"Sometimes, Kad'ika, you have no idea what's going to happen. It doesn't matter if you have six hours to put a plan together or six years, because when the fighting starts, most plans go straight to osik. You just have to dive headlong into the mess and try to make the most of it. What saves your life in those situations isn't planning, preparation, or even a well-prepped kit. It's the brothers at your side."
As he stood on Majesty's bridge, Octavian Grant felt a rare stab of envy for starship captains like Pellaeon or Griff. The blue globe of Bavinyar sprawled out beneath him, and all it took was one gesture to rain destruction down the helpless planet. It was so easy, and so satisfying to see the fireballs light like tiny candles so far below.
The sensation of supremacy was thrilling, but Grant didn't let himself indulge in it, not yet.
It had been almost seven hours since the siege began. After the initial volley targeting Bavinyar's second-largest settlement, he'd restricted attacks to smaller islands with populations of under fifty thousand. There were still some seventy populated islands left to ravage and he wanted to take his time building up to a grand crescendo. If he destroyed the planet's largest settlement at Cepahlia, with some three hundred thousand souls, he'd remove any incentive for Jereveth Syne to surrender, and that was, after all, the real point of this bloody exercise.
He was mildly surprised the woman hadn't tried to contact him. He didn't know how far Syne was from Bavinyar, but if she wanted to end the bloodshed quickly she would have commed in her surrender after the first bombardment.
The fact that she'd sent no message at all meant she was either en route or still planning a desperate scheme to liberate her people. Grant was not impatient- and the view from Majesty's bridge was stunning- but after seven hours he was getting curious as to that Syne's bold move was going to be. If she simply dropped her flagship into the interdiction field with an offer to surrender, he would be both disappointed and suspicious.
He pulled himself away from the forward viewpoint and stalked across the bridge to Captain Griff. The young man was speaking quietly with one Captain Melusar, the commander for the 501st company that had been detached to help hunt down the Jedi from Belsavis.
Grant had already read the intel briefing on Melusar. The man's hate for Jedi went well beyond the typical distaste men like Grant felt. Given the Emperor's apparent desire to create his own cadre of loyal Force-users, it was a little surprising that Melusar hadn't yet mysteriously disappeared like his predecessor Sa Cuis.
Right now the thin, pale man looked visibly impatient that he hadn't gotten a chance to kill any Jedi yet. As Grant approached he said, "Admiral, do we have any news about the Jedi working with Jereveth Syne?"
"I was about to ask the same question." He shifted his attention to Griff.
"No new reports, sir," the captain said. "No reports of Syne at all."
"Are you certain she'll come?" asked Melusar.
"We've laid the perfect trap for her. She'll come."
Griff glanced at his wrist chronometer, a fine silver model. "Admiral, I believe we are due for another volley in a few minutes."
"You're quite right, Captain. This time I believe I will give you the liberty to chose the target."
"Me, sir?"
"Barring the main city on Cephalia. I'm saving that one for last."
"Of course, sir. If you'll give me a moment to review the charts, sir, I'll be happy to select a target."
"Please do."
He watched the young man stalk off the tactical station. Griff was a man of good breeding and good taste. If he showed himself to have a bit of tactical sense, he might make a fine admiral someday.
Grant doubted the same could be said for Melusar. The man had an admittedly admirable track record in hunting Force-users, but Grant knew his zeal would become a liability once the last Jedi were exterminated. The thing that made him valuable to the Empire would inevitably make him a liability too.
He doubted if Melusar could appreciate that irony.
"I'm sorry that my men couldn't get to Bavinyar fast enough to apprehend the Jedi, sir," Melusar said earnestly.
"Your men left as quickly as they could. There's no reason to apologize."
He hadn't yet asked Melusar where he'd gotten the location of the Jedi safehouse at Belsavis. The man was honest but not a fool, and he probably wouldn't appreciate someone trying to sniff out his intel sources.
"When do you expect Valediction to reach the Bavinyar system, sir?"
"She's set to arrive soon, though she'll have to crawl halfway through the system on sublight. I can't lower the interdiction field even for a friendly ship."
"I understand, sir. I just want to keep track of my men."
Grant was in no hurry for Pellaeon's ship to arrive. Between Zaarin and Darys he didn't know who he wanted to see less. Ohran Keldor's disgrace and subsequent flight was the one satisfying thing to come out of the whole Belsavis debacle.
