Star Wars - Clone Wars 10 - Republic Commando 03-True Colors - Karen Traviss.pdf

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Star Wars
Republic Commando
Book 3
True Colors
by Karen Traviss
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For Christian Stafford, TC 1219, 501st Legion, who left this world
aged eight, March 6, 2005, and whose courage continues to inspire us all.
Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab 'echaaj 'la:
Not gone, merely marching far away.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My grateful thanks go to editors Keith Clayton (Del Key) and Sue
Rostoni (Lucasfilm); my agent Russ Galen; the LucasArts Republic Commando
game team; Bryan Boult and Jim Gilmer-insightful first readers; Mike
Krahulik and Jerry Holkins of Penny Arcade, for bestowing coolness and
feeding me; Ray Ramirez (Co. A 2BN 108th Infantry snipers, ARNG), for
technical advice and generous friend-ship; Officer Antony Serena, Los
Angeles County Sheriff's Department, for outstanding starship
procurement; Lance and Joanne, of the 501st Dune Sea Garrison, for
practical and inspirational armor expertise; Wade Scrogham, for reliable
Intel; Sam Burns, for input of solid common sense; and all my good
friends in the 501st Legion.
And in this twenty-fifth anniversary year of the Falklands war, my
special thanks go to all the veterans of that conflict who've shared
their experiences with me in the intervening years.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Republic commandos:
Omega Squad:
RC-1309 NINER
RC-1136 DARMAN
RC-8015 FI
RC-3222 ATIN
Delta Squad:
RC-1138 BOSS
RC-1262 SCORCH
RC-1140 FIXER
RC-1207 SEV
Clone trooper CT-5108/8843 CORR
Clone commander CC-3388/0021 LEVET
General BARDAN JUSIK, Jedi Knight (male human)
Sergeant KAL SKIRATA, Mandalorian mercenary (male human)
Sergeant WALON VAU, Mandalorian mercenary (male human)
Captain JALLER OBRIM, Coruscant Security Force (male human)
General ETAIN TUR-MUKAN, Jedi Knight (female human)
JINART, Qiiluran spy (female Gurlanin)
General ARLIGAN ZEY, Jedi Master (male human)
RAV BRALOR, Mandalorian bounty hunter (female human)
Null ARC troopers:
N-7 MEREEL
N-10 JAING
N-11 ORDO
N-12 A'DEN
ARC trooper Captain A-26, MAZE
ARC trooper A-30, SULL
Agent BESANY WENNEN, Republic Treasury investigator (human female)
PROLOGUE
Mygeeto, Outer Rim, the vaults of the Dressian Kiolsh Merchant
Bank, 470 days after the Battle of Geonosis
We re running out of time.
We're running out of time, all of us.
"Sarge..." Scorch looks at the security locks on the strong-room
hatch with the appraising eye of an expert at breaking the unbreakable.
That's how I trained him: he's the best. "Sarge, we got what we came for.
Why are we robbing a bank?"
"You're not robbing it. I'm robbing it. You're just opening a
door." This is about justice. And relieving Separatists of their wealth
stops them from spending it on armaments, after all. "And I'm a civilian
now."
It doesn't feel like it. Delta are still my squad. I won't go as
far as Kal Skirata and call them my boys, but... boys they are.
Scorch is about twelve years old. He's also twenty-four, measured
in how far along that path to death he actually is, which is the only
definition I care about. He's running out of time faster than me. The
Kaminoans designed the Republic's clone commandos to age fast, and when I
think of them as the tiny kids 1 first knew, it's heartbreaking-yes, even
for me. My father didn't quite kill the last bit of feeling in me.
Scorch places circuit disrupters against the locks spaced around
the door frame, one by one, to fry the systems and Create a bogus signal
that convinces the alarm there's nothing out of order. He freezes for a
moment, head cocked, reading the display on his helmet's head-up display.
"What's in there, Sarge?"
