Star Wars - X-Wing - Krytos Trap

by Michael A. Stackpole

  you'll dispose of this correctly, I would hope."

  Wedge nodded. "And if you survive, what will you do

  with the leport then?"

  "I'm a member of Rogue Squadron, Commander, which

  means I only take orders from my superior officers." Asyr

  smiled. "What I do with that report, sir, is whatever you tell

  me to do with that report."

  "You're taking a big step, cutting yourself off from your

  people."

  "I know that, and I know it won't be easy, but the

  squadron is my home now. You've only ever asked me to

  fight and fly and possibly die. That I'll do for people I can

  trust. Those who ask me to betray friends, well, they've

  shown they don't want me to be trustworthy, so they clearly

  aren't. Those facts don't make the choice any easier, just

  more imperative."

  Wedge tucked the datacard away in a pocket, then

  clapped Asyr on the shoulders. "Glad you're with us and on

  my wing. I always like flying with someone I can trust."

  38

  Though lella's eyes burned from fatigue, the adrenaline

  pumping through her system had her hyper-alert. She effort-

  lessly wove the armored airspeeder through the canyons and

  chasms of Coruscant, slowly closing in on the Justice Court

  building. Nawara Ven and Kirtan Loor sat in the back, the

  lawyer continuing to ask questions and Loor replying with

  haughty disdain.

  Seeing Loor again had been a shock for her. She recog-

  nized him instantly, but not without difficult),. He had al-

  ways been lean and cadaverous, though now his flesh had

  greyed a bit and tightened over his cheekbones and around

  his eyes. He played himself up to be supremely confident, but

  his clipped answers and terse comments clued her to his fear.

  leila had no doubt that if Corran had been with them at

  the safehouse where they deposed Loor, Loor would have

  crumbled like stale ryshcate. Corran had always had a way

  of zeroing in on a suspect's weaknesses. He would figure out

  the thing about which they were lying, then push and push

  on those points, pounce on inconsistencies, then increase the

  pressure until the suspect confessed.

  Loot had resisted giving them a full confession. He pro-

  duced a datacard on which, he said, he had encoded and

  encrypted complete dossiers on the Empire's operatives

  within the bureaucracy. He had also guaranteed them that

  on the stand he would reveal the identity of the traitor within

  Rogue Squadron. After that, provided the other details of his

  surrender deal were carried out, he would provide the key to

  the datacard's encryption routine.

  "Fine," she'd said, "but can you give us Corran's mur-

  derer?"

  Loor had smiled coldly. "The traitor set him up, and the

  traitor I will give you. Corran's murderer, on the other hand,

  was Ysanne Isard. Her you'll have to get yourself."

  And get her I will, somehow. Iella checked the advanced

  scanning system on the airspeeder's console. The scanner

  compared the profiles of all the traffic it had encountered so

  far against everything it was detecting as the journey contin-

  ued. Matches would indicate they were being followed, but

  nothing had passed the computer's standards for a threat.

  Good. We're clear, so far.

  "Coming up on the parking facility. We're going into the

  secure level, then down into the Justice Court." She wanted

  to add that the next few seconds, as she slowed to enter the

  building, were the most vulnerable in the whole flight. A

  single proton torpedo or concussion missile could destroy the

  airspeeder in the blink of an eye. A timed or proximity war-

  head could be launched from anywhere and catch them.

  The airspeeder slid into the darkened tunnel and slowed.

  Ahead a green holographic projection cycled through various

  alphabets. The words "Facility is Full" appeared in Basic

  above and below whatever language was being displayed in

  the middle. The green backlight illuminated a gate that

  barred further passage.

  Iella hit a button on the console keypad, then punched in

  her security code. Instead of giving her a new security code to

  use in bringing Loor to court--the addition of which might

  have alerted Imperial agents to strange goings-on--Halla Et-

  tyk had just locked everyone else out with code that made

  the lockout look like a computer glitch.

  The gate retracted into the floor. "We're in."

  Loor shifted in his seat in the back. "Does it bother you,

  lella, to be shielding me this way?"

  "No more now than it did the first time you asked the

  question, Loor." She moved the vehicle forward into the

  darkened parking area, and midway between the gate and

  the lift doors, she slung it around, swapping it end for end, so

  the nose pointed back out toward the exit. She let the speeder

  drift to a stop approximately twenty meters from the lift.

  "Does it bother you having to depend upon me?"

  Loor shook his head. "Not at all, my dear. You have a

  facility for 1oyalty--I don't imagine you are wasting it on

  me--and to your mission you will be true. Your job is to

  deliver me to court, then watch me walk away, shedding my

  crimes like a lYandoshan shedding skin."

  "Reminding me that you let the Trandoshan who mur-

  dered Corran's father go isn't the way to get me to feel good

  about helping you."

