Hard Contact

  “Seeing as they’re not helpful enough to label this stuff with a skull and crossbones, I’m going to set an implosion device in every room, to be on the safe side.” He ran his hands over the walls, testing for signs of metal substructures that might block his signal. The HUD showed zero from his glove sensors. He checked his comlink to be sure that he could get a signal outside. “Darman here. Anyone receiving, over?”

  “Fi here.”

  “The inner chamber’s clear. I’m setting charges and then we’re going to move out into the rest of the building.”

  “We’re approaching the front. It’s gone quiet out here and we think you’ve still got up to thirty tinnies for company.”

  “Is that you shaking the ground?”

  “Majestic.”

  “Good to know the navy’s here.”

  “Leaving the helmet comlink channel, by the way. Make sure you leave us your visual feed.”

  “We’ll let you know if it spoils our concentration. Darman out.”

  He gave Atin a dubious thumbs-up and took the implosion charges out of his pack. He could improvise most devices, but these were special, guaranteed to create such a high-temperature fireball and shock wave that they would destroy not only everything standing in a half-klick radius, but also every microorganism and virus as well. They were disappointingly small for such massively destructive power, a little smaller than the average remote.

  Darman still had two. It was overkill, and overkill made him feel safer. He picked up the lidded boxes in the refrigeration unit and tested each for weight—very carefully—before finding a lighter one that suggested it was half empty. He set it on the table, held his breath, and eased the lid off.

  It held a few metal tubes with sealed caps, and enough space for one of the devices. He placed the thermal carefully inside and replaced the container.

  “Go careful,” Atin said, indicating the boxes.

  “I will.” He found another lightweight box and peered inside. “There. And if they get to searching, they might even stop after they find one device.” He closed the refrigerator door.

  “That won’t reduce the blast any, will it?” Atin asked.

  “Not so you’d notice, believe me.”

  “Time for the tour of the building, then.”

  There were status panels to the right of the door, set to warn some monitoring system if the chamber was opened, and a hand-sized button marked EMERGENCY CLOSE, a smart precaution if you were handling deadly viruses. Opening the door would advertise the fact that they had gained entry to the building. Atin moved in and carefully unclipped the control plate. He took out a disruptive device about the size of a stylus and held it just clear of the exposed circuits. It was much the same technology as a mini EMP, only with a less powerful electromagnetic pulse. Nobody wanted a full-strength EMP going off a few centimeters from their HUD, hardened or not.

  “Next big bang,” Atin said. “Then they might think they’ve just taken a hit.”

  The ground shook again, and Atin touched the mini EMP against the control panel. Status lights winked out; the door gave a sigh as it lost its safety vacuum seal. A thin vertical gap opened in the smooth ceramic. Sound now filtered in from outside: explosions, shouts from officers, the occasional monotone responses of tinnies. He stood back and gestured to Darman.

  The gap was big enough to admit a flat endoscope, as well as the claws of the ram. He slid the probe cautiously through and checked the image it was receiving. The corridor lights were flickering. There was no movement.

  “I’ll force the doors and you stand by. I’ll be ready to lob in an EMP grenade and a flash-bang.”

  “Both?” Atin said.

  “Yeah, I don’t want to waste any, either, but we’ve got wets and tinnies out there somewhere.”

  Darman wedged the ram’s claws into the gap and locked the bars in place. It was more awkward to configure it as a spreader than as a simple ram, but he didn’t want to blow it open. He pumped the ratchet handle furiously. An eight-metric-ton force slowly pushed the doors apart.

  Atin checked outside with the endoscope again, then stepped through the opening with his Deece raised. “Clear.”

  Darman dismantled the ram and hurriedly hooked it back into his webbing. “Room by room, then. Killing House time.”

  That was something they’d done many, many times before. Each time they entered the Killing House on Kamino for an exercise, the walls and doors had been reconfigured. Sometimes they knew what they were going to find, and sometimes it was like a real house clearance, a sequence of nasty surprises that they had to take as they came.

