Allegiance

by Timothy Zahn

LaRone took a deep breath. “I’ll go open the safe.”

  Ten minutes later LaRone and the others stood at the foot of the portside ramp and watched as the patrollers drove away in a pair of repulsor-sleds, the speeder bikes strapped carefully to the rear storage racks. “You should have called us in,” Brightwater said, his voice dark and menacing. “We could have taken them.”

  “You would have gotten your heads blown off,” a voice said from behind them.

  LaRone spun around, his hand darting automatically toward his hidden blaster. A man in a dirty coversuit was walking toward them beneath the Suwantek’s belly, dragging a thick fuel hose behind him. “Who are you?” he demanded.

  “Name’s Krinkins,” the man said, clearly startled by the reaction. “Fuel service. You did call for a fill, right?”

  “Yes, we did,” Quiller confirmed.

  “And we wouldn’t have gotten our heads blown off,” Brightwater added stiffly.

  “Sure you would.” Krinkins paused, measuring them with his eyes. “Well, maybe not you,” he conceded. “At least, not right away. But sooner or later they’d have gotten you. There’s way too many of them to fight.”

  “You saying Whisteer’s squad isn’t running this alone?” LaRone asked.

  Krinkins snorted. “Whisteer’s not the one running it at all. That plummerine goes to Patroller Chief Cav’Saran.”

  “The chief?” Marcross echoed disbelievingly.

  “What, that surprises you?” Krinkins asked.

  “Yes, it does,” Marcross said. “The sector government’s supposed to screen the credentials of people appointed to high-ranking law enforcement positions.”

  Krinkins snorted. “Yeah. Right.”

  “I mean it,” Marcross insisted. “There are bureaucrats all over Shelkonwa whose only job is to watch out for this sort of thing.”

  “Well, the one in charge of Ranklinge apparently takes long naps at his desk,” Krinkins said bitterly. “We complained plenty in the early days. Didn’t do a scrap of good. Now, of course, Cav’Saran makes sure messages like that never make it onto the HoloNet.”

  “What about the Empire?” Quiller asked.

  Krinkins laughed, a short, derisive bark. “The Empire? We’ve had one Imperial ship come by Ranklinge in the past eight years, and that was an old Republic cruiser picking up a couple of diplomats who’d given up trying to mediate South Cont’s civil war. The Empire doesn’t even know we exist. Or care.”

  “What about you and the other locals?” LaRone asked. “Or don’t the citizens of Janusar care if their officials shake down visitors?”

  “The rest of Janusar hates it,” Krinkins said bluntly. “And it’s not just visitors, either—they lean pretty hard on all of us. But it’s blamed hard to fight blasters with your bare fists.”

  “I thought everyone seemed way too interested in our weapons,” Marcross murmured.

  “Yours and everyone else’s,” Krinkins said. “Eight months ago, right after Cav’Saran took over, they went through every house for two hundred kilometers and confiscated all the weapons they could find. Probably no more than a dozen slug rifles left anywhere in the whole four districts, and most of those are out on ranches where they need ’em to protect the herds from predators.” He glanced furtively around. “I don’t suppose … no—never mind.”

  “We don’t have any weapons for sale, if that’s what you were wondering,” LaRone said, flicking a warning glance at the others. They had no way of knowing whether or not Krinkins was really what he seemed. “How many men does Cav’Saran have?”

  “About three hundred,” the fueler said. “All the uniformed patrollers—he fired or squeezed out the honest ones after he took over—plus a few plainclothesmen who wander around watching for troublemakers.”

  “Aren’t you worried about talking to us this way?” Grave asked. “How do you know we’re not informers?”

  Krinkins snorted and started attaching the hose to the Suwantek’s intake port. “I don’t,” he growled. “But I’m at the point where I don’t even care anymore. You want to call Cav’Saran and have me locked up for sedition, go right ahead.”

  “I admire your courage,” LaRone said. “Any more like you who are sick enough of this to take a chance?”

  Krinkins frowned at him, an odd look on his face. “What do you mean?” he asked carefully.

