Allegiance (29 page)

Disra ground his teeth, sorting quickly through a list of the possible lies. “I received a tip that someone’s planning to rob the Nightowk Repository,” he said. “I only have a description of the team’s female—”

“The
Nightowk
?” Choard cut him off, his beard bristling.

“—and the obvious conclusion was that they’re after the artworks you have stored in there,” Disra continued
impatiently. “I’d like to get the female’s description to the port authorities so that we can focus the search on her and reopen departures to everyone else.”

“Yes, of course,” Choard murmured, his eyes going distant as he let go of Disra’s collar. “Order extra security for the Nightowk, too.”

“I was planning to,” Disra said, straightening his jacket as he made it the rest of the way around the desk and sat down. “But I’m sure you have other matters to attend to?”

For another moment Choard didn’t move. Disra pulled out his datapad and shuffled through the files, wondering impatiently if the governor was going to simply stand there and watch the entire operation. Then, as if his administrator’s words had suddenly penetrated his concern over his precious stolen artworks, the governor spun around and stalked across the office to the door.

Disra watched him go, his mind flashing back for some reason to his first meeting with the governor three years ago. Even then it had been obvious the man had buttons that were easily pushed, and Disra had spent patient hours locating those buttons.

He might very well need to use every one of them in the next few days.

It took only a few minutes for him to give the spaceport controller Organa’s description. The conversation would have gone even quicker if he could have simply given the man her name, since her full description was undoubtedly somewhere in the Empire’s official wanted files. But for the moment, at least, he needed to keep that crucial bit of data his own little secret. Switching to a HoloNet connection, he punched in the special governors’ access number for the Imperial Palace.

“This is Chief Administrator Vilim Disra, Shelkonwa, Shelsha sector,” Disra said when the responder appeared
in the holofield. “I have an urgent message for the Emperor and Lord Vader.”

“State your message,” the responder said, her face expressionless, her voice the flat monotone of someone who has spent half her life listening to official pronouncements, complaints, and other drivel.

“Tell them I’ve located Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan,” Disra said. “And that I have her trapped.”

He had the satisfaction of seeing the woman’s dulled eyes actually widen. “One moment,” she said, her voice suddenly brisk and professional. “Let me transfer you directly to Lord Vader’s command ship.”

M
ARA HAD EXPECTED THE
B
LOODSCARS’ EVENING
meal to be bland and simple, a step or two above ships’ rations but no higher. To her surprise, it turned out to be a small feast more along the lines of a Harvest Day banquet. Apparently one of the Commodore’s men fancied himself a gourmet chef.

The reason for the pirates to expend such effort grew clear the minute the Commodore dug into the first course. The harsh lines in his face began to smooth out, the glistening look of madness in his eyes faded away, and by the time the second course arrived he seemed almost normal.

Mara sat at the middle of the Commodore’s table, wedged in between one of his lieutenants and one of the visiting ship captains. Vinis, his chin bruising up nicely where Mara had hit him, stood silently behind her as her private server and, no doubt, less-than-private watchdog. Brock and Gilling had been put at two of the other tables, with server/guards of their own standing at the ready. Tannis was at a fourth table, and while he appeared to be joining in the general conversation around him, Mara could tell that a lot of his attention was on her. Caaldra, to her mild surprise, was absent.

There was no interrogation during the meal; clearly, the Commodore loved his food too much to mix it with
business. Whether through direct order or merely instinctive caution, the pirates seated around Mara were careful not to talk about their current plans, the BloodScars’ ship strength, or anything else related to the organization. The result was a dinner conversation made up almost entirely of chitchat, the sort Mara had heard at formal and informal dinners all across the galaxy. It made for an interesting contrast with the pirates’ casually blistering language.

After dinner the Commodore led Mara and the two ISB men to a small conference room, and the negotiations began in earnest.

Mara could remember the first time she’d done something like this, discussing matters that weren’t real with someone who was firmly convinced they were. In those early days the procedure had felt eerie and surrealistic, almost as if Mara herself were the one with the warped sense of reality. Now it was simply one more tool in her arsenal.

