He waited for the sound of running, or the impact of a body cannoning into him. But it never came. Niner wasn’t making one last attempt to force him onto the freighter. The footsteps got steadily quieter before they speeded up into a steady jog. When Darman looked over his shoulder, Niner was gone.
Darman realized he hadn’t actually said good-bye to him. When he tried to open the short-range comlink, there was no response. Niner had severed all links.
Darman regretted his decision as soon as he crossed the bridge back to the entertainment quarter. But he knew that regret was for the right reasons. Staying here was the best option—not just for Kad, but for all his brothers and friends being hunted by Palpatine. They needed a spy on the inside, too. And he had the feeling that he wouldn’t exactly be thwarting Melusar’s aims by being one.
He began working out how he’d explain Niner’s absence to the commander. It wasn’t going to be easy. He’d probably leave it until the morning, partly to buy more time, and partly to make it more credible if he used the excuse of a drunken evening and not being able to recall when Niner actually disappeared.
The rest of Omega Squad had deserted. Who’d be shocked by one more going over the wall? Much as Darman disliked the idea, it just made him look even more loyal and reliable to Melusar.
He’d be trusted. He’d get a lot more information. He wasn’t sure yet how he’d relay that to Kyrimorut, but there’d be a way, and Jaller Obrim was still an ally.
Shab, I wish I didn’t keep losing it like that. I’ve got to get a grip of my temper. One day, I’m going to do something I’ll really regret.
Darman swallowed his shame at his outbursts and wandered around, killing time until he could slip back into the barracks. When he paused to look in a store window, a public holonews screen high on a building caught his eye, and he watched for a while.
Gibad had taken the full brunt of Palpatine’s wrath. It was all the more reason for Darman to stick with the job in hand.
Niner would realize that, eventually. Darman just hoped that Kad would, too.
Freighter Cornucopia, freighter park, G-80, Imperial City
Ordo took off his stormtrooper armor and stacked the plates on the deck. Cornucopia was in darkness except for the faint illumination from the red and blue lights of essential systems, her interior looking like an Outer Rim nightclub that hadn’t quite mastered the art of ambience.
“Niner?” He detached his secure comlink from the helmet. “Get in here. I need your kit.”
Niner was making his way through an obstacle course of repulsortrucks and other goods vessels, directed by Prudii along a path that kept him out of the range of the security cams. Some of the ’trucks looked as if they’d been abandoned there. In the distance, the nav lights of another freighter wobbled toward Cornucopia as its pilot headed for a parking bay. It wasn’t busy. Trade hadn’t picked up again since the end of the war.
Why now? Why does Dar decide to do this now?
Ordo was going to kick seven shades of osik out of Darman when he finally got him on board. The man was out of his mind with grief, but this was stupid, pointless, irresponsible. They’d come to extract the two commandos and that was exactly what they were going to do. Ny gave him her it’ll-all-be-fine look, the lines in her forehead thrown into relief by the console lights. She never looked like she believed it herself.
Niner’s voice crackled over the comm. “What are you planning?”
Prudii interrupted, calculating the range of the cams at every stage. “Niner—head down and go left at the next bollard.”
“Got it. I said—what are you planning, Ord’ika?”
“I’m going to go back to the barracks dressed as you and drag Dar out by his gett’se if I have to.” Being a clone always had its advantages. “Shab, I can’t even contact him by comlink.”
“Make sure you’ve got your recorder running, Ord’ika,” Mereel said. “Always handy to have as much data as we can get on the interiors of enemy installations. I don’t suppose Niner’s been gathering layout data for us, has he?”
“No, Niner hasn’t,” Niner snapped. “Not before your pet tinnie rigged my bucket, anyway. How would I explain that if anyone checked my systems? That I was afraid of getting lost on the way back from the ’freshers?”
“Udesii, ner vod.” Mereel rolled his eyes at Ordo. “Take it easy. We’ll be out of here in no time.”
