Gast stood. "I'm going with you. You'll need me for access to all levels.".
"Come along."
The explosion hit before Face heard it, before he compre hended it. All he knew is that something hard, the frame of the experiment chair, hit his back and propelled him forward— launching Dia toward the burning floor, the burning wall. He rolled with the impact, tumbling, trying to keep Dia from contacting the glowing floor grid.
He succeeded. His shoulder hit the grid and he felt the flooring burn through his light tunic, branding him. He contin ued the roll and the burning sensation tore down his back, across his buttocks.
There was a burning in his throat, too. It had to have been from his scream. He felt as though his back had been torn completely free, revealing bones and blood for all the world to see. He almost gave up then, as the pain told his body to tighten up into a tight ball and lie there until he died, but he felt his heels hit the floor and he rose, instinct and adrenaline giving him the energy to keep moving.
He turned back toward the source of the explosion. The flames on the walls were now growing, extending toward him, but in the center of them there was a different sort of light— whiteness, not redness. He lurched toward it, gaining speed.
There it was in his mind, an absurd image—his childhood visit to an arena on Coruscant where animals from all the plan ets of the galaxy did tricks for the entertainment of men. One of those tricks was leaping through fiery hoops and frame works. Now he was doing it.
The floor grating disappeared two steps ahead, ending in a broken edge of red-glowing metal. He leaped over the edge into the white void beyond—
And hit something. White, cold hardness. He bounced off it and landed on his back.
And there the pain from his burns hit him. His back arched and he shrieked. His body would not obey him, would do nothing but writhe and shout.
He could not even look down to see if Dia was still with him, if he'd managed to carry the woman he loved out of that inferno.
Lara drew her blaster pistol and fired. Her first shot missed the leading wave of stormtroopers but checked their progress— most of them dropped to skid behind antennae, air-conditioning equipment, and other rooftop gear. The first of them returned fire and Lara realized rather belatedly that she had no cover be fore her.
Elassar had his blaster out in a two-handed grip. He fired, tearing uselessly into the side of the metal housing between him and his target. Lara grabbed his tunic at the shoulder and tugged him toward another metal housing.
They ducked down behind the landskimmer-sized equipment case and heard blaster shots hammer into the far side. "We're in trouble," Lara said.
"True. Should I charge them and wipe them out for you?"
"Oh, if you think you could, that'd be really decent of you." Lara popped up, took a quick shot, was rewarded with the image of a pair of stormtroopers ducking behind cover. "I'll help too," she said. "I'll call the troops."
"Deal."
Lara brought out her comlink. "Wraith Two to Rogue Leader. Emergency. Emergency. Do you read?"
The only answer was a hiss of static.
Face forced himself to look around. He was in a hallway.
There, to his right, lay Dia. She was moving, her eyes half- open. Beyond her was a jagged hole in a once-pristine white wall. It was three or four meters in diameter, starting at knee height and continuing up into the ceiling and beyond, and it was lined in flames. Heat rolled out of it, a steady wind from a manmade hell.
Out from the fire shot Wes Janson, crashing into the same wall Face must have hit, but he kept his feet when he landed. His right shoulder and back were on fire. He dropped to the floor and rolled, swatting at the flame.
Then came Tyria. She landed short of the wall, her blaster rifle in hand. Poised as a heroine from an action holodrama, she swept up and down the hall with the rifle. There was no sign of fire, even of burn upon her.
Four out. Four to go. Face heaved himself to his feet, leav ing Dia where she lay for the moment. There was blood all over the flooring where he'd fallen. He decided not to think about that for the moment. Or about the pain—he swore and brought out his blaster pistol, then reached down and began dragging Dia out of the path of oncoming Wraiths.
Seconds later, Kell landed where she had just been. His hair was charred and his eyebrows were gone, singed away. There were burn stripes on his chest, stripes identical to the flooring in the crematorium—and not only on his chest. His palms and fingers were also black and red with the marks, and shook uncontrollably.
Piggy came flying out of the inferno and crashed into the wall. He bounced off and slammed to the floor atop Face's blood slick. A fraction of a second later, Shalla landed atop him. She was on fire and had burn stripes along her right side from armpit to knee, and she shrieked as she rolled to extinguish the flames. Piggy slapped at her, trying to help.
Seven of eight. The Wraiths looked at one another as, in their pained and distracted states, they tried to calculate who was missing.
"Oh, no," Kell said. "Runt—"
Then Runt was among them, his chest and left side fully engaged in flame, his fur blackening away as it fed the fire. He landed on his knees atop Piggy, howling in pain, swinging arms as though to strike the enemy burning away at him.
Kell leaped at Runt, a body check that took him from atop the Gamorrean. Piggy got up to his feet and fell atop Runt, hammering away at patches of flame his corpulent body didn't smother.
