The Krytos Trap (44 page)

“In recognition of their efforts to defend the New Republic, the Provisional Council has created and is awarding to the unit and its members a medal intended to be the highest award our government can bestow upon military personnel. It is the Coruscant Star of Valor. The citation itself reads, ‘For service and bravery beyond the bounds of what can be asked of a citizen by a government, and a willful commitment to put the good of the many above their own personal welfare, the Provisional Council unanimously and joyfully awards to Rogue Squadron and its members, the Coruscant Star of Valor.’ ”

As Mon Mothma turned and looked back at him, Wedge came forward and accepted a transparisteel plate into which the citation had been etched. A hologram of the medal
itself had been embedded in the transparisteel above the words, and a ghostly hologram of the unit’s members had been placed behind them.

Mon Mothma shook Wedge’s hand. “Congratulations, Commander. You and your people deserve this even more than I probably know.” She then stepped back and waved him toward the podium.

Wedge hesitated, then stepped up to the microphones. He had been warned he’d be asked to say something, and a number of people had made suggestions, but it was Admiral Ackbar’s advice he decided to heed.
Be brief, he said, and remember all those who need to be remembered
.

“This citation is not just for those of us who stand here behind me, but really for all those who fought in Rogue Squadron. None of them would have balked at making the sacrifices we have. All of us—everyone in Rogue Squadron and in the Alliance itself—have risked all we are to defeat a government that took joy in the sorrow and terror of its citizens. Winning this award, taking possession of Coruscant, these things are not ends in and of themselves, but blazes marking the trail we must all tread if the galaxy is ever to be truly free.”

Gentle applause from the dignitaries and guests gathered beyond the dais accompanied Wedge’s retreat back into line with the other pilots. As Mon Mothma walked past him, she let her left hand brush against his arm. He glanced at her and she gave him a smile.
I guess I didn’t do that badly
.

She resumed her place at the podium and began speaking again. “Of the events that have transpired over the last year, there are many rumors and far fewer facts. Those rumors could all be dispelled by having an exact chronology of events created, and perhaps, in another generation or two, such a chronology could be made public. While we were a covert force fighting against the Empire, there was no questioning the need for stealth and secrecy. It was what kept us alive and allowed us to fight on against the Empire. Because of this secrecy we have defeated them in battle after battle.”

Mon Mothma nodded in the direction of the holocam to her right. “With the New Republic in possession of Coruscant,
it might seem that the time for such secrecy is past, but it is not. The Empire is not yet dead, and the dozens of petty warlords tearing at it have already and will continue to study us for signs of weakness. Their drive to restore the Empire, with themselves in Palpatine’s place, means we cannot reveal all of our secrets.

“We can, however, reveal some of them. Doing so is not only a vital necessity, for secrecy can breed arrogance and we have all seen where that can lead, but a pleasure. It provides me a chance to right a great wrong and prevent possible future tragedies.”

She turned and pointed toward Tycho. “This is Captain Tycho Celchu, as loyal a son of Alderaan and the New Republic as ever lived. He willingly chose to subject himself to a surrendering of his basic freedoms in order to bring the Empire down. Because of suspicions about what the Empire might have done to him, it was felt he could not be trusted, yet this man refused to let those suspicions prevent him from doing all he could to destroy the Empire. On numerous occasions he put his own life in jeopardy, flying unarmed into combat zones to rescue pilots who otherwise would have died.

“Most recently you have all seen him on trial for treason and murder of other members of Rogue Squadron. This trial, as public and as ugly as it was, played a crucial part in an Intelligence operation to uncover Imperial agents within the New Republic. Despite being held up as an object of revulsion to the New Republic, Captain Celchu did not shirk his duty. He allowed himself to become such a target because it would mean that Imperial agents felt free to operate more openly while Captain Celchu was the subject of such fierce scrutiny. Imperial agents, in helping to manufacture evidence against Captain Celchu, revealed themselves to us.”

