Star Wars: Path of Destruction: A Novel of the Old Republic (9 page)

Suddenly it was clear to Des what was really going on. Ulabore knew the order was a mistake, but he was too scared to do anything about it. The order must have come directly from one of the Dark Lords. Ulabore would rather lead his troops into a slaughter than face the wrath of a Sith Master. But Des wasn’t about to let him drive the Gloom Walkers to their doom. This wasn’t going to become a repeat of Hsskhor. He hesitated for only a second before slamming his fist into his lieutenant’s chin, knocking him cold.

There was stunned silence from the rest of the troops as Ulabore slumped to the ground. Des quickly took away the fallen officer’s weapons, then turned and pointed at a pair of the newest recruits.

“You two, keep an eye on the lieutenant. Make sure he’s comfortable if he wakes up, but don’t let him anywhere near the comm.”

To the communications officer he said, “Just before dusk send a message back to HQ telling them our mission is complete so they can start moving the main force into the valley. That will give us two hours to achieve our objective before they get here.”

Turning to address the rest of the troops, he paused to let the gravity of his next words sink in. “What I’ve done here is mutiny,” he said slowly. “There’s a chance anyone who follows me from here on in will face a court-martial when this is over. If any of you feel you can’t follow my orders after what I’ve done here today, speak up now and I’ll surrender command to Senior Trooper Adanar for the rest of the mission.”

He gazed out across the soldiers. For a second nobody spoke; then as one they all raised their fists and gave two light raps on their chest, just above the heart.

Overwhelmed with pride, Des had to swallow hard before he could give his final order to the troops … his troops. “Gloom Walkers, dismissed!”

The ranks dispersed in groups of twos and threes, the soldiers whispering quietly to one another. Adanar broke away from the rest and came up to Des.

“Ulabore’s not going to forget this,” he said quietly. “What are you going to do about him?”

“After we take that outpost they’ll want to pin a medal on our commanding officer,” Des replied. “I’m betting he’d rather shut up and accept it than let anyone know what really happened.”

Adanar grunted. “Guess you got it all worked out.”

“Not quite,” Des admitted. “I’m still not sure how we’re going to take down that outpost.”

The outpost was located in a clearing on the top of a plateau overlooking the valley. Under the cover of night, the Gloom Walkers had moved silently through the jungle until they had it surrounded. Des had broken the unit up into four squads, each approaching from a different side. Each squad carried an interference box with it.

They had set up and activated the i-boxes once they’d closed to within half a kilometer of the base, jamming all transmissions within their perimeter. The squads had continued on to the edges of the clearing then stopped, waiting for Des to give them the signal to move in. With no communication among the squads-the i-boxes jammed their own equipment as well-the most reliable signal was the sound of blasterfire.

As he stared across the clearing at the three repulsorcraft sitting on the landing pad atop the outpost’s roof, Des felt a familiar feeling in the pit of his stomach. All soldiers felt the same thing going into battle, whether they admitted it or not: fear. Fear of failure, fear of dying, fear of watching their friends die, fear of being wounded and living out the rest of their days crippled or maimed. The fear was always there, and it would devour you if you let it.

Des knew how to turn that fear to his own advantage. Take what makes you weak and turn it into something that makes you strong. Transform the fear into anger and hate: hatred of the enemy; hatred of the Republic and the Jedi. The hate gave him strength, and the strength brought him victory.

For Des the transformation came easily once the fighting started. Thanks to his abusive father, he’d been turning fear into anger and hate ever since he was a child. Maybe that was why he was such a good soldier. Maybe that was why the others looked to him for leadership.

They were waiting on his signal even now, waiting for him to take the first shot. As soon as he did, they’d charge the outpost. The Gloom Walkers were outnumbered nearly two to one; they’d need the advantage of surprise to even out the odds. But those gunships were a problem Des hadn’t anticipated.

The clearing was surrounded by bright lights that illuminated everything within a hundred meters of the outpost itself. And even though the repulsorcraft were grounded, there was a soldier stationed in the open flatbed at the rear of each vehicle, operating the turrets. The armored walls of the flatbed rose to waist height to give the gunner some cover, and the turret itself was heavily shielded to protect it from enemy fire.

