[Republic Commando] - 02(134)

Ordo stood back with both blasters drawn as Fixer and Boss stacked either side of the hatch. He fired at the frame mountings and it buckled and burst open. There was a loud pee-eww pee-eww of ricocheting fragments from the front of the vessel and Fixer and Boss burst in with their gauntlet vibroblades drawn.

White lights flared and hissed: hand blasters. Ordo had a split second of thinking This is it, it’s going to blow, we’re dead, it’s over-and then silence fell again. Battles seemed to him a mass of deafening noise interspersed with brief, dead silence.

“Fierfek, they didn’t even get the dets lined up,” Scorch said. “Amateurs.” He scrambled out of the shattered truck, his armor blackened by blasterfire. Boss jumped out behind him and shook blood off his vibroblade before sheathing it again.

Ordo took a breath. “Kal ‘buir?”

“We’re still at the rear doors. It’s gone a little quiet in there. Bard’ika says eleven inside.”

“Confirmed eleven on the infrared scope, too,” said Niner, who always needed to be certain.

“They’ve locked themselves in. We’re just clearing the explosives out of the truck.” Ordo motioned to Corr, Niner, and Boss to go. “Mereel and I are going in the front doors. Dar and Fi, open up a hole in the south-side wall.”

“Want us to go in from the back, son?” Skirata said. “I’m pumping adrenaline and I’d like to get in on some action. For old times’ sake.”

“Remember you don’t have Katarn armor,” Ordo said, instantly more worried for Kal’buir than anyone alive.

Skirata snorted. “Remember you’re not wearing Mandalorian iron.”

Ordo gestured to Mereel. His brother brushed a dusting of debris off his blue lieutenant’s pauldron and reached over his shoulders with both hands to draw the massive Cip-Quad blaster strapped across his back.

“In three … ,” Ordo said.

“What happened to in five?”

“I just ran out of patience.”

Skirata held up his Verpine in his left hand, knife in his right, listening as Jusik drew his lightsaber, a Jedi Knight in a Mando helmet.

Bard’ika, I’ll take that image to my grave.

He checked the infrared targeting beam, more out of nervous habit than anything, and hoped the hut ‘uune didn’t have night vision.

The deafening double trip-hammer of Mereel’s quad blaster shattered the brief calm and the rear doors were blown open. There was an explosion and a pounding rain of debris from the side of the warehouse. For a moment Skirata thought the doors had been blown out by the blast but Jusik punched the air as if it was a rather clever touch.

Fierfek. So that’s the Force, is it?

There was no light spilling out of the doorway. Then someone inside the warehouse ran for the doors and a grainy figure shot through his night vision display.

Skirata reacted instantly, without thinking, charging at him and smashing into his face with an armored elbow, then bringing his knife up hard under his ribs before he could even fall backward. It was only when he aimed the Verp in his next breath and concentrated on the face in his HUD for a second, that he realized it was the woman who had called him a Mandalorian thug. He fired the gun before he had even thought of a suitable retort. War was like that. You rarely thought of something satisfying to say until days later, if you had anything to say at all.

“Ten on the infrared,” Niner said.

Infrared told you who was still warm. Infrared couldn’t tell you who was alive. Skirata preferred to track movement alone.

“Grenade! Cover!” Atin yelled.

The shock wave lifted Skirata and left his ears ringing. He was sure he was outside the doors but he was now inside, and Jusik hauled him cleanly to his feet with one arm. He couldn’t hear the comlink clearly now.

The rapid hammering of a rotary blaster started up and then stopped abruptly. For a man trained in the delicate art of bomb disposal, Corr had seized on the crude technique of spraying six barrels with some enthusiasm.

“Grenade-“

Another explosion shook the warehouse. “Man down!” Someone was cursing-Sev? Scorch?-and Ordo yelled, “Pull back! Clear the building!”

Skirata sprinted after Jusik, following the green glow of his lightsaber. As they cleared the doors, a massive wh000mp punched Skirata simultaneously under the soles of his feet and in his back. He almost lost his balance.

Silence descended. Skirata strained to listen.

“Lots of scattered patches of infrared.” That sounded like Niner. “And no idea what’s alive and what’s just … warm.”

“Scorch, you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Really. Just shook me up.”