The Krytos Trap

by Michael A. Stackpole

  As he spoke, his mind raced on through thoughts and dreams of what he might have had with Iella had Diric not reappeared. It seemed as if the life they would never share was flashing before his eyes even as his words killed it. The romantic in him just wanted to hold onto how wonderful it would have been, but the pragmatist knew from just looking at Diric that things would have fallen apart in the end. Iella had chosen Diric because he was a sanctuary. No matter what her life held in store for her, he was someone who would always be there to share her joys and ease her disappointments. Wedge realized that he could not have given her what Diric provided. It might have taken a long time for their relationship to destroy itself, and they might have overcome the difficulties, but Wedge knew he could never have been as perfect a match for her as Diric was.

  Someday I’ll find someone. Wedge smiled. When I’m ready to settle down.

  Diric mirrored Wedge’s smile and let his head sink back contentedly against the chair’s padding. “I am glad Iella found friends as generous and honorable as you are, Wedge. I do feel quite fortunate.”

  “And I bet you’re happy to be free.”

  “Happy? Yes, though captivity wasn’t as brutal as imagined. They can only control your body, not your mind.” Diric shrugged slowly as if the effort were all but beyond his ability. “I knew I would be free someday.”

  “That’s what Tycho says.”

  “Who?”

  Iella looked down at her husband. “The man who killed Corran.”

  “The man who is on trial for killing Corran,” Wedge corrected her. “Your wife is working with the prosecution team.”

  “Working to find the truth, mind you.” Iella gave Wedge a frank glare. “There’s ample evidence to bind him over for trial and to convict him.”

  “And blasted little uncovered, so far, to acquit him.” Wedge held his hands up. “However, discussing that case was not my purpose for coming over here.”

  Diric’s bushy brows met over the bridge of his hooked nose. “You think this Tycho is innocent?”

  “I know it. Tycho Celchu is as much a victim of the Empire as you were.”

  Iella gave Diric’s hand a gentle squeeze. “Tycho was once captured by the Imps. He’s been working for them since his supposed escape, though Wedge would tell you he’s been neatly framed.”

  Diric looked up at her. “And you know Wedge is wrong?”

  Her immediate response died in a moment of open-mouthed hesitation. Iella’s gaze flicked up at Wedge, then back down again. “We have found a lot to indicate Captain Celchu was an Imperial agent of extreme resourcefulness.”

  “But there are gaps in the evidence.” Wedge smiled slowly. “Everything that condemns Tycho is available, but those things that would acquit him have vanished. Given the timing, the only force that could provide with one hand and take away with the other is the Empire.”

  Diric disengaged his hand from Iella’s and pressed it, fingertip to fingertip, against the other hand. “This Tycho must be something to earn such loyalty from you.”

  “I feel about Tycho what Iella feels about Corran.”

  “Hence the impasse between us.”

  “Impasse, indeed. Still, Captain Celchu sounds fascinating.” Diric’s voice became wistful and Iella straightened up.

  “Don’t even think it, Diric.”

  Wedge raised an eyebrow. “What’s the matter?”

  Anger creased leila’s brow and put snap into her voice. “He’s going to meddle.”

  The older man wheezed out a laugh and punctuated it with a wet cough. “Meddle, is it? You see, Wedge, my vocation in life is to seek out people who fascinate me. I study them. I try to understand them. I share what understanding I have with others.”

  Ieila’s brown eyes narrowed. “On Corellia he found a defendant in a case fascinating. He got to know her and decided she was innocent.”

  “Was she?”

  Diric nodded solemnly.

  “He kept after Corran and me, constantly asking us little questions that forced us to look beyond the scope of our investigation. She had been framed, but we got the guys who were responsible in the end.” She frowned at her husband. “That was a different case, it wasn’t on Coruscant, and you weren’t weak as an Ewok cub at the time. You need to recover.”

  “I will, dearest.”

  Wedge smiled as he heard all manner of meaning in those words. Ieila’s sigh meant she heard at least some of them and knew nothing short of house arrest would keep Diric from meeting Tycho. Diric will make sure Iella doesn’t let her desire to avenge Corran stop short of discovering the truth of what caused his death. “Having a hobby will likely speed your recovery.”