They just stood there breathing for a moment. Then Face straightened, despite what it cost him in agony to his back. When he spoke, he found that his voice cracked with pain and exertion. "We're moving out," he said. "There have to be access panels or stairs near where the turbolift used to be. First, open communications with our other team and the Rogues."
Janson took the scorched comm pack from Runt's back. Fortunately the unit within, though blackened along one side, was functional.
Maybe.
Janson looked up from it. "I'm getting nothing but hiss. Some of it may be because we're too deep, but I think we're be ing jammed."
Face nodded. "That figures. All right, we go. Ten, you take point. Four, rear guard."
Janson and Tyria nodded to accept their respective tasks.
Shalla got Dia up to her feet and quickly rigged a sling for her arm. Dia still looked groggy, but she managed to catch Face's eye and gave him a look that said she was there, she was functional. There was no time for them to exchange anything else.
Piggy tried to haul Runt up to his feet, but the Thakwaash pilot shook off his hand and stood. He was a mess, much of his upper body marked by flame-blackened fur, and his eyes were wide, vibrating.
Face knew how he felt. It wasn't just pain. Anger blossomed within him like the explosive cloud from a proton torpedo. "Wraiths," he said, "no rules. No mercy. Take out anything that gets between us and home."
From the looks in their faces he knew they'd have accepted no other order.
Lara hazarded another look over her shoulder. The nearest path to escape was the edge of the roof, some thirty meters back. But she was behind the last cover between this point and the edge. If she and Elassar got up to run, they'd be cut down. "I think we're done for," she said.
Elassar shook his head. "No. Today's a lucky day. I calcu lated it before we started on this mission."
"Ah. Did you remember to invite your luck? Or is it in its bunk on Mon Remonda?" Lara popped up to try an other shot.
A laser blast, brilliant red, flashed out of the distance. It struck behind the equipment housing Lara had been firing at— and hit one of the stormtroopers there, blasting him sideways, leaving his charred and smoking body lying in plain sight on the rooftop.
Elassar gave her an infuriating grin. "My luck is your boyfriend. Excuse me." He leaned out to the right of the housing protecting him.
Lara and Elassar had enemies dead ahead, and Donos with his sniper rifle across the street to their left. That
meant that stormtroopers close to the Wraiths could be protected from Lara and Elassar, or from Donos, but not both. Lara saw storm troopers scramble to get their cover between them and Donos's more potent weapon . . . and as soon as they got around the side of their cover, Elassar opened fire, taking down one, two, three of them before the remainder realized the full extent of their predicament.
Lara prepared to pop up for another exchange of shots. The stormtroopers, she knew, had only a couple of options. They could retreat until they could get cover between them and both sets of Wraiths, or they could take out one of the direc tions of enemy fire ... which probably meant charging her and Elassar.
They rose and charged, roaring as they came. Lara half rose and opened fire.
The technician Drufeys, now in the command chair of the con trol room, watched events unfold on the rooftop. Of the eight stormtroopers who'd risen to charge the two visible Wraiths, four were now down, two felled by blaster pistols, two more by the laser sniper. The other four were in fast retreat. "This isn't going well," he said. "Call Argenhald Base and ask them to scramble a couple of TIE fighters. Give them the approximate position of the sniper."
The technician he had addressed, the communications specialist, said, "We're still jamming."
"Use a land line, stupid."
"You don't have to call me stupid."
"Yes, I actually do have to. Get to it." Drufeys settled back into the chair. He liked the feel of it. Too bad this facility was being shut down. But perhaps, if he displayed enough compe tence, he'd find some task with Warlord Zsinj. He smiled. He liked that idea.
The Wraiths were within sight of the old turbolift doors, were within thirty meters and could see how the doors had been laser-welded shut, when a side door slammed open and storm-
troopers began pouring into the hall. Stormtroopers, an unarmored officer, a civilian woman.
"Get back!" Face shouted. "We have to—"
He was going to say "retreat." They had to get back and away from a numerically superior—and uninjured—enemy force.
But then it happened. Face recognized the big man in the Imperial captain's outfit. Weeks before, disguised as General Kargin of the Hawk-bats, Face had watched Shalla, in her own disguise of Qatya Nassin, bruise the big man in a test of martial arts skills.
And now he saw recognition in the captain's eyes.
The captain couldn't have recognized him; Face had been wearing burn-victim makeup designed to make stomachs turn. He must instead have seen Qatya Nassin in Shalla, recognizing her in spite of the makeup she'd worn at the time.
Shalla charged the big man and the dozen and more stormtroopers now crowding into the hall. Her intention was all too obvious: kill the big captain so he couldn't report that a member of Wraith Squadron was also with the Hawk-bats.
She's going to get herself killed, Face thought.
And us too.
He finished his command. "Charge!"
Wes Janson lurched into motion, charging in Shalla's wake, taking the left side of the hall where she ran along the right.
