In the course of his activities to rescue Jango Fett's clones, Sergeant Kal Skirata had achieved a great deal.
The best squads, the best elite Republic commandos had left the Old Republic before it collapsed.
Some of Kal'buir's adopted children had, of course, served in the Imperial commandos for a time, but that was in the distant past.
And all of them, despite sharing one face, one blood, were individuals unlike each other.
Ordo Skirata — known in Kaminoan cloner reports and Grand Army of the Republic command as Null-11 — had a habit of saying the most unexpected things that came to mind, making Kal'buir realize he never quite knew what Ordo was thinking.
And so now, when a fiery flash erupted at the site of the Oyu'baat — the legendary Mandalorian tapcafe — Ordo Skirata displayed all his impulsiveness, broadcasting over the comm everything he thought about whoever had carried out the attack and what he would do to them when he found them.
"Ordo Skirata."
About the Oyu'baat, they said it had appeared back in the days when the legendary Mand'alor was just a gleam in his mother's eye — Canderous Ordo, after whom Null-11 was named.
And it was assumed the establishment would outlive even the heat death of the universe.
At least, that's what one of Kal'buir's closest friends, warmly welcomed by Clan Skirata at Kyrimorut, used to claim.
And now none of that remained.
Nothing.
Just burning ruins from which the few lucky survivors of the blast were emerging.
"Protectors are approaching, Ordo!" reported Prudii Skirata, who was on long-range reconnaissance.
But Null-11 could see that for himself.
Dozens of Mandalorians in familiar armor, on jetpacks, had already closed in on the blast site, hovering in the air thanks to their jetpacks.
And though he, like the other Nulls, was impulsive, sometimes overly hot-headed, Ordo was in no hurry now.
"What about the Omegas and Deltas?" he asked on the command channel. "Where's Kal'buir?"
The explosion had been powerful, but definitely not in the area of the booths where Papa Kal and his contact for negotiations had been.
The fighters from the former Republic commando special squads Omega and Delta were providing backup for the clan leader during these negotiations, because preliminary reconnaissance had established that there were far too many suspicious beings in the nearby quarters.
The only thing they hadn't been able to account for was the explosives that could have been brought into the tapcafe.
Because no Mandalorian — not even an outcast or a renegade — would ever do such a thing.
And the scanners covertly installed in the establishment would have immediately identified a scoundrel...
"We're alive," Niner's raspy voice came over the channel — Omega's commander. "All my people are alive."
"What exploded?"
"One of the tables," came Boss's voice, Delta's commander. "That Republic bastard from their diplomatic mission was sitting there. Starting pursuit."
"Belay that!" Ordo barked. "Find Kal'buir and his contact! Need to get them out of here."
Formally, the Deltas — unlike the Omegas — weren't full members of Clan Skirata.
Only allies, like Alpha-02 Spar, lost during missions, or Alpha-03 Sull, who was currently holding the western sector under control.
But the situation required all forces without exception, so everyone who owed something to the clan was there.
"Stop whining, Ordo," Boss said sharply — as sharp as every fighter in his squad. "That was a directed explosion! The booth zone was shredded by debris, shrapnel, and the shockwave — nothing but mincemeat left there! Scorch says it's heavy-duty crap, clearly experimental and... Have they completely lost their minds here?"
And Boss had a right to that reaction.
Because the Mandalorian Protectors — many of whom knew Jango Fett's face fighters and Clan Skirata well — had begun firing at the few survivors in the ruins of the cantina.
Coincidentally or not, almost all of them were from Clan Skirata.
* * *
"Have they completely lost their fear!" Scorch roared, hosing down the nearest Protector with his DC-17m.
"IC (formerly RC)-1262 "Scorch," Delta squad's demolitions expert."
Despite the years that had passed since this weapon was in common use, the modular platform still hadn't been replaced in the demolitions expert's hands by a newer model.
An ion blaster, armor-piercing rocket launcher, and sniper rifle all in one package — a commando's dream.
But Scorch loved explosions.
The yellow stripes painted over his Katarn-class armor were testament to that.
And though his cloak, which had hidden his gear, had burned in the blast, the commando himself — like his brothers — was intact and nearly unharmed.
"Fixer, cover the Omegas!" came Boss's voice over the command channel.
"IC (formerly RC)-1138 "Boss," Delta squad's commander."
