The Krytos Trap (37 page)

Halla frowned. “Not a good idea.”

“If I don’t, he’ll wait up. He always has, but he’s really not that strong anymore.”

“No details, right?”

“Right.”

“Go ahead.” Halla stood and smoothed the wrinkles in her skirt. “I’m going down the hall to brew up something hot, dark, and stimulating. Can I bring you some?”

“Please.” Iella sat down at the desk and entered her home link number. She smiled reflexively when Diric answered. “It’s me.”

“So it is, and with a smile.” Diric stifled a yawn with his hand. “Forgive me. How are you? Is there anything you need? I can run it over.”

“No, no, I’m fine, really.” She forced her smile to broaden. “I just called to let you know I’m not going to be coming back home this morning.”

“Anything wrong?” Irritation washed over Diric’s face. “No, can’t be if you’re smiling. Something good, then?”

“Work, work I can’t tell you about. You’ll find it fascinating when I can.”

“I can’t wait. Sounds as if you have a big day ahead of you.” He glanced off to the side for a moment, then nodded.
“I’ll get some fruit and put it together with your lunch so you can snack on it if there is a break. Will that work?”

“That’ll be perfect, darling.” Iella touched the hololink’s screen and caressed her husband’s face. “It really
is
going to be a big day tomorrow. You’ll see why I can’t say anything.”

“I understand. Thank you for letting me know you’re safe. I can try to get back to sleep now.”

“Please do, Diric. Get all the sleep you can—enough for both of us.”

“I’ll do my best.” He smiled at her. “Be careful. I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Iella hit a button and broke the connection. She sat back and sighed deeply.
It’s very strange to find myself having to safeguard a hated enemy so he can exonerate a man in the murder of a good friend. I’m not sure Corran would appreciate the irony of the situation, but I
do
know he wouldn’t want an innocent man imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit. I think that’s as close to peace of mind as I’m going to get out of this. I just hope it’s enough when all is said and done
.

35

Never, in all the time he had secretly worked for Ysanne Isard, had he gotten a message that revealed her to being close to panic. The messages she had sent concerning the remnants of Rogue Squadron and the need for their elimination had been more controlled and confident. Even after the Alliance took Coruscant and she disappeared, her messages had revealed a core of confidence that her activities would bring about the destruction of the New Republic.

He had to admit that she had not been far wrong in her beliefs in that regard. The Krytos virus had created such a demand for bacta that the New Republic had all but bankrupted itself trying to meet the minimum demand for the lifesaving liquid. They had been desperate enough to strike a deal for ryll with the Twi’leks, a gamble that could have caused angry Thyferrans to cut off the bacta supply completely.

Confidence in the government had begun to erode because of the bacta crisis. Warlord Zsinj’s predations on a bacta convoy had dealt the public’s belief in the government a serious blow from which they would attempt to recover by sending a task force under Han Solo’s leadership to kill Zsinj. In fact, however, the more insidious damage to the
government had been done by the government itself with the Celchu trial. Originally Tycho Celchu had been held up as an example of the evil perpetrated by the Empire, but Nawara Ven’s spirited defense had pointed out that the evidence against Celchu was circumstantial and probably manufactured. The obvious displeasure expressed by Rogue Squadron’s cherished heroes at Celchu’s trial helped underscore the weak foundation for the government’s case.

He neither knew nor cared if Celchu was innocent. Isard was very capable of arranging it so an innocent man appeared to be guilty or vice versa. He did know she was using the trial to hurt the government, and her efforts clearly were succeeding—which is why the tenor of the note surprised him.

In addition to summoning him to a meeting place, the note directed him to dispatch teams of his people to various sites in the Imperial Palace and Senate Hill areas. They were to go armed and shoot on sight the individual whose file she’d appended to the message. Many of the locations would be all but impossible to get to at this hour: a forty-third floor foyer in the Imperial Palace, an unused area of the Galactic Museum, an old Imperial Senate subcommittee room. Moreover, it struck him that the only place she wasn’t asking him to send his men was the Imperial Courthouse. Since she wanted everyone in place before court could open, and since the target apparently possessed information she didn’t want revealed, he assumed she had the Courthouse covered herself.

