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"Options, of course," Roshton told him, glancing back over his shoulder.
Doriana looked, too, to see the clone troopers following in an orderly
retreat. "Before we did that, there would have been no way to retreat without
bringing the battle into the plant, which you had forbidden us to do. We would
have had to stand and die."
He gestured ahead of them with his blaster. "Now, we should have time to get
through that tunnel of Binalie's and go to ground." Doriana felt his lip
twist. Nine hundred clone troopers, ready and waiting to harass the Separatist
army. This was not how it was supposed to have gone. "So what exactly did
Tories tell you?"
Roshton threw him a smile. "You'll see. Come on, and save your breath for
running."
They stood on the hill at the edge of the Binalie estate: Tories, Binalie
himself, Doriana, and Commander Roshton, the latter now disguised in civilian
clothing. "So that's it, is it?" Binalie asked.
"For now, yes," Tories told him, gazing across the grassy strip that lay
between them and Spaarti Creations as the pinks and yellows of sunset began to
fade from the western sky.
And the shadows from the smoldering hulks of half a dozen AAT battle
tanks stretched across the forbidden grassland. "My compliments to your
gunners," he added.
"It wasn't hard," Roshton said grimly. "Standard Trade Federation attack
procedure always includes throwing a cordon around the target zone. All we had
to do was set our ambush and make sure we dropped the ones in the place that
would irritate the Cranscoc the most."
"Yes," Tories murmured, feeling a twinge of guilt. It had been his idea, and
it had been necessary. But he still didn't much like the fact that he'd
deliberately caused distress and discomfort to sentient beings. Especially
sentient beings who had nothing to do with the chaos now swirling around them.
"I just hope it works," Doriana murmured.
"It will," Tories assured him. "The twillers aren't even going to be able to
relax until those hulks are removed, let alone retool the plant for
anything the Separatists want to build in there."
Roshton grunted. "Let's hope they don't figure it out until our
reinforcements get here," he said. "Then we'll see how good they are."
"As long as you don't destroy the plant in the process," Binalie warned.
"We'll do what we can," Roshton promised. "But that's up to the
Separatists now."
Tories felt his throat tighten, the fading light in the sky mirroring his own
darkening mood. Because even if Spaarti survived, the thing he'd feared for
so long had already happened.
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The war had come to Cartao.
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