Allegiance (38 page)

“A strange way of thinking, indeed,” Vicria said. “Yet you are correct: with foreign soldiers searching the streets, perhaps it would be best for you to stay inside.”

“Hiding in plain sight, as my friend first proposed,” Leia agreed. The conversation about society and tiers had apparently turned uncomfortable enough for Vicria to change the subject.

But Leia had planted the seeds. Maybe something would eventually grow from them. “Besides,” she added, “I couldn’t leave yet anyway.”

“Why not?”

Leia held up her pad. “I still have two orders to put in.”

Disra took the last twenty meters to his office in a dead run, slamming open the door and diving for the secure comm. “Disra here,” he panted into the microphone. “Caaldra?”

“Finally,” Caaldra said tightly. “Where have you
been
? Never mind that. What the blazes are all these Imperials doing here?”

“Nothing to do with us,” Disra assured him. “They’re looking for a Rebel leader who was supposedly spotted in Makrin City a few days ago.”

“Is that going to be a problem?”

“No, of course not,” Disra said, thinking fast. After
the broken HoloNet call from the Commodore, and Disra’s subsequent failure to raise the BloodScar base again, he’d assumed Caaldra had been killed. Apparently the man had once again cheated death.

Which brought up some interesting possibilities. Disra had all he really needed already, but Caaldra’s presence might add a nice extra touch.
If
he could lure him down. “You’re on your way in, I assume?”

“I’m on my way to the Greencliff Regional Spaceport,” Caaldra said. “The idiot directing traffic from the
Executor
told me no one was allowed to land at the palace.”

“You didn’t ask for Makrin Main?”

“That’s where he wanted to send me,” Caaldra said. “I talked him out of it.”

Disra frowned. “What on Imperial Center for? Main’s both closer and bigger.”

“It’s also crawling with Imperials,” Caaldra retorted. “Considering my cargo consists of fifty AT-STs, I don’t think either of us wants me anywhere near the place.”

Disra felt his mouth drop open. “Fifty
what
?”

“Remember I said the BloodScars lost my special cargo?” Caaldra reminded him, sounding grimly pleased with himself. “I got it back.”

“And you brought it
here
?”

“The
Executor
didn’t offer me the option of turning around and running,” Caaldra said acidly.

Fifty stolen AT-STs. This just got better and better. “Forget the Imperials
and
Greencliff,” Disra told him. “I’ll call the
Executor
and get you routed directly here to the palace.”

“I already told you, the controller said I couldn’t land there.”

“Because Governor Choard closed off the grounds,” Disra countered. “But what the governor has taken
away, he can give back again. Go ahead and change your landing vector—I’ll get it fixed.”

The comm went silent. Disra slumped back in his chair, wincing as his freshly sweaty back pressed against the cool cloth of his shirt. Fifty AT-STs. No wonder Caaldra had been so upset when they vanished. With those, plus the BloodScars and their allied gangs, they might actually have been able to pull off their grand conspiracy.

Or they could have if Disra had ever really intended to go through with it.

But even though the whole charade was very close to being over, it wasn’t there quite yet. Keying the comm again, he signaled for the
Executor
.

Mara was still fuming when, far ahead, she noticed one of the ships heading to the planet below begin to drift out of line.

She frowned, leaning forward as she studied the freighter’s new vector. Some kind of malfunction? Her sensors weren’t showing any problem, but the equipment on this ship was hardly up to the standards she was accustomed to. Perhaps the other pilot had developed a problem with his attitude system, especially now that they were getting into atmosphere. The distant craft rolled slightly, its aspect shifting toward her—

Mara caught her breath. For a moment she stared, then jabbed at her board, keying for her best magnification.

Her ship’s best wasn’t particularly good. But it was good enough. The drifting freighter was the
Happer’s Way
.

She slapped the comm switch. “
Executor
, I have a ship breaking approach pattern,” she said tersely. “Please advise as to its intentions.”

Imperial military rigidity being what it was, she fully expected to have to fight uphill to actually get any information. But the controller apparently hadn’t forgotten the young woman who had successfully petitioned to speak to Vader and, more important, been allowed to walk away from the meeting. “The freighter
Happer’s Way
has been newly authorized to land at the governor’s palace,” he told her.