  But there was a lot more at stake now than their individual lives.

  Atin gestured left. The inner corridor was a ring with doors leading off it and a single passage to the front entrance. At least there were no stairs or turbolifts to cover. They moved almost back-to-back, pausing at the corner to slide the endoscopic probe out far enough to check.

  “Oh boy,” Atin said, just as the first droid swung around and blasted. Darman heard the clatter of metal feet from exactly the opposite direction, and for a frozen moment he found himself staring down his scope at a very surprised Umbaran officer.

  Darman fired. So did Atin. They both kept firing down their respective ends of the corridor.

  “Okay, plan D,” Atin said. “Niner, we’re pinned down here, over.”

  “We’re concentrating fire on the front.” Niner’s voice cut back in with a background of explosions both near and farther away. That was why Darman didn’t like a having a four-way open comlink during an engagement. The noise and chatter were overwhelming. “They’ve pulled back inside. But nobody’s coming out.”

  “We haven’t located Uthan yet.”

  “Can you hold the position?”

  “Can you see where we are? West side corridor, left of the entrance.”

  Atin emptied a clip into two droids that came around the corner. Then there was no noise except for their respective panting.

  “Dar?”

  “Still here, Niner.” Back-to-back with Atin, he waited and stared down the polished hallway twenty meters ahead. There were two doors on the right, unconventional hinged doors. He glanced up at the ceiling to locate the emergency bulkheads: one was on the other side of Atin, and the next was between them and the inner chamber. If those were activated, they’d be cut off on both sides, boxed in and waiting to be picked off. And then anyone could easily enter the biohaz chamber and defuse the implosion device.

  It seemed that someone had the same idea at the same time, because there was an uh-whump noise and then the quiet whine of a small motor.

  The bulkheads were descending from their housing.

  “Atin, chamber, now!” Darman yelled, even though he didn’t need to, and they both sprinted back toward the chamber. The bulkhead was down to waist level when they reached it and skidded under on their knees.

  It sealed with a clunk behind them. It was suddenly so silent that Darman knew another bulkhead had closed somewhere along the ring, sealing them in. There was the sound of a door unlocking manually, a real clunk-click noise, and then nothing.

  “Start again,” Darman sighed. “Let’s see what’s around there.”

  Atin moved forward and edged out the scope. He paused. He sat back on his heels and shook his head.

  “Show me,” Darman said, and switched his HUD to the scope view, expecting disaster.

  “I think it’s called irony.”

  Darman crawled up to him and patched the endoscope into his own helmet.

  Yes, irony was a good word for it. He almost laughed. Between the corner and the next bulkhead, he could see two doors, one closed and one partly open. Someone—someone humanoid—was peering around the edge of it.

  “Women don’t half look different, don’t they?” Atin said. “That’s the most amazing hair I’ve ever seen.”

  Darman agreed. They hadn’t seen a lot of females in their lives, but this one would have be
en memorable even if they had seen millions. Her blue-black hair was streaked with brilliant red stripes. They were trapped with Dr. Ovolot Qail Uthan.

  And she was clutching a Verpine shatter gun.

  17

  CO Majestic to Coruscant Command

  Techno Union vessel is now drifting. Damage assessment is incomplete but it is no longer returning fire. Vengeance is standing by to dispatch a boarding party. Will continue to provide turbolaser gunnery support to Omega Squad.

  “Who activated the emergency systems? Which di’kut hit the button? Tell me!” Ghez Hokan found himself shouting. He had abandoned dignity. “Open this di’kutla bulkhead!”

  Captain Hurati’s voice was strained. They were both on the wrong side of the first safety bulkhead, in a single unforgiving corridor that led to the entrance, and the main doors were jammed shut. It was a very secure building: and, as Uthan had said, it was designed to stop anything from getting out if things went wrong. It was doing that well.

  “We’ve been infiltrated, sir.”

