Allegiance Read online

  “What?” Grave demanded. “That’s insa—”

  “With all due respect, Major, TKR 2014 is correct,” Marcross cut him off. “Regulations require that a charge of this magnitude be brought immediately to the attention of the senior stormtrooper officer.”

  “Let me explain something, TKR 175,” Drelfin growled. “We’re the Imperial Security Bureau. What we say is principle; what we decide is regulation; what we do is law.”

  “And whoever you order shot is dead?” LaRone retorted.

  “So you do understand,” Drelfin said, the corners of his mouth quirking upward in a death’s-head smile. “I was in command of that operation, which means I will decide what to do with you. Not your lieutenant; not your major; certainly not your stupid Captain Ozzel.”

  He stepped up and pressed the muzzle of his blaster into LaRone’s forehead. It was an unfamiliar design, LaRone noted distantly: large and nasty, with an odd-looking attachment at the end of the barrel. “And if I choose to summarily execute you for treason—” His finger tightened visibly on the trigger.

  He was bluffing, a small part of LaRone’s mind knew. He was toying with his victim in one of the macabre games that these small-minded, sadistic little men enjoyed so much.

  But LaRone was an Imperial stormtrooper, ruthlessly trained in the arts of combat and survival, and those deeply embedded reflexes knew nothing about ISB mind games. His left hand snapped up of its own accord, slapping Drelfin’s wrist and knocking the blaster away from his forehead.

  It was probably the last thing Drelfin expected. He stumbled with the impact, snarling a curse as he tried to swing the weapon back on target. But even as he did so LaRone’s right hand came up, catching the other’s wrist and giving it an extra push. For a single, nerve-racking fraction of a second the blaster was again pointing at LaRone’s face; then it was past, overcorrecting and swinging wide to LaRone’s left. He swiveled on his right foot, spinning himself halfway around as he held on to the major’s wrist, and a second later he had Drelfin hunched over, his arm twisted around, the blaster pointed harmlessly at the ceiling. “What was that about ISB whims being law?” he ground out.

  “LaRone, are you insane?” Brightwater demanded, his eyes bulging.

  “Maybe,” LaRone said. His anger was draining away, and to his dismay he realized that Brightwater was right. If he hadn’t been in trouble before, he was certainly there now. “But that’ll be for the proper procedure to determine,” he added. Reaching up, he twisted the blaster out of Drelfin’s grip, then let go of his arm.

  Drelfin straightened up, his eyes staring vibroblades at LaRone, his face contorted with rage, his mouth working with soundless curses.

  His left hand gripping a small hold-out blaster.

  And this time, LaRone knew, it was no game. There was a soft flash, a muted blast—

  Without a sound, Drelfin collapsed silently to the deck.

  For a long, frozen moment, no one moved or spoke. LaRone stared at the crumpled body, then at the major’s blaster still in his hand, his mind struggling to believe the evidence of his eyes. No—something else had surely happened. The major must have had a stroke or heart attack, or perhaps been shot from concealment by some unknown party. That hadn’t even sounded like a real blaster shot, for pity’s sake—

  “Oh, no,” Brightwater murmured, sounding stunned.

  LaRone swallowed hard; and with that, the bubble of wild speculation burst, and the cold reality flooded in on him. Daric LaRone, with all his high-minded prattlings about duty and honor, had just gunned down a man in cold blood.

  Not just a man. An officer. An ISB officer.

  And in that second frozen moment, he knew he was dead.

  The others knew it too. “It was self-defense,” Quiller said, his voice shaking in a way LaRone had never heard from him in even the most desperate combat situations. “You all saw it. Drelfin drew first.”

  “You think ISB will care?” Grave bit out.

  “I just meant—”

  “They won’t care,” Marcross said, his voice tight as he looked quickly around the observation deck. “The question is, how serious are they going to be about tracking us down?”

  “Wait a second,” Brightwater said. “What do you mean, us?”

  “He’s right, Marcross,” LaRone agreed, his heart starting to pound in reaction. “There’s no us here—there’s just me. None of you did anything.”