The governor’s palace. She should have known. “I thought you said no one was being allowed in there.”

“Apparently it’s been granted an exception.”

Mara nodded to herself as she watched the freighter drop ever farther off the Greencliff approach vector. So that was the game. The governor would open his grounds to Caaldra, who would then sneak his stolen AT-STs to safety right past the Imperials’ collective nose. “Order it off,” she said.

“Excuse me?” the controller asked, sounding startled.

“I said order it off,” Mara repeated. “It was cleared to Greencliff, and that’s where it’s going to land.”

“But the governor’s office has authorized it to land on his grounds.”

“Irrelevant,” Mara said. “The governor’s office has jurisdiction over the palace and palace grounds, but the freighter’s still in open atmosphere.” She hesitated, but this was no time for half measures. “Tell him that if he doesn’t get back on the Greencliff vector, you’ll shoot him down.”

There was a pause, and Mara heard the subtle click of a comm switchover. “Emperor’s Hand, this is Admiral Bentro,” a new and calmer voice said. “I can’t threaten a civilian freighter without a reason. Especially not one under the protection of a sector governor.”

“I’m giving you an order, Captain,” Mara said. “The recognition code is Hapspir, Barrini, Corbolan, Triaxis.”

There was another brief pause. “Understood,” Bentro said. “But if I could just contact Lord Vader first for—”

“You don’t need Lord Vader’s permission,” Mara cut in. “Besides, we don’t have time. Deliver the message, Admiral.”

There was a soft hissing of exhaled breath. “Acknowledged,” he said. “Commander, order the
Happer’s Way
to return to its original course and landing destination.”

“Thank you, Admiral,” Mara said. “Don’t worry—the pilot won’t risk getting himself shot down. He’s far too confident that he can slip out of any net we can weave.”

“Understood,” Bentro said doubtfully. “Do you want me to order troops or air support to the Greencliff field?”

Mara hesitated. All the Imperial forces down there were under Vader’s direct command, and she had no intention of crowding him twice in one day. “No, I’ll handle it,” she told Bentro. “Thank you for your assist.”

“My pleasure,” the admiral said. “Our sensors indicate the
Happer’s Way
is returning to its designated course.”

“I see,” Mara confirmed. “I’ll contact you again if I need further assistance.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Bentro said, and there was no mistaking the quiet relief in his voice. If Mara didn’t want to push Vader, a mere fleet admiral certainly didn’t.

The comm clicked off. Keeping a wary eye on the
Happer’s Way
, Mara keyed her ship for landing sequence. Given the current distance between them, Caaldra would have about ten minutes on the ground before Mara caught up with him.

For a moment she considered leaving her place in line and moving up so that she would be right on top of him when he landed. But if he hadn’t already spotted her
back here, that would tip him off for sure. Better to let him have his ten minutes to prepare for whoever or whatever had just kicked him away from the safety of the palace.

She was looking forward to seeing what he came up with.

“T
HIS,”
H
AN SAID, “IS COMPLETELY NUTS.”

“That was what
I
said,” Quiller commented sourly from beside him. “LaRone didn’t listen to
me
, either.”

Luke frowned as he gazed out the speeder truck’s windscreen. It
was
crazy, he had to admit. Going out alone into a tautly quiet city, just the seven of them, with Vader’s stormtroopers all around them and Vader himself somewhere in the city. Even with Chewbacca staying out of sight in the Suwantek—under loud protest, of course—Luke knew he and Han by themselves wouldn’t have even made it off the Greencliff Spaceport grounds without being stopped and questioned.

But with five stormtroopers in full armor accompanying them, one of them running escort ahead of the truck on a speeder bike, the local patrollers’ questions and suspicions had evaporated like dew off hot sand.

The real question, he knew, would be what would happen if and when they ran into some of the Imperial searchers. To Luke, all stormtroopers looked alike, but from some of the comments the others had made he gathered that there were ways for the stormtroopers themselves to distinguish among one another. If the stormtroopers of the 501st Legion currently combing the city realized that LaRone and his friends weren’t
part of their unit, there could be some awkward questions.

But the 501st had to spot them first … and for that, they had a secret weapon even Vader couldn’t anticipate.

