Fool's Bargain

by Timothy Zahn

  The corridor was wide, low-ceilinged, and dimly lit, with the cross corridor Watchman had deduced about eight meters ahead. The sounds of thudding Lakran feet filled the air, echoing off the stone walls and making it difficult to get a fix on direction or distance. Still, Twister thought as they hurried toward the cross corridor, the entrances to the other watchtowers ought to be at least a couple of corridors away from their current position, and both of them somewhere off to their left. If the infiltrators could make it to the cross corridor undetected, they would then be moving away from the main focus of activity as they headed for the dungeons.

  They were nearly to the cross corridor when their luck ran out.

  The six armored mercenaries who came thundering along down the cross corridor nearly ran down Shadow as he started to ease his helmet around the corner. There was a screech of surprise from one of them as they skidded to an uneven halt that left them spread out in a line across the intersection. They fumbled with their blasters, trying to bring them to bear on the unexpected intruders.

  Watchman and Shadow were already firing, their BlasTechs sending a rapid-fire stutter of blaster bolts into the torso plates of the two Lakra at their end of the line. Automatically, Twister focused his attention on the other end of the shooting gallery, sending a multiple burst of fire across that mercenary’s chest. Beside him, Su-mil was firing at the Lakra beside Twister’s opponent, the heavy thuds of his projectile weapon forming a counterpoint to the high-pitched whine of the Imperial blasters.

  It was only as his target Lakra began to stagger under his assault that Twister realized that none of the other Eickaries was firing.

  Which left two of the Lakra completely unopposed as they brought their weapons around.

  The first salvo caught Twister squarely across the chest. But with their weapons still in motion only a small number of the energy bolts actually connected with his armor, the rest under- or overshooting him. There was a sudden gurgle from behind him as one of the Eickaries apparently caught some of the wild shots—

  Then Su-mil shifted his aim, abandoning his original target and booming a pair of rounds into each of the as-yet-untouched Lakra.

  It wasn’t nearly enough to stop them, not as fully armored as they were. But unlike the BlasTechs, the projectile weapon packed a heavy punch. The impact sent the two Lakra staggering, deflecting their own fire into the ceiling for perhaps half a second.

  Half a second was enough. Watchman and Shadow had finished off their opponents and now opened fire on the two Su-mil had just rocked back on their heels. Twister shifted his fire back to his original and not-quite-silenced enemy, noticing Su-mil do the same with his.

  Three seconds later, it was all over.

  Shadow and Watchman were out in the cross corridor straddling the smoking Lakran bodies as they checked both ends of the hall. “Clear,” Watchman announced. “But it won’t be for long.”

  “Acknowledged,” Twister said, looking behind him at the Eickaries.

  They were just standing there, some of them twitching a little, others fingering their weapons uncertainly, all of them staring at the dead enemies.

  Enemies they themselves hadn’t lifted a finger to help kill.

  Twister let his gaze linger another second, then turned to Su-mil. “You called them soldiers?” he asked pointedly.

  Su-mil’s orange highlights had gone a dusky brown. “They froze with surprise,” he said, his voice unreadable. Explanation or excuse, Twister couldn’t tell which. “I apologize for their failure. It will not happen again.”

  “I’d really like to believe that,” Twister told him. “Unfortunately, I don’t think I can take that chance.”

  “Do you mean to go back on your promise?” Su-mil asked bluntly.

  Twister hesitated. The Eickaries placed great store in promises made between those who had exchanged full names. But at the same time, he had a mission and orders of his own to deal with. “We’ll still free your prisoners,” he said. “But only after we’ve captured the Warlord.”

  Su-mil didn’t answer. Twister eyed him another second, giving him every opportunity to argue his case. “Then you had best depart,” the Eickarie said at last.

  “Footsteps,” Watchman snapped, he and Shadow stepping back into the partial cover of the corner.

  “Direction?” Twister demanded, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as he moved forward to join them.

