The next time the Mandalorians came with a frigate and two corvettes. Davek had been prepared for worse and when the time was right he ordered the plan into motion. Voidwalker broke from its hiding place and began to run. The fast frigate and faster corvettes surged ahead to catch it, along with two squadrons of Beskad fighters. Voidwalker cut across space toward a chunk of rock the size of a planetoid and dipped close for its airless surface, like it planned the curve around the stone's ecliptic and use it as a shield.
The Mandalorians split their forces. The frigate continued after Voidwalker while the swift corvettes cut around the other side of the planetoid to head off the enemy and snare it from either side. Thirty Imperial snubfighters were waiting for the corvettes, a mix of Demolishers and TIE-Xs. As the Beskads raced to help against the interceptors, Voidwalker and the pursing frigate were left to battle each other on the other side of the planetoid.
When they were in position, Davek called, "Helm, drop speed! Turn us around ninety degrees. Guns, get a broadside solution and fire the second they're in range."
He'd explained the core of the plan to the bridge crew already and they reacted with eagerness and efficiency. The view from the bridge panned away from the planetoid until only nebular gases could be seen. Davek watched the tactical holo: the Mandalorian frigate was still careering right toward them at full speed. Voidwalker was battered but its shields would hold, even against a fierce headlong rush from a Mando frigate. The Mandos knew that too, and when Voidwalker began unleashing volleys of turbolaser fire the frigate slowed and shunted power to its forward defenses to withstand the onslaught.
Davek hunched over Ensign Korak's shoulder and asked, "Are the Stalkers in position?"
"They've settled in right behind the frigate," Korak reported. "No sign they've been spotted. The enemy should be in-range of their jamming field."
"Have them fire it up now." He shifted to Por Dun. "How are their shields looking, Ensign?"
The Kel Dor glanced at her console. "They've dropped their rear guard, sir."
Amazingly, things were still going according to plan. "Signal the Razors. All boarding parties are clear to launch."
-{}-
Voidwalker's two assault shuttles, together packed with nearly eighty stormtroopers from Razor Company and a half-dozen engineers, had been hiding in the planetoid's sinkholes since the Mando ships had dropped out of hyperspace ten hours ago. Ten hours in the dark, waiting for something to happen, should have lulled Lukas to sleep, but he'd been too anxious for that, and now that the time to act had come, so did the adrenaline-rush.
Finally, after all this, they were going to be what they were meant to be: stormtroopers. And they'd do or die, succeed or fail, with the fate of all Voidwalker on their backs.
The pilot gave them a heads-up the second before he fired the engines. Lukas and the rest were jostled in their seats, white armor knocking white armor as the shuttle surged out of the sinkhole and soared away from the planetoid toward the Mandalorian frigate. Through the porthole windows in the shuttle's main cabin he could just barely make out the flare of exchanged turbolaser volleys. The plan was to force the Mando ship to lower its aft shields, then use the two TIE Stalkers to jam its sensors so it wouldn't spot the assault shuttles leaping toward it. If the Mandos did see them and raise the shields then Razor Company- and the battle- would be over in an instant.
Still, Lukas thought, better to die like this than like Mynar.
The pilot gave them another warning that they were about to decelerate. The inertia was even more violent than the launch, and darkness clouded Lukas' vision inside his helmet. Then there was the hard kick of impact and the scream of durasteel against durasteel as the shuttle scraped against the frigate's hull. They were through the shields. Now they had to cut through.
Razor Company had been split into two shuttles. The first shuttle, with Major Sligh aboard, was going to get the easy part first and the hard part second. For the second shuttle, Lukas' shuttle, it was supposed to be hard first and then relatively easy, as long as all went to plan. Sligh's shuttle was going to grapple onto the airlock located halfway down the ship, above its hangar bay and behind most of its manned becks. After they blew the airlock they'd reach the hard part: taking the deck and holding it against all the Mandalorians that would try to repulse them.
Lukas and the others aboard the second shuttle had attached to the aft section of the frigate and were now trying to burn through the thick armor around the ventral cargo hold. Once they breached the hull, they'd ascend upward into the engine section, protective Engineering Chief Daharr and his crew from whatever Mandos stood between them and the hyperdrive power coupler they'd come to steal.
Lukas had reviewed the interior plans for a Teroch-class frigate over and over again, just like everyone else in the company. He'd memorized the route to take. As he listened to the sound of the shuttle's laser saw tearing a hole through the hull he did what the rest of the stormies did: unlatched his crash webbing, checked his kit, and prepared to run.
The engineering team was also on its feet. They'd slapped on black plasteel plates over their torsos and strapped on helmets, though Chief Daharr's sat awkwardly on his long Yaga head. The three-legged, spindle-bodied, insectoid engineering chief managed to look forbiddingly alien even compared to Captain Lorn and the Twi'lek pilot Lukas had helped fix up. Lukas was carrying a pack of medical tools in addition to his standard combat kit, and this time he'd read up on Yagai physiology, just in case. Daharr was the most important being on this insane mission and everyone knew it.