From the landing pad on the roof, the gunners had a clear view of the surrounding area. If he fired that first shot, the other units would charge out into the clearing and right into a storm of heavy-repeating blasterfire. They’d be torn apart like zucca tossed into a rancor pit.

“What’s the matter, Sarge?” one of the soldiers in his squad asked. It was Lucia, the junior trooper who’d delivered Ulabore’s orders to him earlier. “What are we waiting for?”

It was too late to call off the mission. The main army was already on the move; by the time Des got back to camp to warn them, they’d be halfway through the valley.

He glanced down at the young recruit and noticed the scope on her weapon. Lucia was carrying a TC-17 long-range blaster rifle. Her knuckles were white from gripping her weapon too tightly in fear and anticipation. She’d seen only minor combat duty before being assigned to the Gloom Walkers, but Des knew she was one of the best shots in the unit. The TC-17 was only good for a dozen shots before the power cell had to be switched out, but it had a range well over three hundred meters.

Each of the four squads had a sniper assigned to it. When the fighting began, their job was to watch the perimeter of the battle and make sure none of the Republic soldiers escaped to warn their main camp.

“See those soldiers standing in the rear of the gunships? The ones working the flash cannons?” he asked her.

She nodded.

“If we don’t get rid of them somehow, they’re going to turn our squads into turret fodder about ten seconds after this battle begins.”

She nodded again, her eyes wide and scared. Des tried to keep his voice even and professional to calm her down.

“I want you to think about this very carefully now, trooper. How fast do you think you could take them out from here?”

She hesitated. “I … I don’t even know if I could, Sarge. Not all of them. Not from this angle. I could get a line on the first one, but as soon as he goes down, I doubt the others will stand still long enough for me to take aim. They’ll probably duck down in the flatbed for cover. And even if I take the gunners out, there’s half a dozen more soldiers on that roof who would jump in to take their places. I can’t drop nine targets that fast by myself, Sarge. Nobody can.”

Des bit his lip and tried to figure out an answer to the problem. There were only three gunships. If he could somehow get a message to the sniper in each squad and have them fire at exactly the same time, they might be able to take out the unsuspecting gunners … though they’d still have to stop the other six soldiers from replacing them.

He cut off his own line of thought with a silent curse. It would never work. Because of the i-boxes there was no way to get a message to the other squads in time.

Taking the sniper rifle from Lucia’s hands, he brought the weapon up and set his eye to the scope to get a better look at the situation. He scanned the roof quickly from side to side, noting the position of every Republic soldier. With the magnification of the scope he could make out their features clear enough to see their lips moving as they spoke.

The situation was practically hopeless. The outpost was the key to taking Phaseera, and the turrets on the roof were the key to taking the outpost. But Des was out of options and almost out of time.

He felt the fear stronger than ever and took a deep breath to focus hismind. Adrenaline began to pump through his veins as he redirected the fear to give him strength and power. He lined the blaster’s scope up on one of the gunners, and a red veil fell across his vision. And then he fired.

He acted on instinct, moving too quickly to let his conscious thoughts get in the way. He didn’t even see the first soldier drop; the scope was already moving to his next target. The second gunner had just enough time to open his eyes wide in surprise before Des fired and moved on to the third. But she’d seen the first gunner go down and had already dropped down behind the armored walls of the gunship’s flatbed for cover.

Des resisted the impulse to fire wildly and moved the scope in a tight circle, looking in vain for a clean shot. The sound of blasterfire exploded in the night, along with shouts and pounding feet as the Gloom Walkers burst from their cover and rushed the outpost. They’d followed their orders to the letter, charging out at the sound of the first shot. Des knew he had only a few seconds before the turrets opened up on them and turned the clearing into a killing field, but he couldn’t see the shot to take out the third gunner.