  “Could be either,” Watchman told him, swiveling his head back and forth. “All these echoes—”

  “Never mind.” Twister cut him off, coming to a sudden decision. The bulk of the Lakra would still be congregating off to their left to oppose Aurek Company’s attack. Therefore, he and his unit would go right. “Head right. Maybe we can skulk our way past them.”

  He stepped around the corner and hurried down the corridor, the other two stormtroopers forming up behind him. Ten meters ahead, another corridor cut across theirs at an angle. They could hear more thudding footsteps, some of them definitely coming closer—

  “Halt!” Su-mil’s voice barked suddenly from behind him. “Lower your weapons!”

  Twister turned, sheer surprise bringing him to a stop. Su-mil and his soldiers had poured into the corridor behind the Imperials and assembled themselves into a classic two-tier firing wall. “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

  And then, ten meters behind the Eickaries, a dozen Lakra suddenly appeared around a corner, surging down the passageway toward them like a bad-tempered river. There was another burst of noise from behind him, and Twister turned back to see another mercenary squad appear from the angled corridor ahead.

  Unit Aurek-Seven of the 501st had been trapped.

  “Lower your weapons to the ground,” Su-mil repeated, lifting his rifle to point squarely at Twister’s face. “Do it now, or you will die.”

  There didn’t seem to be many options. “Do it,” Twister growled to Shadow and Watchman, crouching down and setting his BlasTech onto the floor.

  Shifting his rifle to a one-handed grip, Su-mil lifted the other hand above the heads of his soldiers and gestured toward the approaching Lakra. “Fellow servants of our Glorious Majesty!” he shouted. “We have captured them!”

  The first wave of Lakra picked their way past the bodies of their comrades at the intersection and came to a halt behind the Eickaries, their weapons trained warily on the natives’ backs. Leaving the rest of his squad on guard, the mercenary leader strode through the group to Su-mil’s side, shoving aside anyone not quick enough to get out of his way. “What have we here?” he growled in a voice that sounded like rocks being run through a fruit blender, the heavy blaster in his massive hand holding steady on Twister’s chest. “Imperial stormtroopers. An interesting catch.”

  He looked sideways at Su-mil. “If they were indeed caught,” he added pointedly. “Who are you, and what are you doing uninvited in His Glorious Majesty’s home?”

  “I am Su-mil.” Su-mil’s aim shifted slightly, as if he no longer needed to keep as close a watch on the Imperials now that the Lakra had arrived. “I am a loyal subject of His Glorious Majesty, who finds heartache in the invasion of my home by Imperial intruders.”

  “That may be as it may be,” the squad leader said. “Why are you here?”

  “Ah, that is a tale of extreme Eickarie courage,” Su-mil said proudly. “We found them on the street, clearly intent on attacking our Glorious Majesty’s home. They pointed their weapons at us and demanded we lead them inside.”

  Twister frowned. That wasn’t at all the way it had been. What was Su-mil trying to do, make himself and his friends look more heroic?

  “And you did so?” the Lakra prompted.

  Again, Su-mil’s aim twitched fractionally to the side. “We showed them where the tunnel was hidden and brought them through it,” he said.

  “How?” the Lakra asked. “Both towers were guarded.”

  “There is an unguarded entrance.”

  “You will
take us to this entrance as soon as these enemies have been secured,” the squad leader said ominously. “Did more of them come in?”

  “No,” Su-mil said. “These three were all we brought in.”

  “Yet others may follow,” the Lakra said, turning halfway around and giving a brief order in his own language. One of the mercenaries grunted a response, and a third of them turned and hurried back the way they’d come. Again stepping carefully over the bodies of their fallen comrades, they returned to the corner where they’d first appeared and set up a defensive position. “And these?” the leader continued, gesturing back toward the dead Lakra. “What happened to them?”

  “The Imperials shot them down,” Su-mil said, his voice contemptuous. Again, his weapon shifted. “I and my people played no part in the slaughter.”

  “Despite these weapons you carry?” the squad leader snapped, his voice suddenly heavy with suspicion. “And how do you come by them, if the invaders merely stopped you on the street?”

  Su-mil’s weapon shifted aim again. “The weapons are ours,” he conceded. “We told the Imperials we would agree to assist them.” Once more, his aim shifted. “But we would never use such weapons against our Glorious Majesty and our fellow servants.”