"Hull is breached!" the shuttle pilot called back. "Stand by to board!"
"A Squad, B Squad, at front!" called Sergeant Malkin. "C Squad and D Squad, at rear.!"
There was a great shudder as directional charges blew part of the frigate's hull inward. The shuttle's portal slid open and air rushed out of the cabin into the cargo hold. Then everyone was on the move.
They'd been promised that the cargo hold would be empty and undefended and they were right. The high chamber was cold and unlit but the night-vision in their helmets took care of that. A Squad and B Squad went first up the utility ladders leading deeper into the ship. C Squad and D Squads shepherded the engineers over to the base of the ladders while the men above cleared the nearest decks. They heard bursts of laserfire for nearly a minute before a sergeant called clear from above.
"C Squad, up first!" order Malkin. "Engies, stay with them!"
Lukas and the other troopers clambered up the ladders next. He was afraid the engineers might slow them down but they went up fast, and Daharr went fastest of all. When they reached the next corridor Lukas gave the scene a quick scan. A Squad and B Squad were laying down barricades to block all hallways leading from the fore of the ship, where they expected attacks to come from.
Lukas tapped on his helmet headset and asked Malkin, "Any word from the first shuttle?"
"They've boarded and are engaging hostiles," the sergeant said. "Worry about your job, Briggs."
"We need to go that way," Daharr waved a spindly arm down a corridor.
"Right," nodded Malkin. "C Squad, D Squad, we're with him. A and B Squads, hold position and wait for my signal.
The stormtroopers went first, scampering down the corridor with rifles ready, and engineers clustered at the rear. The first set of doors they hit wouldn't open, which wasn't a surprise. Putting blast doors on lockdown was the first thing you did if you had boarders. Lukas stayed back with the engies and watched as Leila Marsh and another C Squadder, Coll Reith from his gait, placed a couple charges on the door.
"Fire in the hole!" Reith called as he and Leila rushed back. There was nothing to cover behind so they just braced themselves as the directional charges went off, blowing the doors into the aft hallway. Lukas was one of the first ones through the smoking debris; he switched his helmet to IR vision but still didn't see any Mandos coming to stop them. He couldn't believe all of them were in the forward section of the ship; resistance would be coming and soon.
"Keep going straight!" called Daharr. "We should have at least two more doors to blow through before we hit the engine section!"
"I hope we brought enough charges," Reith grumbled as he fumbled another one of his kit.
He and Leila laid down a few more explosives and fell back again. The doors blew again, sending smoke and ash swirling through the confined stretch of the hallway. This time Lukas's IR scope lit up with moving lights, and he had just enough time to duck low before laserfire began to pour through the gap toward them.
"Down down down!" Malkin shouted as he bodily pulled the engineers to the deck and threw himself in front of them.
The hallway lit up with laserfire gushing in both directions. There wasn't anything to cover behind for the stormies or the Mandos, but the Mandos had the critical advantage of beskar armor that could deflect small arms fire. A stormie's white plates could only take a couple shots at most. As he lay on his belly and awkwardly pumped out shots- he counted five Mandos ahead, maybe six- he watched two C Squadders take hits and drop. The Mandos seemed to be surging forward, empowered by their armor even if the numbers were against them.
As a third stormie fell, riddled with blaster shots, Malkin called, "Reith! Flechete, now!"
Reith, who'd been on his knees, immediately reared up and grabbed a flechete grenade from his belt. Even as he hurled it directly at the Mandos, a volley of laser blasts caught him in the chest and threw him off his feet. As his body clattered onto the back of a huddled engineer his grenade went off, right in the midst of the Mandos.
Using a normal, non-directional grenade charge when fighting inside a spaceship was a good way to blow up yourself, the ship, or both. Flechetes were subtler and fast nastier: when they burst they scattered hundreds of sharp metal shards and bullet-like velocity. They wouldn't blow a hole in a bulkhead but they could shred an unarmored man to ribbons in the blink of an eye. Unless you threw them right they were as likely to cut up you as your enemy, but in his dying breath Reith had thrown it right.
Stray flechetes pounded on Lukas's armor like hard ran but non got through. He dared look up and saw all the Mandos had fallen, dead or injured. He and Leila were the first ones to spring up to the fallen enemy. There were six of them and they didn't waste time with mercy. Leila put her rifle between the armor plates of one sprawled Mando and shot him through the back. She moved onto another one while Lukas pumped two blasts into the vulnerable side of a soldier who looked like he'd already had his guts torn up.
