Star Wars: Republic Commando: Triple Zero rc-3

by Karen Traviss

  “Yes Sarge!”

  It was one voice. And Jusik and Etain were part of it.

  That was good. Anyone who hesitated would get the rest of the strike team killed, or worse.

  “Okay, recce team, move out,” Skirata said. “And don't you dare drop my Verps.”

  15

  Mandalorians are surprisingly unconcerned with biological lineage. Their definition of offspring or parent is more by relationship than birth: adoption is extremely common, and it's not unusual for soldiers to take war orphans as their sons or daughters if they impress them with their aggression and tenacity. They also seem tolerant of marital infidelity during long separations, as long as any child resulting from it is raised by them. Mandalorians define themselves by culture and behavior alone. It is an affinity with key expressions of this culture—loyalty strong self identity, emphasis on physical endurance and discipline-that causes some ethnic groups such as those of Concord Dawn in particular to gravitate toward Mandalorian communities, thereby reinforcing a common set of genes derived from a wide range of populations. The instinct to be a protective parent is especially dominant. They have accidentally bred a family-oriented warrior population, and continue to reinforce it by absorbinglike-minded individuals and groups.

  –Mandalorians: Identity and Its Influence on Genome, published by the Galactic Institute of Anthropology

  Logistics center, Grand Army of the Republic, Coruscant Command HQ, 0815 hours, 384 days after Geonosis

  This was no place for a fighting man to be when his brothers were out in the field, but Ordo reasoned that the faster he identified and neutralized the informant, the sooner he could leave this office job.

  “Clone,” the Nimbanel voice said. The creature was riding him today. It was a bad idea—normally. “Clone! Have you input the overnight batch of data yet?”

  I know at least ten ways to kill you without a weapon, lizard. I'd like to try them all.

  “Yes, Gurus,” Ordo said, being nice, compliant Corr. “I have.”

  “Then you should have told me immediately.”

  Ordo heard Skirata's constant admonishment in his head and kepthis temper: Udesii, udesii, ad'ika—easy, easy, son. This clerk wasn't fit to clean Corr's boots. He certainly wasn't fit to clean his.

  “My apologies,” Ordo said, acting the calm man that he definitely wasn't right then. “It won't happen again.”

  Besany Wennen raised her head from her screen very slowly. She was distressingly pretty. The symmetry of her features made him uncomfortable because he wanted to stare, and his male instinct said pursue, but his brain said suspect.

  “Gurus, if you have a concern about data management, may I suggest you raise it with me first?” The warmth in her voice had disappeared completely. The frequency dropped as her lips compressed. Ordo could see her in his peripheral vision: she had a way of switching off that vivid smile and just freezing for a few moments. This was someone used to obedience in those around her. “Trooper Corr is doing what I asked of him.”

  Ordo had no idea if that was true or if she was saving him embarrassment. He managed a placatory smile anyway. Watching Corr last night had honed his act a little more.

  As he worked, inputting vessel pennant codes and supply routes into the program that fed the wall display, he pondered on the one solid piece of information he had. The advance schedule for movements of men and materiel was stripped out to provide confirmation messages. One internal stream went to GAR logistics battalions and Fleet Ops, and one external stream was relayed to the thousands of civilian contractors who provided supplies and transport. The two sets of data were different.

  So this had to be the data that was left on a chip at the drop point within the complex—the one that Vinna Jiss had helpfully described to Vau whether she wanted to or not. The bomb attacks had been spread throughout the contractor and military supply networks; whoever executed the attacks had both sets of data.

  And copying data showed no audit trail. Relaying data from the system did. And that was what routine security watched. Old tech beat state-of-the-art with depressing frequency.

  All Ordo had to do now was watch the surveillance images of the drop point at the female 'freshers. So far it had picked up nothing. He had no idea how frequently the Separatist contact—and he had to assume it was one—checked the locker, but nobody had shown up. Maybe they hadn't missed Jiss yet.

