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.
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.