The other broke off. “We don’t know why we’re here tonight,” Twister told Ha-ran honestly. “None of us is high enough in the counsels of our tribe’s princes to be given such answers.”
“They are called ‘generals,’ not princes,” Su-mil put in. “And you have no tribes, but only the single Empire of the Hand. Do not patronize us, stormtrooper.”
Twister turned back to face him. There was something vaguely comical about the Eickarie’s stance, a small part of his mind noted, sitting up there on the sealing table with his feet dangling half a meter off the floor.
But at the same time, there was a strength and resolve in his eyes and posture that silenced any inclination toward laughter. “You’re right,” Twister acknowledged. “I was merely attempting to speak in terms your people would be familiar with.”
“We are familiar with many terms,” Su-mil said.
“As I now understand,” Twister said. “I ask your forgiveness for my unintended offense.”
For a moment the other studied him. Then, his orange highlights faded to amber. “My forgiveness is given,” he said. “You admit, then, that you seek to meet the Warlord face to face?”
“Our orders are to penetrate the fortress and take him alive,” Twister told him. “As I said, I haven’t been told the reason behind those orders.”
“Then let me tell you what we think,” Su-mil said. “We think your Empire of the Hand is hoping to make a bargain with the Warlord—a fool’s bargain, which will bring ruin on all who raise a hand to it. We think you have united the Eickarie people this way solely to obtain a stronger bartering position for yourselves.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Twister insisted reflexively. “I can’t believe my prin—my generals would do such a thing.”
“Why not?” Ha-ran demanded. “Are the plundered relics and treasures of the Eickarie people worth nothing to you who travel the stars?”
“Or perhaps the Warlord is already an ally of yours,” Su-mil added. “None of the Eickaries has ever seen him outside his armor. For all the evidence we have, he could even be a human like yourselves.”
Twister took a deep breath. Unfortunately, that was another very good point. As far as he knew, none of the Imperials knew what kind of being was walking around inside the Warlord’s fancy armor, either.
But the possibility that it could be a renegade Imperial had never even occurred to him. “I don’t know the reasons for my orders,” he said. “But this is my third campaign for the Empire of the Hand, and I’ve studied the histories of many others. Certainly my leaders have made mistakes, but I have never known them to betray those who trusted them.”
“So for you it comes down to a matter of trust?” Su-mil asked.
“Ultimately, that’s what it comes down to for any of us,” Twister told him. “Trust in your leaders and allies, and loyalty to those who have put their trust in you.”
He gestured toward the door. “And right now, there are soldiers out there who have put their trust in us, relying on us to protect their flank from attack. I would humbly request that you allow us to leave and fulfill that trust.”
For a long moment the room was silent. Su-mil eyed him, his highlights subtly changing shade as he considered. Then, suddenly, they returned to their original orange. “I offer a bargain of my own,” he said. “In the dungeons of this fortress you seek to penetrate are hundreds of Eickaries who have been imprisoned over the years by the Warlord and his soldiers. Most committed no offense but to resist his tyranny. Will you commit yourself and your fellow stormtroopers to releasing them before you carry your battle to the Warlord’s inner stronghold?”
Twister felt an unpleasant shiver run through him. He wasn’t trained to negotiate with these people. He certainly wasn’t authorized to make tactical arrangements with them.
Trained to walk that fine line between obedience and initiative . . .
“I’m not sure I can commit to such a promise,” he said carefully. “My orders are very clear, and the lives of my fellow soldiers lie in the balance. Most of the fortress’s outer defenses are controlled from the Warlord’s inner stronghold; the sooner we can capture it, the sooner the battle will be over.”
“We will certainly release the Eickarie prisoners,” Shadow added. “We just may not be able to do so before we face the Warlord.”
“I understand your conflict,” Su-mil said. “Let me perhaps make the bargain sweeter to your lips. If you will right-handedly make to me this promise, I will lead you inside the fortress along a path the Warlord knows nothing about.”
