X-wing_ The Krytos Trap Part 4

From his vantage point at the periphery of the battle he could see a number of things that impressed him. The Rogues had hit the eyeb.a.l.l.s very hard, but Zsinj's people regrouped in good order instead of scattering.

Without s.h.i.+elds, the TIE starfighters were really no match for the X-wings, but remaining together made them far more dan-gerous than individual s.h.i.+ps fleeing. Whoever the leader of that squadron was, he was sharp enough to keep his people together and head them out and away from the fray.

"Rogue flights Two and Three, leave the flight of eye-b.a.l.l.s alone and join the Y-wings. One flight, we're watching the eyeb.a.l.l.s." Wedge hit two b.u.t.tons on his flight console.

"Mynock, see if you can get me a frequency for the comm unit communications between the eyeb.a.l.l.s." The droid hooted his understanding of the order. While Wedge waited for the droid to get him that information, he watched the B-wings finish off the squints and head in toward the station. Wedge's monitor showed seven Interceptors hanging dead in s.p.a.ce. That number was im-pressive, even in spite of the ambush, because blowing s.h.i.+ps up was far easier than taking their electrical systems down. While he appreciated the fact that the pilots had not been killed when their s.h.i.+ps had been stopped, he knew the choice to use ion cannons on them had been made for practical rather than altruistic reasons.

Each of those pilots will be debriefed, and what they know will be added to our store of inl%rmation concerning Zsinj. It is entirely possible some or all of them served on the Iron Fist, and learning about the s.h.i.+p's condition is of vital importance. It represents the core of Zsinj's might, and will let us determine how truly dangerous he is.

]'he Rebel fighters all converged on the Empress-cla.s.s s.p.a.ce station with the Y-wings in the lead. While ungainly, the Y-wings were still not easy targets to hit. The station's weaponry sent energy beams shooting out at the attackers, but the incoming fighters supplied three targets for each weapon system, overwhelming the crews defending the sta-tion. Added to that was the ability of fighters to approach while using part of the station to s.h.i.+eld them from many of the lasers. Using targeting data supplied by other s.h.i.+ps, the fighters were able to pop from cover and fire at targets that had previously been unseen.

The swooping, diving, rolling, and climbing cloud of fighters boiled around the station like insects around a bright light. Direct hits on a fighter would make the craft break off and loop away until its s.h.i.+elds were recharged, then head back in. The battle to defend the station was lost from the very start, but the fear Zsinj inspired in his people clearly kept them fighting long after it made sense for them to do so.

Mynock beeped, and Wedge saw a corem unit frequency come up on his monitor. He punched the number into his comm unit and keyed his microphone. "Starfighter flight, this is Commander Antilles of the New Republic Armed Forces. If you power down your weapons, we'll consider you noncombatants. The same offer goes for the people on the station."

"I copy, Antilles." The voice coming back to Wedge through the comm unit had the metallic echo commonly in-jected in speech by Imperial equipment.

"My flight is disarm-ing itself. I'll pa.s.s your message on to the station chief, Valsil Torr."

"Obliged, starfighter." Wedge checked his sensors for hostiles as he waited for a return message.

"Antilles, Torr has the message and is powering down his weapons. The station is yours. Be careful, though, he's a wily old Twi'lek."

Wedge smiled. Though the communications gear had robbed the voice of any humanity, it couldn't kill the person-ality in it. He might have been amazed that someone who had just been shooting at him and his people would so quickly offer helpful advice, but he'd long since learned that warriors from all sides of any conflict had more in common than not. "I copy the advice. I appreciate it."

"One thing, Antilles."

"Yes?"

"If we surrender to you, will you haul us out of here?"

"Don't want to be around when the Iron Fist gets here?"

"Not especially."

No surprise, that. Unlike the starfighters the Rebellion used, the TIE fighters were not equipped with hyperdrives. TIEs traveled between battles in the bellies of s.h.i.+ps like the Iron Fist. The flight of starfighters was trapped unless Wedge arranged transport for them out of the system. Zsinj had a reputation for being short-tempered, so leaving them behind was tantamount to murdering them, and Wedge had no de-sire to have their murders on his conscience.

