Republic Commando: Triple Zero

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.”

“We'll be doing CSF a favor, then.”

It was always a challenge to insert teams into a busy location. Air traffic data said the strip clocked an average of 120 trucks and cargo lifters passing through the strip every twenty-four hours; 2000 to 2300 hours seemed to be the period when it almost shut down completely. That was probably why the Separatists had picked the 2200 time slot for Skirata to deliver the explosives. They'd be loaded and gone by the time the overnight deliveries started again at 2300.

If the teams had gone in early, they would have needed to avoid an awful lot of people and droids.

“You ever carried out an assault on an urban objective before?” Sev said.

“Yes. N'dian. Heard of it?”

Sev paused to check his HUD database. Ordo could see the icon flash up on his own HUD over the shared link. He heard Sev swallow.

“I meant one where you had to leave the place pretty well intact, sir.”

“In that case, Sev, no. It'll be a first.”

“Me, too.”

“Glad we could share this moment, then.”

Ordo parked the airspeeder next to the small substation that routed utilities to the industrial area where the CoruFresh depot was located. A meter-wide conduit carrying pipes and cables stretched out twenty meters from the substation to span a gap that was five hundred meters deep. That was their route in.

“All tooled up?” Ordo shouldered two Plex missile launchers against his pauldron, one on each side.

“Yes sir.”

“Shoulder okay?”

“Fi has a big mouth.”

“Fi knows that I need to know if any of my team is compromised by injury.”

“I'm fine, sir.”

Ordo nudged him. “Oya, ner vod.”

Ordo led the way across the conduit, checking Sev's progress in his HUD. A man who'd nearly fallen to his death could get a little nervous at heights like this. But Sev advanced as if he were on solid ground, and they slipped into the cover of crates and containers at the rear wall of the warehouse.

“Omega, are you in position?”

Niner's voice crackled slightly in Ordo's comlink. “We're one hundred fifty meters from the perimeter, sir. Southeast of the strip at the waste, processing depot.”

“Any activity in the vessels parked on the eastern edge of the strip?”

“All quiet except for maintenance droids. Dar sent up a surveillance remote and all the wets are clustered at the warehouse entrance moving boxes. They've backed up two of the trucks against the loading bay.”

“We're going to position ourselves on the roof, then.”

The warehouse was a single-story building with an unforgiving flat roof that meant anyone in the two repulsor trucks on the far side of the landing area would notice troops moving around. It was the only high vantage point overlooking the floodlit landing area to direct fire as well as pick off a few targets for themselves. Ordo had decided it was asking for trouble to take up a position in the residential towers nearly a thousand meters away. If they wound up on the receiving end of returned fire, there would be a lot of dead civilians to explain.

“Up you go,” said Ordo.

Sev fired his rappelling line over the roof and tugged on it to ensure it was secure. The small winch in his belt took most of his weight but he pushed off with his boots, looking almost as if he were walking up the vertical surface. Ordo waited as Sev rolled flat over the edge of the roof, Verpine rifle in his right hand.

“Roof clear, sir.”

Ordo fired his own line and let the winch lift him until he could reach the roof with his hand. He handed Sev the Plex launchers and hauled himself over the top to crawl flat on elbows and knees until he was near the front edge of the roof.

They both flipped down the scopes in their visors at the same time. Ordo saw the same image repeated in Sev's viewpoint icon on the margin of his HUD.

“In an ideal world, we could have left a timed charge on that utility conduit and paralyzed this whole sector before we went in,” Sev said.

“And that just advertises the fact that the Grand Army was here. We don't exist, remember? We've gone bandit.”

“Just fantasizing.”

The textbook approach was to knock out the two illumigrids and then move in. But timing was critical. Skirata and Jusik needed to make the delivery of explosives and then get clear before the party started.

“Omega, we're in position.”

“Copy that.” This time it was Mereel's voice.

“On my mark, we'll knock out both lights and then provide covering fire while you advance from the south side. Delta, what's your location?”

