Star Wars: Republic Commando: Triple Zero rc-3

by Karen Traviss

  “I'll shoot you and cheer you up, then,” Sev said suddenly.

  Everyone laughed again. Darman drained his glass and got up to go. Scorch flicked a warra nut at him with impressive accuracy, and it bounced off his head. “Where you going, Dar?”

  “I'm off to calibrate my Deece.”

  There was more raucous laughter. Darman didn't look amused. He shrugged and walked off in the direction of the turbolift through a crowd of men from the Forty-first Elite who were shipping out in a few days. At least they'd had something few troopers ever would: two weeks without fighting. They didn't appear to be enjoying it, though. Kal'buir said that was what happened when you let someone out of prison after a long sentence. They didn't fit in and they didn't know how to live outside a cell or without a familiar routine.

  I know, though. And Fi wants to know.

  “Don't wind him up about Etain, son,” said Skirata.

  Scorch looked wary. “He's not breaking any regulation, is he?”

  “I don't think so, but she is.”

  The best thing was not to think.

  “What happens to us when the war's over?” Corr asked.

  Mereel smiled. “You'll have the thanks of a grateful Republic. Now, who can guess what this Ubese word means?”

  Ordo glanced at Skirata, who raised his glass. Atin came to take Darman's place at the table with the Twi'lek Laseema on his arm: the man obviously wasn't as shy as he seemed. Except for Vau and Etain, the entire strike team had gathered here, and there was some sense of an important bond having been accomplished. It also felt very final.

  “You and Mereel are up to something,” Skirata said. “I can tell.”

  “He has news, Kal'buir,” Ordo said.

  “Oh.”

  Should he tell him now? He'd thought it might distract him too much. But he didn't need to provide detail. It would give Kal'buir heart for what was to come.

  “He's traced where our mutual friend fled immediately after the battle.”

  There was no need to say that the friend was Kaminoan scientist Ko Sai, the head of the cloning program, or that she had gone missing after the Battle of Kamino. The hunt—and it was a private matter, not Republic business, although the Grand Army footed the bill—was often reduced to just two words: Any news?

  And if any of his other brothers—Prudii, A'den, Kom'rk, Jaing—found anything as well, Skirata would be told. They might have been carrying out intelligence missions for the Republic, but their true focus was finding elements of Kaminoan cloning technology that only Ko Sai had access to.

  Skirata's face became luminous. It seemed to erase every crease and scar for a few moments.

  “This is what I want to hear,” he said softly. “You will have a future, all of you. I swear it.”

  Jusik was watching him with interest. There was no point trying to conceal anything of an emotional nature from Jedi as sensitive to the living Force as Jusik and Etain, but it was unlikely that Skirata had shared that secret with him. He hadn't even told his commando squads. It was too fragile a mission; it was safer for them all not to know for the time being.

  Jusik raised his glass. It was just juice. Nobody would drink before a mission if they had any sense. Alcohol had proved not to be a major preoccupation with commandos anyway: and, whatever had been rumored, Kal'buir's only concession to alcohol was one glass of fiery colorless tihaar atnight to try to get to sleep. He found sleep increasingly elusive as the years of training progressed on Kamino and his conscience tore him apart piece by piece.

  He'd sleep well without it tonight, even if it was in a chair.

  “This is very, very good news,” Skirata said, a changed man for the moment. “I'd dare to say it bodes well.”

  They drank and joked and argued about Hutt curses. And then Skirata's comlink chirped, and he answered it discreetly, head lowered. Ordo simply heard him say, “Now? Are you serious?”

  “What is it?” Ordo said. Mereel paused in midcurse, too, and the table fell silent.

  “It's our customer,” Skirata said, jaw tense again. “They've hit a small snag. They need to move tonight. There's no preparation, ad'ike—we have to roll in three hours.”

  20

  You know that thing that sergeants are always supposed to yell at new recruits? “I am your mother! I am your father!” Well, what do you do when that's actually true? Kal Skirata was all they had. And the troopers didn't have anyone. How can you expect those boys to grow up normal?