“We would want a seventy–thirty split, the seventy going to us,” Mara said. “All you need to do is tell us which ship or kind of ship you want, and we’ll do the rest.”

“And what would you get out of the arrangement that would make it worth our taking thirty percent?” the Commodore asked.

“Protection from rival groups or the authorities, for one thing,” Mara said. “Safe places to bring the ships once we have them. You might occasionally provide extra personnel if we needed it.”

“Sounds to me more like a sixty–forty split, with the sixty going to us,” the Commodore suggested.

“That seems a little steep, considering that we’re doing all the work.”

“Not when you consider the fact that you’d have the
BloodScars and our patron as allies.” The Commodore’s eyes glittered. “And
not
as enemies.”

“Point,” Mara conceded. “Unfortunately, I’m not authorized to go that far outside my chief’s parameters. Would it be possible for me to use your HoloNet link to discuss it with him?”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Brock shift in his seat. But the Commodore merely smiled. “Tomorrow will be soon enough for that,” he said. “I always like to give future allies the chance to sleep on such things. You
will
stay the night, of course?”

“We would be honored,” Mara said. “But we don’t wish to be a burden. If you’d prefer, we could sleep aboard the
Happer’s Way
.”

“I wouldn’t think of it,” the Commodore said firmly. “Vinis will show you to your quarters.”

The room Vinis took her to was on the top floor of one of the three-story sections of the complex. It had a single window looking out on the mining complex in the distance; a scattering of old building rubble on the ground directly below the window would discourage any attempt to climb down.

Fortunately, that wasn’t the direction Mara was planning to go.

She waited three hours, until all the window lights she could see had gone out and all sounds of life on her floor had ceased. All sounds, that is, except for the occasional shuffling of the guards the Commodore had stationed outside her door.

Like most of Mara’s civilian outfits, her green jumpsuit had been designed for double duty. Taking it off, she reversed it to its night-fighter gray-black side and put it back on. The decorative comb that the pirates had been so suspicious of earlier was next; disassembling it like the wirework puzzle that it was, she reassembled it into
a pair of palm grippers. Opening the window, she eased herself out into the cold night air and started to climb.

It was one of the trickier ascents she’d ever had to deal with. The wall was reasonably smooth, with no decorative facings or texturing that could be exploited. Fortunately, there’d been enough erosion over the years to create small cracks she could get the grippers into. Still, she was just as glad she didn’t have very far to go.

She paused at roof level, stretching out with her senses for any guards or other watchers the Commodore might have stationed up there. But there was no one. Rolling over onto the roof and pocketing the grippers, she headed silently across the building to the spot where she’d hidden her lightsaber.

To find that it was gone.

She moved back and forth along the rain catcher, her pulse thudding in her throat, wondering if she could have gotten herself turned around somehow. But no. This was the place, all right—she could see the marks in the dust where she’d lowered the weapon into concealment. Someone had found and removed it.

Which meant they were on to her.

She dropped into a low crouch, forcing calmness into herself as she tried to think. All right. The Commodore knew now that one of his visitors was more than he or she seemed. But would he necessarily zero in on Mara for that role?

For that matter, would he necessarily zero in on any of them? With the big recruitment drive Caaldra was orchestrating, the BloodScars had probably hosted dozens of visitors over the past few weeks. Couldn’t it as easily have been one of them who’d stashed the weapon for future use? That might explain why she and the others had been invited to dinner instead of to a fully equipped interrogation cell.

But it was still hardly a license to linger. She had to get
to the command center and try to dig out the name of the Commodore’s mysterious patron, then collect Brock and Gilling and get the blazes off this rock.

There was an unlocked access stairway near the center of the roof. Mara slipped inside and headed down. The stairway itself was deserted, as were the hallways she moved down, as was the connecting passageway to the next building over, where the command center was located. The only minds she could sense anywhere around her carried the distinctive vagueness of deep sleep. Whatever the Commodore was up to, he was playing it very cool.

