when your world's destruction would take place."
Tycho's jaw shot open. "But that's preposterous."
"You and I know it's preposterous, but there are count-
less people out there who would believe it. You've been to
the Galactic Museum. You've seen how the exhibits about
the Emperor twist facts into lies. It's no surprise that such
twisting can take place. The fact is, though, that people be-
lieved the Emperor died at Endor destroying a Rebel Death
Star. It will be very easy for those same people to believe the
worst of you."
Nawara hooked a taloned hand over Tycho's binders.
"You don't remember your time at Lusankya, but she will
make your amnesia sound like lying. And she's good, very
good. She'll have you saying things you don't want to say.
Damage will be done and we won't be able to recover from
it."
Tycho slumped back in his chair, dragging his hands into
his lap. "We've really got nothing to prove my innocence, do
we?"
"We have testimony about all you have done that is
positive and good. Whistler and Emtrey came up with an
analysis of the Krytos virus infection pattern and I can get
experts up to show how your actions actually made it much
milder than it could have been. And we're still looking for
Lai Nootka."
"So you're telling me that we need a miracle?"
Nawara nodded. "I'd take one if you had one to offer,
but then again, I wouldn't worry too much. Winning this
trial is merely impossible, and we're Rogues. We'll get it
done."
Tycho sighed. "Or die trying."
27
"Ah, Commander Antilles, welcome." Admiral Ackbar
stood as the man entered his office. "I apologize for the short
notice, but time rolls away as the tide."
"I came as quickly as I could, Admiral." Wedge gave the
Mon Calamari a friendly smile. "It must be important."
"It is. You're the first person outside the Provisional
Council to hear this." The Mon Calamari opened his mouth
in the closest approximation of a human smile he could mus-
ter, hoping to put his visitor at ease. "The Xucphra faction
on Thyferra has agreed to send us a substantial shipment of
bacta. Your squadron--all of whom were called back to duty
and are currently under a communications quarantine--will
be sent out to meet the freighter convoy and bring it back
here to Coruscant."
"I see." Wedge's face took on a suitably grim expres-
sion. "Aren't we a bit small to be protecting a convoy of,
what, thirty ships?"
"Twenty, actually. Most are small ships, like the Skate.
We have a few larger ones going, but our hauling resources
have never been abundant." Ackbar's chin fringes wriggled.
"We are having to rely on stealth and secrecy to safeguard
the shipment--and not by my choice. The whole matter of
negotiations about all this bacta have become very delicate."
Wedge raised an eyebrow. "How so?"
"We never expected your visit to Ryloth would be kept
secret, but the news of it traveled more quickly than we ex-
pected. Apparently the Thyferrans know we obtained ryll
from Ryloth. Some of the Thyferrans wanted to cut us off
from bacta completely, pointing to your trip as an attempt to
circumvent them. Cooler heads prevailed, so we're getting
this shipment, but it is barely sufficient to keep people alive.
If the basic combinations with ryll work, we might double
the effective strength of what we have, but that's still not
going to be enough to effect a final cure of the Krytos virus."
Ackbar sighed as weariness washed over him. "While
Xucphra officials are willing to send us the bacta to keep us
paying them credits, they are very wary of advertising the
fact that they're working with the New Republic. They only
benefit from all this if they are able to sell bacta to all sides in
the conflict. They want this convoy to appear to be a private
enterprise--it was suggested that Mirax Terrik could take
credit for it and profit from it. They will get the ships to our
rendezvous point, then we take over. You'll ostensibly be on
a training mission and offer the escort as a courtesy."
Wedge frowned. "Rogue Squadron is a high-profile out-
fit. We're bound to be watched. Why use us?"
"You have a Thyferran." The Mon Calamari's lip
fringes twitched. "It has been suggested that having Erisi and
Rogue Squadron present to guide the ships back here to Co-
ruscant would prove to the Thyferrans that we appreciate the
risks they are taking."
"Do I sense Borsk Fey'lya's furred hand in this?"
"You do, though he was not alone in it." The Council
meeting where this plan was floated seemed more difficult
than any of the battles I've fought against the Empire. "The
possibility of having our bacta supply cut off is causing peo-
ple to take whatever steps they can think of to appease the
Thyferrans."
Wedge's eyes narrowed. "The big problem we have with
the Thyferrans is that they could cut us off at any time."