Griff promptly re-appeared at Grant's side and snapped a salute. "Admiral, I believe I have selected a target. The island of Maressa, population thirty-five thousand."
"An island immediately south of Cephalia."
"That's correct, sir."
"Then we should strike fear in the hearts at the capital. A wise choice."
To his credit, Griff didn't smile or flush. "Shall I ready to attack, sir?"
"Please do."
Griff marched off again. Grant ignored Melusar and turned his attention to the planet outside the forward viewport. The sphere's beautiful blue was pocked in places by spacecraft that hung in lower orbit or even within the atmosphere. More and more of them were appearing, all of them packed with refugees from islands attacked or yet to be bombarded, but none of them had dared try and break through the siege net.
Like Grant himself, they were probably waiting for Syne to play her hand.
"Admiral," said Griff, "We have a targeting solution."
"Very good, Captain. Prepare to-"
"Sirs!" announced the communications lieutenant, "Valediction has just dropped out of hyperspace."
"There you have it, Captain," Grant nodded at Melusar. "Captain Griff, you may fire when-"
"Sirs," the lieutenant interjected, "Valediction says she is launching a shuttle. Commodore Zaarin is aboard, as well as one Jedi prisoner."
Grant held back a scowl. "I'm glad to see he's eager to return to us. What about Miss Darys?"
"She's remaining on Valediction. They say she's conducting an interrogation of the Jedi Master."
It was almost enough to lift Grant's mood. "Very well. Prepare a small welcoming party for Zaarin, emphasis on small. Captain Griff?"
"Yes, Admiral?"
"You may fire when ready."
"Excellent, sir."
Grant put everything else out of his head and watched bright green lances strike out toward the planet. They dwindled to nothing, then flashed bright destruction on the planet' surface. More turbolaser blasts followed, claiming the rest of the island's thirty-five thousand lives.
He felt better already.
-{}-
Scorch felt like he had the weight of the whole shabla galaxy wrapped around his head. As he, Boss, and Fixer stood in the narrow maintenance corridor outside the emergency airlock, none of them dared speak. The occasional clank of machinery or hiss of pressure valves were like thunder-crashes in the silence. He waited for Vau or Jaing to whisper in his ear and tell him that they'd arrived. The internal chrono on his helmet- no, not his, Niner's- ticked away in the corner of his heads-up display, and by his count the Mandalorians should have docked one minute and thirty seconds ago.
Soru had peeked into Valediction's navigational software and plucked out the exact time and place where the destroyer was set to exit hyperspace. Scorch had passed that information along to Vau. Vau and the other Mandos were, presumably, waiting just outside the re-entry point in Rav Bralor's stealth ship for Valediction to arrive.
As a minute-thirty became two full minutes, Scorch started to worry that they'd gotten the exit coordinates off. It would be tragic and a little ridiculous if they'd gone through all this trouble just for Concord Night to get splattered over Valediction's shields like a flitgnat on a windscreen.
At two-minutes-thirty, someone said, "You there, ner vod?"
Scorch's knees buckled. "Jaing?"
"Even better, it's Mereel. You got your vode there?"
"Fixer and Boss are with me. We're at the airlock."
"We're right under you. I noticed nobody's started shooting at us yet."
"Good to know." Scorch peered out through the airlock's small transparisteel porthole, but all he saw were stars. "Everything else according to plan?"
"Mostly. The Imps launched some shuttle right when they dropped into realspace. We had to drop back to make sure they didn't spot us."
Scorch had no idea who was on the shuttle, which was worrying in itself, but there was nothing to be done now. He said, "We have two others guys man jamming up their outbound comm systems. Let's get this done before somebody notices they're being sabotaged."
"You trust them?"
"I do. Are you ready to dock?"
"Stand by."
Scorch kept peering out the viewport until he saw a black shape eclipse the stars. He stepped back and flicked on his headset's external speaker. "They're here."
Boss and Fixer nodded wordlessly. They still weren't sure whether their helmets were bugged, so they weren't taking any chances with direct bucket-to-bucket connections.
Three more pressure valves popped like gunshots in the narrow corridor, and Scorch almost jumped. The airlock clanked and groaned until Scorch was sure they were going to set off some alarms somewhere and get a full column of white soldiers charging at them, but nobody came.
