Star Wars: Republic Commando: Hard Contact by Karen Traviss

Author:Karen Traviss
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
Tags: Space warfare, Star Wars fiction, Space Opera, Fiction, Fantasy, Imaginary wars and battles, Adventure, Science fiction, English, General, Media Tie-In, Good and evil
ISBN: 9780345478276
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 2004-10-26T07:00:00+00:00

"Five klick maybe."

Atin straightened up and indicated with a pointed finger that he was going outside. "Technical solution. Wait one."

His predilection for gadgets was becoming a blessing. Niner was tempted to take back the unkind thoughts he'd had about the man's training sergeant. He followed him outside. Atin jogged alongside one of the excavation droids, matching its pace before jumping up scrambling onto its flatbed. The machine rumbled inexorably up the slope as if nothing was going to divert it from its progress to the screening plant. Then it stopped and swung around, narrowly missing the droid bringing up its rear. It paused a couple of meters from Niner; Atin, kneeling on the flatbed, held up two cables.

"You can't get it to do tricks," he said. "But you can start, steer, and stop it now."

"Brain bypass, eh?"

"I've seen a few people with those ..."

"So we ride it into town?"

"How else are we going to move all this explosive?"

They couldn't pass up the chance. Niner had plans for the charges, places to lay them all around the Imbraani countryside. They also had a temptingly neat window of opportunity to take out the ground station at Teklet, and rendering Hokan's troops deaf to what was happening around them would double their chances of pulling off the mission. It meant they could use their own long-range comlinks at last.

"Tell you what," Niner said. "I'll take this one to Teklet. You hotwire another and take Fi and our friend as far back down the road to Imbraani as you can get with as much as you can carry." He took out his datapad and checked the chart. "Lay up here where Jinart suggested, with the droid if you can, without it if you can't."

A bulldozer droid on a steady path to the screening plant would attract no attention. It just had to overshoot by a few kilometers. It would be dusk soon, and darkness was their best asset when it came to moving around.

Niner hauled Guta-Nay out of the building. "Is the ground station defended in any way?"

Guta-Nay had his head lowered, looking up from under his brows as if blows to the head normally accompanied questions. "Just fence to stop merlies and thieving. Only farmers around, and they scared anyway."

"If you're lying to me, I'll see that you get back to Ghez Hokan alive. Okay?"

"Okay. Truth, I swear."

Niner summoned Fi from his cover position, and they loaded two droids. One carried enough explosives to reduce the ground station to powder several times over, and the other took everything they could lay their hands on, except for some detonators and explosives to keep the blasting droid busy for a few more hours. There was no point letting the quarry's silence advertise the fact that they had liberated some ordnance. It would spoil the whole surprise.

They loaded Guta-Nay last, bundling him into the huge bucket scoop with his arms still bound. He protested at being stuck on top of spheres of explosive.

"Don't worry," Atin said dismissively.

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