“Boss here, sir. We'll be in position behind the warehouse in two minutes. Atin and Fixer will enter from the front. Scorch and I will cover the north side of the strip.”

Atin seemed to have slipped easily into the temporary gap left by Sev. There wasn't the slightest hint in their voices that their former brother wasn't welcome. Ordo supposed that once you were one of Vau's trainees, you could merge back into the batch without comment when there was a job to be done.

“Okay, vode. Now we watch and wait.”

Mereel, Fi, Niner, Darman, and Corr crouched in the cover of a conveyor belt of bins outside the waste depot, where droids collected the contents for compaction and disposal.

Fi sniffed dubiously. There was the distinct sulfurous tang of rotting vegetables: harmless, or his helmet's filter would never have let the aroma through, but nauseating nonetheless. On Niner's signal, they sprinted from the bins and dropped down by a pillar at the end of the walkway that led across to the CoruFresh depot.

“You're very shiny, you two,” Niner said, jerking his thumb at Corr and Mereel, who were almost glowing in the light from the red flashing sign of a seedy caf bar. “Why don't you just write SHOOT ME HERE on that di'kutla white armor?”

“You rely on that black stuff way too much,” Mereel said. “It's all about a stealthy approach, you see,” He heaved a massive Merr-Sonn Reciprocating Quad Blaster onto his hip and powered up the microrepulsorlift to take some of its weight. Four huge double-barreled blaster muzzles loomed from the weapon's body. It was close on eighty centimeters long and looked more like a cruiser's close-in defense cannon. “Stealth, and a nice big Cip-Quad, of course.”

Fi patted Corr's conspicuously white shoulder. “His men will follow him anywhere, ner vod. But only out of curiosty.”

“Okay, get curious, then.” Mereel indicated the direction of the landing strip. “They've moved some of the vessels, so we're going to have to cover a little extra open ground. At least most of the cockpits are facing the same way so we might have a blind spot to take advantage of.”

Darman, Verpine rifle slung across his back, was still examining the other impressive item of Merr-Sonn firepower excess that was balanced across his thighs, the Z-6 Rotary Blaster. It was almost as big as the Cip-Quad. He looked wary of it and passed it to Corr. “We really did say no prisoners, didn't we, sir?”

“Not exactly a sniper weapon, I know.”

“Etain would like that,” Fi said. “Bit classier than her Trannie LJ-50.”

Mereel snorted. “The general can get her own rotary. That's my baby.”

“Beats a bunch of flowers, Dar …”

“Has she called in yet, by the way?”

Ordo's voice cut in. There was no privacy on this frequency. “She and Vau followed Perrive's trace to an apartment in zone three, Quadrant A-Four. They're watching him now.”

“Isn't that a diplomatic quarter?” asked Mereel, whose capacity for memorizing data seemed as unlimited as his brother's.

“ 'Fraid so,” said Ordo. “That could get interesting. If we go in there, we're into a whole new level of deniability.”

Fi watched Darman's head drop for a moment, but there wasn't so much as a breath or a click of teeth. He snapped back to his alert position. Fi wasn't sure if he was afraid for Etain's safety or of what she might do, and he didn't plan to ask. “Vau doesn't need that strill when he's got a Jedi with him.”

“He takes Mird everywhere,”, Mereel said. “Like Mando fathers take their sons into battle.”

“If I didn't know Old Psycho was a head case, I'd say that was cute. What is it going to do?”

“You've never seen a strill hunt, have you?”

Mereel didn't say another word. He signaled advance to Niner with a sweep of his hand and the squad sprinted for the perimeter of the landing strip.

Diplomatic sector, Quadrant A-4, 2145 hours, 385 days after Geonosis

Etain stood on the ledge of a soaring office tower facing the elegant apartment block and realized exactly what black ops truly meant.

Vau stood beside her. The ledge was about 150 centimeters wide, and the breeze at this height was noticeable even on climate-controlled Coruscant.

