by Timothy Zahn
“I agree,” Grave said. “What in the worlds possessed you two to come charging out that way?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Marcross said with a hint of sarcasm. “We thought maybe you could use a little help.”
“No, no, the help was much appreciated,” Grave assured him. “Especially the part where you brought me a blaster I could actually shoot with. I was referring to the fact that you came charging out in full armor.”
“That was my idea,” Brightwater said. “I thought there was a chance we might need to throw a little bluster around, and there’s nothing like a stormtrooper presence to persuade nosy locals and corporate hirelings to back off.”
“Plus, once the blaster bolts started flying, it seemed like a good idea to have the extra protection,” Marcross added. “Not that we had time to change anyway.”
“Yes, but—”
“It’s all right, Grave,” LaRone said. “We got away with it, and we helped some farmers out of a jam. That’s the important thing.”
“Besides, there isn’t one person in a billion outside the corps who can tell one stormtrooper from another in their armor,” Quiller reminded him. “They’ll never know who we were. So what’s the new plan?”
“Same as the old one,” LaRone said. “We head somewhere else and finish collecting fuel and supplies. Pull up a map and let’s see what our choices are.”
“Just a second,” Marcross said, lifting a finger. “Before we go any farther, I’d like to know how exactly we ended up with LaRone making all the decisions.”
“You have a problem with it?” Grave asked, an edge of challenge in his tone.
“In principle, yes,” Marcross said calmly. “As far as I know, we’re all the same rank here.”
Brightwater snorted. “I think the standard Table of Organization’s a little irrelevant at the moment,” he said. “We’re not exactly an official fighting unit anymore.”
“I thought we did okay back there,” Grave said.
“I said we weren’t an official unit,” Brightwater said. “What’s wrong with us just discussing our plans and coming to a consensus?”
“Nothing, assuming we can come to one,” Marcross said. “Unfortunately, that isn’t always possible.”
“Translation: you’re still pushing for us to go hide on Shelkonwa?” Grave asked.
“I still think it’s our best bet,” Marcross said.
“Regardless, he’s right about us needing to have a clearly defined chain of command,” LaRone said. “Discussion and agreement are fine, but in crisis or combat you need one man giving orders and everyone else obeying them.”
“So again, what’s wrong with LaRone taking point?” Grave asked.
“For one thing, he’s the one who got us into this mess,” Brightwater muttered.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Grave growled.
“Just what it said,” Brightwater said. “If he hadn’t killed Drelfin, we’d still be aboard the Reprisal.”
“Doing what?” Grave shot back. “Slaughtering more civilians like we did on Teardrop?”
“Maybe they were all Rebels,” Brightwater insisted. “We don’t know. Anyway, I think I just heard someone say that someone had to give orders and someone else had to follow them.”
“When those orders are for the legitimate protection of the Empire and its citizens,” Grave said.
“Do you want to go back?” LaRone asked.
The argument broke off. “What do you mean?” Grave asked, frowning.
“It’s not a trick question,” LaRone told him. “If you want to go back, Brightwater—if any of you want to—you’re welcome to do so. Just drop me off somewhere and go.”
“You’d be dead in a week,” Grave said flatly. “They’d drag your location out of our minds and nail you to the wall.”
“Maybe that would be enough to calm them down,” LaRone said. “As Brightwater pointed out, I’m the one who killed Drelfin. Maybe they’ll let you go back to the unit.”
“Of course, as Grave pointed out, Palpatine’s Empire may not be worth serving anymore,” Quiller said quietly. “I was under the impression we’d already been wondering about that when all the rest of this went down.”
“Well, I’m not going back,” Grave said emphatically. “Brightwater?”
The other made a face. “No,” he said reluctantly. “Even if we could … never mind. We can’t, and we won’t.”
“Which brings us back to the question of command,” Marcross said. “And for the record,” he added, looking at Brightwater, “let me remind everyone that it was Drelfin who precipitated this, not LaRone.”