A light popped up on the other side of the airlock. Scorch and Fixer manually unlocked the portal and swung the heavy door open.
The first thing to pop through the gap was the ugly six-legged beast Scorch had never thought he'd be glad to see. As Lord Mirdalan slunk around his legs, Walon Vau appeared in front of them, covered head-to-toe in sinister black beskar'gam. Over his shoulders, Scorch saw a corridor packed with T-visor Mandalorian helmets and more men with bare faces and miss-matched red and brown body armor.
"Off with the buy'ce," Vau said, "And give us some room."
The Deltas backed away from the airlock to let more than twenty bodies into the narrow corridor. Vau and Skirata, in his battered gold armor, backed the trio toward the entrance as all three of them removed their helmets.
"Shab, it's good to see you lads," Vau said, almost warmly.
"Where's my boy?" Skirata asked. "He still in the brig?"
"As far as we know," Boss reported. "We can get there in ten minutes, best time, but I don't know how-"
"We're not going there yet." A clone in red and gray armor appeared between Vau and Skirata. "We've got to take care of you boys first."
"Is that you, Fi?" asked Fixer. "Heard you got were brain-dead or paralyzed or something."
"Good as new. Mostly, anyway." Fi tapped his burgundy chest-plate. "I wasn't going to sit this one out."
They knew from Niner that Fi hadn't been killed in action, like the official reports said, but it was weird seeing him again, now of all times. Scorch wished Sev were there instead, back from the dead, but Fi would do.
"No time for reunion," Skirata said. "Where's Uthan?"
"Right here." A thin woman with short black hair and black strap-on body-armor slipped between the Mandos.
"You the woman who brewed up a virus to kill us all?" Scorch asked.
"The very same." She said dryly.
"She's also the one who's gonna save your shebs," Fi said. "She figured out how to slow our aging, and-"
"And disable this ship's crew, barring yourselves." She took a small syringe out of her breast pocket.
"She's a shabla wizard, boys. Can't wait my turn." another Mando said from behind her. Scorch recognized his accent as belonging to one of the defective clones, Spar.
"Needs to go right into the bloodstream, boys, c'mon," Vau snapped his fingers. "Necks out."
The Deltas all tilted their heads back and let Uthan inject her fast-action vaccine into the veins in their necks. Scorch wasn't pleased getting stuck with needles by strange women, especially this woman, but Vau and Skirata seemed to trust her implicitly, which was all he really needed.
"Okay, step one's done," Uthan said as she pocketed the syringe. "Now we need to get to climate control center."
"It's not far from here, say, seven minutes if no inter-ruption." Boss said. "Do we split up or stay together?"
"We should start heading for the cell block ASAP," Fi said. He wanted to free Niner or Darman, whoever was in there.
"Neg that, we don't want to rush in too fast," Vau said. "Doctor, you're with me. We'll grab Yayax too. Let's make some Imps puke their guts out."
"That's what I'm here for," she said seriously.
He looked at the Deltas. "You boys know the insides of this ship?"
They nodded. Vau said, "Boss, Scorch, you're with me too. Kal, take Fixer and your boys and head for the cell block, but stay low and don't engage until we start making 'em sick."
"What about security cameras?" Fixer asked. "I couldn't kill all of them without tripping alarms."
"That's what we're here for," said a Mandalorian with a lightsaber dangling from his belt.
"You look good, Bard'ika," Scorch said. "You can use your Force powers to scramble the cameras?"
"We both can." A large man appeared suddenly beside Jusik. He was dressed in a dark brown tunic and held a lightsaber in each hand. The darkness in his eyes and tattoo-marks on his face made him look angry and determined and not like any of the Jedi Scorch had ever seen.
"Did you determine the identity of the prisoners?" the Jedi fixed those dark eyes on Scorch.
"I tried. They say they've got a Jedi Master, a Ho'din."
"Master Plett."
"Also one of my vode, and a Jedi kid, and a woman. A dark-skinned woman."
The man nodded. "I know her."
"I'll come with you to the cell block." Jusik said. "You go with Vau and the Deltas, Master Hett. Take your commando team, too. We'll need you to secure the bridge once you poison the air."
Hett looked reluctant, but nodded. Scorch guessed he'd be pretty good in a fight.