  “I doubt ISB will care about that, either,” Quiller muttered.

  “Of course they’ll care,” Marcross said heavily. “They’ll care that none of us did anything to stop you.”

  “There wasn’t any time—”

  “Quiet, LaRone,” Grave cut in. “He’s right. We’re all for the jump on this one.”

  “Not if they can’t identify us,” Brightwater suggested, looking furtively around. “There’s no one else here, and he was shot with his own gun. Maybe they’ll even think it was suicide.”

  Grave snorted. “Oh, come on. An ISB major, at the height of his twisted little career? They kill other people, not themselves.”

  “There’s only one thing to do,” LaRone said. Taking a long step to the side, he brought up his blaster to cover them. “On the floor, all of you.”

  None of them moved. “Nice gesture,” Grave said. “But it won’t work.”

  “I’ve got the blaster,” LaRone said, lifting the weapon for emphasis. “There’s no way you can stop me, and regulations don’t require you to throw away your lives for nothing.”

  “No, LaRone, Grave’s right,” Marcross said, shaking his head. “They’ll torture us, and as soon as they find out we knew you wouldn’t shoot we’ll be right back in the grinder.”

  “Besides, you can’t fly one of those ISB ships by yourself,” Quiller said quietly. “At the very least I have to come with you.”

  “At the very least we all have to,” Grave said, his voice heavy. “And we’re wasting time.”

  “I can’t let you do this,” LaRone protested. “I can’t ask you to give up everything this way. You’ll have to leave the Empire, become fugitives—”

  “We haven’t got a choice,” Grave said. “Besides, after what happened on Teardrop, I’m not sure I’ll ever be comfortable wearing my armor again.”

  “And as for leaving the Empire,” Quiller added soberly, “it seems to me the Empire left us first. At least the Empire we thought we were signing up to serve.” He looked at Brightwater. “So: Brightwater. Raise and call to you.”

  Brightwater grimaced. “I’m not ready to give up on the Empire quite yet,” he said. “But I also don’t want to sit around waiting for ISB to put me under their hot lights. What’s the plan?”

  LaRone looked down at Drelfin’s crumpled form, trying to kick his brain back up to speed. “First thing is to hide the body,” he said. “One of those storage lockers over there ought to do it. Quiller, which ship are we taking?”

  “The Suwantek,” Quiller said, pointing to the ship they’d been discussing earlier. “Considering our combined mechanical skills, we’re going to want the most reliable ship we can get. If they were thoughtful enough to leave the systems on standby, I can have it prepped in ten minutes.”

  “We can’t leave while the Reprisal’s in hyperspace,” Brightwater said.

  “Maybe there’s another way,” LaRone said, an audacious idea tickling the back of his mind. “Go get it prepped—Grave, Brightwater, you go with him. Marcross and I will deal with the body.”

  The storage lockers were well packed, but with a little tweaking they were able to make enough room for Drelfin’s body. By the time they finished and descended to the hangar deck level Quiller and the others were already inside the Suwantek. Trying to look casual, LaRone touched Marcross’s arm and headed toward the boarding ramp.

  No one challenged them as they strode along, a circumstance that struck LaRone as both suspicious and ominous. They were halfway across before it occurred to him that with the ISB’s restrictio
ns in place there probably wasn’t anyone in the hangar bay monitor room to watch the parade. They reached the ship without incident and climbed up into a small but nicely furnished crew lounge. Raising and sealing the ramp, they headed for the bridge.

  Quiller was in the pilot’s seat, his fingers tapping here and there as he brought the ship to full life. “Where are Grave and Brightwater?” Marcross asked as he sat down beside Quiller in the copilot’s seat.

  “Checking to make sure no one’s sleeping aboard,” Quiller said. “Okay, we’re ready.” He peered over his shoulder at LaRone. “You said you had an idea?”

  LaRone nodded, sat down behind Marcross at the astrogation/comm station, and gave the controls a quick scan. In-hangar comm … there. Squaring his shoulders, trying to put himself in the mind-set of an ISB thug, he keyed it on. “This is Major Drelfin,” he said in his best impression of Drelfin’s voice. “We’re ready.”