  It was nearly noon when Supervisor Wennen got up and left the operations room. On a whim, Ordo laid his helmet on its side on the desk next to him at an angle where he could discreetly view the feed from the 'freshers playing out on his HUD.

  Wennen was not the kind of woman who belonged here. Some uneasiness told him so. Kal'buir had told him that a strong hunch was usually based on subconscious observation of hard facts, and was to be treated with respect.

  The grainy blue image showed Wennen entering the 'freshers. She didn't glance around. She paused at the lockers, scanned along them with her head moving visibly, tucked a strand of pale hair behind one ear, and bent to open several unlocked doors until she appeared to tire of it and left again. She reappeared in the ops room a minute later and gave him a regretful smile that appeared utterly sincere.

  Something had irked her.

  Ah, Ordo thought, disappointed.

  Then he wondered why he felt that disappointment, and realized it was due to impulses unconnected to the business in hand. And business, of course, had just taken a turn for the better.

  His shift finished when hers did, at 1600.

  He would spend the next few hours working out exactly how to remove her without alerting any other Separatist contacts that might be in her cell. He wanted them all.

  1100 hours, 384 days after Geonosis, commercial zone, Quadrant N-09: agreed meeting point to open negotiations with interested parties

  “Lazy chakaare,” Fi said, glancing at his chrono. “What time do they call this?”

  “Well, if they got here before us and we can't see 'em … we're probably dead meat.”

  Darman was somewhere on the opposite side of the Bank of the Core Plaza, three floors above the pedestrian area in a storeroom he had infiltrated. Fi couldn't see him, but his voice was clearly audible in his head: the bead comlink was so sensitive that it picked up subvocalization via the eustachian tube.

  They'd been here since 2330 last night. They had observed and noted every cleaning droid, automated walkway sweeper, late worker, early-morning commuter, shopper, drunk, CSF foot patrol, delivery repulsor, unlicensed caf vendor, and truant schoolkid that had passed in and out of the plaza from any direction. They had also swept the cliff walls of office buildings and—to Fi's great interest—noted that some employees did not catch up with the filing after hours if they had colleagues of the opposite sex with them.

  And every couple of hours, Etain Tur-Mukan had walked briskly across the plaza as if she had business somewhere, sweeping the area with whatever extra sense Jedi had that enabled them to detect concealed people. Etain was said to be good at that. She could place the squad to within a meter. Each time she passed, Fi heard Darman move or swallow, and he wasn't sure if it was because he could see her or because she was reaching out to him in the Force.

  Fi suddenly wanted the uncomplicated focus of a totally military life on Kamino.

  You're getting distracted. Think of the job in hand. Maybe they'd let him keep the bead comlink after this op. They'd never miss a few back at HQ. Surely.

  “I want my HUD back,” Darman said. “I want my enhanced view.”

  “But you get to wear face camo instead. Makes you feel wild and dangerous.”

  “I'm wild,” Sev's voice said. Sev was behind a roof balustrade under a pile of discarded plastoid sheeting. “And then I get dangerous. Shut up.”

  “Copy that,” Fi said cheerfully, and clicked his back teeth twice to exit Sev's open comlink channel. It was far too noisy an environment for their quiet conversation to be heard anyway. “Miserable di'kut.”


  “Don't mind him.” Scorch was at walkway level about fifty meters west of the meeting point, lying prone in a disused horizontal access shaft. “He'll be fine once he's killed something.”

  Darman had a Verpine rifle with live rounds, as did Sev. Fi and Scorch had the nonlethal tracking projectiles, twelve rounds each. The Verp was truly lovely. Fi had always wondered just how many credits Sergeant Kal had made over the years. His growing collection of expensive, exotic weapons and the modest extravagance of his bantha jacket were the only visible signs that it might have been a lot.

  “Dar—”

  “Possible contact, first walkway level, my left of the bank entrance …”

  Fi adjusted his scope and tracked right. It was a boy he'd seen before: human, very short scrubby light hair, gangly. He was still hanging around the plaza. If he was a Sep, he was a disgracefully amateurish one. They watched for a few minutes, and then a young girl in a bright yellow tunic raced up to the boy and flung her arms around him. They kissed enthusiastically, drawing glances from passersby.

