by Timothy Zahn
“Our natives don’t seem to be having any trouble with it,” Barris said pointedly. “What in blazes were those blasts, anyway? They weren’t powerful enough to be concussion grenades.”
“I agree, sir,” Wyan said. “My guess is they were blaster power packs with the sturm dowels pulled out.”
An odd feeling shivered down Barris’s back. “That doesn’t sound like something savages would be able to figure out,” he said.
“I know,” Wyan agreed. “You suppose our alien has come back?”
Barris stared out into the darkness of the forest. “Or else our smugglers have.”
“Mm,” Wyan said thoughtfully. “Trying to scare us away, you think?”
“Or else trying, to get us running in circles.” Barris keyed his helmet comlink for long-range. “Strikefast, this is Colonel Barris.”
“Captain Parck here,” Parck’s voice came immediately. “What’s happening down there?”
“We were attacked,” Barris told him. “Two explosions in the encampment, neither doing significant damage.”
“The attackers?”
“No sign of them so far. We’re still searching.”
“Maybe they lobbed the explosives in from a distance,” Parck said. “I’ll have a wing of TIE fighters do a flyover. Stand by.”
Barris keyed off and stepped back to the examination table. Yes; some sort of powerful catapult, fired from far outside the sentry perimeter. That would explain why no one had spotted anything.
He stopped, looking up at the strips of shredded weather canopy rippling gently in the breeze. No. that didn’t work. Anything coming in from above would have had to get through the canopy before it hit the table. It couldn’t have done that without him hearing something. Could it?
Something moved at the edge of Barris’s eye. He twitched his blaster around, but it was only some small night creature scurrying across the clearing. “Major Wyan?” he called.
“Yes, Colonel?” Wyan said, stepping around the nose of the troop carrier.
“Get some floodlights set up,” Barris ordered, pointing to the
trees. “I want the whole rim of the forest lit up like the inside of a spark module — that should help burn off some of this mist, too. Also, fine-mesh the hemisphere sensor screen. I don’t want any more explosives getting through without us at least knowing they’re coming.”
Wyan’s reply was lost in the sudden roar as a pair of TIE fighters shot past at treetop level. “What?” Barris asked.
“I was pointing out that there are a lot of avians and avian-sized things flying around,” Wyan repeated. “Small ground animals, too — I nearly twisted my ankle stepping on one a minute ago. If we fine-mesh the screen too far down, we’ll have alarms triggering all night.”
Barris grimaced; but the major was right. “All right, then, forget the fine-meshing,” he growled. “Just get those lights — ”
And suddenly, directly ahead, the nearest trees were silhouetted by a fireball erupting out of the forest in the distance. “What the — ?” Wyan barked.
“TIE crash!” Barris snapped, viciously keying his comlink. “Crash team to the troop carrier — now!”
He had keyed off the comlink, and was just starting to swear, when the distant thunder of the crash rolled across the encampment.
“You have no idea what brought it down?” Parck’s voice asked in Barris’s ears.
“Not yet, sir,” Barris said, his stomach churning with a simmering anger. “The crash team just got back with the fighter’s recording rod. And the pilot’s body.”
Parck rumbled something under his breath. “At least you got there before the natives had time to steal this one.”
“No, sir, they didn’t get the body,” Barris said. “But they did have time to ransack his survival pack again. The crash team found it torn open and the contents scattered around, just like the last time.”
“And no sign of the blaster, power packs, or concussion grenades?”
“No, sir.”
For a long moment there was silence on the channel, and Barris found himself gazing across the encampment at the forest. The floodlights he’d ordered had been set up just inside the clearing, bathing the forest in brilliance. Insects and night avians swarmed and buzzed through the area, clearly confused by the artificial daylight, the larger ones throwing quick-moving shadows against the trees.
“You’re the man on the scene, Colonel,” Parck said at last. “But in my opinion, this has gone way beyond natives making a nuisance of themselves. Are you certain the smugglers aren’t involved?”