One of the stormies who was coming to join them shouted a warning. Lukas barely spotted the prone Mando with the knife before he stabbed for Lukas's leg. He shifted to the long jagged blade scraped against his white armor legpiece; he could feel the hum of vibroblade as it tried to shear through the armor entirely and take off his leg.
Lukas shifted, aimed, and fired three shots into the Mando's neck. He dropped the gun and was still.
"Clear here!" Leila shouted as she put a blast into the last Mandalorian.
"Stang it!" Lukas breathed. "How many did we lose?"
"Four dead, three injured," reported Malkin. "We'll leave them back with A and B Squads. The rest of us have to keep going."
Seven causalities again six Mandos, and without the flechete grenade it would have been a lot worse. Stormies bragged about being the best of the best but there was always that nagging doubt how they'd fare against other infamous units, and the Mandalorians were usually at the top of the list.
Though the Mando had let it go, the jagged vibroblade was still stuck in Lukas's leg plate. He reached down and tugged it out. Leila, who was already collecting a heavy pistol from one of the dead, said, "They leave nice souvenirs, don't they?"
"You bet." Lukas stuck the knife in his belt.
"Enough chat!" Malkin called. "C Squad, advance!"
Steeling himself for more fighting to come, Lukas pressed onward.
-{}-
The battle plan had entailed splitting the fight in half, with Voidwalker battling the Mando frigate until Razor Company crippled it from the inside, while the fighters tangled with the Beskads and corvettes on the other side of the planetoid. The two TIE Stalkers hanging behind the Mando frigate should have jammed its comm signals so it couldn't call for help.
That had only worked for less than minutes. Maybe a call had slipped through of maybe the Mandos had realized something must be wrong; either way, two flights of Beskads had been the first to break from the fray and cross around the planetoid to see why the frigate was holding position where it was.
Marasiah had tasked Walkers Nine and Thirteen to give chase. Her remaining eight ships still had enough to deal with, and she was hoping the Breakers would bust open at least one corvette before the battle rejoined around Voidwalker. The TIEs were still outnumbered by Beskads and they'd lost three ships already. As she pulled a wide curve outside the corvette closer to the planetoid she tapped her comlink and called up Lieutenant Vull.
"Breaker One, sitrep."
"Readying another run. Inside corvette."
She scanned space and spotted the glint of five bombers diving in formation. "Understood. We'll cover. After this get ready to break and fall back to Voidwalker."
"Understood."
A flight of Beskads were already dropping behind the bombers. Marasiah and her wingmen cut fast across space to intercept and she told her pilots, "Open fire the second we're in range. I'll take the leader. Otherwise, targets of opportunity."
The three pilots clicked affirmation. The Beskads got in-range of their targets before the TIEs and unleashed torpedoes of their own. One Demolisher was overwhelmed and exploded before Walkers Three and Four caught a Beskad in a hail of shared laserfire and destroyed it. The remaining Demolishers unleashed double-volleys of torpedoes and broke formation. The Beskads broke too in pursuit.
"I'm on the leader!" Marasiah called. "Take the rest of them!"
As the torps exploded brilliantly on the corvette's shields the fighters became a tangle of weaving thrust-trails and lancing laser-bolts. The lead Beskad had fallen behind Lieutenant Vull's ship and she fell behind it. The Demolisher was the biggest and slowest ship on the chase and it wouldn't last long against the Beskad.
In the chaos a feeling came to Marasiah, a knowing. That Beskad pilot was eager for the kill. He was prepping a torp and gunning his engine.
"Breaker One!" she called. "Hit hard starboard and slow! Now!"
Vull obeyed without questioning. The maneuver took the Mandalorian pilot by surprise and as he struggled to decelerate and turn, Marasiah's laser blasts found him. They sheared off the nimble fighter's bottom S-foil and sent it spinning helpless toward the planetoid.
"Nice call, Walker Lead!" Vull said.
Maybe the Force was good for something after all. "Not a problem. I-"
A right explosion flashed off her starboard side. She spun a tight circle in time to see the first corvette snap in half under a withering barrage of torpedoes. The second corvette, along with its Beskads, was already breaking away and accelerating for the other side of the planetoid, where the real battle was happening.
Marasiah hailed all fighters. "Walkers, Breakers, back to Voidwalker."
She'd no sooner killed the connection than her cockpit started to spin around her. A Beskad had come out of nowhere, pounding her port shields so hard they nearly broke. She wrestled her ship under control but the fighter was still behind her.
She tapped the connection back on. "This Lead! Walkers, I need help!"
"Got it!" someone said.
She didn't see the explosion, but he scanners reported the Beskad on her tail was destroyed. A TIE-X settled along her port flank and Rakash'mor asked, "What's your status, Lead?"
"Battered but stable, Walker Seven." She couldn't help but smile inside her helmet. "Thanks for the help."
