“Fearless Fearless Fearless calling Delta. Are you clear, repeat, are you clear, respond.”
A large rectangle of hot softened glass peeled slowly away from the screen, helped by Scorch's fist, and drifted off serenely into a silent, slow-motion collision with the headrest of the pilot's seat.
“Delta here, Fearless. Just extracting Omega and cargo now.”
Fi fought to stop himself from sounding breathless and shaky. It would let the squad down. “I'm glad the navy's here,” he said. “Because if it had been down to you, Greased Lightning, we'd be an asteroid belt by now.”
Scorch's visor poked through the aperture at last, followed by his arm, and he made an unmistakable gesture of displeasure.
Fi felt his mouth take over, fueled by shock. “My hero! You finally made it!”
“You want to walk back to base?”
Niner lifted the plastifoil-wrapped Orjul with one hand and lined him up with the opening. “Fi's going to give his mouth a nice rest now and help me cross-deck the garbage.”
“Gift-wrapped? Aww, you shouldn't have.” Scorch hauled himself a little farther down the access tube and hung motionless at 135 degrees, assessing the three bound prisoners. “Feet first, please. Then if the di'kut tries to kick out I can break his legs. Don't want this tubing breached.”
It proved harder than expected. But by the time the second Nikto had been rammed up into the connecting tube like a torpedo, the warm air from the hijacked Neimoidian vessel had worked its way into the freighter cockpit and made Fi feel a lot more comfortable. He stood back to let Atin then Darman make their way up the tube.
Scorch hauled Darman inboard by his webbing. Fi waited for his boots to disappear and then rolled to peer up the aperture into a circle of dim light.
“Next!”
Fi lined up and then pushed off with one boot. As he passed through the open hatch at the other end, he felt artificial gravity seize him, and he rolled onto the deck with a clatter of armor plates. It took him a few seconds to get to his feet. Niner collided with him from behind. It wasn't a very big ship.
Boss—his armor daubed with chipped and peeling orange paint—slammed the hatch behind Niner and sealed it. Niner stared at him as if he wasn't sure what should happen next and then the two men simply shook hands and slapped each other on the back.
“Like what we've done with the place?” Boss said, taking off his helmet. The flight deck looked as if someone had been dismantling it the hard way: panels had been ripped out, wires hung from the deckhead, and there were empty slots in the console where units had either been removed or not installed in the first place. “Okay, perhaps it's a little basic, but we call it home.”
“You nicked this?”
“No, they let us take it on a test drive.” Boss gestured at the rest of his brightly painted squad. “Fixer, Sev, and you already know Scorch. Say hello to the boys in boring black.”
“Thanks, vode,” Fi said. He wondered why Atin wasn't joining in; he had turned away and seemed to be taking a technical interest in a run of conduit. “Any word on Sicko?”
“If that's your pilot, Majestic's been diverted now. They picked up his beacon and that's all we know.” Boss looked down at the three prisoners, lined up on the deck like corpses. He gave each of them a nudge with his boot. “You'd better be worth everyone's effort.”
Fi eased off his helmet and inhaled almost fresh air. Except for Scorch, they had all taken off their helmets. Delta was one of fewer than a dozen squads that had survived intact since decanting, a true pod as the Kaminoans had called it, and they seemed to think that made them an elite within an elite. They had been raised and trained together, and they had never fought with anyone but their brothers. It was a luxury few squads now enjoyed.
Fi suspected it meant they didn't play well with others. He remembered only too well how ferociously competitive and inward looking his own pod had been, and how badly his confidence had been dented when he lost his brothers at Geonosis and was then dumped in Niner's care.
“You do okay for a mongrel squad,” Sev said, and Fi chose not to react. He knew he was on autopilot now and that he should shut up. Niner's glance helped him decide. “I don't suppose you did a rummage on that ship, did you?”
“Not with a rapid decompression on our hands, no,” said Niner. “Word was that it was carrying explosives.”
“Okay, we're going to be coated in Seps anytime now, so let's get this crate into Fearless's hangar and then they can blow the freighter. If there's anything useful in it, at least the Seps don't get it.”
Darman slid down a bulkhead onto the deck, and Niner sat down beside him. They were nearly back aboard Fearless, and that meant they were nearly home, and home meant Arca Company Barracks and—at last—a good night's sleep after two months on patrol. Fi never got enough. None of them ever did. And fatigue could make you dangerously careless.
“So, Atin … ,” Sev said. He wandered up behind Atin and stood close enough to be annoying. Atin didn't turn around. “Sargent Vau asked to see you again, vod'ika.”
“I'm not your little brother,” Atin said quietly. He kept his back to Sev. “I just work with you.”
Ah, so there was some history between those two. Fi bristled: he rallied to his adopted brother. He could see that the prospect of actually meeting Vau again was stoking something inside that wasn't typically Atin.
Sev didn't let up. “I don't forget, you know.”
This time Atin did wheel around, face-to-face with Sev, so close that Fi thought his placid brother was actually going to lose it for once. He prepared to intervene.
“It's my business,” Atin said. “Stay out of it.”
Sev stared into his face. “And disagreements stay inside the company.”
Atin hooked his fingers in the neck of his bodysuit and yanked it down to the left as far as the edge of the armor, exposing his collarbone. He had a lot of raised white scars. Nobody took much notice of them because injuries in training and combat were so common that they rarely drew comment. “You got worse than that, did you? You spent a week in bacta, did you?”
Atin looked about to snap, and Fi stepped forward to intervene. Then Niner was across the cabin in three strides and slammed in between the two men. He had to break them up by putting his arms between them and knocking them apart with his arm plates. But Sev's unblinking gaze was still fixed on Atin as if Niner weren't there.
“I think we all need to reach a comradely understanding,” Niner said, blocking Sev with his body. “Back at the barracks, if that's okay with you, ner vod.”
Sev looked murderous. His eyes were still fixed on Atin's. “Anytime, vod'ika.”
“Okay, you two can shut it now. And you, Fi. Stand down. We've all had a bad day, so let's throttle back on the testosterone and play nicely.”
Sev held his hands away from his sides in a gesture of reluctant submission and went to sit beside Scorch in the cockpit. Boss didn't say a word, but Niner grabbed Fi and Atin by their shoulders and shoved them farther away.
“You're going to tell me what that's all about.”
“No, I'm not, Sarge. It's personal.”
“There's no personal where this squad is concerned. Later, okay? I'm not having you brawling like a pair of civvies. If there's a needle match between you two, we all sort it together. Got it?”
“Yes, Sarge.”
Niner emphasized his warning with a prod in Atin's chest and moved back to stand with Boss while Scorch brought the vessel alongside Fearless and began negotiating with the flight deck controller on how they might make space in the hangar for it. Fi waited with Atin in case he decided to resume his little chat with Sev. He had never seen Atin flare up even under the most extreme pressure, but he seemed ready to swing at anyone now. And even a brain-dead Weequay could have spotted that it had something to do with Vau.