  “A hobby, very good.”

  “This man’s hobby is going to be my nightmare.” Iella shook her head. “Antilles, didn’t you say something about food when you arrived here?”

  “I did indeed.” Wedge jerked a thumb up toward the ceiling. “There is an Ithorian tapcaf about thirty levels up that is supposed to offer some fairly exotic vegetable matter and then…” He stopped as a tone sounded from the comlink clipped to the collar of his jacket. “Hang on a second.”

  He pulled the comlink free and flicked it on. “Antilles, go ahead.”

  “Wedge, it’s Mirax.”

  “Finally awake?” Wedge nodded toward Iella. “It’s Mirax.”

  “Ask her if she wants to join us for food.”

  “Will do. Mirax, I’m at Iella’s apartment. She wants to know…”

  “I heard, but it’ll have to be another time.” Mirax’s tone dripped seriousness. “I have a problem. It’s on the Skate, and I need you to get down here. Just you.”

  Wedge frowned. Those fliers for Zsinj should have been taken into custody a long time ago. “How bad is it? Are your riders back and causing trouble?”

  “No, no, not that. That I could handle.” Mirax sighed. “Look, you know I usually haul rare items for folks, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, at the station I picked up something that’s very rare, and as near as I can tell, if I don’t get rid of it in the right way, the New Republic will shake itself apart and a scant few people will be alive to start rebuilding the future.”

  Chapter Ten

  Gavin Darklighter felt his gorge rising as the miasmal stench from the darkened hovel stabbed through his nostrils and into his brain. He reeled away from the doorway and fell to his knees, puking up what felt like every last bit of food he’d eaten since his return to Coruscant. His stomach muscles clenched again and again, wringing his guts empty, but doing nothing to soothe the prickly sensation in the back of his throat that prompted him to heave once more.

  A piercing wail from a female Gamorrean drilled through his skull and reminded him where he was and why he was there. Gavin coughed once and spat, then croaked a command to the black M-3PO droid behind him. “Emtrey, don’t let them go in there. Tell her I’ll do all I can.”

  Gavin wiped his mouth with his hand, then weakly crawled up the hovel’s exterior wall. He pressed his back against the ferrocrete and slowly straightened up. He coughed again and his body tried to make him heave yet again, but he clenched his jaw and refused to vomit. Never seen one that bad before. Though he hoped he never would again see such a case, he knew that was one hope that had no chance of becoming reality.

  The M-3PO droid succeeded in guiding the Gamorrean female and her tusky children to the other side of the walkway, then turned back toward Gavin. The droid’s nonstandard clamshell head—a refit from a spaceport control droid—canted slightly to the left. “Is there anything I can do for you, Master Darklighter?”

  “I’ll be fine in a minute, Emtrey. Just keep them back.” Gavin again spat, trying to rid his mouth of the sour taste. “Ask her when she last heard from her husband.”

  The protocol droid swiveled his head around and grunted the question out to the Gamorrean female. She replied in subdued and broken tones, which Emtrey translated for Gavin. “She says she
and the children had been visiting kin elsewhere. The last time she spoke to her husband it was by comlink. He had sniffles, but was not alarmed. I’m gathering, from the words she’s using, sir, that there was some domestic discord, which is why a lapse in communication would not be surprising.”

  “Got it, Emtrey. How long was she gone from here?”

  “A standard month, sir—she left well before the liberation.”

  Gavin nodded. A month meant the chances she’d been infected by her husband were nil—if she had been, she’d already be showing signs of the Krytos virus. “Tell her to get to a bacta center for evaluation. She doesn’t want the kids sick.”

  “I’ve told her, sir. She wants to know if Tolra will recover.”

  Gavin sighed and pushed himself away from the wall. “Tell her he’s very sick. The prognosis is not good, but we will do what we can. Then call Asyr and tell her we’ll need a clean team here.” He forced himself to smile. “And, Emtrey, tell Tolra’s wife she did the right thing. Tolra was brave and smart, and together they saved many people.”

