Allegiance (21 page)

Put together, the pattern was obvious. Colonel Somoril and his specialized stormtrooper contingent were Imperial Security Bureau.

Mara wrinkled her nose in disgust. ISB was a necessary
evil, she knew, though to her mind there was too much evil and not enough necessity in the mix. Her own limited experience had found them to be generally arrogant, heavy-handed, and overly proud of their elite status.

And if there was prestige or political advantage to be had, they could be trusted to be first in line. Probably why Somoril had maneuvered himself ahead of the
Reprisal’
s official stormtrooper commander to offer a combat force to the Emperor’s Hand.

Odd, though, that he hadn’t then made a point of identifying himself as ISB. Perhaps he planned that revelation for just before Mara’s departure.

Shutting down the terminal, Mara left the office and crossed the bay to the pilots’ briefing room. Two troopers stood on guard, and at her gesture one of them unlocked the door and opened it.

Sitting at the conference table, securely shackled to one of the legs by two sets of binders, was the pirate Tannis. “About time,” he growled. “When do I get something to eat?”

“Shut up and listen,” Mara said, pulling out a data card and holding it up for his inspection. “I’ve prepared a list of charges against you. Added together, the total package reads out as anywhere from thirty standard years in a penal colony all the way up to the death penalty.”

Tannis’s mouth twisted. “This is your idea of a deal?”

“I’m not finished,” Mara told him. “So far you’ve had a pretty easy ride, you and the rest of your friends down in the brig. You’ve been nicely anonymous, given that the only people who could finger you for piracy were always dead before you left the scene with their cargoes. As long as you weren’t stupid enough to wear your BloodScar patches, you could stroll down any street in
the Empire without anyone being the wiser as to who you really were.”

She tapped the card with one fingertip. “But that’s all over now. Along with the charges, this card also details your face, your fingerprints, your biometrics, and your full DNA profile. Once this is in the Imperial data bank, any law enforcement officer curious enough to punch you in will have your entire criminal history in the time it takes to comm to Imperial Center and back.” She raised her eyebrows. “Which means you’re going to either spend the next thirty-plus years in prison or else spend it hiding in sewers and dark holes.”

Tannis’s face was under good control, but Mara could sense the fear starting to tug at him as he looked ahead to the bleak future she had sketched out. “Unless?” he asked carefully.

“The data’s already in the system,” Mara said. “But at the moment it’s in one of my private files, isolated from everything else, with a thirty-day release timer on it. That means that anytime in the next thirty days I can go in and erase it, and no one will ever even know it was there.”

“So what we’re talking about here is sort of like a blanket pardon?”

“Basically,” Mara said. “Interested?”

The tip of Tannis’s tongue slipped across the center of his upper lip. “What do I have to do?”

“We’re taking the
Happer’s Way
to your base,” Mara told him. “After suffering damage to his hyperdrive and comm system in the battle, your friend Captain Shakko decided to send you home with the prize while he and the rest of the crew stayed behind to make repairs.”

“And where did
you
come from?”

“My men and I were hijackers who’d sneaked aboard the
Happer’s Way,
” Mara said. “We were making our move when you showed up, which is why you were able
to capture the ship without having to first blast it into a worthless hulk. We’d heard about the BloodScars and made a deal with Shakko for you to take us to the Commodore to discuss our joining up.”

“What if he asks what group you’re with?” Tannis asked. “He knows a lot about the people in this sector.”

“Trust me,” Mara said. “I’ll make it work.”

Tannis grimaced. “You’re asking me to betray my comrades.”

“You’re a pirate,” Mara countered. “Your comrades are acquaintances of convenience, any of whom would stab you in the back for an extra ten percent.”

She gave that a moment to sink in before continuing. “As it happens, though, you’re not really going to betray them. You’re a local problem, to be dealt with by the local authorities. The only person I’m interested in right now is whoever it is who’s currently pulling your strings.”

Tannis frowned. “You mean Caaldra?”

“I mean the one behind Caaldra,” Mara said. “Impressive though he might look, he’s only a high-priced errand boy. I want access to the Commodore’s records so I can find out who’s making the decisions, who’s giving the orders—” She paused, just briefly. “—
and
who’s handing out the money.”

