Rhen Var

Jay's boots thumped hard as she trudged down the ramp, already covered in an ankle-deep carpet of snow. She hissed as the frigid air hit her skin and pulled another heavy overcoat over her body. It did nothing to keep out the biting cold, forcing her to huddle down like a turtle in its shell, hug herself tight, and rub her arms for warmth. It still didn't help.

"Damn," she muttered, her breath coming out in visible puffs on the air. "It's cold."

"It is an ice planet," her partner pointed out. His voice was almost lost on the roaring wind. Her partner was a few meters ahead of her, scanning the horizon with a pair of high-power macrobinoculars.

Jay had never visited a global cryosphere before, much preferring the relative warmth of planets like Corellia or even Mandalore during the summer. Now that she was here, caught up in Rhen Var's blizzards, she was starting to think she'd been right to avoid them.

There was really nothing all that special to see on Rhen Var. Mostly, there was snow; endless white fields of snow, stretching off as far as the eye could see until they rose into the distant, craggy mountains on the horizon. The sky above was a twisted, mottled gray-white of clouds that only barely allowed the rays of the system's sun to peek through. And always, always, there was the wind. Endless blustering gales that tugged at Jay's hair and clothes and had her blinking away frozen tears as the air seemed to freeze in her lungs.

If Vhetin was so disturbed by the dreadful weather, he didn't show it. That may have been due to his Mandalorian training or his heavy-duty environment suit. Before disembarking, he had changed out of his usual black-gray beskar armor for the first time since she'd met him; after all, black against the infinite white snowfields of Rhen Var was definitely a bad idea.

The Mandalorian was currently dressed in a bulky white sub-zero combat suit, a prototype set of armor courtesy of Ume'o at MandalMotors. It featured a white Mandalorian helmet with a built-in macrobinocular set, HUD software upgrades for picking out targets among the blinding white of the surrounding ice fields, a life-support backpack for extreme low temperatures, heavy-protection gloves, and a bulkier flak vest to preserve warmth. The set was accentuated by a thick fur collar that wrapped tight around his neck, effectively sealing off one of the few points where cold could seep into the suit.

His reason for the upgraded kit was simple: his armor had heating and cooling units to keep the wearer at a preset temperature, could seal against the vacuum of space, and protect the wearer from all manner of environmental hazards, but only for a short time. The temp regulators weren't powerful enough to keep out the biting cold, wind, and damp snow of Rhen Var for extended periods. He'd explained that even the SZC suit would be hard-pressed to keep his body temperature above hypothermic levels.

But if Vhetin had it bad, Jay's situation was even worse. Lacking the training or the physical strength to wear such a high-tech suit, she had been forced to bundle up in more than three layers of clothing as well as a heavy fur-lined jacket and a full-face cloth mask with cumbersome frost protection goggles, just to keep herself warm. It kept the cold out, but she was so encumbered by jackets, scarfs, and other clothes that she felt she could do little more than waddle through the snowdrifts toward her partner.

Nar Shadda, the Coruscant underworld, and now here, she thought bitterly, shivering harder still. Why can't we ever track down bounties on nice planets like Naboo or Vaynai?

Tal Wam, their Duros intruder-turned-accomplice, came scampering down the ship's ramp, bundled up in bulky jackets, gloves, and hats just like Jay. He stumbled a little in the snow, then rubbed his hands together and surveyed the surroundings with his deep red eyes. He then scrunched up his masked face and grimaced.

"Cold," he muttered. "Very, very cold. Cold, very very."

Vhetin ignored the alien's ramblings and grunted, "Where is Pollamo's base?"

Wam gestured to the southwest. All Jay saw in that direction was an endless, frozen wasteland. It didn't look like much at all. Vhetin must have seen the same because he pushed the mounted macrobinoculars up the forehead of his helmet and turned to Wam with a cocked head.

"You're sure?"

Tal Wam nodded emphatically. "Yep yep. That where they are," he said. "There they are where."

Jay glanced at Wam in confusion, then shook her head and said to Vhetin, "You think he's telling the truth?"

"He could be," the Mandalorian said, pulling down the binoculars and scanning again. "Rhen Var's surface is dotted with ancient Jedi ruins and abandoned Separatist strongholds from the Clone Wars. There's no shortage of places to hide here."

"So if his hideout is in that direction," Jay ventured, "What's the plan? Are we going to sneak in to the base or attack head-on?"