  The words rang hollow in his ears, but he knew they would not in hers. What he said was correct: when the Gamorrean in the hovel recognized how sick he had become, he sealed his home’s entrances and scrambled the lock-codes, preventing anyone else from getting in and becoming infected. In that he had indeed saved many lives.

  Except for his own. Gavin forced his fists to unclench. Had the Gamorrean used his comlink to summon medical help, he might have been saved. That he was lucid enough to entomb himself meant that he was not so far gone that bacta therapy couldn’t have helped him. He needn’t have become what Gavin had seen in shadows.

  The pilot realized the blame lay not entirely with the Gamorrean himself. The black-market price for bacta was astronomical, so far out of reach for the average citizens that they could not imagine there was any bacta available for them. Those who did summon help, or had it summoned for them, were often so far gone that no therapy could help, so they never returned. As a result, other citizens saw the medivac units as thinly disguised extermination units that took the sick away and destroyed them.

  Ignorance is killing these people.

  Gavin forced himself to step forward and reenter the Gamorrean’s hovel. The fetid stink returned to his nose and found accompaniment in the horrible sights and sounds that greeted him. The single-room hovel itself was scarcely larger than his own room in the squadron headquarters—and he found that a bit cramped for one. It had two doors—the one he’d opened using a lock-descrambling unit and a back door. A heating plate and water spigot to the left of the doorway marked the extent of the dwelling’s kitchen facilities. The refresher station stood farther along that wall, in the corner.

  Spattered blood covered all of it, sprayed along the floor, up the walls, and across the ceiling. It had dried and taken on a black hue, making the room look as if a shadow had exploded. The explosion’s epicenter lay in the back corner, on a raised black platform that glistened in what little light made it in past Gavin.

  A wet, gurgling sound pulsed arhythmically from that corner. On the platform, restrained by bedding twisted about him while in the throes of agony, the mortal shell of the Gamorrean named Tolra somehow clung to life. Gavin could see where the flesh had split, allowing leg and arm bones to protrude. The skin itself had thinned to a green-grey translucency and hung in ragged ribbons from ribs and fingers.

  The Gamorrean seemed to sense Gavin’s presence, because he turned to look at him. With a thick sucking sound, like cold grease being slathered over machine gears, the skull turned toward him while the fleshy sac encompassing it did not. The Gamorrean’s horns and tusks gashed his own skin, then the thick muscles on the creature’s neck snapped, leaving the massive skull to loll unnaturally in a puddle of viscous tissue.

  A chill settled over Gavin. Though he knew Tolra was dead and that the disease had long since eaten away any trace of sapience, he nodded toward the Gamorrean. “You saved them. You did it. May the Force be with you.”

  Shivering, he turned and walked from the room. He sat down outside and stripped the filmplast covering off his boots, then tossed them back through the darkened doorway. He didn’t bother to look up when a shadow fell over him. “He’s dead.”

  Asyr crouched down beside him. “The clean team will get here shortly. Are you all right?”

  Gavin thought a moment before he answered. “I will be, and I think that scares me.”

  “No reason it should.”

  “I think there is.” He jerked a thumb toward the hovel. “There is a Gamorrean in there who has been turned into a mass of jelly. The disease killed him, but it did so in a way that didn’t let him die until he could experience every fragment of pain possible. There’s nothing left to him, but he was still breathing when I went in there. He was so tough, he probably lasted longer than a week in the end stages of the disease.”

  The Bothan stroked Gavin’s cheek. “He fought the disease. That’s good.”

  “Sure, but the fact that we can find something noble in this seems twisted.” He shook his head. “I’ve seen more death in my time with Rogue Squadron than I have ever seen before, but nothing was so hideous as this. A year ago I would have run screaming. Now I just clean my boots and wait for guys with sterilizer units to show up. I’m changing and I’m not sure I like it.”

  Asyr smiled gently at him. “It’s called maturing, Gavin, and not everyone likes it. Now me, I think you’re maturing very well.”

  Gavin half-coughed a laugh. “Thanks, but I still have to wonder if it’s right that we can see something like that and just continue on.”

