We will watch you, I promise. You will not see us or hear us or even know we stand beside you. How does that feel, Jedi? How does it feel to be at the mercy of a species with powers even you don't have? Now you know how others regard you. Keep your promises, General, or you will see how hard a small, invisible army can strike.
–Jinart the Gurlanin, to General Arligan Zey, on the pledge to relocate all human colonists from Qiilura within eighteen months
CoruFresh depot, 2225—H Hour
At 2225 hours Triple Zero time, Fi and Mereel broke from behind the low wall at the southern edge of the landing strip and positioned themselves between the parked repulsor trucks at the far side facing the warehouse.
Fi focused the infrared scope of his DC-17 on the green truck and saw a bright patch of heat on the fuselage. He tilted up and saw the dim patchwork indicating the varying temperatures of a human's upper body, a pilot waiting to depart.
“I've got a target in the pilot's seat of the green truck, and his drive's showing up warm on the infrared scope. Is the explosive loaded? Can anyone confirm?”
“I can see the rear of the truck. They've closed the hatch with two targets inside as well as the pilot.” Ordo paused. “The green truck is now confirmed as laden. We have to keep that vessel grounded, vode. We can't detonate it, not here.”
“Dar, you got a clear shot at the pilot?”
There was the sound of fast breathing and a grunt as someone dropped next to him. Fi looked left and saw Darman kneeling on one leg with his Verpine rifle raised, elbow braced on his knee. A Verp slug was guaranteed to punch a hole in the truck's viewscreen and kill the pilot without triggering the five-hundred-grade. “Got him lined up. Standing by.”
Fi swung his Deece to locate Ordo on the roof. He couldn't see Sev, but Ordo's helmet range finder was just visible as he turned his head.
“Delta,” Ordo said, “stand by to take the rear of the green truck when we kill the illumigrids. Omega, target all walking targets on the landing strip.”
Kal's voice cut in. “Ord'ika—we're at the rear of the warehouse blocking the back doors. Force is estimating twenty-four live targets in all, I'm told.”
Fi refocused his scope on the interior of the warehouse. He could see at least nine men and women scurrying around inside, and two more visible via infrared, ripping open crates and bundling small boxes and blasters into bags. “I've got a minimum of eleven contacts around and inside the warehouse and it looks like they've got a small arsenal in there. Good news is that it's just one big empty space with partitioned offices down one wall.”
“Once the lights go out, they'll batten down …”
Sev cut in. “I've got two loading what looks like DC-15 rifle cases into the small red airspeeder on the northern perimeter fence.”
“Six of the trucks look warm and ticking over in my infrared,” Mereel said. “Can't see any activity in the rest of the speeders. There ought to be four ready to fly.”
“Hit them all, then, just to be certain,” Ordo said. “Hit everything except the green truck.
“I'm on night vision now,” Darman said. “Ready when you are, Captain Ordo.”
Corr sprinted into position to Fi's right, sliding behind a truck, with the rotary blaster braced against his belt and his left hand tight on the top grip. From his stance he looked like a man who felt pretty good about his chances. He wasn't even meant to be a commando; he'd just risen to the challenge.
Fi hoped Skirata would find a way of permanently absorbing him into Arca Company. He switched to his night scope and aligned the target icon on a man and a woman carrying a flat crate between them toward one of the trucks.
Fi's finger rested on the trigger.
“Lights!” Ordo hissed.
He and Sev fired their Plex rocket launchers, and both illumigrids were swallowed simultaneously by two balls of yellow flame.
The roar killed any chances of him hearing the shattering transparisteel viewscreen of the green truck. But he heard Darman an instant later.
“Truck pilot, clear!”
“We've lost one!” Jusik said.
“Say again?”
“One target's made a run for it, over in the northeast corner. I felt him go.”
There was a split second of frozen time before blue blasterfire sprayed from Fi's position, cutting down the two people moving a crate. Two of the trucks exploded in balls of fire, accounting for six more targets. The landing strip was now a dark void lit by the dying flames of two smashed trucks and sporadic bolts of Deece fire. From the far end of the depot the distinctive blue staccato attack of the rotary blaster hosed every vehicle on that side of the strip. Corr was definitely getting stuck in, as Kal'buir put it. He sprinted to Ordo's left, firing as he ran, taking out the last gray-and-silver airspeeder in a ball of white light.
