Sev thudded to the ground beside him and rewound his rappelling line. “Two Verp kills. That's all.”

“Two still alive inside the truck,” Boss said. “If you had a hundred kilos of thermal explosive, a lot of dets, and no escape, what would you do?”

“Take as many of the enemy out with me as I could,” Ordo said. “Storm that dik'utla truck now before they put us into orbit.”

Two minutes into the engagement felt like seconds. Fi sprinted down to the green truck on Mereel's heels with Corr, Darman, and Niner close behind.

“I make it ten bodies on the landing strip,” Niner said.

“One dead pilot and two live targets in this truck.” Ordo motioned Niner and Scorch to the front of the truck. “You stand by to distract them when Fixer and Boss go in the rear hatch.”

Ordo stood back with both blasters drawn as Fixer and Boss stacked either side of the hatch. He fired at the frame mountings and it buckled and burst open. There was a loud pee-eww pee-eww of ricocheting fragments from the front of the vessel and Fixer and Boss burst in with their gauntlet vibroblades drawn.

White lights flared and hissed: hand blasters. Ordo had a split second of thinking This is it, it's going to blow, we're dead, it's over—and then silence fell again. Battles seemed to him a mass of deafening noise interspersed with brief, dead silence.

“Fierfek, they didn't even get the dets lined up,” Scorch said. “Amateurs.” He scrambled out of the shattered truck, his armor blackened by blasterfire. Boss jumped out behind him and shook blood off his vibroblade before sheathing it again.

Ordo took a breath. “Kal'buir?”

“We're still at the rear doors. It's gone a little quiet in there. Bard'ika says eleven inside.”

“Confirmed eleven on the infrared scope, too,” said Niner, who always needed to be certain.

“They've locked themselves in. We're just clearing the explosives out of the truck.” Ordo motioned to Corr, Niner, and Boss to go. “Mereel and I are going in the front doors. Dar and Fi, open up a hole in the south-side wall.”

“Want us to go in from the back, son?” Skirata said. “I'm pumping adrenaline and I'd like to get in on some action. For old times' sake.”

“Remember you don't have Katarn armor,” Ordo said, instantly more worried for Kal'buir than anyone alive.

Skirata snorted. “Remember you're not wearing Mandalorian iron.”

Ordo gestured to Mereel. His brother brushed a dusting of debris off his blue lieutenant's pauldron and reached over his shoulders with both hands to draw the massive Cip-Quad blaster strapped across his back.

“In three … ,” Ordo said.

“What happened to in five?”

“I just ran out of patience.”

Skirata held up his Verpine in his left hand, knife in his right, listening as Jusik drew his lightsaber, a Jedi Knight in a Mando helmet.

Bard'ika, I'll take that image to my grave.

He checked the infrared targeting beam, more out of nervous habit than anything, and hoped the hut'uune didn't have night vision.

The deafening double trip-hammer of Mereel's quad blaster shattered the brief calm and the rear doors were blown open. There was an explosion and a pounding rain of debris from the side of the warehouse. For a moment Skirata thought the doors had been blown out by the blast but Jusik punched the air as if it was a rather clever touch.

Fierfek. So that's the Force, is it?

There was no light spilling out of the doorway. Then someone inside the warehouse ran for the doors and a grainy figure shot through his night vision display.

Skirata reacted instantly, without thinking, charging at him and smashing into his face with an armored elbow, then bringing his knife up hard under his ribs before he could even fall backward. It was only when he aimed the Verp in his next breath and concentrated on the face in his HUD for a second, that he realized it was the woman who had called him a Mandalorian thug. He fired the gun before he had even thought of a suitable retort. War was like that. You rarely thought of something satisfying to say until days later, if you had anything to say at all.

“Ten on the infrared,” Niner said.

Infrared told you who was still warm. Infrared couldn't tell you who was alive. Skirata preferred to track movement alone.

“Grenade! Cover!” Atin yelled.

The shock wave lifted Skirata and left his ears ringing. He was sure he was outside the doors but he was now inside, and Jusik hauled him cleanly to his feet with one arm. He couldn't hear the comlink clearly now.

The rapid hammering of a rotary blaster started up and then stopped abruptly. For a man trained in the delicate art of bomb disposal, Corr had seized on the crude technique of spraying six barrels with some enthusiasm.

“Grenade—”

Another explosion shook the warehouse. “Man down!”

Someone was cursing—Sev? Scorch?—and Ordo yelled, “Pull back! Clear the building!”

Skirata sprinted after Jusik, following the green glow of his lightsaber. As they cleared the doors, a massive whooomp punched Skirata simultaneously under the soles of his feet and in his back. He almost lost his balance.

Silence descended. Skirata strained to listen.

“Lots of scattered patches of infrared.” That sounded like Niner. “And no idea what's alive and what's just … warm.”

“Scorch, you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Really. Just shook me up.”

“That's it,” Jusik said. “I'm coming back in, Ordo.” He spun around and ran back into the warehouse. Skirata followed him. “I can find the live ones. Leave it to me.”

The warehouse was now almost in darkness and silent except for the ticking, creaking, and crumbling sounds of settling debris and cooling alloy. The air stank of ozone from discharged blasters and from the animal scent of shattered bodies. Nothing moved.

This was taking hours, Skirata was sure. No, this was minutes. His brain had slipped into the unreal time frame of combat.

Jusik's green lightsaber left an eerie trail. He didn't seem afraid of drawing fire: he'd just bat it away like an annoying insect, Skirata was sure. “I can feel three lives.”

Well, they’ll know the Jedi are on the case now.

Skirata imagined lying on that floor in the dark silent chaos, probably deafened, certainly injured, catching glimpses of movement as soldiers stalked the room. The commandos had killed their visor lights, and Fi, Atin, and Darman were nearly invisible in their black armor even to him.

It must have been terrifying. He'd hidden from soldiers, six years old and scared enough to wet his pants.

Now you know what it's like, hut'uune.

Someone made a sound, a little half word, and it sounded like please. Skirata swung his Verpine in the direction of the noise. He saw a man kneeling with hands raised: fierfek, he didn't want to take prisoners. That was the last thing they needed. He heard Jusik swallow hard.

“Get over by the wall,” Jusik hissed. He was gesturing at the person who seemed to be surrendering. Could the hut'uun even see the Jedi? “Get over by the wall!”

Then Darman's voice cut in. “Sarge! Down! Flame—”

Skirata swung around and dropped to his knees just as Jusik ducked a sheet of white-hot, roaring liquid flame that lit up the shattered warehouse and overwhelmed his night vision for a split second. It pumped out in shallow arcs and Darman took it full on. Commandos and troopers leaped back instinctively and Skirata felt the heat even through a layer of ancient Mandalorian iron. Darman was illuminated like a jet black statue, rifle still raised, enveloped in blazing liquid. He didn't even scream.

“Dar!” Skirata found his body responding without intervention from his brain as he pumped Verpine rounds in the direction of the flamethrower. Someone fell. The stream of fire stopped. The thunk of a power cell being slapped onto a blaster diverted him from the terrible spectacle of Darman burning like a torch as someone—Fi? Niner?—rushed to roll their brother on the ground in a bid to smother the flames. Skirata caught the faint light of a charge indicator in his peripheral vision and swung the Verpine in its direction, but Jusik waded in instantly, swinging his lightsaber in a blur of light. Skirata could now see that the kneeling man—the apparently surrendering man—had drawn a blaster. It was still clutched in his limp hand. For some reason that feint angered Skirata more than anything.