Star Wars: The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance (21 page)

A
second creature stepped from the vault's steaming interior. It didn't
say anything. It just screamed and fired.

Shigar
jumped as high as he could to evade the converging energy pulses.
Staccato blue streams followed him, tearing a shallow, meter- wide
furrow in the wall and ceiling. He glimpsed Larin's face below him.
She was standing in full view, pumping shot after shot into the
second creature's body. Its silver skin dissipated them like
raindrops, and he began to worry that he wouldn't be able to outrun
the creature's vengeance forever.

A
trio of tightly spaced concussion missiles from Dao Stryver saved
Shigar from bisection. They turned the antechamber into a furnace,
finally cutting off the deadly beams. Shigar landed on a section of
collapsed roof, winded and singed but largely unharmed.

The
creature backflipped, landing on six legs, and stood up again, this
time on its hands. It looked exactly the same as it had before.

Behind
it, the first one crawled out of the rubble in which it had landed.

A
third creature stepped out of the vault.

Shigar's
stomach hollowed.

"Get
everyone out, " he shouted to Larin through the comlink before
the firing started again. "It's not safe in here. "

"What
about you?"

"I'll
do my best to hold them back. "

"Why
not just let them go?"

He
didn't have a short answer to that question. Because doing so would
mean admitting failure. Because whatever these creatures were, he
wasn't going to let them have what was inside the Cinzia. Because he
wasn't going to let things this murderous rain fire upon the hapless
denizens of the Hutt palace. "Just because. "

"All
right, " she said, "but I'll be back with heavier munitions
as soon as..."

Everything
else she said went unheard. With an earsplitting screech, the three
creatures fired in tandem, tearing the air apart.

CHAPTER
16

Larin
caught Yeama by the lekku as he ran for dear life. "Assault
cannon, sniper rifles, mass-drivers, " she said. "Everything
you've got- now!"

The
Twi'lek dithered, torn between conflicting fears: of his mistress; of
the things wreaking havoc in the demolished security air lock; and of
Larin. Given a choice, he looked as though he would run for the
nearest ship and head for the stars.

To
help change his mind, Larin raised her rifle and aimed it between his
eyes. "You won't get a single step unless you make the call. "

Yeama
brought his comlink to his mouth and began issuing orders.

She
ran back to where Sergeant Potannin lay on his belly, watching the
battle unfold through the standard-issue electromonocular scope she
had loaned him. He handed it back to her and said, "I think
they're droids. Look at the one on the left. It's been damaged. "

She
focused the scope on the spider-like creature Potannin had indicated.
One of its forelimbs had been sliced away, revealing not flesh or
exoskeleton but a mess of wires that flexed and twisted, showering
golden sparks. She narrowed the field of view to see more closely.
Wires, definitely, as thin as hairs and as lithe as quicksilver.

Her
mind cast back to the Hortek maintenance crew she and Shigar had
stumbled across in the tunnels below the palace. There she'd seen
silver threads as well.

Before
she had time to follow the thought through, Yeama returned, pushing a
long-barreled sniper rifle into her arms.

"More
coming, I hope?"

He
nodded unhappily and hurried away.

She
lined up the rifle, resting its weight on a protruding chunk of
stone.

"Go
for the joints, " Potannin advised her, but she ignored him. The
hands were doing the damage. If she could take them out, that would
reduce the threat to Shigar. At the moment, only he and Stryver were
doing anything to stop the killer droids from getting out of the
antechamber.

The
droids moved fast, and they didn't move like anything Larin had fired
at before. Any of the six limbs could act as a leg, meaning they
didn't so much run as cartwheel from place to place like spindly,
animated tumbleweeds, firing as they went. They could also crouch
with anywhere from three to all six legs on the ground, giving them a
more stable base to fire from. They could even curl into a ball to
protect their hexagonal midriffs. Furthermore, the damaged one
demonstrated a potent kind of shield when Shigar got too close. It
crossed two limbs into an X and created a short-lived circular
electromirror that bent his lightsaber back into a V, almost taking
off his arm in the process. He retreated, and the droid went back to
firing at him.

Larin
took her first shot, and missed. Her second hit the forelimb and was
deflected. Her third struck the wrist joint squarely, severing the
fire-shooting hand with a reddish flash. Instantly the droid rotated
to make that limb a foot, bringing another hand weapon into play. She
moved her target reticule to aim at that one next.

Another
sniper rifle arrived, and Potannin took up the fight. He tried the
joints, with little success, and moved on to the sense organs
scattered across the chests of the things. The black circles reacted
differently from the silver skin under fire. They absorbed everything
that came at them, and radiated the energy as heat. Their reflective
black surfaces soon turned to red, then ramped up to orange and
yellow. Eventually one hit purple and exploded, making the droid spin
around in circles for a moment before recovering.

Larin
steadily picked off the hand weapons of her chosen target. When there
were just two left, the droid transferred its weight to its four
injured legs and hopped to where one of its fellows was trading fire
with Dao Stryver. The injured droid jumped onto the back of its
counterpart, and the two bodies locked together. The four injured
legs retracted, creating a more massive droid with eight legs, all
willing and able to fire.

"Oh,
come on, " she said.

Larin
and Sergeant Potannin's efforts didn't go unnoticed. The droid
menacing Shigar sprayed a wave of blue pulses in their direction,
forcing them both to take cover. When it was over, the barrels of
both their rifles were blackened but still seemed capable of firing.
Sergeant Potannin, however, had not been so lucky. A ricochet had
caught him in the eye and killed him instantly.

Before
she could get revenge, someone tapped her on the shoulder. She turned
to see Yeama and three Houks pulling in a wheeled, turret- mounted
laser cannon.

"About
time, " she growled, crawling over. "Here, let me. I've
used this model before. "

Yeama
waved her away. His look said as clearly as words that if anyone was
going to fire it in his mistress's palace, it would be him.

She
backed down as another wave of blue pulses converged on them. A
fourth six-legged droid had emerged from the vault.

"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
analyze. 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 space, littered with
broken glass, 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 Shigar? 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 ship 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 Shigar, 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 shield, 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 prone 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!