Part 32 (2/2)
”Heads up, larties incoming ...” A'den's voice cut into the circuit.
The Null was a thousand meters or so east of them with one group of Marits, who'd brought up an impressive range of cannons and artillery as well as thousands of troops. When Darman focused with his visor on maximum sensitivity, the area looked like an undulating sea, and then he real-ized it was actually the ma.s.s of lizards getting ready to overrun the city. It bothered him. He didn't know or even care who was right in this planet's oddly restrained dispute-restrained up to now, anyway-but helping it happen didn't sit well with him, and it was the first time he'd felt that so clearly.
He could hear the LAAT/i guns.h.i.+ps now, the larties, a wonderfully rea.s.suring chonker-chonker sound that said ex-traction, air support, and friendly faces.
”This is like using thermal dets on insects,” Fi said, more to himself than anything. ”They might knock out a few Tor-rents if they're lucky.”
”We don't often have this much of an advantage, ner vod,” said Niner. ”Enjoy it while you can.”
The chonking note of the larties was overlaid now with much higher-pitched drives, the equally familiar sound of V-19 Torrent fighters that rose to a deafening crescendo as they streaked low overhead. Darman's helmet audio shut down briefly to protect his hearing. Seconds later the first fireball rose into the night sky above the eastern approach road, and the battle started.
Darman found it unsettling to stand waiting while other troops went forward. Omega were used to being the first in, softening up position, sabotaging, preparing the battlefield. Forward air control-if they were fulfilling that role at all with Leveler in orbit-was something a droid could do: ob-serving, confirming, relaying accurate coordinates and data. They didn't need scarce resources like a commando squad to do it.
Adrenaline without an outlet was a bad thing. Darman fretted. Fifty meters west of them, one of the larties landed and a squad of 35th Infantry jumped out.
”You want a ride in?” the sergeant said. ”We're securing the HoloNet center. Don't want to break it before we can send out all those uplifting Republic messages, do we?”
”We had an op order once,” Niner said, mock-wistful, ”but obviously some officer lost the thing. Shab, why not? We're just watching the show otherwise.” He opened the link to Leveler. ”Leveler, Omega requesting confirmation that you want us to take the HoloNet center ...”
The comm officer on the line didn't sound like a clone. He did sound under a lot of pressure, though.
”Omega, confirmed.”
Niner jogged after the 35th's sergeant; Darman's tally scanner showed him as Tel. ”He's a man of few words.”
”That's because he doesn't know many,” Tel said. ”We've got mongrel officers now, for fierfek's sake, and that one only got through the Academy because his dad's some ranking captain. If he could read a chart, he'd be dangerous. You should hear Pellaeon having a go at him.” Tel paused. ”Pellaeon's all right, though. They're not all useless.”
Omega piled into the guns.h.i.+p through its open side, and Darman grabbed a safety strap. Mongrels: more nonclone officers, then. He hadn't had contact with many. Fi and Atin peered out of the crew bay with the confidence born of armor that could take a lot more punishment than the average trooper's. Darman watched the slight ”tilt of white-helmeted heads as the infantry checked out the commandos' kit, like they always did. When it was the only focus in your life, you tended to notice what kit others had and you didn't.
”That matte-black rig,” said one of the grunts. ”Is it so we can write interesting things on it in lumi-markers?”
”They teach you to write?” Fi feigned comic shock. ”No point being that overqualified, ner vod. Is that why you go around in threes?”
”What?”
”One who can read, one who can write, and one who likes the company of intellectuals ...”
”Tell me that one again when I'm on the winch end of your rappel line, will you?”
It was all banter. n.o.body called them Mando-loving weirdos, anyway. The larty zigzagged between streams of triple-A and the smoke trails from flares.
”Just for your notebook,” Niner said quietly, ”we usually go in and secure the strategic targets before the shooting starts. It's idiosyncratic, I know, but it seems to work.”
”Tell the mongrel in the fancy uniform,” Tel said wearily. ”I just go when sent.”
