Star Wars - X-Wing - Krytos Trap

by Michael A. Stackpole

  What can I do for you?"

  "We have a flight of four eyeballs orbiting. They've left

  Zsinj's service and need a ride out of here. Will you?"

  "Sure. Not the first time I've hauled a ship for you."

  No, the first one was Corran. "Thanks, Mirax. Mynock

  is sending you their corem unit frequency, so I'll leave the

  arrangements to you."

  "It will give me something to do while I'm waiting."

  "I copy." Wedge glanced at the chronographic display in

  the corner of his monitor. "When we get back home, you

  and I will sit down and talk, yes?"

  Weariness washed through Mirax's voice. "I'11 have to

  offload the cargo first. Then maybe I can sleep. Haven't been

  doing much of that lately. I will call you when I'm functional

  again."

  "Promise."

  "I promise."

  "And keep that promise, or I talk your father into com-

  ing out of retirement by telling him you're moping over the

  death of his worst enemy's son."

  "Oh, Wedge, that's cruel." Light static hissed in Wedge's

  ears as Mirax's voice broke. "There's no reason I shouldn't

  mourn for Corran."

  "Agreed, but you don't have to do it alone. That's a

  burden we all share, got it?"

  "I copy." Resignation tinged with relief fooded her

  words. "See you back on Coruscant."

  "I am counting on it." Wedge looked out at the station

  and his squadron patrolling around it. And, miracle of mira-

  cles, it looks like everyone is going to make it back home

  again.

  8

  Corran knew that once again being in the cockpit of a fighter

  should have made him happy, but it did not. He could find

  no fault with the fighter nor with being given a patrol mis-

  sion. He'd done enough of those to expect boredom, and yet

  even that wasn't giving him a problem. Just to be flying again

  was enough to override boredom.

  The fact was, he realized, that he was unhappy. Some-

  thing was gnawing away at him inside. Something was

  wrong, and there was no way he could ignore it. It created an

  anxiety in him that was out of all proportion with what he

  was doing. It felt as if he weren't involved in a patrol at all,

  but in some other mission with a hidden agenda he knew

  nothing about.

  "Nemesis One, report."

  "One is clear, Control."

  The voice coming through the comm unit betrayed no

  hint of deception or urgency, but Corran couldn't shake the

  sickening feeling that he was being manipulated. He had a

  natural aversion to being used, and he could feel unseen

  hands all over himself, pointing him in a certain direction,

  for reasons he could not fathom. He was surprised to find

  himself less resentful of their agenda--whatever it was--than

  of being manipulated.

  I'm reasonable. I don't shy away from difficult tasks. I

  do what I am asked to do, within reason. Didn't I do

  that... ? His thoughts dead-ended as he realized he

  couldn't summon up specifc memories to back up his argu-

  ment. He knew he had performed many dangerous missions,

  but he couldn't pinpoint them. His inability to do so

  wouldn't have concerned him, and in fact almost did not,

  except that he kept feeling like a hologram being processed

  by someone else's computer.

  "Nemesis One, we have two contacts on the heading of

  270 degrees. They are ten kilometers distant. They are hos-

  tile. You are free to engage and terminate them."

  "As ordered." Corran punched up the data on the in-

  coming ships and displayed it over his monitor. Two TIEs.

  The starfighters inspired no fear in him, and he would have

  viewed them with utter detachment except that a random

  thought shot off through his brain.

  Two T1Es aren't nearly as deadly as a single Ty-cho. The

  connection seemed entirely logical to Corran the similar

  sounds created a link. The fact that Tycho Celchu had been

  an Imperial pilot who flew TIEs reinforced it. Corran knew

  Tycho had betrayed Rogue Squadron, and Corran had been

  determined to see him pay. If I weren't here, I'd be there,

  taking care of Tycho.

  Before he could begin to wonder where there was, Con-

  trol's voice came through the comlink again. "We have addi-

  tional information on the incoming ships. Transmitting

  now."

  The image on the monitor shifted from a TIE starfighter

  to an X-wing. An additional line of data beneath the fighter's

  image informed Corran the ship was flown by Captain T.

  Celchu. A jolt of adrenaline pulsed through his body, then

  slammed into his brain. He couldn't believe his luck--the

  coincidence of being able to fly against Tycho and avenge

  Rogue Squadron was incredible. And I will make the most

  of it.

  Corran inverted the TIE Interceptor he flew and dove.

  The X-wings started to come after him, vectoring in on his

  belly, so he inverted again, then pulled through a climbing

  loop to starboard. He soared as the X-wings dove, neither

  side wasting laser energy when the chances of hitting were so

  small. Corran kept tightening the loop into a spiral that em-

  phasized the squint's greater maneuverability, then streaked

  away to underscore its superior speed as well.