“Maybe we should start from the other direction,” Quiller suggested. “Does anyone here particularly want to be in charge?”
“Personally, I see no reason not to let LaRone hang on to the job,” Marcross said. “At least, for now.”
“I thought you were the one who didn’t want him giving the orders,” Quiller said, frowning.
“I said I disagreed in principle,” Marcross reminded him. “I don’t necessarily disagree in practice.”
“I’ve seen LaRone in plenty of combat situations,” Grave said. “He’s got my vote.”
“I sure don’t want the job,” Quiller said, half turning to face Brightwater. “That just leaves you, Brightwater.”
The scout trooper grimaced, but nodded. “No, it makes sense,” he said. “I presume this isn’t a lifetime appointment?”
“Not at all,” LaRone assured him. “Furthermore, if and when anyone has any objections or suggestions about anything we’re proposing or doing, you’re to let me know immediately. It’s us against the universe now, and the last thing we can afford is private doubts or resentments.”
“Then that’s settled,” Marcross said, climbing out of the copilot’s seat. “I’m going to go check the landspeeders, see if either of them picked up any damage. You four go ahead and pick us a target planet—anywhere is fine with me.”
Marcross was stretched out flat on his back beneath one of the landspeeders when LaRone caught up with him. “How’s it look?”
“It’s got a few dings,” Marcross said, squirming back and forth on his shoulders as he wiggled his way out from under the vehicle. “But they all seem to be superficial. Incidentally, if you’ve got that shopping list handy, you could add a mechanic’s crawler to it.”
“Got it,” LaRone said, offering his hand. Marcross reached up and took it, and LaRone hauled him back to his feet. “I’m surprised ISB didn’t include one in the ship’s equipment.”
“If they did, it’s nowhere obvious,” Marcross said, reaching awkwardly around to brush off his back where he’d been lying on the deck. “Besides, everybody knows the easiest way to find a missing item is to buy a replacement. Quiller find us a commerce center?”
LaRone nodded. “We’re going to try Ranklinge,” he said. “It’s about two days’ flight away.”
“Isn’t there an Incom Corporation starfighter plant there?” Marcross asked, frowning. “Turns out I-7 Howlrunners, as I recall.”
“Good memory,” LaRone complimented him. “Yes, it’s on the outskirts of Ranklinge City. Quiller thought a medium-high-profile place like that would put the planet lower on ISB’s list of places we might go.”
“Provided we don’t land right next to all those I-7s,” Marcross said. “And provided we don’t plan on making it our permanent home.” He cocked an eyebrow. “We aren’t planning to make it our permanent home, are we?”
“No, that discussion’s still for the future.” LaRone hesitated. “I wanted to ask you a question.”
“After raising the whole leadership issue in the first place, why did I suddenly support you for the job?”
LaRone pursed his lips. “Basically.”
Marcross shrugged and crossed to one of the tool-and-equipment racks along the cargo bay’s rear wall. “The short answer is that you seem to have some abilities in that direction.” He glanced over his shoulder
as he pulled out a tube of sealant. “I gather you don’t see that?”
LaRone shook his head. “Not really.”
“True leaders often don’t,” Marcross told him. He checked the label on the tube, put it back, and selected a different one. “But I was watching you during our little discussion up there. You stood quietly by and let everyone voice their opinions, even blow off a little steam. But then you stepped in and calmed everything down before it could degenerate into a full-fledged argument.”
LaRone thought back. Was that really what he’d done? It certainly hadn’t been nearly as deliberate as Marcross seemed to think. “What about you?” he countered. “You could have done it as well as I could.”
Marcross shook his head as he returned to the landspeeder. “I’ve had some experience watching leaders in action,” he said. “But knowing the theory doesn’t mean I can actually do it. Besides, even if I could, I don’t think the others would really support me.” He smiled wryly. “I get the feeling they find me stiff and a little overbearing.”
