“You okay, son?”
“Fine, Kal’buir.”
“No heroics,” said Ordo’s voice. “Get out now.”
Mereel looked at his HUD icon: still amber, still downloading. He was pushing it, all right. But he’d pushed his luck a lot more for the Republic, and a bunch of strangers and jetiise didn’t mean half as much to him as the welfare of his brothers. The amber icon flashed. More boots clattered past the end of the passage.
Come on… Come on…
It was taking too long.
His peripheral vision, enhanced by his helmet’s systems, saw the Kaminoan pause and turn to walk towards him. Fierfek. That’s all we need.
It was a crested male. It stood in front of him, feigning concern. He knew it only sawhim as a commodity.
“You have been downloading longer than average, trooper.”
“Just checking, sir.” Mereel heard a faint click on his audio feed: Skirata was edgy. “Slow data response times on my HUD.”
“Then please proceed to Procurement and have them run diagnostics.”
“Yes, sir!” Don’t bank on it, aiwha-bait. The icon in his HUD changed to green. “Right away, sir!”
Mereel withdrew the docking pin and walked back down the passage in the general direction of Procurement. The moment the Kaminoan was out of sight, he dropped back into the ocean of whitearmoured bodies and worked his way down the wide corridors and walkways to the maze of service passages that led to lesser-known landing platforms.
Mereel knew every metre of the complex. Skirata had encouraged the Nulls to run wild as kids, much to the disgust of the Kaminoans. He looked into the cloud-locked sky and rain hammered his visor like shrapnel.
“Ready, Kal’buir,” he said. “Get me out of this dar’yaim.”
place and time: republic special-ops freighter tiv z766/2. cato neimoidia portal. hydian - 461 standard days after the battle of geonosis.
“This wasn’t in the op order,” said Atin. “We were supposed to sabotage the factory and return to base.”
Prudii had ordered the traffic interdiction vessel to Neimoidian space. The pilot didn’t seem worried. TIV pilots never did.
“I know,” said Prudii. “But this is all about presentation.”
“Even this TIV can’t take on an armoured transport.”
“You sound scared, ner vod. Look at me. No helmet. Would I take a risk without my suit sealed?”
Atin considered showing Prudii where he could dock his character assessment the hard way. “But it’s not unreasonable to ask why you’re presenting a target to the Seps just to get a few thousand droids that are probably from a spiked batch anyway.” He paused for a breath. “Lieutenant.”
“No need to stand on ceremony with me, vod’ika.” Prudii shrugged. “We’re all brothers. Even those unimaginative Alpha planks, Force bless ‘em. Why am I doing this? Emphasis, ner vod. Emphasis.”
A small, bright spot grew larger in the view plate and resolved into a yellow and gray transport with horizontal spars picked out in scarlet. Prudii let it draw a thousand metres behind the TIV.
“Ready torpedoes,” he said.
The pilot tapped the console. “Torps ready.”
“Steady…”
The transport was accelerating slowly towards the jump point.
“On my mark…”
He was calculating blast range. Atin could see it.
“Take take take.”
“Torps away.”
A spread of six proton torpedoes streaked from the concealed tubes in the ship’s underslung drive. The TIV shuddered. Atin reminded himself that his Katarn armour and bodysuit was space-tight for 20 minutes, and then realised help would be a lot more than 20 minutes away if anything went wrong. It always was - why did they bother? But Prudii didn’t have his helmet on. Either he was confident or he was mad, and being a Null meant he was probably both.
The first and second warheads punched one-two into the transport’s starboard flank in a blaze of gold light. Atin didn’t see the rest strike because the TIV accelerated from standstill to way too fast in a matter of seconds, heading for the jump point. It was definitely emphatic.
Stars stretched and streaked before them as the TIV went to hyperspace and left the stricken transport far behind. Prudii wasn’t even waiting to confirm a kill. He smiled as the acceleration levelled out and the TIV settled steady again. The pilot yawned. Atin said nothing.
“You’re going to tell me what an or’dinii I am for pulling that stunt, aren’t you, ner vod?” asked Prudii.
“Pointless bravado.” If he took offence, Atin was ready to swing at him. “Reckless, even.”