He had no wisecracks to offer now. He could only offer one of his other skills, one that might make him unfit for a nor mal life when this war was finally done. The skill that made him proficient at killing people.
In full stride, he raised his blaster pistol and fired, catching the lead stormtrooper in the chest. The man was thrown back into the arms of one of his companions, his armor now blackened and penetrated.
Janson didn't sight in—he aimed by instinct, by the natural point of his weapon, and fired again. The second stormtrooper took the shot in the dark visor material over his right eye.
Shalla wasn't firing—why not? Janson traversed right and shot at the lead stormtrooper on that side of the hall, catching him in the gut. Behind him was the big captain, now raising his own blaster. Janson fired again. His shot caught the man in the elbow, spinning him back into the wall, causing him to drop his weapon.
Janson traversed leftward again, targeting a stormtrooper with a blaster rifle, his shot catching the man in the throat.
Five steps. Five shots. Five hits. But the hallway was a natural channel for blaster bolts. Its straight lines would angle stray shots back into play. He'd never reach them—
He didn't. He felt fire again and suddenly the world was spinning, slamming into his head—
Dark.
Netbers saw the dark-skinned woman charge and for a moment was so surprised by this tactical insanity that he couldn't react. Then he shouted, "Fire!" and drew his own blaster pistol.
The woman's gaze was fixed on him. He knew he was her target. He knew why, too. And he couldn't get his blaster in line before she had hers aimed, before she pulled her trigger—
And the charred blaster in her hand failed to go off. He al most laughed. He aimed.
The stormtrooper in front of him was thrown back into him, jarring his aim. He shoved the man, probably already dead, aside.
A stray blaster beam slammed into his right arm. It spun him back and pain flashed through him.
That was all right. He knew pain. Pain was his friend.
When he looked up again, the dark woman was upon him, lashing out with a side kick meant to shatter his knee, to bring him to the floor. He twisted, took it as a graze against the side of his knee.
She was hurt. Burn marks all along her right side. Netbers swung at her flank, a left-handed slap that hit bare, burned flesh. The blow knocked her to the floor and she lay there, curled up, helpless.
Conditioning is a big part of it, Qatya, he thought. He reached down and took a blaster pistol from the dead storm trooper beside him. You might beat me once, but never twice—
Something loomed up before him and struck him across the face.
He crashed to the floor atop the body of a stormtrooper. The blow was incredible. He saw stars and his hearing failed. His body wouldn't respond.
His attacker bent over him. It was a nonhuman, a big hairy thing burned all over its upper body, with wide, staring eyes and lips drawn back over square teeth. It grabbed him by the collar and hauled him, all 130 kilograms of him, up into the air as though he weighed nothing.
Netbers lashed out at the alien, striking at one of its burned patches, but the creature grabbed his wrist with its free hand.
Then, as casually as though it were swinging a bag of grain, it slammed him into the wall. He felt his shoulder blade break under the impact, felt something grate in his neck as his head battered into the metal of the wall.
Where are my stormtroopers? But now there were black-clad, burned commandos charging past him, running toward the stairwell by which he and his men had descended. The commandos were firing blasters, shouting—Netbers could hear no noise.
The first wave of them passed and the burned alien swung him toward the opposite wall. Netbers felt himself hit, felt his right shoulder give way, felt something in his neck explode.
Then he felt no more.
"Call it off!" Face shouted. He was at the base of the stairs. Kell and Piggy were above, ahead of him, struggling across the bodies of fallen stormtroopers. Living stormtroopers were ahead of them, running for their lives. "Let's get out of here!"
"The woman." That was Piggy's mechanical voice, inflectionless in spite of the pain he must be feeling. "She is one of my creators. We need her." He fired up the stairs and continued his awkward run over the bodies of slain enemies. A moment later, he and Kell were out of sight, around a turn in the stairs, and all Face could hear was more blaster fire. He grimaced and moved up the stairs as fast as his; tired legs and burned body would let him.
One landing up, the two Wraiths awaited him. Piggy had the human civilian in his grip. Kell waited, his blaster aimed up the stairs, for a counterattack.
In spite of her situation, the woman seemed calm. Face said, "Eight, when the next wave of stormtroopers comes, use her as a human shield. I'm curious to see how long it'll take blasters to burn through her."
"Yes, sir."
"I'm too valuable for that," she said.
"I doubt it," Face said. "But we'll see. If you want to live, you'll tell us a way out of here that doesn't involve more am bushes by your stormtroopers. If they do come at us, you'll be our first bit of cover. Well?"
"Access tunnels," she said. Her voice was cool.
"Show me."
She pointed down the stairs.
"Down one level is an underground landspeeder channel with a utilities shaft running parallel to it."
Face boarded and the others followed. "You know what this means to you if this is a trick."
She shook her head. "No trick. Zsinj will have me killed for failure. So my survival means getting you to safety. Gast, descend to sub-five."
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