There was a subtle nudging from the Force. “Make a left at the next corner,” Luke told LaRone, pointing ahead toward the street. LaRone’s helmet dipped slightly in a nod as he flipped on the signaler to alert Brightwater to this latest course change.

“I just wish there were a few more vehicles out here we could lose ourselves in,” Han muttered, staring out the side window as they took the corner. “Does everyone go to dinner at the same time around here?”

“They’re not inside eating,” Marcross told him grimly. “They’re inside cowering.”

“Imperial forces have landed, remember?” Grave added from behind Han. “Or were you expecting the citizenry to line the streets and throw Vader a parade?”

“And then turn right up there,” Luke said, pointing ahead.

“You know, this is really starting to weird me out,” Grave commented. “How can you possibly know where the other search parties are? I was tapping into their group comm frequency for a while, and even with
that
I couldn’t figure out their pattern.”

“Don’t bother asking,” Han said drily. “He’ll just tell you it’s a Jedi thing.”

“Right, from a group of people who were supposed to have been wiped out years ago,” Quiller countered. “Gives
me
the creeps a little, too.”

“How much farther?” LaRone asked.

“Not very,” Luke assured him. “A block or two.” And if the stormtroopers were already searching the area, he and the others would have to pull Leia out right from under their noses. That would bring the whole
question of stormtrooper identification to the top of the stack again.

There was a sudden whisper across his mind, a mix of the coiled-spring predator image plus the unmistakable urgency that he was learning meant danger. “Stop the truck,” he snapped. “Right now.”

A second later he was thrown against his restraints as LaRone jammed on the brakes. “What is it?” he asked.

From behind them came the distinctive sound of heavy blaster cannons. Luke spun around in his seat, craning his neck as he looked through the rear window.

He was just in time to see a small ship, its engine section on fire, spiraling toward the street below.

The
Happer’s Way
was sitting silently on the scarred permacrete as Mara eased the Z-10 onto her assigned pad in the uncrowded Greencliff Spaceport. She shut her engines back to standby and studied the freighter. There was no movement she could see, no other indications of life.

Could Caaldra have already made his escape?

There was one way to find out. Lightsaber in hand, she lowered the Z-10’s ramp and headed outside. Stretching out with her senses, keeping alert to her peripheral vision in case he was lying in ambush in the shadow of one of the other ships, she started across.

She was halfway there when the freighter’s starboard cargo bay blew up.

Force-driven reflexes threw her to the ground, twisting her body around as she fell to take the blast across her back instead of her face. The shock wave rolled over her, tingling against skin only recently healed from the previous burns. She rolled over as bits of debris began falling around her and bounced back to her feet, igniting her lightsaber.

And as she did so, dimly visible through the smoke, the boxy metallic shape of an AT-ST rose into view through the jagged opening. The command module swiveled around to face her, and its twin chin-mounted blaster cannons opened fire.

Mara dived to the side as the salvo blasted a pair of holes in the permacrete where she’d been standing. The module swiveled to follow, the laser cannons firing again. Mara dodged one of the bolts, angling her lightsaber blade to catch the other and try to send it back to its source.

The move nearly ended the battle right there. Mara had never tried to block such a powerful blast before, and instead of successfully returning the shot she nearly had the lightsaber wrenched out of her hands by the concussion. She managed to hang on to the weapon, breaking into a full run as she tried to beat the pursuing bolts to the nearest cover.

She made it, but just barely, diving behind an old and badly corroded ore hauler that looked as if it hadn’t been moved in years. The AT-ST’s final salvo blew a pair of holes in the hauler’s stubby outfoil as Mara quickly made her way to the rear, where the sheer bulk of the hauler’s engines would offer her some protection.

But not for long. There was a short pause, and then Mara heard the rhythmic mechanical creaking of the AT-ST’s knee joints as it climbed up and out of the hole the explosion had torn in the cargo bay. She listened intently, her eyes studying the semi-haphazard layout of parked ships around her and mapping out two different evasion routes depending on which way Caaldra decided to come around the hauler. There was no way she could outrun an AT-ST in a straight-line path, at least not over any serious distance, but on a twisting obstacle course like this one she was far more maneuverable than
the big machine. If she could get in under the guns and cut off part of one of its legs, she could bring it down.