  –Captain Jailer Obrim, to his wife over dinner

  Operational house, Qibbu's Hut, 1935 hours, 385 days after Geonosis: whole strike team ready to deploy

  “So what's your shabla problem, then, Perrive?” Skirata conducted the conversation with his wrist comlink propped on the table while he strapped on his Mando armor. Ordo stood out of range of the comlink's mike, holding Obrim on the line via his own link. “Cold feet? Can't get the finance in place? What, exactly?”

  Skirata didn't need to act angry. He was. Everyone in the team was used to working on the fly, but all the planning—the careful positioning to take out the maximum number of bodies—now teetered on the brink of disaster. Around him, Delta and Omega were armoring up in full fighting order: Katarn rig with DC-17s, grenades, rappelling lines, rapid entry ordnance, and a Plex rocket launcher per squad.

  For a moment he was unsettled to see Omega and Vau both in black armor. But they're mine. They're my squad. He renewed his concentration on Perrive's voice.

  “One of our colleagues has been picked up by the police.” Perrive's Jabiimi accent was very noticeable now. It was an indication of stress. And that was encouraging at an animal level for a mercenary. Skirata gestured frantically to Ordo but his head was already lowered, chin tucked into his chest as he relayed the information to Obrim. “We need to move our operation.”

  “And you want me to drop by with the groceries when you've got CSF crawling all over you? I'm still wanted for seven contract killings in town.”

  Ordo gave a standing by signal: hand at shoulder level, fingers spread.

  Perrive swallowed audibly. “They're not crawling all over us, as you put it. One man was arrested. He might be a weak link.”

  Cross-check this with Obrim. “Where? This better not be in my backyard.”

  “Industrial sector, pulled over for an illegal cannon upgrade to his speeder.”

  Ordo nodded once and then gave a thumbs-up. Confirmed. Skirata felt his shoulders relax immediately. “Call me suspicious, but last time somebody did this to me they didn't plan on paying. You're not sticking to our timetable.”

  “I'm afraid it's just a good old-fashioned screwup.”

  “I'll be at your location at twenty-two-hundred hours, then. But you won't mind if I bring a couple of my colleagues just to be on the safe side.”

  “Not there. We have transport issues.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I mean we need to move our vessels somewhere safe. Bring the consignment to us at our landing strip and load it straight on.”

  Scorch stepped in front of Skirata with as near to an expression of boyish delight as the man was ever going to manage. He mouthed CoruFresh at him. Any good mercenary could lip-read, because if he wasn't already deafened by long exposure to gunfire, he couldn't hear a word in battle anyway.

  “I need a location.”

  “We have a few vessels laid up in the commercial sector in Quadrant F-Seventy-six.”

  Skirata watched Scorch clench both fists and pull his elbows hard into his sides in a gesture of silent, total triumph. They were heading for at least one site at which they'd done a thorough recce.

  “I need coordinates and I need to know exactly what I can expect to see when I show up—so I know I'm not walking into a CSF welcoming committee.”

  “You really do have a record, don't you?” said Perrive.

  “Isn't that why you're doing business with me?”

  “Very well. Six speeder trucks with CoruFresh livery an
d four passenger airspeeders—two Koros, two custom J-twelves.”

  “For a hundred kilos of thermal? I can carry that with my nephew in two shopping bags, chakaar”

  “You're not our only supplier of equipment, Mando. And I have personnel to move. I know you'll spit on this, but we're soldiers, and we have a code of honor. We want the goods for the price we agreed. No trap.”

  Skirata paused for effect. “So I'll meet you there.”

  “No, it'll be my deputy. The woman you saw at our meeting earlier. I'm moving via another route.”

  “Transmit the coordinates now and we'll start packing our bags.”

  “Your credits will be in the account you specified at twenty-one-fifty.”

  “Pleasure doing business. But the minute I see CSF-issue blasters or even a hint of blue uniform, we're banging out.”