"They have the monopoly, so they can do that. The fact
that ryll kor might make bacta more effective against this
virus does not diminish our need for bacta. Before the Em-
pire aided the Xucphra and Zaltin corporations in monopo-
lizing the bacta trade, we might have been able to find other
sources of bacta. Now we have no choice but to trade with
them. While we could manufacture our own bacta, the start-
up costs for a facility that could produce what we need
would--well, I can't say it would bankrupt us, because the
New Republic may already be over that line. And you didn't
hear that from me." "No, sir."
"So, Commander, you see our dilemma. We are depen-
dent on the bacta cartel, yet our supply is shaky. Steps taken
to secure our supply could anger the cartel--if those steps do
not include them--or could anger our enemies enough that
they strike at the cartel itself. Warlord Zsinj's Iron Fist could
put a chill on convoy traffic and cause us significant trou-
ble."
"But they would stop shipping him bacta, too."
"True, but his need for it is not as great or urgent as ours
is."
"Point taken."
Ackbar shrugged. "As smugglers put it, we have all our
spice in one freighter, and other solutions to the problem
seem impossible. I know Rogue Squadron prides itself on
doing the impossible, but 1 think this bacta problem is be-
yond even your capabilities." "Perhaps, sir."
Wedge's curious reply seemed tinged with deception, but
Ackbar found it hard to believe Wedge would be involved in
plotting. He has been spending a certain amount of time in
General Cracke n's company, and Cracken's reportage to the
Provisional Council has been handled by subordinates of
late, but to combine those things into a plot would be leaping
to a conclusion of Borskean proportions. Even so, it does
&nbs
p; seem rather plausible. "Do I take it you disagree with my
assessment, Commander?"
Wedge's shoulders shifted uneasily. "I would have to say
I think you're probably correct, sir, but Rogue Squadron has
done many things in the past that were thought impossible."
Ackbar nodded. "You realize that anything you might
do in this regard could have catastrophic results if the
Thyferrans disapprove."
"If I were involved in anything, sir, that would be fore-
most in my mind."
"Very good." Whatever you are doing, I wish you grand
success. "General Cracken will be briefing your people. May
the Force be with you--in all you do." Wedge smiled. "Thank you, sir."
Ackbar hesitated, then his eyes shrank to demi-lunes.
"Be careful, Commander. Billions of lives hang in the bal-
ance. If something goes wrong, I doubt if even your status as
the Conqueror of Coruscant will save you from becoming
more reviled than Tycho Celchu."
28
Kirtan Loor stared at the glowing holographic text hanging
in the air in front of him and found himself poised between
unbridled terror and unbound elation. The message offered
him a way out from beneath Fliry Vorru's thumb, but only if
he took steps that could easily anger Ysanne Isard. Doing
that could destroy him. But doing nothing clearly will de-
stroy me.
The text, after it had been decrypted and decoded, car-
ried a simple yet explosive message. Twenty ships--New Re-
public and privately owned freighters--would be traveling
from Thyferra with a shipment of bacta bound for Imperial
Center. Rogue Squadron was to meet them in the Alderaan
system--as if all the bacta in the galaxy could heal that
wound--and guide them in on the return trip to Imperial
Center. The message contained the times and coordinates,
easily allowing for the interception of the convoy.
If he destroyed the convoy, he would advance the Impe-
rial cause beyond even Ysanne Isard's wildest dreams. He
had the means to do just that at his disposal. His e,qiier plans
to substitute a look-alike group of fighters for Rogue Squad-
ron and have them strafe the squadron's base required him
to put together a full dozen X-wing fighters. They would be
hawk-bats among granite slugs if he set them on the freight-
ers. He was more than willing to do that, blasting every
single freighter from the Pulsar Skate to the Rebels' Pride
into free-floating atoms.
He had only one problem he wasn't supposed to know
what the message said.
Imperial spies in service to the Rebellion had been given
a variety of ways to make contact with their superiors. Cer-
tain public terminals, for example, had special coding that
routed messages along secure lines to specific destinations. A
datadisk could be recorded and left in any number of blind-
drops for pickup by agents. Face-to-face meetings could be
and had been arranged, even with the highest profile agents
around. Whatever was necessary to move information would
be done.
The Rebels were not without countermeasures, and they
were effective when they wanted to stop information from
getting out. Fortunately Coruscant was still more of an Impe-
rial world than it was a Rebel one. While Rebel computer
code experts had gone through the planetary computer sys-
tem and shut down many of the most obvious stealthways
into it, they had not found them all. The Rebels would
clearly have preferred to avoid using the Imperial computers
at all, but running Coruscant without them was impossible,
so compromises were made.
