Star Wars_ The Old Republic_ Revan - Drew Karpyshyn [38]
“Target is blind. Move in,” he said into his comlink.
In the street below, small squads of Murtog’s soldiers were approaching the building. Scourge waited while they launched their first volley of flash and stun grenades, followed by a round of suppressing fire as the soldiers took cover positions near the door. From inside came the sound of blaster carbines as the separatists returned fire.
Moving quickly but calmly, Scourge crossed the rooftop to the hatch built into the center. A few seconds later it swung open and a pair of separatists emerged—snipers coming to the roof to take a position on the attackers below.
Scourge hacked down the first with his lightsaber, then grabbed the second by the scruff of his collar and yanked him off his feet. The young human looked at him with abject horror, his panic so great that he never even thought to raise his weapon.
The Sith Lord fed on the man’s fear, savoring it as the heat of the dark side rushed through him. Effortlessly toting the sniper along, he took three quick steps toward the rooftop’s edge, then hurled the man over. The sniper’s terrified scream was cut short a second later by his fatal impact with the ground below.
Scourge turned and raced back to the open hatch. He could hear frenzied shouts and blasterfire. An instant later an explosion rocked the entire building, followed by several seconds of silence. Another round of blasterfire and shouting confirmed that Murtog’s team had breached the entrance.
Scourge leapt through the hatch leading into the warehouse’s upper floor. There were no interior walls; it consisted of a single massive room. In the far corner a staircase led down to the lower level. A row of mattresses ran along one wall, but the primary purpose of the space seemed to be storage. Crates and footlockers were scattered about, along with a haphazard collection of armor, weapons, and other military equipment. A computer terminal had been set up near the mattresses, along with four blank monitors that would once have shown the images from the security cams on the roof.
Scourge registered all this without conscious thought; his primary focus was on the twenty-odd humans struggling into their combat gear to join the battle downstairs. Unfortunately for them, that was never going to happen.
Like a red wind, Scourge swept through their ranks, slashing left and right, hewing off limbs and decapitating bodies. Violent bursts of the Force picked his victims up and tossed them around like rag dolls, breaking bones and shattering skulls.
The separatists offered virtually no resistance. They had been caught off guard; they hadn’t expected an ambush from the roof. These were not soldiers. They were ordinary men and women who had received only the most basic training when they’d joined the cause. Scourge’s savage and sudden assault, and the bloody carnage he left in his wake, sent them into a panic. He fed on their primal fears. Some he killed, others he left mortally wounded and writhing on the floor, their lives enduring for thirty or forty agonizing seconds while their high-pitched cries of pain fueled his bloodlust.
Had the separatists coordinated their efforts into a focused and organized counterattack they might have been able to challenge him. But they just scattered, running for their lives. Scourge drank in their terror and confusion, and felt the growing power of the dark side. He channeled that power and refocused it, sending it out in waves that rippled across the room, further inciting the panicked retreat of his enemies.
When two women managed to resist the onslaught of fear and fight back, he was on them in an instant, cutting them down with a few quick slashes of his lightsaber. Everyone else was running. Some fled downstairs. Scourge let them go; they wouldn’t get past Murtog’s team. Others tried to hide,