  A light flicked on within the head's-up display, indicat-

  ing one of the X-wings was trying for a proton torpedo tar-

  get lock, but a quick climb, roll, and twisting dive broke the

  lock and brought Corran out on a vector toward Tycho's

  X-wing. Corran sideslipped the Interceptor to starboard,

  then rolled up on the left wing and climbed in toward Tycho.

  He flipped his lasers from quad- to dual-fire, assuming he'd

  have to use multiple shots in multiple passes to bring Tycho

  down. He led the X-wing, anticipating Tycho's break, then

  hastily snapped off a shot that splashed energy over Tycho's

  shields as the Interceptor overshot its target.

  No reaction. That isn't like Tycho at all. Corran rolled

  up on the right stabilizer, climbed into a loop, then rolled

  over and out to port. Another inversion took him into a dive,

  but his scanners showed the X-wings hadn't stayed with him

  past the first maneuver, much less through the second.

  Corran shivered. Tbey're bandling like TIE starfighters,

  not like X-wings, and tbe pilot flying tbat first one isn't

  Tycbo. He switched his targeting computer over to the sec-

  ond ship and saw that X-wing was listed as being flown by

  Kittan Loor. An immediate desire to rape that ship filled

  him, but it did not deflect him from thinking. In fact, the

  vehemence of his feelings about Loor swept him past the fact

  that Loor and Tycho had been in collusion on Coruscant.

  It carried him far enough that he recalled Loor didn't

  know how to fly any space ships at all, much less starfighters.

  Loor can't be tbere. Tbe chance that Tycbo and Loor

  would show up where I couM attack and kill them is unbe-

  lievable. Whereas before he had taken great delight in the />
  coincidence, now it became evidence that he was being

  manipulated. The !ink between a TIE and Tycho had been

  made in his mind before Tycho showed up as a pilot. While

  he knew inferring causality from that relationship was not

  strictly logical, his being manipulated meant it was more

  than possible.

  Tycho is an enemy, so he was placed in one fighter. An-

  other enemy was plucked from a list of my enemies and

  placed in the second fighter. More anger flared through Cor-

  ran and battered aside the blockages in his brain that had

  kept him thinking of nothing outside the cockpit. The appar-

  ent insertion of personal enemies into his situation told Cor-

  ran two things. First off, I'm in a simulator, and second,

  someone knows enough about me to know who my enemies

  are. Pitting me against my enemies gives me some wish ful-

  fillment, which is a good thing. It rewards behavior, but I

  have to ask myself, is flying an Interceptor against X-wings

  behavior for which I want to be rewarded?

  His stomach shrank and hardened into a rock that

  threatened to explode volcanically. I'm flying an Imp ship

  against Rebels. I don't want to do that. Corran immediately

  realized that only his enemies--the remnants of the Empire--

  would want him to feel good about attacking Rebels, yet few

  Imps would take the time or make the effort to manipulate

  him that way. Some would imprison him and the rest would

  just kill him.

  Except one.

  Ysanne Isard.

  Injecting her into the jumble of thoughts bouncing

  around his brain immediately started to impose order on his

  mind. She was known and feared for her ability to warp

  Rebels and turn them against friends and family. She had

  been successful with Tycho Celchu, and he was not the only

  success story to come out of her Lusankya prison. Her al-

  tered agents had wrought havoc among the Emperor's ene-

  mies, and his death had done nothing to cau se Iceheart to

  curtail her operations.

  The fog in Corran's brain began to evaporate. He re-

  membered having met Isard after his capture. She'd vowed to

  transform him into a tool of the Emperor's vengeance. This

  simulator run--and the one before it---clearly was designed

  to get him to attack Rebel symbols. Subsequent sessions

  would further crush his resistance, training him to greater

  and greater levels of efficiency while turning him against ev-

  eryone he knew, loved, and respected.

  She would make me over into the human equivalent of

  the plague she unleashed on Coruscant.

  Corran shook his head, then raised his hands from the

  simulator's steering yoke and yanked his helmet off. Elec-

  trodes taped to his head pulled away rather abruptly, taking

  some hair with them, but he ignored the pain. The electrodes

  fed my brain wave patterns to a computer. The patterns were

  compared to data gathered from interrogations, so the com-

  puter could recognize what I was thinking about and project

  the proper clues into the simulation. Very good.

  He pulled the respiration mask from his face and let it

  dangle against his chest. "This is Nemesis One. The game is

  over. I won't betray my people."

  The star field on the screen in front of Corran vanished.

  In its place he saw Ysanne Isard's head and shoulders. Her

  mismatched eyes, the left one a fiery red and the right one an

  ice blue, added venom to the woman's steely expression. Her

  sharp, slender features might have made her seem beautiful

  to some, but the fear her anger stabbed into his heart made

  her more than ugly to Corran. Her long black hair had been

  pulled back into a ponytail, yet she had let her white temple-

  locks remain unbound as if that girlish affectation would

  somehow soften her image.