“What's the matter?” Vau said, his parade-ground voice slightly softened by his Mando helmet. “Didn't know how dirty politics could be? That diplomats aren't all nice honest people? That they keep unpleasant company?”

“I think I worked that out already.” She felt the strill brush past her legs, padding impatiently up and down the narrow ledge. It had no fear of heights, it seemed. “But the consequences of pursuing Perrive into that building reach far beyond assassinating a terrorist.”

“We'll have to get him to come out, then.”

“He could lie low there for weeks.”

“If he's hiding, yes.”

“I find you hard to follow sometimes, Vau.”

“He might be collecting something or somebody. He was in a mad rush to leave.”

“I sense he's alone. He isn't picking up a colleague.”

Vau leveled the scope of the Verpine, angled down about thirty degrees. The strill teetered on the edge of the ledge.

“I can see Perrive. Yes, he's alone. He's in front of the doors to the balcony—now that's arrogant, my friend. Think nobody can see you, eh? Etain, want to take a look?”

Vau handed her the Verpine. She took it nervously, hearing Skirata's constant admonition to take care of the weapon, and was surprised how light and harmless it felt. She peered down the scope and felt Vau reach out and flick something on the optic. A different image appeared in the eyepiece, slightly pink-tinted, of a man rummaging through a desk and sticking datachips into his 'pad, activating them, and then extracting and discarding them. A pale blob of light shimmered from his chest and then from his back as he turned.

“What can you see?”

“He's loading data,” Etain said.

“He's shredding someone's files. Told you so.”

“What's the white light? The EM emissions from the Dust?”

“Correct.”

Etain handed back the rifle. “That datapad is going to contain some interesting material. How do we get hold of it?”

“The old-fashioned way.” Vau sounded as if he'd smiled. It was hard to tell under the helmet. “Let's get him to come to the balcony.”

“I'm not sure I can influence his mind at this range … or at all.”

“No need, my dear.” Vau folded a cloth one-handed and placed it under the stock of the Verpine at the point where it touched his armored shoulder. “I hate a standing shot without something to lean against, but I'm not as sure-footed as Mird so I'm not going to attempt to kneel.” He leaned back slightly against the wall at his back. “But this Verpine is beautiful.” He rested his firing hand on his raised forearm. “It's almost a handgun.”

“Just tell me what you're going to do.”

“Make a noise on his balcony so he steps outside.”

“What if he doesn't?”

“Then we'll have to go in and get him the hard way.”

“But if you—”

“Let's get him outside if we can.” Vau paused to let an air-speeder pass. The narrow skylane was almost deserted. “Most armies I ended up serving had no notion of advance planning. I got to be very good at unorthodox solutions.”

Etain couldn't help but feel the patterns in the Force right then. Being pregnant seemed to have enhanced her sensitivity to the living Force by an order of magnitude. Vau felt like a pool of utter cold calm, almost a Jedi Master's footprint in the Force. The strill felt … alien. It had an unfathomable glittering intelligence and a wild, joyful heart swirling within it. Had it not been for Vau's rifle and the krill's savage teeth, the pair might have felt like a peaceful man and his happy child.

She felt something else, as she did constantly now: the vivid, complex pattern of her unborn child.

It's a boy.

I'm standing on a ledge with thousands of meters of nothing below me. And I am not afraid.

She stopped herself from reaching out to Darman in the Force. It might distract him at a critical moment. She simply felt that he was safe and confident, and that was enough.

“Could you choke him using the Force?” Vau said quietly.

“What?”

“Just asking. Very handy.”

“I was never trained to do that.”

“Pity. All those fine combat skills wasted.”

Vau exhaled audibly and paused. There was the slightest of movements in her peripheral vision as he squeezed the trigger, and a small snakkk echoed as a puff of vaporized stone billowed briefly off the corner of the apartment wall.