  “Sir?” a slightly puzzled voice came back.

  “I said we’re ready to go,” LaRone said, putting some bite into his voice. “Bring the Reprisal out of hyperspace so we can launch.”

  “Ah … one moment, sir.”

  The comm went silent. “That was your big trick?” Quiller muttered.

  “Give him a minute,” LaRone said, trying to sound more confident than he felt. If they had to blast their way out of here—

  “Major, this is Commander Brillstow,” a new voice put in. “I see no ship departures on my schedule.”

  “Of course you don’t,” LaRone growled. “And you won’t put anything in your log report, either. Now kindly drop out of hyperspace so we can get on with this.”

  He held his breath. Quiller was right, of course; standing orders would certainly require that the deck officer clear any such unscheduled request with the captain, or at least check with someone in Drelfin’s own contingent.

  But the Imperial Security Bureau ran under its own rules, and everyone in the Fleet knew it. If Commander Brillstow had heard enough stories of ISB displeasure …

  And to his relief and surprise, the mottled hyperspace sky outside the hangar bay faded into the star-flecked blackness of realspace. “Acknowledged, Major,” Brillstow said, his voice stiff and formal. “You’re cleared to launch.”

  LaRone switched off the comm. “Let’s get moving before they change their minds,” he told Quiller.

  “It could still be a trap,” Quiller warned as he keyed the repulsorlifts and swiveled the Suwantek toward the atmosphere screen. “They might just be letting us get outside where they can nail us with the heavy stuff.”

  “I don’t think so,” Marcross said. “They wouldn’t go for a burned-ground endgame without at least trying to take us alive and find out what in blazes we think we’re doing.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Quiller said. “Here we go …”

  Seconds later, they were outside. Quiller curved them up the Star Destroyer’s flank, swinging them around behind the superstructure as he headed for deep space. A minute after that, as LaRone watched the tactical display for signs of a last-minute change of heart, the Reprisal flickered with pseudomotion and vanished again into hyperspace.

  “Whew,” Quiller exhaled with a huff. “It’s so nice when ISB’s cloak-and-blade nonsense works against them.”

  “Though that doesn’t mean we should sit here and wait for them to wake up,” Marcross warned. “Any thoughts as to where we go from here?”

  “I was thinking Drunost might be a good first stop,” Quiller said, keying in an overhead display. “It’s about three hours away, a nice little backworld place that happens to have a Consolidated Shipping hub and outlet, which means it’ll have all the fuel and supplies we’ll need. It’s a long way to the edge of the Empire, you know.”

  “If we decide we really have to go that far,” Marcross said. “There are any number of closer systems where we could hide.”

  “We can hash that over later,” LaRone said. “Go ahead and get us started for Drunost.”

  Quiller nodded and keyed his board, and the stars outside flashed into starlines. “Of course, one question we’re going to have to answer before we get there is what we’re going to do for money,” he pointed out.

  There was a beep from the intercom. “Quiller?” Brightwater’s voice came. “We clear?”

  “Clear and free, and the Reprisal’s gone,” Quiller assured him.

  “Great,” Brightwater said. “You might want to set it on auto and come back to the number two crew cabin—second on your right, just aft of the lounge. Got something interesting to show you.”

  Brightwater and Grave were waiting when LaRone, Marcross, and Quiller arrived. Like the crew lounge itself, the cabin was designed with the kind of care LaRone would have expected of men running on an ISB budget. Furnishings included a narrow but comfortable-looking bed, a wall locker, a small computer desk, a repeater display over the desk that showed the ship’s current heading and overall flight status, and even a small private refresher station.

  “Nice,” Quiller commented, looking around approvingly. “This one must be the pilot’s.”

  “It’s mine, actually,” Grave told him. “But don’t worry—they’re all like this.”

  “And if you think this is nice, hang on to your bucket,” Brightwater added. Stepping to the repeater display, he ran his finger along the underside of the frame. With a quiet snick, a section of the bulkhead at the end of the bed popped ajar, and Brightwater swung it open to reveal a hidden walk-in closet.