"Just returning a favor. Any news from the other side?"
"Not yet. Let's see how they're doing." She kicked her engines in and began to curve around the planetoid. Rakash'mor matched her, turn for turn.
-{}-
The burning wreckage of a TIE-X rushed spinning past the bridge, and a Davek fought as scowl as he watched its killers- two Beskads- peel out of its wake and look around for more targets.
"More fighters coming around the planetoid, sir," Ensign Korak reported.
"Any of ours with them?"
"Yes… Yes, sir. The CAG just hailed. She says they're on their way, one corvette down."
That would help a little, Davek thought. The fight on the other side had turned into a stalemate, with each frigate pounding the other from a wide distance where most of their turbolaser blasts were of dissipating strength. The arrival of the corvette, Beskads, and TIEs was going to change the equation.
"Stang," Korak breathed. "Sir, we just lost a Stalker."
"Should we call the other in?" asked Por Dun.
Davek hesitated. The unarmed stealth ships' best defense was that they were hard to spot. Their main use was that they could jam emergency hails sent by the frigate. If was still possible the enemy might drop more ships into the area, or worse, that they'd call their allies and tell them their hyperdrive coupler was being stolen.
Davek had already decided not to let that happen. The frigate would have to be destroyed and part of Razor Company's orders was to set charged around the power core and detonate them once they'd safety withdrawn.
"Keep the Stalker where it is, but detach to fighters to protect it," Davek said. "Have the Breakers keep on hitting the corvette. If we can knock that out the odds'll be back down to even."
"Yes, sir," breathed Korak.
The plan was holding now, best he could tell, but the downside of the Stalker's jamming field was that Voidwalker had no way to communicate with the stormtroopers currently fighting for their lives inside the ship. If he had to, he could lower the jamming field and hail them, but not yet. He didn't want to risk it. Daharr and Sligh had given them a time window of twenty minutes to reach the generator, shut it down, and remove the power coupling. It had been twenty-five, but he didn't want to give up yet.
He stalked over to the viewport just in time to see his faith rewarded. Hanging off Voidwalker's starboard side, the fearsome Mandalorian frigate's internal lights began to wink out. Its guns went silent and it hung there, dead in space.
Some of the crew cheered or clapped and even Davek felt himself buoyed by the first victory. He turned to the pit. "Helm, bring us closer to that corvette. Let's put it out of its misery."
-{}-
For a second the entire engineering chamber was plunged into blackness. Then the red emergency lights from the backup generator kicked in to reveal it all: strewn wreckage from the blown-open doors, the decks and walls of the octagonal chamber splattered with laser shots and blood, the six engineers and ten standing stormies, the bodies of three dead Mandalorians and the four ones in white.
Chief Daharr had already pulled open the access panel in the back of the chamber. He and his engineers were prying away the surrounding bulkhead to get better access to the power coupler that connected the hyperdrive module to the now-dormant main generator.
As they worked Malkin got on the comm with the other stormtrooper units, and when he was done he said, "The forward group's taken heavy causalities. Some Mandos have broken through and are trying to get back here."
"You think they know what we're up to?" asked Lukas.
"They can probably guess," breathed Leila.
"What about A and B Squads?" asked D Squad's sergeant, Numa Mezra.
"They've moved the wounded back to the shuttle. Not sure how they'll hold out when the shooting starts."
Lukas looked anxiously back at the engineers. Daharr had said that the process of changing one hyperdrive coupler to another was a careful one because they had to make sure power was fully drained from the connecting portions of the ship before removing it. Re-attaching it would require a full shut-down of Voidwalker's systems but that was for later. Lukas just hoped the shut-down on this ship had slowed down the Mandalorians a little.
"When do we plant the charges?" asked someone from D Squad.
"If you want to put them close to the core you'll have to wait until we've removed the coupler," Daharr said. "After that, it should be easy."
"How much longer?" Sergeant Mazra asked, edgy and impatient.
"Give us a few more minutes."
The stormtroopers kept their mouths shut while the engineers worked. Lukas tried to listen for sounds of battle down the hall but there was nothing yet. He figured he'd know very quickly when it came.
The few minutes seems to drag into hours before Daharr announced, "We have the coupling. It's in perfect condition."
"Good work," Malkin said. "We fall back. D Squad leads the way. Engies behind them once it's clear. C Squad, let's plant some bombs and follow them out."
Lukas and the others moved quickly. While Daharr and two engineers strapped the meter-long power coupling to the back of C Squad's heaviest trooper, two more engies directed them on where to best plant the directional charges and grenades that would most damage the frigate's power core.
"This gonna work if the core's offline?" asked Lukas.
"It'll work, but it'll be an even bigger boom if this thing's on," one engie said. "They'll have to turn it on manually from here, though."
