Cartog looked over his team as they walked out of what was left of the pirate camp. Everyone was in one piece. Yuta was putting a field dressing on Keeli. She was making a mess of it, but messy medicine beat no medicine at all. She was still learning the job. Jack leaned up against the still-burning hulk of an enemy speeder. Cartog noticed he did it in a way that gave him the best view of the area, in case he needed to jump into action again. Good man. Jack hefted his assault cannon with one hand, and lit a cigarette with the other.
Jack and Yuta caught him looking. Yuta raised a fist, and Jack barked twice. Cartog grinned. He said, "That's my dogs." When he'd joined the team as a lowly trooper, he gave them the nickname Jackals, because they fought like a bunch of wild animals. Everyone had eaten it up. Their armor was painted in black and gray streaks of paint stolen from the supply huts back at base. Sometimes they spared some to paint their faces.
Cartog keyed his helmet radio. "Jeran, have you secured the landing site?" Static. He yanked on the antenna line and heard it connect. Their equipment wasn't worth the powder it would take to blow it to hell. "Jeran, this is Cartog. Have you secured the LZ?"
The line crackled. "Secured, boss, but looks like we're not leaving yet."
The others looked at him. The smoking camp and bodies behind them said they'd done their job for today. "What's up, Jer?"
"You'll want to see this, boss."
Why couldn't people just give it to him straight?
The landing site was about a hundred yards away, the flattest patch of land they could get. "All right, Jackals. On your feet," he said to the group.
They started walking. Cartog led the way. Yuta was behind him, with Keeli limping behind her. Jack brought up the rear. All the bad guys were accounted for, but they kept their weapons out. There were always more.
A hooded Sith was standing by their transport. Some of the Cartog's group pulled up. Cartog kept walking. He was scared out of his wits, but he was in charge of the squad, and he had to act like it. He pushed Yuta and Jack forward. "Come on, lads. I'm sure he doesn't bite."
He didn't know what to do. Theirs was a penal unit, supplemented with slaves like himself and bounty hunters, barely trained and equipped with less. They were cannon fodder for pirate hunting. The Sith fought with the real army. He never thought he'd meet one of the 'black ghosts,' like they called them back home. Cartog saluted and bowed. "Sir," he said.
The Sith chuckled. "The proper way to address a Sith is 'my lord,'" it said.
"Apologies. My lord." He bowed lower. The rest of the squad was standing behind him, not knowing what to do. "Bow, you morons!" he said.
"That will have to do," it sniffed. The Sith lowered its hood. Cartog tried not to flinch. It was a decaying shell of a man, with thin black veins in his neck, and flickering red eyes. The creature was about his height and about his build, wearing black, horned armor and a blood red cloak. The chipped, scratched breastplate had seen better days. He looked over the squad. "You have no sergeant. No lieutenant. Where is your leader?"
"Corporal Cartog Dalledos, my lord. I'm in charge. Our sergeant was killed last week, as well as our last medic."
The Sith walked among the squad, who were more than happy to get out of his way. He trembled, and coughed. He exuded a mixture of dark power and physical weakness.
"And yet your captain calls you… 'Jackals'?… the fiercest squad he has."
Jeran stepped forward. He had his war paint on today and some blood splatter to go with it. Jeran said, "We were ambushed. We killed fifty before it was all over."
The Sith choked him with the Force. People stepped back as Jeran staggered left and right. "I was speaking to your leader. Silence your voice, or I will do it for you," the Sith said.
Jeran started to fall to his knees. His eyes bugged out. Cartog snapped, "We're low on troops as it is out here without you killing them!" Jeran started to spasm. In seconds he'd be dead. Cartog's hand itched for his blaster. Instead Cartog grabbed Sestra's shoulder and shouted, "I said that's enough!"
The choke faltered. Jeran gulped air like a drowning man breaking the surface.
Lord Sestra backhanded Cartog. He drew his lightsaber, and its thin red beam leveled inches from Cartog's face. "Impudent fool. Do not question my actions again."
If the bastard hadn't been Sith, Cartog would have shot him in the back already. "Thank you for sparing one of my best riflemen," he said. Lightsaber or no, the Sith and Cartog stared one another down. The Sith had tried to kill one of his troops. Cartog could not, would not let that go.