Scorch, having launched a rocket at a hovering Mandalorian Protector who had taken aim at someone running from behind a burning wall fragment toward the far part of what was once the guest hall, watched as Delta's technical specialist reached safety.
Immediately after, the squad's technician, raising his DC-17m in blaster rifle configuration, began firing to kill, drawing the enemies toward himself.
"Move it, you pansies!" Boss barked on the general channel.
Fixer, seizing the moment, unleashed a burst from his blaster rifle, splitting open one Protector's helmet. The enemy crashed to the ground, instantly caught in the raging flames that consumed his armor.
"That's what happens when you wear fake Mandalorian armor!" Scorch rumbled.
And it might have seemed like a joke...
But after the Deltas had lost their comrade, Sev — Scorch, who'd always teased him, had stopped joking.
Completely.
"IC (formerly RC)-1140 Fixer, Delta squad's technician."
But he wasn't addressing his subordinates — and both surviving Clone Wars veterans of Delta squad understood that.
Unlike their colleagues from Omega, who only lived and dreamed of settling into civilian life, the Deltas saw the battlefield as the meaning of their existence.
So all the talk about what would happen when the commandos took off their armor and found themselves outside the army, the Deltas considered "whining."
Right up until the clones in the Imperial Army — which the three of them had joined after the Republic's reformation into the Galactic Empire — discarded the clones' services altogether.
Writing them all off as "expended material."
The Deltas didn't stay in debt either — they faked their deaths and deserted, turning into bounty hunters and elite mercenaries far from Imperial patrols and deserter hunters.
Now they were doing a favor for Clan Skirata — the ones who'd given them the anti-aging treatment.
And no matter how many times the Deltas and Omegas (and other Clan Skirata members) argued with each other over various matters of worldview, in the end, Skirata had helped them.
And they were repaying an old debt.
"Move your asses!" Scorch matched Boss, who with blaster fire drove off a Protector bearing down on Fixer, then sent a rocket straight into his face.
The explosion hurled the Protector sideways, slamming him into a building wall that had cracked and lost half its windows in the blast.
Omega worked swiftly, clearing rubble in complete silence, helping each other.
That was just how they were.
Like the Nulls, Skirata had thoroughly drilled into them that "only together are we strong!"
Which, from the Deltas' perspective, was absolute nonsense.
Delta had split up many times, each fighter acting individually — just like now.
While the Omegas tried to find bodies and fired back at the Mandalorian Protectors surrounding them — who seemed to have panicked when they realized fire was coming not only from the blast site but also from nearby buildings — the Nulls joined the fight.
Trapped in a fire bag, the Mandalorian Protectors began taking casualties almost immediately.
Experienced in sabotage and guerrilla warfare, the clone commandos turned the site of the unknown saboteurs' attack into a veritable hell.
Sniper shots, ion volleys, the crackle of blaster fire, flashes of plasma grenades...
The Mandalorian Protectors are incredibly tough guys.
By the standards of present-day Mandalore.
But they are outclassed by soldiers who went through the hell of the Clone Wars.
And now they have additional motivation.
Whoever carried out this bombing clearly intended to kill Kal'buir and his companion.
And if the clone commandos couldn't have cared less about the latter, the clan leader was a different matter...
"Ordo!" Alpha-30's voice, Sull, rang out on the general channel. "I see a fleeing Alliance diplomat. And it doesn't look like he's scared at all."
"He left the cafe a few minutes before the explosion!" Boss recalled immediately, firing a short burst from his rifle, cutting down another Mandalorian Protector.
"The epicenter was clearly somewhere near him," Scorch interjected, watching his grenade detonate on impact with a Mandalorian Protector's jetpack.
The blast's power, amplified by the detonation of the jetpack's contents, tore the hapless fighter to pieces.
"Let him go!" Ordo decided. "We'll catch him later. Right now, the most important thing is to save Kal'buir and..."
"We won't," came Niner's gloomy voice, the Omega Squad leader. "Ordo, everyone... We found Kal'buir. The blast took his head off. Same with the one he was talking to."
ARC (former RC)-1309 Niner Skirata, commander of Omega Squad.
Cursing echoed on the general channel, expressing the shared grief at such a sudden and inhuman loss.
Only the Deltas didn't care — they were doing what they did best.
Killing the enemy on the battlefield.
Whether the Mandalorian Protectors were guilty of what happened or just happened to be accidental witnesses didn't matter all that much.