  "No, I suppose it isn't." Loor sighed nonchalantly. "I'11

  have to trust you'll want Corran's betrayer more than you

  want me dead, won't I?"

  "That you will." Iella cracked her door open and

  emerged from the speeder. She took a quick look around,

  saw nothing, then rapped on the top of the car. "Come on

  out. It's clear."

  As the other two left the vehicle, leila pulled out her

  blaster and checked the power cell. Full charge, good. "Let's

  go. We get to the lift, I input the code, we head down and

  through the prosecutor's office. Simple, swift, and no one

  will get hurt."

  Loor pulled up the hood on his cloak. "After you."

  lella growled at him and moved toward the elevator,

  taking up a position on the right side of the group. She held

  her blaster in two hands, up by her face, with the barrel

  pointing toward the ferrocrete ceiling. As she walked toward

  the lift she kept looking about, backward, forward, and side

  to side, trying to pick up on any movement, anything out of

  the ordinary. Across from her, unarmed though he was,

  Nawara looked about vigilantly as well.

  Between them, his cloak billowing out to inflate his sil-

  houette to the size of his code name, Loor strode confidently.

  Though she could not see his face, his stance and stride indi-

  cated he was blithely amused by her caution. The grant of

  immunity has made him feel invincible.

  Iella felt the slick caress of a strand of webbing brush

  against her right cheek. She swept it away with her left hand

  and heard it snap near her ear.
That struck her as odd, then

  sinister, as she saw Nawara bat at a similar thread with one

  of his brain tails.

  The lift doors, barely ten meters away, opened with little

  more than a whisper.

  As the lift doors parted, Loor felt his pulse quicken. Time

  slowed until nanoseconds took hours to pass. His emotions

  spiked, fear braiding itself together with triumph. The fear

  came from the realization that he might die, for surely an

  assassin or assassins lurked in the lift. I could well be dead

  before those doors close again.

  The triumph that wove in with the fear came from the

  realization that Ysanne Isard saw him as enough of a threat

  to kill him. She had always dismissed him before, patronized

  him, used him, and threatened to discard him. Now she saw

  how truly powerful he was. The desperation that marked this

  attempt on his life gave full measure to her concern over

  what he could do to destroy her.

  Loor began to smile. In this you show me I have won!

  leila began to turn toward the unlit box, her blaster coming

  down as she squared her stance. Something black moved

  within the lift, a shadow that resolved itself into the form of

  a man dashing forth, a blazing blaster held in each hand.

  "Die, Derricote, die!" he screamed.

  Scarlet bolts of blaster energy burned toward the trio.

  One caught Nawara Ven on the right hip. It spun him

  around and flung him through the air.

  Before the Twi'lek could hit the ground, a pair of

  blaster-bolts lanced through Kirtan Loor's chest. The first,

  which drilled him high on the left side of his body, lifted him

  from his feet. The second struck him high in the abdomen

  and centered on his midline, driving him back and down. He

  landed beside Nawara Ven's tumbling body and slid halfway

  over to the airspeeder.

  Years of training overrode conscious thought in Iella. As

  bolts began to track in her direction, she coolly triggered a

  double-burst that stopped the assassin's charge only a stride

  or two from the lift. The bolts stabbed deep into the man's

  gut, snapping him forward. Blaster-bolts from his guns

  traced parallel lines down the ferrocrete as he hunched over,

  dropped to his knees, then fell forward on his face. His

  blaster pistols clattered down beside him, abandoned a s his

  hands clutched at his ruined belly.

  Keeping her blaster on his form, she ran forward and

  kicked the pistols away. The assassin made a sound, a little

  moan, and it cut her legs out from under her. She sank to her

  knees beside him and rolled him onto his back. Even before

  she saw his face, the sounds he made and the feeling of his

  bony shoulders told her who he was. Intellect momentarily

  overrode emotion, providing her the clues she needed to con-

  firm his identity, then it retreated as pain and despair ex-

  ploded in her.

  She pulled his head into her lap and brushed strands of

  hair from his face. "Why, Diric, why?" "Lusankya."

  Iella's breath caught in her throat. "No, no, that can't

  he."

  "She broke me. She made me into one of her own. She

  had me placed in Derricote's lab to watch him." Diric

  winced fiercely, and his body went rigid for a moment. "She

  sent me to kill him before he could betray her. I had no

  choice. That wasn't him, though."

  leila shook her head. "No. It was Kirtan Loor."

  Diric managed a weak smile. "Good. I never liked him."

  He reached a hand up toward her face, but it never got there.

  'Tm dying."

  "No." She fished for a comlink in her pocket. "I'11 get

  emergency medical droids here."

  "No, Iella, no. Isard made me what others accuse Tycho

  of being. He isn't. She had me reporting on him, too. From

  what she did, I cannot be saved." His tongue wet thin lips. "I

  can't live in suspicion, as a puppet. It would make life

  too . .. boring."

  "Diric, no, we can help you."