Once again Tannis’s face gave nothing away, but the sudden emotional ripple showed Mara she’d hit the target directly on the crossmark. Tannis might be a few steps down the chain of command, but he knew how to follow a money trail.

So she’d been right. At least some of the money from Glovstoak’s artworks had apparently found its way to the BloodScars.

“What happens if the Commodore tumbles to you?” Tannis asked.

“You’ll try very hard not to let that happen.”

“And if you krong up and end up getting yourself killed?”

“You’ll try even harder not to let
that
happen. Are you in?”

Tannis snorted. “Do I have a choice?”

“Sure—you can start your sentence today,” Mara said.

“No thanks,” he said, and in his eyes and altered tone, Mara knew he’d suddenly realized that he had a third option: to betray her to the rest of the BloodScars and use his thirty-day grace period to find a place to hide. “I’m in.”

“Good,” Mara said, stepping over to stand in front of him. “And just so we’re clear what exactly it is you’re agreeing to—” Dropping her gaze to his binders, she reached out with the Force and unfastened them, letting them drop clattering to the deck.

For a handful of heartbeats Tannis stared down at them, the muscles in his neck suddenly taut. Then, slowly, he lifted his eyes to hers again.

And whatever thoughts he might have had about betrayal were suddenly gone. “Vader,” he whispered. “You’re like Vader.”

“Only better,” she said coolly, a part of her mind wondering what Vader would do if he ever heard her talk that way. But what the Sith Lord didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. “We have a deal?”

Tannis swallowed hard. “Yes,” he managed. “Absolutely.”

“Good,” she said, taking a step back and stretching out again, this time to call the binders to her hand. Tannis followed them with his eyes the entire way. “I’ll have a guard take you to your ship to pick out some clothing and anything else you want to take with you. Then you’ll report to the
Happer’s Way
for an equipment orientation. I’ll make sure there’s enough bacta in the medical
capsule to get that leg of yours back in shape before we arrive at your base.”

“Right.” Slowly, Tannis stood up, his eyes still on the binders. He looked back up at Mara, and managed a taut smile. “Welcome to the BloodScars, Emperor’s Hand. You’re going to love it.”

“Thank you,” Mara said. “I’d better.”

Captain Ozzel leaned back in his chair, staring at his computer display with a bitter sense of defeat. All of it—all the work, all the sweat, all the struggling—gone.

The admiral’s bars. Gone.

Across the office, the door slid open and Colonel Somoril stepped in. “They’ve just made the jump to lightspeed,” he told Ozzel.

“It doesn’t matter,” Ozzel muttered, gesturing to the display. “We’re finished.”

“What in space are you talking about?” Somoril demanded, stepping to the desk and swiveling the display around to face him.

“Our clever little Emperor’s Hand found her way into the ship’s computer,” Ozzel said bitterly. “She accessed the personnel files, the bridge log,
and
the flight log.”

Somoril’s face had gone stiff, his eyes darting back and forth as he skimmed the file on the display. Ozzel watched; then, to the captain’s amazement, he saw some of the other’s tension drain away. “Fine,” Somoril said, sitting down. “So she knows the
Gillia
left a couple of weeks ago. So what? As far as she knows, that could have been a perfectly legitimate ISB operation.”

“Oh, really?” Ozzel snarled. “You really think she maneuvered herself aboard this ship and into the computer without already knowing what she was looking for?”

Somoril lifted his eyebrows. “She
maneuvered
herself
aboard? Including setting up a pirate attack on an Imperial-chartered freighter?”

“Special Imperial agents don’t bother with anything as trivial as pirates,” Ozzel shot back. “And the Emperor’s Hand
certainly
doesn’t. If she happened to foil a pirate attack, it was purely incidental to her main mission.”

Somoril shook his head. “I’m not convinced.”

“Then be convinced,” Ozzel said acidly, keying for a new file. “I pulled up these items from planetary news services. We have two separate reports of Imperial stormtroopers in action.”

Somoril’s eyes narrowed. “What sort of action?”

“The first wasn’t too bad,” Ozzel said. “All they did was engage and destroy a swoop gang who were harassing a group of farmers. But the second action ended up tearing down a city’s entire patroller structure.”

“They took over a
city
?”

