Part 15 (1/2)

”How many of these things are in there?” she asked no one in particular.

Then the cannon was firing, driving all higher thoughts of the situation from her mind. She was a soldier. It was her job to fight, not to a.n.a.lyze. Dropping onto her belly, she picked up the sniper rifle again, test-fired it, and began peppering the enemy with rounds.

”How many of those things are in there?” Ula heard Jet say over the sound of blasterfire.

He craned his neck over the fallen beam and risked another look. Sure enough, another of the hexagonal droids had stepped into view.

”Are they in there, ” he asked, ”or just coming through there?”

”I'm not sure it makes sense if they have another way into the vault. I mean, if they could just turn around and go back, why aren't they doing that? Why are they fighting to get out past everyone else?”

Ula had wondered why they didn't just blow a new hole out, but he had soon found an answer to that. Their blue pulses knocked fist-sized chunks of stone from the wall, and plenty of them. They were lethal against flesh, too, but they lacked the punch to get through reinforced ferrocrete. The security air lock was the only route open to them.

It was also the only escape route open to him and Jet, but they had been cut off from it by the reinforced beam they now took shelter behind. Between them and the exit was ten meters of open s.p.a.ce, littered with broken gla.s.s, rubble, and the occasional body. One of them belonged to the young Sith girl, who had been the first targeted by the hexes, as Ula had come to abbreviate them. Jet's droid watched helplessly from the other side of the room, unable to get any closer to help his master.

”Watch Stryver, ” said Jet.

”Why?” Ula had seen enough of the Mandalorian in action for one lifetime.

”He's holding back, almost like he's testing them. ”

”Testing who?”

”The droids, of course. Why would he test s.h.i.+gar? They've fought twice already. ”

”Why test the hexes?”

”I don't know. Curiosity, perhaps? Maybe the Mandalore is looking for a new species of pit fighters. Nice name, by the way: hexes. ”

They watched as Yeama and Larin positioned a laser cannon for optimal coverage. Larin's face was hidden by her helmet, but Ula was glad to see that she was still on her feet.

”Maybe that's what Stryver has been after the whole time, ” Jet said. ”After all, it was him who talked about droids before. What was that woman's name? The droid maker?”

”Lema Xandret. ”

”Whoever she was, he knew of her, and you said he was asking questions about her all over the place. What if that thing in the Cinzia had something to do with her work? What if the hexes are here now to steal it back?”

”What if they were on the s.h.i.+p the whole time?”

”That can't be the case. The thing you saw was too small, judging by your description. No, they must've gotten in somehow. Maybe someone let them in. ”

Ula was watching s.h.i.+gar, who had developed a new tactic against the hexes. When one of them fired up at Stryver, he hurried in low, under the blue-firing limbs. In close, they were more vulnerable, and he managed to get a couple of good stabs to the body of one of them. It was listing badly to one side, and two of its limbs no longer worked at all.

”That Sith girl is still alive, ” said Jet, nudging him with an elbow.

Ula glanced across the battlefield and found to his surprise that this was true. She was rising sluggishly to her hands and knees, shaking her head with a furious expression. Her hair danced like liquid flames. She looked to Ula as though she had been woken from a powerfully unhappy dream.

”They make them tough on Korriban, ” said Jet with grim admiration.

The girl was on her feet now. The moment her lightsaber activated, the hexes noticed her. Fourteen streams of energy pulses converged and Ula had time enough to feel sorry for her before she vanished into a glowing sphere of light.

With a boom the laser cannon fired, spearing the eight-legged hex through the midriff. It flailed on its back, screaming piercingly. The two remaining hexes directed their pulses at the cannon's s.h.i.+eld, turning it bright red.

Ula was staring at the Sith girl. Amazingly, she hadn't died in the concentrated attack. Even more amazingly, she was still standing, and looking angrier than ever.

”Whose authority do you recognize?” she shouted, lurching headlong into the battle. ”Whose authority do you recognize?”

The pitch of her fury was so high that part of Ula actually felt sorry for the hexes as she landed among them and started swinging.

CHAPTER 17.

Ax dreamed of a world much larger than normal, where everything seemed strange and mutable and full of threat. She was p.r.o.ne to getting confused, even though she tried very hard to keep up. When she made a mistake people shouted at her, giant people with terrifying voices. It hurt her to be yelled at. She covered her ears with her hands and tried to run. The voices followed her everywhere, shrieking her name. Cinzia!

Cinzia!

She woke with a start in the middle of a firefight, and couldn't for a moment remember who or where she was. Every cell of her body hurt. Someone was screaming. Not her. It was the screaming that had woken her. Only on awakening did it become clear that the voice wasn't coming from a human throat.

She remembered.

Hutta.

The vault.

Lema Xandret.

Her muscles burned as she willed them into action. Raising her head was like lifting a mountain of pain. She felt a scream of her own boiling inside her, a scream of rage and despair and fear. Containing it hurt her, but at the same time it gave her strength. She needed every ounce of strength she could muster to survive the next few seconds.

Out of everyone in the security air lock, the six-legged droid-things had targeted her first of all.

We do not recognize your authority!

She, however, recognized their defiance. It was the same offered by the crew of the Cinzia when they had been confronted by the smuggler. But whose authority did they recognize? There had to be something-or someone-behind their murderous natures.

Ax raised herself to her knees, and from there, with a supreme effort of will, to her feet. The world swayed around her, but the scream was intact, and growing. The dark side swelled inside her.

The creatures from the vault saw her, and instantly turned their blue pulses onto her.

She set the scream free.

A Force barrier surrounded her, bare millimeters from her skin. It s.h.i.+mmered and flickered as wave after wave of energy crashed against it, but it held. It held as long as she screamed, as long as she didn't want to die.

The attack ceased, and she staggered back a step, breathing heavily. Her lungs were full of hot smoke and ozone. Her head rang with sound. One of the things attacking her had been blown back by some kind of weapon. The details eluded her. The important thing was that the droids were distracted. This was her chance to find out how tough they really were.

”Whose authority do you recognize?” she shouted, launching herself at the nearest. Its hand weapons were concentrated on the s.h.i.+eld of a laser cannon and didn't turn in time. ”Whose authority do you recognize?”

The droid-thing didn't answer.