“Jusik?” Ordo debated whether to worry about the one escapee. “Jusik, get Vau and Etain onto the one who's bolted.”
Beneath Ordo, Boss, Fixer, and Scorch raced to the rear of the green truck, Atin coming in from the other side. Boss fired a stream of bolts from his Deece at a shallow angle, slicing off half the truck's repulsor drive housing. It dropped flat on the ground with a massive crash of crumpling alloy. It definitely wasn't going anywhere now.
Scorch concentrated his fire into the warehouse. Ordo swung over the edge of the roof to rappel down into the melee, firing one of his twin blasters as he dropped. The shots sparked and smoked off closing doors. There were probably nine or ten terrorists now shut inside with a good supply of weapons. And right now they weren't Ordo's worst problem.
Sev thudded to the ground beside him and rewound his rappelling line. “Two Verp kills. That's all.”
“Two still alive inside the truck,” Boss said. “If you had a hundred kilos of thermal explosive, a lot of dets, and no escape, what would you do?”
“Take as many of the enemy out with me as I could,” Ordo said. “Storm that dik'utla truck now before they put us into orbit.”
Two minutes into the engagement felt like seconds. Fi sprinted down to the green truck on Mereel's heels with Corr, Darman, and Niner close behind.
“I make it ten bodies on the landing strip,” Niner said.
“One dead pilot and two live targets in this truck.” Ordo motioned Niner and Scorch to the front of the truck. “You stand by to distract them when Fixer and Boss go in the rear hatch.”
Ordo stood back with both blasters drawn as Fixer and Boss stacked either side of the hatch. He fired at the frame mountings and it buckled and burst open. There was a loud pee-eww pee-eww of ricocheting fragments from the front of the vessel and Fixer and Boss burst in with their gauntlet vibroblades drawn.
White lights flared and hissed: hand blasters. Ordo had a split second of thinking This is it, it's going to blow, we're dead, it's over—and then silence fell again. Battles seemed to him a mass of deafening noise interspersed with brief, dead silence.
“Fierfek, they didn't even get the dets lined up,” Scorch said. “Amateurs.” He scrambled out of the shattered truck, his armor blackened by blasterfire. Boss jumped out behind him and shook blood off his vibroblade before sheathing it again.
Ordo took a breath. “Kal'buir?”
“We're still at the rear doors. It's gone a little quiet in there. Bard'ika says eleven inside.”
“Confirmed eleven on the infrared scope, too,” said Niner, who always needed to be certain.
“They've locked themselves in. We're just clearing the explosives out of the truck.” Ordo motioned to Corr, Niner, and Boss to go. “Mereel and I are going in the front doors. Dar and Fi, open up a hole in the south-side wall.”
“Want us to go in from the back, son?” Skirata said. “I'm pumping adrenaline and I'd like to get in on some action. For old times' sake.”
“Remember you don't have Katarn armor,” Ordo said, instantly more worried for Kal'buir than anyone alive.
Skirata snorted. “Remember you're not wearing Mandalorian iron.”
Ordo gestured to Mereel. His brother brushed a dusting of debris off his blue lieutenant's pauldron and reached over his shoulders with both hands to draw the massive Cip-Quad blaster strapped across his back.
“In three … ,” Ordo said.
“What happened to in five?”
“I just ran out of patience.”
Skirata held up his Verpine in his left hand, knife in his right, listening as Jusik drew his lightsaber, a Jedi Knight in a Mando helmet.
Bard'ika, I'll take that image to my grave.
He checked the infrared targeting beam, more out of nervous habit than anything, and hoped the hut'uune didn't have night vision.
The deafening double trip-hammer of Mereel's quad blaster shattered the brief calm and the rear doors were blown open. There was an explosion and a pounding rain of debris from the side of the warehouse. For a moment Skirata thought the doors had been blown out by the blast but Jusik punched the air as if it was a rather clever touch.
Fierfek. So that's the Force, is it?
There was no light spilling out of the doorway. Then someone inside the warehouse ran for the doors and a grainy figure shot through his night vision display.