Niner was a special forces soldier who’d operated behind enemy lines throughout the war, never turning a hair. It made Ordo uncomfortable to see him rattled by such a low-risk extraction. Maybe it was all too emotionally charged to be handled like combat. This should have been relatively easy. Nobody knew they were here, nobody had cannon trained on their position, and nobody would even notice them if they walked right in and took their helmets off. But it could still end in tragedy.
We’ve all been here before.
Niner didn’t respond. Ordo could hear his ragged breathing and the occasional irritated click of his teeth, just like Skirata’s.
If I don’t get Dar and Niner home, it’ll break Kal’buir’s heart.
“Only those two could make a drama out of a nice safe exfil like this,” Jaing muttered.
Ny jerked her head around sharply. “You call this safe?”
“Nobody’s shooting at us,” he said. “Or them. Relax, Buir’ika.”
Ordo waited for the rap on Cornucopia’s hull. Ny, attuned to every sound and vibration in her ship, reacted before Ordo did, and he thought that was impressive for a nonclone with none of the genetic enhancements that the Nulls had been given. She released one of the hatch controls and Ordo heard the clatter of boots climbing a metal ladder. It felt like a long time before a black armored shape emerged from the hatch set in the deck. Niner pulled himself up through the opening and removed his helmet.
“So you can take out an entire droid base single-handed, but you can’t make Darman behave and get his shebs over here,” Ordo said. He knew it didn’t help to take it out on Niner, but he couldn’t bear to let Kal’buir down. “Get that kit off and let me sort him out.”
Niner just blanked him and reached into his belt pouch. “This is all you’ll be needing.”
He held out his hand, palm up. Ordo could hardly see the datachip in the gloom, a wafer of plastoid and metal so small that a sneeze could have sent it flying into the air-conditioning vents.
Ordo took it carefully and passed it to Jaing. “Clue me in Niner,” he said, realizing this had all gone to osik. “Are you planning to go back for him now? I’ll do it. No offense.”
“No, I’m staying here. I can’t leave Dar. He’s going to do something extreme and get himself killed.”
Here we go again. “We do the logical thing. We drag him out.”
“Look, I don’t want this any more than you do, but I see his point. Or at least I see why one of us should stay here, except it shouldn’t be him. He should be with his kid.”
“If you’re planning to use the word duty, ner vod, I might forget we’re family and punch you into next week.” Ordo could see a clean line to be drawn under all this, a final escape from Coruscant with no ties to keep dragging them back. This had to end now. “It’s the same shabuir running the show, remember? Except instead of Jedi, he’s got dark side saber-jockeys as the hired help. You don’t owe this army a shabla thing, and if you’ve got a duty, it’s to your clan. Your aliit.”
Niner took a step back and put one boot on the first rung of the ladder. “Dar’s going to do some dangerous stuff, and I’m not leaving him to do it alone. I’ll stay in contact and relay intel back to you. Now get that chip analyzed—Obrim said you could recover the data but you might need to use a scanning microscope to get at some of it. He made it clear that it’s important.”
Ordo hovered on the edge of grabbing Niner and getting his brothers to hold him down. They could all apologize for black eyes and chipped teeth later. It was for Niner’s own good.
“Last chance,” Ordo
said. “Give me your armor.”
“When we’re ready, we can bang out anytime we want. Okay?”
Ordo gestured to Ny to lock the hatch behind Niner. Mereel edged closer, ready to tackle him. Then Prudii swore to himself.
“Heads up, vode, we’ve got company … someone moving around out there.”
“It’s a freight park,” Mereel said. “What do you expect?”
Ordo looked up at the monitors. Shapes flashed out of one screen and emerged again in another as someone darted from right to left, caught by the hull cams on either side of the freighter. Ny edged forward in her seat, head lowered. Whoever was on the ground wouldn’t be able to see much in the cockpit viewplate, not even the faint glow.
“Y’know, maybe we should sit this out in another location.”
“Can’t you just take off?” Niner said. He put his other boot on the next rung down. Any moment now, Mereel would grab him. “You don’t have to exit via the freight terminal checkpoint.”