To grind them into the dust of Mandalore, it was enough that they had been the first to open fire on the survivors.
No questions asked, no orders to surrender — they acted solely to destroy those the bomb hadn't touched.
That made them legitimate targets.
Especially for the Deltas.
"Retrieve the bodies!" Ordo Skirata ordered. "Reinforcements are moving toward our opponents! We're taking the corpses and personal effects with us..."
"And what about the survivor?" Niner inquired.
"There were only two in the booth!" Boss reminded him.
"Then you missed a third," Niner cut in. "He's unconscious, seriously wounded, bleeding out. And he's wearing Mandalorian armor, very similar to Jango Fett's. Only in green..."
"Another fake 'Boba Fett'?" Scorch asked, knowing that in the current circumstances, it was more of a rhetorical question.
"I don't care who he is. He got into the booth without seven elite commandos detecting him," Ordo cut in, with intense gunfire audible in the background of his comm channel. "Grab him — he's our source of information about what happened."
"Understood," Niner acknowledged. "Omega — we're extracting. Fi, Atin — keeping him alive is on you. Darman and I will cover. Boss, coordinate efforts for a breakout to extraction point three."
"Scorch, Fixer — cover the Omegas, or they'll start whining again when someone shoots them."
In combat, the commandos reverted to what had been drilled into them at the basic genetic level.
Civilian life fell away.
They were soldiers again.
They were at war again.
And where hesitation could cost lives, they knew how to complete the mission.
Though that didn't change the fact that the two squads didn't get along particularly well.
Still, they had an entire lifetime behind them, so they'd sort out their grievances once they were safe.
"Contact!" Mereel Skirata reported. "Six unknown fighters moving through the alley to the north."
"Twelve unidentified targets approaching from the south," Prudii Skirata seconded him.
"Eight hostiles approaching from the northeast," that came from A'den, Null-12.
"Sixteen hostiles from the southwest," Jaing, Null-10, reported dryly.
A crash sounded, and a pillar of flame and debris rose in the specified direction.
"Correction," Jaing Skirata clarified. "Six now."
Immediately after, a chain of explosions tore through one of the alleys, collapsing several old abandoned buildings.
"The road to the third point is clear," Kom'rk Skirata, Null-6, reported. "And yes, in case anyone hasn't noticed, these guys are armed with Galactic Alliance standard-issue weapons."
"Sull!" Ordo Skirata's voice rang out. "Are you still on that Alliance diplomat?"
No response came.
"Sull, strill take you, where are you, blast you, Jedi?!" Ordo cursed in Mando'a.
Only silence answered him.
"Coordinate, set up traps, and fall back to point three!" Ordo ordered. "Mereel! Sull was half a block from your position. Find out what happened to him and head to the safe house on your own. Mereel?! What the hutta is going on?!"
"Ordo," Prudii's voice came. "Get out of here, I'm moving to Mereel and Sull's position. I'll report what's happening on channel seven."
"Switch all to channel seven," Ordo ordered every commando.
A few minutes later, moving across rooftops and walkways around the blast site, firing on the move at dozens of mercenaries and Mandalorian Protectors, the elite Republic commandos headed for the extraction point.
* * *
Alpha-30, named Sull, had been in a great many firefights and battles in his life.
He had seen terrorist attacks before.
He had carried out sabotage himself.
But he did not kill without reason.
And so he was firmly convinced that what was happening on Mandalore right now was something as mysterious as the true causes of the long-past Clone Wars.
The elite Republic commando had experienced many critical moments in his life.
He had fought himself, taught others to fight, hated the Jedi, the Empire, and those who killed his clone brothers at the slightest hint of disloyalty to the ruling regime.
This and much more had made him somewhat friendly with the Skirata clan, but Sull had never been counted among their number, remaining only a loyal battle comrade.
Skirata had done a lot for him and other clone deserters.
And so Sull considered himself obligated to support the clan's operation, and especially to clarify the circumstances of Kal's death.
With that in mind, he had "tailed" the Galactic Alliance diplomat fleeing the bombed cantina.
Deliberately disobeying the order Ordo Skirata had given him, which the other Nulls had tacitly approved.
But besides orders, there was also a conscience.
After all, they weren't in the army anymore.
Not sharing the Nulls' certainty that they would somehow manage to capture the Alliance envoy and determine the extent of his involvement in what happened in the cantina, Sull switched off his comm and moved across the rooftops after his swift target.
