The watchtowers themselves were of no particular strategic value, given that the recently formed United Tribes Command already had control of the city itself. Their importance, and the reason most of the stormtroopers considered them a bad strategic concept, lay in the tunnels connecting them to the fortress. If Aurek Company could capture either or both watchtowers, they would have a vector into the Warlord's refuge that wouldn't involve running the gauntlet of heavy defenses arrayed against the rest of the Imperial forces gathered outside the city.

Of course, the Warlord wasn't stupid, either. He would certainly have rigged as strong a set of defenses in those tunnels as he could manage, including mines, booby traps, and as many blasters and Lakran mercenaries as he could squeeze in. But this was the 501st Legion, the legendary "Vader's Fist." They'd handled worse in their long history. They would handle this, too.

Aurek-Seven reached their target alley, and Twister gave it a quick look. Spaced out along the base of the apartment building were half a dozen stairways leading down to garden apartments or small shops, all dark, while the cantina was showing only the normal security lights of a closed business. No one was visible anywhere. Holding his blaster rifle high across his chest, Twister slipped into the alley, the others fanning out behind him.

They were nearly to the cantina door when a flicker from his helmet's sensor display strip caught Twister's eye. "Watch it—someone's in there," he warned the others, shifting his BlasTech to point in that direction as he gave the display another look. Unfortunately, with the pouring rain skewing the infrared data and wiping out any chance of a gas-spectrum analysis, there was no way to distinguish between a harmless Eickarie and a seriously hostile Lakra. "Stay sharp."

He'd barely finished the warning when the cantina door swung open and a young Eickarie male stepped out into the alley, the rain cascading off the glistening band of black scales that curved over the top and sides of his otherwise mostly green face. He was dressed not in the usual brightly colored layered evening robes but dark, close-fitting slacks, low boots, and a loose serape jacket. "Good evening, Imperials," he said in passable Basic. "May your tribe find joy."

"May your tribe find wealth." Twister gave the traditional reply, frowning as he notched up his helmet's vision enhancers. It was hard to tell in the gloom, but he couldn't see any of the color fluctuations in the orange facial highlights that conveyed most of the Eickaries' emotional information. The young alien was calm and composed—not the usual reaction of a simple citizen suddenly and unexpectedly coming face to face with four Imperial stormtroopers.

Which implied either that the Eickarie was drunker than he had any right to be this early in the evening, or else that the encounter wasn't as unexpected as it appeared. "May I ask what you're doing here?" he asked the native.

The orange highlights turned a dark pink, the equivalent of an ironic smile. "Odd," he said. "I was about to ask you the same question."

He lifted a hand before Twister could answer. "But this is no place for a conversation," he went on. "I am certain you would be more comfortable inside."

"We appreciate your concern," Twister said, making a subtle hand signal. Around him, he could sense the movements as the others casually turned into an outward-facing defensive square. Despite his fifty-year record of brutal tyranny, and despite the recent alliance of all of Kariek's major tribal leaders, the Warlord still enjoyed a small but not insignificant degree of support among ordinary Eickaries. Some were collaborators, whose profits and lives would be at risk if he was finally overthrown, but most were simply people who feared and resisted change of any sort, even change for the better. If this was a trap...

"Apartment building," Watchman murmured from behind him. "Slow and casual."

Twister cautiously turned to look.

The empty stairways leading down to the shops had stopped being empty. Each of them had sprouted three or four Eickaries, all dressed in the same dark clothing, all armed with blasters or antique tribal projectile weapons or grenade launchers.

All the weapons, of course, were pointed at the stormtroopers.

"As I said," the first Eickarie repeated calmly. "This is no place for a conversation. Please: the first stairway?"

Twister pursed his lips, his mind sifting rapidly through his options. Under normal circumstances, he would already have used the tongue switch to click on his comlink headset and call for backup. Aurek-Four and Aurek-Nine were one alley away and could be here in ninety seconds.

But in this case, the entire Imperial attack force was under strict comlink silence. The Warlord had a highly sophisticated comm-detection system, and even with the Imperials' encryption rendering their communications unreadable he would likely be able to triangulate on any signals and so deduce his opponents' locations. If he hadn't already been tipped off about tonight's attack, that would pretty much do the trick.

Alternatively, Twister could order his men to open fire, trusting their armor to withstand the Eickarie assault long enough for the threat to be neutralized. But the sound of weapons fire coming from the shadow of his watchtowers would be far more compromising than even triangulated transmissions.

Besides, the Imperials were here to free these people, not kill them.

"As you wish," he said, hand-signaling his men to stand easy.

"You sure we want to do this?" Cloud asked quietly.

"If they were on the Warlord's side, they wouldn't have invited us in for a chat," Twister pointed out. "They'd have opened fire and been done with it."

"Just because they're not on his side doesn't mean they're on our side," Watchman reminded him warily. "And I don't like the fact that our sensors didn't pick them up skulking around in there."

"The rain might have interfered," Twister said, looking at the display strip. The Eickaries were registering just fine now.

"It didn't interfere with him," Watchman reminded him, nodding toward the lone Eickarie still waiting calmly in the downpour for his captives to make their decision.

"We can ask them about it inside," Twister said, making it an order. Cloud was right, he had to admit; he wasn't at all sure he wanted to do this. But at the moment, there didn't seem to be a lot of other options. "Lower your weapons and let's go."

The stairway led down a dozen steps into a small tailor's shop that looked as if it had been abandoned years ago. Inside, a dozen more Eickaries were waiting in a circle against the walls, all of them as heavily armed as the ones outside. The young spokesman circled around the four stormtroopers as they filed into the room, crossing to a rusty seam-sealing table and hopping up to sit on it. "I ask again," he said, looking at each of them in turn. "What are you and your fellows doing in our city tonight?"

"Is this the hospitality of the Eickarie people?" Twister countered, trying to remember everything he'd read about the local culture on the flight here two months ago. Up to now Aurek Company hadn't had much direct interaction with the natives, but he had a feeling that the next few minutes were more than going to make up for it. "To ask questions before we have even exchanged names?"

"Do not reply!" an older Eickarie along the wall warned sharply, his orange highlights shifting to red and then purple. "He speaks left-handed, seeking your name to offer in trade to the Warlord."

Twister frowned; and then it clicked. Left-handed was Eickarie slang for a lie; right-handed the corresponding term for the truth. "I do not speak left-handed," he insisted. "If there's a question I'm not permitted to answer, I'll tell you that. But I will never speak left-handed to you."