  “I think he knows her,” Fi said. He felt his face burn. It bothered him and he looked away.

  “Well, that's just you and Niner left on the shelf now that your brothers are spoken for,” Scorch said.

  There was a pause. Darman cut in. “You got a point to make, ner vod?”

  “I think it's kind of encouraging.” Scorch chuckled. “Atin gets a cute Twi'lek, Dar gets his very own general—”

  “—and Scorch gets a thick ear if he doesn't shut it right now”

  The comlink was suddenly silent except for the occasional sound of swallowing. Darman wasn't in a joking mood when it came to Etain. He never had been, not even on Qiilura, when there hadn't been anything going on between them.

  Why is this hurting so much? Why do I feel I've been cheated?

  Kal'buir, why didn't you prepare me for this?

  It was too distracting. Fi shut his eyes for a few moments and went into the sequence he had learned to center himself when the battlefield pressed in on him: controlled breathing, concentrating on nothing except the next inhalation, ignoring everything that wasn't of the next moment. It took a while. He shut out the world.

  Then he found that he had his eyes open without even realizing and he was simply following movement on the plaza below through the breathtakingly accurate scope of the Verpine rifle.

  “Now, do we get the best kit or what?” he said, becoming the confident man he wanted to be again. “Name me another army where you get handcrafted Verps to play with.”

  “The Verpine army,” Scorch said.

  “Do they have an army?”

  “Do they need one?”

  Silence descended again. At 1150 Sev cut into the comlink circuit. “Stand by. Kal's moving into position.”

  Skirata wandered into the plaza from the direction of the Senate with Jusik one on side and an excited Lord Mirdalan straining on a leash on the other. He was doing a credible job of looking as if the strill were his constant companion. The animal seemed remarkably content with him, given the number of times Skirata had driven it off or thrown his knife at it over the years. Maybe the riot of strange new scents had thrilled the strill enough that it didn't much care that the man who usually shouted at it was holding the leash. Fi watched as they took up a position near the door, sitting down on an ornate durasteel seat shaped like a bow.

  Skirata's voice came over the comlink circuit.

  “How's my boys?”

  “Cramp, Sarge,” Darman said. “And Fi's dribbling over your Verpine.”

  “He can clean it, then. Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  At 1159 a human male in his forties—green casual tunic, brown pants, collar-length brown hair, beard, tall, lean build—walked toward Skirata and Jusik in a purposeful line. Fi tracked him.

  “Got him, Fi,” Darman said. If anything went wrong, the man would be dead in a fraction of a second from a silent high-kinetic round in his back.

  “Escort,” Sev said. “Looks like three … no, four. Three male, one female, all human … one male twenty meters south of Darman. Spread out but all moving toward Skirata.”

  “Got him.”

  “Got the female,” Scorch said.

  “You sure they're with the Beard?”

  “Yeah, check their eyeline, Fi. They're watching him, nothing else. They're pretty cool about it but they're obviously not professionals. They shouldn't even be looking his way.”

  Etain's voice cut in. “There's another female approaching slowly on the Senate side of the bench. I'm moving in behind her so you can spot her.”

  Sev cut in. “Any more?”

  “I can only sense four others plus the man approaching Kal.”

  “Aww, look. They've taken up positions to block the main pedestrian routes off the plaza. Thank you! I love a target that identifies itself.”

  “I hope this doesn't turn into a shooting match,” Scorch said. “Too many civvies.”

  “I can get a clear shot,” Sev said. “And I can take at least three out from here. Relax. You just worry about tagging 'em.”

  Tagging. Would they feel it?

  Fi dropped in an EM filter with a touch on the optics housing. He focused the scope on the woman now standing almost under Darman's position by the walkway heading toward Quadrant N-10: shoulder-length red hair, blue business suit, tan leather document bag. The filter detected electromagnetic emissions, which made it not only handy for locating someone operating a comlink but also just perfect for seeing if Dust had hit its target. It cast a pinkish brown tinge across the image.