“Ahh … ,” Vau said. The rifle's scope was still pressed to the eye slit in his black helmet. He looked like the very image of death. Much as Etain had grown to find that armor reassuring, it made it no less intimidating. “Now, this is not a man used to avoiding professional assassins. Watch carefully and tell me what you feel.”

Perrive paused at the transparisteel doors leading onto the balcony and shoved the datapad inside his tunic. Then he took out his blaster. He opened the doors by a meter, no more, and stood looking around, blaster raised, one foot still inside the apartment, one on the balcony itself.

Etain heard Vau exhale and then Perrive's head jerked backward with a brief plume of dark blood as if he had been punched by an invisible fist. He fell, arms thrown wide.

Dead. Gone. Whatever had been Perrive was now gone from the Force: no pain, no surprise, and suddenly not there.

Mird the strill was staring up at its master, unblinking, tail thrashing the ledge in enthusiasm. It began making little whimpering noises deep in its throat.

“I must treat myself to one of these,” Vau said, still all complete calm and satisfaction, gazing at the Verpine rifle. “Outstanding craftspeople, those little insectoids.”

“He's dead.”

“I should think so. The hydrostatic shock generated by a Verpine projectile is substantial. A clean head shot is instantaneous kyr'am.”

“But the datapad is still in his tunic.”

“Good!” He turned to the strill and put his finger to his lips. “Udesii, Mird … silence! K'uur!”

The strill stared up into his face, gold eyes fixed on his, head drawn back a little into its cowl-like folds of loose skin. Its whimpering stopped abruptly. Vau crouched down and held out his arm as if pointing, and closed his fingers into a fist. “Oya … ,” he whispered. “Find the aruetii! Find the traitor!”

Mird spun around and stabbed its claws into the stonework. Etain watched, stunned, as it climbed the wall and made its way to the next ledge above. The strill appeared to understand what was said to it, even hand signals. But she had no idea what it was doing.

“Oya, Mird!”

The strill balanced on its four rear legs and then sprang into the abyss.

“Oh my—”

And then Etain suddenly realized why the strill looked so bizarre. It spread all six legs, and the loose, ugly skin that made it appear such a shambling mess was stretched taut by the air pressure beneath it. It glided effortlessly down in a perfect stoop onto the balcony opposite.

Vau took off his helmet and wiped his brow. His face was a study in complete admiration and … yes, love.

“Clever Mird,” he murmured. “Clever baby!”

“It's a glider!”

“Extraordinary animals, strills.”

“It's going to fetch the datapad?”

Vau paused. Etain could see a smile forming on his lips. “Yes.”

“Is it male or female?”

“Both,” Vau said. “Mird has been with me since I joined the Mandalorians. Strills live far longer than humans. Who'll care for it when I'm dead?”

“I'm sure someone will value it greatly.”

“I want it to be cared for, not valued.”

Vau replaced his helmet. They waited. Etain strained to see when the animal emerged from the apartment with, she imagined, the datapad clamped in its teeth. Or maybe it had more surprises in store, like a pouch, as Jinart the Gurlanin had.

She stared, aghast.

Mird had dragged Perrive's body out onto the balcony and was worrying at it. She believed the animal was trying to tear out the datapad right up to the moment that it got a good grip with its massive jaws on the corpse's shoulder and hauled it up onto the safety rail.

“What's it doing?”

Vau laughed. Mird balanced the body on the rail like a sack of stones, wobbled a little, and then launched itself into the air. Etain was stunned by its ability to move a man weighing at least eighty kilos, but not half as stunned as when she saw its free fall turn into a vertical climb as it struck out and its parachute of skin became wing membranes.

Mird soared like a raptor, carrying its prey.

Mird flew.

“Fierfek … ,” Etain said. There was no other word for it.

“Language!” Vau said, clearly amused. Mird thudded onto the ledge and hauled Perrive up behind it. Vau crouched as best he could on the narrow strip of stone and felt inside the tunic for the datapad. “Got it. Let's go. Good Mird! Clever Mird! Mirdala Mird'ika!” He opened his comlink. “Kal, Perrive's no longer a problem, and we have a useful datapad. See you shortly.”