"All right," Boss looked at the Fixer. "Stay safe. I want to be annoyed by you for fifty more years, understand?"
"I'll try, Sarge," Fixer smirked.
"Okay, enough chit-chat." Vau clapped his hands together. "Let's take this ship and go home."
There was no time to give Fixer the goodbye he deserved, or to play any sort of catch-up with Fi or Corr or the Nulls. Boss took the lead, with Scorch behind him, as they worked their way through a series of maintenance corridors. Scorch put Niner's buy'c back on his head and had it patched into the frequency Vau and the other Mandos were using. Boss's helmet was still untrustworthy, so he ditched it by the airlock and went bravely bare-faced. Vau followed with Lord Mird running all six legs to keep beside him. Rav Bralor's Yayax Squad formed a guard around Uthan, while Spar and the fierce-looking Jedi Master brought up the rear with his squadron of commandos from Syne's ship.
When you were boarding a hostile ship, lift tubes were a cage waiting to snare you, so they avoided them entirely. Boss led them to a tall shaft that cut up toward the command tower, and they climbed the rungs one-by-one. Lord Mird somehow managed to cling to Vau's back with all six claws, and the old Mando hauled his strill up without a groan of protest.
It was a long climb, and even Scorch's arms were getting sore when they crawled out into the new main-tenance corridor. At the far end of the passage was a cluster of tubes spreading out from a central pillar about four meters in diameter.
"Is that central climate control?" Uthan asked between deep breaths.
"That's right," Boss said. "You okay, Doc? Got your poison?"
The woman slid her pack off her back and pulled out a cannister as thick as her arm. "I can plug these in. They should start dispersing through the air in thirty seconds."
"How fast will it act?" asked Scorch.
"Only one way to find out," she said. "Let's go."
Boss, Scorch, Vau, and Mird took the lead. They stalked down the hall, rifles up, but both levels of the large chamber were empty. Yayax Squad spread out to cover all the exits while Uthan gave the machinery a quick look-over. She nodded to herself and found a node into which she placed the cannister. After that she pulled two more cannisters from her pack and attached them to the processor as well.
"Are we good?" Vau asked. "Is that it?"
"The virus is circulating through the ship's atmosphere now," Uthan nodded.
"And anybody who's received immunity to the F36 will be fine?" Rav Bralor asked.
"That's the plan. Like I said, I never got a chance to test any of this."
"What's F36?" Scorch asked.
"The virus I was going to use on you," Uthan said grimly. "Instead Palps used a mod of it to poison Gibadan. I developed a vaccine for it and tried to spread it around. Kal's people, Altis', they're all immune. I just hope it didn't spread too far, otherwise this will all be for nothing."
"Well, if this doesn't work we'll just have to do it the old-fashioned way," Spar said. "And what the hell, we can probably pull it off. A couple dozen clones, some aruetisse commandos, and oh yeah, a Jedi or two."
Before Hett could respond, the blast doors in the upper level of the chamber opened and swarm of white-armored clone soldiers burst out. The nearest Yayax man, Jind, caught a chest full of blasterfire and tumbled off the walkway. The chamber suddenly filled with plasma and smoke and everyone around the climate machinery scrambled for cover.
"Behind the core! Behind it!" Bralor shouted.
Scorch threw himself behind the machinery, right next to Uthan, who clutched her bag against her chest and kept her bare head low.
"Best place for cover," he told her.
"They blow this up, we'll all suffocate," Spar added.
Sure enough, the Imps didn't dare shoot at it, but they weren't shy about filling the rest of the chamber with blasterfire. Most of the group managed to take cover together, but Boss was pinned down behind a console and the Yayax sergeant, Cov, got stuck directly beneath the elevated platform from which the enemy fired. Jind lay flat on the ground, unmoving, almost certainly dead, and one of Syne's commandos took a shot to the back and fell.
"Did you call Kal?" Bralor asked Vau over their head-sets.
"I'll do it now."
Scorch looked to the Jedi. "Can you take them?"
Two green lightsaber blazed in either hand, but he looked at them like he wasn't sure how to use them. "Some of them. Not all."
"Well, there's going to be more coming soon. We need to move fast!"
"No!" Uthan interjected. "Someone has to guard the machine for at least fifteen more minutes. Otherwise the Imps can tear out the capsules before the virus spreads far enough."
