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.
Without fail, whether the representation was a static hologram with little mementos, or a life-size statue, or a mannequin dressed as the person it represented, the Jedi’s image had been ruined. Some statues lay in pieces on the ground. Some of the mannequins had limbs missing or holes pounded through the torsos. All of them had been defaced—most literally, though some had only had their eyes carved out. He could not discern a pattern to the damage—beyond the fact that all the faces were maimed in one way or another—but Corran knew there was one, keyed to the mind of the person who had done it.
Discarding his prison tunic, Corran pulled some clothes from one of the broken dummies and got into them. The rough-spun brown trousers and pale pull-over tunic itched against his bare flesh and threatened to drive him crazy. From what I remember of Jedi stories, a Jedi would have chosen such clothes just to force himself to learn to ignore the physical sensations distracting him—his clothes become an exercise in concentration. He couldn’t remember where he’d heard that—it had to have been from his grandfather or father, because the Jedi were extinct by the time Corran had learned they had existed, and people who wanted to avoid Imperial scrutiny didn’t display much interest in the Jedi Knights of old.
Corran’s hand went to his throat to touch the medallion he’d worn since he’d inherited it from his father—a medallion he’d left with Whistler for safekeeping before his mission to Coruscant. Mirax Terrik had identified it as Jedi Credit, a medallion issued in limited numbers to mark a Corellian Jedi’s elevation from Knight to Master. I guess carrying it around was my father’s way of covertly defying the Empire.
Corran pulled on a Jedi’s brown cloak and fastened it at his throat. He swirled it around himself, sending lint-nerfs scurrying across the floor and leaping from the top of a display case. A glint of gold in that case caught Corran’s eye. He stepped closer and swept dust from the glass with his hands.
His mouth went dry. That medallion, it’s just like the one I wore, save for the way the eyes have been gouged out of it. Who is that? Irritated that the holographic legend didn’t play, Corran jiggled the case. A hologram began to glow, creating an image of a slender man hovering above the glass, about twenty centimeters high. A voice, starting low and slow, then speeding up into a soprano, accompanied the display. “Nejaa Halcyon, a Jedi Master from Corellia, died in the Clone Wars.”
The light from the holographic projection bled below into a static hologram. It showed Halcyon standing with a boy. The Basic legend running down the edge of the image read, “Nejaa Halcyon and an apprentice.” The projection snapped off and the hologram went dark, but it took Corran several seconds to become cognizant of that fact.
That boy. That was my father… He’d seen holograms of his father as a child, and the boy in the image looked very much like Hal Horn had at that age. He even looked a bit like me. But that can’t be, can it?
Corran frowned mightily. Mirax had told him that the commemorative medallions were given to family, friends, students, and Masters by the Knight who appeared on them. If my father had been his apprentice, that would explain how he got the coin, but he never said anything about knowing a Jedi or training with him. My grandfather did, but he never mentioned this Halcyon. That hologram has to be wrong, I have to have seen it wrong.
He jiggled the case again, but the projection did not return. He stepped back and up to it again without results. He jogged and then shook the case, but that only moved the medallion around and tipped over the hologram. I need light to see who’s really in that hologram.
Swaddling his left fist in his Lusankya tunic, Corran hammered it against the display case. The glass shattered into hundreds of sparkling shards. Looking around nervously, waiting for some alarm system to start blaring, Corran shook the canvas wrap off his hand and cast it aside. He carefully plucked out the medallion and put it in his pocket. To it he added the hologram and would have walked over to one of the footlights to examine it, but the third memento of Nejaa Halcyon attracted his attention.
Shifting his blaster to his left hand, Corran reached into the case and pulled out a thirty-centimeter-long silvery cylinder. A concave dish capped it, a thickened knob served as the pommel, and a black button rode in a recessed niche precisely where his right thumb naturally rested. Pointing the cup away from himself, Corran hit the button.
A silvery white shaft of light just over a meter in length hissed to life. It hummed low and mournfully as its cold illumination turned all the Jedi images into ghosts. Corran twisted his wrist around, bringing the energy blade through a set of interlocked loops. The sound quickened slightly as the blade transformed a strand of webbing into a drifting tendril of smoke.
Corran turned, thinking to sweep the lightsaber blade through one of the mannequins, but stopped before he struck. These images have endured enough abuse. I won’t add to it. He knew he was correct not to contribute to the further despoiling of the monuments. Moreover, there had seemed to be a subtle pressure, a hidden malevolence in the room, that encouraged and condoned the destruction.
Corran felt good defying it.
&nbs
p; He hit the button under his thumb once to shut the blade off. It remained lit. Corran frowned for a moment, then hit the button twice in quick succession, and the blade vanished. The double hit to turn it off guarantees it won’t go down in combat if the button is hit accidentally.
As shadows reconquered the room, Corran shivered. Trying to integrate this storehouse of Jedi memorabilia with Lusankya was enough to make his brain hurt. I’d probably have a better chance of figuring out what all of this stuff is doing here if I had a clue as to where I was. It’s good to have clothes and equipment, but somehow I doubt disguising myself as a Jedi Knight is a way to become less conspicuous in making my escape. And that’s still my first priority—getting out of here.
Corran smiled and let the lightsaber roll back and forth across the palm of his hand. “I bet you’ll make a wonderful door opener.”
Suddenly a short, sharp pop echoed through the complex of rooms. A shockwave started dust swirling through the room, centered on a doorway back along the wall to the right. Sounds like someone else is finding novel ways to open doors. This room is too open, nowhere to hide.