  “I just thought that anybody ready for a change might want to gather together outside Patroller Central tonight,” LaRone said. “Say, about seven o’clock.”

  Krinkins snorted. “If you’re talking about a protest, forget it,” he said. “They just ignore things like that. At least, until they get tired enough of the crowds to break ’em up with a little scattered blasterfire.”

  “You just get them there,” LaRone told the fueler, sternly forcing back his rising anger. There was no room for emotion here. “And make sure you invite all those honest ex-patrollers you mentioned.”

  Two minutes later the five stormtroopers were gathered in the crew lounge. It was Brightwater who stated what LaRone knew the others were thinking. “You realize, of course,” he said, “that doing anything at all here would be totally insane.”

  “Agreed,” Grave seconded. “We haven’t got the manpower or the support system.”

  “Not to mention the authority,” Quiller murmured.

  “I disagree,” LaRone said. “We took an oath of allegiance to serve the Empire. These people are citizens of that Empire.”

  “And Cav’Saran is clearly violating his own oath,” Grave said. “I agree the man’s a scum sorter. That doesn’t change the fact that we can’t take on three hundred armed men all by ourselves.”

  “It won’t be all by ourselves,” LaRone said. “If I’m reading Krinkins right, we should have a good-sized crowd waiting when we pull up to Patroller Central tonight.”

  “All of them unarmed,” Brightwater reminded him.

  “Not for long,” LaRone said. “We’re talking a patroller station. There should be plenty of blasters sitting in racks inside.”

  “And you’re going to hand them over to an angry mob?” Quiller countered.

  “No, that’s why I asked Krinkins to bring the ex-patrollers,” LaRone said. “Hopefully, they’ll have both the training and the moral authority to take charge.”

  “It’s still insane,” Brightwater insisted. “Marcross? You’re being awfully quiet.”

  “Of course it’s insane,” Marcross agreed. “My only question is how exactly we want to put it together.”

  Brightwater looked at Quiller and Grave, a stunned look on his face. “You’re kidding,” he said, looking back at Marcross. “You, of all people, want to do this?”

  “You do remember we’re on the run, right?” Grave asked.

  “And we’re on the run ultimately because we didn’t like being ordered to abuse our authority,” Marcross countered. “Are we going to be selective as to which abuses we stand up to and which we turn our backs on?”

  “Are you sure you’re not just mad at people like this running around your own sector?” Quiller asked pointedly.

  “I’ll admit there’s some of that,” Marcross conceded. “But my personal feelings don’t change the reality of the situation.” He gestured to LaRone. “A minute ago LaRone mentioned moral authority. If we as representatives of the Empire don’t have that, who does?”

  “Except that we aren’t representatives of the Empire,” Quiller reminded him. “Not anymore.”

  “Cav’Saran won’t know that,” LaRone said. “And if we do this right, he also won’t know we don’t have a whole legion behind us.”

  For a long moment the lounge was silent. Then Grave shrugged. “As long as we all agree it’s insane, I don’t mind going along. Besides, we have to get Brightwater’s speeder bikes back.”

  “There is that,” Brightwater said reluctantly.

  Quiller shook his head, expelling his breath in a soft huff. “Oh, sure, why not,” he said. “Assuming we can com
e up with a halfway workable plan.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” LaRone assured him grimly. “The only real question is how much damage we want to inflict on Cav’Saran’s people. Here’s what I had in mind …”

  Chapter Eight

  THEY SPENT THE REST OF THE DAY BUYING THEIR supplies, doing some quiet reconnaissance in the Patroller Central area, and preparing and fine-tuning their plan.

  By the appointed time, they were ready.

  There was a surprisingly good crowd waiting outside Patroller Central as LaRone maneuvered the speeder truck along the road. At least four hundred of them, he estimated, three to four times more than he’d expected. Apparently the citizens of Janusar really were serious about dealing with their oppressors.

