501st: An Imperial Commando Novel

  “Maybe Vader doesn’t trust us after all,” Bry said.

  Bang.

  Darman put his boot through the flimsy latch and sent the door slamming back. Niner was first in, Deece aimed. The commandos all started yelling at once, a disorientation technique to get the Ranger to surrender—or step out where they could stun him.

  “On the floor! Get down, Kester, get down on the floor where we can see you!”

  “Kester, drop your weapon!”

  “Get down on the floor! Arms away from your sides!”

  Tactical lamps swept the kitchen in a silent split second, picking out a landscape of crates, containers, and—weird, this—the reflection of a computer screen. There was a faint smell, maybe decaying food. Just as Niner was about to start booting boxes out of the way, a figure rose slowly from behind them.

  Niner could see white or gray hair tied back in a tail. He didn’t see hands raised in surrender. He shone his lamp in the guy’s face, catching sight of one arm half raised to block the light, body turned so the right arm wasn’t visible.

  “Whatever you’ve got, buddy, lay it down nice and slow,” Niner said, flicking the Deece’s charge button so that it whirred audibly. “Dar, you ready?”

  Darman seemed to be itching to laser Kester. Niner could hear his teeth clicking as he clenched his jaw.

  “Hands above your head, Ranger,” Niner said. “You really don’t want to feel the—”

  And then the guy straightened up and turned full-on to face them. Niner saw the streak of blue energy just as he heard the vzzzmmm of a lightsaber, and the face suddenly illuminated by it was one he knew all too well.

  And because he knew the man, he froze for just half a heartbeat, and that was too long.

  Oh, shab …

  Jedi General Iri Camas, former Director of Special Forces, took advantage of the split second that gave him and batted the PEP laser bolt aside.

  “Force?” Camas said, raising the lightsaber for the kill.

  4

  Son, Ruu’s fine. We found her. You won’t hear from her again for a while, or from me, and I can’t tell you where we are. Look after yourself. Tell Ijaat I’m sorry I never got to talk to him. It’s safer for you both if you don’t try to contact me again.

  —Kal Skirata, in an untraceable message to his estranged sons to let them know the outcome of the search for their sister

  Kester’s base, Chelpori

  Jedi Masters were to be shot on sight, and Darman was surprised how little that bothered him.

  He switched his rifle to lethal rounds just as Camas—a man he knew, a man who’d been his boss—leapt high into the air, wholly unreal in Darman’s green-lit NV filter, and came crashing down on top of him.

  If Ennen hadn’t been in the right place for just that fraction of a second and brought his Deece up hard into the general’s face before he steadied himself, Darman knew that lightsaber would have taken his head off. Niner went flying back against the wall, Force-thrown. Camas swatted away Bry’s hail of blasterfire and burst out into the passage.

  Nelis’s voice broke into the comm channel. “Four-zero, what the stang’s happening? We’re coming in.”

  “Stay back,” Niner barked. “It’s a shabla Jedi.”

  Darman hoped the cops had the sense not to open fire when they didn’t know who was coming out the doors next. He almost knocked Bry over in his race to get to Camas first. Camas’s boots thudded on floorboards—not out of the house, but into another room.

  Insane. Why not run for it?

  Maybe Camas knew how many police blasters were waiting outside for him. Not even a Jedi Master could fend off scores of bolts from all directions. They were far from unkillable.

  “Trap,” Niner said. “The shabuir’s playing us. Let’s finish this.”

  “What trap?”

  “Dunno, but Camas never panics.”

  Darman almost expected Niner, good old loyal Niner, to find it hard to shoot at Camas. He didn’t. He blasted the door of the front room from its hinges and laid down fire. White bolts of energy shot back out at him; Camas knew his way around a blaster, too.

  Darman dropped to one knee as rounds went over his head, but Ennen was right behind him, and didn’t. Two bolts smacked into his visor. Ennen went down. Bry was nowhere to be seen. Darman turned to drag Ennen clear and check him out while Niner pinned Camas down with blasterfire.

  Why is Camas using a blaster?