I'm not robbing for gain. I'm not a greedy man. I just want
justice. See? My Mandalorian armor's black-black, the traditional color
of justice. Beskar'gam colors almost always have meaning. Every Mando who
sees me understands my mission in life right away.
"Part of my inheritance," I say. "Father and I didn't agree on my
career plans."
Justice for me; justice for the clone troops, used up and thrown
away like flimsi napkins.
"The drinks are on you, then," says Boss, Delta's sergeant "If we'd known
you were loaded, we'd have hit you up ear-lier."
"Was loaded. Cut off without a tin cred."
I've never told them about my family or my title. I think the only
person I told was Kal, and then I got the full blast of his class-war
rhetoric.
Sev, Delta's sniper-silent, which might mean disapproval, or it
might not-trains his DC-17 rifle on the deserted corridors leading from
the labyrinth of vaults and storerooms that hold the wealth and secrets
of the galaxy-richest and most powerful, including my family.
Fierfek, it's quiet down here. The corridors aren't made of ice,
but they're smooth and white, and I can't shake the impression that
they're carved straight out of this frozen planet itself. It makes the
place feel ten degrees colder.
"In three" says Scorch. "But I'd still prefer a nice big bang.
Three, two . . . one." I know he's grinning, helmet or not. "Boom.
Clatter. Tinkle."
The locks yield silently and open in a sequence: clack, clack,
clack. No alarms, no theft countermeasures to take our heads off, no
guards rushing in with blasters. The vault doors roll back to reveal row
upon row of polished durasteel deposit boxes lit by a sickly green light.
Inside, two security droids stand immobile, circuits disrupted along with
every lock in here, weapon arms slack at their sides.
"Well?" Fixer asks on the comlink. He's up on the surface a
kilometer away, minding the snowspeeder we'll use to ex-filtrate from
Mygeeto. He'll get the icon views from all our helmet systems, but he's
impatient. "What's in there?"
"The future," I tell him. His future, too, I hope. When I touch the
deposit box doors, they swing open and their contents glitter, or rustle,
or ... smell odd. It's quite a collection. Boss wanders in and fishes out
a small gilt-framed portrait that hasn't seen the light of day for ...
well, who knows? The three commandos stare at it for a moment. "What a
waste of creds." Scorch, who's never expressed a desire for anything
beyond a decent meal and more sleep, checks the droids, prodding them
with the probe anchored to his belt. "You've got until the next patrol to
clear out what you need, Sarge. Better hurry."
As 1 said, we're all running out of time, some of us faster than
others. Time's the one thing you can't buy, bribe or steal when you need
more.
"Go on, get out of here." I walk down the corridor lined with
unimaginably excessive wealth: rare precious metals, untraceable credit
chips, priceless jewels, antiques, industrial secrets, blackmail
material. Ordinary credits aren't the only things that make the galaxy
rotate. The Vau family box is in here. "I said dismiss, Delta."
Boss stands his ground. "You can't carry it all on your own."
"I can carry enough." I can haul a fifty-kilo pack all right, maybe
not as easily as young men like them, but I'm motivated and that shaves
years off my age. "Dismissed. Thin out. Now. This is my problem, not
yours."
There's a lot of stuff in here. It's going to take longer than I
thought.
Time. You just can't buy it. So you have to grab it any way you
can. I'll start by grabbing this.
Chapter 1
Look, all I know is this. The Seps can't have as many droids as
Intel says-we've seen that when we've sabotaged their factories. And if
they have gazillions of them somewhere, why not overrun the whole
Republic now and get it over with? Come to that, why won't the Chancellor
listen to the generals and just smash the key Sep targets instead of
dragging this war out, spreading us thin from Core to Rim? Add that
garbage to the message Lama Su sent him griping about the clone contract
expiring in a couple of years-it all stinks. And when it stinks that bad,
we get ready to run, because it's our shebse on the line here.
Understand?

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