[Legacy Of The Force] - 02(74)

One soldier from Bravo Company set a vehicle barrier across the end of the road, a chain of small spherical droids whose armament and stinger cords could stop a vessel attempting to pass anywhere up to thirty meters away. There was another one at the far end of the street; the only level below this one was made up of utility tunnels.

I really hope we don’t end up going down there.

Standing well behind the barriers were small knots of people-human and other species-who looked as if they might cut Ben’s throat just out of curiosity.

“This is horrible,” he said.

“Beats doing this in broad daylight with HNE breathing down our necks,” said Lekauf. Maybe he had a point: the media never cared what happened to residents of the lower levels. “We can just go in and clear this place out.”

“This isn’t a Corellian neighborhood.”

“Not all the threats are Corellian.” Lekauf turned at the sound of jogging boots, and Ben followed his gaze to see Captain Shevu approaching. The only way Ben could tell the 967 apart when they were fully armored was by the name tags on their chest plates and their variations in build and height. Shevu had a single discreet gold star on his helmet; Lekauf had two thin gold stripes; and Witur, one of the sergeants, had three. Apart from that, they were an anonymous mass of black plastoid plates over black fatigues.

The CSF-some of whose ranks had volunteered for transfer to the 967-had already nicknamed them “Stormies.” Everyone seemed to see parallels with Ben’s grandfather’s day. Ben wasn’t ashamed of his lineage and he wasn’t ashamed of the work he had to carry out: he just didn’t understand how it all got this bad so quickly.

But, so far, nobody had been shot or badly injured. Every Corellian who had been detained was alive and well-or had been deported. It must have been hard, Ben thought, to be sent home if the only home you had ever known was Coruscant: but in that case, why weren’t they loyal to the planet where they’d been born?

Just as he’d thought he was growing up, Ben felt like a kid again, a kid who had missed something important that all the adults knew but weren’t telling him.

“Okay, listen up,” said Shevu. He gathered two squads around him, pulling in Ben and Lekauf, too. “Best intelligence is that Customs and Immigration got a tip-off about three Corellian agents and a bounty hunter they made contact with, and CSF tracked them down here.” The location was an apartment block with some boarded-up windows that sat between a sleazy bar and a brightly lit building whose business Ben wasn’t sure about, except that the staff all seemed to be women. “That’s who we’ve come for-names are Cotin, Abadaner, Bolf, and Hahuur.”

Shevu handed Ben a datapad with pictures on it; the squads were receiving the images via the HUDs in their helmets.

“They know we’re here,” Ben said.

“Not much they can do about it, then, except come out when we ask nicely,” said Lekauf.

Shevu tapped the charge indicator on his blaster rifle. “Double-check them against your feature-recog software, because they’re going to be seriously armed and you might need to put them out of business permanently. Colonel Solo’s covering the rear exits with two squads if things don’t go to plan.”

It wasn’t a raid so much as a siege. Ben had learned an awful lot about storming buildings in a very short time. He didn’t feel that he was much use, but Lekauf reassured him that he could do things no ordinary soldier could when they needed him to.

“Okay, let’s start this like good guys,” Shevu said. He turned toward the front of the apartment block, and there was an audible click from his voice projection unit. He was about to use the loudhailer setting.

Ben braced for painfully loud noise.

“This is the security forces.” Shevu’s voice vibrated off the buildings, slow and carefully enunciated. People still in the street behind the barricades scattered and ran for cover. “Cotin-Abadaner-Bolf-Habuur! Surrender your weapons. Come out of the building and keep your arms above your heads. You can come out now, or we will enter and detain you.”

Maybe I could try mind influence, thought Ben.

A bolt of blasterfire spat from a window, and the squad returned fire as if by reflex.

Okay, maybe that isn’t going to work.

“We tried,” said Shevu. “Blasters only. No projectiles. Don’t want anything penetrating walls, because we’ve got civilians in there.” He opened the loudhailer again. “Residents! Stay in your homes with your doors closed. Armed security forces are entering your building. I repeat-stay in your homes.”

He shook his head, muttering about CSF failing to evacuate the apartment block in advance, and signaled the squads to enter. Ben could see at least two squads on the roof clambering into a maintenance access hatch. There were no stairways in some of these blocks, which meant each turbolift lobby was a potential killing field; it took guts to step out of a lift into the unknown. But that, Lekauf told Ben, was what armor was for.