Mird was ecstatic, whimpering and slobbering in delight as Vau rubbed its head. As retrievers went, it could have no equal.

“What about the body?” Etain said, still stunned. “Are we just leaving it here? On an office window ledge?”

“It'll give CSF's forensics team a fascinating project to keep them occupied,” Vau said. “And we didn't even have to enter a diplomatic compound, did we?”

Etain, now used to death and assassination, couldn't help herself. She reached over and rubbed the still's head, too, although it stank and could probably kill her in a single vast bite. It was still miraculous.

“Clever Mird!” she said. “Clever!”

Somewhere near CoruFresh Farm Produce distribution division, Quadrant F-76, 2150 hours, 385 days after Geonosis

“That armor suits you, Bard'ika.”

Skirata sat astride the speeder's pillion seat, datapad and chrono at the ready. The operation was under way. Perrive was dead. Now it was time for Skirata to check that the credit transfer had been made.

He watched the screen that showed the status of the temporary bank account that would vanish without trace or audit trail in just over a day.

“I suspect the Jedi Council wouldn't agree.” Jusik adjusted the bags on the bike's cargo straps. “Not even if General Kenobi himself wears armor.”

“You don't worry much about that,” said Skirata.

“I haven't thought that far ahead.”

“A Mando mercenary has to plan for the future these days, son, even if there turns out to be no future at all. And so should you.”

Jusik laughed. “I thought you Mando'ade lived only for the day. You even have trouble using anything but the present tense.”

Skirata's eyes never left the datapad's screen. Then it reloaded, and suddenly an anonymous numbered account in a bank on Aargau was four million credits in the black. Skirata hit VERIFY and the credits were there.

Yes, this was real. He had the credits.

He felt one tension evaporate from his chest and another—familiar, comfortable, an old friend—take its place. He was ready to fight. He opened the comlink to the whole strike team.

“Stand by, vode, stand by. The credits have cleared. We're moving in to make the drop now.”

“Ordo here, copy that.”

“Delta here, copy that.”

“Mereel here, copy that.”

“Do we get ten percent?” Fi muttered.

Jusik powered up the speeder bike. “You'd be amazed what you might get out of this, Fi.” The speeder shot up into the air and spun ninety degrees before Jusik aimed it at the CoruFresh depot. “Preferably not a broken neck, though.”

“Sorry, Kal,” said Jusik.

Skirata checked his chrono: 2155.

A good rousing chant of Dha Werda might have psyched him up better, but this was a different battlefield.

“Bard'ika, those explosive packs are well wrapped, aren't they?”

“Thoroughly. They're really affecting the handling of this speeder, too.”

“We've got a few minutes. Take it easy.”

“Udesii ...” Jusik grinned. “If things get a little hairy out there, I can use my Force powers, can't I?”

“No witnesses. Go ahead.”

Jusik took the speeder high over the landing strip, and Skirata noted Ordo and Sev flat on the roof of the warehouse as they spiraled down to land. The two soldiers didn't move. Omega and Delta were nowhere to be seen. That reassured him enormously. It had been a joy to train commandos who became better soldiers than he could ever be.

Tonight would test them, though. There were enough explosives in the area now to take out a quadrant and well beyond. Fine on a battlefield—but not in a city.

Careful. Go careful.

The speeder settled and hung at rest just above the ground. A group of five men and the middle-aged woman he'd seen at the meeting earlier were the welcoming committee, and they all had blasters visible on belts or held loosely at their sides. They directed Jusik to a spot between two trucks, sheltered from anyone who might pass by.

Skirata and Jusik got off the speeder bike and stood with their arms at their sides, calm and business-like. Skirata removed his helmet. Jusik kept his buy'ce on.

“The credits cleared fine,” Skirata said.

The woman inspected the speeder, which was laden like a Tatooine bantha with anonymous bags of rough sacking. “This is all the five-hundred-grade?”