Skirata reacted instantly, without thinking, charging at him and smashing into his face with an armored elbow, then bringing his knife up hard under his ribs before he could even fall backward. It was only when he aimed the Verp in his next breath and concentrated on the face in his HUD for a second, that he realized it was the woman who had called him a Mandalorian thug. He fired the gun before he had even thought of a suitable retort. War was like that. You rarely thought of something satisfying to say until days later, if you had anything to say at all.
“Ten on the infrared,” Niner said.
Infrared told you who was still warm. Infrared couldn't tell you who was alive. Skirata preferred to track movement alone.
“Grenade! Cover!” Atin yelled.
The shock wave lifted Skirata and left his ears ringing. He was sure he was outside the doors but he was now inside, and Jusik hauled him cleanly to his feet with one arm. He couldn't hear the comlink clearly now.
The rapid hammering of a rotary blaster started up and then stopped abruptly. For a man trained in the delicate art of bomb disposal, Corr had seized on the crude technique of spraying six barrels with some enthusiasm.
“Grenade—”
Another explosion shook the warehouse. “Man down!”
Someone was cursing—Sev? Scorch?—and Ordo yelled, “Pull back! Clear the building!”
Skirata sprinted after Jusik, following the green glow of his lightsaber. As they cleared the doors, a massive whooomp punched Skirata simultaneously under the soles of his feet and in his back. He almost lost his balance.
Silence descended. Skirata strained to listen.
“Lots of scattered patches of infrared.” That sounded like Niner. “And no idea what's alive and what's just … warm.”
“Scorch, you okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah. Really. Just shook me up.”
“That's it,” Jusik said. “I'm coming back in, Ordo.” He spun around and ran back into the warehouse. Skirata followed him. “I can find the live ones. Leave it to me.”
The warehouse was now almost in darkness and silent except for the ticking, creaking, and crumbling sounds of settling debris and cooling alloy. The air stank of ozone from discharged blasters and from the animal scent of shattered bodies. Nothing moved.
This was taking hours, Skirata was sure. No, this was minutes. His brain had slipped into the unreal time frame of combat.
Jusik's green lightsaber left an eerie trail. He didn't seem afraid of drawing fire: he'd just bat it away like an annoying insect, Skirata was sure. “I can feel three lives.”
Well, they’ll know the Jedi are on the case now.
Skirata imagined lying on that floor in the dark silent chaos, probably deafened, certainly injured, catching glimpses of movement as soldiers stalked the room. The commandos had killed their visor lights, and Fi, Atin, and Darman were nearly invisible in their black armor even to him.
It must have been terrifying. He'd hidden from soldiers, six years old and scared enough to wet his pants.
Now you know what it's like, hut'uune.
Someone made a sound, a little half word, and it sounded like please. Skirata swung his Verpine in the direction of the noise. He saw a man kneeling with hands raised: fierfek, he didn't want to take prisoners. That was the last thing they needed. He heard Jusik swallow hard.
“Get over by the wall,” Jusik hissed. He was gesturing at the person who seemed to be surrendering. Could the hut'uun even see the Jedi? “Get over by the wall!”
Then Darman's voice cut in. “Sarge! Down! Flame—”
Skirata swung around and dropped to his knees just as Jusik ducked a sheet of white-hot, roaring liquid flame that lit up the shattered warehouse and overwhelmed his night vision for a split second. It pumped out in shallow arcs and Darman took it full on. Commandos and troopers leaped back instinctively and Skirata felt the heat even through a layer of ancient Mandalorian iron. Darman was illuminated like a jet black statue, rifle still raised, enveloped in blazing liquid. He didn't even scream.
“Dar!” Skirata found his body responding without intervention from his brain as he pumped Verpine rounds in the direction of the flamethrower. Someone fell. The stream of fire stopped. The thunk of a power cell being slapped onto a blaster diverted him from the terrible spectacle of Darman burning like a torch as someone—Fi? Niner?—rushed to roll their brother on the ground in a bid to smother the flames. Skirata caught the faint light of a charge indicator in his peripheral vision and swung the Verpine in its direction, but Jusik waded in instantly, swinging his lightsaber in a blur of light. Skirata could now see that the kneeling man—the apparently surrendering man—had drawn a blaster. It was still clutched in his limp hand. For some reason that feint angered Skirata more than anything.
