Part 1 (1/2)
Star Wars.
Republic Commando.
True Colors.
by Karen Traviss.
PROLOGUE.
Mygeeto, Outer Rim, the vaults of the Dressian Kiolsh Merchant Bank, 470 days after the Battle of Geonosis We re running out of time.
We're running out of time, all of us.
”Sarge...” Scorch looks at the security locks on the strong-room hatch with the appraising eye of an expert at breaking the unbreakable. That's how I trained him: he's the best. ”Sarge, we got what we came for. Why are we robbing a bank?”
”You're not robbing it. I'm robbing it. You're just opening a door.” This is about justice. And relieving Separatists of their wealth stops them from spending it on armaments, after all. ”And I'm a civilian now.”
It doesn't feel like it. Delta are still my squad. I won't go as far as Kal Skirata and call them my boys, but... boys they are.
Scorch is about twelve years old. He's also twenty-four, measured in how far along that path to death he actually is, which is the only definition I care about. He's running out of time faster than me. The Kaminoans designed the Republic's clone commandos to age fast, and when I think of them as the tiny kids 1 first knew, it's heartbreaking-yes, even for me. My father didn't quite kill the last bit of feeling in me.
Scorch places circuit disrupters against the locks s.p.a.ced around the door frame, one by one, to fry the systems and Create a bogus signal that convinces the alarm there's nothing out of order. He freezes for a moment, head c.o.c.ked, reading the display on his helmet's head-up display.
”What's in there, Sarge?”
I'm not robbing for gain. I'm not a greedy man. I just want justice. See? My Mandalorian armor's black-black, the traditional color of justice. Beskar'gam colors almost always have meaning. Every Mando who sees me understands my mission in life right away.
”Part of my inheritance,” I say. ”Father and I didn't agree on my career plans.”
Justice for me; justice for the clone troops, used up and thrown away like flimsi napkins.
”The drinks are on you, then,” says Boss, Delta's sergeant ”If we'd known you were loaded, we'd have hit you up ear-lier.”
”Was loaded. Cut off without a tin cred.”
I've never told them about my family or my t.i.tle. I think the only person I told was Kal, and then I got the full blast of his cla.s.s-war rhetoric.
Sev, Delta's sniper-silent, which might mean disapproval, or it might not-trains his DC-17 rifle on the deserted corridors leading from the labyrinth of vaults and storerooms that hold the wealth and secrets of the galaxy-richest and most powerful, including my family.
Fierfek, it's quiet down here. The corridors aren't made of ice, but they're smooth and white, and I can't shake the impression that they're carved straight out of this frozen planet itself. It makes the place feel ten degrees colder.
”In three” says Scorch. ”But I'd still prefer a nice big bang. Three, two . . . one.” I know he's grinning, helmet or not. ”Boom. Clatter. Tinkle.”
The locks yield silently and open in a sequence: clack, clack, clack. No alarms, no theft countermeasures to take our heads off, no guards rus.h.i.+ng in with blasters. The vault doors roll back to reveal row upon row of polished durasteel deposit boxes lit by a sickly green light. Inside, two security droids stand immobile, circuits disrupted along with every lock in here, weapon arms slack at their sides.
”Well?” Fixer asks on the comlink. He's up on the surface a kilometer away, minding the snowspeeder we'll use to ex-filtrate from Mygeeto. He'll get the icon views from all our helmet systems, but he's impatient. ”What's in there?”
”The future,” I tell him. His future, too, I hope. When I touch the deposit box doors, they swing open and their contents glitter, or rustle, or ... smell odd. It's quite a collection. Boss wanders in and fishes out a small gilt-framed portrait that hasn't seen the light of day for ... well, who knows? The three commandos stare at it for a moment. ”What a waste of creds.” Scorch, who's never expressed a desire for anything beyond a decent meal and more sleep, checks the droids, prodding them with the probe anch.o.r.ed to his belt. ”You've got until the next patrol to clear out what you need, Sarge. Better hurry.”