“I’ve been wondering that myself, Captain,” Barris said. “It could be there’s something nearby they don’t want us to find and are trying to pin us down here.”
That might explain the attacks themselves,” Parck agreed. “What about the flight suit stuffed with grass?”
“Probably a feint,” Barris said. “Something to convince us we were only dealing with native primitives.”
“Unless we’re dealing with both the smugglers and primitives,” Parck suggested. “That might — just a minute,” he interrupted himself. “Colonel, did you examine the flight suit itself?”
“I — ” Barris frowned. “Now that you mention it, sir. I don’t think so. We were more interested in the — ”
“Go look at it now,” Parck cut him off. “Specifically, check whether or not the comlink has been removed from the helmet.”
It took a couple of minutes to find where the techs had stored the suit. It took ten seconds more to confirm that the comlink was indeed missing.
“Clever little snakes,” Parck murmured when Barris had given him the news. “One might even say inspired. What about the second flight suit, the one you just brought back to the encampment?”
“It’s being checked now,” Barris told him, looking over to where Major Wyan and one of the troopers were going over it. “Major?”
“The comlink’s still here,” Wyan confirmed. “They must not have had time to remove it.”
“Or decided not to bother,” Barris pointed out. “They could already eavesdrop on our communications.”
“Not for long they can’t,’ Parck said with grim satisfaction. “I’ve ordered the circuit that comlink is on to be shut down.”
“Yes, sir,” Barris said, wincing. Bad enough that the smugglers had gotten away with their theft this long. But to have his commanding officer be the one to pick up on it… “They must still be in the area. I’ll get some patrols organized and try to smoke them out.”
“There’s no rush, Colonel,” Parck said. “As a matter of fact, I’d rather you stay put until first light. Your sensors are going to be of limited use in a forest, and there’s no sense exposing your men to ambush in the darkness.”
“As you wish, Captain,” Barris said, feeling his face warming. “Good,” Parck said. “We’ll speak further in the morning. Good night, Colonel. Stay alert.”
“Yes, sir,” Barris said between clenched teeth. “Good night, Captain.”
He jabbed the comlink off. “Doesn’t sound to me like the Captain has a very high opinion of our troopers,” Major Wyan said, coming up beside him.
“Can you blame him?” Barris retorted.
“Under the circumstances, I suppose not,” Wyan conceded. “What now?”
“We make our smuggler friends very sorry indeed that they tangled with us, that’s what,” Barris growled. “First thing I want you to do is double-check the security perimeter again — I don’t want anything else getting through tonight.”
“Yes, sir. And after that?”
Barris looked out at the brightly lit forest, a fresh surge of anger mixing with the humiliation in his stomach. No smuggler was going to make a fool of him. Or if he did, he wasn’t going to live to gloat about it. “After that, you and I are going to sit down with the aerial survey maps, the long-range tracking data from the Strikefast, and anything else we can get our hands on. And we’re going to figure out how
to find those smugglers.”
Almost inaudible over the busy insect twitterings, another distant boom drifted in dully on the cool night breeze. Terrik paused in his work, cocking an ear toward the mouth of the cave and listening hard. It was the fourth such explosion in the past five hours, by his count, not counting that aircraft crash just after sundown. None of the blasts had sounded any closer to them than the first had.
It was the Imperials, of course. But what in space were they playing at?
A shadow moved silently against the starlight streaming through the mouth of the cave. Reflexively, Terrik reached for his blaster; relaxed as he saw it was only Llollulion. “You see anything?” he called softly.
The Borlovian’s five-tiered whistle was equally soft, and as negative as each of the previous times. “You know, this doesn’t make any sense at all,” Terrik complained, walking over to his partner’s side and staring down at the misty forest below. “There aren’t nearly enough explosions for it to be a concussion spread. But there are too many for it to be nervous troopers throwing grenades at each other’s shadows.”
