The timing was critical. They’d have to take them out just before the main force entered the area. That would leave a few hours to cross the valley and catch the base camp unprepared. It was doable, but only if everything was coordinated perfectly. The Gloom Walkers were in place, but the main force wasn’t ready to make its move yet … and so they waited.
“I’m worried,” Des finally conceded. “Taking that outpost won’t be easy. Once we get the go-ahead there’s no margin for error. We have to be perfect. If they’ve got any surprises waiting for us, we could be in trouble.”
Adanar spit on the ground. “I knew it! You’ve got a bad feeling, don’t you? This is Hsskhor all over again!”
Hsskhor had been a disaster. After Kashyyyk fell, the surviving Republic soldiers fled to the neighboring world of Trandosha. Twenty units of Sith troopers, including the Gloom Walkers, were sent in pursuit. They caught up to the Republic survivors on the desert plains outside the city of Hsskhor.
A day of savage fighting left many dead on both sides, but no definitive victor. Des had been uneasy throughout the battle, though at the time he hadn’t been able to say why. His unease had grown as night fell and both sides retreated to opposite ends of the battlefield to regroup. The Trandoshans had struck a few hours later.
The pitch-black night wasn’t a problem for the reptilian Trandoshans: they could see into the infrared spectrum. They seemed to come out of nowhere, materializing from the darkness like a nightmare given substance.
Unlike the Wookiees, the Trandoshans weren’t allied with either side in the galactic civil war. The bounty hunters and mercenaries of Hsskhor cut a swath of destruction through the ranks of Republic and Sith alike, not caring whom they fought just as long as they came away with trophies from their kills.
Details of the massacre were never officially released. Des had been at the very center of the carnage, and even he could barely piece together what had happened. The attack caught the Gloom Walkers, like every other unit, completely off guard. By the time the sun rose nearly half the Sith troops had been cut down. Des lost a lot of friends in the slaughter … friends he might have saved if he had paid more attention to the dark premonition he’d felt when he first set foot on that forsaken desert world. And he vowed he’d never let the Gloom Walkers get caught in a slaughter like that again.
In the end Hsskhor paid a heavy price for the ambush. Reinforcements were sent in from Kashyyyk to overwhelm both the Republic forces and the Trandoshans. It took less than a week for the Sith to claim victory, and the once proud city was sacked and razed to the ground. Many of the Trandoshans simply gave up the fight to defend their homes and offered their services to their conquerors. They were bounty hunters and mercenaries by trade, and hunters by nature. They didn’t care whom they were working for, as long as there was a chance to do some more killing. Needless to say, the Sith had welcomed them with open arms.
“This isn’t going to be a repeat of Hsskhor,” Des assured his nervous companion. It was true he had an uneasy feeling once again. But this time it was different. Something big was going to happen, but Des couldn’t say for sure whether it would be good or bad.
“Come on, Des,” Adanar pressed. “Go talk to Ulabore. He listens to you sometimes.”
“And tell him what?”
Adanar threw his hands up in exasperation. “I don’t know! Tell him about your bad feeling. Make him get on the comm to HQ and tell them to pull us back. Or convince them to send us in! Just don’t leave us sitting out here like a bunch of dead womp rats rotting in the sun!”
Before Des could answer, one of the junior troopers, a young woman named Lucia, ran up and snapped off a crisp salute. “Sergeant! Lieutenant Ulabore wants you to assemble the troops by his tent. He’ll address them in thirty minutes,” she said, her voice earnest and excited.
Des flashed a smile at his friend. “I think we’ve finally got our orders.”
The soldiers stood at attention as the lieutenant and Des reviewed the troops. As it always did, the inspection consisted of Ulabore moving up and down the ranks, nodding and giving half-muttered approvals. It was mostly for show, a chance for Ulabore to feel as if he had something to do with the success of a mission.
Once they were done, the lieutenant marched to the front of the column and turned to face the troops. Des stood alone in front of the unit, his back to them so he could be face-to-face with his superior officer.
“Everyone here is familiar with our mission objective,” Ulabore began, his voice unusually high-pitched and loud. Des guessed he was trying to sound authoritative, but it came across as shrill.
“I’ll leave the specifics of the mission to the sergeant here,” he continued. “Our task is not an easy one, but the days of the Gloom Walkers getting easy jobs are long gone.
“I don’t have much else to say; I know you’re all as eager as I am to end this pointless waiting. That’s why I’m happy to inform you that we’ve been given the order to move out. We hit the Republic outpost in one hour!”
Horrified gasps and loud whispers of disbelief rose up from the ranks. Ulabore stepped back as if he’d been slapped. He’d obviously been expecting cheers and exultation, and was rattled by the sudden anger and lack of discipline.
“Gloom Walkers, hold!” Des barked. He stepped up to the lieutenant and lowered his voice. “Sir, are you certain those were the orders? Move in one hour? Are you certain they didn’t mean one hour after nightfall?”
“Are you questioning me, Sergeant?” Ulabore snapped, making no attempt to keep his own voice down.
“No, sir. It’s just that if we leave in one hour it’ll still be light out. They’ll see us coming.”
