Star Wars: The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance (48 page)

Clicking
twice over her suit radio, she warned the platoon to get ready.

They
steadied, angling at a forty-five-degree angle.

When
she clicked once more, their airfoils unfurled neatly, like birds in
a flock opening their wings at the same time. The wings didn't open
all the way just yet; a full spread would have been torn to shreds,
even at such rarefied pressures. As their altitude and speed dropped,
they would slowly unfurl to their full extent. One hundred meters
from the ground, their jet-chutes would kick in, allowing them to
control their landings to the second. They were still moving very
quickly. An unassisted landing would result in certain death.

Jopp
gusted closer to her, caught by turbulence. The master factory was
directly below them, barely five hundred meters away. Intel would be
kicking in any second now. Larin checked her suit's targeting systems
and unlocked the rifle she'd handpicked from the quartermaster's
weapons store. The hexes wouldn't be sitting idly as the assault
teams grew near. They would be working busily on something, she was
sure, but there was no way to tell yet what that might be. She would
just have to be ready for anything.

Her
HUD cleared and refreshed with data broadcast from above. The target
appeared in perfect clarity, revealed underneath the smoke by radar.

"You
know the drill, people, " said Major Cha. "Keep low and
tight until you reach your objectives, then disperse. If comms are
jammed, follow the flares. If you can't see the flares, move so you
can. This isn't a free-for-all. Anything with blood in it is not a
viable target. "

"You
heard the man, " Larin said. "Jet-chutes in thirty seconds.
Watch those washes. Don't singe the head of anyone coming in before
you. "

She
took a quick scan of the rest of the battlefield.

The
Paramount was still intact, although under siege from several
directions at once. Some of the orbital hexes had linked bodies to
form an energy weapon like the one Jet had taken out earlier.
Missiles from below had repaired the holes in the orbital defenses,
and there seemed to be some kind of fuss out near the moon. One of
the Imperial VT- 22s had been infected and was on its way down. Its
fiery wake was visible by satellite, carving a black streak across
the globe's upper atmosphere and due to impact near the suspected CI
location.

Quickly,
not really wanting to know, she checked the manifest of the tailing
ship. Her heart sank. Shigar had been on that transport. Now it
really pained her to think about what had happened in the ready room.
If that had been the last time they saw each other, how could she
live with herself?

A
beeping in her ears told her it was time for her jet-chute to kick
in. She pushed the superfluous intel-and feelings-to one side in
order to concentrate on the maneuver to come. The jet was little more
than a modified thruster retrofitted to suit standard-issue Republic
armor. Riding it down would be like taming a wild horse.

"Burn!"

On
her command, the platoon lit up the sky. Spears of downward- pointing
flame stabbed at the surface of Sebaddon. The silver airfoils
reflected the light, transforming the troopers into fiery angels that
were visible from below. Intel confirmed that at least some of the
tall stacks were weapons emplacements. Perhaps they were swinging to
track her and her troopers even now. She braced herself for the first
shots even as she tried to keep her bucking jet under control.

She
wasn't the only one having trouble. The comms were full of whoops and
warning cries as troopers struggled to maintain position. Two
near-collisions between Imperial and Republic troopers prompted an
exchange of harsh words, which Sergeant Ozz put a sharp stop to. The
last thing they needed now was an internecine fight to break out.

Then
the emplacements started firing, and all was chaos. Bolts of blue
energy flashed past them, searing the air. Two of her troopers died
in the first exchange, tumbling out of control in balls of flame.
Larin returned fire, even while struggling to fly the jet. She
doubted any of her shots hit home.

Bombardment
from above came almost immediately, called in by Major Cha. One
emplacement exploded, adding another ball of smoke to what already
lay close over the master factory.

A
savage grin split Larin's face. She had forgotten how beautiful
aerial combat could be.

A
blast at close range wiped the smile away. She'd been hit! Her jet
guttered, sending her careening across the sky. Her airfoil whipped
in streamers behind her.

Cursing
her poor luck, she struggled to control her descent and succeeded
only in putting herself into a spin. Her flailing hands reached for
the nearest soldier, desperate for something solid to hang onto. The
soldier hesitated, and in that fleeting moment, she remembered who he
was. Ses Jopp.

Mouthing
off out of misplaced loyalty was one thing. Letting a fellow soldier
drop to their death was another. She knew he would change his
mind-and he did within an instant. His right hand reached for her,
timing his grab to match the moment when her arm was nearest to him.
Too late.

Larin's
jet-chute failed, and she dropped like a stone out of the sky.

CHAPTER
35

Even
before the alarms started ringing, Shigar knew something was wrong.
The transport containing him and Darth Chratis lurched as though hit,
and the major in charge of the drop broke off in the middle of
issuing a general announcement. Shigar wasn't patched directly in to
the Imperial network, so he couldn't tell what was happening to the
ship in real time. Instead, he was receiving data from the Republic
troopers, relayed via neutral command node. The delay between the
systems was very nearly fatal.

"Something's
not right, " he told the troopers packaged up next to him in
rows, ready to drop. His instincts were warning him to move. Punching
the overrides on his harness, he was on his feet as the first of the
hexes burst through the outer hull into the troop deployment bay.

Shigar
was ready for it. He Force-pushed the droid backward, sending it
tumbling into space. There were more behind it, scrabbling for
claw-holds on the torn metal. He leapt at them with lightsaber
swinging, severing legs and stabbing at sense organs before the hexes
could activate their electromirror shields. If he could stop them
from getting in, he and the other passengers might have a chance.