Mon Mothma opened her arms. “Let there be no citizen of the New Republic who harbors suspicions about Tycho Celchu. His devotion to the New Republic is unquestioned. His return to active service with Rogue Squadron is a joyous event for us, and an event that should be feared by those who would attack the New Republic.” She initiated applause for
Tycho and everyone else joined in, including Wedge once he tucked the unit citation beneath his left arm.

Tycho bowed his head toward Mon Mothma, but declined an invitation to speak with a curt shake of his head.

Mon Mothma nodded back at him, then resumed her place at the podium. “It is said of Rogue Squadron that doing the impossible is what they do best, and another member of the squadron has shown himself to be perhaps the best of the best at it. Is there anyone in the New Republic who has not heard of Corran Horn? He was the pilot who flew through the worst storm in Coruscant’s recorded history to bring the defense shields down, only to be slain through the treachery of one of his comrades. It was a story that touched all of us because it spoke to the best in one individual and the worst in another. We mourned Corran Horn because his untimely death seemed yet one more tragedy caused by the Empire at a time when the Empire should have been decidedly less virulent.

“We know of Captain Celchu’s innocence because of a number of things, greatest among them Corran Horn’s return from the grave. He was
not
killed on the last day the Empire held Coruscant. He was captured instead. When Ysanne Isard could not break him and transform him into a puppet, he was placed in a prison where she intended him to live out the rest of his life. Though he had been told that a failed escape attempt would result in his death, Corran Horn risked his life to win his freedom. He alone has gotten away from Lusankya, and his escape precipitated Ysanne Isard’s own departure from Coruscant.”

Mon Mothma beckoned Corran forward, but he followed Tycho’s lead, acknowledging her gesture with a slight bow and a smile. That smile remained on his face as he straightened up, though he did give Wedge a covert wink. Wedge nodded in return, pleased that both men were content with allowing the focus of the ceremony to remain on the squadron instead of shifting it to themselves.

“Citizens, Ysanne Isard’s flight from Coruscant and her subsequent actions have given birth to more rumors than can be counted. It is true that with the resources available to her
she did travel to Thyferra and support a revolution that put the Xucphra faction in charge of the bacta cartel. She does now rule there and has effective control over the output of the entire bacta cartel. Given that she introduced the Krytos virus to Coruscant and directed covert Imperial operations to destroy bacta storage facilities here on Coruscant, this would seem to place her in a most powerful position. Literally, it would appear that millions will live or die depending upon her whim.”

Mon Mothma’s voice took on a more serious tone. “Her action would have caused a crisis except for two things over which she had no control. One was a direct and unwitting result of her own haste in taking action against us. When she ordered the creation of the Krytos virus, she wanted a virus that would mutate quickly and spread between species easily. Her scientists complied with her orders, but they failed to take into account what would happen if the spread of the virus was hampered. The Krytos virus was very deadly—in fact, too deadly for her plan to succeed. Infected persons died fast—in many cases too fast to be able to spread the disease very far. An illness that kills too quickly runs itself out of hosts and dies along with them. Those individuals who lasted long enough to spread the virus did so only because, as the virus mutated, it became less virulent. Since it did not kill them so quickly, they had a chance to pass it on, but it was no longer as deadly a virus as Iceheart wanted it to be.

“This high rate of mutation also weakened the virus’s defenses. Analysis of the virus allowed a Vratix verachen to be able to synthesize a specific medication to combat the virus by growing the alazhi component of bacta in a ryll-rich environment. The resulting product, known as rylca, is now being produced in a hidden location by the New Republic. More than enough to eradicate the virus will be available here well before our bacta supply runs out.”

Mon Mothma glanced momentarily back toward Wedge and he saw the glimmerings of a smile on her face. “Rogue Squadron itself did not produce the rylca, but they provided support for the product and were instrumental in obtaining both the ryll and the bacta used to create the rylca. Qlaern
Hirf is a Vratix verachen from Thyferra and is the creator of rylca. Equally instrumental in the success of this effort is the woman who transported the components for the rylca and rescued the Vratix from the most dire of circumstances, Mirax Terrik. You may have heard that Mirax was killed in the ambush at Alderaan, but it appears her long association with Rogue Squadron allowed her to do the impossible as well and return from that tragedy to help us deal with the Krytos virus.”

