The Clone Wars: No Prisoners by Karen Traviss

Author:Karen Traviss [Traviss, Karen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, SciFi, Star Wars, Galactic Republic Era, Clone Wars
ISBN: 9780345508997
Publisher: Del Rey

Battle Droid Line,

Athar

Vere’s POV icon was still live on the left margin of Rex’s HUD, and he couldn’t shut it off.

He was sure Vere couldn’t see the clouded sky he seemed to be staring at.

“No go, sir,” Boro said. He was still trying to get a line into Vere’s arm, the plastoid plates flung aside and sections of black undersuit peeled back. “No pulse, nothing.”

Every second Boro spent trying to revive Vere put his own life at risk. As Rex drained another clip into the droid lines and dropped behind cover to reload, he struggled with a rising tidal wave of incoherent anger for a kid whose active service had lasted just eight days, from the time he shipped out of Kamino to the moment a droid grenade shattered his last line of defense, his armor.

Eight days wasn’t enough for anyone.

The only things he could make pay for that were massed in front of him. Fine. Even in the few months of this war, he’d lost so many men that it didn’t seem to matter if he joined them sooner rather than later. If he did—he wouldn’t have to spend another second feeling like he’d failed them and wondering how many more he’d lose tomorrow.

“Boro, pack it in.” He caught the young clone’s arm. “He’s gone, kid. You’ll be next if you don’t grab that Deece and start shooting.”

“Sir, I’ve done all the medic training. I can—”

Boro stopped abruptly, sat back on his heels for a moment, and sighted up with his rifle again. Rex heard his outgoing audio click off, so he was either yelling curses or sobbing or whatever he needed to do to cope with losing his buddy. But he got on with it. He laid down fire, and only someone who knew what went on inside the helmet could have guessed what it was doing to him.

“Rex! Rex!” Ahsoka broke from Altis and Callista, who were struggling to hold back the droid front ranks. “Take Vere and go.”

The mass of metal was getting seriously congested now. If the tinnies ever had a smart thought, they’d break off a few platoons from the back and try another route to the side, but the images from the remote told Rex that they weren’t. The side roads had been blocked by barricades thrown up by the rebel mob.

See, we’d just get a demolition team to blow a gap in it and run through. Tinnies don’t think.

“He’s dead,” Rex said, and opened fire again.

“Oh.”

“We can’t keep this up much longer. Give me a couple of minutes to rig some charges across the street, then bang out.”

“I could hold them back long enough for everyone else to make a run for it.”

Rex snapped a grenade launcher to his rifle. It was a mod the DC-15 wasn’t supposed to have, but it did now, and it worked okay. He took aim at a point just behind the front ranks and fired. Shrapnel arced high in the air and fell fizzing around him.

“Noble,” he said.

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