For a long minute there was just the sound of the insects. Terrik strained his ears, but there were no more explosions. And then, almost diffidently, Llollulion made a suggestion. “Oh, come on, ” Terrik scoffed. “That was definitely a one-man house — two-man at the very outside. Who in the galaxy would be crazy enough to take on a couple of troop carriers worth of Imperials by himself?”
Still, now that he thought about it, the sound of those blasts did seem to be coming more or less from the direction of the settlement they’d flown over. And the power emanations they’d picked up had implied the place was currently occupied.
So who in the galaxy would be crazy enough to take on all those Imperials by himself?
Llollulion warbled again. “Okay, so a pair of Crintlians might take on odds like that to protect their territory,” Terrik growled. “Don’t try to tell me it would take the lmperials four grenades to deal with two Crintlians.”
Another dull explosion drifted in on the breeze. “Five grenades,” Terrik amended. “Anyway, it’s none of our business.”
Llollulion gave a six-tiered whistle — “I said it’s none of our business,” Terrik insisted. “You want to dodge a couple squads of Imperial troopers and try to contact whoever’s out there, be my guest. Me, I’m going to stay right here.”
The Borlovian reared his head back in surprise, his beard feathers stiffening. “Don’t look at me like that,” Terrik snapped. “I have nothing against picking up allies when it gains us anything. Only this time, it doesn’t. We’re in Unknown Space, remember? — odds are this is some unknown alien we wouldn’t even be able to talk to. And even if we could, who says he’d even want to join forces?”
Terrik spun around and headed back toward the Starwayman. “Besides,” he said over his shoulder, “all we really want from an ally right now is for him to keep the Imperials busy. And he’s already doing that. Let’s leave well enough alone, and get this bucket of bolts ready to fly again.”
They had five casualties among the sentry perimeter troopers that night. Three of them had died by the hand of the unseen enemy, their chests or heads blown apart by concussion grenades. No one had seen anything, either before the attacks or afterward. The other two casualties had been accidentally shot by their own nervous comrades, who had mistaken them for intruders in the misty darkness.
And by the time dawn began to lighten the sky, Barris had had enough.
“I suggest you try to calm yourself, Colonel,” Parck said, his voice maddeningly calm. “I know it’s been a bad night for you — ”
“Sir, I’ve lost five men tonight,” Barris cut him off harshly. It wasn’t the most politic way to speak to a superior officer; but Barris wasn’t feeling especially politic at the moment. “That doesn’t even count the three TIE pilots and fighters we lost yesterday evening. I strongly recommend we abandon this site and return to the Strikefast. And that we then burn the entire forest down from orbit.”
“You’re tired, Colonel,” Parck said. His voice was still calm, but it suddenly had an edge to it. “You’re also not thinking straight. Killing the smugglers won’t get us the location of that resistance group we’re looking for. You think a burned-out freighter will be an appropriate prize to take back to Emperor Palpatine?”
“I’m not interested in prizes, Captain,” Barris said stiffly. “I’m interested in not wasting any more of my men.”
“You won’t have to,” Parck said. “A troop carrier is on its way down with two squads of my stormtroopers. They’ll be relieving your troopers.”
“They’ve already arrived,” Barris growled, looking across the clearing to where the last of the faceless, white-armored stormtroopers was just disappearing into the forest. Their unasked-for presence was a blatant insult to the quality of Barris’s own troopers; at the moment, Barris didn’t care about that, either. “And if you want my opinion, sir, they’re not going to have any better luck finding the smugglers than my troopers did. Smoking them out from orbit is our best option.”
“I’ll keep your recommendation in mind, Colonel,” Parck said, his voice cool. “In the meantime, I suggest you get some rest. The stormtroopers can handle things from here on — ”
And without warning, Parck’s voice dissolved in a roar of static. Barris jabbed at the comlink control and the static cut off, leaving his ears ringing painfully. “Full alert!” he shouted, pulling his blaster and running toward the sentry perimeter. “All troopers, full alert, Major Wyan, where are you?”