  Jedi usually didn’t. They trusted their lightsabers, dumb and cocky as that was.

  “Ennen? Ennen!” Darman pulled off the man’s helmet. He was alive, just stunned for a few moments. “You okay?”

  Ennen scrambled onto his knees to grab his helmet back. It seemed to be working despite the damage. “Where’s Bry?”

  “Heading him off at the pass,” Bry’s voice said. “I’m coming in via the front window.”

  Niner ducked back to one side of the door to reload. “What’s that smell?”

  “I think it’s—”

  Adrenaline seized Darman. He’d fought close-quarters battles so many times that this felt like blissful release—no caution, no take-him-alive, no fancy rules of engagement, just kill or be killed. He pushed into the room behind Niner to see Camas Force-smash a hole through the wall into the kitchen. Bry swung through the narrow window and cannoned into Camas as the Jedi clambered over the rubble. He brought his gauntlet vibroblade down hard but it skated off the general’s back as if it had hit armor plate.

  Why doesn’t Camas make a run for it? Why is he going around in circles?

  “Gas,” Niner said. “Shab, it’s gas.”

  They didn’t encounter bio-fuel often. It took them a few seconds too long to piece it together. Camas brought his lightsaber up into Bry’s chest plate and then sent him crashing back through the exterior wall with a massive Force throw.

  Darman didn’t have time to think anything but stop Camas. The Jedi was through the hole in the wall now, and suddenly Darman could see why he was so keen to get back into the kitchen: the general stood by the cooking range, frozen for a moment as if something hadn’t gone to plan, and Force-pulled the pipes from the wall. Darman heard the loud hiss of venting gas.

  “Looks like I timed this all wrong, didn’t I?” Camas said.

  Camas raised his lightsaber and Darman opened fire. It was the last thing he should have done, but it was pure reflex. He couldn’t stop his body responding. A sheet of fire ripped across the room from the ruptured pipe like a flamethrower. Camas just ducked. He didn’t try to run. Darman had a fleeting and time-wasting thought that the old chakaar had something else up his sleeve. But he was so eaten up by vengeance and a reflex to fight that even when Niner grabbed him and tried to pull him clear, he carried on firing at Camas point-blank. The whole place was now on fire. The plastoid surfaces were starting to melt and the wood and drapes were ablaze.

  “Dar! Out!”

  Darman pushed Niner aside. “I’m not letting him get away.”

  “He’s not trying to, Dar. Out—now.”

  “We’re all going to die,” Camas yelled, lightsaber in one hand, blaster in the other. “But I’d hoped more of you would come and die with me …”

  Darman realized none of them had identified themselves to Camas as his old commando cadre. He wondered if it would have made any difference if they had.

  Camas dropped his blaster and stood with legs apart, one hand reaching down to the floor as if he was pulling on some invisible trapdoor.

  “Run!” Niner yelled.

  He grabbed Darman by the strap on his backpack and jerked him away with such force that Darman found himself almost running backward. He had no recollection of how he ended up outside the front door, only that Niner pulled him to his feet when he stumbled. One moment he was staring into flames licking out of a side window; the next, an exploding ball of flame blinded him for a second.

  “That’s the gas main,” Lieutenant Nelis said. “Somebody get that thing shut off. Hey, Ber
ila—call the gas company. Get that main shut down.”

  The scene around Darman now was chaos—the house burning steadily with its roof gone, flashing red and blue lights, med speeders, a fire crew, frantic cops, some of the neighbors staring in horror. And there was Ennen—Ennen kneeling next to Bry, pumping his chest with both hands until a civilian med tech pulled him off. Ennen walked away a few paces then came back again. But Darman knew what too late looked like.

  “It’s not going to blow again,” Niner said calmly. He seemed to be shaping up to do something, rocking back on one heel as if he was going to take a run at it. He was. “Got to salvage that computer.”

  Darman was flooded with hardwired animal dread at the thought of going back into the flames. He’d been okay standing his ground when the fire had started around him, but somehow walking through it even in heat-resistant armor was a different matter. His animal instincts said no. He’d been caught in fires before, and it brought him as close to blind panic as he’d ever been.

