X-wing_ The Krytos Trap Part 21

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 circ.u.mvent 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 Cracken'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 seem rather plausible. "Do I take it you disagree with my a.s.sessment, 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 destroy 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,q~iier plans to subst.i.tute 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 doc.u.ments 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 firepower 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 pa.s.s. 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 const.i.t-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 ma.s.saged 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 a day's warning. By the time she considers what will happen, it will all be done.

And Kirtan Loor would be one giant step closer to being free.

29.

Four minutes to reversion to reals.p.a.ce. Nawara Ven began a quick systems check on his X-wing. Lasers were powered up and linked for offside firing in pairs. He had six proton tor-pedoes, and had configured that weapon system to shoot them one at a time. Fuel was good; acceleration compensator was set .05 off full, giving him a feel for his position in s.p.a.ce, and his life-support systems checked out--including the heated stockings into which he fit his lekku to protect them if he got blasted out of his c.o.c.kpit.

He shivered. He'd been shot out of an X-wing during the first battle of Borleias. The concussion of ejecting had stunned him. He'd floated in s.p.a.ce, helpless, in the midst of a roiling dogfight. Cold nibbled away at his fingers, toes, and lek-tips, while a little chronographic indicator flashing on the inside of his helmet's evac-visor counted down the minutes until his air supply quit. Watching the seconds slip away, he'd felt time was moving a lot faster than it should have.

! knew I was going to die. He shook his head. Then Captain Celchu showed up and saved me. He didn't have to do that. In fact, he was insane to do that. After he pulled me to safety, there was no way I could ever think he was an Imperial agent.

A beep from his R5 unit marked 30 seconds to rever-sion. "Thanks. Even up my shields forward and back. I don't expect trouble, but I want to be ready."

The droid complied with the request and Nawara pre-pared himself for the rendezvous with the bacta convoy. Rogue Squadron's Two flight, led by Lieutenant Pash Cracken and including Gavin and Shiel as well as Nawara, was supposed to break off and head sunward to cover the tail end of the convoy. The last ship was to be the Pulsar Skate, so they'd form up on it. One flight, with Wedge in the lead, would take the head of the convoy, and Three flight, which was still one pilot short, was to orient itself toward any trouble.

Not that there should be any. The shards of Alderaan formed an asteroid field commonly known as the Graveyard. The majority of traffic into the sector came from Alderaanian expatriots returning to see the sun beneath which they were born one more time and to leave grave-gifts among the aster-oids. Others came to plunder those grave-gifts, and some even claimed to have seen a ma.s.sive armory ship named An-other Chance among the planet's ruins--though Nawara thought that ship as much a legend as the fabled Katana fleet.

I wanted to ask Tycho if he wanted me to leave anything for him, but I wasn't allowed any contact with him after I was briefed. Nawara had recorded a message and saved it in the computer for Tycho in case he didn't make it back, but the mission was supposed to be little more than ceremonial. Aside from their timetable slipping by three quarters of an hour because of a fuel pump failure that delayed their take-off, the mission had gone exactly as advertised. But it's the ones that are supposed to be easy that hurt the most.

The white tunnel through which his ship had been hur-tling exploded into a million separate pinp.r.i.c.ks of fire. Some of those pinp.r.i.c.ks resolved themselves into distant stars, while others refused to shrink. Green darts stabbed into some of the brighter points in the system, then those points exploded. "Sithsp.a.w.n!"

"S-foils into attack position." Wedge's voice came through the helmet comm unit strong and cool. "Twelve, get me a full scan of the sector. One and Two flights, on me."

Nawara reached up with his right hand and flicked the switch that split his stabilizer foils into the cross pattern that gave the fighter its name. Nudging his stick to port, he brought his fighter in on Pash's starboard flank with a fighter-length separating them. "I've got you, Five."

"Thanks, Six."

Aril Nunb broke into the comm channel with her report. "Caught a flash of something big heading out--a Super Star Destroyer. It's gone, but in system we have two dozen eye-b.a.l.l.s, two lambs, and a Strike Cruiser designated Terma-gant."