Fliry Vorru frowned.
She should have gotten Loor to send people out to these other sites, too, not just the Courthouse
. He flicked on his datapad and called up the reports from the people he had monitoring the activities of Loor and his operatives. Of Loor there was no report within the last hour, when he left his tower. Loor had gotten much better at eluding surveillance over the past several weeks, but he always showed up again in places that made re-acquiring him painfully easy.

The reports on some of Loor’s operatives, on the other hand, sparked Vorru’s interest. Three teams, a full thirty individuals,
had congregated at the warehouse facility Loor used to store his heavy weaponry.
That makes for a big operation, and I’ve given Loor no targets for such an operation
.

Fliry Vorru realized that one of
his
facilities was going to be the target of that operation. Isard’s orders were scattering his troops so he couldn’t defend against the assault.
It has to be coming against the bacta storage facility
—
that’s the only target I control which she would see as valuable. She wants to take it down to hurt the Republic, but hitting any of the others would make as much sense. The only thing this gives her is a terrorist strike against me, which strengthens my cover and distances me from association with her
.

Ordering him to be in a meeting place at a specific time was meant to get him out of the bacta storage area so he’d not be killed. If she confided in him the reason she wanted him out, he’d refuse to do what she wanted, choosing instead to protect his bacta and the profits he could reap by selling the “wastage” that occurred with each shipment.
As well as the other loot I have stored there
.

Despite the fact that her summons was meant to save his life, he took little joy in it. If things went as they had previously, she would appear in hologram and berate him for what he had or had not done for her cause. She used the fact that she could betray him to the Rebels as a bludgeon, and he cringed suitably when she did so, which seemed to satisfy her need to see him under her control. As nervous as her message suggested she was, he expected quite a beating.

What she does not understand, what she has never understood, is that I don’t fear her at all. The Emperor considered me a rival. She is nothing compared to him. I work for her because her goals and mine coincide. I can play her off against the Republic and benefit in the meantime
.

Fliry Vorru smiled. He prepared orders dispatching militia teams to the sites she wanted, though he reduced her request for a dozen people at each location to three. The rest he ordered summoned to his bacta storage facility. He planned to have them moving as much bacta and other loot as possible to the various storage facilities he had scattered all over Imperial Center.

When she wants to know why I evacuated my facility, I’ll tell her the Alliance tipped me to a strike. And to make that seem true
 …

Vorru switched his comlink to a secure frequency and initiated a call. He allowed the sleepy individual on the opposite end of the link to awaken enough to understand Basic, then he spoke slowly and carefully. “Forgive the hour of this call, Councilor Fey’lya, but I knew not where else to turn. I have learned of an impending PCF strike at a bacta storage facility. If we act quickly, a great tragedy can be averted.”

All Wedge could see of Emtrey in the darkness was the droid’s glowing gold eyes. “What is it, Emtrey?”

“Forgive the intrusion, Commander, but we have just gotten an urgent message from Admiral Ackbar. There are terrorists about and we have to stop them.”

Wedge shook his head to clear it. “Terrorists here, in our area?”

“No, sir. They’re going to hit a bacta storage site. You’re to fly cover for our troops opposing them.”

The bedsheet slid down around Wedge’s waist as he pulled himself up and pressed his back against the headboard. “Call in the squadron.”

“I have, sir. They’re all coming in except for Master Ven. He’s not answering his comlink.”

“Keep trying. When you get him, I want to speak with him. Get to Zraii and start pre-flight on our X-wings. Tell him I want no fueling delays this time.”

“Done, sir.” Emtrey pointed at the datapad on the desk in Wedge’s room. “The primary briefing document has already been downloaded for your review.”

Wedge smiled. “Thanks.” He threw back the covers and stepped out of bed. “Caf, lots of it, for me and for the ready room. I have a feeling this mission is not one we can fly in our sleep.”