“By the time they see us we’ll already be close enough to jam their transmitters,” the lieutenant countered. “They won’t be able to signal back to the base camp.”
“It’s not that, sir. It’s the gunships. They’ve got three repulsorcraft equipped with heavy-repeating flash cannons. If we try to take the outpost during the day, those things will mow us down from the sky.”
“It’s a suicide mission!” someone shouted out from the ranks.
Ulabore’s eyes became narrow slits, and his face turned red. “The main army is moving out at dusk, Sergeant,” he said through tightly clenched teeth. “They want to cross the valley in darkness and hit the Republic base camp at first light.”
“Then there’s no reason for us to move so soon,” Des replied, struggling to remain calm. “If they start at dusk, it’s going to take at least three hours before they reach the valley from their current position. That gives us plenty of time to take the outpost down before they get here, even if we wait until after dark.”
“It’s obvious you don’t understand what’s really going on, Sergeant.” Ulabore spoke as if arguing with a stubborn child. “The main force isn’t going to start moving until after we report our mission is complete. That’s why we have to move now.”
It made sense: the generals wouldn’t want to risk the main force until they knew for certain the valley was secure. But sending them in during the light of day guaranteed that the Gloom Walkers’ casualty rate would increase fivefold.
“You have to comm back to HQ and explain the situation to them,” Des said. “We can’t take on those gunships in the air. We have to wait till they ground them for the night. You have to make them understand what we’re up against.”
The lieutenant acted as if he hadn’t even heard him. “The generals give the orders to me, and I give them to you,” he snapped. “Not the other way around! The army is moving out at dusk, and that’s not going to change to fit your schedule, Sergeant!”
“They won’t have to change their plans,” Des insisted. “If we leave as soon as it gets dark, we’ll still have that outpost down by the time they reach the valley. But sending us in now is just—”
“Enough!” the lieutenant snapped. “Quit braying like a bantha cut off from its herd! You have your orders, now follow them!
Or do you want to see what happens to soldiers who defy their superior officers?”
Suddenly it was clear to Des what was really going on. Ulabore knew the order was a mistake, but he was too scared to do anything about it. The order must have come directly from one of the Dark Lords. Ulabore would rather lead his troops into a slaughter than face the wrath of a Sith Master. But Des wasn’t about to let him drive the Gloom Walkers to their doom. This wasn’t going to become a repeat of Hsskhor. He hesitated for only a second before slamming his fist into his lieutenant’s chin, knocking him cold.
There was stunned silence from the rest of the troops as Ulabore slumped to the ground. Des quickly took away the fallen officer’s weapons, then turned and pointed at a pair of the newest recruits.
“You two, keep an eye on the lieutenant. Make sure he’s comfortable if he wakes up, but don’t let him anywhere near the comm.”
To the communications officer he said, “Just before dusk send a message back to HQ telling them our mission is complete so they can start moving the main force into the valley. That will give us two hours to achieve our objective before they get here.”
Turning to address the rest of the troops, he paused to let the gravity of his next words sink in. “What I’ve done here is mutiny,” he said slowly. “There’s a chance anyone who follows me from here on in will face a court-martial when this is over. If any of you feel you can’t follow my orders after what I’ve done here today, speak up now and I’ll surrender command to Senior Trooper Adanar for the rest of the mission.”
He gazed out across the soldiers. For a second nobody spoke; then as one they all raised their fists and gave two light raps on their chest, just above the heart.
Overwhelmed with pride, Des had to swallow hard before he could give his final order to the troops … his troops. “Gloom Walkers, dismissed!”
The ranks dispersed in groups of twos and threes, the soldiers whispering quietly to one another. Adanar broke away from the rest and came up to Des.
“Ulabore’s not going to forget this,” he said quietly. “What are you going to do about him?”
“After we take that outpost they’ll want to pin a medal on our commanding officer,” Des replied. “I’m betting he’d rather shut up and accept it than let anyone know what really happened.”
Adanar grunted. “Guess you got it all worked out.”
“Not quite,” Des admitted. “I’m still not sure how we’re going to take down that outpost.”
7
The outpost was located in a clearing on the top of a plateau overlooking the valley. Under the cover of night, the Gloom Walkers had moved silently through the jungle until they had it surrounded. Des had broken the unit up into four squads, each approaching from a different side. Each squad carried an interference box with it.
They had set up and activated the i-boxes once they’d closed to within half a kilometer of the base, jamming all transmissions within their perimeter. The squads had continued on to the edges of the clearing then stopped, waiting for Des to give them the signal to move in. With no communication among the squads—the i-boxes jammed their own equipment as well—the most reliable signal was the sound of blasterfire.
As he stared across the clearing at the three repulsorcraft sitting on the landing pad atop the outpost’s roof, Des felt a familiar feeling in the pit of his stomach. All soldiers felt the same thing going into battle, whether they admitted it or not: fear. Fear of failure, fear of dying, fear of watching their friends die, fear of being wounded and living out the rest of their days crippled or maimed. The fear was always there, and it would devour you if you let it.
