Allegiance by Timothy Zahn Page A

eased its tip delicately into the wall in front of her.
    The wall was thick and heavily armored, and it took three careful cuts to establish its actual thickness. But once she did that the rest of the task went quickly. Positioning the blade so that it would slice completely through the wall without letting through any of the telltale glow that might be noticed among the shadows, she carved out a narrow upside-down triangle just bigenough for her to slip through. Closing down the lightsaber, she got a Force grip on the cut section and pushed.
    It broke free with a muffled crunch. Straining with the effort—the section was even heavier than it looked—Mara floated it forward half a meter and cautiously looked in.
    Once again, the Emperor’s memory training had served her well. Her new private entrance was behind the exact center of the stack of crates she’d been aiming for.
    She retrieved her satchel as she pushed the triangular plug another half a meter forward. Making sure she was unobserved, she slipped through the opening, then used the Force to slide the plug back in place. She tucked her satchel out of sight between two of the crates, returned the lightsaber to her belt, and made her way to the edge of the stack.
    Her first thought when she’d seen all the cartloads of crates being delivered to the ship was that the pirates had gotten wind of her investigation and were pulling out. But now she realized that wasn’t the case. The men and aliens with the carts weren’t simply loading at random, but were taking crates only from two specific stacks near the doors, stacks that were by now nearly depleted. Even more interestingly, there were two different styles and classes of clothing being worn: one set by those handling the carts, the other by half a dozen men and aliens who were mostly lounging around keeping a watchful eye on the first batch. Apparently some kind of goods redistribution was going on.
    She stretched out to the Force, trying to get a feel for the two groups. The ones with the carts had the low-level rebelliousness and slight paranoia of career criminals, but none of the underlying viciousness she couldusually sense in habitual killers. Smugglers, she tentatively identified them, or else receivers of stolen goods.
    The loungers, in contrast, not only had the killer edge but were insolently proud of it. Each of them also had a long, prominent scar along his left cheek, or whatever passed for a cheek in the case of the nonhumans. That, combined with their shoulder patches and a warehouse full of loot, tagged them as the pirates Birtraub had mentioned.
    But one figure was still missing from the mix. Mara continued her visual and mental sweep of the room; and there, standing alone by a stack of crates off to her left, she saw him.
    He wasn’t much to look at, at least not on the surface. A human of medium height and build, he was dressed in a plain dark red tunic, with black trousers and boots. He carried no obvious weapon and had a bland, utterly forgettable face.
    But Mara’s training and Force sensitivity told a different story. The eyes in that bland face were alert and probing, the tunic and boots concealed weaponry exotic and deadly, and even in a relaxed state his unremarkable build had the sense of a watchful predator. Unlike Pirtonna and his thugs, unlike even the brutal pirates around him, this man was a warrior.
    Caaldra.
    She studied him another minute, watching the way his eyes moved around the room, noting how his hands stayed close to the weapons whose positions she could read in the subtle folds of cloth and slight bulges of boot leather, sensing the automatic flow of contingency combat plans through his mind as the other inhabitants of the warehouse moved about their tasks.
    One of the pirates watching the procedure turned and started in Caaldra’s direction. From his age and the number of souvenir trinkets Mara could see glittering onhis chest, she guessed he was high up in the