Star Wars Republic Commando Book 3 True Colors by Karen Traviss ######################################################################### ###### 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