  Skirata closed the link and for a moment there was absolute silence in a room full of fifteen hot, anxious, adrenaline-laden bodies. Then there was a loud collective whoop of satisfaction. Even Etain joined in, and Skirata hadn't reckoned her for wild displays of enthusiasm.

  “So all was not lost after all, vode,” Vau said. Lord Mirdalan was frantic, bouncing on its front legs while the other four scrabbled for purchase on the tattered carpet. Adrenaline excited strills and made them eager to hunt. “Plan B. Disable the vessels and slot the occupants.”

  “Disable … ,” Scorch said.

  “Minimum force required to do the job. We're in a city, remember.”

  “Holochart,” Ordo said. “I've still got Obrim on this link. Quick sitrep, people.”

  They clustered around Corr, who was collating the moving red lines and points of light with quiet enthusiasm. Methodical, calm lad. He'd need to be that in bomb disposal. “They've been going all shades of crazy here and here.” He zoomed into the holoimage and indicated two tangled masses of red lines like loose balls of thread, both in the retail sector of Quadrant B-85, where Fi had carried out the surveillance of Vinna Jiss. It suggested that tagged suspects had done an awful lot of repeated movement. “I'd say they're shifting kit by hand. Plenty of it, in two locations. But the two apartments Captain Ordo recce'd have been totally dead for hours. They've left.”

  Skirata knew what he'd do in their position. He'd assemble what kit he had, move it discreetly to a central point, and then ship out. He wouldn't send a big, conspicuous repulsor truck to pick up from a dozen locations.

  “It's all going out via the crates on that landing strip,” he said.

  “Agreed.” Ordo and Mereel nodded.

  Scorch just grinned.

  A red point of light suddenly moved from the location of the house in the banking sector where Skirata had met Perrive. They watched it moving fast: someone had left the house in a speeder. “Holocam,” Skirata said.

  Ordo played out the remote image from his glove emitter. A speeder had taken off from the roof.

  “I'd bet that was Perrive leaving,” said Vau.

  Skirata knew they'd lose some of the key players, but this was about making as big a dent in the Sep terror ranks as possible. “Pity. Maybe we can catch up with him later.”

  Fi held out his palm with a remote detonator on it. “If he's flying that green speeder.”

  “The one they took me in?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fi …”

  “You can blow it anytime you like, Sarge.” The commandos had slipped back into calling him Sarge. It seemed to happen when they put their armor on again. “I stuck a nice big surprise in his air intake last night.”

  “I was in that speeder.”

  “I know. Clever, wasn't it?”

  Skirata took the det and checked that it was disabled before slipping it in his pocket.

  “Ord'ika, let me talk to Jailer.” He held his hand out for the comlink to Obrim. “Can your people cover the locations we gave you?”

  Obrim's voice was tight with tension. “We're pulling people back off shifts now. We're synchronizing this for twenty two-hundred, are we?”

  “Correct. I'll patch you into my comlink for the duration, but don't talk to me unless it's critical. Other than that, stay away from the area coordinates we're going to transmit to you, and pretend we never existed.”

  “Sorry about the arrest—not my team. A routine firearms control stop, I'm afraid.”

  “At least it made them bolt. They're vulnerable when they bolt.”

  “I'll talk to you in twelve hours if all goes smoothly, then. Next breakfast's on you, remember?”

  “You take care, too, friend.”

  The tangle of possibilities and risks in Skirata's mind had become crystal clear. Two key parts of the operation were now as pinned down as they could be: the synchronized raid on the lower-priority terrorist targets by CSF, and the interception of an unspecified number of key players at the landing strip, along with their vessels.

  “Remember, vode. No prisoners.” Skirata took out his medpac and prepared a one-use painkiller syringe. Then he rolled down the soft leather of his left boot and stabbed the needle deep into his ankle. The pain made his muscles shake but he clenched his teeth and let it pass. This was not the night to be slowed down by a limp. “Shoot to kill.”

  Fourteen men and one woman to kill maybe twenty terrorists. Very expensive use of manpower compared to droid kill rates. But worth it.