“Here, sir,” Wyan said, coming across the clearing from the perimeter to Barris’s right. “All comlink channels are out.”
“I know,” Barris gritted. “Enough is enough. There are eighteen stormtroopers beating the bushes out there — send some troopers out to recall them. We’re pulling out.”
Wyan’s mouth fell open slightly. “We’re leaving, sir?”
“Yes,” Barris bit out. “Any objections?”
The major’s lip twitched. Perhaps he’d been listening in on Barris’s conversation with Captain Parck. “No, sir, no objections. What about that?” He jerked a thumb at the alien encampment.
An encampment they hadn’t much gotten around to studying; and there were high-placed idealists in the Senate who would probably make trouble for them if they left here without a thorough examination.
But there was an answer for that, too. “We’ll take it with us,” Barris said.
Wyan mouth dropped another couple of millimeters. “We’ll what?”
“I said we’ll take it with us,” Barris repeated impatiently. “Plenty of room in the transport for all of it. Tell the techs to break out the heavy load lifters and get busy — I want everything aboard in half an hour. Move it!”
Wyan swallowed visibly. “Yes, sir,” he said, and headed toward the alien house at a brisk trot.
Cautiously, Barris tried the comlink. But it was still being blanketed by the jamming static, and with a curse he shut it off again.
With a curse, and a painfully tight sensation in his stomach. There was only one reason to jam their communications; after the sniping of the previous night, the unseen enemy out there was preparing to launch a major attack. Stepping over into the partial cover of one of the troop carriers, making sure he was within shouting range of the entire Imperial encampment, he got a good grip on his blaster and prepared for battle.
But once again, the enemy refused to play to his expectations. Within ten minutes the first of the stormtroopers began to reemerge from the forest in response to the orders from Barris’s messengers. The comlink jamming continued as the rest of the Imperials returned to the encampment, but the attack Barris had anticipated never materialized. And within his stipulated half hour, the alien encampment was packed aboard the transport and they were ready to leave.
Except for a single, tiny hitch. One of the eighteen stormtroopers was missing.
“What do
you mean, missing?” Barris demanded as three of the stormtroopers headed purposefully into the forest again, four of their comrades taking up backstop positions just inside the clearing behind them. “I thought these were the new elite of Palpatine’s new military. How-could one of them be missing?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Wyan said, looking around. “But I’ve come to the conclusion you were right. The sooner we get out of here, the better.”
Abruptly. Barris came to a decision. To blazes with the stormtroopers — if they wanted to go looking for more trouble, that was their business. “Have all techs board the transport,” he ordered Wyan. “The troopers will follow, in standard retreat/guard order. We’ll leave as soon as everyone’s aboard.”
“What about the stormtroopers?” Wyan asked.
“They’ve got the troop carrier they came down in,” Barris said. “They can stay behind and beat the bushes to their hearts’ content.”
He turned toward the transport the techs had just finished loading, caught sight of one of the stormtroopers standing rigid guard just outside the hatchway. “You — stormtrooper — go tell your commander — ”
He never finished the sentence. Without twitch or warning, the stormtrooper abruptly dissolved in a brilliant explosion.
Barris was flat on the ground in an instant, his ears aching from the sound of the blast. “Alert!” he shouted automatically, searching the nearest forest edge for any sign of the attacker. But as always, there was nothing. A handful of troopers — brave or suicidal, Barris wasn’t sure which — were charging that direction anyway. For all the good that would do.
Beside him, Wyan gave a sudden, awe-struck curse. “Colonel — look at that.”
Barris swiveled on his stomach to face the transport again. The smoke of the explosion was clearing away, revealing that the ship itself had sustained only minor damage. Mostly cosmetic, in fact, and nothing that should interfere with flight operation or hull integrity. He lowered his eyes to the crumpled form of the stormtrooper —