36

A tone brought Corran awake. A jolt of fear ran through him when he couldn’t recognize his surroundings. He knew he wasn’t in Lusankya anymore, or at least he hoped that was the case, but the thought that his whole escape might have been some elaborate charade staged by Isard to break him down gnawed at his spirit.

He hauled himself off the very comfortable bantha-hide divan. He’d not intended to fall asleep, but the tunnel-shuttle’s appointments were plush and seductive, especially in comparison with what he had endured in Lusankya.
This is more impressive than the Hotel Imperial
. The shuttle had a small refresher station which had allowed Corran to take his first shower since his capture. The Lusankya diet had not been very high in protein content, so his hair, beard, and fingernails had not grown much during his captivity; still, he could have used a shave.
Then again, in this tunic, I’m hardly presentable
. He laughed.
If it were
really
that luxurious, there would have been a closet with a full wardrobe on board
.

Holdout blaster in hand, Corran walked over to the egress hatch and opened it. Waiting for him was what looked like a private lift. The box, paneled with dark greel wood,
was otherwise featureless. This made Corran a little apprehensive; without controls, he had to assume it was programmed to go to a specific place.
I don’t know if I want to be there, but I suspect it will be better for me than
here. He entered the lift and the doors closed behind him.

The car ascended quickly and quietly. Corran shook the lees of sleep from his head. He squeezed himself into the corner of the car just left of the doors, out of direct line with the opening. Blaster in his right hand, he was ready to pivot on his left foot, duck low, and come out shooting if he had to.

The lift slowed, then stopped.

The doors opened whisper-quiet.

The musty scent of stale air rolled into the lift. Corran brought the neck of his tunic up over his nose, then dropped it again, realizing it smelled slightly worse than the chamber beyond the doorway. He peeked out quickly and beyond a gauzy wall of spider webs saw a grey room and shadowy figures scattered about it. He ducked back, then looked out again.

No one is moving. Aside from the spiders and whatever they snack on, there’s nothing living in here
.

He sliced the web-wall in half with his left hand, then stepped into the long, rectangular room. Dust billowed up around his feet and coated his soles. Slender, dust-laden web-strands hung down from the ceiling like vines in a forest. Some of them attached themselves to the figures in the room, as if etheric umbilical cords maintaining the figures in their twilight existence.

Corran had no idea where he was, but the taint of evil in the room threatened to overwhelm him. That surprised him because he saw no active threat and didn’t feel directly menaced. The sensation reminded him of his days back in CorSec, when he entered the scene of a particularly violent massacre of spice runners who had angered Durga the Hutt.
It was all destruction, but not wanton
—
it was completely calculated and deliberate
.

The figures he saw were all statues and mannequins. As he approached the first one, a little light flashed on in the
space before it and resolved into a hologram of the head and shoulders of a man. A voice from the base of the statue said, “Avan Post, Jedi Master from Chandrila, served with distinction in the Clone Wars.”

Corran looked up at the head of the white marble statue to see if it matched the hologram, but the face on the statue had been destroyed. The stone had melted back to the level of the ears and streamed down over the figure’s torso. Nothing else about the statue’s shape enabled Corran to figure out if it was Post or not.
Then again, why would the hologram of Post be connected to this statue if it isn’t him?

Corran frowned.
And why remove his face?

Corran moved deeper into the room. The muted illumination came from glowtiles set near floor level and enabled Corran to pick out two darkened doorways set into one of the longer walls, but he didn’t feel compelled to head out and explore the area beyond them. He couldn’t explain it, but he had a hunch there was something important in the room, something he had to find. While intellectually he knew running far and fast was the best thing for him, his father had always encouraged him to follow his hunches.
Doing that has kept me alive. No reason to change now, especially now
.

As he moved through the chamber it became obvious that the statues and display cases were all exhibits in some sort of museum.
A Jedi museum
. Everything pertained in one way or another to Jedi Knights and Masters, with the vast majority of them having served in the Clone Wars.
Just over forty years ago, all of these people were alive
.