"Starfighter, surrendering to me means you'll lose your s.h.i.+p."

"That's a problem, Antilles. We're all mercenaries. We lose our s.h.i.+ps and we starve." The TIE pilot fell silent for a moment, then continued. "Of course, no reason to eat and live if you can't fly."

"I understand, starfighter." Wedge thought for a mo-ment. "I have an idea. If you hire on as guards to fly cover for one of the freighters coming in, you can get out of here and be free."

"Freighters?"

"Coming for the bacta."

"Bacta. So that's what we were guarding."

"And you can continue guarding it all the way to Corus-cant, where it's needed. Give me your word you won't fight against the New Republic in the future, and you've got a deal."

"You have it, Antilles."

Right on cue, a dozen and 'a half bulk freighters and specialty haulers started coming out of hypers.p.a.ce and cruis-ing in toward the s.p.a.ce station. Most were blocky, squared-off craft that had seen better days, but a few were more elegant s.h.i.+ps whose very designs were tributes to the roman-ticism of s.p.a.ce travel. One, a converted Baudo-cla.s.s yacht, glided through the void like a metal simulacrum of the Corel-lian sea creature that gave the s.h.i.+p her name.

"Starfighter, the Baudo-cla.s.s yacht there is the Pulsar Skate. I'll have the captain contact you on this frequency. Stand by."

"I copy."

Wedge opened a channel to the Skate. "Skate, this is Rogue Leader."

"Mirax here, Wedge. We're fourth in line to head in. What can I do for you?"

"We have a flight of four eyeb.a.l.l.s...o...b..ting. They've left Zsinj's service and need a ride out of here. Will you?"

"Sure. Not the first time I've hauled a s.h.i.+p 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 c.o.c.kpit 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 s.h.i.+ps 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 s.h.i.+ps. Transmitting now."

The image on the monitor s.h.i.+fted from a TIE starfighter to an X-wing. An additional line of data beneath the fighter's image informed Corran the s.h.i.+p 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, a.s.suming he'd have to use multiple shots in multiple pa.s.ses to bring Tycho down. He led the X-wing, antic.i.p.ating Tycho's break, then hastily snapped off a shot that splashed energy over Tycho's s.h.i.+elds 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 s.h.i.+vered. 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 s.h.i.+p and saw that X-wing was listed as being flown by Kittan Loor. An immediate desire to rape that s.h.i.+p 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 s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+ps 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 relations.h.i.+p 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 c.o.c.kpit. 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 s.h.i.+p 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 cause 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 computer 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 pa.s.sed."

"From your perspective that might seem true." Her eyes sharpened. "From mine it merely means you have recla.s.sified 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 interesting, 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 bl.u.s.ter. 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 ident.i.ties for Corran to use after he fled from CoreIlia, had made sure the ident.i.ties 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 b.u.t.ton at her door.

On the way over from squadron headquarters 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 pa.s.s 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 n.o.ble, 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 approached the search so openly that Wedge couldn't find fault with her in doing her duty as she saw it.

He pressed the door buzzer, then tugged at the cuffs of his jacket sleeves. I'm not asking her out. I'm just here as a friend visiting a friend. Wedge shook his head. For the past ten years, since the death of his parents and through his a.s.sociation with the Rebellion, he'd really given little thought to romance and relations.h.i.+ps. He'd certainly found companions.h.i.+p with a number of Rebel women, but he'd not found a single companion, a partner, the way Han Solo or Tycho Celchu had. He couldn't explain why not, nor did he let it bother him--the nature of the Rebellion and his a.s.sign-ments meant planning for anything long-term was silly, and avoiding relations.h.i.+ps meant the chances of getting hurt when the unspeakable happened were much less.

He'd seen Leia over the time Han Solo had been encased in carbonite. She had been driven almost to the point of recklessness in her attempts to free her beloved. He laughed. Entering Jabba's palace meant she was driven beyond reck-lessness. While he envied Han Solo the pa.s.sion with which he was loved, he dreaded the idea of being plagued by the pain Leia had known.