A blaster nearly winged Scorch's helmet. "Well, we might be stuck here for at least fifteen minutes."
Suddenly more blasterfire filled the room. The hail falling on the lower level suddenly dissipated, and Scorch looked up to see lasers criss-crossing over their heads.
Before he understood, Hett leaped into motion. The Jedi was a big man but he seemed to fly effortlessly onto the top level. His two emerald blades whipped like fans around his head as he cut his way through a group of clone soldiers. Armor-cased heads and limbs, severed from smoking bodies, tumbled to the lower deck to join the corpses already there.
It was over as fast as it had started. Somebody above, a clone, shouted "Clear!" and Scorch popped out from behind his cover.
The only ones standing on the top platforms were the Jedi and five clone soldiers in black 501st armor.
"Hey!" Joc shouted down at them. "Thought you could use a hand!"
Scorch laughed. "We could use ten!"
"You got it," said Soru. Brant, Olin, and even Kol stood behind him, nodding.
"Friendlies?" Bralor asked him.
"Looks like," Scorch said. He didn't know how Soru had turned his whole squad and didn't really care. Even with the ship's crew coming down sick they'd still need all the manpower they could muster to fight their way to the bridge,
Uthan appeared, still clutching her bag against her chest, and pointed up at Joc and Sixers. "You five! Get down here! Now!"
"Think we oughta listen to the nice lady?" asked Olin.
"This ship is being pumped full of a modified quick-action rhinacyria virus. Unless you want to be puking in your helmets, come down here and get a vaccine."
"Just like a little prick, vode," Boss said as he came out from behind the console.
As Joc and the Sixers clambered down, Vau grabbed Bralor by the arm and said, "We still need to take the command deck. Can you stay here with your boys and guard the climate control system?"
She glanced at Jind's body. "You've got it."
"Good. Doc, you did great. Stick the new kids then plant your shebs here."
Uthan prepared her syringe. "Gladly. I'm not up for storming any command towers right now. Have fun, though."
"Trust me, I will."
"Did you call Skirata?" Scorch asked.
"I gave him the go." Vau scratched Mird's head as it rubbed against his leg. "Rescuing your last vod is up to him now. We've got to jack this ship before it reaches Bavinyar."
"Well, at least we've done the hard part," Soru said as he took off his helmet. Uthan was already sticking Joc. "Or was this the easy part?"
"Only one way to find out," Scorch glanced at Jind's body again. He was pretty sure the easy part was far, far away.
-{}-
Gilad Pellaeon was stuck in a timeless nothing, staring down at the dark face and gently closed eyes beneath him, when his comlink started buzzing yet again.
Without opening her eyes or taking her head off the bed's brittle pillow, Hallena said, "You should really get that."
Pellaeon fumbled for his uniform jacket. He pulled it over his shoulder and flicked the comlink on.
"This is the captain," he said, "Report."
"Gil, where have you been?" Vernedet squawked.
"Mynar, what's wrong? Have we reached the Bavinyar system?"
"Gil, we've been boarded! Someone's jamming our comms and we can't call for help!"
Hallena jerked upright. "Boarded?"
"Boarded by who?" Pellaeon held the comlink with one hand while he fumbled into his trousers and boots. "What's going on?"
"I can't tell, sir. Sir, there seems to be two groups. One group, I think we lost track of-"
"You what?"
"Sir, we think the other one's heading for the brig. I'm getting reports, but they sound impossible."
"What are they?"
"Some say Jedi, some say Mandalorians, some say five-oh-first troops. It makes no sense."
It didn't; nothing made sense. It might have if Pellaeon was on the bridge, looking over his men like he should have been, but he'd been lying in bed with a woman, a prisoner, a traitor to the Empire instead of doing watching out for the men under his command.
"I'm on my way," he flicked off the comlink.
Hallena, still seated on the bed, was throwing on her own jacket. Those big white eyes looked up at his in alarm and confusion. "Gil, what's happening? I heard Jedi, and Mandos."
"Friends of yours?"
She opened her mouth but didn't speak. She couldn't hide the sudden hope in her eyes. He grabbed her by the wrist and jerked her out of bed.
"Gil, what is it-"
"They're coming here," he said. "You're coming with me."
