"Stay put, Kal'buir," he said. "Do you hear me? I need you in Aay'han to act as a forward operating base."

"HNE's just repeating the stay-calm message," Skirata said. "I've got the GAR tactical displays in front of me now. I need to get Laseema, Besany, and Kad down here."

Vau's voice cut in on the comlink. He was right behind Ordo. "Kal, they're now with Mij and Wad'e in another safe house, lower levels-code coming to you now. Don't move them unless the area comes under attack. The Seps are going to be after the high-value targets first, not slums."

"Gosh, I'd never have worked that out, Walon ..."

"I'll RV with Fi-Sull's still trying to land. He's coming in a long way south of the GAR landing platform. The fighting's too heavy above the center of the city."

Ordo's instinct was to go to Skirata, but another urge told him he had Seps to kill, and yet another said this was-as Vau observed-the best time to grab Uthan. Then his helmet comm kicked into life again, but it wasn't Kal'buir.

"Zey to all Special Ops personnel, Inner Rim. Code Five, Code Five. Repeat, Code Five, Code Five. Any way you can, people. Keep comlink overrides open. May the Force be with you."

Every Republic commando on SOB strength, wherever they were in the galaxy, had heard that signal. It was one of a long list of worst scenarios; it was immediate recall to Coruscant for any squads deployed in the Inner Rim to defend the capital.

Their generals-in those few places where Jedi officers accompanied them-would have heard it, too. If the situation deteriorated, the recall net would be cast wider.

"First things first," Vau said. "Let's find Fi's ship, and then Mereel and A'den."

"Agreed," said Ordo. He started his speeder bike's drive. "Is Mird okay on a bike?"

Vau hot-wired the speeder bike standing next to Ordo's. He was good at appropriating transport. "Loves it," he said swinging onto the seat. Mird scrambled up behind him and seized the pillion seat and Vau's back plate with his claws. "Six legs give you a good grip."

It was only when they lifted off and headed south that they saw the scale of the fighting. The ARC-170 squadrons were still holding off Separatist fighters high in the atmosphere, but the aerial bombardment had begun, and there were already palls of smoke rising from the business quarter near the Senate.

"This is where we choose sides, Ordo," Vau said, a disembodied voice in his helmet. "We fight for the Republic, or we fight for the survival of our own. We can't do both, except by accident."

"Aliit, then," said Ordo, thinking about the RC squads who would do their duty to the end and feeling wretched at his choice. "Our clan."

Chapter 14.

Okay, I admit it now. Palpatine's strategically and tactically brilliant. He's spread the GAR so thin that the Seps thought Coruscant was here for the taking, and so they roll in-and bang, he unleashes his second force behind them. He gets them to come to him. Well, at least we know now what he was building that second clone army and all the ships for. Now all we have to do is get out in one piece. Nice one, Chancellor, you slimeball.

-Kal Skirata, interpreting Palpatine's motives in a logical military light-and getting it completely wrong GAR rapid assault vessel, inbound for Coruscant, five hours into the Battle of Coruscant, 1,080 days ABG Omega Squad dropped out of hyperspace and stared in disbelief as they reoriented themselves.

"Osik...," said Niner. "Now we're screwed."

A seething mass of warships spread in a massive formation, converging on Coruscant. There must have been a couple of thousand, and that was just the ones they could see with the Mark One Eyeball from the viewplate. Big ships.

"Hold the osik," Atin said. "They're ours."

Niner tapped keys and the cockpit scans rolled a long list of Republic transponder and pennant codes. Darman leaned over Niner's shoulder.

"I didn't think we had that many hulls to deploy," he said. "Anyone recognize any of these crates?"

Atin shook his head. "I don't know half of these."

"Right pennant code, right transponder, right drive signature." Niner hit the key again, and again, and the same confirmations flashed on the cockpit display: a cycle of Republic codes and ship names, new names. This fleet was the good guys. "We seem to have acquired a new box of warships. Maybe it's our birthday and we forgot."

Darman flipped from sinking dread to elation to resentment in seconds. He thought the timing was pretty sick, given the last three miserable, fruitless, futile years of sweating blood and seeing no real progress, of taking a planet and then moving on only to see it fall again. They could have done with an injection of ships and men like this a long, long time ago.

"Home, my good man," Corr said tapping Niner's shoulder. "And don't spare the drives."

As the assault vessel headed at top speed for Coruscant, threading between carriers, destroyers, and cruisers, it was becoming clear that they were looking at a turning point of the war.