“Four hundred quarter-kilo packs, bagged in tens. I suggest you split the load for safety.”

The woman shrugged. “We know how to handle explosives.” She reached out to unfasten one bag and squatted down to slide the ten bundled packets onto the ground. She squinted at the thick packaging and took out a knife from her pocket…

Skirata didn't need to see Jusik's face to know that the blood had drained from it.

Don't stick anything metallic into it. The electrolytic reaction will set it off

Mereel's little chemical enhancement to thwart the bomb makers in the event of their getting away with any of the explosives was about to kill them all.

“Whoa!” Skirata sighed irritably and hoped to the Force that he didn't sound the terrified man he was right then. “Don't shove a knife in that, woman! Unwrap it properly. Here, let me do it. Are you sure you know what you're doing?”

There was a collective involuntary gasp in his comlink earpiece, a very restrained one. He heard Ordo mutter, “Osik.”

“You insolent little Mandalorian thug,” she sneered, but she stood back to let him take over. And she held her blaster to his head.

Skirata ripped the bundle open with nervous hands and broke out one packet, tearing the flexiwrap with his teeth to expose the soft light brown contents. It tasted … oddly sweet.

“Here. Believe me?”

The woman scowled at him and squeezed the explosive between her fingers. “I'm checking that this isn't just dyed detonite.”

“Tell you what,” Skirata said, wondering if Jusik might try a spot of mind influence right then, “pick as many packs as you like at random and I'll unwrap them, and then you can prove to yourself that they're not booby-trapped, either.”

He heard Ordo's voice in his ear. “Kal'buil, you're scaring us …”

“Okay.” The woman pointed to another bag on the speeder bike. “That one. Empty it in front of me.”

Skirata obeyed. He unwrapped the bundle and waited for her to choose a pack at random. He tore it open and let her inspect it. She repeated the process three times.

Skirata stood up, hands on hips, and sighed theatrically. “I've got all night, sweetheart. Have you?”

The woman looked into his face as if she liked the idea of killing him anyway. “Bag it up and get out of here.”

He glanced at his chrono: 2220. Obrim would be getting jumpy now, with squads of CSF officers waiting throughout Galactic City to raid the long list of suspect addresses he'd given them.

“You heard the lady.” He shoved Jusik in the back. “Get on with it.”

The last few seconds before a hasty exit were always the most terrifying. A hairbreadth lay between victory and defeat, life and death. Jusik secured the last of the bags and dumped the rest from the speeder in a pile between the trucks.

“Now get lost,” she said.

“I take it I can't count you as a repeat customer, then?”

She raised the blaster eloquently. Skirata replaced his helmet and swung onto the speeder bike behind Jusik. They lifted into the air and climbed above the warehouse.

“Fierfek,” said Darman's voice in his ear. “I hate it when you improvise, Sarge.”

“Like you don't.”

“Standing by.”

Ordo cut in. “The woman's loading all the explosives except a single bag into one truck. The one with the green livery nearest the loading bay. I repeat, negative the green truck. Do not target the green truck or it's good-bye to half of Coruscant.”

“Females never listen to a thing I say, thankfully,” Skirata said. He knew she'd react like that. “So that means there's only one vessel we can't blow up.”

“Priority is to isolate the green truck and ground it before engaging other targets.”

“Copy that, sir,” a chorus said.

Jusik set the speeder down three hundred meters behind the warehouse in a cluster of shuttered wholesalers' units. Skirata sat breathing deeply for a moment to steady himself before opening his comlink again with a double click of his back teeth.

“Obrim, this is Skirata.”

“Got you, Kal.”

“You can roll now, my friend. Talk to you later.”

“Copy that.” Obrim's channel snapped into silence.

“Omega, Delta, all units, this is Kal. We're clear. All yours, Captain.”

“Copy that, Sargeant.” Ordo began counting down. “Five, four, three, two … go go go! Oya!”

A bitter little war with far-reaching consequences was unleashed in downtown Galactic City.