He whipped the rifle around in desperation, looking for a new target on the roof. He set his sights on a soldier crouched down low beside a small canister. The soldier wasn’t moving, and he’d covered his face with his hands as if shielding his vision. The blast from Des’s weapon hit him square in the chest just as the device at the soldier’s feet detonated.

“Flash canister!” Lucia screamed, but her warning came too late. The view through the scope vanished in a brilliant white flare, temporarily blinding Des.

But with his vision gone, he could suddenly see everything clearly. He knew the position of every soldier even as they all scrambled for cover; he could track exactly where they were and where they were going.

The soldier in the third turret was training the cannons on the incoming wave of troopers. In the excitement she’d popped her head up just slightly above the walls of the flatbed, leaving the smallest of targets exposed. Des took her with a single shot, the bolt going in cleanly through one ear hole on her helmet and out the other.

It was as if time had slowed down. Moving with a calm and deadly precision, he trained his rifle on the next target, taking her through the heart; barely a moment later he got the soldier beside her right between his cold blue eyes. Des took one man in the back as he ran for the nearest gunship. Another was halfway up one of the flatbed’s ladders when a bolt sliced through his thigh, knocking him off balance. He fell from the ladder, and Des put another shot through his chest before he hit the ground.

It had taken less than three seconds to wipe out eight of the nine soldiers. The last one made a run for the edge, hoping to escape by diving off the roof on the far side of the building. Des let him run. He could feel the terror coming in waves off his doomed prey; he savored it for as long as he could. The soldier leapt from the rooftop and seemed to hang in midair for a second; Des fired his last three shots into his body, draining the weapon’s power cell.

He handed the weapon back to Lucia, blinking rapidly at the tears welling up as his eyes tried to soothe their damaged retinas. The effects of the flash canister were only temporary; his vision was already beginning to return. And the miraculous second sight he’d experienced was slipping away.

Rubbing his eyes, he knew now was not the time to think about what had just happened. He’d eliminated the gunners, but his troops were still outnumbered. They needed him down in the hot zone, not here on the edges of the battle.

“Keep an eye on that roof,” he ordered Lucia. “If any of those Republic mudcrutches appear on top, take them out before they get to the gunships.”

She didn’t reply; her mouth was hanging open in amazement at what she’d just witnessed.

Des grabbed her by the shoulder and gave her a rough shake. “Snap out of it, trooper! You’ve got a job to do!”

She shook her head to gather her senses and nodded, then loaded another energy cell into her weapon. Satisfied, Des pulled out the 21D and charged across the clearing, eager to join in the battle.

Three hours later it was all over. The mission had been a complete success: the outpost was theirs, and the Republic had no idea that thousands of Sith troopers were marching through the valley to attack them at first light. The battle itself had been short but bloody: forty-six Republic soldiers dead, and nine of Des’s own. Every time a Gloom Walker went down, part of Des felt he’d failed somehow, but given the nature of their mission, keeping the casualties under double digits was more than he could have reasonably hoped for.

Once their objective was secured he’d left Adanar and a small contingent to hold the outpost. With Des in the lead, the rest of the unit marched back to its base camp.

Along the way he tried to ignore the hushed whispers and furtive looks the rest of the company was giving him. Lucia had spread the word of his amazing shooting, and it was the talk of the unit. None of them was brave enough to say anything to his face, but he could hear snippets of conversation from the ranks behind him.

Honestly, he couldn’t blame them. Looking back, even he wasn’t sure what had happened. Des was a good marksman, but he was no sniper. Yet somehow he’d managed to pull off a dozen impossible shots with a weapon he’d never fired before … most of them after being blinded by a flash canister. It was beyond unbelievable. It was as if, when he’d lost his vision, some mysterious power had taken over and guided his actions. It was exhilarating, but at the same time it was terrifying. Where had this power come from? And why couldn’t he control it?

He was so wrapped up in his thoughts that at first he didn’t even notice the strangers waiting at their base camp. It was only after they stepped up and slapped the stun cuffs on his wrists that he realized what was going on.

“Welcome back, Sergeant.” Ulabore’s voice was filled with bile.