"Gil, wait-"
He didn't even know why. Maybe he was trying o protect her or maybe he couldn't bear to have her pulled from his life again, but either way he grabbed his pistol in one hand and with the other dragged her out into the corridor.
"This ship has been boarded!" He told the white-armored clones in the hallway. "Enemy troops are heading this way. You're to secure the remaining prisoner and evacuate the hall at once. Is that understood?"
The clones stared at him but didn't respond. Something in their postures seemed slack; the one with sergeant's stripes seemed to sway on his feet.
"Is that understood?" he repeated.
"Yes, sir!" the sergeant's head jerked up. His voice still sounded weak.
Blasterfire sounded toward one end of the hall. Two clones turned and moved sluggishly toward the noise; another leaned against the wall and seemed ready to collapse.
Pellaeon's whole world had been turned upside-down for the second or third time in a day. Instinct took over. He pulled Hallena down the hall, away from the laserfire, the interposed himself between her and the far end. Red bolts whipped down the corridor from behind them. Pellaeon pounded the controls to summon the lift as his other hand gripped Hallena's thin wrist like a vise.
"Gil, wait," she pleaded. "You can't do this. Those people-"
"They're taking my ship!" he snapped, and when the lift doors open he hurled Hallena through, and himself after her.
The doors hissed shut. He jammed the button for the command deck. The lift surged to motion and only then did he notice the black-armored stormtrooper standing across from him.
Vernedet's message rang in his head. He raised his service pistol in both hands but before he could shoot and trooper held up both hands in surrender.
"Stand down, Captain, please!" he said. "I'm here to protect you!"
Pellaeon didn't lower the gun. "What's going on? What's the five-oh-first doing?"
"I don't know, sir, but I swear that I'm loyal." The trooper slowly lowered his hands. "Lieutenant Vernedet sent me to protect you, sir. Please, call me Rede."
-{}-
Niner was lost in a void.
From the moment when he'd pulled the trigger on Darman, everything had become a timeless nothing. Rede had shot him, and sometime later he'd come to his senses on a bed in Valediction's brig, stripped of his armor and weapons, staring at a blank gray ceiling, wondering why he wasn't dead.
It would have been better that way; easier, certainly. It was what he deserved. He was the sergeant, and he'd failed Darman, and Darman had failed his brothers and gotten them killed. It was a long chain of tragedies and they'd all started with Niner, because he wasn't the sergeant he should have been, the one Kal'buir had trained him to be.
He should have hanged himself like Ko Sai, but his captors, in their wisdom, hadn't left him with anything to do it with. So instead he lay there, staring at the ceiling. After a while he stopped feeling anything, even regret.
When blasterfire started to ricochet down the corridor outside, he barely noticed. The sharp tang of lasers on plasma-resistant durasteel was familiar, though, and after one minute or five of hearing them he recognized them for what they were.
He still didn't sit up. That only happened when a pack of plastic explosives blew through the lock of his cell and swung the door open.
Smoke poured into the room. He stared at it from his bed but didn't stand. A figure stepped through the threshold, a Mandalorian in gray and dark red armor that almost reminded him of Ghez Hokan, the Sep mercenary the Omegas had been sent to kill on their first mission.
"Niner, it's you!" the Mando staggered forward.
Another man stumbled in behind him wearing black 501st armor. The one in gray and red dragged Niner up by the shoulders and wrapped armored arms around him.
"Oh, shab Niner, it's me, Fi."
He hadn't seen Fi in almost two years. For a second it felt like he'd exchanged one brother for another.
"We're so sorry about Darman," said another Mando in the doorway. Niner's eyes went to the stump of his right hand; Corr?
"What happened to Rede?" the commando in black said. From his voice, it was probably Fixer.
"I don't know." Niner muttered as Fi released him.
"We'll slot him for what he did to Darman, I guarantee it," Fi said. "Are you good to move, Ner'ika?"
"I... I think so." Niner blinked. He still felt like he was stuck in the void. Nothing was real. "Is Kal'buir..."
"Am I what, son?" A Mandalorian in gold armor appeared behind Corr.
"Oh, buir." Niner's legs went weak but Fi and Fixer braced him.
Skirata took off his helmet so Niner could see him face-to-face. His buir looked the same at first glance: the same weathered face, the same thin lips, the same high cheekbones. Then he saw the pain of loss in his eyes and the bittersweet joy of reunion. He knew he had more pain to give.