  "It's over. I love you. She wanted me to kill you. I

  couldn't resist." He smiled weakly. "I could defy--the trig-

  ger that opened the lift was supposed to be linked to a bomb.

  I did what I could. So you could stop me from betraying

  myself by killing you." Pain contorted his face. "Thank you

  for freeing me."

  With her hand, Iella smoothed the pain on his face into

  peace, then realized he'd slipped away. Her throat thick, her

  eyes welling with tears, she gently lowered his head to the

  ferrocrete floor and kissed him one last time.

  Kirtan Loor lay on the ferrocrete and could feel nothing. He

  knew this was not good. That he was dying was an ines-

  capable conclusion and it outraged him. He tried to feed that

  outrage as much fuel as he could, but he simply ran out. The

  anger and fury in him collapsed in on itself, imploding into a

  black void that sucked the last bits of life from Kirtan Loor.

  At the heart of that void existed one fact, the one true

  thing that had marked his entire life. Gil Bastra had seen it.

  Corran Horn and Iella Wessiri had seen it. Ysanne Isard had

  seen it. Loor had done all he could to combat it, but it was a

  defect that was inborn and immutable. ! make assumptions.

  I refuse to look beyond them for reality. I am defeated by

  them.

  He stared up at the ferrocrete ceiling, seeking in its hap-

  hazard patterns some cosmic truth, but the only truth he

  found ground away at him. She did not send an assassin to

  kill me, she sent him to kill Derricote. I am dying in his

  place, for his crimes. Is there anything worse?

  For some reason the image of Corran Horn came to him.

  Horn said there was nothing worse than dying alone. He

  fought to dismiss that idea, but as darkness nibbled away at

  the corners of his sight, he allowed as how that, just once,

  Corran Horn had been right.

  39

  Despite his fatigue, Wedge couldn't remember having felt

  better. Strapped into the cockpit of his X-wing, with Mynock

  behind him, Asyr on his starboard wing, and atmosphere

  below his fighter, Wedge felt as if the galaxy's reset button

  had been hit. His mission was clear safeguard the forces

  making a run on an Imperial terrorist cell. He didn't know if

  this was all that was left of the Palpatine Counter-insurgency

  Front, or if this was just one tentacle of that foul kraken, but

  he had no doubts they'd destroy it.

  Gone were the ambiguities that had been forced on him.

  Tycho's trial was political. The run to Ryloth and the convoy

  escort mission from Alderaan had both been political. Even

  the raid on Zsinj's space station had been political. While he

  realized the whole Rebellion had, in essence, been political,

  his role in it had been military. The targets we were given

  were military, picked because of their military value, and the

  mission parameters were ones that could be fulfilled through

  a military effort.

  Wedge keyed his comm unit. "Hunter One, this is Rogue


  Lead. We are on-station."

  "l copy, Rogue Lead. Stand by for tactical team direc-

  tives."

  "As ordered." Wedge glanced down at his scanner. The

  squadron had broken itself down into five pairs of fighters.

  Four of the pairs orbited the target district with 90 degrees of

  separation between their positions. The last pair, Erisi Dlarit

  and Rhysati Ynr, flew high cover up around the level of the

  skyhooks. The lower fighters were meant to assist the raid

  and pick up stragglers, while the high-orbit pair would cut

  off any PCF terrorists that made it out of the district and in

  toward their target.

  "Rogue Lead, this is Hunter One. We are taking heavy

  fire from the western approach. Help is needed."

  "I copy. On the way." Wedge hit a button on his con-

  sole, shifting the corem unit to the squadron's tactical chan-

  nel. "Rogue Two, did you get that?"

  "I copied, Lead." Asyr's voice betrayed no nervousness.

  "After you."

  "Five, you and Ten with the next call, then Seven's ele-

  ment, then Twelve's element." "As ordered."

  Wedge kicked his X-wing up on the port S-foil, then hit

  the left rudder and pointed the fighter's nose at the ground.

  He let the fighter succumb to gravity, then rolled it and pre-

  pared to glide out onto the target. The Justice Court building

  flashed past, then Wedge hauled back on the stick and leveled

  out. Target is five kilometers out and coming up fast.

  Even in the distance he could see blaster fire spraying out

  to cover the approaches on the west side of the building. As

  he swooped in, he saw one smoking speeder-ferry slowly

  drifting down toward the unseen ground. Wedge flicked his

  lasers over to single fire and dropped the crosshairs on the

  focal point for the blaster fire. As range dropped to a kilome-

  ter, he tightened down on the trigger and feathered the left

  rudder pedal to keep his fire tracking on target.

  The X-wing's four lasers fired in sequence, peppering the

  middle level of the building with a staccato hail of energy

  darts. They swept across the wide doorway, some of them

  scattering half-hidden individuals inside the warehouse.

  Other laser-bolts shredded one of the two E-Web Heavy Re-