"Here? With them?" The HK didn't hesitate. It followed the Jedi down through the simulation chamber, out and into the rain and gloom.
"There's one," Sorel said, "behind that wall. See him?"
The HK pivoted unhesitatingly, firing two quick blasts at the open-mouthed Sith-thing as it stalked around the corner in front of them, arms thrown open. It went down screaming.
"Your turn," the HK replied. "To your left."
The Jedi turned and activated her twin sabers An instant later, a zombie lunged out, the golden beams embedding in its chest, but it still roared toward them, arms slashing until the droid fired a bolt into its head, the skull disintegrating.
"Nicely done," the droid said. "But it was still coming."
With a grunt, Sorel noted her sabers were still embedded in its ribs and quite literally holding it upright. Lifting the thing completely off its feet, she wrenched it around sideways and hammered it into the stone wall alongside them. The tip of the blades twisted loose, and it slid to the floor in two pieces.
“Now it’s dead.”
“Agreed.”
"What happened to agreed, ma’am?”
The droid gazed at her. "Look out behind you," it said dryly. "Sir."
Sorel looked back at the side of the structure where she'd just ripped the Sith thing asunder. The ground began to tremble. She saw a flash of motion inside the half-open hatchway, something big, and heard a scream — in fact a great torrent of gargling screeches. It didn't sound like the ones that she'd heard before. But the smell was hideously familiar.
"Watch out," she said. "This is gonna be bad."
The first undead tauntaun came charging out, smashing the door of the hatchway completely out of its housing with the bulk of its body. From here Sorel could see that half its thoracic cavity was ripped away, the remains of its internal organs flapping from its ribs. A large section of its head was gone as well, but it was still screaming as it flung itself toward them. Its eyes were clouded and pinkish, like milk mixed with blood.
"Burn it?” Sorel suggested.
The droid's flamethrower roared across the open ground, and Sorel saw the creature’s oily pelt come alive with flames. Howling, the thing spun around, trampling furiously, rolling, trying to extinguish the fire, and the HK fired into it, blasting its carcass to shreds.
"You have anything bigger than a laser?" Sorel asked.
"Mortar rounds. Why?"
Sorel gave a nod back at the open paddock. The herd of infected tauntauns was already thundering out, half a dozen or more, all producing that same indefinable shrieking noise. The front-runner had a gaping hole in its flank, the ragged edges of the wound quivering as it galloped so that the hole slapped open and shut like a second, stammering mouth. Something was wrong with its upper torso...
Sorel could see a heavy shape writhing around inside the creature’s belly.
She slammed her saber into it, and the thing burst open in a thick welter of fluid. From inside, the blood-soaked form of a zombie came spilling out. The Sith-thing stood up grinning from inside its sticky web of blood, shook its head from side to side violently, and screamed.
Sorel impaled the zombie, ramming its body back into the creature’s carcass and pinning it against the thing's spinal column. She looked back at the droid. "They're hiding inside the tauntauns," she shouted. "They—“
The hard metal of the HK's arm swung back and shoved her over, forcefully enough to knock her down in the muddy ground, just as a slick bullet of bloody spit flew out of the infected tauntaun's mouth. Another centimetre to the right and it would have hit Sorel directly in her open eye; as it was, the gobbet of mucus stuck to the side of her head and clung there. Looking up, Sorel saw the animal's gore-soaked muzzle puckering, summoning up another mouthful. She still had no idea how the disease was spread and wasn’t going to take any chances.
"They're notorious for their aim," the droid said.
"Thanks."
“You’re welcome ma’am. And I suggest another plan. "
"They're faster than us." Sorel saw the other undead tauntauns behind the one she'd gutted, their hollowed-out chests and underbellies swelling and bulging with the zombies students hiding inside. Already she could imagine what it would be like, the creatures pounding up behind her at fifty kilometers per hour, only to eject their flesh-starved passengers on top of her. "Any ideas?"
"Only one," the droid said.
It was already taking aim. An instant later the HK's mortar round flew directly into the centre of the herd. At close range, its twenty-meter blast radius was a sight to behold, even to Sorel, who had seen the end result of such weapons many times before. She shielded her eyes as chunks and fragments of cold tauntaun fat, human flesh, and bone came raining down on top of them.
"Is there anything else we can kill?" the droid asked, totally deadpan.
"Ourselves, if we don't move."