"Both plans carry considerable risk," he replied. "They're going to be dug in like a nexu in its den. And they'll probably have private security forces crawling all over the place."

"We're still waiting on Tarron's info update," Jay added. "Right?"

He nodded. "Right. So for now, we're going to hunker down here and keep quiet. If we're going to be staying for longer than a day, we'd also do well to disguise Void."

Jay surveyed the northern horizon, where a mass of dark clouds was gathering. "I think that snowstorm will do all the work for us. The planetary storm-warning system says to expect up to fifteen feet of snow. I checked as we set down."

"Then let's get back inside and see if we can't get Tarron on comms," Vhetin said, turning back to his ship. "If not, we can at least get out of this cold."

"Tarron, this is Vhetin, come in."

Vhetin, still bundled up in his white fur-lined armor, held the comlink in his hand and hit the transmitter button again. Only static greeted him. He leaned over the table in Void's central mess hall and tried again.

"Tarron Matele," he repeated, "come in. This is Cin Vhetin. Respond."

"-eah," came the response, almost drowned out in white noise. "I'm... -arely getting... -ou. Where the... -ell are you?"

Vhetin hit a button on a nearby wall panel and said, "Boost signal power. Clearance code Alpha-Thirty-Seven."

There was an acknowledgment tone and the panel glowed green. Even though he couldn't see it, he knew a satellite dish was currently sliding from its housing on the outside of the ship and moving to triangulate Tarron's comm signal. After a moment, the interference cleared a bit and Tarron's half-scrambled voice said, "Oh. That's better."

"We're on Rhen Var right now," Vhetin said, cutting right to the chase, "but we're blind here. What have you dug up on Pollamo and his brother?"

"Well," Tarron said, "I've got good news and bad news."

"Let's have the good news first," Jay said, entering the room and pulling off the last layer of overcoat. She set her armful of coats and scarves on the mess hall table and settled into a seat next to Vhetin. "For once, I'd like something in my life to have a positive spin."

"The good news is that Pollamo is exactly the spineless worm you thought he was. He shouldn't be too hard to bring in."

"Yep yep," Tal Wam said cheerfully. "Yep yep."

Vhetin glanced over at the Duros in annoyance, his helmeted gaze clearly warning the alien to quiet down. "And what's the bad news?"

"His brother is deeply connected with the Empire," Tarron reported. "As in 'has a personal division of stormtroopers guarding his outpost at all times' connected to the Empire."

"Shab. I knew-"

"Before you panic," Tarron interrupted, "there's a good spin to that as well. The Imperial he has connections with happens to be frowned upon by most of the Imperial fleet. Does the name Natasi Daala ring a bell with either of you?"

"Not really," Jay said, leaning forward and resting her chin on her hand. "No."

"Natasi Daala," Vhetin murmured. "It does sound vaguely familiar..."

"She hired Pollamo and Kokr to infiltrate Bloody Dawn in an attempt to dig up dirt about Sekha and gather enough evidence for an arrest and execution. She's apparently done some work bringing down crime lords before."

"So why is she so dangerous?" Jay asked, frowning.

"Oh, the usual: ruthless attitude, zero-tolerance for failure of any kind. She's merciless, pitiless, and ambitious. And while most of the Empire frowns on her rather colorful assortment of employees ― mercenaries, pirates, et cetera ― she's well on her way to being the first Moff-ette."

"What do you mean?" Jay frowned thoughtfully and moved closer to the table.

"I mean that she has connections with one Wilhuff Tarkin," Tarron replied. "A nasty old-timer with a bad attitude towards anti-Imps. If you pull this one off, it'll take Daala some time to find another contact to infiltrate Sekha's territory on Coruscant. You might want to drop that little bombshell by her when you see her next. See how big a bonus she gives you."

Vhetin couldn't miss the sarcasm in Tarron's tone; Tarron had never liked the fact that Vhetin had worked with Sekha. There was an old feud between the crime lord and the Journeyman Protector that Vhetin had yet to learn about. But old quarrels aside, Tarron had a very good point.

"Does Sekha know?"

"My guess is no. If she did, she would have come up with a better way to deal with Pollamo than sending bounty hunters. Sekha dreams big, and would probably have sent you after Daala herself otherwise."

Jay pulled a face. "No thanks. I know her type and I have no intention of tangling with her kind any time soon."

