide. Logjam."

"You thinking of playing skittles with them?" Atin asked.

"Well, the blast radius is five meters. I can throw a bit farther than that." Darman had started life as the squad's ordnance expert. He'd picked up so many new skills since Geonosis that-Fierfek, I forgot the anniversary.

I forgot. But I remember them every day.

Sorry, Vin . . . Jay . . . Taler.

"And?" Niner reloaded the repeating blaster. "What if we don't kill that many?"

Darman shrugged. "Every little bit helps, as they say."

The odds were bad. Katarn armor technology meant that they could take a considerable pounding from blasterfire and even grenades, but close-quarters combat-hand-to-hand, probably-made them vulnerable. They could be brought down by sheer numbers. Then the armor wouldn't do a thing to save them.

Atin took a noisy pull of water. "I don't want to rush you, Dar, but if you take a look at the remote view, you'll see we have visitors."

Darman tested his vibroblade, ejecting it from his gauntlet plate with a satisfying shunk. If they wanted a fight, they'd get one. Corr continued to call for extraction while Darman pried the plates off the dets to wire them together. Another mortar found its target, now way too close for comfort. Atin edged forward to lay down fire.

"They don't know how many of us are up here."

"Well, they will if they reach the shabla top, At'ika . . ." Corr paused, listening for some response in the comlink interference. "If I live through this, first thing I'm going to do is shove my vibroblade in some Intel guy's-"

"I make that two mortar positions," said Niner. "And yeah, I'll join you."

Darman couldn't see what was happening behind him. Cross-wiring thermal dets was a fiddly job, and it didn't seem to occur to the others that the jury-rigged device could just as easily kill them all without any help from the rebels. All Darman could think at that moment was that Jusik would have been really handy to have around now. He was great with gadgets. And a spot of Force-created avalanche would have been just the job.

"Okay, I'm done," he said. "How far have those chakaare got?"

Atin steered the remote. It was too small for the rebels to notice at that altitude. "They're about fifteen meters up. Another ten and they'll be on scree. Bring that lot down, and you'll probably block the path. It'll take them hours to dig past it."

The wired dets formed a loose ball about the size of a human head, and as near to spherical as Darman could make it. He wasn't so sure he could throw it accurately enough now that he realized how ungainly a shape it was; he'd have to roll it and detonate remotely. And that meant split-second timing, or he'd miss and detonate the device behind them.

"Okay, At'ika, you talk me through it," he said and ran for the edge of the path. He had to get on the slope and line up as best he could. "Ready?"

"Ready."

Behind him, Niner's repeater spat and boomed as another mortar shook the fort. He skidded down the narrow path for a few meters until he could hear the occasional shout from a rebel to go left or some other order.

If I roll it now, it'll reach the detonation point in eight seconds.

Who was he kidding? He couldn't be sure of that. He waited for Atin to refocus the remote. Now he could see clearly. What seemed like an endless stream of rebels were scrambling up the slope with rifles slung across their backs. It was probably only fifty, but it felt like hordes somehow, and he knew there were more behind them.

"Stand by."

"In your own time, Dar." "Dets away."

Darman let the ball tumble down the narrow path. It bounced and skidded-don't blow early, you shabuir, please don't-and he watched its progress via the remote view with his forefinger resting on the control in his left palm.

Bounce, bounce . . .

Heads. He could see the tops of heads, and he pressed the button.

For a silent moment he thought the device had failed. Then a deafening explosion shook the ground under his boots, and all he saw in his HUD was a blinding fireball and flying rubble. Fragments peppered his armor, bouncing around him; he felt as if he was falling and reached out instinctively to grab something solid. His hand caught an outcrop and he found himself sitting solidly on his backside.

He couldn't feel anything under his boots, though. A panicky flash of a thought seized him: No, I couldn't possibly have broken my spine. He swung his legs just to be sure.

"Dar? Dar!" Atin's voice filled his helmet. The rest of the squad could all see the images from the remote, he knew. "Dar, you okay? Dar!"

Darman glanced down. He was sitting on a ledge of rock, staring down from a brand-new cliff. The dets had blown out a landslide. Rocks were still clicking and groaning, pebbles bouncing. His legs were fine; there was just nothing under his boots to feel.

"We didn't need Jusik after all," he said, appalled. "I don't think they're going to get up to the top anytime soon."

"Oh, shab ..." Corr's voice sounded more stunned than angry. "And we're not going to get down, are we?"