The Imperial agent in Rogue Squadron had resorted to
one of the most simple stealthways in the system to get the
message out. A coded message was created and saved as
usual, then deleted. The command used to delete the message
was a batch command, one commonly used to purge a
month's worth of old messages at a time. When the com-
puter asked for a date from which to begin the purge, the
agent gave it the date and time, down to the second, the
message had been created. The ending date for the purge was
the same date and time.
The deletion routine in the system took that information
and began special processing. A copy of the message was
whisked away to a randomly chosen memory sector and
there encrypted. At the original memory location where the
message had been stored, zeroes were written to erase all
traces of the message, then corrupted copies of other docu-
ments were written into its place. A scan of files would show
documents and programs in the normal process of being
overwritten.
No trace of the coded message was left in its original
location. The agent was safe.
The encrypted message was transferred through a series
of accounts and finally ended up on a datadisk that was
dumped into a blind-drop. One of Loor's Special Intelligence
operatives retrieved it and brought it to him. Loor himself
decrypted and decoded it. He told himself he did so because
messages from that agent had normally traveled directly to
Ysanne Isard. The fact that he had ended up with a copy
meant the normal channels of communication were closed
and he wanted to make certain delays did not prevent action
from being taken to capitalize on the information.
Had I forwarded it to Iceheart blindly I would not be
caugbt in tbis trap. Because the rendezvous would take place
in less than three days, there was an open question as to
whether the message would reach Isard in time for her to do
anything about it. Loor felt fairly confident she would act to
destroy the convoy, and his own squadron had enough fire-
power to chew up the twenty-ship convoy with little prob-
lem. A pair of proton torpedoes would destroy most of the
freighters, which meant a full dozen could die in the first
pass. Another volley of torpedoes would cripple or kill the
others, and the X-wings could follow up with lasers to finish
off the survivors.
Probably not flasby enougb for ber, but if my X-wings
were marked up to be Rogue Squadron sbips--and the news-
nets bare been full of examples tbat making last-minute
cbanges to matcb tbe paint jobs will be easy enougb--I can
sow more discord and distrust between the people and tbe
Rebel government. Icebeart would like that.
The problem with doing just that, however, was that the
operation did not help him eliminate Vorru as a threat. If,
instead of destroying the convoy, he hijacked it to another
system, he would have control of a very large shipment of a
vital commodity. While Vorru had a solid lock on the bacta
black market on Imperial Center, there were other worlds
clamoring for the medicine. If he used his supply correctly he
could enrich himself. He would betray Vorru to the Rebels--
not to the government on Imperial Center, but to the constit-
uent governments on the various Rebel homeworlds, thereby
increasing distrust between them and the rulers on Imperial
Center.
Or I can enrich myself, buy a world all my own, and put
Boba Fett on retainer to slay my enemies. That thought
brought a smile to Loor's face. The list would not be long,
but it would not be an easy one to complete. A fitting chal-
lenge for a man with his skills.
Loor closed his eyes and gently massaged them beneath
his eyelids. As satisfying as enriching himself would be, he
realized he had to be very careful. Killing Vorru and Isard
would provide him short-term pleasure, but he had to be
looking at his long-term position. His first step was to guar-
antee his survival, his second to maximize his potential for
power. Hijacking the bacta worked just as well to hurt the
Rebellion as did destroying it, but it left him vulnerable to
accusations by Isard that he wasn't devoting himself to his
duty of destroying the Rebellion. She could easily see the
hijacking as a move to make him independent of her, and she
would not like that.
I can always argue that I wanted to get out from under
Vorru's influence and nothing more. He doubted that such
an argument would insulate him from her anger and retribu-
tion when she found out what he had done. And he knew she
would find out--it was a question how much time he had
until she did. If he could keep her in the dark for a month,
either he would have gained enough power that he did not
need to fear her, or she will have had me killed.
He realized once again that only by escaping her could
he possibly survive. This gives me no choice.
He carefully began to compose a message. He told her of
his intent to use the duplicate Rogue Squadron to "elimi-
nate" the convoy. He would later argue that he would have
said "destroy" if that's what he had meant to do. Time being
of the essence, I can't give her the whole plan, I can merely
let her know I am dealing with the problem.
He scanned his message, then prepared it for sending.
He almost sent it immediately, then hesitated. No, ifI send it
now, she could possibly countermand my orders. I'll give her
Star Wars - X-Wing - Krytos Trap Page 27
