Allegiance

by Timothy Zahn

  The sense of distant minds suddenly touched his own. He looked around quickly, trying to locate the source.

  And caught his breath. Swinging into view around the side of one of the nearby asteroids was another ship, turning onto an intercept course behind the Falcon. “Han!” he called.

  “Yeah, I see it,” Han’s voice growled through his headset. “Should have expected they’d have backup. Chewie, evasive course to Casement. Luke, you take the party crasher. Keep him back, or bring him down.”

  “Got it,” Luke said. Coming in low on their stern, the trailing ship was barely within his fire arc.

  But he could only do what he could do. The Falcon was starting to roll like a drunken dewback as Chewbacca threw them into a series of twists and turns, and off the edge of the hull he could see multiple red flashes as Han opened fire on the two pirate ships they were chasing. Swinging his fire-control yoke all the way over, Luke aimed his quads as far aft as he could and waited for Chewbacca’s evasive maneuvering to roll him into position for a clear shot.

  Luke, focus your thoughts.

  Luke grimaced again. Now Ben wanted him to focus his thoughts. He took a deep breath, turning his mind toward the newcomers.

  And paused. With his thoughts focused, and with the other ship starting to close the distance, the overall sense of the men aboard was becoming clearer.

  But it wasn’t the same coiled-spring predator feeling he’d sensed back at the Conso City tapcafe. It had some of the same strength and anticipation, but there was definitely something different about it. Something less angry, or less vicious. Less evil.

  The Force will guide you, if you let it.

  The closing ship was almost in range. Luke peered out at it, wondering how he was supposed to get this guidance.

  Maybe the way he let the Force control his movements when he practiced with the remote? Taking a deep breath, painfully aware of the risk he was taking, he settled his hands on the yoke and allowed the Force to flow into him.

  And to his amazement, his fingers lifted off the firing controls.

  Very good, Ben’s voice came again, and Luke thought he could sense approval in the tone. Not all strangers are enemies.

  Luke had to smile at the obviousness of that one. Still, it was a lesson he would do well to keep in mind. Throwing one last look at the oncoming ship, he swiveled the quads around and settled the sights onto the pirate ships ahead of him. Once again he let the Force’s guidance flow into him, and once again his fingers moved of their own accord.

  Only this time, it was to settle themselves firmly onto the firing controls.

  The message was clear. Instead of taking out the new ship, Luke was to join Han’s attack on the known pirates.

  He just hoped the Force knew what it was doing.

  “Will you look at that?” Quiller muttered as the Suwantek drove hard toward the battle. “Twin quad lasers. That’s, what, a three-year prison sentence right there?”

  “Probably, but it beats getting blown out of the sky,” Marcross said, the sides of his face momentarily lighting up green as the Suwantek’s own laser cannons sent another volley at the two patrol boats. “I’m wondering when the pirates are going to start looking for alternatives of their own.”

  “Actually, they haven’t got any,” Quiller said. “With the Corellian riding their portside flank and us hammering their sterns, they’re pouring every bit of power they can spare into those two deflectors. Any direction they veer now will open up another flank to attack, and they can’t afford that. They can’t even separate and try to split our fire.”

  “Couldn’t the one on the right at least ride up a little so he could bring his guns against the Corellian?” Marcross asked.

  “Sure he could,” Quiller confirmed. “But then he’d be in range of the Corellian’s quads, too. Ten to one that’s the ship the attack commander’s riding.”

  LaRone felt his lip twist. Typical. Hitting defenseless freighters was fine, but when it came to a real fight, pirates generally showed themselves to be cowards at heart. “So what are they doing?”

  “The only thing they can,” Quiller said. “They’re trying to catch up to the target freighter and use it for cover.”

  “That assumes any of us care if the freighter gets blown to bits, of course,” Marcross murmured.

  “True, but like I said, it’s all they’ve got,” Quiller said. “Actually, at this range and with his firepower the Corellian could be doing a lot more damage than he is. Looks like he’s trying to take them alive, too.”