  Twister grimaced. He was a traitor, all right, a traitor to his own people as well as to the Imperials who were bleeding and dying to try to help them. And a shameless smooth-talker on top of it, standing there looking calmly at his victims as he pointed his weapon at Twister’s left eye.

  His left eye?

  Twister stiffened as it suddenly clicked. The weapon’s apparently arbitrary movement wasn’t arbitrary at all. It was, instead, Su-mil carefully alternating his aim between Twister’s left and right eyes.

  Left-handed: a lie. Right-handed: the truth.

  Quickly, he ran back through the conversation, this time paying attention to where the weapon had been pointed at each exchange. We have captured them—a lie. I am Su-mil—the truth. I am a loyal subject of His Glorious Majesty—a lie. We found them on the street, clearly intent on attacking our Glorious Majesty’s home—the truth. They pointed their weapons at us and demanded we lead them inside—a lie. We showed them where the tunnel was hidden—the truth. I and my people played no part in the slaughter—a lie. We told the Imperials we would agree to assist them—the truth.

  We would never use such weapons against our Glorious Majesty and our fellow servants—a lie.

  And for the first time since Aurek-Seven had run into Su-mil and his soldiers, Twister felt a tight smile creasing his face. A clever and resourceful fellow, this Su-mil. And he was obviously hoping Twister and his fellow Imperials were the same.

  Because it was suddenly clear what the Eickarie had in mind. He’d told the truth about an unguarded entrance into the fortress, but the Lakran squad leader had jumped to the conclusion that that entrance was connected to one of the two known tunnels. The fact that he’d sent some of his troops back to guard against any further intrusion from that direction was proof.

  Which meant that if Aurek Company had sent reinforcements, they might be emerging any moment now into the middle of a split enemy force.

  Both parts of which were facing the wrong direction.

  Reaching out with his tongue, he touched his comlink switch. “Cloud: report,” he murmured, pitching his voice low enough to be inaudible outside his helmet.

  Cloud’s voice in his ear was the most welcome thing he’d heard for days. “We’re in the room beyond the wall,” Cloud’s voice came promptly in his ears. “Situation?”

  “Pinned to right of first cross,” Twister said, sensing Shadow and Watchman stir slightly as their comlinks came on and they picked up the news of the approaching reinforcements. “Enemy split: four-eight. Friendlies pinned with us to right.”

  “Acknowledged,” Cloud said. “On our way.”

  “It’s good to know the Glorious Majesty has such loyal supporters,” the Lakran squad leader rumbled to Su-mil with only a hint of sarcasm. “You will put your weapons on the floor now.”

  “But we face very dangerous enemies,” Su-mil protested, his weapon shifting to Twister’s right eye. “We cannot know when it will be necessary to fire.”

  “The Lakra will do any firing that is necessary,” the squad leader assured him, turning his blaster away from Twister and pressing the muzzle against the side of Su-mil’s neck. “Now. Put down your weapons.”

  “You’ll have no trouble on that score anyway,” Twister said, lifting his right hand and pointing his forefinger straight at Su-mil’s right eye. “When you see your friends falling in front of you, you’ll know the time of death has arrived.”

  “Silence!” the squad leader spat, sending a baleful glare at the stormtroopers. From Twister’s headset came a pair of acknowledging double-clicks as Shadow and Watchman confirmed his veiled order. “Very soon now, you will be begging for the time of death to be allowed you.”

  “Countdown: three,” Cloud’s voice murmured in Twister’s ear.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Twister said proudly, raising his voice to fill the corridor and help cover any inadvertent footfalls. “Somehow, I don’t think so.”

  And as the last word rang through the air, a group of white-armored men boiled into the corridor behind the Eickaries.

  Twister didn’t wait to see any more. Even as the reinforcements began firing at both ends of the split Lakran force, he and the rest of Aurek-Seven threw themselves flat onto the floor.

  Leaving a direct line of fire between the mercenaries behind them and the Eickarie firing wall.

