Cato considered scenarios if the outside Imperial attachment encroached into the castle. From helmet returns, he and Mereel weren’t the only bodies present. They weren’t coordinated, however, and even if one possessed comprehensive floorplans that dealt with the castle’s central structuring, there’d hardly be ammunition enough to keep a crack stormtrooper squadron from burning them out of the fortress. If. If the Imperials decided on an inspection, if they took affront at a couple of Mando’ade present, if that trussed up droid with the permanent sneer decided it’d be amusing to observe a firefight safely behind an armoured cordon, if they could collapse into an impromptu fighting unit to push back the troopers enough ‘till they could retreat to the outskirts. If, Cato thought.
He took care rounding hall corners, wary of Imperial drones casing the passageways. The feeling of winter dark and ice hadn’t left him. Every so oft, his visor fritzed and required him to hunker in behind scant cover, then reboot. Odd phenomena chased him along; smells of burning metal and paper, tasting blood from vessels opening in his throat without warning, sound without connection echoing behind dry wind gusts, flickers of moving shadow, with a spreading gloom following at his heels. Once, something detached itself from a pillar and approached him.
The construct was a human skeleton. Male. Organs and other viscera appeared smoky and translucent. Somehow, the thing knew Cato’s name. Conscious of gunfire racket, he shouldered the Type-03 and rested his hand on Oilseller’s handle. It came on, wailing with sound reverberating inside his skull. Iridescent talons reached for Cato’s throat. He drew and cut with Oilseller in the same motion, severing its hands through the radio-ulnar bone. Following in with a curt diagonal stroke, hacking through the clavicle, sternum, and ribs, turning the sword and slicing back across the exposed column of backbone. The phantom toppled on itself. Its remains oozed to glassy puddles on the stone, before Cato watched its essence evaporate. It slipped away to dissolve through the mortar.
Cato rocked the hilt with his off-hand, shaking off imaginary gore and blood before returning Oilseller to its scabbard.
Imperials picnicking in the main courtyard, phantoms haunting the fortress innards, Cato felt doubt over its potential to either turn a salvage profit or work for the Resistance as an able base. Entire wings required cordoning until engineering teams could assess structural stability, and if work could be done to shore up weakened stone. Looters had come and gone. Cato paused in the cover of an alcove, slipping his helmet off. Needed air on his face, breathe a second wind in. The visor glared back between his hands.
A wind draft touched him. Cato settled the helm on, rifle pointed from the shoulder. He followed the draft as it blew, gently wandering down a darkened passage away just off the south donjon. The breeze was filtering through a cracked apse wall. He’d pulled aside a curtain sewn with tarpaulin and animal hide. Light came through pronounced splits in the mortar. At a guess, Cato believed it was a temporary storage hole. Smugglers cache, maybe. Its loot had been rifled through. He toed through upturned cartons and old, crackling travel cases. Rodents and indigent moths had gnawed through splayed clothing piles.
What hadn’t been ruined was a bundled pole stuck in a diagonal meet deeper in the apse. Out of glutted curiosity, Cato pulled it free and unwound the rope twine. Read the sorely faded script inked and embroidery threaded against heavy, stained cloth. Breath stuck in his throat. The stylized mythosaur skull stretched across the war banner glared back.
“Mereel,” He called over their channel. “Mereel, found something of ours. Third floor, follow the hallways south. …Give a shout, whatever comes up.”
“…Hmn?” Cato paused after the channel closed. Onboards warned him of motion. Thirty, twenty, ten metres, closing fast on his position. Hellaciously fast. Aural sensors picked up nasally giggle-snorts and panting. Cato went to the tarp screen, leaned out enough to sight down the passage-way. …A little body scrabbling on all fours was scratching across the stone flooring. It was muttering uproariously between breaths, and complained about missed ‘shinies’. He knew that whine. Cato could scarcely believe it but he knew that specific whine.
“Mala…??”
[SIZE=10pt][member="Mereel Vaun"] [member="Mala"][/SIZE]