  “Handy for us,” Marcross said. He threw a look at LaRone. “Though I missed the part where they and we started working together on this.”

  “Allies of convenience,” LaRone told him. “We’ll just have to wait and see how long that convenience lasts.”

  “We may be about to find out,” Quiller said. “Looks like he’s about to make some kind of move.”

  LaRone peered out the canopy. He didn’t see anything different, but he was willing to take Quiller’s word for it. “Okay,” he said. “Grave, Brightwater: hold your fire a minute. Let’s see what the Corellian’s up to.”

  “Chewie?” Han called. “You ready?”

  There was a growled acknowledgment through the headphone. Han resettled his grip on his firing yoke, trying to ignore the uncertainties fluttering through his gut. He’d personally trained Chewbacca in this sort of lunatic maneuver, after all, and the big Wookiee was nearly as good at it as Han was.

  But there was still that Suwantek-shaped question mark back there, a question mark with a lot more firepower than a freighter that size had any business carrying. So far the party crasher had concentrated his attention on the two pirate ships and ignored the Falcon, but that could change at any time.

  And if they were just waiting for the right moment to switch targets, this would sure give it to them. “Luke?”

  “Ready.”

  “Okay,” Han said, bracing himself. “Chewie … go.”

  There was another acknowledgment from the cockpit, and suddenly the Falcon was on the move, breaking from its parallel course to lunge sideways toward the two pirates. The hull dipped as Chewbacca sent them skidding laterally beneath the other ships, cutting off Han’s view. From above him he could hear the upper quads firing as Luke sent a salvo upward into their bellies, and the teeth-aching screeches of laser against deflector as the pirates returned fire. The sideways momentum sent the Falcon shooting past the second pirate; with a corkscrewing twist that sent the stars spinning dizzyingly across Han’s canopy, Chewbacca brought them around the pirate’s flank and over its upper surface.

  With a final drop and thud, the Wookiee slammed them down onto the other ship, locking them solidly together with the Falcon’s landing claw.

  The pirate’s dorsal laser turret was directly aft, no more than three meters away from Han’s own gunwell. Point-blank range for both of them, except that Han was ready for the trick and the pirate gunner wasn’t. The turret had barely begun to swing around when Han blew it to metal scraps. “Okay, Chewie.”

  There was a click as Chewbacca keyed the comm over to him. “First and last chance,” Han called into his mike. “Surrender or die.”

  The flanking pirate ship swung wide in reply, raising itself from its original defensive position where it could bring the entire flank’s worth of weaponry to bear on this incredibly impudent hitchhiker. Han swung his quads around, stitching a line across its flank as Luke did the same.

  The pirate’s turrets were still lining up for their own salvo when the Suwantek coming up from behind blew it to dust.

  Han peered out at the other ship. If there’d been any doubt that the Suwantek wasn’t with these other pirates, that pretty well ended the question. But they could still be a rival gang … and with one ship down and the Falcon locked sitting-avian on the other, they’d reached the moment of truth. “Unidentified Suwantek freighter—”

  “Hold your fire, Corellian freighter,” a voice
cut him off. “Do not, repeat do not destroy the patrol boat you’re sitting on. We want some of them alive.”

  “Understood, Suwantek,” Han said carefully. The speaker hadn’t identified himself, but his tone had sounded awfully military.

  The remaining pirates apparently thought so too. There was a lurch as the pirate ship poured power to its sublight engines, clearly trying to shake the Falcon off. There was an answering flash of red, a brilliant explosion from somewhere aft—

  “There,” the military voice said again as the pirate’s drive shut down. “Again, Corellian, please hold your fire.”

  At least this time he’d said please. “No problem,” Han assured him. “Actually, we want to talk to these guys too.”

  “Excellent,” the other said. “Wait there. We’ll go aboard first.”

  “Sure,” Han said. “Be my guest.”

  Chapter Twelve

  THERE WERE TWO SURVIVORS ON THE REMAINING pirate ship. Both were young, both were terrified, and both were anxious to cooperate.

