Life Debt: Aftermath (Star Wars) by Chuck Wendig

Author:Chuck Wendig
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Del Rey
Published: 2016-07-12T04:00:00+00:00

Everything’s going according to plan.

That thrills Jas in no small way. The plan is everything. Designing one is like making a clock: all these little parts working together, turning, tugging, ticking. And at the end of the day, it either tells time or it doesn’t.

And this plan, it’s going along like clockwork.

She got to take out the pulse mines first—Jas took up the same place on the plateau overlooking Golas Aram’s compound, and she used the scope on her slugthrower to identify the electronic signatures from each of the mines. Then it was the simple act of pointing the gun, emptying herself of breath, and pulling the trigger.

The first one did what it was supposed to do:

It went bang.

And that sound was a signal to get the rest of the plan going.

Kilometers away, Temmin and Bones got to work on cutting the conduit from the wind farm that Solo had identified. That knocked out the fence and the turrets. And it’s allowed Sinjir to head down under the cover of night to Aram’s compound. She spies his shadow darting through the fence now.

To keep him on his toes, Jas pops off more mines ahead of him—the pulse mines detonate with buzzing explosions, leaving behind small craters and a crackling haze of ozone smoke in their wake.

He’s closing in on the compound—

Suddenly, from all around, shutters and doors open up. New shadows emerge, shapes that seem human but move with an inhuman stutter-step. Droids, she thinks, and that’s confirmed the moment they ignite fire-red vibroblades from their hands. She sees a dozen of these droids. Maybe more.

Advancing on Sinjir’s position.

And now, the clock is threatening to break.

Down there, outside the compound, the darkness is lit up by strange, glowing vibroblades. They draw glowing arcs through the air as they advance toward Sinjir—the ex-Imperial dashes behind an old motor-vator tiller, peeling off shots from his pistol. But it’s not enough.

That is where Jas comes in. Her slugthrower kicks and barks as she takes out one droid after the next. Hard to see in the dark, but she does her best. The droids offer a satisfying rain of sparks every time she peels the skull off one with a hot tanium-jacketed projectile.

She thinks: I got this.

Confidence, or rather overconfidence, is a blinding force. And it doesn’t help that she’s got one open eye pressed against the ring of the rifle scope. Which means she hears what’s coming one second too late.

Soon as the thirstgrass shakes and whispers, Jas quick rolls over onto her back and points her rifle up—but a thrumming vibroblade ignites in the darkness above her, whipping forward and slicing through the barrel of her slugthrower. It gets stuck there, buzzing and grinding, sparks flying, and the weight of the commando droid presses down against her.

She tries kicking the thing off her, but it’s like trying to kick an astromech with its legs grav-bolted to the floor. As she struggles uselessly, the droid’s second vibroblade lights up and plunges toward her.

Jas jerks her head to the side just as the blade sticks into the hardscrabble ground.

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