As 1 said, we're all running out of time, some of us faster than others. Time's the one thing you can't buy, bribe or steal when you need more.
”Go on, get out of here.” I walk down the corridor lined with unimaginably excessive wealth: rare precious metals, untraceable credit chips, priceless jewels, antiques, industrial secrets, blackmail material. Ordinary credits aren't the only things that make the galaxy rotate. The Vau family box is in here. ”I said dismiss, Delta.”
Boss stands his ground. ”You can't carry it all on your own.”
”I can carry enough.” I can haul a fifty-kilo pack all right, maybe not as easily as young men like them, but I'm motivated and that shaves years off my age. ”Dismissed. Thin out. Now. This is my problem, not yours.”
There's a lot of stuff in here. It's going to take longer than I thought.
Time. You just can't buy it. So you have to grab it any way you can. I'll start by grabbing this.
Chapter 1.
Look, all I know is this. The Seps can't have as many droids as Intel says-we've seen that when we've sabotaged their factories. And if they have gazillions of them somewhere, why not overrun the whole Republic now and get it over with? Come to that, why won't the Chancellor listen to the generals and just smash the key Sep targets instead of dragging this war out, spreading us thin from Core to Rim? Add that garbage to the message Lama Su sent him griping about the clone contract expiring in a couple of years-it all stinks. And when it stinks that bad, we get ready to run, because it's our shebse on the line here. Understand?
-Sergeant Kal Skirata to the Null ARCs, discussing the future in light of new intelligence gathered during their unauthorized infiltration of Tipoca City, 462 days after Geonosis * * *
Republic fleet auxilliary Core Conveyor, en route for Mirial, 2nd Airborne (212th Battalion) and Omega Squad embarked, 470 days after Geonosis ”Nice of you to join us, Omega,” said Sergeant Barlex, one hand wrapped around the grab rail in the s.h.i.+p's hangar. ”And may I be the first to say that you look like a bunch of complete prats?”
Darman waited for Niner to tell Barlex where to shove his opinion, but he didn't take the bait and carried on adjusting the unfamiliar winged jet pack. It was just the usual bravado that went with being scared and hyped up for a mission.
Okay, so the sky troopers' standard pack didn't fit comfort-ably on Republic commando Katarn armor, but for accuracy of insertion it still beat paragliding. Darman had vivid and painful memories of a low-opening emergency jump on Qiilura that hadn't been on target, unless you counted trees. So he was fine with a pair of white wings-even if they were the worst bolt-on goody in the history of procurement in the Grand Army of the Republic.
Fi activated his wing mechanism, and the two blades swung into horizontal position with a hiss of hydraulics, nearly smacking Barlex in the face. Fi smiled and flapped his arms. ”Want to see my impression of a Geonosian?”
”What, plummeting to the ground in a spray of bug-splatter after I put a round through you?” said Barlex.
”You're so masterful.”
”I'm so a sergeant, Private...”
”Couldn't you at least get us matte-black ones?” Fi asked. ”1 don't want to plunge to my doom with uncoordinated accessories. People will talk.”
”You'll have white, and like it.” Barlex was the senior NCO of Parjai Squad, airborne troops with a reputation for high-risk missions that Captain Ordo called ”a.s.sertive out-reach.” The novelty of supporting special forces had clearly worn off. Barlex pushed Fi's flight blades back into the closed position and maintained a scowl. ”Anyway, I thought you bunch were born-again Mandalorians. Jet packs should make you feel right at home.”
”Off for caf and cakes afterward?”
Barlex was still unsmiling granite. ”Orders are to drop extra materiel and other useless ballast, meaning you, and then shorten our survival odds again by popping in for a chat with the Seps on Mirial.”
Fi did his wounded concern act, hands clasped under his chin. ”Is it the Mando thing that's coming between us, dear?”
”Just my appreciation of the irony that we're fighting Mando mercenaries in some places.”
”I'd better keep you away from Sergeant Kal, then...”