Karen Traviss - Omega Squad - Targets

Note: This story takes place 65 to 67 days after the events of the novel Star Wars Republic Commando: Triple Zero.

Everyone knows that Intel's about as reliable as a Weequay quay ball. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have its uses. Sometimes it's the lies and myths that tell you everything you need to know.

place and time: separatist droid factory. olanet. siskeen system – 460 standard days after the battle of geonosis.

Atin liked a big, satisfying explosion as much as the next man. But there were better ways of putting droids out of action than turning them into shrapnel. He just didn't agree with the technical details this time.

“Ordo told me you were argumentative,” said Prudii.

Atin bristled. But coming from Ordo, it might have been a compliment. “I just want to get it right.”

Atin edged along the gantry above the foundry floor, feeling along the rust-crusted metal railing for a sound section that would take the weight of a rappelling line with a fully-kitted Republic commando on the end. The only illumination was the red-hot glow from the durasteel sheets feeding into the rollers; droids didn't need light to see. The night-vision filter in his visor had kicked in the moment he and Prudii entered the factory.

It was a high-value target. The factory was said to be one of the largest outside Geonosis. Again, intel seemed to have lost something in the translation.

Atin found what felt like a solid section of railing and checked the metal's integrity with his gauntlet sensor. Flakes of corroded metal fell to the gantry floor, and he brushed them carefully into a gap to hide signs of entry.

“Five per cent extra carvanium does the job.” Prudii – Null ARC trooper N-5 – pulled out his belt toolkit. “Trust me. I've done a lot of these.”

“I know.”

“And? Did it work? It worked.”

“Okay, I'm not a metallurgist.”

Prudii peered over the rail as he checked his rappelling line. “Neither am i, but I knew a man who was.”

Atin didn't ask about his use of the past tense. He was both an assassin and a saboteur, and at the top of his game in both fields. Until Atin got to know him as well he knew his Null brothers, Ordo and Mereel, he would err on the side of caution. Nulls were as mad as a box of Hapan chags. There were only six of them in the army, but it felt like a lot more.

Omega Squad was back at barracks again for a few days. Atin missed the rest of his team, but he'd volunteered for this mission to learn a technique. And learn he would.

I can do this. Argumentative? I just like things to be right.

Prudii dropped down the line, his kama spreading in the air as he descended in complete silence – no mean feat for an 85-kilo man in full armour. Atin took a breath and paused before dropping down after him. If a droid detected them, the mission was over. They'd have to blow the factory – again. And then the Seps would switch production elsewhere – again. If they just churned out millions of substandard tinnies, crippled at the molecular level by a little tweak in the automation, it would save a lot of hunting.

“Nothing personal,” Atin muttered, wondering what went on in their self-aware metal heads. “It's you or me, vode.”

“What?” Prudii's voice filled Atin's helmet.

“Just trying not to be… organicist.”

“Don't give me all that droids-have-rights osik.”

“Wouldn't dream of it,” said Atin.

He landed next to the Null lieutenant, and they skirted the assembly line. On the factory floor, 20 metres below ground level, the rhythm of fully automated production continued uninterrupted. Only worker-droids were around during the night shift. Durasteel sheets rumbled between the rollers, were caught by giant claws, and moved to the next assembly line for cutting. At the end of the conveyor belt, a clamshell press shaped the torso cases of

battle droids around a form before dragging them through cooling vats with a hiss of steam. The whole place smelled of soot and burning.

A maintenance droid –just a box on wheels with a dozen multifunctional arms – trundled past Atin and Prudii, as blind to the electromagnetic profile of their armour as all his kind were. Atin still held his breath as it passed. But no sound escaped from his sealed helmet. He could yell his head off at Prudii and nobody else would hear a thing. The deafening noise of the assembly line would have drowned out all sound anyway.

“There it is.” Prudii pointed to what looked like a run of oversize lockers on a far wall. Their hinges were as corroded as the gantry. “I hate rust. Don't they do any housework around here?”

Atin eased the cover open carefully. No, the Seps didn't inspect the automated settings very often, as long as the stateboard reported that everything was running okay. Inside, racks of data wafers fed template information to the different production lines, dictating wire gauges, alloy proportions, component ratings and the thousands of other parameters that went go into making a battle droid. Atin and Prudii had just opened up the brain of the entire factory. It was time for a little surgery.

“How many times have you done this?” asked Atin.

Prudii sucked his teeth audibly and rocked his head, counting. “Lots,” he said at last.

“And they haven't noticed yet?”

“No. I'd say not.” Prudii clipped bypass wires to the bays above and below the slot to isolate it. “Just so I don't trigger the safety cut-out.” He inspected a substitute data wafer – apparently identical in every way to the Separatist ones – and inserted it into the slot. “This'll make sure the foundry adds too much carvanium to the durasteel, and that the quality control sampling reads it as normal levels. See?” He pointed to the readout on the panel. A cluster of figures read 0003. “Machines believe what you tell 'em. Just like people.”

“You sure that's enough?”

“Any higher and it'll be too brittle to pass through the rollers. Then they'll spot the problem too soon.”

“Okay…”

Prudii took a breath. He was remarkably patient for a Null. “Look, when these chakaare reach the battlefield, the overpressure from a basic ion shell will crack their cases like Naboo crystal.” He removed the bypass clips and attached them to bays flanking a vertical slot further up the panel. More spiked wafers replaced genuine chips. “And just in case they get lucky and spot that little quality-control problem, this one will reduce the wire gauge just enough so that when it takes a heavy current, it'll short. I like to introduce a different batch of problems for each factory, in case they spot a pattern. How much more of this do I have to debate with you?”

“Just checking, sir.”

“Drop the 'sir.' I hate it.”

It was a precise calculation: just enough to render entire production runs of droids so vulnerable on the battlefield that they were almost useless, but not enough to flag the problem when the units were checked before being shipped from the factory – checked by service droids using the same falsified data.

Prudii had to be doing something right. The kill ratio had climbed from 20-to-one to 50-to-one in a matter of a few months. The tinnies still hadn't overrun the Republic, despite the claims that they could. While Prudii worked, factory droids skimmed past him, oblivious. He stepped out of 'щ their way and let them pass.

“Is it true you've tracked down General Grievous?” asked Atin. '"Cos I know that two of you were tasked to hunt him…”

“Not me. Ask Jaing. Or Kom'rk. Their job, not mine.”

Atin hadn't met them yet. “If they've found him, the war's as good as over.”

“You reckon? Well, it doesn't look like it's over yet.”