The New Republic’s Chief Councilor led the assembly in a round of applause for both Qlaern and Mirax. The Vratix seemed utterly nonplussed by the demonstration, but Mirax blushed fiercely. She gave Wedge a fearsome stare that he recognized by virtue of having seen it many times before, and he knew what it meant.

She’s right, it
is
all my fault that she’s being embarrassed by the attention, but I’m glad she’s alive to be blushing
. As nearly as Cracken and his Intelligence people could make out, Erisi had betrayed the bacta convoy to the Empire for two reasons. The first was to eliminate a lot of bacta, dashing hopes on Coruscant and driving the price yet higher. The second reason was to get Mirax killed, since her
Pulsar Skate
was one of the ships in the convoy. Mirax recalled Erisi threatening her if Mirax continued her relationship with Corran, and the destruction of the convoy offered Erisi a way to kill her rival for Corran’s affections. Given that everyone thought Corran was dead at the time, the act was taken as a reflection of Erisi’s vindictive and petty nature.

Then again, Isard might have told Erisi of Corran’s survival and promised him to her as a reward for her continued loyalty
. Wedge shivered at that thought.
Luckily for Mirax, the
Pulsar Skate
didn’t go along with the final convoy jump
. Mirax had instead shipped out to Borleias, where the captured Alderaan Biotics Facility was put to use synthesizing rylca.
The plan had been for it to appear as if Mirax had just stolen a portion of the bacta going to Coruscant
—
what smuggler could have resisted taking such a prize? She would have remained out of sight until the production of rylca could allow the New Republic the freedom to anger the
hacta cartel by announcing their possession of a facility that could produce enough bacta-like products to break the cartel. The death of the convoy provided an even better cover for her operation, so she remained
dead
until an opportune moment to reveal the deception
.

Mon Mothma faced the holocams one last time. “Citizens of the New Republic, the last vestige of the Empire’s evil has been rooted out of Coruscant. What was once an Empire is now just a collection of bitter people clutching at whatever power they can find to keep themselves apart from those they have hurt. What they do not realize, and the reason they are doomed to failure, is that all power in the galaxy comes from the free and willful investing of power by one person in another. Human and non-human, gendered or not, young, old, hale or infirm, we can only
give
power, we cannot take it. Stolen power evaporates and when it does, the empires that were built on it and of it collapse, never to rise again.”

46

Wedge found it mildly annoying that he was able to resist the generally festive atmosphere of the reception following the awards ceremony. Various guests mixed and mingled with members of the squadron while holocams made the most of every holo-op. The images would be distributed throughout the New Republic, winning a small measure of the unit’s fame for the politicians and other celebrities present.

Though he was inclined to view such opportunism with a cynical eye, he didn’t condemn it. The Rebellion had won. Hundreds and hundreds of worlds flocked to the New Republic’s banner. The New Republic fleet was poised to go after Warlord Zsinj in a campaign that would strike fear into the hearts of all the other petty warlords in the galaxy. Even Ysanne Isard had to know her days were numbered, since there was no way the New Republic could let her remain in control of the bacta supply. With the installation of Fliry Vorru as Thyferra’s Minister of Trade, bacta prices had already started to climb, making that situation one that could not be tolerated.

The reason the celebration failed to reach him went beyond his sense of mourning for Iella Wessiri. She had declined to accompany him to the reception, and he understood
why. No one saw Diric as anything but one more of Iceheart’s victims, out Iella clearly thought she should have been able to spot something, to have known Diric was under Iceheart’s control. The obvious implication of that thinking was that if she had been more vigilant she never would have had to shoot him and the guilt over that act would be one with which she would wrestle for the rest of her life.

Ultimately Wedge’s reservations about the celebration came from the past. He remembered well the celebration on Yavin 4 that followed the first Death Star’s destruction.
Our joy was this transparent, this unguarded. Then we evacuated the base and began running from the Empire. I know it’s stupid to associate a victory and celebration with impending disaster, but
 …