And he was too engrossed in the pursuit to notice the danger in time.
A blue blade of pure energy struck him in the chest at the very moment Sull was about to fire a stun charge at Kadmis Fuon.
The weapon was damaged, and the hand holding it was severed halfway through the forearm.
But injuries don't leave an ARC of the Alpha type in a stupor.
Clad in armor that had long lost its pristine white color, Sull rolled to the side, braking with his foot at the edge of the roof.
His left hand raised his blaster, striking a representative of those he hated most.
The Jedi parried one, two, three shots successfully.
Unfortunately, with a single pistol, Sull couldn't achieve the volume of fire needed to break through a Jedi's defense.
And with only one upper limb, he couldn't use grenades.
But Sull wouldn't have been an Alpha if he hadn't found a way out.
When the Jedi tried to attack him at close range, Sull drove his stump into the Jedi's chest, which, as always with those dull temple guards, was unarmored.
The blow to the solar plexus made the Jedi cough and step back a couple of paces, after which Sull shot him through both arms.
The lightsaber fell onto the roof, and the Jedi let out a pained groan, collapsing on his side.
"Reason!" Sull demanded.
"I don't know what you're talking about," the Jedi groaned.
"The explosion in the cantina!" the ARC clarified, moving a little closer and kicking the Jedi's lightsaber off the roof. "You killed Kal Skirata. Why?"
"We... didn't do it!" the Jedi declared. "We were set up..."
"Yeah, right, yeah, right," Sull ground out through his teeth, stepping on the Jedi's shot-through hand. "Your objective?"
The Jedi didn't answer.
So Sull shot him through the legs as well.
"Next shot, I'll blow your head off!" the commando warned honestly, understanding that pain isn't always an effective way to loosen a Jedi's tongue.
But he had no other options at the moment.
Sull had tried several times to activate his transmitter, but encountering a melted gouge on his helmet, he concluded that the Jedi had deprived him not only of his arm but also of his communication device.
Consequently, the commando was left without a way to call for backup — he could only hope that one of the Nulls nearest to him would decide to check on the silent battle comrade.
Given the danger and the Jedi's supernatural abilities, he couldn't be given time to recover.
The interrogation had to be conducted here and now — waiting for support could play a cruel trick on the clone.
"I... I didn't blow up the cantina! We were just observers! Covering the diplomat, looking for other Jedi that Kal Skirata and his people had hidden on the planet..."
So the Galactic Alliance knew that Skirata had taken in several Jedi and was supporting others so they could hide from the Empire's hunters.
That was a very important fact.
"A Dominion agent was trying to sway Skirata to their side," the Jedi continued, wincing in pain. "We couldn't allow the Mandalorians to go over to Pellaeon!"
"So you blew him up?!" Sull demanded, pressing on the Jedi's blaster burn.
The damaged helmet prevented Alpha-30 from reacting in time.
At the edge of his perception, having apparently come up the emergency ladder, a black shadow threw itself at him.
In the flickering flames of the burning cantina, Sull managed to make out the features of the Alliance diplomat's face.
He fired, but missed.
A blow to the torso sent the clone stumbling back several steps, but tumbling over his back, he landed on his feet.
His blaster pistol flew to the side, and the clone stood unarmed before the "diplomat," who was aiming a blaster at him.
Interesting — how had he managed to conceal the weapon from the cantina's scanners, where only Mandalorians were allowed to enter armed?!
But there was no time for questions.
Sull lunged to the side, dodging a headshot.
Ducking under the enemy's arm, he struck the hand holding the blaster with his stump, and Fuon drove a back kick that sent the clone flying.
Landing on his feet, Sull drew a combat knife with his good hand and charged.
Understanding that he needed to close the distance and negate his opponent's advantage in ranged weaponry, he slashed at the forearm holding the blaster.
The "diplomat" easily pulled his hand away, then struck the clone's visor with the grip.
The electronics flickered for a moment but immediately returned to working order, allowing him to see...
The muzzle of a blaster pistol in front of him.
"You're coming with us," the "diplomat" stated, making a motion with his blaster that ordered Sull to get up and comply.
"Yeah, sure, soon as I get my travel pass," the clone brought his good hand behind his back, grabbing a thermal detonator and activating it.
He didn't get to throw it — an accurate blaster shot pierced his neck, instantly paralyzing his entire body, and Alpha-30 collapsed onto the roof.