"Sergeant Kal was right," Atin said. "Palps really did have a secret army and fleet up his sleeve."

"Better late than never," Niner said fists tight on the vessel's yoke. He was a competent pilot, but not a confident one. "Let's check in with Zey. Dar, ping the old man for us, will you?"

It took a few moments to get Zey to respond. While Darman waited anxious seconds, the assault ship-designed for thirty troops, the first asset they could grab-skimmed inside the safely zone of a massive cruiser, so close that Darman could see the markings on the hull. There were no scorch marks, gouges, or even widespread pocking from space debris. This ship was new.

"Omega," Zey said, shimmering into life as a blue hologram. "Niner, what's your estimate?"

"Half an hour to Area Barracks, sir, if we don't run into trouble."

"Divert to these coordinates, Omega." Numbers flashed up on the nay display. "We've got mobile anti-air batteries at all the main utility stations around Galactic City, but it's only a matter of time before the Seps get a foothold on the ground. If we lose power over large sectors, then we've got a major civilian safety problem, and we don't need a few billion citizens stranded without pumped water and comms on top our current woes. Keep that generating station running, Omega."

"Copy that, sir." Niner was never mocking Zey when he said that, unlike some. "Mind my asking where our extra assets came from?"

"You tell me," Zey said sourly. "The additions to the fleet have come as something of a surprise to us all. Sergeant. But now is not the time for the Jedi Council to ask the Chancellor why."

The holoimage shivered and vanished.

"If only it was just a nice simple war," Corr said. "Still, mustn't grumble."

"That's the trouble with fighting in a place like Coruscant." Niner kept tapping vectors into the nav computer, looking for a clear run in through the vast maze of ships. "Complex, crowded infrastructure that's easily disrupted-billions of scared folk fleeing in speeders, clogging the skylanes because the autonav is down-fires, collapsed buildings, ruptured water mains-you name it. Look at it as keeping the civvies out of our lads' hair while they get on with the job of killing Seps."

Darman hoped someone planetside would remember to drop the shields for a moment to let the assault ship land. It was a terrifying picture of a city under attack. There was a certain simplicity to warfare, the act of trying to kill the other guy before he killed you. Once civvies were added though, it all became much messier.

And once you knew you had a baby son down there on Coruscant, it made it messier still.

"Kad better be safe," Darman said.

"And Laseema." Atin nodded to himself. "All of 'em, in fact."

It was all he needed to say. The squad fell silent. This wasn't just a mission. They all had a very personal stake in saving Coruscant. Darman was pretty sure that none of them felt stone-cold now, like an HNE news droid had once said commandos always were.

"At least Etain's offplanet," Corr said. "If the Seps are piling in here, Kashyyyk might be quiet for a while."

Niner huffed. "Well, lucky her, because it's not quiet here."

He brought the AV around in loop to clear two vessels exchanging cannon rounds. Omega were past the single mass of Republic ships now, and into a mixed chaos with enemy vessels, fighters, and even random friendlies. An armed Mon Cal freighter caught in the melee was pouring fire from its small cannon onto a Sep gunship with magnificent abandon. The AV streaked past it before Darman saw the outcome of the skirmish.

Corr leaned forward in his seat to look at the screens. The whole squad was crammed into the cockpit, watching the status screens. "Shab, Niner, look at the shield level."

"Yeah, we've managed to trap a lot of stingflies down there. That'll be fun . . ."

Cannon fire was ripping hulls apart all around him, and starfighters were ending their sorties in balls of silent blinding white light. Atin looked at the sensor screens. "Some shabuir on our shebs." It looked like a fighter on the scan. "If he's not targeting us, he's worked out we're going in."

"He's tailgating," Niner said, pushing the drive to the limits. "Hang on to your frillies. Sixty seconds to shield."

Corr tightened his restraints. "Knock-knock, let us in . . ."

"Remember to brake if they don't," Atin said.

"They can always open an intersection for us." Niner was dead serious. He always was at times like this. "They only have to drop one generator node for five or six seconds."

But Darman's thoughts strayed. He was thinking ahead, to when the Seps would be beaten back, and maybe-maybe-the war would be over or in its dying days. There was a topic they hadn't mentioned since Skirata had broken the news to them in the barracks refreshers, but Darman knew they'd all thought about it a lot.

"I'm going over the wall," he said gravely. "When this is done, I'm deserting to Mandalore. Who's with me?"

Corr raised a finger. "Me."

"Yep," Atin grunted, patting the DC-17 on his lap.

Niner didn't answer. Darman waited.