The
bay wall ripped open at another point, too distant for him to take on
both at once. Fortunately, the troopers behind him were ready and
brought their own weapons into play. Imperial and Republic
blasterfire converged on the invading hexes, knocking several back
into the void. Still more came after them, climbing over one another
in a horrible swarm. The hexes were returning fire now, those at the
back shooting past those in front, and Shigar felt the defense of the
bay beginning to turn in the hexes' favor.

"Get
these troopers out of here!" he told the major between cutting
two hexes each in two.

On
the other side of the bay, he saw the orange helmet nod. Orders went
out to open the bay doors early and launch the troopers on their way
to Sebaddon. Acknowledgment came from two of the other three bays,
and the doors below Shigar opened smoothly, jettisoning their
precious cargo, the major with them. Several hexes went, too, which
would no doubt make the journey more interesting for all.

Shigar
stayed behind, clinging to a stanchion with one hand and kicking
another hex back where it came from. It wriggled and spun in free
fall, six legs waving frantically.

How
long, he wondered, until it redesigned its innards to match the ones
in orbit and "grew" a retrothruster or two?

He
wasn't sticking around to find out. The fourth and final bay hadn't
sent any kind of acknowledgment. If they were in trouble, he had to
help them.

The
ship rocked underfoot as he passed through the air lock and hurried
through its empty corridors. Nearing the fourth bay, he heard
blasterfire, explosions, and a persistent crackling over his comm.
The hexes were jamming both Imperial and Republic frequencies. That
was a disturbing development.

An
interior bulkhead breached, sending hexes spilling over themselves
into the hallway. He braced himself to meet them head-on, using a
Force shield to deflect their laser pulses while stabbing with his
lightsaber. They hadn't expected him to be there; that much was
certain. They were firing at someone attacking them from inside the
bay, and it took them a moment to bring their own shields to bear.
Shigar whipped the legs off three, not stopping to impale the fallen
bodies. Immobility was good enough.

A
black figure leapt through the rent in the wall, wielding a red
lightsaber. Lightning flashed from his open hand, sending hexes
twitching and smoking in every direction. Caught between Shigar and
Darth Chratis, the hexes stood no chance. In moments, Jedi Padawan
and Sith Lord stood alone in a field of red-dripping droid debris.

The
jamming let up, allowing them to speak.

"The
rest have launched, " said Shigar. "We have to get these
bay doors open. "

"Do
not think to give me instructions, Padawan. You have survived this
far by luck alone. " Darth Chratis stalked up the hallway. "The
mechanism is damaged. Lieutenant Adamek will either repair it in our
absence or widen the existing hole. Failing that, she will exit the
ship via the other open bays. That is not our concern. Your priority,
and mine, is to stop this ship being turned by the hexes into a
weapon. "

"To
the bridge, then?" said Shigar, swallowing his annoyance at
being spoken to like a child.

"To
the bridge. "

They
encountered three swarms of hexes on the way. Traveling in groups of
six, the droids appeared to be scouring the ships section by section,
destroying all evidence of Imperial insignia. The appearance of Darth
Chratis and his red blade drove them into an immediate frenzy. On two
occasions, Shigar was ignored completely, allowing him to flank the
hexes and attack from behind. The element of surprise was working for
him for a change, turning an impossible situation into one that was
merely difficult.

The
Sith Lord swept through hexes with little apparent effort, leaving
them for Shigar to finish off. The Sith Lord's lightsaber had an
unusually long reach, emerging as it did from a collapsible staff of
some kind. Darth Chratis also had another weapon that Shigar did not.
His lightning was much more powerful than Eldon Ax's efforts and had
an effect similar to the electrified nets Stryver had fired at the
hexes on Hutta, sending them into paroxysms that left them vulnerable
to conventional attack.

"The
Grand Master has taught you poorly, " Darth Chratis said,
observing Shigar's efforts to subdue the last of the hexes. "She
allows philosophy of mind to interfere with outcomes in combat. That
is how the Sith will triumph over you and your kind, in the end. You
will hold yourselves back from achieving your true potential. "

Shigar
blinked sweat out of his eyes. Satele Shan regarded Force lightning
as a pathway to the dark side, and had counseled Shigar many times
against its use. Now, though, he could see how Darth Chratis might
have a point.

He
wasn't so naive, however, that he couldn't see where the Sith Lord
was going with this.

"Save
your breath, Darth Chratis. Nothing will tempt me to join you. "

The
Sith's smile was horribly humorless, even through the glass of his
faceplate.

The
bridge was two levels up, sealed behind thick blast doors that even
the hexes were having trouble penetrating. Comms were down again, so
there was no way to signal the crew within. Darth Chratis tried
overriding the locks, but they had been fused into solid lumps of
metal by the hexes' attempts to get in.

"Together,
" said Shigar, thinking of the huge masses he had seen Jedi
Masters move using nothing but the power of their minds and the
Force.

"On
my command, " agreed the Sith Lord.

Operating
in tandem, they were able to twist the blast doors aside as though
they were made of tinfoil. Shigar considered their cooperation a
small moral victory until he broke off the effort and shivered.
Something of Darth Chratis had clung to him during the effort. A
coldness, and a foulness. His fists clenched as he stepped over the
buckled metal and onto the bridge. He wanted to strike out at
something, but there were no hexes around. Just Imperials, who were
temporarily reprieved.