Overwhelmed with pride, Des had to swallow hard before he could give his final order to the troops. his troops. 'Gloom Walkers, dismissed!'
The ranks dispersed in groups of twos and threes, the soldiers whispering quietly to one another. Adanar broke away from the rest and came up to Des.
'Ulabore's not going to forget this,' he said quietly. 'What are you going to do about him?'
'After we take that outpost they'll want to pin a medal on our commanding officer,' Des replied. 'I'm betting he'd rather shut up and accept it than let anyone know what really happened.'
Adanar grunted. 'Guess you got it all worked out.'
'Not quite,' Des admitted. 'I'm still not sure how we're going to take down that outpost.'
Chapter 7
The outpost was located in a clearing on the top of a plateau overlooking the valley. Under the cover of night, the Gloom Walkers had moved silently through the jungle until they had it surrounded. Des had broken the unit up into four squads, each approaching from a different side. Each squad carried an interference box with it.
They had set up and activated the i-boxes once they'd closed to within half a kilometer of the base, jamming all transmissions within their perimeter. The squads had continued on to the edges of the clearing then stopped, waiting for Des to give them the signal to move in. With no communication among the squads, the i- boxes jammed their own equipment as well, the most reliable signal was the sound of blasterfire.
As he stared across the clearing at the three repulsorcraft sitting on the landing pad atop the outpost's roof, Des felt a familiar feeling in the pit of his stomach. All soldiers felt the same thing going into battle, whether they admitted it or not: fear. Fear of failure, fear of dying, fear of watching their friends die, fear of being wounded and living out the rest of their days crippled or maimed. The fear was always there, and it would devour you if you let it.
Des knew how to turn that fear to his own advantage. Take what makes you weak and turn it into something that makes you strong. Transform the fear into anger and hate: hatred of the enemy; hatred of the Republic and the Jedi. The hate gave him strength, and the strength brought him victory.
For Des the transformation came easily once the fighting started. Thanks to his abusive father, he'd been turning fear into anger and hate ever since he was a child. Maybe that was why he was such a good soldier. Maybe that was why the others looked to him for leadership.
They were waiting on his signal even now, waiting for him to take the first shot. As soon as he did, they'd charge the outpost. The Gloom Walkers were outnumbered nearly two to one; they'd need the advantage of surprise to even out the odds. But those gunships were a problem Des hadn't anticipated.
The clearing was surrounded by bright lights that illuminated everything within a hundred meters of the outpost itself. And even though the repulsorcraft were grounded, there was a soldier stationed in the open flatbed at the rear of each vehicle, operating the turrets. The armored walls of the flatbed rose to waist height to give the gunner some cover, and the turret itself was heavily shielded to protect it from enemy fire.
From the landing pad on the roof, the gunners had a clear view of the surrounding area. If he fired that first shot, the other units would charge out into the clearing and right into a storm of heavy-repeating blasterfire. They'd be torn apart like zucca tossed into a rancor pit.
'What's the matter, Sarge?' one of the soldiers in his squad asked. It was Lucia, the junior trooper who'd delivered Ulabore's orders to him earlier. 'What are we waiting for?'
It was too late to call off the mission. The main army was already on the move; by the time Des got back to camp to warn them, they'd be halfway through the valley.
He glanced down at the young recruit and noticed the scope on her weapon. Lucia was carrying a TC-17 long-range blaster rifle. Her knuckles were white from gripping her weapon too tightly in fear and anticipation. She'd seen only minor combat duty before being assigned to the Gloom Walkers, but Des knew she was one of the best shots in the unit. The TC- 17 was only good for a dozen shots before the power cell had to be switched out, but it had a range well over three hundred meters.
Each of the four squads had a sniper assigned to it. When the fighting began, their job was to watch the perimeter of the battle and make sure none of the Republic soldiers escaped to warn their main camp.
'See those soldiers standing in the rear of the gunships? The ones working the flash cannons?' he asked her.
She nodded.
'If we don't get rid of them somehow, they're going to turn our squads into turret fodder about ten seconds after this battle begins.'
She nodded again, her eyes wide and scared. Des tried to keep his voice even and professional to calm her down.
'I want you to think about this very carefully now, trooper. How fast do you think you could take them out from here?'
She hesitated. 'I… I don't even know if I could, Sarge. Not all of them. Not from this angle. I could get a line on the first one, but as soon as he goes down, I doubt the others will stand still long enough for me to take aim. They'll probably duck down in the flatbed for cover. And even if I take the gunners out, there's half a dozen more soldiers on that roof who would jump in to take their places. I can't drop nine targets that fast by myself, Sarge. Nobody can.'
Des bit his lip and tried to figure out an answer to the problem. There were only three gunships. If he could somehow get a message to the sniper in each squad and have them fire at exactly the same time, they might be able to take out the unsuspecting gunners… though they'd still have to stop the other six soldiers from replacing them.
He cut off his own line of thought with a silent curse. It would never work. Because of the i-boxes there was no way to get a message to the other squads in time.