"Won't they be able to disarm the bombs then?" asked Leila.
"Only the ones they see. Here, we'll put up the paneling, cover 'em tight like we never tore 'em off. They might miss 'em that way."
"Might?"
"Better than nothing."
"Ready back there?" Malkin called from the front of the chamber. D Squad had already gone forward and Lukas could hear the tang of laserfire.
"Good to move here," Daharr reported. "Bomb squad?"
"Give us a second," Leila grunted as she and an engineer slammed the panel back in place.
"What's going on up front?" asked Lukas.
"A and B Squads are taking heavy fire," Malkin grunted. "D Squad'll try to cover us. Let's go, boys and girls!"
As they charged up the corridor the sound of laserfire became clearer. Through the smoke filling the long corridor Lukas spotted a flash of light and heard a thundering explosion right after that: flechete grenade.
"Go now!" Malkin called. "Go go go!"
The stormtroopers tried to surge ahead after after knocking the enemy back with the flechete explosion. For a precious ten seconds the laserfire filling the hall only went one direction, away from Lukas and the others. Then the Mandos started returning fire again.
Malkin ducked for cover and escaped a blast but the soldier right in front of Lukas did. Both were knocked back into the bulkhead as the troopers behind them tried to press forward. Lukas saw one engineer take a shot to the head and fall. Then the stormtrooper with the power coupling strapped to his back took a hit in the stomach and keeled over.
"Package is down!" Lukas tried to shout, breathless as he was.
"I've got it!" Leila said as she ducked low and tried to pull the sling off the wounded man's torso. She swung it onto her own back and grunted under the weight.
"Kark!" she panted, "I didn't think this was so heavy!"
"Wait!" Lukas pushed away from the wall. "Let me take it!"
Chief Daharr stood up from his crouch position at the same time and moved to help. That was when a side door, locked and forgotten until now, slipped open and a trio of Mandalorians were suddenly on top of them. Leila ducked, barely missing a laser-blast that took the man behind her instead. At this range Lukas was able to pop off a shot that nailed the foremost Mando in the neck and dropped him. The second one slammed the butt of his rifle into Daharr's head and the third shot the engineering chief in the rear leg.
The Yaga let out an inhuman wail as he collapsed. The Mando stomped on a second leg, cracking it, but before he could raise his rifle Lukas had thrown himself forward, knife in an underhand grip. The blade sunk into the Mando's side, tearing through the fabric of his jumpsuit and scraping his ribcage without going through. His rifle went off in Lukas's side. In the second before the pain hit he pulled the knife out, got his arm clear, brought it up again, and speared the Mando through the neck. Blood splattered all over his white helmet, blinding him. Then the agony came and they collapsed together.
Between the pain and the chaos and the voices all shouting at once over his headset Lukas didn't know what was happening. He rolled onto his good side, wiped the blood off his visor, and looked down at this wound. It had been a winging shot, the kind his armor would have protected him from at anything but point-blank range. As it was, he didn't think the blast had burned too deep but when he tried to twist his abdomen hot fire burned his body.
Panting, lying on the ground, he tried to take stock. The action seemed to have moved away. He heard a voice, Leila's, saying that she had the package and was falling back to the shuttle.
They'd done it, then. Lukas didn't feel relieved or victorious, not lying here on this broken ship, surrounded by dead Mandos. If the bombs didn't work the Mandos would find him and he'd die slow instead of fast.
He saw an arm, halfway raised up from the deck, twitching. He crawled toward it, even as his body hurt. Chief Daharr, of course. Lukas laid an arm flat on his skinny alien body and said, "Chief, status?"
The alien retched and wheezed, "Two legs. Broken. Can't walk..."
Lukas' mind reeled through its daze. He didn't know if the engineering crew needed Daharr to install that machinery. Maybe they did. Maybe without this crippled Yaga the coupler was meaningless. Or maybe not, Lukas was just a stormie and how was he to know?
All he knew was that he didn't want to die here, and he didn't want to watch somebody else die in front of him again, alien or not. He clawed his way up to Daharr and rasped, "Just hold still, Chief. I'll fix you up, I promise."
"You… trooper…."
"Medic too, actually." He heard the sound of laserfire up ahead. The fight in the corridors wasn't done yet. Getting two wounded beings through a firefight was going to be near-impossible. Lukas groped across the deck until he found that jagged, bloodstained Mandalorian knife and said, "Just hold on, Chief. I'll get us out of here. I swear it."
-{}-
The second Mandalorian corvette burst into a fireball as Voidwalker pulled away. The frigate itself was still dead in space but the Beskad fighters were swarming,
As Marasiah and her wingmen watched the corvette burn, Lieutenant Vull said in her ear, "Voidwalker's calling us back to the barn. Can't do much good now except give targets to the Mandos."
"Understood, Breaker One. Get safe. Thanks for the help."