Des knew how to turn that fear to his own advantage. Take what makes you weak and turn it into something that makes you strong. Transform the fear into anger and hate: hatred of the enemy; hatred of the Republic and the Jedi. The hate gave him strength, and the strength brought him victory.
For Des the transformation came easily once the fighting started. Thanks to his abusive father, he’d been turning fear into anger and hate ever since he was a child. Maybe that was why he was such a good soldier. Maybe that was why the others looked to him for leadership.
They were waiting on his signal even now, waiting for him to take the first shot. As soon as he did, they’d charge the outpost. The Gloom Walkers were outnumbered nearly two to one; they’d need the advantage of surprise to even out the odds. But those gunships were a problem Des hadn’t anticipated.
The clearing was surrounded by bright lights that illuminated everything within a hundred meters of the outpost itself. And even though the repulsorcraft were grounded, there was a soldier stationed in the open flatbed at the rear of each vehicle, operating the turrets. The armored walls of the flatbed rose to waist height to give the gunner some cover, and the turret itself was heavily shielded to protect it from enemy fire.
From the landing pad on the roof, the gunners had a clear view of the surrounding area. If he fired that first shot, the other units would charge out into the clearing and right into a storm of heavy-repeating blasterfire. They’d be torn apart like zucca tossed into a rancor pit.
“What’s the matter, Sarge?” one of the soldiers in his squad asked. It was Lucia, the junior trooper who’d delivered Ulabore’s orders to him earlier. “What are we waiting for?”
It was too late to call off the mission. The main army was already on the move; by the time Des got back to camp to warn them, they’d be halfway through the valley.
He glanced down at the young recruit and noticed the scope on her weapon. Lucia was carrying a TC-17 long-range blaster rifle. Her knuckles were white from gripping her weapon too tightly in fear and anticipation. She’d seen only minor combat duty before being assigned to the Gloom Walkers, but Des knew she was one of the best shots in the unit. The TC-17 was only good for a dozen shots before the power cell had to be switched out, but it had a range well over three hundred meters.
Each of the four squads had a sniper assigned to it. When the fighting began, their job was to watch the perimeter of the battle and make sure none of the Republic soldiers escaped to warn their main camp.
“See those soldiers standing in the rear of the gunships? The ones working the flash cannons?” he asked her.
She nodded.
“If we don’t get rid of them somehow, they’re going to turn our squads into turret fodder about ten seconds after this battle begins.”
She nodded again, her eyes wide and scared. Des tried to keep his voice even and professional to calm her down.
“I want you to think about this very carefully now, trooper. How fast do you think you could take them out from here?”
She hesitated. “I … I don’t even know if I could, Sarge. Not all of them. Not from this angle. I could get a line on the first one, but as soon as he goes down, I doubt the others will stand still long enough for me to take aim. They’ll probably duck down in the flatbed for cover. And even if I take the gunners out, there’s half a dozen more soldiers on that roof who would jump in to take their places. I can’t drop nine targets that fast by myself, Sarge. Nobody can.”
Des bit his lip and tried to figure out an answer to the problem. There were only three gunships. If he could somehow get a message to the sniper in each squad and have them fire at exactly the same time, they might be able to take out the unsuspecting gunners … though they’d still have to stop the other six soldiers from replacing them.
He cut off his own line of thought with a silent curse. It would never work. Because of the i-boxes there was no way to get a message to the other squads in time.
Taking the sniper rifle from Lucia’s hands, he brought the weapon up and set his eye to the scope to get a better look at the situation. He scanned the roof quickly from side to side, noting the position of every Republic soldier. With the magnification of the scope he could make out their features clear enough to see their lips moving as they spoke.
The situation was practically hopeless. The outpost w
as the key to taking Phaseera, and the turrets on the roof were the key to taking the outpost. But Des was out of options and almost out of time.
He felt the fear stronger than ever and took a deep breath to focus his mind. Adrenaline began to pump through his veins as he redirected the fear to give him strength and power. He lined the blaster’s scope up on one of the gunners, and a red veil fell across his vision. And then he fired.
He acted on instinct, moving too quickly to let his conscious thoughts get in the way. He didn’t even see the first soldier drop; the scope was already moving to his next target. The second gunner had just enough time to open his eyes wide in surprise before Des fired and moved on to the third. But she’d seen the first gunner go down and had already dropped down behind the armored walls of the gunship’s flatbed for cover.
Des resisted the impulse to fire wildly and moved the scope in a tight circle, looking in vain for a clean shot. The sound of blasterfire exploded in the night, along with shouts and pounding feet as the Gloom Walkers burst from their cover and rushed the outpost. They’d followed their orders to the letter, charging out at the sound of the first shot. Des knew he had only a few seconds before the turrets opened up on them and turned the clearing into a killing field, but he couldn’t see the shot to take out the third gunner.
He whipped the rifle around in desperation, looking for a new target on the roof. He set his sights on a soldier crouched down low beside a small canister. The soldier wasn’t moving, and he’d covered his face with his hands as if shielding his vision. The blast from Des’s weapon hit him square in the chest just as the device at the soldier’s feet detonated.
“Flash canister!” Lucia screamed, but her warning came too late. The view through the scope vanished in a brilliant white flare, temporarily blinding Des.