Darman shuffled back from the precipice and scrambled to his feet to run back up the remains of the path.

At least we're on the highest peak. Nothing's overlooking us. We've got cover. And a few less enemy than we had a few minutes ago.

It still couldn't make up for the fact that they were marooned on a plug of rock 150 meters above ground level with no way down, no support, and dwindling supplies. As Darman dropped down behind the wall again, nobody said a word. The firing had stopped for a while.

"Go on, yell at me," he said.

Atin shrugged and directed the remote to a higher altitude. Darman could see chaos-temporary, he knew-while the rebels rushed around trying to rescue their comrades and regroup. He'd bought some time, but it would be no use to Omega now.

"Any luck, Cor'ika?" Niner asked. He could hear Corr's transmissions as well as the rest of them, but it was his way of chivvying everyone along. "Because if the Eighty-fifth don't respond, we've either got to kill every last rebel or learn to kriffing fly."

"Or both," Atin said. "We can try a descent, but we'll be completely exposed to fire if we try to climb down."

Three seconds, five meters. That was about as long and as far as you could run before a sniper got a fix on you. Climbing down a sheer rock face-Katarn armor or not-was asking for it. The rebels didn't have state-of-the-art blasters, but they had mortars, and that would finish off anyone.

"Where's the rest of the convoy?" Darman asked. "Some got away. They must have called it in by now."

"Except they don't know we're here, and we'd have looked like some bunch of local trouble to them," Niner said. "If they saw us at all."

Corr laid out his ammo in front of him in descending order of stopping power. It wasn't a comforting sight. It looked as if he'd prepared for a last stand before, but he'd never talked about the action he'd seen. It clearly wasn't just bomb disposal. The last item in the row was a small grenade.

He looked up and caught Darman staring at him. "For me," he said. "I don't expect much of local hospitality."

"Good idea," said Niner, tossing a similar device in his hand.

Darman looked at Atin, but neither of them set aside a quick end for themselves. Maybe it was knowing they had someone waiting back home.

"Keep trying the Eighty-fifth," said Niner.

Atin shook his head. "No, flash HQ. They should be able to get through to them."

It normally took time they didn't have, but time wasn't an issue now. The rebels who had regrouped and were making their way back up the cliffs surrounding Omega-they were the issue. Them, and their repeating blasters.

Etain would hear they were in trouble. Darman preferred not to worry her. But now he didn't have a choice, and he took some comfort in the fact that the fort was thirty or forty meters higher than the rest of the terrain, and it still looked as if the rebels wanted to take them alive.

The rebels could sit it out, of course. Even in climate-controlled Katarn armor with fluid recycling, commandos couldn't hold out indefinitely on a rock in a burning desert.

"Area HQ, this is Omega," Corr repeated quietly, as if he was ordering a carry-out meal. The squad kept their communal audio link open. "Arca HQ, this is Omega, request urgent forwarding for immediate extraction. Arca HQ, this is ..."

It would be dark in a few hours. Darman and Niner hauled and rolled whatever solid objects they could find to shore up the blast-pocked walls of the ruin that provided their only protection. A volley of blaster bolts smacked into the rock a meter below, seeming more like a ploy to torment them than a serious attempt to kill.

"Omega, this is Arca HQ," said a male voice. "Say again."

"Captain Maze ... I see you're answering the comms today, then..."

The ARC trooper captain-Zey's aide-wasn't known for his cheery camaraderie. "Omega, your position's noted. Comm trouble?"

"Can't raise the Eighty-fifth. Request immediate extraction from these coordinates. We're surrounded and low on everything."

"I'm alerting Hadde FOB now. Stand by."

Corr switched to a private comlink channel that Maze couldn't hear. "How are you, Omega? Can we help? We're really concerned that you're stranded on a shabla rock surrounded by an infinite number of armed locals who'll cut your gett'se off when they haul you screaming from the summit." He switched back to the open circuit again. "Thank you, Captain. Standing by."

It was relief, Darman knew. Corr vented his tensions through acid sarcasm. I know what Fi would have said. Fi would have said, Captain, you never call, you never send flowers . . . Darman hoped Fi was happy on Mandalore. He really did.

"I make it about seventy chakaare," Atin said. "Not infinite."

"They've got buddies back home who could show up anytime," Corr said. "And stop being pedantic. It'll make you go blind."

"He didn't say they were sending a larty. He didn't say when."