"Likewise, Walker One."
Vull shut off his link and Marasiah could see the remaining TIE Demolishers vectoring toward the frigate's hangar. Vull was right: the only thing they could do now was get blown up one-by-one by the more agile Beskads, but now that they were off the board the Mando fighters would be able to concentrate their fire on Marasiah's remaining TIE-Xs.
"Some Mandos making a last run on the Breakers," Rakash'mor reported.
"I see it, Walker Seven. Can you intercept?"
"Copy, bringing my wing."
She checked her scanners until she spotted two TIE-Xs diving in on the Beskads attacking the bombers. Voidwalker was turning its guns on the fighter now, trying to keep them away with sprays of green plasma, but the Beskads were, as ever, nimble and small targets. They managed to knock out one more Demolisher before Rakash'mor and his wingman forced them to break formation.
Marasiah felt a spike of dread right before three more Beskads fell in from above. Rakashmor's wingman vanished in a burst of flame and the Twi'lek's shields barely withstood the first rain of lasers.
"Seven, break right!" Marasiah called. "Two, Three, Four, open fire!"
The pilots behind her unleashed their laser volleys and tried to catch the diving Beskads. The Mandalorian ships scattered and the space around Voidwalker became a dense tangle of battling fighters. Marasiah was chasing one Beskar beneath Voidwalker's bow when she saw one green light on her scanner wink out: Loman in Walker Three. That distraction was enough for her to lose sight of her target. She punched away, clear of the fighting, then slowed and spun her fighter nose-over-tail to get a quick visual on the brawl around the frigate.
She saw another fighter flare, a Beskad. Then a voice called, "This is Seven. I've got two on me."
"On my way, Seven," she told him.
"Great timing as ever, Boss," Rakash'mor grunted. "This mean I'll owe you again?"
"Seems that way." She caught the first Beskad before it knew she was attacking. The fighter's port S-foil broke away and it peeled back, crippled. She kept after the remaining one and tried to sense the pilot's thoughts as he chased Rakash'mor. She felt a predator's mind, bloodlessly focused on the target dead ahead, a mind that barely noticed her as it tracked every slip and juke Rakash'mor put his TIE through and tried to match it.
"Seven, break starboard!" she called.
Rakash'mor did just that, and she immediately tapped her trigger and sent lasers lancing toward the spot where she knew the Beskad would be. They flew through open space and kept going. The Beskad was peeling away from Rakash'mor, hard to port. It has just unleashed a torpedo that was coming fast on its target.
"Seven, you're marked!" she snapped. "Fast ahead! I can take the torp!"
"Boss, don't-"
Before he could finish, before she could do anything, Rakash'mor's fighter exploded into a molten fireball. Marasiah watched the flaming debris tumble through space, unspooling to a trail of black wreckage, leaving no ejection beacon behind, no life at all.
-{}-
One wounded stormtrooper, himself hauling a second wounded being over his shoulder, should never have been able to march down a narrow hallway filled with Mandalorians on the far end. They should have been gunned down in two seconds; if they didn't then Lukas should have collapsed within ten seconds from the burning agony in his side.
None of that happened. Before he rose he'd found a single flechete grenade still attached to the belt of a fallen D Squad trooper and armed it. The Mandalorians were still far down the hall, gathered at the top of the ladders leading down into the cargo bay, firing shots at the stormtroopers below. They weren't even looking at him but someone might see him rise to throw the grenade, then gun him down like Reith back when this fight started.
Instead Lukas stayed crouched, made sure he had a clear shot, and rolled the grenade down the hall. It shot smooth across the deck and the first Mando saw it right before it went off at his feet.
Then came the hard part. Lukas had already swung Daharr over his shoulder- the shoulder of his good side- and had discovered that, mercifully, adult Yagai weighed less than half of a human of the same volume. That didn't stop the pain from burning up through his torso and spreading like fire to his limbs. He screamed inside his helmet, his vision burned red, but he marched for the ladders. He steadied Daharr against him with one hand and raised his blaster rifle in the other. He fired indiscriminately into the smoke surrounding the exit, not knowing or caring what he was hitting. He lurched halfway to his destination before the Mandos found it in them to return fire.
The laser blasts came fast and fierce. They stabbed him in the chest and lanced him in the legs. They hit Daharr's body too, legs and hips and torso. The Lukas they felt like panging rocks and nothing more. The beskar plates he'd cut off the bodies of the dead Mandos around him deflected them off his body and Daharr's.
Still, there was pain. By the time he got to the top of the ladders his whole vision had turned red and he could barely stand. He threw himself and Daharr both for the hole of the shaft and fell.
Whether beskar absorbed inertial impact, he didn't know, but slamming into the deck hurt even more. He screamed so loud they must have heard him through his helmet. He rolled onto his back, breathless from the pain, trying not to black out, helpless as someone wrenched his bloodstained helmet off his face.