  Unfortunately, they had very little to cooperate with.

  “I don’t know where he came from,” the slightly older of the two, Badji, insisted nervously. He started to gesture, but the motion was cut short by the binders fastening his arms to the cargo hold restraint ring. “One day he was just there, telling Captain Andel that the BloodScars wanted to bring all of us together into one big gang.”

  “What did Andel say?” Brightwater asked.

  “He told Caaldra we’d think it over,” Badji said. “But I don’t think he was going to. I heard him say that it would be a cold day on—” He broke off, his eyes going suddenly wide. “Wait a minute. You’re not—I mean—?”

  “No, we’re not the BloodScars,” LaRone assured him. “Did this Caaldra leave Andel any contact information?”

  Badji shook his head. “No, nothing.”

  “You’re lying,” Brightwater accused sharply. “He wouldn’t have left without giving you a way to get in touch with him.”

  “But he didn’t—I swear he didn’t,” Badji said, his whole body starting to shake. “He said he’d be back in a couple of weeks for Captain Andel’s answer.”

  “And this was when?”

  “Maybe a week ago,” Badji said. “No, no—it was eight standard days. I remember because—”

  “So you’re telling me that if we want to talk to Caaldra, we’re going to have to sit on you for another week?” Brightwater cut in.

  “I don’t know when he’ll be back,” Badji said, pleading now. “I’m not trying to pull anything—I swear I’m not.”

  “Of course not,” LaRone said. He caught Brightwater’s eye and nodded over his shoulder. Brightwater nodded back, and they left.

  Marcross and Grave were waiting in the lounge, talking together in low voices. “Anything?” LaRone asked as he and Brightwater joined them.

  “Nothing useful,” Marcross said. “The BloodScars were definitely trying to recruit them, though—some merc type named Caaldra came by about a week ago, ready to lean on their chief.”

  “That’s basically what we got,” LaRone confirmed, feeling more than a little disgusted. They’d gone to all this effort hoping to track the Corellian to the BloodScars, and all they had to show for it was a couple of teenagers who’d thought it would be fun to join a gang and play pirate.

  “What about the Corellian and his friends?” Brightwater asked. “Did we ever get anything on them?”

  LaRone leaned over to touch the intercom. “Quiller, did anything come up on that team search?”

  “The human–human–Wookiee one came up negative,” Quiller’s voice came back. “You want me to try human–Wookiee? Could be they picked up a friend.”

  “Let’s hold off on that for now,” LaRone said. Dipping into Imperial databases on this had been pushing it, and he didn’t want to risk a second search too soon. “What are they doing?”

  “Sitting quietly where we told them to,” Quiller said. “The Surronian freighter hasn’t tried to run, either.”

  “Cool customers,” Brightwater commented.

  “They were the same way back on Drunost,” Grave reminded him. “I just wish I knew what their angle was.”

  “Maybe they were delivering a message,” Brightwater suggested. “If this Caaldra character got the impression Andel was going to turn him down, he might have decided to show them why that would be a bad idea.”

  “Or maybe the Corellian is Caaldra,” Marcross said suddenly. “He did tell us he wanted to talk to the survivors.”

  “Let’s see if we can find out,” LaRone said. “Quiller, give them a call and invite them aboard.”

  Han was up to his elbows in hyperdrive guts when the invitation came. “I appreciate the offer,” he said as Luke held the headset to his ear. “But we’re kind of busy right now—took a little feed-through damage in that last jolt.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” the voice in his ear said. “Need any assistance?”

  Han scowled. If the Suwantek’s sensors had been as upgraded as its weapons, odds were they already knew what his hyperdrive was looking like. Not good even at the best of times, and this definitely wasn’t one of those. “No, we can handle it,” he said. “Just going to take a little time.”

  “Understood,” the other said. “But I believe you expressed some interest in speaking to the pirates. We have two prisoners, but we also have limited time to spend in this system. If you’re interested, you need to come over now.”