“No, apparently just reinstated the last group who’d been in charge,” Ozzel said. “I haven’t been able to get any more details. Not that it matters. The point is that our Emperor’s Hand now knows where those stormtroopers came from.”

“
If
she’s made the connection,” Somoril said. “She may not have. More to the point, even if she has, it won’t matter if she’s never able to tell anyone else.”

Ozzel stared at him, something unpleasant starting to gnaw at his gut. “What exactly are you suggesting?”

“I’m saying that she sent no transmissions from the
Reprisal
, and that she won’t be sending any from the
Happer’s Way,
” Somoril said. “Brock and Gilling will make sure of that. That just leaves the transmitters at her destination point.” He paused. “Which, from our track of their departure vector, is almost certainly the mining operation on Gepparin.”

“You
tracked
them?”

“How else would we know where to find her?” Somoril replied reasonably. “So now, Captain, you have a decision to make.”

“You realize what you’re suggesting,” Ozzel said, his voice sounding strange in his ears. “You’re talking about killing an
Imperial agent
. A woman who gets her orders from Palpatine himself.”

“A
girl
who gets those orders,” Somoril corrected. “She’s barely had time to finish her training, let alone build up any real field experience.”

“She’s an
Imperial agent.
”

“Stop
saying
that,” Somoril growled. “This is a dangerous life she’s chosen for herself. Agents in the field die all the time.”

“So why didn’t you deal with her when she was here?” Ozzel demanded.

“What, in front of potentially hundreds of witnesses?” Somoril countered contemptuously. “Besides, at the time I didn’t know how close to the trail she was sniffing. Now we do.”

Ozzel exhaled noisily. But the colonel was right. Terribly, horribly right. “How do you propose we proceed?”

“As I said, an agent’s life is dangerous,” Somoril said. “You never know when you might get caught up at the wrong end of a military action.” He lifted his eyebrows. “The sort of action that might occur if a patrolling Star Destroyer happened on data pointing to a suspected pirate nest.”

For a long minute the two men gazed across the desk at each other. Then, slowly, Ozzel reached to his intercom. “This is the captain,” he announced grimly. “Set course for the Gepparin system. Get us under way as soon as the hyperdrive’s up to full power.”

He got an acknowledgment and keyed off. “I presume you’ve also calculated how far behind her we’ll be?”

“No more than a few hours,” Somoril assured him. “Brock and Gilling can easily keep her away from any HoloNet transmitters that long.” He stood up. “With your permission, Captain, I’ll go see if I can search out any further details on what our five deserters have been doing.”

He gave a slight bow and turned to the door. “What would you have done if I’d said no?” Ozzel called after him.

Somoril didn’t turn around. “I’d have sent one of my own ships to deal with her,” he said. “And I would have had utter contempt for you for the rest of your days.”

Ozzel snorted. “Don’t you mean for the rest of
your
days?”

“Not at all,” Somoril said quietly. “I have the feeling your life would have ended up being significantly shorter than mine.”

C
HIVKYRIE’S SHIP, BY PREARRANGEMENT, WAS
already waiting when Leia’s courier ship dropped out of hyperspace over the uninhabited rendezvous planet. Two other vessels were also in sight, running in parallel orbits: the two Rebellion leaders who had come to argue against whatever this plan was Chivkyrie had come up with. Gazing out her viewport, taking deep, steadying breaths the way her father had taught her, Leia watched as her pilot eased them alongside Chivkyrie’s ship.
It’s just another negotiation
, she told herself firmly. Like hundreds she’d participated in during her career.

But there was something ominous about this one, an odd uneasiness that refused to go away. Distantly, she wished Luke was with her. Or even Han.

She hadn’t had much occasion to deal with Adarians when she was in the Imperial Senate—their interests and those of Alderaan had seldom coincided. But since joining the Rebellion she’d been forced by necessity to learn more about their customs and psychology. Living through a war, her father had once said, forced one to learn geography. Participating in a war, Leia had discovered, forced one to learn people.

The welcoming ritual aboard Chivkyrie’s ship was short but densely layered with history and custom and significance, and Leia was exceedingly glad she’d made
a point of studying the ceremony ahead of time. She made it through with only a few small errors, all of them due to the fact that her human vocal apparatus couldn’t quite hit some of the Adarese words.