The Sith straightened up. He gestured at Cartog, and other members of the team. "Many of you wear slave collars," he said. "I am Lord Sestra! I am engaged in a quest to plumb depths of the Force no Sith has ever known. I sense your anger. Good. Let it fill you. Serve me well and I will take away your collars. Others will bow before you! Together, the Force will flow through us, and we will become unstoppable!"
Cartog didn't buy Sestra's speech – he'd always thought he'd be more scared of a Sith in the flesh – but his heart flip flopped over the idea of having his collar taken off. From the murmurs behind him, the others wanted some of that action, too. He recited the answer that they'd learned in training: "We serve the Sith."
"Yes, all Imperial soldiers do serve the Sith. I need more than obedience. Join me!"
He was going to squeeze it out of them. Cartog looked at his squad and thought, Dogs, don't let me down. He took out his bayonet and roared, "Jackals, let me hear it!"
The Jackals did their best war cries. They sounded like the screams of death coming down from heaven. Cartog grinned. He owed them a case a beer. He snapped his best salute to Lord Sestra and hoped they were done strutting.
Sestra said, "Contact your commander. You will have one more mission today."
Recon had found another camp like the one they just cleared. They wanted to take them out before they could get away and warn their friends.
The transports reached orbit, jumped, then came out of hyperspace twenty minutes later. The forward window was suddenly filled with the pirate moon that was their next objective. Beyond that, curving farther than Cartog could see, was the gas giant the moon belonged to. The ships had barely returned to real space before they cut power and went into stealth flight.
The transports glided forward. Cartog heard the gentle hiss of thrusters firing as the pilots nudged them toward their targets. They swam through turbulence as the ship descended through the moon's atmosphere. It used to make Cartog throw up. Anymore, he liked it. Three of the transports peeled off to attack the camp from the air. The other three, including Cartog's, approached from behind hills on the camp's other side. Over their comms, the mission commander gave the order to go in.
Sestra smiled. He unhooked his lightsaber from his belt. "Two minutes!" Cartog shouted to the squad. Their job was to rappel inside the camp after the transports had softened it up, then kill any resistance from inside while the other two transports landed troops and attacked from the outside.
Sestra started chanting. Cartog's heart pounded. He'd wasn't religious but he knew when to ask Fate for its favor. Cartog asked over and over again, Protect my dogs, protect my dogs, protect my dogs. They were the only family he had.
The transport moved up.
"One minute!" Cartog shouted.
They moved into position over a burning, smoking wreckage of what used to be a prefab huts and pieces of small, fast boats. There weren't many bodies he could see. Cartog looked at Sestra. The Sith was deep in a trance. Cartog grit his teeth and opened the port side hatch while Jeran opened the other side.
Sestra finished. He raised his hands up and swept them before the squad. Cartog smelled blood. Everything turned red. Cartog wished his could forget what happened next.
The Jackals went mad. Sestra laughed. All of them, Cartog included, screamed. They howled like animals as they went down their ropes. None of them could kill fast enough. They slaughtered the wounded. The helpless. Good old Jack killed someone with his bare hands. Cartog bashed someone's head in with the butt of his rifle. Over and over again.
Sestra leaped down from the transport without a rope. He followed them in, soaking in the carnage. When an enemy fell, he lifted the body into the air using the Force. Red light rushed inside it, and it would come back to life, eyes glowing. The Jackals would kill it again. Sestra would laugh. As the bloodshed raged, he soaked it in. He breathed in the red haze that seemed to cover everything.
A firefight that should have been over in ten minutes turned into a dance of death that lasted an hour. By then, the pirates' bodies were so shot full of holes they couldn't get up anymore, no matter how much Force power Sestra used on them.
The spell ended.
Cartog stood in the middle of the blasted camp. He and the Jackals looked at each other. Hardened soldiers and soulless killers dropped to the ground and wept. He had to grab Seria, a former slaver and drug killer, to keep her from sticking herself with her own knife. Cartog felt like a shell. Two years ago, he watched his family get gunned down before his eyes. He felt the same emptiness now that he had then. Somehow, it kept him sane.