Sergeant Malkin was staring at him in shock. "Stang it! You're not dead!"
Lukas couldn't even speak for the pain but someone else said, "He's got the chief too! He's alive!"
"Then load them both onto the shuttle so we can get the hell out of here." Malkin slapped Lukas's cheek to keep him from passing out. "You're just in time, Briggs. One minute late and we'd have left without you."
-{}-
The end of the battle came with a flare shot out from the hull of the shuttle attached to the Mandalorian frigate's cargo section. It sailed straight and smooth toward the planetoid before fizzling out: a green-white light.
"That's the signal!" Lieutenant Renwar reported. "They've got it!"
Relieved breaths and muted cheers rippled across the bridge but Davek over-shouted them all. "Tactical, tell the Stalker to kill the jamming and head back to the barn. Hail those shuttles the moment the field's down. Get a sitrep. Helm, bring us around to their starboard side. Get ready to receive the shuttles."
Voidwalker pushed ahead, closer toward the darkened frigate. Davek watched its bulk, adrenaline still racing through his body, and allowed himself to believe that this just might work.
Then the lights on the frigate began to wink on.
"Sir, they've got the power back," Renwar said.
"I've noticed. Tactical?"
"The shuttle's ready to punch out," Por Dun reported. "They've got the package and are requesting fighters to cover their retreat."
"Do it. What about the bomb?"
"In place, best they know. But sir, Major Sligh reports he's got about a dozen men pinned down inside the Mando frigate. The rest have pulled back to the first shuttle. He's requesting to send a team for one more withdrawal attempt."
Davek bit back a swear. That frigate was powering up and would be ready to shoot in under a minute. Every second wasted gave the Mandos more time to find and disarm the bombs attached to the reactor. If they succeeded then it would be down to another slugfest, and even if the Mandos didn't summon reinforcements it was a fight that would surely damage Voidwalker if not destroy it outright. Then this whole mission would be meaningless.
There it was yet again: the same damned awful choice, the choice a captain had to make.
He thought of those dozen stormtroopers, men with friends and families and pasts and would-be futures trapped in some dark hallway, pinned down by Mandalorians, doing everything they could to stay alive just like every other being on Voidwalker had been fighting desperately to survive every day since Karfeddion.
"Ensign," he said, mouth dry, "Tell Major Sligh to fall back to the shuttle. Take off as soon as he can."
Por Dun understood. Gravely she said, "Yes, sir. Right away."
-{}-
Less than ten seconds after the shuttle detached from the Mando frigate's hull it came under fire. As he lay in the back cabin next to Daharr, Lukas heard the pilot say, "That ship's got power back online! Guns are hot!"
"Does that meant they found the bombs?" someone asked.
Then the entire shuttle shook so hard Lukas thought they were going to blow. The pilot snarled, "Hold on! Port engines out! Starboard's ready to blow!"
"What about shields?" he heard Sergeant Malkin growl.
"Hold on-" the pilot said, and the shuttle lurched once more. The stormies who'd remained upright until then were knocked the to the ground, and Leila came down on her elbows and knees hard next to Lukas.
"Stang it," she panted and looked at him, "You had to cut it close, didn't you?"
"I had to… to..."
"Be a hero, I know. Well, you were."
"Just… doing..."
Before he could rasp out job he heard the pilot said, "Engines dead. Using directional thrusters."
"Can you get us to the ship?"
"Inertia'll carry us home. If we don't get hit again we can just walk the void until their tractors grab us."
There was something else, a chain of muffled voices. Then Malkin barged into the cabin, asking, "Where's the detonator? Tell me you've got the detonator!"
"Right here!" Someone held up a dark cylinder.
"Punch it!"
For a second nothing happened, and Lukas thought the Mandos must have dismantled the bombs. Then something buffeted the shuttle and he heard Malkin cry, "That did it!"
Lukas wished he could have seen something, even a little flare, but it hurt too much to sit upright. Leila brushed his sweat-damp forehead and said, "You hear that, hero? Frigate's dead. We won."
"Score one for Razor Company," Lukas wheezed and put a hand on the engineering chief's torso. "With a little help."
"No. You're not Razors and I'm not some karking engie." Daharr rolled out a thin arm and placed it on Lukas. "We're all Voidwalkers now."
-{}-
The end of battle meant there was still so much work to do. Once all fighters were recalled, Voidwalker spent the next several hours making its way to yet another hiding place, this one in a large planetoid far from their previous battles. Once they nestled in the bottom of a miles-deep trench they could take stock of everything: battle damage, casualties, and most important of all, the work needed to be done before they installed the new hyperdrive power coupling.