  "You are under the impression, Corran Horn, that this

  little victory is significant and hampers my efforts in some

  way. It does not." An eyebrow arched over her arctic eye.

  "You worked with the Corellian Security Force, so you can

  understand how powerful certain interrogation techniques

  can be. What you have endured so far is little more than

  testing."

  "And I passed."

  "From your perspective that might seem true." Her eyes

  sharpened. "From mine it merely means you have reclassified

  yourself. You will require more time than others I have

  worked with in the past, but here at Lusankya, time is abun-

  dant."

  Corran shrugged. "Good, then I'll have abundant time

  to plan my escape."

  "I doubt it." She sighed as if what she was about to say

  hurt her in some way. "Were you easy to train, you would

  find your stay here pleasant. As you are difficult, the next

  step is for me to determine if you know anything I consider

  valuable. Unfortunately this means sifting through a lot of

  things I don't want to know. I hope your life has been inter-

  esting, because my technicians have been known to resort to

  cruelty when they are bored."

  "They'll learn nothing from me."

  lsard frowned. "Please, Horn, skip the bluster. We will

  start with a level four narco-interrogation and work our way

  down to level one if we must. You know you'll tell us what-

  ever we want to know."

  Sheer terror froze the lump in Corran's stomach solid.

  With a level four interrogation session he'd be remembering

  things his mother had forgotten while she was carrying him

  in her womb. ! will have no secrets. Hundreds of images

  flitted through his mind as he sorted valuable memories from

  the casual ones.

  This process, while agonizing, also brought a smile to

  his face. Gil Bastra, the man who had created a series of

  identities for Corran to use after he fled from CoreIlia, had

  made sure the identities took Corran out into the outlier

  worlds. From Loor they know everything about my days

  with CorSec. Thanks to Gil there's very little valuable infor-

  mation I can give her. I was out of circulation until I joined

  Rogue Squadron, and I don't know enough about the Rebel-

  lion to hurt it.

  "I see your smile, Horn. You may feel bold enough to

  smile now, but things will change." Isard herself smiled, and

  Corran found it a most forbidding thing. "When we are fin-

  ished with you, smiles will be but a memory, and a painful

  one at that."

  9

  Wedge laughed aloud, telling himself he was laughing at the

  irony of feeling nervous, not because of being nervous. Here

  he was, a celebrated hero and the sole survivor of both Death

  Star runs, conqueror of Cornscant and leader of the most

  feared fighter squadron in the galaxy, and at leila Wessiri's

  door he felt nervous. Enough ice water ran in his veins, so the

  rumors went, to replenish Coruscant's polar caps, yet he

  found himself clearing his voice and hesitating before he

  pushed the buzzer button at her door.

  On the way over from squadron headqu
arters he had

  convinced himself he wasn't going to be asking her out on a

  date, really. He'd spent the previous hour being harangued

  by Erisi Dlarit concerning the Vratix terrorist and his where-

  abouts after the raid on Warlord Zsinj's bacta store. He'd

  done his best, over and over again, to explain to her that he

  had no reports about the Thyferran native, but promised to

  pass notice of her interest up to General Cracken. That really

  was all he could do, but Erisi took a lot of convincing on that

  point.

  The experience had been draining. There had been mo-

  ments when he considered just cutting her off and ordering

  her out of his office, but he could tell her concern about the

  Vratix was based on her conviction that the insectoid crea-

  ture was a terrorist and a potential hazard to anyone who

  came in contact with it. He thought Erisi's reaction might

  have been born from her frustration at not having been able

  to do anything to prevent Corran's death. By making the

  terrorist her responsibility, she might prevent another trag-

  edy, thereby atoning for her lack of action in Corran's case.

  Wedge found her motive noble, but her insistence exhaust-

  ing. Corran's death and the misery of millions on Coruscant

  had everyone in the squadron worn thin, and being dismis-

  sive of Erisi's concerns would not help the situation.

  Corran's death had likewise affected Iella deeply. She

  had been Corran's partner in the Corellian Security Force

  and had fled CoreIlia at the same time he had. Her flight had

  brought her to Coruscant, where she joined up with the

  Rebel underground. Her reunion with Corran had been a

  joyous occasion. It had been easy for Wedge to see how they

  complemented each other and must have worked well as a

  team.

  Those qualities that made her well-suited to working

  with Corran were qualities Wedge found attractive. She was

  thoughtful and stable, yet possessed of a good sense of hu-

  mor and a fierce loyalty to her friends and to justice. Unfor-

  tunately, her loyalty made her most zealous in helping the

  prosecution find evidence against Tycho Celchu, but she ap-

  proached the search so openly that Wedge couldn't find fault