“All clear!” Jusik yelled. “Dar!” He looked up at the ceiling. “Hang on, Dar.”
Katarn armor could withstand high temperatures but the burning chemical had coated Darman's plates. It was resisting attempts by Niner and Sev to smother it with bundles of sacking they had grabbed. Skirata went to throw his jacket over him. Suddenly a fine sticky rain filled the air.
The fire control system had kicked in.
“I'm glad that worked,” Jusik muttered.
A white cloud of hissing gas enveloped Darman and the warehouse plunged back into darkness. The blaze was out; fire retardant rained from the ceiling.
Skirata squatted over Darman, edging Niner and Ordo out of the way. His armor was still radiating heat.
“Son! Are you okay?”
“Sarge—”
“Are you hurt?”
“Not really … made me blink a bit, though. That liquid's nasty stuff.” Darman's plates were hissing audibly as they cooled. His voice was shaky. “Thanks.”
“Is this your handiwork, Bard'ika?” Skirata helped Darman to his feet. His plates were hot to the touch. “Did you activate the fire system?”
“I'm not just good for blowing stuff up.” Jusik picked his way through the rubble and shattered durasteel, boots crunching, then stopped dead. “That's it,” he said quietly. “Definitely nobody left alive.”
The kid seemed remarkably calm about it, or at least his voice was under control. Darman dusted himself down and Ordo handed him his Deece. Eight helmet spotlamps flared into life and swept the interior, highlighting a scene of smoking wallboard and things Skirata had seen far too much of on too many battlefields. One beam jerked up toward the roof.
“We blew the shabla roof half off,” Boss said.
“Last time I rely on infrared …”
“Kandosii, Bard'ika! He's better than a scope any day.”
“Is this it?” That was Fixer's voice. “All that, and still we don't get to see them? At least you can see droids. They come at you. These scum—”
“You want to look, ner vod?”
“They're just so … ordinary.”
“And now they're so dead,” said Sev.
Ordo cut in. “We're done here, vode. Time to go.” He put his gloved hand on Skirata's shoulder. “Nine minutes, Kal'buir. Could have been faster, but it's done. Let's go.”
Skirata caught Darman's arm and followed Jusik. I can still fight: I'm still pretty good. But he wasn't as good as young men at the peak of their abilities, and he needed to do something about that if he wasn't going to be a liability to them one day.
He'd worry about that later, like his ankle. Now they had to wait on Vati and Etain, who were still out hunting.
Quadrant F-76, somewhere north of the CoruFresh depot, 2305 hours, 385 days after Geonosis
The strill was a little bright light of pure joy as it raced along the walkway ahead of Etain and Vau. There were still a few pedestrians around, leaving factories and workshops for the night, and Vau had taken off his helmet. A dull black armored chest plate didn't attract attention, it seemed, but this wasn't a neighborhood where a distinctive Mandalorian visor would pass unnoticed.
The strill had the man's scent. He had a head start on them but Mird was not to be shaken off, and Etain could follow the trail of panic and fear almost as well as the animal could. She could locate the area: Mird could track by scent once she had narrowed down a search zone for it.
This is a strange thing for a pregnant woman to be doing. Can my son sense whats happening around him yet? I hope not.
Vau kept close behind her, jogging at a steady pace.
“I'm very impressed,” he panted. “You and the strill work very well together. I do wish Kal could see this.”
Etain imagined this was how Vau hunted with Mird, silent and persistent, covering the ground hour after hour until they had cornered their prey or run it down. The man who had managed to flee the attack on the landing strip had led them into a maze of run-down apartment towers on the edge of the industrial zone.
After a while Etain caught up with Mird and found it crouched impatiently by a set of doors leading into a shabby residential building. A couple of unpleasant-looking youths lounging on the corner of the walkway began ambling toward her, leering, but then Mird opened its huge maw and let out a warning rumble. Vau appeared around the corner, the Verpine rifle raised in one hand.
The youths fled.
“And they say young people today have no intelligence,” Vau said. He took a hand disrupter out of his belt and thrust it into the door panel. The doors parted. “In you go.”