"I'm so glad you're okay, son." Skirata kissed his finger-tips and placed them on Niner's lips, stopping him from speaking. There was so much he needed and dreaded to say he felt like it would all spill out the moment Kal'buir too his hand away.
Then another Mando in gray armor appeared in the hallway. "We've checked the other cells. No signs of the Jedi Master."
"Shab. Thanks, Levet," Skirata took his hand away and said, "We're not just here for you, son. We've got to secure the other prisoners."
"I'm pretty sure we saw the woman get hauled up in the lift," Corr said. "Nobody else is on this cell block, though. No kid, no Ho'din."
"Where's Bard'ika?" asked Skirata. "See if his Jedi sonar's working."
"I'm right here, buir," a voice said, and another Mando appeared beside Levet. He wore gray and blue armor and he had a lightsaber dangling from his belt. He stared at Niner through his T-visor helmet for a moment before he said, "It's good to see you, ner vod."
Niner nodded dumbly. Seeing all of them like this, after so much time, after what he'd done, it was all too much.
"Can you feel anything, Bard'ika?" asked Fi.
"Something. I think... Buir, I think the woman who killed Atin is with Plett."
The room dropped into silence. Niner saw resolve harden on Skirata's face.
"Okay," he said, "Bard'ika, you're our guide. We're taking the Nulls and Tay'haai and going after her. Fi, take everyone else and head for the bridge. Vau's gonna need all the help he can get."
"It might be a hard fight to get there." Fi looked at Niner. "Are you up for it?"
"Fighting that Sith witch will be harder," Jusik said. "Buir are you sure you want to go after her?"
"Damn right I'm, sure. I owe her some pain." Skirata looked back to Niner and patted him on the shoulder. "Stay tough, Ner'ika. We've still got a star destroyer to secure."
Even after everything that had just happened it was too much to believe. "You're... stealing a star destroyer?"
Skirata gave a brittle smile. "You know us, always looking for a challenge. Don't worry about us. We'll be okay."
Niner had the sense his father didn't really believe that; he could see it on his face. But Kal Skirata put his gold buy'c back on his head, concealing his doubt behind the mask of a warrior.
Niner had no mask and no armor, but Fi handed him a spare Czerka pistol. It felt heavy in his hand. Against himself, he found he wanted to live. He didn't want to leave his brothers again.
-{}-
My 'Jedi sonar,' as they called it, was never that good, but it was enough to track down Master Plett and his torturer. I was still shocked that she'd survived being stabbed by Corr, but as I let myself slip into the Force I could sense her presence. After the fight that had killed Atin, I could never forget it.
We generally tried to avoid lifts, but the detention block was far away from any maintenance corridors so we decided to risk a ride up. The tube was just big enough for myself, Kal'buir, Wad'e Taay'haai and the three Nulls to squeeze inside. We hadn't encountered any more troops since we took the detention block and I was starting to hope that Uthan's virus was doing its job.
When we arrived on the right deck I could feel something we were close. I took point with my saber ignited in front of me. Kal'buir and the Nulls followed and Tay'haai covered our rear. We wound down three identical gray corridors before we found the room where they were holding Plett. Two troopers in black 501st armor were standing watch, but when we showed up they were slow to bring up their guns and fire. Stun blasts, unfortunately, don't get through that armor, so we had to go for kill shots. I stood up front and batted their shots back at them with my saber, but I was reluctant to charge in and slice up these poor clones who were only following the orders they'd been bred to obey.
Mereel wasn't that reticent; he dropped one with a well-placed shot to the neck. Ordo was a little gentler; he caught the other one in the hip and sent him falling. The clone curled up in pain and Jaing dashed forward to kick his blaster out of reach, not that he was in the position to go for it.
"Where is she?" Mereel asked me.
"I don't know. My sonar's not that good."
"But she's close."
I nodded.
"On the other side of that door?"
"I don't know." I felt a presence but I thought it was Plett; I didn't know for sure and I found myself hesitating. I was afraid to face that woman again, even if she was wounded.
"Cut it open, Bard'ika," Kal'buir commanded, and that decided me.