  “It’s a waste, otherwise,” Niner said.

  “Bry’s dead. Niner, Bry’s dead—”

  “A waste.”

  He ran back into the burning house. Darman went to follow, but there was Bry down, Ennen pacing around close to losing it, and Corellia’s Nine Hells breaking loose, and for a few seconds Darman wasn’t sure where he was needed most.

  Niner. That’s who needs me.

  Darman took a deep breath and ran after him. If he didn’t think, he’d be fine. He wouldn’t feel the heat—not for a good thirty minutes—and his plates would protect him from any falling debris. But it still scared him. His gut still froze.

  “You never listen.” Niner felt around for the computer in the fog of flame and blackened debris. The conversation felt weirdly surreal, and got worse when Darman found what had been Iri Camas. The blast had embedded the general’s lightsaber in the opposite wall. “I said stay put.”

  “Just in case you get into difficulties,” Darman said.

  He wouldn’t leave Niner at Shinarcan Bridge, and he wasn’t about to leave him now.

  “That’s it, there.” Niner wrenched a burning shelf clear of what had been a counter. “It’s welded itself to the worktop.”

  Flames licked across what was left of the ceiling joists as the burning gas vented like an oversized torch. Melting kitchen shelves dripped onto the floor; the computer’s screen was shattered and its plug fused into the wall outlet by the heat, but all they needed was the base unit. Niner wrenched the cable free.

  “Let’s move,” he said.

  As they made for the doorway, Darman pulled the lightsaber hilt from the wall and found that his gauntlets were sticky with near-liquid plastoid. The melting floor tiles dragged on their boots like glue. When he finally stumbled outside, he walked into a wall of water jets. Firefighters moved in behind them.

  “Idiots.” One of the firefighters stopped to berate them. “If that stunt had gone wrong, guess who’d have to go in and save your sorry butts.”

  “Yeah, but it didn’t,” Darman said, ungrateful for the prospect of rescue. He didn’t need saving. Commandos looked out for each other. Brotherhood hadn’t saved Bry, though. “This is what we came for.”

  Niner was still clutching the buckled computer in both arms. He couldn’t put it down because the plastoid was stuck to his armor. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  It took Darman some determined work with a vibroblade to separate the melted material from Niner’s plates. But this wasn’t what they’d come for. They’d come for Ranger Kester, and they’d found General Camas and a computer instead. And they’d lost a man in the process.

  Simple police job. Right. Me and my big mouth.

  “Sorry about your lad,” Nelis said. “Just when you think the war’s over. Rotten shame.”

  Luckily, he said it out of earshot of Ennen. No soldier needed that pointed out to him. Losing buddies was bad enough, but there was something even worse about losing them on the margins of combat—fate’s cruelty, lulling you into thinking you’d all made it okay through the worst, not knowing that the worst was just dawdling around the corner, and just late for its appointment.

  Niner snapped back into sergeant mode. He went up to Ennen, who was standing by a med speeder with his forehead resting against the vehicle’s durasteel side, and reached out to put his hand on the guy’s shoulder. But Ennen shook it off and walked away. Darman couldn’t see Bry’s body. He stopped a med tech in passing. This was probably the entirety of Chelpori’s emergency response team. It was a small place.

  “Where’s our buddy?” Darman asked. “What have you done with the body?”

  The med tech jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “One of the officers is looking for a body bag. Won’t be long.”

  Nobody said a word about the destruction all around. Maybe they were too scared to argue with the Empire, or at least with heavily armored armed commandos. The houses next to Kester’s base—and where was Kester?—were still intact except for their windows. The blast looked as if it had been directed upward rather than sideways. The gas workers from the houses stood outside and stared, as if they couldn’t believe the whole row of homes hadn’t been demolished with them inside.

  Darman tried again with Ennen. It was harder to comfort a guy you didn’t actually like much. Friends and brothers—that was instinctive. Darman struggled for the right words. He’d lost brothers, and he’d lost his wife. He just wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to tell Ennen that he’d seen someone who mattered to him cut down by a lightsaber, too, and that he understood completely.