Three figures dressed in black moved into and through the doorway. They paused there and swept the room with the harsh white beams of the glowrods fixed to the barrels of their blaster carbines.
Having no other option, Corran froze in place. The lights flashed over him, lingering only as long as they had on the other unmoving figures in the room.
“Nothing here.”
The tallest of them nodded. “Then we wait.” His voice trailed off for a second. “Hey, there was something funny about one of the dummies over here.”
He played his light over Corran again and his friends likewise brought their lights to bear on him. “This one’s got a face.”
“Yeah, I have a face and I’d like to keep it.” Corran thumbed the lightsaber to life. “I hope that’s not going to be a problem for anyone.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Wedge walked over to the circular holopad sitting atop a pedestal in the center of the briefing room. “We’ve only got time to go through this once, so listen up.” He hit a series of keys on the holopad, causing a holographic map of the Palace district and environs to spring to life. The whole scene rotated up 90 degrees to give the pilots a chance to look down through the network of towers, tunnels, and causeways which clogged that section of the city. Deep in the lower reaches of the display a red square pulsed with life.
“We have a report that the Palpatine Counter-insurgency Front is staging from this location for a strike on a bacta storage facility in Invisec. We’re flying cover for a commando force that is going to go in. The fact is that these PCF folks are very dedicated to their jobs and are likely to scatter when our forces hit. We expect speeder bikes, swoops, and speeders to be heading out of there. Since they used an airspeeder bomb to hit an earlier site, we have to assume that any and all such vehicles are moving bombs. We’re going to take them down.”
Wedge pointed to the empty seat beside Pash Cracken. “Nawara isn’t here because our strike is going to hit the PCF about the same time Nawara normally runs the gantlet of holojournalists. If he’s not there on the day Tycho’s defense is supposed to open, they might think something is going down and move too soon. Ooryl, you’ll fly on Pash’s wing. Normal assignments for everyone else.”
Pash glanced up at Wedge. “If we’re going to be hawking targets through the city, isn’t there a good chance we’ll lose some of them? There are places an X-wing might not fit, but a speeder bike will.”
“Your father’s getting us a tracking feed from the security office onboard the Emperor’s skyhook, but there is a chance some might get away.”
Erisi’s hand went up. “There will be a lot of civilian traffic up. How badly are these guys wanted? How much collateral damage do we risk?”
Wedge winced. “If any of them get through to their target, a lot of people will die. Thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands. When we go in the municipal authorities will issue a sector-wide emergency grounding call. Anyone who ignores that call, especially after we start lighting the area up, is making a very big mistake. We don’t want to shoot civilians, but if you have a positive ID on a target, take it. Shooting in the city isn’t going to be real pretty, but letting a PCF terrorist get through is going to be worse.”
Erisi nodded. “What if the PCF people go to ground with the civilians?”
“Then they won’t be blowing up a bacta storage facility.” Wedge grinned grimly. “We’ll spot them and call in someone who can help neutralize them.”
“Ooryl believes this is a must-win, no-win scenario.”
You have that right. We’re busting open a rat’s nest and hoping to kill all of them before they can do damage when they escape. The chances of collateral damage are high, and while a Corellian usually doesn’t have any use for odds, in this case I wish they were much lower against us. “There is no denying that the probable outcome of our exercise is the loss of some innocent folks on the ground or in a building. We have to be careful but thorough. I can’t tell you to shoot with children on a causeway backstopping your shots. I’m just going to trust that you’ll be smart enough to avoid finding yourself in that situation.”
He sighed. “Your astrogation droids have the map of the Palace sector and Invisec. The bacta facility is protected and you’ll get a warning tone if you enter the exclusion zone around it. If you find yourself there, get out. They’ll take your target. Anything else?”
He looked around the room, but no one had any comments or questions. “Great. Hit the hangar and mount up. Fly your best out there. We might not be up against a Death Star, but this mission is still vital. And may the Force be with you. Dismissed.”
The pilots started to file out. Wedge noticed Asyr give Gavin a quick kiss, then stroke his cheek with her left hand. She said something to Gavin that Wedge couldn’t hear, then she turned toward him and held a hand up. “Commander, if you have a moment.”
“Just a moment, Asyr.”
Asyr nodded to Gavin and he departed. She approached Wedge and the fur on the back of her neck rippled up and down. “Do you recall a conversation we had six weeks ago? About my having to make a decision?”
Wedge nodded. “I told you there would come a point where you had to choose between the squadron and your allegiance to the Bothan Martial Intelligence.”
“You said at the time that you trusted me, and wanted to continue to trust me.”
“Right. And I told you that if you chose to leave the squadron, I’d respect your decision.” Wedge shook his head. “Of course, if you’re doing that right now, I might not respect your choice of timing.”
Her violet eyes flashed coldly for a second as she looked up at him. “I want you to continue to respect my decisions and my timing. And I want you to continue to trust me.” She dug into the pocket of her flightsuit and pulled out a datacard. “I was ordered to prepare a report about the bacta massacre at Alderaan. It was felt a document that suggested our delay in getting there might, in some way, have been deliberate and the result of human action. That datacard has the only copy of said report. If anything happens to me, you’ll dispose of this correctly, I would hope.”
Wedge nodded. “And if you survive, what will you do with the report 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 datacar
d 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.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Though Iella’s eyes burned from fatigue, the adrenaline pumping through her system had her hyper-alert. She effortlessly 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 recognized him instantly, but not without difficulty. He had always 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.
Iella 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.
Loor had resisted giving them a full confession. He produced 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 murderer?”
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.”
The Krytos Trap Page 29
