EKTRA - STRATABLOCK 1000
ABANDONED HOTEL - FLOOR 28
For the longest time, it was quiet. Battlefield quiet. Which is to say that the sound of artillery was distant, the sound of small-arms fire distant, and all the messy atmospheric dogfighting was going down someplace else.
DB-2260 tried not to focus on all that. Made him anxious. He learned a breathing exercise once but forgot it, so now he was trying to make one up on the spot, and it sounded something like a bantha having a more erratic than usual heart attack.
But that was fine. It was almost enough to keep him distracted until his spotter -
VL-4040 - pokes him in the shoulder without looking up from the rangefinder. "
Combatants approaching from north-east. Grid delta-two-three."
"
Mmm." No more breathing exercises for him. He swiveled
the rifle around and peered into the scope.
Sure enough, there they were. Some Maw warparty. Frazzled and in hodgepodge armor with twisted, jury-rigged guns. These were the loincloths tearing through the Core. Sad is what they were, even for an advance party of fodder. They were being led forward by a guy (or gal?) in a set of scuffed beskar plate armor. Either a mandalorian or somebody who killed one.
How did that work, anyway? If you killed a mandalorian and put his armor on, did you become a mandalorian? DB-2260 reached out along his scope and adjusted the dial, bringing the war party into clearer focus. Telemetry scrolled lazily across his vision. No, that couldn't be it. There was probably some idiot loincloth ritual involved. Oiled themselves up and did some chanting. Maybe around a fire. Eat the raw heart of an acklay you killed. Who fucking knows.
The warparty was winding their way up the narrow streets, looking twitchy but not much cautious for it. Stratablock 1000 was a government district. It was nice and orderly, tightly gridded. Meant to be walkable, or public-transit dependent. The streets weren't big enough for armor. Or big animals, as these guys sometimes dealt with. There'd been big animals during that
Maw-spat on Corulag. DB-2260 had even shot some of them.
After a thing like Corulag, plenty of Core Worlds wanted extra muscle. And they'd find it with the
Silver Shield. If it could happen on Corulag, they said, it could happen anywhere. And now it was happening on Metellos. Who could've guessed. At least they had the benefit of a few companies to keep their government districts clean.
VL-4040 was talking over comms, "Command, six combatants entering grid delta two-three, approaching north-east down block… Nine."
It felt like a long pause, but later, when DB-2260 was writing up the after action report, the logs showed there was only a minute before command replied. He maneuvered the reticle over the mando-maybe-not-a-mando's helmet, just above the t-visor. Forehead.
"Clear to dispatch. Go ahead."
"Dispatching," DB-2260 breathed in, held it, pulled the trigger.
It made a sound like a whip cracking right by his head. And that's with his helmet's sound-dampeners. The stock slammed into his shoulder from the recoil, but it didn't hurt. The muzzle flash polarizes his visor just on its own.
Mando-maybe-not-a-mando took a high-caliber rail-rifle bullet right to the forehead. It's beskar, so it doesn't penetrate. It sure does dent, though, sending a wedge of beskar right into mando-maybe-not-a-mando's comparatively fragile forehead. Probably his brain. DB-2260 can see hairline fractures in the t-visor from the force of it.
The target stumbled backward, then wobbled around like someone had spun him around too much. Dizzy. He managed to spray blaster fire at a billboard before tumbling over. Dead or dying.
"Nice," VL-4040 muttered.
"Thanks for noticing."
The rest of the warparty scattered and took positions behind the piecemeal cover available. Among them: planters, benches, a big, stupid fountain. He maneuvered his rifle to place the reticle over the next one. "Don't suppose any of them put their guns down and surrendered."
"Nope."
"Shame."
They were all yelling at each other. No clear command structure outside of "follow the guy who either was a mandalorian or killed a mandalorian." And all their cheap trinket guns didn't have the range. He wondered if they even had comms. Or if they even saw where the muzzle flash came from.
The one he had his sights on was at the corner of a planter, shouting and gesticulating at his buddy across the street, pointing at the wrong floor. Arguing. He was young, so DB-2260 had to wonder if he even knew where he was, what he was doing. Couldn't have been a conscript. Hyped up on the usual loincloth-superstitions that the Maw were known for. "The Dark Side."
What a load.
He fired again, sending a round screaming through the air. It blasted off the corner of the planter, blowing up chunks of dirt and plasteel everywhere. The shot took the savage right through the ribcage. Practically sheared him in half. There was a spray of viscera intermingled with the displaced greenery.
"Messy. Got a runner. Heading south from the fountain."
Gee, must have made an impression. DB-2260 swiveled again, searching for the Maw's newest marathon man. He found him after a moment, sprinting straight down the street back the way he came. Really hoofing it.
Poor guy wasn't even zigging or zagging. It wouldn't have helped him any -
yajirushi's had self-adjusting rounds - but it was the principle. It might have shown he was at least thinking tactically instead of just shitting his pants.
"He's still carrying his gun."
"I noticed."
"Means he's still a combatant."
DB-2260 sighed. "He is."
Sad, really. Someone should've told him the rules of engagement. Might've worked in his favor. But the Maw didn't have any of those, did they? DB-2260 squeezed the trigger.
Another hit, this time without damaging the local scenery. Gosh, the
gentry would be so pleased. The round left a fist-sized hole through the runner's skull and kicked up a fine, reddish-pink mist. DB-2260 found it artful, in a way. Like an abstract painter flicking a brush at a blank canvas. Body went stiff as a board and planted itself face-or-what-remained-of-face-first into the street.
"Good shot." VL-4040 clicked his tongue, "Two more runners've split. Coming towards us."
"They never learn." DB-2260 sighed again. This was his existence now. Climb a building. Sit at the window. Shoot at people. Sigh. Shoot. Sigh. Shoot. Repeat.
Once, and he couldn't remember where, DB-2260 read that all the stars in the galaxy would eventually burn out. Billions upon billions of years in the future, they'd just run out of juice and all life in the galaxy would sputter out with them.
But he had to wonder if all life wouldn't just shoot itself to death first.
Aveline Cuiléin
Rannan Kol