"Hmm..." Vhetin sat back in his seat, rubbing absently at the palm of one hand. "Thanks for the update, Tarron. We'll contact you again if we need you."

"No problem," the Journeyman Protector said, then signed off his side of the comm. "I'll be on standby. Matele out."

The comm unit powered down and Vhetin turned to Tal Wam. He pulled a set of stun cuffs from his belt and said, "You're going to show us where their base is. We're going to recon the place, then we might – might – think about letting you go free. If not, we'll secure you to a rock out there and let you freeze to death."

"Yep yep," Wam said, his voice tinged with fear as Vhetin shook the stun cuffs intimidatingly. "I show you. Show you I. No worries."

Jay raised an eyebrow as Vhetin put the stun cuffs back on his belt. "What, exactly, is the plan for bringing Pollamo in alive? If he has Imperials supporting him, he's not going to come quietly."

Vhetin sighed. "I don't have a plan right yet. First we need to recon the area and see exactly what we're up against."

"Stormtroopers?" she asked.

"From what Tarron said, it's a good bet. But he was mum as to how many there were. So that's first thing we need to find out."

He glanced at her. "You okay with all of this?"

She rubbed at the tabletop with the pad of her thumb, pointedly avoiding his helmeted gaze. "I've, ah… I've never fought stormtroopers before. Pirates are one thing, but…"

He paused for a moment. "If you'd prefer to stay on the ship—"

"No," she quickly interrupted, standing from her seat with a sigh as she gathered up her cold-weather gear once more. "You'll need my help out there. Imperial stormtroopers aren't the bumbling idiots the holovids would have you believe."

"And you're sure you can fight if pressed? To kill if pressed?"

She felt her gut squirm. So far she'd managed to avoid killing anyone; even during the fight in the Brimstone tapcaf back on Coruscant, she'd aimed to injure and not kill. She doubted Pollamo and his brother would give her that opportunity.

"This is what I've been training for," she said. "Like you've said before, this is just a job. If they stand in the way — if they force my hand — then I'll react accordingly. I may not like it, but…"

She took a short breath and her face settled into a determined frown. "It's what has to happen."

He stared at her for a moment longer, then put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. The motion was awkward, as if he was unused to showing such signs of affection, but there was no mistaking the sincerity behind it.

"You'll be okay," he said. "You've got all the training you need to see this through."

She smiled a little. "Thanks, Vhetin."

"Viinir iviin'yc," he suddenly said in Mando'a. "Bal tracyn serim."

She cocked her head. "What does that mean?"

"Run fast," he said. "And shoot straight. It's as close as we come to saying good luck."

Without another word he pushed Wam out of the room towards the ship's cages. Jay stared after him for a moment, a small smile on her chill-chapped lips, then followed him into the ship's central corridor.

"So how do we get to this hidden base? You saw what it's like outside: just miles of snow in all directions. I hope you're not planning to walk."

"That's exactly what I'm planning to do. Checking against the coordinates Tal Wam gave us, I apparently set Void down about four kilometers from Pollamo's base. Any closer, and we're in range of their sensors. We'll have to hike the rest of the way."

"Hike? In weather that cold?"

"Unfortunately yes. So don't forget your gloves, because on Rhen Var unprotected skin gets frostbitten in thirty seconds flat."

"Kark it, it's cold out here," Jay muttered for what seemed like the hundredth time. She rubbed her gloved hands together as she waded through knee-deep snow. The wind cut like a freshly-sharpened knife, sending tiny shards of airborne ice into her face. She had long ago been forced to pull down her heavy goggles just to see.

The temperature seemed to be dropping by the minute, despite Vhetin's claims that it was holding steady at around 60 below. She was wearing something close to four layers of overcoat as well as two pairs of gloves and an extra pair of snow pants, but the cold still dug through her and chilled her right down to the bone.

Of course, the bloody wind wasn't helping either.

"Br-r-r-r," Tal Wam agreed as he hugged himself, hopping through the trenches that Vhetin and Jay were creating in the deep snowbanks. "Br-r-r-r."

"Cheer up," Vhetin said ahead of them. "We're almost there."

Jay sighed and pulled her heavy cloth facemask more securely over her face. Her voice was muffled by both mask and wind as she called, "That's what you said half an hour ago!"

She expected him to shoot back some dry retort or to snap at Tal Wam for making too much noise. But he suddenly froze stiff — and not because of the cold. He pulled his blaster rifle from a sling across back and raised a fist, a military hand signal motioning them to stop.

