Star Wars_ Darth Bane 01_ Path of Destruction - Drew Karpyshyn [29]
Turning to address the rest of the troops, he paused to let the gravity of his next words sink in. “What I’ve done here is mutiny,” he said slowly. “There’s a chance anyone who follows me from here on in will face a court-martial when this is over. If any of you feel you can’t follow my orders after what I’ve done here today, speak up now and I’ll surrender command to Senior Trooper Adanar for the rest of the mission.”
He gazed out across the soldiers. For a second nobody spoke; then as one they all raised their fists and gave two light raps on their chest, just above the heart.
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.”
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