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.

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."