  “I worked that out for myself, di’kut.” He was interrupted by a grenade exploding against the front wall. “How in the name of—”

  “I don’t know yet, sir, but the bulkheads activated because the containment chamber doors weren’t registering on the system as closed, and it triggered the emergency systems.”

  “Stuck open, in other words.”

  “Yes.”

  Hokan swung around on the nearest droid. “Anyone up on the surface see signs of entry?”

  A pause. “Negative.”

  Oh, how he longed for decent communications again. He could guess from the strength and direction of some of the explosions that the area was coming under laser cannon fire, which meant the Republic assault ship had finally showed its hand. It could even be landing more troops.

  But that wasn’t his immediate concern. The bad news was that somebody had already managed to get in, and not through the front door. They couldn’t have come in through the drains. They shouldn’t have been there. But there was firing, and droids were reporting casualties.

  There were Republic commandos inside the facility.

  Hokan had never thought himself infallible, but he had at least imagined he was exceptionally competent. He’d locked down the facility and they’d still found a way in. His first thought was that Uthan had wanted a live subject so badly that she was prepared to lure them in and trap one, but that was ludicrous: she hadn’t the means or the opportunity to bypass security.

  The nanovirus was out of Hokan’s reach behind bulkheads that wouldn’t yield. Droids patiently fired blasters into the face of the alloy. But, as in his earlier test, they were making no impression beyond heating the sealed corridor to tropical temperatures.

  “Do we know if all the bulkheads are down?” he asked the droid. Its comlink with its peers made it suddenly a lot more useful than Hurati. “All of them?” Hokan was trying to work out if he had any way of getting to Uthan or the nanovirus. The control board in the office off the main corridor was showing red throughout, but he didn’t know whether to believe it or not.

  “All of them. Droids trapped in sections four, five, seven, and twelve.”

  It felt like being in the middle of a brawl and then finding yourself dragged off your opponent. The enemy couldn’t get at him, but now he couldn’t get at them, either. And if the biohazard chamber doors were open, then both the nanovirus and Uthan were on the commandos’ side of the barrier. If they had managed to get in, they could probably get out the same way.

  The front wall shuddered.

  Even if any droids had survived the assault on the villa, how would reinforcements help him now?

  Hokan turned to Hurati. “Can you get into the system and override the safety controls?”

  “I’ll do my best, sir.” Hurati’s face said that he doubted it, but he’d die trying. He retreated to the office with Hokan, and they rummaged through the cabinets and drawers looking for operating instructions, tools, anything that might be used to release the bulkheads. In one cabinet Hokan found a crowbar. But its edges were too thick to get any purchase in the flimsiplast-thin gap between the two sections of the front door or the lower edge of the bulkhead. He flung it to the floor in frustration, and it clattered across the tiles.

  The doors needed a blast of some magnitude. And he didn’t have the ordnance.

  Hurati removed the cover from the alarm panel and began poking the tip of his knife experimentally into the maze of circuits and switches. Hokan took out the lightsaber and took a swipe at the bulkhead, more out of frustration than any expectation of success.

  Vzzzmmm.

  The air took on an oddly ozonic smell, almost irritating in its intensity. He stared at the bulkhead’s previously smooth surface. There was a definite depression.

  He made another pass with the blade, more slowly and controlled this time. He pressed his face close to the cooling metal at one edge and squinted across the flat surface, one eye closed. Yes, it was definitely warping the alloy.

  But at this rate it would take him hours to cut through. He suspected time was a luxury he couldn’t afford.

  Something thudded into the wall of the corridor.

  Darman didn’t even hear the shatter gun fire. The Verpine projectile was never in danger of hitting anyone, but he suspected they’d have known all about it if it had.

  “Wow, that’s some dent,” Atin said. “I don’t think the good doctor is going to come quietly, though.”

  “Niner, are you picking this up?” Darman said. “Found her. Just like that.”

  There was a faint sound of movement in his earpiece. He’d switched off the video feed. Niner sounded almost relaxed. “That’s the first bit of luck we’ve had.”

