Star Wars_ Darth Bane 01_ Path of Destruction - Drew Karpyshyn [30]
“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.
Taking the sniper rifle from Lucia’s hands, he brought the weapon up and set his eye to the scope to get a better look at the situation. He scanned the roof quickly from side to side, noting the position of every Republic soldier. With the magnification of the scope he could make out their features clear enough to see their lips moving as they spoke.
The situation was practically hopeless. The outpost was the key to taking Phaseera, and the turrets on the roof were the key to taking the outpost. But Des was out of options and almost out of time.
He felt the fear stronger than ever and took a deep breath to focus his mind. Adrenaline began to pump through his veins as he redirected the fear to give him strength and power. He lined the blaster’s scope up on one of the gunners, and a red veil fell across his vision. And then he fired.
He acted on instinct, moving too quickly to let his conscious thoughts get in the way. He didn’t even see the first soldier drop; the scope was already moving to his next target. The second gunner had just enough time to open his eyes wide in surprise before Des fired and moved on to the third. But she’d seen the first gunner go down and had already dropped down behind the armored walls of the gunship’s flatbed for cover.
Des resisted the impulse to fire wildly and moved the scope