  Or rather, a hidden walk-in arsenal.

  There were a dozen blasters racked together on one sidewall, everything from fleet-issue BlasTech DH-17 pistols to standard stormtrooper E-11 rifles to a pair of hold-out blasters of a make and model LaRone didn’t recognize. Beneath the racked weapons were rows of power packs and gas cartridges, plus several small bins of assorted replacement parts. On the other sidewall was one of Grave’s favored T-28 sniper rifles plus a selection of vibroblades, grenades, stun cuffs, and a couple of Arakyd hunter/seeker remotes.

  And filling the center of the space were two complete sets of gleaming stormtrooper armor.

  “The number one cabin’s got a slightly different selection,” Grave said into the stunned silence. “We haven’t checked the others yet, but it’s a fair bet they’re all tricked out the same way.”

  “There are two Aratech 74-Z speeder bikes in one of the cargo holds, so I figure one of the cabins must have a set or two of scout trooper armor,” Brightwater added. “That one will be mine.”

  “These guys sure came prepared,” Marcross commented. “I don’t suppose they also happened to leave some cash lying around?”

  “If they didn’t, we can always rob a bank,” Quiller put in drily, gesturing at the weaponry.

  “We haven’t found any credits yet,” Brightwater told Marcross. “On the other hand, it was pure dumb luck that we found this. We were looking for stowaways, not buried treasure.”

  “I think we should remedy that,” Marcross suggested.

  “Absolutely,” LaRone agreed. “We’ve got three hours to planetfall, stormtroopers. Spread out and let’s see what else the ISB was kind enough to put aboard our new ship.”

  The final tally was impressive. There were fifteen sets of stormtrooper armor—eight standard, six specialized, and a full spacetrooper rig; fifty blasters of various sorts; a hundred grenades, including shock and explosive and even a pair of thermal detonators; thirty-five changes of civilian clothing; two landspeeders; two speeder bikes; a three-seat, six-passenger speeder truck; and numerous bits of tracking, combat, and detention gear, including a small machine for turning out personal identity tags. There was also the rack of false ship transponder codes Quiller had predicted.

  And there was cash. More than half a million credits.

  “What in the worlds were they planning that they needed all this?” Brightwater muttered as they sat in the lounge comparing their lists.

  “My guess is that they’re
going for a jab at the Rebellion’s throat,” Marcross said. “Disguised freighters would be perfect for infiltrating enemy supply convoys.”

  “Or for posing as renegades who want to join up,” LaRone said.

  “Well, whatever they had in mind, it sure puts us in a good position,” Grave said. “So where exactly on the Outer Rim are we heading?”

  “We could try Hutt space,” Quiller suggested. “The Empire keeps a pretty low profile there, and we could easily pick up a little enforcer or bodyguard work.”

  “We’re not working for criminals,” Brightwater said stiffly.

  “I just meant—”

  “No, he’s right,” LaRone seconded. “We’re Imperial stormtroopers, not thugs for hire.”

  “We’re not Imperial stormtroopers anymore,” Quiller muttered, tossing his datapad onto the hologame table.

  “We’re still not working for criminals,” Brightwater insisted.

  “There’s another possibility,” Marcross offered. “Instead of running for the Outer Rim like frightened Toong, why not stay right here in Shelsha sector?”

  “I don’t know,” Quiller said doubtfully. “I looked over the system list earlier, and there aren’t a lot of places we could go to ground without someone eventually noticing us.”

  “Unless we kept moving,” Brightwater suggested. “We’ve got enough credits to do that, at least for a while.”

  Marcross cleared his throat. “Actually, I was thinking we might try someplace on Shelkonwa.”

  LaRone frowned in surprise. From the looks on the others’ faces, they were having the same reaction. “You want us to hide on Shelsha’s capital?” Quiller asked.

  “It is the last place ISB would think to look for wanted fugitives,” Marcross pointed out. “And I know people there who could help us.”

  “If you have friends there, it’s the last place we want to go,” Grave countered. “You remember the name of the first girl you ever kissed?”

  Marcross snorted. “Of course.”

  “How about the second?”