  There were a few more targets still wandering around out there, ones they hadn't even tagged. But when it came to destroying a small organization like a group of terror cells, taking out a cell like this one would have enormous impact. It slowed them down. It set them back while they recruited and reorganized and retrained.

  Even a few months made all the difference in this war.

  “Walon,” he said. “Take one of my Verpine rifles tonight. Might come in handy.”

  “I'm grateful, Kal.”

  “Okay, vode. This is now Captain Ordo's command as ranking officer—even if we have no ranks right now.”

  Skirata swung his arms through the full range of movement to check the fit of his armor, the sand-gold suit that his adoptive father Munin had given him. He put his knife—the knife he had retrieved from his real father's dead body—up his right sleeve, handle uppermost. He could barely remember his parents or even his original name, but Munin Skirata was as vivid as life and still with him every day, one of the precious departed whose names he recited each night.

  He hit his gauntlets against his chest plate to snap himself out of memories. Both squads jumped.

  Lord Mirdalan, jowls flapping, threw its head back and let out a long, low, moaning howl. The preparations had worked the strill into a hunting frenzy. It could see its master in full Mandalorian armor, and it smelled and heard men who were tense and ready to fight. All its instincts and training said hunt, hunt, hunt.

  And Vau held his gloved hand out to Atin. Astonishingly, Atin took it. There was nothing but the battle in mind now. They were all saving it for the enemy.

  Skirata felt the visceral thrill tighten his throat and stomach. It had been many years since he'd put on this armor to fight.

  “Buy'cese!” he said. Helmets on!

  It was, he knew, a sight few would believe—Walon Vau and a Jedi Knight both in full Mandalorian armor, and Republic Commandos, ARC troopers, and a clone trooper in fighting order so closely modeled on that armor he wore himself that they looked like one united army. He pulled on his own helmet before anyone noticed the tears in his eyes.

  “I ought to get a holo of this,” Corr said.

  Etain stood among them, incongruously fragile.

  “I could have lent you my Hokan armor, General,” Fi said. “Only one careless owner.”

  Etain lifted her tunic to reveal plates of body armor. “I'm not stupid.” Then she pulled out two lightsabers. Skirata winced. “Mine, and Master Fuller's. He'd have relished a fight like this.”

  She was not herself tonight, if her usual self was that worried, awkward, but tenacious soul who found it s
o hard to be a Jedi. She was utterly alive. Darman seemed to be able to strike sparks off her. Skirata hoped she did the same for him.

  Vau flung out his arm to signal the strill to race ahead. “Oya! Oya!” Let's go hunting! “Oya, Mird!”

  The strill bayed at the top of its voice and shot out the doors to the landing platform.

  Ordo turned to the strike team. “Oya! Oya, vode!”

  It was electric. It had never happened before, and it would probably never happen again.

  And they went hunting.

  21

  Buy'ce gal, buy'ce tal

  Vebor'ad ures aliit

  Mhi draar baat'i meg'paijii'se

  Kote lo 'shebs 'ul narit

  A pint of ale, a pint of blood

  Buys men without a name

  We never care who wins the war

  So you can keep your fame

  –Popular drinking chant of Mandalorian mercenaries—approximate translation, edited for strong language

  Landing area, CoruFresh Farm Produce distribution division, Quadrant F-76, 2035 hours, 385 days after Geonosis

  The produce distribution depot was as familiar as Arca Barracks now. Everything was as the holochart and holocam images had modeled it, although some of the vessels had been moved in the last hour. Ordo took a small risk and flew the airspeeder over the CoruFresh landing strip at a cautious height just for reassurance. The depot was a lake of harsh white light dotted with loader droids, trucks, and an assortment of speeders. There were more vessels parked there than Perrive had said. They were probably legitimate transports shipping nothing more deadly than fruit.

  “I think CoruFresh might be annoyed about the damage to their fleet in the morning,” Ordo said.

  “That's their problem for not being too choosy about the company they keep.” Sev secured one of the Verpine rifles to his webbing. He seemed to take Skirata's warning about bending anyone who bent his kit quite literally. “They must be bankrolled by crime gangs themselves.”