“We do if we want to keep coming back here.” Ny squinted as if she couldn’t see. Kitting her out with NV goggles would have been a good idea. “This ship shows up in systems as a legitimate commercial vessel. As long as I stick to the rules, we can go anywhere. The minute I drop off some flight schedule or the ship doesn’t show up on someone’s tote board, they’ll flag it to board or detain. Hide in plain sight. That’s what you lot always say, isn’t it?”
Time wasn’t a problem. Ordo thought they could hang on here for a couple of days, maybe a lot longer, but the less time spent here, the better. He seethed with frustration at having traveled light-years only to be thwarted five klicks from his target by Darman deciding to form his own one-man double-agent network.
I can be in and out of those barracks in under an hour. Okay, we might get spotted. Ny will have to keep the drives running. But it’s madness to turn around and go home empty-handed.
“I don’t want to worry anyone, but I think that’s some local entrepreneurs doing a little asset acquisition,” Prudii said. “Thieving shab’ikase. Look.”
Jaing slipped the chip into the wristband of his gauntlet and checked his sidearm. Ordo watched the grainy image on one of the monitors. Three figures—two human, one Bothan—moved from vehicle to vehicle, trying hatches. There were two ’trucks and a small courier shuttle between them and Cornucopia now. The Bothan kept watch while the two humans rattled the manual latches on one of the ’trucks and vanished inside.
“Relax,” Ordo said. He’d have to wait until the thieves moved on before he could venture out. Niner was stuck, too. For a moment, Ordo debated whether to simply lift off with Niner and come back later in another vessel for Darman. “Never seen a Bothan thief before.”
“I hope nobody calls the cops,” Prudii said.
“They’ll move on.”
Niner was wavering. Ordo could tell. His blink rate had shot up, and he kept looking down the shaft of the hatch beneath him. He was going to make a run for it. But Ordo needed black armor. The white stuff was fine for general loitering around, but to get in and out of the 501st Special Unit quickly, easily, and without fuss—the kind of fuss that involved blasters and rapid exits—he needed an Imperial commando rig.
Then he’d have to subdue Darman somehow and get him out of the compound. Doing that without being spotted was going to be a challenge even for Ordo.
Shab, they really might have to regroup and try another day. Like Ny said, they could always come back as long as Cornucopia didn’t blot her copybook. There were millions of vessel movements around the galactic capital every day, and even with tightened security that meant the chances of slipping in and out unhindered were good. If they were really desperate, though, and they didn’t want to use the freighter for cover again, they could get in and out anywhere they wanted. Not even Palpatine could lock down a planet this big and complex.
“Ten points for cheek,” Prudii said. “Look. They’re stealing the whole ’truck.”
The ’truck edged forward out of the line and turned. But instead of speeding away, the vehicle stopped after a few meters, and the two humans jumped out to force the doors of the next one. They were in and out again in what seemed like a few seconds, carrying a packing crate between them. The booty went into the rear of the stolen ’truck. Now the gang was shaping up to work on the courier shuttle. Ordo watched them struggle with the hatch controls for a few minutes before they gave up.
There were no prizes for guessing where they were coming next. Their getaway vehicle vanished from the side cam’s range for a moment, and then the underhull cam picked them up. The thieves were standing right under the belly hatch, looking up.
“Don’t even think about it, shabuire,” Mereel muttered. “Move along. Nothing to see here.”
Ny’s hand reached slowly for the console and hovered over the hatch controls.
“If you lock the hatch from here,” Ordo said, “they’ll hear the mechanism engage.”
“Does that matter? It’ll make them move on sharpish.”
“If we have to stay here longer, it might also make folks curious about why a ship is sitting here in lights-out mode with a crew embarked.”
“I can’t see that lot calling the cops.”
“You’ve seen the posters. Everyone has to denounce their neighbor to show how loyal they are.”
Everyone held their breath. Niner slipped his helmet back on, one-handed, and stood partway in the hatch, waiting. Ordo didn’t dare make a commotion by grabbing him now.
“Osik.” Prudii let out a sharp breath. Ordo could see the two humans trying the outer hatch. The chonk of metal flanges and the scrape of a hinge transmitted through the hull of the silent ship. “You really don’t want to do that, chakaare. Okay, darken ship, Ny.”