“They just don’t know you as well as I do,” LaRone said.
“Which is another part of leadership: knowing and understanding the men of your command,” Marcross said. “And trusting them.” His lips tightened. “Besides, you’re the one who refused to fire on unresisting civilians. That gives you the high moral ground, one of the most important assets a leader can have.”
LaRone swallowed, the scene of that horror flashing again across his mind. “The rest of you would have done the same.”
“Maybe,” Marcross said. “Maybe not. Grave and Brightwater were in positions where they didn’t have to make that decision. I don’t know about Quiller.”
“And you?”
Marcross looked him straight in the eye. “I obeyed my orders.”
For a long, taut moment, neither man spoke. Then Marcross turned and knelt down beside the landspeeder. “You might mention to Brightwater that his speeder bike took a couple of dings, too,” he said as he opened the sealant tube and started brushing the paste over the blaster marks.
“Right,” LaRone said, keeping his voice steady. I obeyed my orders … “I’ll tell him.”
The sky had turned into a magnificent star-sprinkled blackness, and the animals pulling the heavy carts were puffing heavily with the strain when the man who called himself Porter and his team finally reached the edge of the woods and the rendezvous point. “Casement?” Porter called softly, his hand slipping beneath his coarse farmer’s robe and getting a grip on his blaster.
“Over here, Porter,” the expected voice called back. In the starlight he saw a lanky figure unfold itself from the base of one of the trees and stand up. Behind him, a deeper shadow among the trees, was the bulk of the familiar Surronian heavy freighter. “You’re late. What’d you do, stop to catch some butterbugs?”
With a quiet sigh of relief, Porter pulled his hand back out of his robe. With a job like this, there was always the chance of discovery, even right at the very end. But the butterbug code word meant all was well. “That little relabeling stunt meant the crates weren’t where they were supposed to be,” he explained as he stepped over to the other man. More shadowy figures were emerging from the forest now, some of them pulling repulsorlift transfer dollies behind them. “It took them awhile to track them.”
“I hope they didn’t get too curious about why they were misplaced,” Casement said.
“No, they were mostly just annoyed at whoever’s incompetence had landed them in the wrong stack,” Porter assured him. “Anyway, I had a cover story all set in case they looked inside.”
“I’ll bet.”
“No, really,” Porter insisted. “I was going to tell them that the ground here is so rocky that heavy blasters are officially classed as agricultural equipment.”
Casement chuckled. “That would have been a conversation worth sitting in on.”
“Speaking of things worth sitting in on, you missed a doozy,” Porter said, digging into his pocket as Casement’s people began transferring the precious cargo onto the dollies. “Ever seen anything like this?”
He handed over a shoulder patch he’d cut from the shirt of one of the dead swoop riders. Casement produced a small glow rod, and for a moment he studied the patch. “Never seen the whole thing before,” he said at last. “But this twisted-thorn cluster at the base sure looks like the BloodScar pirate logo.”
“That’s what I thought,” Porter agreed. “Only this was a swoop gang working out of an old Barloz freighter.”
“Could be they’re affiliated with the BloodScars,” Casement said, rubbing his jaw. “Maybe the pirates are taking a file line from the Hutts and are trying to expand their operations.”
“Which is worrisome enough in its own right,” Porter said. “More troubling is the fact the swoopers ignored everyone else in the area and came straight for us, as if they already knew we were carrying something more interesting than farming equipment.”
“Terrific,” Casement growled. “Like we didn’t have enough trouble with pirates already. Especially with the Imperials now pretty much ignoring them.”
“Maybe not,” Porter said. “The swoopers were shot off us by a pair of stormtroopers.”
He couldn’t make out Casement’s expression in the starlight, but the abrupt stiffening of the other’s stance was almost as impressive. “What?”