Mird raced ahead and skidded to a halt at the turbolift, turning its head to gaze pleadingly at its master. Vau put a finger to his lips and pointed up. They got in the turbolift and the strill pressed its nose to the small gap between the doors as the car ascended. As they passed the 134th and 135th floors, it grew frantic and its tail thrashed the floor, but it didn't make a sound. Vau stopped the lift at the 136th floor and they got out. There was an emergency staircase between floors. Etain broke the seal with a Force-assisted push and started down the stairs.
“Oya, Mird! Hunt!”
Mird shot past her. She could feel the disturbance in the Force, and their respective instincts took them both to the 134th floor. Mird snuffled along the passage and came to a halt outside an apartment door, settled on its haunches, and stared intently at the door panel.
Vau put a restraining hand on her arm. “I know a Mandalorian regards a female warrior as his equal, my dear, but I feel I should offer to do this job myself.”
“I'll do it,” she said. She had to.
Vau disrupted the lock. The strill ran into the hallway, almost flat to the floor, and Etain followed it, drawing both lightsabers.
It occurred to her that she might have stumbled upon a family here, and then been presented with a dilemma: a Jedi with two drawn lightsabers, a room full of witnesses, and a cowering terrorist. What would I do? What will I do? But she sensed that would not be the case. It was just another fear of how far she might be prepared to go.
She burst open each door with the Force, moving at a slight crouch, looking inside.
A stream of blasterfire spat out of one door and caught the strill on its quarters. Etain heard Vau gasp. Mird shrieked and spun around, one leg dragging, and then made to go in after its assailant, but she held out one arm and it stopped dead.
“Leave, Mird!” she whispered.
Etain took a breath then stepped into the room to meet another hail of blasterfire. She crossed the blue blades of energy and batted the bolts aside with a parting motion of her arms. I didn't know I could do that. It was pure instinct, drawn from deep within her and many years in the past.
She lunged forward for the kill. As always, she saw little and felt nothing tangible, no shock up her arms, no resistance as she swept the blades, but she felt the Force change. A brief light blazed and died.
She thumbed off Master Fuller's lightsaber and slid it into her tunic one-handed while keeping her own drawn just in case. She sensed nobody else. Mird limped into the room after her and she knew it was looking up into her face even though there was only the scattered light through the window from a city that was never completely dark.
“Oya,” she whispered, not knowing quite what the command might mean in this case.
But Mird rumbled quietly and sprang onto the body of the man she had killed. She shut down her lightsaber and walked out of the apartment, and Mird limped out a few moments later, crunching happily. She didn't look too closely at what it had in its jaws. It swallowed noisily.
“Poor Mird.” Vau sighed. “Here, baby, come here.” He scooped the strill up in both arms and carried it to the turbo-lift. One of its legs had been seared raw by the blaster.
Etain opened her comlink. “Kal, everyone is accounted for.”
“Good work,” Kars voice said. He sounded tired. “See you at the RV point.”
Mird let Etain place her hands on its leg to heal it as the lift made its way down to the ground floor. Vau carried it all the way back to the speeder. It was a big, heavy animal, but he refused to let it walk. Etain took it on her lap and eased its pain as Vau started the speeder and they headed for the RV point.
There seemed to be nothing Vau wouldn't do for Mird. He loved that animal.
RV point, two kilometers from CoruFresh depot, 2320 hours, 385 days after Geonosis
The strike team rendezvoused at a droid-operated construction site to the north of the depot. The droids needed no light to work by and the presence of a few strangely dressed humanoids in the near darkness would draw no attention.
Skirata counted the six speeders back in, gut churning until the last of the speeders arrived with Mereel and Corr astride. Corr was clutching the rotary blaster like a long-lost friend.
Good lad. I'll shift Coruscant and all its rotten moons to hang on to him, Zey. We can always train more troopers as commandos. Just watch me.
“All thermal plastoid accounted for?”
“Yes, Sarge.” Boss leaned against the bodywork of a speeder. “Want to check?”
“I trust you to count. Ordo can slip that back into stores tomorrow after it's been neutralized.”
“What's the final score?” Fi said.
Niner eased off his helmet. Even with the environment control inside his sealed suit, he looked as if he'd sweated out an ocean. He rubbed his face slowly with the palm of his glove. “Er … I think we took out twenty-six bad guys.”