  “We continue on, my dear, because we must.” Asyr’s voice developed an edge. “The Gamorrean, he summoned up the strength to lock others out and protect them. That was good. You and I, though, have a different mission. This disease doesn’t appear to affect our species, so we have volunteered to help out during this public health crisis, but that is not our primary purpose here. Our mission is to fly our X-wings, to locate and destroy the kind of monsters who would do this kind of thing to others. Doing that requires all the maturity we can muster.”

  “I know.” He rubbed a hand along her spine, then looked over to where Emtrey was conversing with an Emdeeoh and two men carrying portable plasma-incinerator units. The droid would take samples; then the men would burn everything in the hovel, including the first five millimeters of ferrocrete, to a white ash that would be vacuumed up and disposed of safely.

  Gavin let Asyr help him to his feet. “You’re right, of course. I hope we can accomplish our mission. If we don’t, I’m afraid we’ll have to take Coruscant down to bedrock, and I don’t think even that will erase the scourge of the Empire from the galaxy.”

  I think even stormtroopers would find my men terrifyingly efficient. From the dark security of the grav-car’s interior, Kirtan Loor watched as four Special Intelligence operatives clad in civilian garb approached the building’s door. As huge and imposing as they were, they moved with a lethal fluidity their armor normally hid. Almost casually, one of them placed a thermite boring charge on the door lock and set it, then accepted a blaster carbine from a compatriot and flattened himself against the building’s wall.

  A red light blinked three times on the thermite charge, then a smoke-shrouded gout of white fire burst to hissing life. The harsh light transformed the shadowed Imperial Center street into a chiaroscuro landscape burned clean of imperfections but still full of menace. One of the operatives punched a hooked prybar through the center of the fire and yanked the door open, then his three compatriots dashed through.

  The blue backlight of stun-fire strobed momentarily through the doorway and gaps in the window shading. Loor waited for a moment, then saw two more flashes. A human figure appeared in the doorway and nodded in his direction, then retreated into the shadows of the building’s interior.

  Loor opened the grav-car’s door and emerged. He gathered a cloak about himself and pulled t
he hood up to conceal his face from incidental observation. He strode forward purposefully, but he imagined himself a pale imitation of Darth Vader. Tall and skeletally slender, with dark hair, he had been told he resembled a young Grand Moff Tarkin. While that comparison had been one he had used to his advantage, he would have preferred to inspire Vaderian terror in those with whom he dealt.

  He squeezed past the two operatives at the doorway and stepped over the drooling Ithorian lying in the center of the antechamber. Beyond it, through a short corridor and past a third operative, he arrived in a room that resembled a rodent nest more than it did a human dwelling. It stank of mildew and old, musty sweat, though the occupant’s new terror added piquant elements to the room’s stale bouquet.

  Loor looked down at the small, balding man pinned to the stained mattress by the muzzle of a blaster. “Your surroundings are so miserable, I am almost moved to pity you, Nartlo, but then, pity is wasted on the dead, isn’t it?”

  “What are you talking about?” The man’s brown eyes bulged with terror. “I don’t know you. What did I do?”

  “True, you do not know me, but you have brokered some cure for friends of mine. It has been selling at a high price, but they tell me that you have told them the market has crashed. At the same time they noted that the supply of cure you returned to them had gone from 95 percent purity to 75 percent purity.” Loor shook his head slowly, mournfully. “My friends feel you have lied to and cheated them.”

  “No, no, I didn’t do that.” Nartlo tried to claw his way into a sitting position, but the operative beside the makeshift bed kept him rooted in one spot. “I drew off some of the bacta as a sample, but a deal went bad and I lost it. I didn’t figure they’d believe I lost it, so I tried to cover up what I’d done. I’m sorry.”

  “And stupid if you expect me to believe a story that was ancient when the Old Republic was born.” Loor let anger into his voice and won a groan from his victim. Because of the surveillance he had on Nartlo, Loor did know that the story was not wholly false. Some of the bacta had been lost when a deal went sour, but only some. The rest of the missing cure had been donated to an alien pleasure house for the employees’ own use. Nartlo had spent a week basking in their considerable gratitude. “Tell me we won’t find a Rodian concubine’s sucker-marks on your back if we strip off your shirt.”