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.