Did I secure my locker back at the barracks? I’ve got the code key here. Fierfek, they’ll have to force the door open if I get killed…
Sev had no idea why he was thinking about death or focused on such a trivial worry. Death hadn’t crossed his mind that often before, not in a concrete way. Besides … it wasn’t as if Boss couldn’t handle a skirmish with a tourist, was it? Anyone who wasn’t Grand Army was a tourist, by definition-an amateur.
The Crusher was chancing it, getting too close. If he tried that tailgating maneuver again, one of them would end up with a hull breach.
Scorch seemed intrigued by the idea. “What if he thinks we really are a courier shuttle and he’s planning a robbery?”
Fixer came to life. “In a fighter?”
“He could have stolen the fighter, too.”
“Oh yeah. I bet that happens all the time …”
“We do it.”
“We ‘re special forces.”
“Okay. Time’s up.” Boss banked to starboard, and the array of lights on the navigations display tilted to show a course for the nearest planet-the third moon. “Let’s find out.”
Scorch went through the ritual of checking his suit’s seal integrity again. “You got charts for that place, Boss?”
“Nobody has. Let’s make some.”
The third moon of Da Soocha had landmasses. Sev could see them as the TIV neared the atmosphere. If the pursuing Crusher really thought his quarry was a courier shuttle, heading for this deserted lump of rock would have tipped him off that it wasn’t; but he was still on their tail. Sev closed his eyes and clenched his fists on reentry-it always bothered him to see the hull temperature climbing on the console display-and thought that it was good of Scorch not to rib him about his phobias. He never had.
“It’s going to be fun when we land.” Scorch was going through the motions of hitting the release catch on his restraints and swapping firing modes on his Deece, over and over, like it was all an Ooriffi meditation ritual. “He who disembarks first, wins.”
“Nah,” Fixer said. He was almost chatty today. “He who disembarks first is a nice target.”
Boss brought the TIV down into a bumpy landing on grassland, skidding fifty meters through driving rain and slewing sideways before coming to a halt. Sev, concentrating on the charge level on his Deece, saw the Crusher’s jets al-most fill the front viewport as it dropped down in front of them and came about to land with its nose facing them. There was an awkward pause.
“He’s charging cannons-” The TIV shook. Boss swore, and for a moment Sev didn’t know if the vessel had been hit or if Boss had fired. Either way, the Crusher clearly hadn’t been expecting the TIV to be anything other than a lightly armed vessel, because there was suddenly a cloud of steam building beneath it as it powered its drives again. Then its port wing shattered into fragments, sending a ball of fire into the damp air. “Go go go!”
Sev was first out as the starboard hatch swung open, dropping into grass that came up to his shoulders and smeared his visor plate with water. The ground squelched under his boots. He ran with his head lowered, shielded by the grasses, and Delta went into a sequence they’d drilled for a hundred times: storming an enemy vessel. Once they were close in to the fighter, there was little it could do, and with one wing missing it wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry. Scorch fired a rappel line to hook onto the superstructure, then hauled himself up to slap a strip of flexible charge around the hatch.
“I’d knock,” Scorch said, dropping down again and diving for cover, “but I think they’ll be upset about the wing …”
Bang.
The hatch blew out, flinging twisted metal into the air, and Sev dodged a chunk that whistled past his helmet. His legs moved before his brain engaged and he leaned partway through the hatch, suddenly face-to-face with a human female pilot who had an impressive blaster. The shot knocked him backward, but blasterfire wasn’t enough to penetrate Katarn armor, and he simply shook himself and raised his Deece again, finding his mind completely blank except for the single purpose of returning fire.
Sev fired. There was no such thing as winging someone or shooting them in the leg, whatever the holovids depicted, and he did what he was trained to do. The cockpit was full of smoke, the pilot draped at an awkward angle across the seat. It was only when the smoke began clearing that Sev realized there was a copilot, a man, and he was dead, too.
“Shab,” Sev said. “Maybe I could have done that better.”
Scorch peered into the cockpit. “Let’s try that again without the dead bit, shall we?”