Star Wars: Battlefront: Twilight Company (36 page)

“We could seal the door,” Namir said. “Make sure
nobody
gets the room.”

“Do you really want to bunk with your men?” Chalis asked. Her tone made it clear what answer she expected. “Do you really think they’re better off with their commander in the next bed over?”

Namir watched Chalis awhile. She seemed to be holding back a smile.

“Get the hell out of my quarters,” he said at last, and she laughed as she departed.

PLANET SULLUST

Nine Days into Operation Ringbreaker

For the past two weeks, Thara hadn’t felt much like SP-475 at all.

The explosion on the rebel terrorist vessel had left her with a jagged scar across her forehead and a right ear that went deaf at intervals. For the first few days after the incident, she’d suffered from headaches that left her pressing her forehead against cold metal floor panels at night and praying for unconsciousness. The medical droids assured her it was nothing unexpected and soon approved a return to light duty: surveillance reviews, munitions maintenance, and the like.

No one had visited her or wished her well. Her uncle might have done so under other circumstances, but he was still in holding awaiting trial or release.

On her first day back, as she cross-checked automated supply records with her own hand-counted inventory of blaster power packs, 113 joined her in the brightly lit armory. He’d led the team on the day of the explosion, interrogated the rebel agent himself. Somehow he’d survived, too, even as close as he’d been to the detonation.

Maybe
, Thara thought,
he really
was
one of the original clones.
The commandos had been built to last. Other members of the team hadn’t been so fortunate: She was glad she couldn’t remember the sight of body parts blasted and strewn through the ship, but she could still imagine.

“You’re one of the new ones,” 113 said. More a statement than a question. “Accelerated training to bulk out the corps. Pinyumb your first assignment?”

“Yes, sir,” Thara said. She was dressed in a variant of a cadet’s uniform, in an open-faced helmet that left her every expression exposed. She felt blind without the glow of her old uniform’s display.

“Huh.” SP-113 stared at her through his own helmet. Thara wondered if he was reviewing her record. “You survived. Give you credit for that. But you need to do better.”

Better than leaving my comrades to die?
she wondered. It seemed a low threshold to clear.

“Yes, sir,” Thara said.

“However long the med droids said to stay off patrol? Cut it in half. We’re shorthanded, and the bosses want Nien Nunb and the rest of the cell found before they cause more trouble.”

The alien aboard the rebel ship had claimed the cell lacked supporters in Pinyumb—that the local civilians were too scared to help. No one believed it. Not Thara and her comrades, and certainly not her commanders.

Still, Thara opened her mouth to protest. “Sir?” she asked. She shouldn’t have been speaking, but she fumbled for the words anyway. “I thought—”

“You thought what?”

“Hoth, sir. I thought the rebels would be … less dangerous. Less active. Less something.”

The garrison stormtroopers didn’t gossip much—certainly not while on duty, when chatter was forbidden; and official policy discouraged bonding during off hours. Troopers who grew attached to their comrades became inflexible, slow to adapt to new postings with new squads. Still, talk got around during meals or in the locker room, and Thara had heard about an attack on a prime rebel base in the Anoat sector. The enemy had been routed, the base obliterated. Darth Vader himself had led the troops to victory, the elite of the elite marching through fire and ice against a thousand rebel traps.

113 made a short, scornful sound like a laugh as he turned away. “We’re a long way from Hoth,” he said. “And there’re always more rebels.”

One week after her conversation with 113, Thara’s full status was restored. She donned each piece of her uniform with care and diligence, reminding herself of her name and her mission and her duty to Sullust and the Empire. But the faint scratches on her armor and the dead silence in her right ear distracted her, and she fumbled as she locked her helmet into place.

Nearly thirty stormtroopers stood at attention as the transport touched down onto the hangar floor. Another thirty were stationed out of sight or in the adjoining tunnels, ready for any surprise attack by the rebel cell. Still more teams were searching housing blocks in Pinyumb and locking down the Inyusu Tor processing facility; someone in charge had decided that the transport’s safe arrival was worth shutting down city business.

SP-475 stood behind a maintenance crew, staring toward the tunnel through which the transport had descended from the surface. She imagined rebels deployed between dim rays of sunlight, prepping explosives in the shadows.

The transport hissed, and her attention turned to the boarding ramp. Pinyumb officials rushed forward, meeting the first wave of arrivals and occluding her view. Half a dozen white-armored figures surrounded the group and escorted them down a tunnel. Chatter played in her helmet: team leaders reporting that nothing was amiss.

“Who are these guys?” one of the maintenance workers asked. Now a second wave of arrivals marched down the boarding ramp: black-clad officers, helmeted security personnel, and more stormtroopers. First ten, then twenty, then more than SP-475 could count.

“Labor oversight,” another worker replied. “Some rebels hit a supply depot on Mardona the other day. Need to make up production somewhere.”

SP-475 hadn’t heard that. She bristled at the idea that Pinyumb needed more troops, more overseers to do its part—but she forced the instinct down. 113 had told her that they were shorthanded, and they still hadn’t found Nien Nunb. Maybe reinforcements weren’t such a bad thing.

Then she heard a high-pitched whine in her helmet. Her comrades began shouting.