Chief Daharr was in no position to do it himself, stuck as he was in a bed in sick bay along with over a dozen stormtroopers with wounds of varying severity. When Davek went down to see him the chief seemed clear-headed despite the pain in his legs. He insisted his engineering team would be able to handle most of the installation, though he wanted to run final checks himself. Installing the coupler would require shutting down the main power generator completely, which they wouldn't be ready to do until the post-battle clean-up was complete.
As he walked through the halls Davek looked into the faces of the crew and they looked back at his, and for the first time none of them flinched. They all looked weary and he could tell some were counting the dead in their heads. Nonetheless, there was energy to their steps and bravery in their eyes. Everything was different now. The Voidwalkers finally possessed something they hadn't had since Karfeddion: Hope.
Davek should have felt hopeful too; more than anything he felt tired. Once all the rest of his business was taken care of, he left the bridge to Lieutenant Renwar and retreated to his quarters. As he neared the cabin he remembered there was one important person he hadn't talked to since the end of the battle. Somehow he'd known he'd find her right where she was, back against the door to his room, waiting for him.
Her head was bent low, hair hiding her face, but when he stepped in front of her she shook it away and looked up at him. Without a word he punched his code into the door panel and the threshold opened.
"How many did we lose aboard the frigate?" she asked after they'd stepped inside.
"Thirty-eight dead from Razor Company. Plus three engineers. Half the boarding party." He wanted to say something about the twelve he'd left, but instead asked, "What about the air wing?"
"We lost eight pilots. That leaves us with twenty-one TIEs total." She blinked. "I'm sorry. Twenty-two, counting the remaining Stalker."
"You're tired. We can do this another time."
"I can do it now."
They stood awkwardly in the middle of the room hands at their sides, looking at their boots. When the silence got too loud he said, "You did well. All of them did well."
"When this mission started we had sixty-two fighters between Voidwalker and Shieldbreaker. We've lost almost two thirds of us, Captain. Two thirds."
"I know. The air group's had the worst attrition because we've had to depend on you so much. I wish it were otherwise, but-"
"At first," she said, still looking down, "I didn't feel it. Gold Squad only lost a few pilots. I was glad for that. I couldn't show it, but I was. But now..." She took a breath. "We lost him. The pilot I dove into the nebula to save. The one the Force guided me to."
He squeezed her shoulders with both hands. "I'm sorry."
"Why?" She snapped, angry instead of comforted. "What was the damned point? What did the damned Force want me to do? One day it saved his life, then it took it away? Why? Why is doing this to me? I didn't even want it! Why won't it leave me alone?"
She was shouting so hard it left her breathless. She pitched forward, head against his sternum, and without thinking he let his arms wrap across her shaking back and pull her tighter. With her face pressed into his chest she screamed and wordless scream muffled by the his uniform. She screamed once, breathed, then again. She screamed out all the frustration and despair and anger bottled up over a month of walking the void and when she was done she sagged weakly against him. He didn't loosen his embrace but she picked her head back a little and said, "Captain… I'm sorry… I should not have-"
"Please," he whispered. "Don't call me that. Not now."
"Of course, I'm sorry..." She only hesitated a moment. "Davek."
It was the first time in two months he'd heard his first name on another's lips. He'd convinced himself he'd never hear it again. It was enough to make him faint. His legs went weak and he collapsed on the bed, taking Marasiah with him. They landed arms against the sheets, faces still close. He felt her breath on his face and he ran one hand down her back, touching shoulder-blade and spine, sensing the texture of skin and muscle beneath, soft but firm, all of it richer than anything he'd ever felt before. For a month it had been only desperation and duty, hard bulkheads and cold recycled air, a living death spent waiting for the final one.
"I left them to die, Marasiah," he said, because he was looking in those dark eyes and he'd never been able to lie to them before and couldn't now. "A dozen stormtroopers. Stuck in the frigate when it powered up again. I couldn't wait. I couldn't give them time to disarm the bomb-"
Her hand ran against his face and cupped his cheek, so soft. "You're a captain now."
"I didn't want to be a captain," he whispered.
"You're our captain." Her hand shifted and the ran a finger-tip feather-soft along the scar across his forehead.
He realized the full meaning of those words and flinched. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have-"
But she slid an arm tight around him and pulled herself closer. Marasiah nestled her face beneath his and said, "Please. I need this too. I want to stay like this. For a while."
He squeezed her tighter without a word. He didn't move or do anything except watch the crown of her head or feel his arm raise and fall with her breathing. It all drained away soundlessly, everything that had been building inside him this long awful month. There was still so much to do- they were still so far from home and surrounded by enemies- but those didn't matter now. They didn't even seem real. All he could believe in now was the woman beside him. She was the promise of life after so long in a trackless void.
He wished this moment would last forever. That it couldn't was his only sorrow; everything else was perfect.
END PART III