Niner jumped back onto the deck and turned to face what was coming up the ladder beneath him. Ny killed all the console lights and the monitors. Niner’s blue-lit visor vanished along with the charge indicator on his Deece. The only sounds were occasional breaths and the faint clicks of weapons being aimed.
If the thieves decided to come on deck, Ordo didn’t have a lot of choices. He couldn’t let them leave. And there was one still outside he’d have to silence—the Bothan. They were just petty criminals, chakaare, not normally worth killing, but he’d let security lapse for a few minutes and now he had to clean up the mess. The risk was too high not to.
We should know better. We’re elite special forces. And still we slip up on the small stuff. I slip up.
Ny was using her seat as cover, a small blaster aimed at the hatch. Ordo had no idea how she peformed under fire. His brothers knew without thinking what the other would do and how they would fight, but Ny was a wild card. Ordo snapped his fingers to get her attention and gestured to stay down.
Leave it to us, Ny. Let’s make this silent.
Without infrared images from a helmet to guide him, Ordo could only see vague shapes in the darkness and follow sounds. Fabric rustled below. Something metallic chinked against a rung—durasteel toe-caps or a blaster—and he strained to see what was emerging.
Come on. Both of you. Don’t want one of you jamming the hatch while the other gets away.
Ordo worked out how quickly he could exit and stop the getaway driver. The freighter’s exits were all choke points. And one thing he couldn’t do was use Cornucopia’s small defensive cannon here.
Shab …
The first thief scrambled onto the deck apparently oblivious that he was walking into an ambush. He even turned to give his buddy a hand up. Ordo waited two seconds for them both to stand clear of the hatch, and then Niner jumped one of them. Ordo heard a thud and the shunk of a vibroblade ejecting, followed by a wet gurgling noise. Ordo smashed the butt of his weapon down on the guy nearest to him. As the man dropped, he got him in a headlock and twisted sharply until he heard a crunch.
It had taken seconds, and it had been almost silent. Everyone froze. Then Ny hit the console, bringing up the instrument pane
l lights. It was enough to see what had happened.
“Ah … ,” she said, staring. “Ah, stang … ”
“I’ll dump them,” Mereel whispered. “Don’t worry.”
Sounds drifted up through the hatch. An engine revved before dropping to idle speed. A vehicle door opened and closed quietly.
“Hey, what’s happening?” It was a loud, nervous whisper. “Forrie? Kimm? I lost your comm, guys … guys?”
The Bothan didn’t try to enter the hatch. Crunch … crunch. He took two steps, sounding as if he was backing off. He knew something was wrong. A metal door catch snapped shut.
Niner looked at Ordo. Everything had changed. Ordo hated to quit on this, but they had brand-new problems.
“I’ve got to stop him.” Niner slipped the grenade launcher attachment onto his Deece. “Sorry. When I fire, just bang out, because there’ll be cops here in minutes. Just get clear. Oh, and ask your tinnie to mod Dar’s helmet like mine, okay?”
“Will do,” Ordo said. “K’oyacyi, ner vod.”
Niner dropped down the hatch and landed with a thud. Ordo’s decision had been made for him. The last thing he heard before the belly hatch sealed was a repulsortruck engine roaring away.
“Abort,” he said. “Ny, get us out. Niner, are you clear of the vessel?”
Ordo heard him panting as he ran. “I am now.”
“Secure all hatches. Stand by.” Ny hit the ignition and the repulsor maneuvering drives rumbled into life. “You sure he’s clear, Ordo?”
A loud explosion cut her short as the grenade found its target. The vessels visible on the monitors lit up yellow for a few moments before settling back into reflected flames. Niner was a reliable shot.
“I think he’s got a problem with his gearbox.” Niner’s forced cheerfulness didn’t fool anyone. “It’s just gone fifty meters into the air.”
“Head down, ner vod,” Ordo said. “Clear to take off, Ny.”
Ny took Cornucopia up in a steep climb, sending loose items skidding down the deck. Two of them were bodies. They’d have to be dumped, but that had to wait now.