  “Yeah, but she’s got a Verpine on her.”

  “They’re fragile weapons and they don’t bounce. Give her a fright.”

  “I’ve got a few frighteners ready.”

  “If you need a hand, we’re going to have trouble getting in. I reckon all the emergency doors have shut tight.”

  “All quiet out there?”

  “Apart from Majestic getting too on-target for comfort, yes. We don’t want to take the whole building out with you still inside.”

  “Can you go back for the other ram and try to force the front doors?”

  “Do you need us to?”

  “We’ll try getting Uthan out via the drains. If we can’t, it’s plan D.”

  “Cheer up, still got E through Z plans,” Fi’s voice said.

  “One day, Fi, I’m going to give you a good slap.” Darman said.

  Atin held up his hand for silence. Darman heard the faint sibilance of whispered conversation, and then the door slammed and the lock clunked. So it wasn’t an automatic safety door. Uthan had company.

  “She really doesn’t know me, does she?” Darman said, and peeled off a few centimeters of thermal tape. He checked around the corner with the probe, loath to test his armor against a Verpine. “It’s going to take more than a lock to keep me out, sweetheart.”

  He hugged the wall. He was nearly at the door when it opened and he found himself face-to-face with two Trandoshans who seemed pretty surprised to see him. Maybe it was the armor. It seemed to have that effect.

  There was nowhere to run.

  There were times when you could pull your rifle and times when you couldn’t, and Deeces weren’t much good at pointblank range unless you used them as a club. Darman aimed an instinctive punch before he thought about what he would do with the explosives in his hand. Even with an armored gauntlet, it was like hitting a stone block in the face. The Trandoshan fell back two paces. Then his comrade came at Darman with a blade. There was a frozen second or two of bewilderment as the Trannie looked at his knife, and then at Darman’s armor.

  “Atin, want to give me a hand here?” Darman said quietly, taking one step back with vibroblade extended.

  “What do—oh.”

  “Yeah. Oh.” r />
  The nice thing about a fixed vibroblade was that nobody could knock it out of your hand, not unless they took your arm off with it. The Trannie seemed to be considering that as an option before taking a huge lunge, the blade of his weapon skidding off Darman’s arm plate.

  Darman ran at the Trannie headfirst and cannoned into him, throwing him against the wall and pinning him there while he tried to drive the vibroblade into soft tissue. He tried for the throat—big blood vessels, quick effect—but the Trannie had his wrist clamped tight. It was taking Darman all his strength to keep the enemy’s blade from his own throat. It seemed like deadlock.

  The bodysuit was stabproof. Wasn’t it? He couldn’t see Atin. He had to concentrate on his own predicament, and he wasn’t getting anywhere fast with the Trannie. It was time for one of those bar-brawl tactics that Skirata made sure they all learned. Darman scraped his boot along the Trannie’s shin and brought it down hard on his instep. It gave him the split second of loosened grip he needed, and he plunged the vibroblade in up to its hilt, over and over, not sure what he was hitting, but noting that the Trannie was shrieking and that the shrieks were gradually getting fainter.

  Skirata was right. Stabbing someone was a slow way to kill them. He pressed his forearm against the Trannie’s neck and held him pinned while he slid down the wall. Darman followed him all the way down and finally knelt on his chest to make sure he didn’t move while he jammed the blade up under his jaw and across his trachea.

  He waited for him to stop moving, then scrambled to his feet to see Atin standing over the other Trandoshan, still cursing. There was a lot of blood, and it didn’t look like Atin’s.

  “I could have done without that interruption,” Darman said.

  “Ruins your concentration,” Atin said. “Where were we?”

  “About to use my universal key.” Darman retrieved the ribbon charge from the floor, wiped it on his sleeve, and set it with its detonator against the lock. They moved quickly to the hinge side, and Atin drew the Trandoshan array blaster he’d been so unwilling to abandon.

  “Atin, it’s capture alive, remember?”