Jay mirrored his position, halting in place with eyes wide and a hand on the butt of her pistol. "What is it?"

He stared at the horizon for a moment more, then tensed and hissed, "Get down. Both of you!"

Jay didn't think, didn't care about the cold or the deep snow at her feet. She just sunk to her knees in the snow until her head was hidden from view. She felt Tal Wam dive down behind her, covering himself almost completely beneath the carpet of white at their feet. Vhetin knelt ahead of them and leveled his rifle. His weapon was trained, unwavering, on a dark spot on the horizon, slowly drawing closer.

"Drone," he growled. "Over the hill up ahead."

Jay risked peeking across Vhetin's shoulder and saw in the distance a hovering mess of probe arms and antennas. Even at this distance she could hear the warble of its repulsors and the chatter of incoming and outgoing transmissions. Its spindly legs flexed and darted about as it floated along, its rotund head shifting and swiveling to take in its surroundings as it went.

An Imperial probe.

"So Pollamo and Kokr are hooked up with the Empire," she murmured, more to herself than anyone else.

Vhetin nodded. "Let's see just how well. We can't destroy the probe without sending up an alarm, but..."

He flipped a switch on his rifle and sighted up on the probe. When he pulled the trigger, his rifle emitted a loud sizzling pop and a blue-white ball of lightning flashed towards the probe. The droid collapsed upon the bolt's impact, and Vhetin murmured, "Got him."

Jay frowned at his gun and whispered, "What the hell kind of weapon is that?"

"A Mark-Four Shriekhawk," he said, stowing his blaster in its sling over his shoulder again. "It's a convertible blaster-ion bolt assault weapon for use against organics and droids. Prototype stuff from MandalMotors."

"Clever."

"I use only the cleverest," he replied. "Now let's move before someone notices the bot is offline."

"No no!" Wam suddenly exclaimed. "No no! I not going. Going not I! I stay here!"

Vhetin rounded on the alien, no doubt ready and willing to give him a smack for his defiance. But Jay beat him to it.

"I stay here!"

"No you're not," she snapped, spinning and grabbing his arm before the alien could run for it. He wailed and tugged against her. "You're going to follow us and help us get inside the base. We went over this!"

"No no!" Wam cried. "Kokr kill me!"

"Then get this straight." She yanked her her pistol from her hip and jabbed it hard under Wam's leathery blue chin. "If you run now, I'll kill you myself. Your corpse will freeze over here and no one will ever know where to even begin looking for you."

Tal Wam's scarlet eyes widened in terror.

"But," Jay continued, "if you help us, you'll have us on your side. Pollamo and Kokr won't be a problem for you anymore, and you'll be free to go wherever you want without them looking over your shoulder."

Still, the lanky Duros resisted. He yanked hard against Jay's firm grip and cried, "No no!"

She snatched him by his throat and dragged him closer, until they were almost nose-to-nose. "Even if you manage to run, where are you going to go? There's kilometers of snowdrifts in every direction. It's almost nighttime, when the temperature drops fifty degrees from where it is now, not to mention the snowstorm that's still bearing down on us. You'll freeze before you get halfway back to the ship if you don't get lost. And that's if you're lucky."

She wasn't lying. They had long ago passed the point of no return. They had to keep moving forward now or risk freezing to death themselves. Wam's resistance only succeeded in eating up precious time.

"So," she finished with one final glower at the alien, "are you with us? Or would you still like to head out on your own?"

The Duros glanced between his hands, seeming to weigh the possibilities in his mind. He looked over his shoulder at the endless ice fields surrounding them; Void could no longer be seen even as a dot in the distance. After a few long seconds, he gulped audibly and in a tiny, trembling voice said, "I show you way into base."

"Good," Jay said, and shoved him in front of her. "Glad that's settled."

Wam began to wade ahead of them, muttering to himself. Vhetin watched the spindly alien go, hands folded over his belt buckle. Then he looked to his partner and nodded with silent approval.

Jay blushed, her face thankfully hidden behind her warming face mask, and nodded back. As Vhetin moved to follow Wam through the snow banks, she allowed herself the smallest of grins. She was getting good at this. A few more missions, and she'd be just as badass as Vhetin!

But intimidation is easy, she quickly told herself. It's nothing but looking brave to someone else. Actually being brave in action is another thing.