  Su-mil had promised that his soldiers wouldn’t freeze the next time. He was right. Twister hadn’t even gotten a grip on his dropped weapon when the hodgepodge of Eickarie weapons opened up, laying down a blaze of fire at the Lakran squad. By the time he had scooped up the BlasTech and rolled over ready to use it, the battle was over.

  He scrambled hastily to his feet. “Report,” he called into his comlink.

  “Clear,” Cloud’s voice came back. “No casualties.”

  The same, unfortunately, couldn’t be said for the Eickaries. Of the twenty soldiers Su-mil had brought in with them, six were on the floor, four writhing silently in pain, the other two already dead. Even outnumbered as they’d been, the Lakran squad had given a good account of themselves.

  At least, he hoped all the casualties had been caused by the Lakra. It would be very unfortunate if some of the rescuers had accidentally overshot their targets.

  “This way, Twister,” Cloud called. Twister looked up from the Eickarie casualties to find the rest of the stormtrooper squad moving back along the corridor toward the intersection where the newly dead Lakra were lying. “The company’s meeting heavy resistance in the tunnels,” he went on. “New orders are to attack from this end and try to break up their defenses.”

  Twister looked at Su-mil. The Eickarie was standing over the body of the Lakran squad leader, his eyes on Twister, his orange highlights gone dark again. “I’m sorry, but we can’t do that,” he told Cloud. “I made a deal with Su-mil to clear the dungeons first.”

  Cloud stopped short, turning around to look back at his unit leader. “Twister, this was a direct order,” he warned.

  “Understood,” Twister said. “Good luck. We’ll join you when we can.”

  One of the other stormtroopers had paused beside Cloud. “Yet you said you would not help us,” Su-mil reminded Twister quietly.

  “That was when I wasn’t sure I could rely on your soldiers,” Twister told him. “You’ve now proven that I can.” A movement caught his eye: Cloud and the other stormtrooper had finished their conversation, and Cloud was jogging back down the corridor toward them as the rest of the stormtroopers resumed their march in the other direction. “I hope you’re not here to argue,” he warned as Cloud came to a halt in front of him.

  “Hardly,” Cloud assured him. “I decided that if they can manage without three of us, they can probably manage witho
ut four.”

  “And whole-unit court-martials are so much more efficient?” Shadow said dryly.

  “Something like that,” Cloud agreed. “Let’s move.”

  Su-mil detailed three of his soldiers to take their dead and wounded back into the relative safety of the tunnel. Then, with Su-mil and Twister in the lead, the twelve remaining Eickaries and four stormtroopers set off for the dungeons.

  They met no further resistance. Apparently, the squad that had burst in on them from this direction had been the last Lakra who hadn’t already been summoned to either the tunnel defenses or to the surface. Alternating his attention between the distant battle reports, his helmet sensors, and the hallways themselves, Twister wondered if he dared hope that even the dungeon guards might have been called away to active service.

  No such luck. At Su-mil’s murmured warning, he and Shadow swung out around the last corner to find two armored Lakra standing at attention beside a massive metal door, blaster carbines slung over their shoulders.

  A direct assault on the dungeons was apparently the last thing anyone in the Warlord’s command structure was expecting. The two stormtroopers got off a solid volley before the guards had time to do more than scramble madly for their weapons. As the blaster bolts shredded the mercenaries’ armor, Su-mil stepped out of concealment and finished the job with a pair of shots from his projectile weapon. “We must hurry,” the Eickarie said as the two Lakra thudded to the floor.

  “Wait a second,” Cloud said as Watchman headed for the door. “We agreed to get you to the dungeons—”

  “You agreed to assist in freeing the prisoners,” Su-mil cut him off. “Come. Now.”

  “Twister?” Cloud asked, his mind clearly on their comrades fighting in the tunnels a quarter of the fortress away.

  “You heard him,” Twister said, suppressing his own impatience. “Come on.”

  The outer door opened onto a wide landing from which a dozen steps led down to a large, circular cavern with more locked doors spaced around its circumference. “How fast can you open them?” Su-mil asked, looking around.