"What about the freighters?"

"We just saw the last one explode."

Nawara's stomach folded in on itself. "Gone? They're all gone?"

"An Imperial SSD wouldn't leave much behind." Fear and revulsion filled Rhysati's voice, and Nawara could easily visualize the hard look in her hazel eyes. "We're going in, right, Rogue Leader?"

"Twelve, any sign of the Skate?"

"No, Commander."

"Nothing at all? No beacon?"

"There's no beacon from half the hulks I have on my scan." Aril's voice softened a bit. "A Super Star Destroyer has enough power to completely vape any of the ships in the convoy."

"Right, right." Wedge's voice trailed off and no one spoke to fill the void. "Blast it! All right, listen up. We're going in, and we're going in hot. The Strike Cruiser is our primary target. Proton torps, dual-fire. I want it down and out immediately."

Erisi's voice crackled through the comm unit. "That means the T1Es will have no way to get out of here."

The edge in Wedge's voice came through unadulterated. "Is that a problem?"

"Not for me, Lead."

Nawara keyed his comm unit. "What about the lambs?"

The two Lambda-cla.s.s shuttles carried weapons and could be tougher than TIEs to handle because they also sported shields.

"We give them one chance to run. After that, they can go away, too."

Aril again spoke. "I'm downloading tac-data to every-one. Termagant isn't straight Imp, it's allied with Zsinj."

"Was allied with Zsinj." Wedge's ship began to lengthen its lead over the others. "Come on, Rogues. Warlord Zsinj apparently wanted the Alliance's attention. Here's where we make him pay for that mistake."

Following Wedge, the squadron sped in toward Zsinj's forces and the convoy debris. The convoy had been am-bushed out beyond the Graveyard and a bit below the sys-tem's...o...b..tal plane. Rogue Squadron had come in on the other side of the orbital plane. Because of this, and because of the way Zsinj's forces chose to orient themselves respec-tive to the system, by flying down to them, Rogue Squadron was, from their perspective flying in up at their bellies.

Nawara watched his tactical screen. Because the TIEs were making strafing runs on what were left of the freighters, they had no unit cohesion. With the enormous amount of debris in and around where they were flying, Nawara would have been surprised if they had any clue about Rogue Squadron's approach. So the ambusbers get ambushed. How fit-ting.

With the flick of his thumb he brought his weapons-control over to proton torpedoes. Another touch of a b.u.t.ton and he linked both launching tubes.

Range to the Termagant stood at 4.5 kilometers. The X-wings closed fast as Wedge led them down and around the freighter debris field, then over and in at the Strike Cruiser. Nawara's head's-up display went from green to yellow as the cruiser filled his sights, then blazed red as his RS's keening wail announced he had a target lock.

"Rogues, launch now!"

On Wedge's command the squadron fired their proton torpedoes in near-perfect unison. Twenty-two torpedoes streaked in at the lozenge-shaped Strike Cruiser, coming up toward the ventral hull. The first couple detonated brilliantly white against the ship's shields, but the rest pushed on through. Several exploded against the hull, shredding and blackening armor plating, while still more burst inside the ship. Argent fire gushed from the ragged hole in the ship's hull, then geysered out of several smaller openings on the upper part of the ship.

The Strike Cruisers, as a cla.s.s of ship, had been highly lauded because of their unique construction. Built around a central skeleton that bound the bridge to the engines, their other components were completely modular. A cruiser con-figured to carry troops could, after a short stay in some s.p.a.ceyard, emerge a TIE carrier like Termagant. Strike Cruis-ers allowed the Empire to change the makeup of the Imperial fleet without building entirely new ships.

That strength is Termagant's weakness. As the torpedoes exploded inside the ship, the ship itself began to break apart. The prow drifted upward as if the ship had run into an invisible wall. Armored hull plates shattered where they had covered the seam between the bow and the starboard TIE hangar. The forward part of the hangar started twisting as it ripped free of the skeleton. The cruiser began to roll, then the whole front half of the ship spun off as the ship's waist evaporated in the inferno the torpedoes caused.