X-wing_ The Krytos Trap Part 12

"And as good as Corran was, you think that his making an identification without seeing the individual's face leaves room for him to be mistaken?"

"Yes."

The Twi'lek nodded. "Thank you for your candor. Nothing further."

Ackbar looked at the prosecutor. "Redirect?"

"No, Admiral."

The Mon Calamari nodded down at Iella. "You are ex-cused, Agent Wessiri.

I am going to recess the court at this time. The Provisional Council is meeting to discuss a number of problems and I must be there. I may, in fact, recess the trial for a week. I a.s.sume, from the question you asked ear-lier, Counselor Ven, you would not mind having the extra time for investigation of the case?"

Iella, returning to her place at the prosecution bench, watched Nawara's grey profile as he nodded. "l welcome the time to continue to prepare my defense."

"Commander Ettyk, you have no objections to a delay?"

"No, sir."

"Very good, court stands adjourned for one week."

Ieila entered Halla Ettyk's office. "Diric's in the outer office, lying down. I hope you don't mind. The crush of people leaving the court was a bit much, but the bailiffs didn't seem to want to let him catch his breath. In fact, they weren't too interested in letting me bring him along with me here to the office."

The black-haired prosecutor shook her head. "Not a problem, but get him a special visitor's identification badge."

Iella frowned as she slipped into a nerfhide chair in front of Halla's transparisteel desk. "What's going on?"

Halla set a comlink down on her desk. "I just heard from Admiral Ackbar's aide, Commander Sirlul. The reason for the abrupt adjournment was more than a routine meeting of the Provisional Council. It appears, in the wake of the PCF a.s.sault on that bacta storage site, we've had a bomb threat here. They aren't sure who made the threat or how real it is, but they want a week to reinforce the courthouse complex."

"I see."

Halla nodded solemnly. "Just as well--it gives me a week to sh.o.r.e up my case."

Iella winced. "I'm sorry for what I said in there. I don't want to have Corran's killer get off, but--"

"Not your fault. Admiral Ackbar was right--I asked one more question than I should have. I tried to make sure there was no question that Corran had been right, and I was too smart for my own good." She shrugged. "At least nothing got said about the Duros that Captain Celchu says he was meeting with that night. Right now the Tribunal just knows that Corran might have been mistaken about his identifica-tion. If the Duros is brought in, they'll be free to wonder how much Kirtan Loor in a cloak looks like a Duros in a cloak."

Iella's eyes narrowed. "We all knew Celchu claimed he met a Duros that night."

"So it seems, but all those stories get traced back to Celchu himself, so anyone else bringing it up gets it stricken because of the hearsay rule.

The only way that comes in is if Tycho takes the stand."

"What if the Duros testifies?"

"What's the likelihood of that happening? There's no evidence Lai Nootka ever was on Coruscant, as nearly as we can tell. Moreover, there was some history between Corran and Nootka--Corran got him out of an Imperial prison on Garqi, wherever that is. Why would Nootka run from the man who saved his life?"

Iella opened her hands. "Maybe he was just following Tycho."

"Fine. Let's a.s.sume that meeting was as innocent as Tycho has tried to make it out to be. It doesn't make the least little bit of difference.

The bribe data alone is enough to show he was working for the Empire.

Corran believed Tycho had met with Kirtan Loor; his threat to dig into Tycho's background because of that belief is our motive for the mur-der."

"But why kill Corran when you can show he's wrong about the meeting just by producing Lai Nootka?" leila frowned. "Tycho always seemed confident of his innocence, which meant he either had Nootka where he could deliver him, blowing apart the foundation of Corran's threatened investigation, or---"

"Or he could be innocent?" Halla shook her head. "Don't plot a course into that black hole."

"But that black hole might be the truth."

"Sure, but we're not the triers of fact in this case, the Tribunal members are. We just have to present to them the best case we can muster, and the defense has to knock it apart." Halla's brown eyes narrowed.

"You're not going to start in on me about wanting to make sure your partner's killer really is caught, because HI tell you we've got him beyond a reasonable doubt."

Iella shrugged. "And if I don't want to be reasonable?"

Halla winced, then sat back in her white high-backed chair. "Idealists should not be in this business, you know."

"And your point is?"

"The Duros thing has bothered me, too. I can grant that Tycho might have pulled that name from Corran's file just to annoy him, but that would be very risky for him to do. The trail Tycho has left has shown him to be very careful, so I don't see him throwing out that sort of taunt.

Therefore I can imagine that he really did meet with Lai Nootka. And if that's true, I have to wonder about our inability to find Nootka or any record of his presence here on Coruscant."

