[Republic Commando] - 03(113)

The left-hand fork looked much more promising. The smooth floor looked a little less shiny, as if it got a lot more foot traffic, and there were conventional doors at one end. They’d just passed through what seemed to be a flood barrier, and now they were entering the complex proper.

“I bet the Dorumaa Fire Department doesn’t have schematics of this,” Skirata said.

Mereel grunted. “At times like this, you realize just how handy Bard’ika is. He’d have worked out the layout and Force-opened the hatches.”

“I never said Jedi didn’t come in handy.” Skirata edged up toward the doors, shoving his Verpine in his belt. “Got an EMP grenade ready?”

“If this place is all electronic fail-safes, I’d rather try brute force on any tinnies first. Might fry the doors locked …”

“Okay.”

“Must be tough to have half the worst enemies in the galaxy after you.”

Skirata couldn’t hear the faint crackle on the comlink any longer: Vau was out of range. He flicked through the frequencies with a series of blinks, listening for anything down here that he might pick up.

“Open the doors, son.”

Mereel flourished his disruptor. “If we’ve got the wrong house, we just say sorry and run for it, right?”

“Got the roads mixed up, yeah …”

“Ankle okay?”

“Been worse.”

“In three, then … two … one.”

The brilliant light and glossy white walls that dazzled them as the doors snapped apart were familiar; they didn’t have the wrong address. This was Tipoca chic, plain white only to beings without the Kaminoans’ heptachromatic vision. Bulkheads slammed down to the floor somewhere be-hind them, and the corridor ahead echoed with a distant chiming that didn’t sound urgent enough for an alarm.

Then there was a silence that didn’t sound… silent. Skirata could sense someone nearby, an animal sense that made his nape prickle. He almost didn’t need his HUD sensor’s grainy image to tell him there were figures on the other side of the archway, just six meters away, two pressed against the left-hand wall and one to the right, rifle-shapes raised, their arcs of fire overlapping.

Shab.

If both of them died here where they stood, Vau was waiting and Ordo was on the way, so there was still no way out for Ko Sai. Skirata’s mouth was dry. He steadied his Verp one-handed and felt for a laser dissipating aerosol grenade. In this tight space, an instant fog of LDA would reduce blaster fire to a painful slap-even on durasteel armor.

And we’ve got Verps, projectiles. Nothing LDA can do to stop that…

In this confined space it was going to be a close-quarters melee-personal, dirty, and desperate. Mereel nodded in the direction of the bottleneck and took out a detonite grenade. “Might need to cook off, too…” he said on the helmet comlink. He meant detonating the grenade before it hit the ground. “Hold on to your buy’ce, Kal’buir…”

Skirata resigned himself to more than a few bruises when the thing detonated. “It’s only pain.” Cooking off was risky, but he and Mereel had beshar plates, so they’d take their chances with percussive injury. The Null darted to the opposite wall. This was damage limitation, and the least damaged guys survived. “In three. One, two…”

Skirata lobbed the LDA canister. It snapped to life with a loud crack, fogging the air right at the moment that blue beams sliced through the mist at crisscrossed angles. Dissipated blaster bolts hit Skirata in the chest but only knocked him back a pace, like a drunk in a cantina who couldn’t land a punch; he returned fire to cover Mereel for a few extra seconds, hearing the Verpine’s slugs shatter the wall tiles.

They’ll have to close the gap. They’ll have to come forward now…

“Cover!” Mereel lunged forward and tossed the del into the cloud. “Down!”

Skirata fell more than ducked, feeling a cold searing sensation in his knee and tasting blood in his mouth, but he was on his feet again somehow, crashing against Mereel’s armor as they stormed into the LDA fog. He tripped over something solid on the floor-a body, a man down-but kept his Verp level. Then the image filled his visor at the same time his HUD-slaved targeting showed him the outline of a…

T-slit visor. Shab, they ‘re Mandos like us.

His body did the thinking and he fired at close range.

Mereel cannoned into a figure that was just an outline in Skirata’s HUD; Skirata heard the pa-dack-pa-dack of two slugs smacking into metal but the Mandalorian blocking his way-fierfek, they’re vode; they’re our own-just reeled as if punched and came back at Skirata with a spiked gauntlet. Their plates clashed chest to chest. Beskar had a sound like no other metal, all heavy dull solidity, no high tinny frequencies like durasteel when hit. Skirata took a punch under the jaw that filled his sinuses with what felt like molten metal. His knife dropped from its housing into his hand and he brought it up hard under the only really vulnerable place in a suit of beskar’gam, the toughened fabric seal between the gorget and the chin.