The "diplomat," seeing the thermal detonator fall from the dead hand, didn't panic.
Grabbing the clone by his armor, he turned him so the immobilized clone covered the explosive with his body.
The last thing Alpha-30 noticed before he was blown to pieces was a female silhouette climbing onto the roof and taking cover behind the "diplomat's" personal shield, which was protecting the Jedi.
* * *
Mereel Skirata was the most "charming, interesting, and sociable" of the Nulls and had adapted relatively well to life outside Kamino and the Grand Army of the Republic.
A ladies' man, unlike most of his brothers, he preferred not to tie himself down with marriage, sticking to a habit of minor, brief flings.
At some point, Mereel realized that Korr, a fighter from Omega Squad, behaved similarly.
Mereel could easily handle most social situations for which the Kaminoans hadn't prepared clones.
During his service in the Grand Army of the Republic's special operations unit, he often amused those around him with curses in the many galactic languages he knew (thanks to the eidetic memory common to all Nulls).
He reacted to many situations more calmly than his brother Ordo and had a good sense of humor, even by ordinary sapient standards, frequently joking or making witty remarks.
Mereel was often described as a "crazy daredevil," a character trait that often worried Kal'buir and his brothers.
He sought thrills, deliberately walking on thin ice in everything from negotiations with technicians to piloting starships and riding swoops at high speeds.
Kal'buir once remarked that Mereel seemed to need to take risks and stand out to emerge from Ordo's shadow.
But few noticed that in critical situations, Mereel could outperform even his "serious" brothers.
"Jan! Look out!" cried a wounded man who showed all the signs of being a Jedi.
The woman reacted, dodging a throwing knife tossed by the Null.
Shooting in the current situation would have been stupid — there were plenty of enemies besides these three in the area, and his armor reported that the Mandalorians were intercepting comm channels, identifying members of the Skirata clan and their allies.
So Mereel switched off his transmitter.
He had no time to find a suitable encrypted and secure frequency.
The woman dodged the knife throw.
Leaping off the roof, Mereel aimed a kick to topple Sull's killer, throwing her down.
He had never behaved this way toward women before, preaching a more romantic approach between the sexes.
But now before him stood a murderer, a saboteur, an enemy.
And with that category of sapient, he had little to say.
The woman blocked his kick quite professionally, not ending up in freefall.
Moreover, while he delivered a second spinning kick, she had shifted position to a more advantageous one — with her back to her comrades.
And thus she blocked the "diplomat's" field of fire.
The Mandalorian shifted slightly to use his opponent as cover. She, apparently also realizing from the shouts from the street that they shouldn't attract attention, did the same.
Mandalorian Protectors flew through the air, one of them racing past fifty meters away.
Armed mercenaries scurried through the streets, clearly not under the Alliance people's command.
So either the mercenaries were working with the Protectors, or there was a fourth party to the conflict.
"We didn't do anything!" the woman said.
"Jan, right?" Mereel asked, playfully drawing combat triangular knives of beskar from their sheaths.
Expensive, but merciless.
"Jan Ors, Galactic Alliance diplomat security detail," she introduced herself. "I'll repeat: we had nothing to do with what happened in the cantina."
"Is that why you killed Sull?" he clarified, pointing at the torn body of Alpha-30.
"He was about to kill a diplomatic representative of the Galactic Alliance!" she explained.
"He was about to kill your Jedi partner," Mereel corrected, having seen what happened while crossing the rooftops. "So don't give me stories. You reek of Republic intelligence operative training. So my advice: you and your friends drop your weapons, then we'll all go meet my brothers and we'll sort it out there..."
"Unacceptable," Jan stated.
"Ors, we need to go!" Fuon the "diplomat" declared.
In his life, Mereel had seen diplomats of all stripes and could confidently say that the Alliance man was as much a negotiator as Mereel himself was a master sculptor.
"Go," the woman said without looking back. "Kyle is wounded; we need to save him. I'll hold off the Mandalorian."
"Are you sure?" Mereel asked.
"More than," she stated seriously, displaying her own vibroknives. "Since shooting is not the best idea..."
Mereel dodged a blaster shot the moment the woman shifted slightly, opening a line of fire for the "diplomat."
Two shots went wide, but Mereel's triangular blade, thrown by the Null, embedded itself in the "diplomat's" collarbone up to the hilt.
"Oops," Mereel said cheerfully, displaying a second combat knife and taking a step toward both wounded men.