She was on her final approach to the command center door when she finally sensed human presence ahead. She pressed herself into the side of an equipment rack that had been parked at the side of the hallway and stretched out to the Force. There were two, she decided, both of them fully awake and fully alert. Far more alert, in fact, than the usual night watch crew. Perhaps this was where the Commodore had decided to make his move.

If so, hesitation wouldn’t gain Mara anything. Looking quickly over the equipment rack for impromptu weapons, she unfastened a pair of fist-sized power couplings and got one in each hand. Stepping to the door, she keyed the release, and as the door slid open she ducked inside and to the right.

The lights were on low, standard procedure for nighttime operations. There were a dozen consoles arranged in rows, each with one or two chairs in front of it. At the far side of the room, through a wide transparisteel viewport, she could see the starlit mining complex stretching across the landscape.

All the chairs were empty. So, apparently, was the room.

But she
had
sensed someone in here, hadn’t she? She
frowned, stretching out to the Force to check the next room over.

The moment of inattention nearly cost her her life. There was a flicker of warning, and even as she threw herself toward the center of the room, a blaster bolt blazed from her left and shattered a piece of the wall where she’d been crouching. She caught a glimpse of a face peering around the side of one of the consoles and hurled one of her power couplings toward it.

Her assailant tried to duck back, but he was a shade too slow. The coupling bounced hard off his forehead, and with a snarled curse the face disappeared.

A curse delivered by a familiar voice. “Brock?” Mara called, pausing midway through her escape roll.

Once again, the momentary hesitation nearly proved fatal. From her right a second blaster spat fire, and a flash of pain lanced across her shoulder. “Don’t shoot—it’s me!” she snapped, clamping down on the pain as she dived toward the nearest console. Her words were punctuated by another shot, this one going wide as she hit the console chest first and rolled over the top. Two more blaster bolts sizzled through the air from opposite sides of the room, both of them missing, as she landed behind the console.

And found herself crouching in the middle of a group of three dead bodies lying on the floor where they’d been dragged and dropped. The pirates, undoubtedly, who’d been unlucky enough to pull nighttime watch duty.

“I said hold your fire,” she called again, twisting her neck to peer over her shoulder at her wound. It didn’t look too bad. “Are you deaf?”

“No, we heard you just fine,” Gilling said. “Why don’t you come out and make this easy on yourself?”

“What do you think you’re doing?” Mara demanded. “I’m an Imperial officer.”

“No, you’re an arrogant little girl who knows more
than is good for her,” Brock said. “Sorry, kid, but we have our orders. Orders from a
real
Imperial officer.”

“What officer?” Mara asked. “Captain Ozzel?”

“That idiot?” Gilling scoffed. “Hardly.”

“Shut up, Gilling,” Brock said. “He’s right, you know. You’re just prolonging the agony.”

“That’s okay—I didn’t have anything else planned for the evening,” Mara told him, pressing her back against the console and looking around. Besides the chairs and consoles, the room didn’t offer anything in the way of cover, and aside from her remaining power coupling, the only available throwing weapons were the chairs themselves. Not a good situation. “What exactly do I know that has Colonel Somoril so hot and bothered?”

She sensed the subtle change in their emotions. “You’re a cute one, I’ll give you that,” Brock said. From the sound of his voice, Mara could tell he was starting to move around the left side of the room toward her position. “Just out of curiosity, did you already know about the deserters, or is that what you were looking for in the
Reprisal’
s computer?”

Mara frowned. Deserters? “I don’t know anything about any deserters,” she said. “And I wouldn’t care if I did. That’s for the Fleet to deal with, not someone like me.”

“No, of course not,” Brock said, heavily sarcastic. “The Emperor doesn’t care if a few stormtroopers run away from their posts. Not a bit.”

“
Stormtroopers
?” Mara said, listening hard. This was an old, old trick: one half of a flanking duo babbled nonstop in order to cover up any sounds while the other half of the team snuck up on the victim.