The overlapping, static-distorted voices were impossible to decipher. In a second, a commanding officer would override the others and make her orders clear. She wanted to freeze. She wanted to run. The last time she’d seen her fellow troops fall into chaos, men and women had died.

Her chest ached. She wasn’t breathing.

In the periphery of her vision, she saw another trooper gesture behind her and up the cavern wall. Her rifle was in her hands as she turned. She stumbled half a step back and bumped into one of the maintenance crew.

The helmet directed her attention to a mechanical sphere no larger than her fist, floating a dozen meters above the cavern floor and weaving toward the tunnel to the surface. She didn’t question what it was. She brought up her rifle and squeezed the trigger three times. Her visor polarized against the red glare. Two shots chipped the stone. The last clipped the sphere, sending it spiraling onto the ground and leaving a trail of sparks.

Nothing exploded. No one died. It was a long time before she heard the comm chatter again or noticed the two troopers kneeling over the fallen sphere.

“Spy cam,” came a crisper voice. “Knew the rebels couldn’t stay away.” It was 113. “Nice shot, Four-Seven-Five.”

SP-475 wanted to tear her helmet off and vomit.

But she’d done her duty. She’d overcome her hesitation. Her shift was just beginning, and if the rebels were at work, she had to be ready. She had to push through.

FIFTEEN LIGHT-YEARS OFF THE RIMMA TRADE ROUTE

Ten Days into Operation Ringbreaker

The dockyards of Najan-Rovi fell in less than a day. The gas giant’s floating habitats lacked a dedicated stormtrooper battalion, relying on Imperial fleet troopers and a complement of TIE fighters for defense. By the time the
Thunderstrike
had delivered its payload of Twilight Company strike teams, the dockyards’ doom was sealed; by the time Twilight jumped to lightspeed and departed Najan-Rovi, almost a hundred Imperial luxury transports and light freighters were in flames.

“‘Executive shuttles’ for senior officers and special envoys of the Ruling Council,” Chalis had explained during a briefing to the squad leaders. “Stored and resupplied in Najan-Rovi but built by the Corellian Engineering Corporation. Once they’re destroyed, Corellia will need to increase its production; the officers
must
have their toys.”

Increased production on Corellia meant shipbuilding resources and security transferred from Kuat. After Najan-Rovi, Twilight Company was one step closer to its true objective, and the squads celebrated on their return from the dockyards. It was gratifying to see, though Namir was surprised that Chalis retreated to her quarters rather than accept congratulations in the drop ship hangar.

Thunderstrike
’s next destination was Obumubo, a frigid moon covered in a sea of icy liquid metal. There, Twilight was tasked with the obliteration of an Imperial garrison. “There are certain people I want promoted out of Kuat,” Chalis said at the senior staff’s morning meeting. “Once they’re gone, they’ll take their security with them. Kill the right man on Obumubo and we create a job vacancy.”

Von Geiz—one of the gentlest people Namir had ever known—asked if the target could be assassinated. “Must we risk the whole company to destroy one man?”

Chalis said nothing at first, her lips twitching in an expression that never quite became a smile. Then she began coughing, spitting into her sleeve as her chest heaved. It was over a minute before she recovered enough to reply.

“The Empire can’t suspect our intentions,” she said, her voice hoarse and her tone cold. “The military employs very smart people who are doubtless wondering about our attacks. If the
possibility
of our striking Kuat crosses their minds, our entire operation ends. So yes—we risk the company.”

Von Geiz did not argue further.

The attack on Obumubo was bloody. No Twilight soldier had died at Najan-Rovi, but injury and exhaustion had taken a toll. The garrison was smartly defended by experienced troops who’d held Obumubo’s sea creatures at bay for months. The battlefield favored the defenders. Two Twilight infantry personnel and a medic drowned in silver waters while disembarking the drop ships. A dozen more died in the first assault.

It took two days of fighting before the company managed to erect its siege weapons on the fluid landscape. Cannon fire brought down the garrison at last, and the
Thunderstrike
sped out of the system, its drop ships safely recovered as a phalanx of destroyers arrived.

It was, Chalis promised, another victory. One step closer to Kuat.

The night of the
Thunderstrike
’s departure from Obumubo, after a late visit by Namir to M2-M5—Namir still loathed the engineering droid, but it was more amenable than most of the crew to delivering reports at odd hours—Namir heard a noise from the mess hall and made his way to investigate. He found a dozen soldiers gathered around a portable holoprojector on one of the dining tables.

The projector was running an Imperial newscast. The digitized image of an attractive young woman proudly announced a string of Imperial triumphs over rebels in the Outer Rim. “Since the destruction of the Alliance base,” she declared, “over fifteen rebel outposts and seven members of the enemy leadership have surrendered. Emperor Palpatine is reportedly considering public trials for select combatants in the hope that others—witnessing their fair treatment—will follow their example and turn themselves in.”

“Is any of it true?” Namir recognized the voice and saw Roach seated at the corner of the table.

He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “It’s propaganda, so it’s not
all
true, but—” He sighed, uncertain how much to share. “We still haven’t made contact with High Command. The fleet’s out there, condition unknown.”

Was he being too direct? Too oblique? He barely remembered what it was like, speaking to his colleagues without second-guessing himself. Roach nodded briskly. The others were either watching the newscast or avoiding his gaze. He wanted to leave, but he was their commander. He owed them something better.