"So even though you believe Tycho was working for the Empire, you think Nootka's disappearance may be evidence of someone making sure Tycho's perfidy is obvious?" Iella frowned. "Who? Why?"

"Good, obstruction-of-justice questions to answer." Halla sighed. "You want to find Nootka, right?"

"If you don't mind."

Halla sat forward and fingered a small black wafer of silicon. "Do it.

And take this--it's a code chip that will let you bring your airspeeder into the upper-level security ga-rage. You can take the turbolift down to the court from there. It'll save Diric from having to go in and out with the courtroom crowds from now on."

Iella accepted it from her and smiled. "Things are just going to continue getting crazier, aren't they?"

"I'm afraid so." Halla visibly shivered. "I'm very much afraid so."

17.

Aided by the Trandoshan's healthy shove, Corran flew through the darkened doorway. Unable to see anything, he curled himself into a ball and hoped he didn't land on his head. He smashed his shins into something hard, then bounced down onto his right shoulder before continuing his roll. He hit more things, most of which cried out, and all of which gave way, then came to an abrupt stop against some-thing very solid.

Corran opened his eyes and in the dim light made out the smiling, bearded face of a positively huge man. He'd come to rest against the man's shin and thigh--clearly the man had dropped to one knee to stop Corran's tumble through the room. Back along his flight path Corran heard the muttered curses of people he'd knocked down.

The bearded man stood and dragged Corran to his feet. "Quite the entrance."

"I had help in making it." Corran plucked at the shoul-ders of his tan canvas tunic and tried to settle it in place. The bulky garment extended all the way to his knees. The sleeves ran to mid-forearm, but that was because the shoulder seam started well below the curve of his deltoids.

Naked beneath it, Corran felt a little uncomfortable. He knew that was part of the psychological war waged by Isard on him and the other prisoners--deny them human clothing and you deny them a little piece of their humanity.

The big man nodded. "The Trandoshan doesn't like any-one. I'm Urlor Sette." He offered Corran his hand. Sette was missing the last two fingers of his right hand but didn't seem bashful or embarra.s.sed about it.

Corran met the man's firm grip with a solid one of his own. "Corran Horn."

"Glad to make your acquaintance." Sette pointed off to the left. "Come on, I'll take you to the Old Man." The big man's voice carried with it equal measures of respect and affection, reminding Cotran of how he'd often called Gil Bastra "the Old Man."

Must be the nominal leader among the prisoners here. Corran realized that his being thrust into the general Lusankya population could have been another ploy by Isard to get him to reveal information he'd not given up during interrogation. Because he did not have a clear memory of what he had actually said while being chemically debriefed, he didn't know what she might be looking to confirm or uncover. For all I know, this is an elaborate charade. I will have to be on my guard.

Urlor led Corran out of the area near the doorway and deeper into the cell complex. It appeared to have been ground and drilled out of solid rock. Thick dust coated the floor and hung in Urlor's wake like ground-covering fog. The irregular rock walls and ceiling had pockets of luminous lichen clinging to them. Their lime-green light gave the dust an eerie glow, and greyed out the flesh of those standing about.

Corran followed Urlor into a side chamber with an en-trance low enough that even he had to duck his head. Beyond the threshold the big man straightened up and moved aside. On the opposite side of the circular room, barely six meters from the entrance, an older, white-haired and bearded man sat up and hung his legs over the edge of a hammock braided together from darkened strips of tunic canvas. Corran imme-diately had a vague sense that he'd seen the man before, or a holograph of him, but if so, it was a long time ago, and he couldn't place him.

"Sir, this is Corran Horn. They just delivered him to US."

The older man stood and straightened his tunic, then peered closely at Corran. He felt as if under the scrutiny of his first drill instructor at the Corellian Security Force Acad-emy. The effect was not wholly unpleasant in that it rein-forced the leadership role into which the old man had been cast. "Come here, son, let me see you close up."

Corran closed the gap between them and felt Urlor drop in behind him, ready to prevent him from doing any harm to the old man. "I'm with Rogue Squadron, a lieutenant."

"You have the look of a pilot about you--size, anyway. You've got a good leader in Antilles--a.s.suming Skywalker's not back in charge there."

"No sir, he isn't. Wedge Antilles is still in charge, and is a commander now."

The older man nodded, then squinted at Corran's face. "You're from CoreIlia?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did I know your grandfather?"

Corran shrugged. "His name is Rostek Horn. He was with CorSec."

The old man shook his head and straightened up again. "No, I was thinking of someone else, from the Clone Wars. I don't recall Rostek Horn, though I might have met him once or twice. It's possible."

Though the man qualified his statement, Corran felt he was being polite instead of indecisive. Although his age had given him white hair and wrinkled skin, clearly the man's mental faculties were not suffering from the ravages of age. The old man knew exactly who it was he thought Corran looked like, and he also knew that he'd never met Corran's grandfather.

