Alliances (Star Wars: Thrawn, #2)(48)
For a few seconds Rukh just stared at him. Then he lowered his gaze to the deck. “It will be done, Commander,” he muttered.
“Good,” Kimmund said. “They’re going to babysit you anyway.”
“Thirty seconds,” Tephan called.
“Strap him in,” Kimmund ordered, sitting back down and strapping himself into his seat. Tephan was famous for not caring how hard she hit during boarding ops. The freighter loomed ahead—out of the corner of his eye Kimmund saw Skerris’s Defender raking the forward hull with laser cannon fire—Tephan made a final tweak to the Darkhawk’s trajectory—
And with a jolt that rocked Kimmund right to his teeth they were there.
The soldiers at the grappler stations were ready. The Darkhawk had barely started to bounce back off the freighter’s hull when it jerked again and came to a second, less violent stop against its target. There was a slight vibration as sealant spewed out around the Darkhawk’s oversized hatch, forming an airtight barrier between the two hulls—
“Seal good,” one of the grapplers confirmed as the stormtroopers popped their straps and readied their E-11 blaster rifles. “Opening hatch.”
The Darkhawk’s hatch slid open. Kimmund stepped to the center of the squad as it formed up, confirming that the freighter’s hatch was completely enclosed by the Darkhawk’s larger opening. That was good; if the hatch was only partly visible the stormtroopers would have to cut through a section of hull metal to get in, a much slower and trickier procedure. The grapplers were already spreading sizzler paste around the hatch’s inner rim, while a third stormtrooper attached the detonator to the section of paste already in place.
“Ten seconds,” Kimmund warned. The key to successful boarding ops was to hit hard and fast, before the enemy had time to set up a proper defense.
Eight seconds later, the sizzler paste erupted in an acrid blaze of light and a halo of sparks. Kimmund keyed his helmet’s optics down a bit, ready to turn them up again once the paste burned down.
A second later the hatch blew, the Darkhawk’s deliberately increased air pressure sending it tipping over into the freighter’s entryway. The first two stormtroopers charged through the opening, their armor brushing against the remnants of the paste, their E-11s spitting fire at the aliens crouched in the entryway and pressed against the walls of the passageway leading deeper into the ship. Two of the aliens jerked and dropped to the deck as the Imperial fire found its targets, the two stormtroopers breaking to either side of the opening to allow the next in line to join in the fight. Blasterfire stabbed through the air toward the stormtroopers and was answered in kind.
By the time Kimmund’s turn came, the initial skirmish was over. The aliens lay motionless on the deck, their weapons scattered around them.
“Engine, hold, cleanup: Go,” Kimmund ordered, glancing around. Given the unknown ship configuration, the first two squads would be running mostly on guesswork as to where exactly the engine room and cargo holds were. The cleanup squad would have an easier time: confirming enemy dead, collecting weapons and equipment for later analysis, and securing the Darkhawk and their exit point.
With the cargo hold squad behind him, Kimmund headed out.
After having to burn through eight aliens at the hatch he’d expected resistance to continue at a reasonably stiff level. To his surprise, they encountered only a single pair of aliens guarding one intersection along the way.
To his surprise, and his suspicion. Unless this species had completely missed the concept of a layered defense, they were probably shepherding their resources for something serious. He and his squad rounded a final corridor—
And there they were, eight meters away: eight more aliens, standing or kneeling around a pair of tripod-mounted heavy blasters in front of a large metal hatch. Even as Kimmund and Podiry did a quick backpedaling, the passageway erupted in a barrage of blasterfire.
“I think we found them,” Podiry offered helpfully as he and Kimmund pressed themselves against the wall. Bits of metal and ceramic spattered from the corner as the fire ricocheted from the edge. “Grenades?”
“Waste of good explosives,” Kimmund said, crouching down. “High cover.”
“Right.” Leaning out just enough into the corridor to see where he was shooting, Podiry opened up with a volley of fire into the crowd.
And as the aliens concentrated their attention and firepower on him, Kimmund leaned out and sent a three-shot into each of the heavy blasters’ power packs.
He and Podiry barely got back around the corner before the packs exploded.
Kimmund waited until the sound of the blast had faded away before peering around the corner again. The blasters were gone, their death throes having decorated the walls, ceiling, and deck with blackened shards. All eight aliens were down as well, stretched out across the deck. Three were still twitching; the others weren’t.
“Come on,” Kimmund ordered, keeping an eye on the injured as he rounded the corner and headed for the control panel beside the metal hatch. Oddly enough, it seemed to have been hardly touched by the twin explosions. There were two control buttons on it, plus a small display labeled with squiggly alien writing. Mentally flipping a coin, Kimmund pressed one of the buttons. The hatch slid open—
The first and second stormtroopers in line went down instantly in the firestorm that erupted from the other side of the hatch. The next two Imperials dropped to one knee, opening up the field of fire for those behind them. One of the kneelers took a concentrated burst in his chest plate and toppled over. As the rest of the stormtroopers opened fire Kimmund slapped the other button, sliding the hatch closed again and cutting off the battle.