  Ennen glowered at him, turning his helmet over and over between his hands. Darman wasn’t sure what they were going to do with the body. Burial hadn’t been an option for most clones killed in action, and Mandalorians generally didn’t go in for cemeteries or memorials. A piece of armor for commemoration, that was all.

  But Ennen and Bry had been trained by a Corellian sergeant. It showed. Their attitudes were Corellian; they’d have fitted in seamlessly in any Corellian town.

  “Cremation,” Ennen said. “I don’t care how we do it, but I want him to have a proper cremation.”

  It seemed an uncomfortable parallel with the burning house behind them. “We’ll get it done.”

  “Yeah, screw the regulations. Whatever they are now.” Ennen wiped his nose with the back of his glove, his face soot-stained. “Jedi. Our own general, too. You think he knew it was us?”

  There were so few commandos compared with the main army—fewer than five thousand after Geonosis, maybe only three or four thousand now—that it seemed reasonable to think Camas still knew who his men were even after Zey had taken over. But chances were that he hadn’t known more than a couple of hundred by sight, and then Darman didn’t know if the general could tell them apart like Etain and Jusik or Zey did. They were probably still just numbers, strangers. Camas couldn’t have known them all. Darman didn’t know if that made the whole thing more or less poignant.

  “Who cares?” Darman said. “Camas doesn’t matter anymore. None of them do.”

  “Did you or Niner kill him?”

  “Camas? Neither, not exactly. He was fried on the spot when my Deece ignited the gas.”

  “Good enough for me,” Ennen said. “Thanks.”

  They left Lieutenant Nelis and the emergency crews to their task. Ennen and Darman carried Bry’s body back to the shuttle and Ennen took the controls. Darman and Niner sat in the crew space behind him, salvaging what they could from the computer, and tried not to think about Bry and how they hadn’t bonded with him. Darman could see it all on Niner’s face when he took off his helmet.

  “So what was going on there?” Darman said. “Crates. No Kester. Camas sending out coded transmissions.”

  “Escape route.”

  “Yeah, I know that, but …”

  “Let’s see if we can get any clues from this.”

  Niner chipped away at the plastoid for ages and finally mana
ged to pull out a few circuit boards. The datachip was still inserted in one of them.

  “Might as well try,” he said. He pried out the chip and slid it into his datapad. “Atin would have had this all sorted by now.”

  When Niner turned the chip reader to show Darman the display, there was nothing on it. Camas must have wiped it before he made his last stand, which was still the dumbest death that Darman could imagine.

  But we wouldn’t let ourselves be taken alive. Would we?

  Camas could have tried harder to escape. Okay, he wasn’t Jusik or Kenobi, and he’d spent too long sitting on his backside before the war, but he seemed determined to stay put.

  “I think he was a decoy,” Darman said at last. “I think he was keeping us busy for as long as he could while something else was going on.”

  “Shame this thing won’t tell us what.” Niner took out the chip and stared at it as if a frown could reboot it and restore the data. “But who knows? Jaing always said it was really hard to wipe data completely. Maybe someone can recover something off this.”

  If there was anything recoverable on the original chip, then the commandos would probably never be told. Darman knew that. Even when Skirata was involved, they hadn’t been told everything.

  But he couldn’t bear the thought of Bry dying just to take out one Jedi, not even a Master and general like Camas. He wanted the chip to be the key to a dissident network. He wanted it to be pivotal.

  Darman knew it was guilt for giving Bry a hard time until it was too late to befriend him.

  Kyrimorut, Mandalore; week four of the new Empire

  The ice-glazed trees at Kyrimorut shed a slow, steady rain on the ground, the first sign that the thaw had started.

  Jusik stood at the window and listened to the faint trickling of water in the gutters and down-pipes. The world outside still looked frozen solid, but spring was coming. He could smell it; he could sense the life underground waiting to wake. There was a marvelous feeling of hope and anticipation that he’d never detected on Coruscant. The global city was choked with permacrete and its weather controlled artificially, leaving almost nothing wild to stay in touch with the natural cycle of the seasons.