That was certainly easy to believe. For all her bluster, she was just as terrified as Tal Wam. She didn't want to experience the fight they would all soon face. If anything she wanted to march right back to Void and curl up under the covers with a cup of cocoa and her datapad.

But she didn't have that option any more. None of them did. Quite literally, their only hope for survival lay ahead with Pollamo, Kokr, and however many stormtroopers stood between them.

I don't want to kill them, she found herself thinking again. But this isn't about what I want. It's about survival. About who walks away from this fight. And it's not going to be them.

She found herself thinking back to one of her earliest lessons with her partner.

"You have to do whatever it takes to win," he had told her. "To survive. There are no ethics in battle, just win or lose. Kill or be killed."

She had no intention of being killed today. And if that meant she had to deal death herself, then so be it. She would ruminate over it more later if necessary, but right now they needed to get to Pollamo's base, capture him and his brother, and cut down anyone who stood in their way.

It's not pretty, she thought with a grimace, but it beats the alternative: freezing to death out here, forgotten and alone…

Vhetin and Wam were almost to the bottom of the ridge already. Jay quickly moved to follow them, holstering her weapon again and resigning herself to think no more on the matter. The time for indecision, after all, was long past.

By the time she caught up with the others, Vhetin was lying on his stomach and staring beyond the ridge with his helmet's macrobinoculars pulled down over his helmet's T-visor. She heard him mutter, "Oh, shab," as she approached.

"What've we got?"

"It looks like Tarron wasn't even close with his report," he replied. "The Empire is more invested in this operation than we thought."

Jay settled onto her stomach next to him and chanced a peek over the ridge. Just beyond, in a small depression in the ground that long ago could have been a sinkhole, lay a well-camouflaged collection of bleached-white buildings that reflected the sunlight with an intensity that hurt her eyes. It almost looked like your run-of-the-mill smuggler's outpost: she saw a barracks, an armory, a comm relay, and a large storage depot. An assortment of people were hurrying around the center courtyard, some of them carrying weapons, most of them tapping away at datapads or hauling crates filled with Force-knew-what. All were heavily bundled up against the cold.

"Kriff," she murmured, heart sinking at the sight. "That's quite an operation."

A full platoon of stormtroopers in sub-zero equipment were marching across the snowy courtyard with fully charged E-11 battle rifles. There were manned turrets in place on the roofs of every building she could see, and patrolling the perimeter was an angular, predatory-looking IFT-T tank that kicked up a cloud of airborne snow with its repulsors as it passed..

Jay had seen those tanks in action on at least five different occasions during her navy days and knew they were not to be trifled with. Its dorsal beam laser could melt through a meter of plastoid in the blink of an eye, and the tank itself packed two powerful blaster cannons and missile launchers.

The entire area looked better-guarded than a Hutt's treasure trove. But apart from the obvious contraband smuggling going on, she didn't see anything that warranted such tremendous protection. Then something caught her eye.

"Wait a minute," she said, frowning in confusion. "I know that building."

Vhetin glanced over at her. "What do you mean?"

She motioned to what she had thought was a comm relay building; a large structure with a huge, five-meter-wide dish mounted on top. The relay dish rotated slowly, picking up signals from all directions.

"That's a signal receiver," she explained, "and it's probably hooked up with even bigger satellites in orbit around the planet. The Empire uses them in the military to eavesdrop on any kind of comm signal passing through the sector. With that kind of tech, plus a little encryption decoding software, you could spy on every open comlink for a couple parsecs."

When he just stared at her, she added, "We're beneath the cover of their listening field, though, so your earlier transmission to Tarron probably won't have showed up on their scanners. It would look like an outgoing transmission from this base."

He nodded and turned back to the outpost, visibly relaxing. "So it's a listening post. Taking out that receiver would stall Imperial advancement in this sector for months, as well as cost the Empire hundreds of thousands of credits. It's certainly worth destroying."

Jay nodded, feeling a slight shudder of satisfaction at the potential for screwing up the Empire's plans so badly. It would be a good way to begin her revenge against the people who had branded her a traitor. Eavesdropping on innocent civilians was wrong, no matter who did the eavesdropping.

"So how exactly are we going to pull this off?"

"Not a clue," he replied slowly, surveying the outpost. "But... I think I'm beginning to see the first shreds of a plan."

"Mind sharing?"

