Karen Traviss - Triple Zero (Star Wars: Republic Commando, Book 2)

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Sergeant KAL SKIRATA, mercenary (male Mandalorian) Sergeant WALON VAU, mercenary (male Mandalorian) Null ARC Trooper Captain N-11 ORDO

Null ARC Trooper Lieutenant N-7 MEREEL

Republic Commandos:

Omega Squad:

RC-1309 NINER

RC-1136 DARMAN

RC-8015 FI

RC-3222 ATIN

Delta Squad:

RC-1138 BOSS

RC-1162 SCORCH

RC-1140 FIXER

RC-1107 SEV

Clone Trooper CT-5108/8843 CORR

General BARDAN JUSIK, Jedi Knight (male human) Captain JALLER OBRIM, Senate Guard, seconded to Coruscant Security Force Anti-Terrorism Unit (male human)

General ETAIN TUR-MUKAN, Jedi Knight (female human) General ARLIGAN ZEY, Jedi Master (male human) ENACCA, associate of Skirata (female Wookiee) QIBBU, entrepreneur (male Hutt)

LASEEMA, employee of Qibbu (female Twi'lek) BESANY WENNEN, a GAR logistics employee (female human) PROLOGUE

Republic Commando covert insertion on Fest, Atrivis sector, Outer Rim, ten months after Geonosis

Private journal of RC-8015, "Fi"

You have to see the funny side of things in the army. I think they have a real sense of humor in Defense Procurement, too.

"So," I ask. "How long ago did you put in a request for black stealth armor?"

"Seven standard months," says Darman, staring out the gunship's crew bay onto an unbroken plain of snow. White snow. The freezing wind is whipping flurries of it into the open bay. "When we got back from Qiilura."

"And now they issue it to us? To do a raid on Fest? The whole planet's covered in snow from pole to pole."

I can hear the gunship pilot laughing over the comlink circuit. He can't resist it. "Want to borrow my armor? It's nice and white."

Yes, they've deployed us in black Katarn armor. It'll take a direct hit from laser cannon to put a dent in us, but it would be nice to have the comfort of camouflage when we hit the ground.

Even Atin's laughing. But Niner, who tries to take the place of Sergeant Kal and reassure us it's all going to be okay, is not. He's worried that we've run out of luck for this mission.

And so am I. Republic Commando losses in the first year of the war are running at 50 percent. Today we have to infiltrate a Separatist factory developing some new supermetal called phrik-whatever that is-and carry out a little asset denial, known in the trade as blowing stuff up.

It's not a complicated mission: avoid droids, get in, lay charges in the processing plant and the foundry, avoid droids, get out. And then press the detonator.

One of Captain Ordo's Null ARC trooper brothers found this place: Clone Intelligence Units, they call them. I must write to thank the di'kut sometime.

So I try to keep the squad laughing, because it takes our minds off calculating the odds.

"Okay," I say. "What do we all want most right now?"

"Roba steak," says the pilot.

"White-clad camo," says Niner.

"A really thick slice of uj cake," says Atin.

Darman pauses for a moment. "To see an old friend again."

Me? I'd like to go back to Arca Company Barracks on Coruscant. I want to see Coruscant before I die, and so far I've seen next to nothing of the place. Someone promised to buy me a beer there once.

The pilot is skimming a couple of meters above the snow, taking us through a narrow pass to avoid detection. It's all mountains and ravines now. And snow.

"I've got visual on the factory," the pilot says. "And you're not going to like it."

"Why?" Niner asks.

"Because there're an awful lot of battle droids out there."

"Are they made of phrik?"

"I don't think so."

"No problem, then," says Niner. "Let's spoil their entire day."

The gunship slows enough for us to jump clear, and we scramble through knee-deep snow to take up a position in the lee of an outcrop.

There's nothing like a quick hello from 'a Plex rocket launcher to show droids who's boss. No, they're definitely not made from phrik.

I reload the Plex and keep turning the droids into shrapnel while Darman and Atin make their way to higher ground to reach the factory.

Yeah, a nice beer on Coruscant, on Triple Zero. Dreams like that keep you going.

Find Skirata. He's the only one who can talk these men down. And no, I'm not going to obliterate a whole barracks block just to neutralize six ARCs. So get me Skirata: he can't have traveled very far.

-General Iri Camas, Director of Special Forces, to Coruscant Security Force, from Siege Incident Control, Special Operations Brigade HQ Barracks, Coruscant, five days after the Battle of Geonosis Tipoca City, Kamino, eight years before Geonosis Kal Skirata had committed the biggest mistake of his life, and he'd made some pretty big ones in his time.

Kamino was damp. And damp didn't help his shattered ankle one little bit. No, it was more than damp: it was nothing but storm-whipped sea from pole to pole, and he wished that he'd worked that out before he responded to Jango Fetes offer of a lucrative long-term deployment in a location that his old comrade hadn't exactly specified.

But that was the least of his worries now.

The air smelled more like a hospital than a military base. The place didn't look like barracks, either. Skirata leaned on the polished rail that was all that separated him from a forty-meter fall into a chamber large enough to swallow a battle cruiser and lose it.

Above him, the vaulted illuminated ceiling stretched as far as the abyss did below. The prospect of the fall didn't worry him half as much as not understanding what he was now seeing.

The cavern-surgically clean, polished durasteel and permaglass-was filled with structures that seemed almost like fractals. At first glance they looked like giant toroids stacked on pillars; then, as he stared, the toroids resolved into smaller rings of permaglass containers, with containers within them, and inside those

No, this wasn't happening.

Inside the transparent tubes there was fluid, and within it there was movement.

It took him several minutes of staring and refocusing on one of the tubes to realize there was a body in there, and it was alive. In fact, there was a body in every tube: row upon row of tiny bodies, children's bodies. Babies.

"Fierfek," he said aloud.

He thought he'd come to this Force-forsaken hole to train commandos. Now he knew he'd stepped into a nightmare. He heard boots behind him on the walkway of the gantry and turned sharply to see Jango coming slowly toward him, chin lowered as if in reproach.

"If you're thinking of leaving, Kal, you knew the deal," said Jango, and leaned on the rail beside him.

"You said-"

"I said you'd be training special forces troops, and you will be.

They just happen to be growing them:'

"What?"

"Clones."

"How the fierfek did you ever get involved with that?"

"A straight five million and a few extras for donating my genes.

And don't look shocked. You'd have done the same."

The pieces fell into place for Skirata and he let himself be shocked anyway. War was one thing. Weird science was another issue entirely.

"Well, I'm keeping my end of the deal?" Skirata adjusted the fifteen-centimeter, three-sided blade that he always kept sheathed in his jacket sleeve. Two Kaminoan technicians walked serenely across the floor of the facility beneath him.

Nobody had searched him and he felt better for having a few weapons located for easy use, including the small hold-out blaster tucked in the cuff of his boot.

And all those little kids in tanks...

The Kaminoans disappeared from sight. "What do those things want with an army anyway?"

"They don't. And you don't need to know all this right now." Jango beckoned him to follow. "Besides, you're already dead, remember?"