"Ors, I'm unarmed," the "diplomat" said.
"Get Kyle out!" she said. "The area's about to be crawling with Mandalorian Protectors and mercenaries."
And she was clearly right.
While a firefight raged near the bombed cantina between the retreating clone commandos and their pursuers, the rest of the city remained relatively calm.
And the mercenaries were clearly trying to pinpoint where the rooftop shooting was coming from.
Given the near-complete darkness at the site of the fight between the clones and the Alliance scouts, spotting them from the air would only be possible if some idiot started firing a blaster.
Even the thermal detonator's explosion had sounded muffled and been lost in the general cacophony, while blaster flashes would clearly betray their location visually.
Before switching off his comm, Mereel had heard Ordo ordering a retreat.
So soon they would lead the pursuers into a few traps and disappear among the buildings.
And attracting attention here was completely unnecessary.
"The offer to stay and talk still stands," Mereel reminded her, watching through his helmet visor as the wounded "diplomat" dragged the man called Kyle toward a stairwell door leading down from the roof.
Bad situation.
This building had several civilian speeders parked nearby, which wouldn't be hard to steal.
"You don't believe us, do you?" Jan, whose surname was likely Ors, asked.
"Give me a reason to trust you."
"We didn't want to kill anyone!"
"It just so happened to blow up right where your 'diplomat' was sitting?" Mereel asked, noting that both men had already disappeared into the stairwell.
He had to act.
Without warning, he lunged into an attack, feinting a knife thrust to the throat but instead using his left hand to grab the opponent's right wrist and disarm her.
A vibroblade from her second knife slid across his armor, but an elbow to the face from Mereel halted the woman's attack and forced her back.
Wiping blood from her face, Jan Ors looked at the Mandalorian with undisguised hatred.
Mereel tapped the scratch on the side of his cuirass.
"It's dear to me as a keepsake," he said. "Don't damage the armor."
"Just let me go!" the woman said. "I promise we'll contact you and explain everything."
"You blew up our father Kal," Mereel reminded her. "That doesn't earn you any leeway."
"We were just observing to make sure Kal Skirata didn't defect to the Dominion! He, all of you, are too valuable to have as enemies... As for the explosion site... Fuon sits there regularly. We were set up. Someone decided to pit you against us."
"Uh-huh," Mereel nodded. "Poor, unfortunate you..."
"Hey, everybody freeze, now!" a shout came from behind.
Mereel glanced quickly — mercenaries were crawling onto the roof and aiming blasters at them.
Well, they hadn't managed to keep the confrontation private.
Just as he intended to kill the nearest opponent with a throw of his triangular knife, blaster fire flashed from behind him and his partner.
"Break it off with her!" Prudii demanded, taking a position on the adjacent roof to fire at the mercenaries approaching the building. "Time to go! A squad of Protectors and a bunch of mercenaries are coming this way, killing everything in their path. Move!"
Mereel and Jan Ors locked eyes.
A simultaneous throw of combat knives and a dodge to the side, drawing blasters.
Bursts cut through the darkness.
Turning his shoulder, Mereel protected his torso with his pauldron and only winced at the pain from the burn that had penetrated his armor, under-armor, and the top layer of skin.
The Mandalorian got to his feet easily.
His opponent, however, didn't even stir, falling face-first next to the lifesaving staircase access where her comrades had gone.
Approaching Jan Ors cautiously, Mereel kicked her weapons away, then crouched to check her pulse.
"Tell me that was an accident," Prudii said, appearing beside him, tossing a couple of smoke grenades onto the roofs.
"Sorry, Dad taught me not to lie," Null-07 shrugged. "I've got some kind of reflex. See a woman, shoot for the head."
Null-05 just shook his head.
"We're leaving," he commanded. "Those two are long gone."
"Make our way back to the others?" Mereel asked, returning his knives to their sheaths and quickly searching Ors's body.
There was definitely something worth noting in terms of tech.
So Mereel left a couple of thermal detonator "surprises" under her body.
Null-05, meanwhile, used plasma grenades to dispose of the remains of Sull's body.
They couldn't give the pursuers even a shred of information about themselves, their losses, or their allies.
They could pay their respects later.
"No," Prudii stated, showing his brother a mercenary's pauldron with an engraved emblem. "Took it off one of their corpses. And took a holophoto for the record."
"Dominion special forces?" Mereel asked.