It was a surreal experience. The larty touched down briefly to drop the squads in an empty market square lit by the yellow glow of fires blazing nearby. There wasn't a human being in sight: no defending army, no fleeing civilians, nothing. But they'd known the attack was imminent, and the Mar-its said there was an extensive network of underground service pa.s.sages that would double as shelters. Darman felt a little better about that. They ran for the HoloNet building that was helpfully identified by a large sign reading HOLO-GAFTIKAR CHANNEL TEN.
Tel checked the datapad on his forearm plate. ”Well, they're still broadcasting. The satellite's supposed to be neutralized, though.”
Atin fired a grapple over the edge of the roof and tugged on the line, testing for weight. ”I'll see what I can disable at the uplink anyway.” He winched himself up, and Niner and Fi stacked either side of the entrance with the 35th while Darman unrolled a strip of det tape with a flourish and stuck it on the doors to form a frame charge.
”Cover!” He counted down while everyone turned away from the direction of the blast. ”Fire!”
The doors ripped apart in a burst of smoke and debris. Niner went in a breath before Tel, saving a sc.r.a.p of squad pride, and the process of clearing the building began the hard way via the emergency stairs because the turbolift was stuck between floors. Darman covered Niner as he smashed open doors to offices, finding n.o.body inside.
”They can transmit days of programming from a datachip array, Sarge,” Darman said. ”They might have done that.”
Fi's voice came on the HUD link. ”I think I've found the studio.”
”Why?”
”It says STUDIO TWO on the door.”
”Well, we know there's a Studio One as well, then.”
Darman consulted the meticulously mapped construction database the Marits had given Omega when they arrived, but it wasn't clear from the floor plans which were recording areas and which were transmission. Maybe it didn't matter if the satellite relay was compromised and Atin could disable the uplink.
”If this place is still staffed at all,” he said, ”there'll be the obligatory lone hero keeping the patriotic resistance mes-sages going while we kick down the door.”
”Try not to damage the kit, that's all,” Tel said. ”Otherwise we'll have to s.h.i.+p in replacements before the propaganda and psy ops spooks can move in.”
Darman had another moment of wondering how this all fitted in with his overall mission, then ran up the stairs to find Fi. He was crouched outside the studio doors, holding a sensor against the metal.
”There's a transmission signal coming out of here,” he said. ”Might as well knock.”
Darman looked up. ”Red light. Means live to air, don't go in, and so on, doesn't it?”
”Yeah,” Fi agreed, and put a few Deece bolts through the control panel at the side. ”It does.”
Darman never found out if there was the last brave broad-caster in Eyat still sitting at the console, spreading defiant messages to repel the invaders. The next thing he knew was that he was being thrown upward on his back, hurtling toward the ceiling, and that his audio circuits cut out with a snap as a ball of light lifted him. Somehow he was expecting an explosion to be much louder. The ceiling rushed to meet him and he smashed into it, feeling motionless in midair for a moment before cras.h.i.+ng back down and feeling his chest plate hit something very hard as he fell. He was aware of b.u.mping helplessly down a flight of stairs on his back, flailing to grab anything to stop his fall. When he finally stopped moving, he couldn't hear a thing except the rain of falling debris. .h.i.tting his helmet.
The HUD was still working. He just didn't have audio. He tried the comlink channels and got nothing, but he had Niner's POV icon, and Atin's, and they were moving: they were shaking like the view of someone working frantically to move something. It looked like smashed masonry and durasteel beams. There was a filter of dust around him as thick as smoke.
But Fi's icon wasn't moving at all. The horizontal was canted at a steep angle, as if Fi was lying on the floor on one side. Debris was visible, blurred as if it was too far inside the focus range, pressed to the input cam of the visor.
”Fi?” No good: he wouldn't hear him. Darman pulled off his helmet, knowing he was battered but not feeling any-thing. ”Fi? Fi!” he yelled. His mouth filled with dust and he spat it out, dribbling some down his chest plate. ”Fi, vod'ika, are you okay?”
But there was no answer. Darman hooked his helmet onto his belt and began tearing through the rubble, looking for Fi.
Chapter 12.
They grow up loyal to the Republic, or they don't grow up at all.
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