  Han looked at Luke. The other shrugged, but nodded. “Fine—we’ll be right over,” Han said. “You have a transfer tunnel that can lock with any of our hatches?”

  “Even better—our ventral hatch has a universal collar,” the other said. “We’ll come up over you and lock to your upper hatch.”

  Han had already noted that the voice that had spoken to him had sounded military. Now, as he and Luke climbed the ladder from the Suwantek’s lower hatch, he found that the two men waiting for them looked every bit as military as they had sounded.

  “Welcome aboard,” one of them said as Luke finished the climb and stepped to Han’s side.

  “Thanks,” Han said, looking around. They were in a relatively wide corridor with six doors on either side and one in the forward bulkhead directly behind their two hosts. Crew cabins along the sides, probably, and either the bridge or a crew lounge forward. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that the corridor widened briefly toward twin escape pod berths, then narrowed again to doors leading to cargo bays and engineering. “Nice ship.”

  “Thanks,” the first man said. “My name’s LaRone. This is Grave.”

  “Solo,” Han introduced himself, feeling a twinge as he did so. There were any number of ways, legit and otherwise, for someone to check up on his identity, and lying about it would just make him look more suspicious. Besides, aside from the thing with Jabba and a couple of other minor problems, he wasn’t in any particular trouble with anyone at the moment. At least, not if you didn’t count that whole Death Star thing, which nobody could prove. “This is Luke.”

  LaRone nodded a greeting. “Who do you fly for?”

  “We’re independents,” Han told him. “Pick up cargo where we can.”

  “Anyone else aboard your ship?”

  “My first mate, Chewbacca,” Han said.

  “That’s the Wookiee you saw on Drunost,” Luke added.

  Han threw the kid a warning look. But LaRone merely smiled. “Good—you remember us,” he said. “We certainly remember you.” He gestured toward the lightsaber hanging from Luke’s belt. “You actually know how to use that thing?”

  “A little,” Luke said. “I’m still learning.”

  “Where’d you get it?”

  “He stole it from a guy named Tooni,” Han said impatiently. “What do you care where he got it from? You said we could talk to your prisoners?”

  “In a minute,” LaRone said. “First, I’d like to know what you were doing in that tapcafe in Co
nso City.”

  Han shrugged. “Having a quiet drink.”

  “Who was the fourth person at the table?”

  “A friend,” Luke said.

  “One of the locals,” Han put in before Luke could say anything else. “Is there some problem with him?”

  “Could be,” LaRone said. “Let me lay it out for you. You were on Drunost when a raider attack went down. The man you were sitting with had also been present at another attack a few days earlier, that one by a swoop gang. And now we find you here at Purnham at the scene of yet another attack.”

  “We’re just doing a friend a favor,” Han said, feeling sweat gathering under his collar. There were several directions LaRone could be going with this conversation, none of them good. “He told us a friend of his was having trouble with pirates on the Purnham run. We weren’t especially busy, so we said we’d see if we could clear ’em out for him.”

  “We appreciate your help on that, by the way,” Luke added.

  “You’re welcome,” LaRone said. “We don’t like pirates much, either. Can you tell us why this friend of yours was also present at both Drunost attacks?”

  “For one thing, that’s where he lives,” Han said. “Besides, the hard part these days is avoiding trouble like that. The locals don’t have the resources to chase down these raiders, and the Imperials seem to have dropped out of the fight completely.”

  “So you’re saying it was pure coincidence?”

  “Not entirely,” Luke said.

  Han twisted his head around, forcing back a curse. What was the kid doing? “Luke—”

  “Explain,” LaRone said, his eyes still on Han.

  Luke flashed Han a slightly guilty look. But his voice was firm enough. “There’s a pirate gang working this sector called the BloodScars,” he said. “We understand they’re trying to make deals with all the other local pirates and raiders.”

  “You have any basis for that besides rumors?” LaRone asked.

  “The swoop gang you mentioned had shoulder patches with the BloodScar emblem,” Luke said. “When we heard about the pirates here at Purnham, we thought we might be able to find out from them what the BloodScars are up to.”