“You heard me,” Porter said. “A scout on an Aratech speeder bike and a regular trooper in a landspeeder, working out of an old freighter—I didn’t recognize the make. They also had a pair of plainclothesmen already on the ground and at least one more running backup inside the ship.”
“Plainclothes?” Casement repeated thoughtfully. “Not fleet or army fatigues?”
“One hundred percent pure civilian,” Porter confirmed. “I’m thinking ISB or maybe some special commando squad.”
“Then why did they let you go?” Casement looked up suddenly at the sky. “Unless this is a trap.”
“If it was, they should have sprung it by now,” Porter said. “No, I don’t think they had the faintest idea who or what we were. I think all they were after was the swoopers.” He grimaced. “I just wish I knew what that meant.”
“Nothing good for us, that’s for sure,” Casement said, tucking the gang patch into his pocket. “I’ll send a report to Targeter. She’ll know the right people to kick it on to.”
“Good,” Porter said, gesturing toward the working shadows. “Meanwhile, we’ve got cargo to load.”
“And suddenly this rock doesn’t seem quite so cozy anymore,” Casement agreed grimly. “Let’s get this done.”
Chapter Six
THE MANAGER OF THE PEVEN AUCTION HOUSE ON Crovna wasn’t much help. Both the seller and the buyer of Glovstoak’s private art objects had been anonymous, and neither the manager nor any of his employees had recognized either of the representatives who’d been sent to the auction. The house had no records or indication of how the objects had come to Crovna; nor had the manager any idea what kind of vessel they’d left on.
He did, however, remember that he’d had to bring the artworks in for appraisal on two separate occasions before the actual sale took place. Both times they’d been in his office less than an hour after he’d contacted the seller’s agent. Furthermore, he recalled that they’d been brought by landspeeder, not airspeeder.
They could have been stored before the auction in a private home, Mara knew. But with thieves routinely slicing into auction house records in the hope of finding a good target, that would have been both dangerous and stupid. The seller would more likely have kept them in a vault somewhere in the area, someplace secure, private, and easily accessible.
A little research turned up just over fifty storage businesses within an hour’s drive of the auction house. Most of them were small facilities, however—adequate for storing spare furniture or business papers but hardly up to the task of protecting half a billion credits’ worth of artworks. There was, in f
act, only one facility Mara could find that fit all the parameters she was looking for.
It was called Birtraub Brothers Storage and Reclamation Center, a sprawling complex of interconnected gray buildings not far from the city’s main spaceport. With thirty or forty ships parked in its docking bays at any given time and several thousand workers buzzing about like hive insects as they accepted and dispersed and stored hundreds of thousands of crates and lockboxes a day, she could well believe its claim to be one of the largest such facilities in Shelsha sector.
But there was something else about the place, something that sent her senses tingling. Perhaps it was the grim-faced guards she could see from her table at the tapcafe across the street from the facility, guards who carried the unmistakable stamp of the Fringe in their expressions and body language. Perhaps it was the fact that many of the ships she could see moving cargoes in and out of the docking bays had clearly forged markings on them.
Or perhaps it was the fact that Mara’s very presence here at this window table had set off quiet alarm bells all the way to the tapcafe’s back room.
Lifting her glass, she took a sip, surreptitiously glancing at her chrono as she did so. She’d been here since just after the lunchtime rush, and in the past three hours had nursed her way through two small drinks and an appetizer plate of tomo-spice ribenes, watching the traffic going in and out of the facility. For those same three hours the tapcafe’s staff had been watching her, their quiet vigilance punctuated by numerous comlink calls to party or parties unknown. The calls had become increasingly intense in the past hour, and though Mara was too far away to overhear any of the conversations she could sense a growing nervousness.
Which wasn’t really surprising. If the higher-ups at Birtraub Brothers had guilty consciences, they would immediately have checked all the nearby spaceports for her ship, pulled every record that might possibly pertain to her, probably even contacted people familiar with a wide range of law enforcement personnel in the hope of identifying her.