A murmur rippled through the assembled Eickaries, an echo of the stir Twister could sense going through his own men. Apparently, Su-mil’s offer had taken everyone by surprise. “What kind of path are we talking about?” he asked. “Is it nearby? Surface, aerial, underground?”
“Do not tell him!” Ha-ran snarled. “This is our fight, not theirs. Our responsibility, not theirs.”
“It is nearby,” Su-mil said, his large eyes unblinkingly on Twister.
“This is a fool’s bargain, Su-mil—”
“Be silent, Ha-ran,” Su-mil said calmly, cutting him off. “For here, and for now, I command. What say you, Imperial? I will not tell you more until you have agreed.”
Twister took a careful breath. Obedience and initiative . . . “I have no authority to bind anyone but myself and my unit,” he told the Eickarie. “But if you can indeed get us in past the Warlord’s defenses, I pledge that Unit Aurek-Seven of the Five-oh-First Stormtrooper Legion will do whatever we can to assist in the release of your prisoners.”
“And I’ll bet we won’t be helping you alone, either,” Shadow put in. “The commander will definitely want to know about this.”
“Yes,” Twister said. “We can’t risk using comlinks, but I’ll send one of my men back to contact Aurek Company’s commander and report on our situation and your offer.”
“We cannot accept more delay,” Su-mil warned. “Already this discussion has devoured precious time.”
“Three of us can go with you right now,” Twister offered. “If the commander decides to send in more forces, they can catch up.” He gestured to Cloud. “Get back and report the situation, and strongly urge that he send in backup. Su-mil, can they come here to get directions to this secret back door?”
“I will leave two of my soldiers behind to guide them,” Su-mil said.
My soldiers. Twister felt a new shiver run up his back. This wasn’t just some group of vigilantes or gang of would-be plunderers, then. That could be good, or it could be very dangerous.
But at the moment, he had more important things to worry about. “Go,” he told Cloud, giving the proper hand signal to confirm the order. Cloud nodded acceptance; crossing the room, he stepped through the circle of Eickaries and headed out again into the rain.
Twister looked back at Su-mil. “I have made the best bargain that I can,” he said. “The decision to accept or reject it is now yours.”
Again, Su-mil seemed to study him, as if there were anything he could learn by staring at stormtrooper armor. “I accept,” he declared, lifting his right hand and tracing out a complicated pattern in the air. “I, Su-mil of the Family Meen-tris, Clan Sav-ro, Tribe Hu-shi-crive, do make this bargain with you.”
“And I, Jorm Whistler Mackenni of Unit Aurek-Seven of the Five-oh-First Legion of the Imperial Stormtroopers of the Empire of the Hand, make this bargain with you,” Twister replied in turn. It felt strange to speak his real name while in full armor, but the situation clearly demanded it. “Where exactly is this back door?”
Su-mil’s highlights went pink in another Eickarie smile. “It is directly behind you,” he said. “Unknown to the Warlord, this particular fortress had three watchtowers.”
“Four centuries ago, the Cro-sal-trei tribal chief commanding the fortress found himself attacked by two other tribes,” Su-mil explained as the three stormtroopers and twenty of the Eickaries made their way down the dark tunnel. “When
it was clear that the battle was lost, he and his family and supporters attempted to flee. Unfortunately for them, the attacking tribes knew about the third watchtower and were able to trap them inside the tunnel.”
Twister winced as his foot crunched something underfoot. Another bone, probably. The floor was littered with the things, along with rusted twists of metal and occasional scraps of brightly colored clothing. “It would seem they lost that battle, too.”
“There was no battle,” Su-mil said. “The attackers merely sealed both ends of the tunnel and left them here to die.”
Behind Twister, Watchman muttered something. “Would you have preferred many have died in unneeded combat?” Su-mil demanded, half turning to glare at the other.
“Please keep your voice down,” Twister said, throwing Watchman a warning hand signal. Confined inside a narrow tunnel, outnumbered seven to one by a group of Eickarie paramilitaries with the Warlord’s mercenaries not all that far away, was not the time to have a discussion on military ethics. “There might be listening devices at the other end.”
