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of the macabre games that these small-minded, sadistic little men enjoyed so much.
    But LaRone was an Imperial stormtrooper, ruthlessly trained in the arts of combat and survival, and those deeply embedded reflexes knew nothing about ISB mind games. His left hand snapped up of its own accord, slapping Drelfin’s wrist and knocking the blaster away from his forehead.
    It was probably the last thing Drelfin expected. He stumbled with the impact, snarling a curse as he tried to swing the weapon back on target. But even as he did so LaRone’s right hand came up, catching the other’s wrist and giving it an extra push. For a single, nerve-racking fraction of a second the blaster was again pointing at LaRone’s face; then it was past, overcorrecting andswinging wide to LaRone’s left. He swiveled on his right foot, spinning himself halfway around as he held on to the major’s wrist, and a second later he had Drelfin hunched over, his arm twisted around, the blaster pointed harmlessly at the ceiling. “What was that about ISB whims being law?” he ground out.
    “LaRone, are you
insane
?” Brightwater demanded, his eyes bulging.
    “Maybe,” LaRone said. His anger was draining away, and to his dismay he realized that Brightwater was right. If he hadn’t been in trouble before, he was certainly there now. “But that’ll be for the
proper
procedure to determine,” he added. Reaching up, he twisted the blaster out of Drelfin’s grip, then let go of his arm.
    Drelfin straightened up, his eyes staring vibroblades at LaRone, his face contorted with rage, his mouth working with soundless curses.
    His left hand gripping a small hold-out blaster.
    And this time, LaRone knew, it was no game. There was a soft flash, a muted blast—
    Without a sound, Drelfin collapsed silently to the deck.
    For a long, frozen moment, no one moved or spoke. LaRone stared at the crumpled body, then at the major’s blaster still in his hand, his mind struggling to believe the evidence of his eyes. No—something else had surely happened. The major must have had a stroke or heart attack, or perhaps been shot from concealment by some unknown party. That hadn’t even sounded like a real blaster shot, for pity’s sake—
    “Oh, no,” Brightwater murmured, sounding stunned.
    LaRone swallowed hard; and with that, the bubble of wild speculation burst, and the cold reality flooded in on him. Daric LaRone, with all his high-minded prattlings about duty and honor, had just gunned down a man in cold blood.
    Not just a man. An officer. An
ISB
officer.
    And in that second frozen moment, he knew he was dead.
    The others knew it too. “It was self-defense,” Quiller said, his voice shaking in a way LaRone had never heard from him in even the most desperate combat situations. “You all saw it. Drelfin drew first.”
    “You think ISB will care?” Grave bit out.
    “I just meant—”
    “They won’t care,” Marcross said, his voice tight as he looked quickly around the observation deck. “The question is, how serious are they going to be about tracking us down?”
    “Wait a second,” Brightwater said. “What do you mean,
us
?”
    “He’s right, Marcross,” LaRone agreed, his heart starting to pound in reaction. “There’s no
us
here—there’s just
me
. None of you did anything.”
    “I doubt ISB will care about
that
, either,” Quiller muttered.
    “Of course they’ll care,” Marcross said heavily. “They’ll care that none of us did anything to stop you.”
    “There wasn’t any
time—
”
    “Quiet, LaRone,” Grave cut in. “He’s right. We’re all for the jump on this one.”
    “Not if they can’t identify us,” Brightwater suggested, looking furtively around. “There’s no one else here, and he was shot with his own gun. Maybe they’ll even think it was suicide.”
    Grave snorted. “Oh, come
on
. An ISB major, at the height of his twisted little career? They kill other people, not themselves.”
    “There’s only one