  He checked for indications of wind speed. The woman's hair was moving slightly in the breeze: a flimsi cup discarded near the caf vendor rolled a little way along the paving. Fi adjusted his scope and checked the air temperature, which had crept up a fraction in the last twenty minutes. He adjusted the Verp's settings again and settled the weapon on his forearm.

  Relax. Power coil set to medium. Don't want her to feel the projectile hit her. Don't want to spray the Dust over the whole plaza, either …

  The crosshairs settled.

  “So that's a strill.” The man's voice was a little fuzzy but Fi could hear the accent, even if he didn't recognize it. “Charming. Call me Perrive.”

  “And you can call me Kal.”

  Fi closed his eyes for a second and slowed his breathing. When he opened them, the aim was still dead center of the woman's chest.

  “So let's see the goods.”

  Fi exhaled slowly and held his breath.

  “Here. Take it and have it tested.”

  Fi's finger tightened on the end of the trigger. The Verp was so finely constructed that all he felt was a sudden lack of resistance under his finger and the rifle fired—silent and without recoil.

  “How much stuff in all?”

  “Hundred kilos. More if you need it.”

  A smoke-like white puff billowed in Fi's filter. The projectile had burst on contact, showering the woman with microscopic tracking powder, each tiny fragment capable of relaying its location back to the base receiver at Qibbu's—or even to a HUD. She glanced down as if an insect had landed on her and then simply brushed the end of her nose as if she'd inhaled pollen.

  “Five hundred grade?”

  “All of it,” said Kal.

  “Dets?”

  “How many?”

  “Three or four thousand.”

  “Five-hundred-grade—I have it. Dets—just a matter of acquiring them discreetly. A day maybe.”

  “Confirm—female target in blue, marked.” Fi tracked the rifle ninety degrees to his left. “Targeting the male farthest from Kal. Black jacket.”

  Breathe easy. Relax. He aimed and adjusted the scope again, held his breath at the comfortable point of exhalation, and fired for a second time. Again, the man reacted and looked for something on his chest, then carried on watching Skirata as if nothing had happened.

  “Male, black jacket—target ma
rked. So they can feel it strike, then.”

  “Don't hog them all,” Scorch said. “I want a go.”

  “All yours, ner vod.”

  “Targeting the male right of Skirata, gray robe …”

  Fi lined up his EM scope on Scorch's target to observe. Scorch's breathing paused, and then Fi saw a puff of white smoke bloom on the gray robe. He didn't react at all.

  “Now the other male, red vest, left of Skirata by the caf vendor … no, keep still, you di'kut … that's better.” Scorch was silent again. Fi watched through the EM filter. The projectile burst neatly on the man's shoulder and he brushed his nose without noticing, just like the first woman. Maybe it was a combination of seeing absolutely nothing as 'the pellet's binding agent vaporized, and being hyped up on adrenaline during a mission. They weren't tuned in to much beyond seeing and not being seen.

  “Okay, who's taking Beard Guy? Perrive.”

  “Me,” Fi said. “If I make it three for three, do I get to keep him? Y'know, stuffed and mounted?”

  “He'd make a nice stand for your Hokan armor.”

  Perrive—Beard Guy—stood at a slight angle, moving a little as he spoke to Skirata. He held the small pack of thermal plastoid in his hand, about a hundred grams of it, and was squeezing it between his fingers while glancing at the wrapping. It looked for all the world like a spice deal, and Fi wondered for a moment if they were all blind to how obvious that might appear.

  Worry about that later. Tag him.

  “Turn around, chakaar. I don't want to hit your back.”

  Fi had settled into a rhythm now. He watched through the scope as Perrive slipped the plastoid into his pocket and stood with one hand on his belt, turning idly back and forth, presenting a good expanse of back and then a narrow angle of shoulder.

  Fi relaxed, aimed and went for the shoulder, anticipating the turn.