“They will hear nothing,” Su-mil said, still glowering. “The tunnel is heavily protected against detection and attack. We may seem primitive to you of the Empire of the Hand, but we are not savages.”
“I never believed that you were,” Twister assured him. That explained why they hadn’t picked up Su-mil’s soldiers until they’d emerged onto the stairways. The entire watchtower building probably incorporated the same sensor-blocking materials as the tunnel itself. “Why didn’t the next owner unseal it and put it back in operation?”
“It was not known what survival equipment the trapped enemies might have taken inside with them,” Su-mil said. “It was therefore thought prudent to leave the tunnel sealed for at least a year. Unfortunately, before that year ended the victors were overthrown in a sudden attack by yet another tribe.”
Twister nodded his understanding. “Who didn’t know anything about the third watchtower.”
“Correct,” Su-mil said. “And they could not learn otherwise because their victims had already altered the floor plans. This newest group of occupants unwittingly repeated the omission with their own diagrams, and the truth has been hidden ever since.”
“How come you know about it?” Shadow asked.
“The family who had the honor of the first tribal leader’s final defeat was mine,” Su-mil said, an unmistakable note of pride in his voice. “It is a history that has been passed down among us.”
With an eye toward holding it as a trump card against some future enemy, no doubt, Twister decided. Little could they have anticipated what sort of enemy that would turn out to be.
“Air vent coming up on the right,” Watchman murmured.
“We need to be extra quiet now, Su-mil,” Twister warned. “Vents are good at piping sound places where you don’t want it to go.”
“I see no vent,” Su-mil said, craning his neck forward.
“It’s recessed,” Watchman told him. “But I can see the eddy pattern in the dust.”
“You see remarkably well,” Su-mil said, lifting a hand over his head and tracing out a pattern with his fingers. Abruptly, the muffled noises of Eickarie footsteps and the softer sounds of weapons rubbing against clothing ceased completely. The aliens became shadows moving in the darkness, quieter even than the stormtroopers.
The vent was there, all right, its grille recessed just as Watchman had predicted. Twister gave it a quick check as the group filed past, but didn’t spot any evidence of the warning sensors any reasonable tyrant ought to have installed there. Apparently, the Warlord really didn’t know about this tunnel.
They were twenty meters past the vent before Su-mil spoke again. “Your companion has remarkable eyesight,” he murmured. “I could not see the vent myself until we were within three arms’ reach of it.”
“Our helmets incorporate various types of sensors,” Twister explained. “Watchman is the unit’s tech specialist, which among other things means he has a more advanced set.”
“Tech specialist,” Su-mil repeated as he looked more closely at Watchman. “I have heard the term, but always assumed it merely meant one who dealt with weapon and vehicle maintenance.”
“Not at all,” Twister assured him. “You’d be amazed at some of the things they can do.”
“We’re getting close,” Watchman warned.
Twister took the hint and stopped talking. A hundred meters of silence later, they reached the end of the tunnel, blocked by a heavy-looking metal door, gritty with the corrosion of age. For a few minutes the others stood by as Watchman and Shadow examined it, consulting between themselves in clipped technical phrases. Their consultation complete, Shadow pulled out his tube of flash paste and began stuffing it carefully into the cracks around the door. Twister touched Su-mil’s arm and motioned him and his soldiers back to a safe distance.
The paste worked with its usual gratifying speed and efficiency, burning the door’s edges far enough back for the two stormtroopers to pry the panel free and drag it out of the way. Beyond the door was a second barrier, this one composed of stone blocks cemented together by slabs of grayish mortar a good centimeter thick. “I don’t suppose you and your friends had a plan for getting through this one, did you?” Twister murmured to Su-mil as Watchman ran his fingers experimentally over the mortar.
“Of course,” Su-mil said, reaching beneath his serape jacket and pulling out a tube of his own. “Catalytic mortar solvent. Of no use against modern structures, but it should be effective against materials of this era.”