"Okay, I don't want to be the last nerf steak left in the shop," Niner said. Darman never expected to hear that. "I'd better come, too."

The relief was palpable, even though they were hurtling toward a defense shield still firmly in place.

"Omega Squad to Shield Control, we need entry."

Silence. The checkered field of Triple Zero's towers seen from the air rushed up to meet them.

Five, four. . .

"Omega to Shield Control, let us in . . ."

Three, two . . .

"Shield Control, to Omega, you're clear."

A flash of light showed that a short-lived portal had opened and the AV plunged through.

"Omega, on your six!" Shield Control snapped.

The Sep fighter had made it through behind them. It was a stupid thing to do, seeing as the di'kut was now stuck in Corrie airspace, but some pilots got that red mist in front of their eyes and only thought a second ahead.

Misted or not, he could still shoot.

The cockpit sensors throbbed with red light and a frantic rasping alarm. The Sep had a lock on them. The AV bucked and spun 180 degrees, turning into its own smoke and flames, and that was the only way Darman knew the crazy pilot had fired.

"Shabuir," Niner said, and-even in this chaos, even with the towers of Coruscant spiraling up to meet them-he let loose a couple of Firaxa heat-seekers. "Brace for impact."

"Dumbest way to die," said Corr.

The ball of flame might have been theirs, or it might have been their pursuer's. They had no way of knowing until they hit the ground.

Darman felt his teeth smack down into his lip about the same time as he heard a loud crunch in his helmet, and then he was upended in a gray hot fog.

Something shook the cockpit. The sudden rush of air was as loud as a scream, although he couldn't feel it. Something caught his leg. Tie was still sharply aware of needing to get the shab out of there as fast as he could, because his brain said fire even though he couldn't see or feel it, and he kicked at what he thought was a cable snagging his boot.

"Dar, it's me!" A fist hit his leg plate. "Stop kicking!"

It was Niner. The next thing Darman knew he'd fallen onto something hard that wasn't moving. Someone grabbed both arms and hauled him away so fast that his boots dragged and he fell. He was sure he fell before the explosion behind him knocked him down.

Vhoooooom.

He could see now. It was all yellow light and sharp shadows. When he sat up, trying to get to his feet, he saw burning wreckage and the gaping cockpit of the AV with its viewport split into sections.

"You got jammed under the instrument panel by the impact," Atin said. "Niner blew the viewport's emergency bolts to drag you clear. And your Deece."

"Thanks, Sarge." Thanks? It was pitifully inadequate. "Save me one more time, and you get to keep me."

"We'll all need saving if we don't get a move on. Come on. Let's orient ourselves and crack on. Work to do, bad guys to slot."

The smoke from the burning wreckage gave them cover for a moment. Niner turned and ran for the protection of an office building. All the lights were on, but nothing was moving inside. When Darman dropped into the doorway and squatted to check his Deece and sight up, he was looking back on a mass of twisted metal and shattered permacrete. The fighter pursuing them seemed to have exploded before it hit the ground and had scattered debris everywhere. A drive housing with protruding shafts had embedded itself in a wall. Niner crouched with his glove to one side of his helmet, trying to raise HQ on the comm.

"Where's everyone gone?" Corr asked.

"Shelters, I hope," said Atin.

Niner stood up, making quietly exasperated noises. "It's chaos back there. They don't want us at H-6 now. They want us to report to tactical control at GAR HQ. That's ten klicks."

"A stroll," Corr said. "Nice evening for it, too."

Darman could see a strobing light reflecting off the transparisteel. He peered out from the doorway, ready to blow the next thing he saw to haran, but it was a CSF assault ship hovering close to the wreckage. He signaled to it and ran out to beckon the pilot to land.

The side hatch opened. "You can't park there, soldier," the cop said. "Not on even-numbered days."

"What are you doing out here?" Darman pointed at the aerial light show. Debris-metal, fuel, flame-was raining down just half a klick away. "Haven't you looked up yet?"

The cop shrugged smoke-stained and looking weary. "Been herding civvies. Why do they not understand stay indoors and don't block the skylanes? There were so many trying to enter the grid that the skylane nav system fell over. Anyway, I saw the smoke here and decided to take a look."

"We bounced." Darman thought of Kad. "How many civvy casualties?"

"Thousands. I couldn't give you a definite figure. It's the debris. When you get a Sep cruiser to fall on you, you know all about it. Area medcenters can't cope."

"Can you give us a ride to GAR HQ?"

"Sure. Might have to divert if we get a call, but hop in. You commandos?"