“Delta,” Ordo said, “stand by to take the rear of the green truck when we kill the illumigrids. Omega, target all walking targets on the landing strip.”
Kal’s voice cut in. “Ord ‘ika-we’re at the rear of the warehouse blocking the back doors. Force is estimating twenty-four live targets in all, I’m told.”
Fi refocused his scope on the interior of the warehouse. He could see at least nine men and women scurrying around inside, and two more visible via infrared, ripping open crates and bundling small boxes and blasters into bags. “I’ve got a minimum of eleven contacts around and inside the warehouse and it looks like they’ve got a small arsenal in there. Good news is that it’s just one big empty space with partitioned offices down one wall.”
“Once the lights go out, they’ll batten down …”
Sev cut in. “I’ve got two loading what looks like DC-15 rifle cases into the small red airspeeder on the northern perimeter fence.”
“Six of the trucks look warm and ticking over in my infrared,” Mereel said. “Can’t see any activity in the rest of the speeders. There ought to be four ready to fly.”
“Hit them all, then, just to be certain,” Ordo said. “Hit everything except the green truck.
“I’m on night vision now,” Darman said. “Ready when you are, Captain Ordo.”
Corr sprinted into position to Fi’s right, sliding behind a truck, with the rotary blaster braced against his belt and his left hand tight on the top grip. From his stance he looked like a man who felt pretty good about his chances. He wasn’t even meant to be a commando; he’d just risen to the challenge.
Fi hoped Skirata would find a way of permanently absorbing him into Arca Company. He switched to his night scope and aligned the target icon on a man and a woman carrying a flat crate between them toward one of the trucks.
Fi’s finger rested on the trigger.
“Lights!” Ordo hissed.
He and Sev fired their Plex rocket launchers, and both illumigrids were swallowed simultaneously by two balls of yellow flame.
The roar killed any chances of him hearing the shattering transparisteel viewscreen of the green truck. But he heard Darman an instant later.
“Truck pilot, clear!”
“We’ve lost one!” Jusik said.
“Say again?”
“One target’s made a run for it, over in the northeast corner. I felt him go.”
There was a split second of frozen time before blue blasterfire sprayed from Fi’s position, cutting down the two people moving a crate. Two of the trucks exploded in balls of fire, accounting for six more targets. The landing strip was now a dark void lit by the dying flames of two smashed trucks and sporadic bolts of Deece fire. From the far end of the depot the distinctive blue staccato attack of the rotary blaster hosed every vehicle on that side of the strip. Corr was definitely getting stuck in, as Kal’buir put it. He sprinted to Ordo’s left, firing as he ran, taking out the last gray-and-silver airspeeder in a ball of white light.
“Jusik?” Ordo debated whether to worry about the one escapee. “Jusik, get Vau and Etain onto the one who’s bolted.”
Beneath Ordo, Boss, Fixer, and Scorch raced to the rear of the green truck, Atin coming in from the other side. Boss fired a stream of bolts from his Deece at a shallow angle, slicing off half the truck’s repulsor drive housing. It dropped flat on the ground with a massive crash of crumpling alloy. It definitely wasn’t going anywhere now.
Scorch concentrated his fire into the warehouse. Ordo swung over the edge of the roof to rappel down into the melee, firing one of his twin blasters as he dropped. The shots sparked and smoked off closing doors. There were probably nine or ten terrorists now shut inside with a good supply of weapons. And right now they weren’t Ordo’s worst problem.
Sev thudded to the ground beside him and rewound his rappelling line. “Two Verp kills. That’s all.”
“Two still alive inside the truck,” Boss said. “If you had a hundred kilos of thermal explosive, a lot of dets, and no escape, what would you do?”
“Take as many of the enemy out with me as I could,” Ordo said. “Storm that dik’utla truck now before they put us into orbit.”
Two minutes into the engagement felt like seconds. Fi sprinted down to the green truck on Mereel’s heels with Corr, Darman, and Niner close behind.
“I make it ten bodies on the landing strip,” Niner said.
“One dead pilot and two live targets in this truck.” Ordo motioned Niner and Scorch to the front of the truck. “You stand by to distract them when Fixer and Boss go in the rear hatch.”