He pushed the macrobinoculars up his helmet and pointed to the outpost, to the relay building in particular. "My HUD's scanners are showing that Pollamo and Kokr are both here and situated in your comm receiver building over there. But they're likely to make a run for it once they see us coming. Fortunately, our Duros friend wasn't able to sneak back to tell them how close we are, so they aren't expecting us yet."

"Okay, I follow. But how are we going to get in there? There's an army of stormtroopers standing between us and the bounty."

He stared at the outpost for a time before saying, "I'm going to have to take out the tank first; it's too big a threat. But with a little effort, I may be able to use it to our advantage."

She frowned at him. "You do remember Pollamo's wanted alive, right?"

"Yeah. And I won't shoot at anything with a proboscis, just in case. But the numbers are against us and that tank will do a good job of evening the odds."

Jay watched the tank begin its rounds around the perimeter again, the downdraft of its engines kicking up great clouds of snow and ice. The dorsal laser cannon swiveled back and forth as the trooper sitting in the turret barked orders to a passing patrol squad.

"And where do you want me in all of this madness?"

"This isn't going to be like the facility on Corulag," he said. "We can't get pinned down in a firefight. With the Imperials and the weather bearing down on us…" He ducked back down behind the ridge and faced Jay. "So I'm going to create a distraction with that tank and hopefully scare most of them away."

"And how exactly are you going to hijack a tank?"

"If these guys follow Imperial protocol, there'll be a shift change before long. The guards will be on break for five minutes, the tank will be refueled, and I'll have a perfect window. I want you to take Tal Wam and sneak into that outpost. Try to pass off as one of Pollamo's tech employees."

"Done." With everyone bundled up in cold-weather gear, infiltrating would be surprisingly easy.

Her partner fished in a pack on his belt for a moment, then handed her a collapsible stun prod, currently switched off. He pressed a button on the side and the prod telescoped to its full foot-long length.

"I want you to take this," he said, testing it quickly. He pressed it against the ground and a shower of sparks flew from the tip. "When I start my distraction, I want you to lure Pollamo and Kokr to the storage facility — that reinforced building with no windows that we saw earlier. Remember?"

"Yeah," she replied, remembering the large, low-roofed storage facility.

"Good. Make it look like you're leading them to safety. When you and Tal Wam have them alone, knock them both over the head with this sucker set to full charge. I'll blow up that listening device and signal you over your comlink when I'm ready for backup. When you get my signal, leave Wam with the bounties and come and help me deal with the troopers."

"Can we trust Wam to guard our targets?"

"Yes." He glared at the Duros, who shivered in response. "We can. There's just one major problem facing us: I can't move fast enough with this bulky environment suit. I'll have to ditch it to have a full range of movement."

"But-" The temperature was steadily dropping as night and the snowstorm drew closer. If Vhetin fought without the SZC suit…

He stared back at the outpost. "My normal armor's heating systems will keep me functional for maybe five minutes. After that I'll have to get indoors or risk severe hypothermia and frostbite. So we'll have to get this done quickly or you'll be fighting alone."

She sighed, trying to ease the tension of the moment. "Leaving the lady to do all your dirty work? That doesn't seem fair."

"I'm not joking. If I don't get inside after my heating systems fail, I'll lose consciousness after two minutes, and my arms and legs will be frostbitten another minute after that. I'm going to be depending on you, Jay."

She nodded. "I won't let you down, Stripes."

He nodded, barely even noticing her casual use of his nickname. He turned to Tal Wam next.

"You," he said, "are going to go with Jay and guard Pollamo and Kokr while they're unconscious."

"Yes sir," the Duros muttered, his voice muffled through his bulky cloth facemask. "Yes sir. Sir, yes."

"And can I count on you not to run?"

"Yep yep."

"And not to try and wake those two up after we've stunned them?"

"Yep yep. I hate Pollamo and Kokr. I nothing but bad nerf-slime to them. Kokr and Pollamo I hate. Bad nerf-slime is all I a-"

"Save it. Just make sure you keep them safe and unconscious. If you fail, you'll have us to answer to. Got it?"

Wam gulped. "Yep yep."

Vhetin pushed the macrobinoculars up and began unzipping the bulky suit that fit over his armor plating. The heavy cloth collar came next, discarded in the snow. She saw him begin shivering almost instantly; for him, the clock was already ticking.

"All right," he said quietly. "Let's make this work."