Rebel Dream: Enemy Lines I Read Free Page B

in. Lando heard the rear wall of the bayring as ammunition pocked it. No, it wasn’t ammunition, he reminded himself, but creatures hurled by the Yuuzhan Vong—thud bugs, the hard-hitting insect projectiles, and razor bugs, which sliced whatever they hit and came around again to attack whatever they missed.
    One of his troops took a concentration of thud bugs, several of them hitting the man in the throat. The force of the impacts was enough to shear through. That soldier’s body collapsed and his head clanked to the bay floor, rolling unerringly toward Lando.
    Lando stopped it with his foot like a player trapping a ball and looked dispassionately at it. His first casualty of the day. The combat droid’s features stared up at him with no more expression than they’d shown a moment ago. The damage didn’t look too bad, he decided. This one would be easily repaired.
    The unhurt nineteen droid troops charged down the ramp and into the field, turning to head toward the right flank of the big red building. Their war cry changed from a simple roar to words that Lando didn’t understand.
    But he knew what they meant. He’d arranged for the war cry to be installed in his droid troops. It was in the language of the Yuuzhan Vong, and it meant, “We are machines! We are greater than the Yuuzhan Vong!”
    On the bridge of the
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, the communications officer, a Rodian, his green scaly hide immaculately clean and the mouth at the tip of his pointed chin puckering, said, “Captain, it’s working. They’re breaking cover, showing themselves.”
    The captain, a tall human woman with copper-colored hair tucked up under an officer’s cap, extracted herself from her chair and stood. This put her head squarely in the smoke accumulating against the bridge’s ceiling. Shecoughed, ducked, and moved to stand over the Rodian’s shoulder.
    On the screen was a panoramic view collated from the holocams situated on the transport’s hull. It showed the ground all around the
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, jungle to port and open field to starboard.
    Lando Calrissian’s droid troops were off the ramp and charging across the field, firing in a defensive screen all around them. And Yuuzhan Vong warriors were popping up all over the field, emerging from the jungle at a dead run, heading toward them, ignoring the transport—lunging like maddened animals toward the droids that insulted them by words and mere presence.
    “Transmit this visual to all vehicles and vessels in our engagement zone,” the captain said. “Transmit to
Mon Mothma
that the tactic does work. Then tell—oh, blast.”
    On the screen, something huge was approaching from the far side of the building with the radiating arms, moving around it. This was a living creature, vaguely reptilian, itself the size of a large building. Its skin was a blue-green, but patches of red and silver yorik coral grew over its head and along its spine. From the spine grew huge sail-like plates, and plasma cannons protruded by the dozens from the yorik coral.
    The captain’s voice rose into a commander’s bellow. “Get the troops off this ship
now
. Nonessential personnel, follow the troops off. All weapons come to bear on that target. Fire at will. And vent the smoke here. We’ve got to breathe to fight.”
    This had to be one of those creatures that had fought in the Dantooine engagement. The captain had an ugly presentiment that
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would not survive to lift off again.

TWO
Borleias Occupation, Day 1
    The living troops poured out of
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’s bays, their war cry an inarticulate roar. Lando steered his bodyguard, another of his droid troopers, in the wake of his main body of troops while the others surged toward the main building, spread out to set up a perimeter, or stopped to set up equipment.
    Ahead, his droids were experiencing heavy incoming fire; their laminanium armor was pocked with small impact craters from thud bugs, stained with the juices of razor bugs that had smashed