"It certainly seems like it," Prudii nodded. "They disguised themselves as mercenaries. The only thing is, something doesn't add up. It's all nonsense. They're killing everyone indiscriminately, but they tried to capture me. Ordo says a similar thing happened with other commandos. That information makes me uneasy. It's like they're trying to pit us against each other. If this is the Dominion and they want to capture us for their own purposes, then why kill civilians?"
"Camouflage," Mereel said dryly.
"I reached the same conclusion. Someone is setting up both the Dominion and, I suspect, the Galactic Alliance too. We need to get out of here. Ordo and the others have a survivor from Kal'buir's cabin."
"I heard that much, brother. Do you know an extraction point?"
"We're not going there — it's too far. Straight to Kyrimorut. I have a bad feeling about this, brother."
"It's like being back in the Clone Wars," Mereel growled, leaping with his brother onto the next roof and heading away from the scene of the incident.
Meanwhile, a real war was unfolding in Keldabe.
Unknown mercenaries were waging a merciless slaughter against everyone, sparing no one in their path.
* * *
"Sir," Lieutenant Colonel Tierce approached me. "An encrypted transmission has come in on the 'Source Alpha' channel. Provided by a spy droid from the Wayland region."
Is that so.
Unexpected.
Intriguing.
But I had never received a more welcome message.
"Is there a decryption?"
"Encoded with clearance level based on your code cylinder," Tierce explained, unable to disclose the contents of the dispatch as he handed me a personal datapad.
"Thank you, Lieutenant Colonel. I'll review the message in my quarters." Tierce needed no further explanation.
Moreover, he didn't even ask what this 'Source Alpha' was, though the likes of Pellaeon — any of them — would have certainly asked such a question, hoping for an answer.
Tierce spared me an awkward situation.
He had done too much for me for me to refuse an answer if he voiced that interest.
The guardsman did what he was trained to do.
He served.
Once inside my quarters, I sat down on the sofa, noting that Rukh remained in the airlock, along with the rest of the guards.
The little hero of the 'Reaper' capture, R7, dutifully rolled up to me when he saw me beckon him.
"Information port," I ordered.
The droid obediently provided me with the necessary access.
In this galaxy, absolutely any security measure can be hacked.
But there was an exception.
An extremely risky one that even the most desperate spy wouldn't attempt, fearing the horror stories about droid uprisings.
I, having at hand R7, formerly R2-D2, who had served Luke Skywalker by establishing a personal link between the 'X-wing' and the astromech through memory retention and personality formation — a link that blocked any technical work or connections to the small starfighter — took the risk.
The gamble was worth it.
R7, using the architecture of his consciousness, which existed in only three copies — two of which were at my disposal, and one at 'Source Alpha' began decoding the message.
The astromech blinked its photoreceptor for a few seconds, after which a tiny holographic figure formed above its dome.
A youthful woman with dark hair, dressed in an admiral's uniform without insignia, was looking at me.
"My Grand Admiral," a slight smile appeared on Ysanne Isard's lips, the kind two old acquaintances greet each other with. "Operation 'Trojan Queen' is approaching its logical conclusion. Luke Skywalker remains unbroken by Palpatine, which is driving the latter furious. Executor Sedriss lost his people on Wayland and has gone out of control. The command staff of the Imperial Fleet, Army, and Stormtrooper Corps have been subjected to repression — the most competent individuals have been eliminated. Admiral Dobramu is conducting a raid against the 'Imperial Hammers', laying siege to them and destroying their defenses. Carida is next on the list of targets. Palpatine no longer trusts Cronal and demands he take active measures against the Dominion. A more detailed report — at our meeting in the Yavin system. By the time you receive this message, I will already be leading the 'Lusankya' on a secret course to the Gordian Reach to rendezvous with Rear Admiral Shohashi's fleet..."
The image froze, the clone lowered her eyes, relaxed, slumping slightly, thus revealing all the exhaustion on the Iceheart's face.
Six months behind enemy lines.
Right next to the most ruthless being in the Empire.
The clone raised her gaze to me and smiled weakly.
"And, one last thing. I have located both dreadnoughts of the 'Eye of Palpatine' type."
Leaning back on the sofa, I massaged my temples.
Mara Jade should have already finished on Yavin IV, so I needn't fear that such an important conversation would take place without my participation.
But...
Seriously, both dreadnoughts?!
Now that is excellent news!
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