The door to the interrogation room was easy to cut through; it took just three broad arcs with my lightsaber. Lasterfire immediately poured through the gap. It sparked and pounded into my beskar and pushed me back; if I'd been wearing normal body armor it would have killed me. Ordo grabbed me by the arm and pulled me free while the others poured laserfire into the gap. I wanted to tell them to stop, lest they hit Plett, but I'd been pounded so hard in the chest I could barely breathe.
The enemy fire stopped almost as fast as it had started. Mereel and Jaing went through the gap first; I followed with Kal'buir and Ordo, who was still limping a little on his shot-up leg. On the floor were two more black 501st clones, smoking and dead. In the far corner, mercifully unhit, a white-haired Ho'din was strapped to an interrog-ation bed. A kiosk with a lot of nasty-looking medical equipment sat to one side, and when Mereel and Ordo pulled him free of his binds it was clear he was still pretty drugged.
They tried to sit him upright. His black eyes blinked and his lipless mouth struggled to form words.
"Where is she?" Kal'buir stalked up to him. "Where's that Sith witch? Where?"
"Witch... Darys..." the Ho'din moaned. "She's... just..."
Another lightsaber hissed to life. We spun toward the hall to see a dark woman with a red blade charging at Tay'haai. Ordo and I lurched for the threshold but by the time we got out into the hallway it was already too late. Darys sheared off the mouth of Tay'haai's rifle. He dropped it and reached for his bes'bev, the beskar flute with one pointy end. He tried to stab her with it but she caught his arm at the wrist and pulled it aside. Her other hand flicked up; red light spun up and neatly severed his head from his body.
Kal'buir screamed murder, and that got her attention.
Ordo was already coming up with his rifle. Darys spun to face us and batted Ordo's shots right at him. One caught him in the shoulder, throwing off his aim, and she charged. She swung at Ordo but he was lucky. His bad leg gave out and he fell, and her red blade only scraped across the top of his helmet.
I threw myself at her. I matched her blow-for-blow and forced her back toward the doorway. Her dark face was hard as stone but I could tell from her movements she was hurting from Corr's stab wound. Mereel and Jaing fired at her back but she dropped like her whole body'd gone limp, and I barely ducked before their shots took me instead.
Darys spun into the interrogation room. She whipped her red saber up and slashed it across Mereel's chest; sparks rained from his beskar and he fell against the wall. She caught Jaing's shot in her free hand and threw him with the Force into Kal'buir, knocking them both against the wall.
I was back on her. I tried to angle her into a corner, but even though she was wounded she still came on strong. I felt an invisible hand grip my throat hard and lost my concentration. Suddenly I was flying, and then my head and back snapped against a wall.
Darys fell on me, stilling swinging, but now I was the cornered one. One blow skimmed my shoulder-armor and cut into my collar-bone. I screamed in pain and she pulled back for another blow when a rush of Force energy found us both. Master Plett, still lying on his bed, hurled all those nasty torture tools right at her. Syringes and scissor-blades stabbed into her back; she howled and hurled Plett off his bed with the Force, but before she could do anything else I was on her again, pushing her back.
She was hurt but she was mad. Blue lightning sizzled from her fingertips and jolted across the gap between us. Electric pain seared my senses and I could barely block her next attack. I found myself falling back to the corner again, and in a moment I had my back to the wall while Darys seemed to loom above me, grinding her red blade into mine until sparkling blue and red were both just inches from my face.
Then Kal'buir appeared behind her, put his rifle-tip to the back of her head, and pulled the trigger.
She collapsed like a doll. Sparks of blue lightning sizzled across her corpse for a few seconds before dying. Her lightsaber fell dead to the floor and rolled next to the blown-open wreckage of her skull.
Despite the pain in my shoulder I took in the scene: Kal'buir with his chest heaving in exhaustion, Jaing and Mereel struggling to stand, Master Plett lying in the opposite corner without the ability or inclination to get up. Three dark corpses that would never rise again.
I staggered into the hallway. Ordo was braced against the wall. Taay'hai was still lying there. His head had rolled up against the wall and his body lay chest-down against the floor. I walked over to his bes'bev and picked it up.
Kal'buir stood by the door, staring at the corpse, staring at me.
"I'm sorry, buir," I said. He'd been through so much loss in the past few days I didn't know he could handle it at all. His fellow Cuy'val dar were almost as special to him as his boys.
He rasped, "I'm okay, son. I'm okay," but we both knew okay was a long time gone.