  The stormtroopers hadn’t tried to get inside the headquarters on their earlier probes, but from the building’s design they’d concluded it had probably started life as a regional assembly center, with a large domed gathering room in the center and a single-story ring of offices and smaller meeting rooms wrapped around it. The protesters were gathered on a small grassy park area just in front of the building, the park separated from the building itself by a wide passenger-drop drive. From the building side of the drive a wide flight of stone steps led up to a set of ornate double doors.

  Standing in a line in front of those doors, scowling and fingering their holstered blasters as they gazed out across the gathered citizenry, were six uniformed patrollers.

  The crowd had spilled from the grass onto the drive, but they moved aside with only scattered hesitation as LaRone eased the speeder truck slowly through the mass toward the building. A few peered intently in at him, or tried with shaded eyes to pierce the rear windows’ privacy tint and see who might be seated on the two bench seats behind him, and LaRone found himself wondering what exactly Krinkins had told them about the strangers.

  He reached the front of the building, but instead of parking alongside the curb he gave the vehicle a hard ninety-degree turn, leaving it straddled across the drive with its nose pointed toward the scowling guards at the top of the stairway. “Hey!” one of them called as LaRone lifted the swing-wing door and got out. “Get that bantha dropping out of there!”

  “Yeah, yeah, just a second,” LaRone called back, waving vaguely at them as he closed the door again.

  He’d expected Krinkins to be close at hand, and he wasn’t disappointed. Even as he turned to survey the silent crowd the fueler detached himself from the front line and walked over to him. His face was grim but with an edge of cautious hope. “You came,” he said, his eyes flicking to the privacy-tinted windows. “I wasn’t sure you would.”

  “Did you get any of the ex-patrollers?” LaRone asked.

  Krinkins nodded back over his shoulder. “I found eight. They’re all here.”

  “Good,” LaRone said. “When I signal you, bring them forward.”

  “Wait a second,” Krinkins said. “What are you—”

  Without waiting for him to finish, LaRone turned and strode up the steps.

  “You deaf, sluggy?” one of the patrollers growled as LaRone reached the wide landing. The man had a single-ear headset with a wire mike curving along his cheek and wore a lieutenant’s insignia on his shoulders. “I told you to move that thing.”

  “Don’t worry, I will,” LaRone assured him, taking another step to close the gap between them. “I’m just here about some property your people seized earlier today.”

  “Oh, you’re Whisteer’s guy,” the man said, eyeing him with contemptuous curiosity. He gestured over LaRone’s shoulder with his blaster. “You the one responsible for this, too?”

  LaRone half turned to look at the crowd. “You mean them?” he asked, his left hand waving out toward the assembly. Under cover of the movement, his right hand dipped into his side tunic pocket.

  “Yeah, them,” the man said. “ ’Cause if you are—”

  And in a single simultaneous motion all four of the speeder truck’s rear doors swung up and the other stormtroopers stepped out, their armor gleaming in the streetlight, their BlasTech E-11s pointed at the line of patrollers.

  The lieutenant’s threat broke off in midword as a startled gasp rippled through the crowd. “No noise, please,” LaRone said quietly, pressing his hold-out blaster into the notch at the base of the other’s throat. With his other hand he pulled off the headset, shutting it off as he did so. “No sudden movements, either,” he added.

  From the expressions on the patrollers’ faces, it didn’t look like any of them had the slightest intention of making trouble. They stood as stiff as six hardwood trees, their hands frozen well clear of their holsters, as the four stormtroopers marched up the steps. Catching Krinkins’s eye, LaRone gestured him forward. The fueler nodded and made a gesture of his own, and with five men and three women behind him he headed up the steps behind the stormtroopers. “These your patrollers?” LaRone asked as he pulled the white-faced lieutenant’s blaster from its holster.

  “Yes, sir,” Krinkins said, his voice crisp and vibrant with a sudden new hope as he nodded to a middle-aged man with streaks of gray through his hair. “This is Colonel Atmino, senior officer.”

  “Forcibly retired,” Atmino added, a glint in his eye as he looked at the patrollers.

  “Consider yourself reinstated,” LaRone told him, handing him the lieutenant’s weapon. “I hereby deputize you and your squad. Disarm these men, and put them under arrest pending prosecution for any crimes they may have committed.”

