“My turn.”
They had found a spot to hide between two top-floor apartments facing the building they were watching, a six-floor tower of a house with closed blinds at every window. A climate-conditioning access space nearly at the top of their vantage point gave them an uninterrupted view below of a very quiet, very private group of homes away from the skylanes in a dead end.
The upper floors arched into a fashionable overhang only seven meters from the facing building. No passing traffic could enter from the front to bother them here, not even a taxi, and the rear access was nonexistent, which left only the roof for access by a small green speeder. It was private and a good place to defend-or get trapped. Fi rather liked the idea of the latter.
The access space felt like being in a drawer. They could just about crawl through it on all fours. Fi knew he wouldn’t have enjoyed serving in a tank company at all.
“Roll on your back for a while,” Fi said helpfully.
Sev hesitated then surrendered to the suggestion with a groan. “How many?”
Fi tracked from right to left with the scope. “Well, I think we’ve got ten bodies in there, judging by the GPR image, and they’ve been in there for an hour now, and they’re not moving around much. I call that an operational base. Agreed?”
“Okay. Let’s set up the remote holocam and get out of here.”
“Given the layout of that place, it’s going to be a bit busy slotting them all when we go in.”
“I like busy,” Sev said.
“Have Scorch and Fixer reported in yet?”
Sev held his datapad level with his eyes. “Now, that sounds like fun.”
“What does?”
“Scorch says they’ve confirmed the third cluster is a small commercial docking area. CoruFresh fruit and vegetable distributors. Loads of spacegoing vessels of all sizes.”
“Yes, that’s my idea of fun, too.”
“If we could get them all to meet up for a nice ride …”
“Dream on. But we could certainly stop them from leaving in a hurry.”
Fi backed out of the space, pushing himself on his elbows with his DC-17 crooked in both arms, collecting more dust and dead insects on his bodysuit. He turned sideways on to a narrow shaft that opened into the building’s plant maintenance room and dropped his left leg into the gap, searching for a foothold with his boot before finding the ledge and scrambling down to the floor. Sev simply rolled off and landed with a thud beside him.
“Okay, where next?”
Fi cocked his head. “Want to wander over and take a closer look at the roof? Evaluate it for rapid entry?”
“You know how to engage my enthusiasm.”
Fi projected the fire safety holoplans of the building, which had proved to be Ordo’s best illicit data slice of the mission. There was no point asking the fire department to provide them; it just invited awkward questions about why lads in white armor wanted detailed floor plans of most of the planet’s buildings. “I hope they update these. Okay, go left along the passage; the roof access is the set of doors at the end.”
“I love the fire department.”
“They’re so helpful. Nice uniforms, too.”
They crawled across the flat roof along the side of the climate-conditioning machinery room, over lengths of durasteel ladder laid flat on the waterproofing. Some buildings still had them to provide access to maintenance spaces. There were also the remains of a barbecue. They flattened themselves behind the parapet to peer through the breaks in the punched durasteel at the roof opposite.
“Ooh, a Flash speeder:’ Fi whispered.
“Don’t even think about it.”
“I meant that we could bolt on a few surprises, not wander off with it.”
“Look, what does the word recce mean, ner vod?”
“It almost sounds like wreck .
“You scare me,” Sev said. “And that’s saying something.”
“It’s an opportunity we might not get again.”
“So you fly, do you? Going to do a Jango?”
“You’ve got no style.” Fi genuinely wanted to place a thermal detonator on the speeder. It could be set off remotely, giving them a relatively easy extra option for striking at the Seps that they might need soon. But he was also itching to smack Sev down a little. The man thought he was the galaxy’s gift to adventure. So if he wanted adventure, Fi would show it to him, Omega-style.
It also just happened to be the safest way to cross the six-meter gap to the other roof-safer than asking the Seps across the way if they minded two commandos taking a look at their roof, anyway.
Fi edged backward and began placing the sections of ladder end-to-end. They slotted together neatly. Then he crawled back to the parapet and gave the chasm an appraising glance.