“Twenty-four at the site,” Mereel said. “We swept the site and did a tally. It was a bit hard to tell in some places but we logged the blasters that had been fired by their EM traces. So I say twenty-four.”
“Plus Perrive and our friend in the apartment block,” Etain said.
“Definitely twenty-six.” Jusik was subdued. “I felt them.”
“Okay, Shiny Boys twenty-six, Hut'uune nil,” Corr said. He was picking up Mando' a fast. “I call that a home win.”
Jusik stood staring into the inside of his helmet as he held it in his hands. “No witnesses left standing. Just a nasty argument between crime gangs.”
“You'll never get any public praise for this,” Skirata said. “But let me tell you now that every last one of you made me a proud man.” He looked down at the strill, limping on one of its six legs as it circled Vau, grumbling deep in its throat. “Even you, Mird, you stinking heap of drool.”
The strill looked up at Etain and made a musical warbling sound. She'd wrapped one arm around Darman's waist, head resting on his chest plate with her eyes closed, but she opened them and watched Mird.
“Mird likes you,” Vau said. “You took care of it and let it have its kill.”
Fi gave Darman a weary slap on the back. “She has a way with dumb animals, ner vod.”
An exhausted silence settled on the team. The droids labored around them, carrying girders, stacking duraplast sheets, oblivious. If anyone thought wild celebrations followed operations like this, they were wrong. The instant elation of seeing a vessel go up in flames or an enemy drop from a well-placed shot was very short-lived. The hyperalertness of adrenaline lingered for a while, and then was swallowed up quickly by fatigue and a sense of … of void, of odd purposelessness, of looking for the next task.
The adrenaline had to drain away. They'd be back to normal after some rest. Skirata was determined they'd get some.
“Let's get back to base,” he said. “We can clear out of Qibbu's in the morning.”
He got no response.
“Anyone hungry? Maybe an ale or two?”
“ 'Freshers,” Niner said. “Shower.”
“Who's on watch roster tonight?”
“Me,” Vau said before Skirata could open his mouth. “Go on, Bardan. You head back with Etain and Mird. I'll take Kal.”
Skirata hauled himself onto Vau's speeder. The painkiller was wearing off and the ache had started gnawing his ankle again. He opened his comlink and called Jailer Obrim.
“Kal here. How's it going?”
Obrim sounded as if he was in the middle of a riot. There was a lot of shouting in the background and then a loud muffled whump. Commandos weren't the only ones who laid charges for a spot of rapid entry, then.
“Busy,” said the CSF captain. “We've pulled in around sixty suspects so far. Pretty low on the food chain, but they lead to all kinds of other people CSF has an interest in, and they're off the streets for a while.” He paused as another loud whuntp interrupted. “I don't know where we're going to put them all, though. The lockup is filling fast.”
“Never had that problem. Our targets don't get out on parole, either.”
“I'll bet. You all okay?”
“No serious injury. Everyone's walking. Quite a mess for you to clear up, though.”
“My pleasure. CSF Staff and Social Club, all of you. End of the week. I will not take no for an answer and neither will CSF. Be there.”
“Count on it.”
Skirata closed the link and let his head drop so that his chin rested on his chest plate.
Vau squeezed into the seat in front of him and powered up the speeder. He reached behind him and passed Skirata a datapad. “Perrive's pad. Enjoy its contents at your leisure, ner vod. So, a drink or a fight? What's it to be?”
“Walon, you're very lucky I'm too tired.” Skirata pocketed the datapad, another little treasure trove for his Null boys to play with. “I'd just slap you.”
“I need to make my peace with Atin.”
“He'll still kill you after he's had a good night's sleep.”
“The brief unity of triumph, and then back to the fray. Crushing, isn't it? The victories seem so insignificant compared with the size of the war.”
“Doesn't mean we shouldn't try,” Skirata said. “It's only what individuals do that adds up to history.”
“We've written ours, then.”
It was one of the few times that Skirata found himself staring at Vau's back without feeling the urge to reach for his knife. “Tell you what,” he said. He took out the disabled remote det from his pocket. “Why don't we swing by the diplomatic quarter and pick up that nice green speeder? Perrive's not going to need it now. Can you still hotwire a speeder?”
“You bet,” said Vau.