  “Yes, sir,” Atmino said, straightening up to full parade attention as he waved three of his people forward. “Other orders?”

  “Just stay here and guard the prisoners,” LaRone said. “We’ll take care of Cav’Saran.” He looked over Atmino’s shoulder. “And keep the crowd under control. When you inform the governor’s office about this, you won’t want your claim muddied by charges of disorder or rioting.”

  “Understood,” Atmino said, getting a firm grip on the lieutenant’s arm. “We’ll take care of it.”

  LaRone gestured to the other stormtroopers. “Let’s go.”

  The double doors opened on a wide, marble-floored lobby area that stretched fifteen meters ahead to a curved wall and a second set of double doors. To the right and left the lobby narrowed into a pair of corridors that curved around the central core, their elaborately frescoed walls interrupted at intervals by the doors of private offices.

  At this hour, LaRone guessed, most of the outer offices would be vacant. Leaving them for later, he strode to the double doors, dropping his hold-out blaster back into his side pocket. He gestured to the other stormtroopers to stay out of sight, then pulled the doors open and stepped inside.

  As they had surmised earlier, the inner room was indeed a single large chamber, which the patrollers had converted from a meeting hall into a squad room. Packed onto the main floor and the ring of small balconies set into the upper wall beneath the dome were almost two hundred desks and workstations. Nearly all the desks were occupied, LaRone noted, though only a few of the patrollers seemed to be actually working. The rest were just sitting there, fiddling with data cards or their blasters, or conversing in low tones with the other fifty or so patrollers who were standing or wandering around the room. In response to the protest outside, Chief Cav’Saran had apparently pulled in most of his force.

  Perfect.

  LaRone made no effort to downplay his grand entrance, but even if he had, he doubted it would have made any difference. The patrollers were on hair-trigger, and even before he’d made it all the way into the room all heads had snapped around.

  “What do you want?” a bulky patroller demanded from his perch atop a tall reception desk just to the right of the door.

  “I’m here to see Whisteer,” LaRone said, putting enough air behind the words to make sure they carried all the way across the room. “And Chief Cav’Saran.”

  “You’re early,” Whisteer’s voice growled back, and LaRone saw him straighten up
from a conversation by one of the desks. “The forms aren’t ready yet.”

  “That’s okay,” LaRone said. “I wasn’t going to fill them out anyway. Which one of you is Cav’Saran?”

  There was a moment of silence, and then a man with a badly scarred face detached himself from one of the conversation groups. “I’m Chief Cav’Saran,” he growled, his tone making it a challenge. “You have a problem?”

  “I have a complaint,” LaRone said. “Some of your men tried to shake me down this morning.”

  Cav’Saran’s eyebrows lifted. “Really?” he asked in a tone of feigned politeness. “How?”

  “They charged excessive fees and stole some of my cargo.”

  “Did they, now,” Cav’Saran said, an amused smile starting to tug at the corners of his mouth. “And who exactly was responsible for this outrage?”

  “Sergeant Whisteer, for one,” LaRone said, pointing at Whisteer as he let his gaze sweep across the room’s occupants. The circular floor plan allowed for no blind corners, and though the desks would provide cover in a gun battle, there wasn’t nearly enough room behind them for everyone.

  More problematic was the high ground being held by the men on the balcony workstations. Most of the ones up there were wearing officers’ insignia, though, and seemed more curious or bemused than hair-trigger hostile.

  Still, there were plenty of the latter type scattered around the main floor. Mentally tagging their locations, LaRone pointed to three of the others who’d been aboard the Suwantek that morning. “Those three were there, too,” he added, “plus seven more.”

  “And what exactly would you like me to do about it?” the chief asked, still playing along.

  “I want them arrested,” LaRone said. “They’re to be charged with extortion, theft, and abuse of power.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  LaRone looked around the room again. The sense of hostility was starting to grow as the novelty of the confrontation faded, but so far none of the patrollers seemed to have considered it worth drawing their blasters. “Then I’ll have to find someone else to do the job,” he said.