“And your free warra nuts.” So Darman wasn't asleep, then. “Fierfek, I keep getting this weird feeling like someone's here next to me.”
“It’s me, Dar. But don’t ask me to hold you hand.”
“Di’kut.” He unfolded his arms slowly and turned to Atin. “At’ika, if you can’t decrypt that data, why not just try to send the whole memory back down the hololink as is?”
“That’s what I’m doing,” Atin said without looking up. The only light in the compartment now was the blue glow from their helmets. Fi noted that Atin had his night-vision filter in place to see the small ports on the datapads. “You’re right. I can’t crack the encryption here, but I can dump the data down the link now and let Ordo play with it if I can override the anti-tampering. Otherwise it’ll just delete everything on here. Ten minutes, maybe? I’m not letting this beat me.”
Niner eased himself out of the seat and gave Atin a pat on the shoulder as he floated past him. “I’m going to keep the hololink open. Time to update Fleet on our rate of drift anyway.”
They had nothing to say at the moment. And the link was a power drain that they might regret later if things didn’t pan out quite as they were hoping.
But Fi understood. Kal Skirata would be going crazy not being able to keep an eye on them at a time like this. It was what he always, always said when things got tough: I’m here, son. He felt he had to be there for them. And he always had been.
Buir was exactly the right word. Fi had no idea how he had managed to keep faith with more that a hundred commandos.
The link flared into blue light again. Ordo appeared, in full armor and looking away form the cam. He must have been at Fleet HQ, then, to be working with his helmet on like that, and the holo unit must have been placed in his desk.
“Omega here,” Niner said. “Captain, mind if we keep the link open until further notice?”
Ordo looked around, and Skirata’s voice cut in from outside the video pickup’s field: “I’d kick your shebs if you didn’t, ad’ike. You okay?”
“Bored, Sarge,” Said Fi.
“Well, you won't be bored much longer. Majestic and Fearless are on their way, ETA under two hours—”
“Good old ma'am,” Niner said.
“—but you'll probably have help sooner, because Delta Squad are in transit.”
“Oh, we'll never hear the last of this …”
“You haven't met them yet, son.”
“Heard enough.”
“Rough, rude boys,” Fi said. “And rather full of themselves.”
“Yes, but they have oxygen, a functioning drive, and they're just gagging to get to you first. So play nicely with them.” Skirata moved into the hololink's visual range and sat down on Ordo's desk, swinging one leg, his injured one. He looked the way he always looked on training exercises: grim, focused, and constantly chewing something. “Oh, and don't open fire. They're driving a Sep ship.”
“How did they get hold of that? Not that the cannon on this crate is working now anyway.”
“Well, I don't think the Sep pilot was keen to part with it, but maybe they promised that they'd bring it back when they were finished.”
Fi cut in again. “Anyone looking for Sicko, Sarge? Our TIV pilot?”
“Yes. We'll keep you posted.” Skirata glanced at Ordo as if he'd said something. “Atin, son, you know Vau's back, don't you?”
Atin paused for a second and then carried on tapping a probe on the entrails of a dismantled datapad. He nodded to himself. “Yes, Sarge. I noted that.”
“You're coming back to Brigade HQ when we get you out of there, but you steer clear of him, okay? You hear me?”
Fi was riveted. Atin had never said a word about Vau, other than that he was hard, but his reactions were telling.
He didn't even look toward the holoimage. “I promise, Sarge. Don't worry.”
“I'll be around to make sure, too.”
Atin inhaled audibly, a sign that usually meant he was either exasperated or burying his anger. Fi thought better of asking which.
Niner detached the holo emitter and pickup from his forearm plate, unlatched the small disc from inside the wrist section and stuck it on the flat shelf that ran along the freighter's console with a rolled-up piece of tape. The holoimage of Ordo and Skirata was silent, as was Omega. There was nothing more to discuss. Just having that visual link was enough to comfort everyone.
It was a long, silent half hour. Maybe Darman slept and maybe he didn't, but Fi suspected he was just thinking. Atin's ten-minute estimate had stretched somewhat but he plowed on, head down, completely focused. Atin was exactly what he was. Not “stubborn,” as Basic translated the word, a negative refusal to change; but atin in the Mando'a sense—courageously persistent, tenacious, the hallmark of a man who would never give up or give in.
Eventually he let out a breath. “Sorted.” He leaned forward to connect the dataport to the hololink. “Downloading now. Plus Dar's explosives profiling and some images of the prisoners. Sorry we didn't get pictures of the dead ones, but they wouldn't look too cute now anyway. All yours, Captain.”
“That's my boy,” Skirata said.
Well, he was now. He wasn't Vau's batch any longer. They all settled back and relaxed as best they could. Fi could hear it in his helmet. They were breathing in unison now, slow and shallow.
Ordo disappeared from the holoimage, no doubt to take the prized data somewhere else to crack it. Skirata simply stayed where he was, occasionally turning to check a screen behind him.
After an hour he spoke again. “Update position and intended movement, Omega. Fearless on station in forty-three minutes, Majestic fifty-nine … Delta thirty-five.”
“They're so competitive and macho,” Fi said. “We're going to have to teach them how to relax.”
There was a brief snort of amusement from Darman's audio and then everyone was silent again. The three prisoners shifted from time to time: the human Farr Orjul was shuddering uncontrollably in the cold despite being wrapped like a roasting joint of nerf in all four of the squad's emergency plastifoil blankets. Condensation was forming on the bulkhead next to Fi and he ran his gloved fingertip across it, making the moisture bead and run.
It was just as well that the vessel's electrical power was down. It would be shorting out by now.
And just when things were going so well—all things considered—Skirata jumped upright from the desk and rushed out of camshot. When he came back seconds later it was clear something had gone osik'la, as he always put it—badly wrong.
“Omega, you've got company. There's a Sep vessel on an intercept course with you, unidentified but armed and going fast. Have you any power at all you can divert to cannon? Are you certain it's offline?”
Niner swallowed hard. The problem with a shared helmet comlink was that you heard your brother's every reaction, even the ones you really didn't want to. It was one reason why they checked each other's biosign readouts only when they had to.
“We blew all the power relays to trigger the emergency bulkheads, Sarge. It's dead.”
Skirata paused for a heartbeat. “Their ETA at that speed is thirty-five minutes. Ad'ike, I'm sorry—”
“It's okay, Sarge,” Niner said. He sounded flat calm now. “Just tell Delta not to stop for caf, okay?”
Fi's adrenaline flooded his mouth with a familiar tingling sensation, and a great cold wash of ice flowed into his leg muscles.