“We’ll find out in a minute,” Twister said, passing the tube to Watchman. The other unsealed it and began laying out a thin bead along the grayish lines, and a soft sizzling sound wafted its way into the silence. A minute later the blocks began to sink slowly downward as the mortar separating them softened and trickled down the sides of the stone like melted candle wax. Two minutes after that, the process was complete, with the wall reduced to nothing more than a simple stack of discolored blocks.
The vertical compression following the loss of the mortar had left a small gap right at the tunnel ceiling. Twister checked his sensors, confirmed that the air flowing in on them wasn’t poisoned, and gave Watchman a hand signal. The other nodded back, already pulling out the fiber-op spyscope from its compartment on his belt. He plugged one end into the jack on his helmet and slid the other up through the opening. For a few seconds he moved it back and forth, examining whatever was beyond. “Looks like an old torture chamber,” he said quietly. “Probably unused—lots of dust.”
“Keep it quiet anyway,” Twister said, nodding. “Go ahead and—”
He broke off as a handful of the Eickarie soldiers brushed past him, politely but firmly shouldering the stormtroopers aside. Reaching up through the gap, they got a grip on the topmost blocks and started pulling them inside.
Watchman looked at Twister, his stance one of silent protest. Twister sent him an equally silent calming gesture; reluctantly, the other stepped out of the aliens’ way.
The Eickaries had removed the first tier of stones and were starting on the second when the comlink activation ping sounded in Twister’s headset. “All units: attack!” a voice ordered.
“Better snap it up, Su-mil,” Twister said as a flow of orders and tactical reports and the faint sounds of weapons fire began to come from his headset. “Aurek Company’s started its attack.”
“They are working as quickly as possible,” Su-mil replied, his orange spots going a little darker with a sudden emotional intensity. “Does this mean they will send no reinforcements to us?”
“I don’t know,” Twister said, touching the tongue switch that shut off his comlink again and motioning the others to do the same. They couldn’t afford to get distracted by the sounds of a battle they weren’t a part of. “I could call the commander and ask, but that might compromise our position.”
“Then do not do so,” Su-mil said, the orange going darker yet. “If
we must do this alone, we will.”
Three minutes later, the Eickaries had cleared away enough of the stones to allow passage. Shadow and Watchman went first, darting one at a time through the gap with their BlasTechs held ready. Su-mil was right behind them, the rest of his soldiers filing through with him before Twister could find a gap in the flow.
He finally got inside and nudged his way through the circle of Eickaries to the door. Shadow and Watchman were listening at the panel, Su-mil standing close behind them. “Report,” he ordered, trying hard to keep his annoyance at the Eickaries out of his voice. The three stormtroopers were clearly the best equipped of the group to lead the way into possible danger, and Su-mil surely knew it.
Still, as Cloud had pointed out earlier, Kariek was their world. He supposed that gave them the right to go rushing foolishly forward in its defense.
Watchman lifted his helmet away from the door. “Lots of activity out there,” he reported. “All of it a fair distance away, though. From the echo pattern, I’m guessing there’s a fairly wide corridor leading straight out from us for five to fifteen meters and then intersecting with a cross corridor.”
“The noise is probably reinforcements heading to the watchtowers,” Shadow added. “I can’t see any other reason for so many people to be this far underground, especially with a major attack under way above.”
Twister turned to Su-mil. “You know where the dungeons are?”
“To the right,” Su-mil said, gesturing with that hand. “They should not be far.”
Twister nodded. If they could avoid the mercenaries and keep the element of surprise, there was a chance they could spring the prisoners and be on their way to the Warlord’s inner stronghold before the Lakra tumbled to the fact that they had intruders in their midst. “Is that door locked?”
“It was,” Shadow said, swinging the panel open a couple of centimeters.
Twister got a firm grip on his BlasTech. “Go.”
Shadow opened the door another couple of centimeters, peered out, then pulled it wide and ducked into the corridor, Watchman and Su-mil right behind him. This time, Twister managed to get ahead of the rest of the pack.