That clarity of mind impressed Corran, as did the mannerly qualification of his firmly voiced denial.

The old man extended his hand to Corran. "My name's Jan." His dark eyes flicked up toward Urlor. "Despite what he will tell you, there's no rank here. That was for when we were people. Now we're just here."

"Pleased to meet you, sir." Corran shook the man's hand and found his grip firm even though his hands were a bit bony.

Jan sat back in the hammock. "You say Antilles has finally accepted a promotion?"

"Yes, sir."

"He always seemed level-headed. Good officer material. And who's commanding the fleet?"

Corran hesitated. "I'm not sure how much of that you want me to discuss, sir."

A smile spread across Jan's face. "Very good, my boy. If you're in here it's because Isard has sucked you dry like the spider she is, but caution is good." He glanced down. "It's just that some of us have been in here since Yavin and, well, we wonder about how the war is going. We've had others through here who have told us a lot. We know, for example, that the Emperor is dead and with him another Death Star. And we know about the Ssi-ruuk. But news has been pretty spare in the last year and a half- -you're the first military man who's not an Imp who has ended up here for about that long. The few civilians who've been here have been interest~ ing, but their knowledge of how the Rebellion is going has been filtered through lmp news sources."

Urlor landed a hand heavily on Corran~s right shoulder. "Imps would have us believe Rogue Squadron is dead and gone. Died at a place called Borleias."

"Sure, in some Imp's lum dream." Corran turned, slip-ping from beneath Urlor's grip, so he could see both men at the same time. "Rogue Squadron did get hit hard at Borleias, but that was more the product of bad intel going in than it was anything the Imps actually did to us. The fact is, though, that inside a month after we got bloodied, we were back and took Borleias away from the Imps. And, from there, we staged for the invasion of Coruscant."

His smile grew broad as pride swelled inside him. "Rogue Squadron went into Coruscant and managed to bring the shields down. I don't remember much, but I know our fleet arrived and I was evacuated by Isard as she fled the planet, so I have to figure the New Republic now rules Cornscant. It's ours."

"It is yours because we gave it to you."

Corran looked to his right, toward the doorway, and saw an obese man squeezing his way through it. The tunic, which was black like the man's thinning hair, could barely contain the man's bulk. Anger filled the man's brown eyes for a second, then melted away as he straightened up and tugged at the hem of his sleeves. "You inherited a sick world, a dying world."

Jan bowed his head in the heavy man's direction. "This is General Evir Derricote, late of Imperial service. He is the ranking Imperial here among us."

Corran immediately realized that a secondary reason for the lack of t.i.tles among the Rebel prisoners was to allow them to further differentiate themselves from the Imps in Lusankya. "I'm Corran, and I was at Borleias."

"Then you saw me smash the little invasion fleet you sent against me."

"Yeah, I did, and I lost friends at that battle." Corran balled a fist and arced it toward Derricote's bullet head, but it never landed. Urlor lunged forward, grabbed the collar of Corran's tunic, and hauled him backward. Corran's feet left the floor and the canvas rasped against the flesh of his arm-pits as the big man held him up. "Hey! That hurts!"

Urlor kept his voice even. "There's a rule--if we beat up on Imps, the staff here beats up on the Old Man."

What I almost did. Corran's mouth hung open as if to let the twisting sensation in his stomach a chance to escape. He nodded once and Urlor put him back down. Corran turned to Jan and bowed his head. "I won't let it happen again."

"Spirit is good, Corran, very good." Jan coughed lightly into his hand.

"The general here was the one who told us of Rogue Squadron's defeat at Borleias. He left out your appar-ent return and victory."

Derricote sniffed. "Had I still been on Borleias there would have been more Rebel blood shed."

"Not likely. We pinpointed the power generator at the Alderaan Biotics facility and severed the conduit that sent the auxiliary power to your shield generators and ion cannons. A handful of TIEs survived our second raid, and those pilots surrendered when they flew home and found their base in our hands." Corran shrugged. "And as for Coruscant, the fact that you use the word 'inherit' to describe what we did, well, it means that the world is ours now. It might be sick, but it's better off in our hands than it ever was in yours."

"I doubt the dying think that."

"I doubt the dying blame the Rebels for their problems." Derricote shrugged, and a shiver ran through the layer of fat around his middle.

"It does not matter to me who they blame. When the histories are written, this shall be but a momentary disturbance in the Empire's epic."

Jan rocked to his feet. "That will be up to the historians to determine, won't it, General?"

"When I get out and put together my memoirs, you will fare well, Jan."

Derricote ducked his head and slid his body back out through the doorway.