X-wing_ The Krytos Trap Part 7

"If the truth be told, Princess Leia, I do not." Vorru stiflened formally, then bowed his head. "The liberation of the planet would have been accomplished more smoothly and efficiently if not for the treacherous behavior of one of my lieutenants. While I did not know Zekka Thyne was working for Imperial Intelligence agents, I must accept responsibility for his actions. In effect, the liberation proceeded without my help, so my debt to you remains."

A pained expression pa.s.sed over his face. "You brought me here in the hope that I could revive Black Sun and turn it into a force that would aid the effort to take Cornscant from the Empire. I did what I could, but the fact is that the Impe-rial effort to expunge the remnants of Xizor's organization were as ruthlessly efficient as only Darth Vader's vengeance could be. What little of the leadership remained was de-stroyed in internecine battling. When I arrived here there was a paucity of leadership and an insufficient amount of time to once again establish control over the various factions present on Cornscant. Durga the Hutt and others resist unification, so Black Sun is effectively dead."

Ackbar sat back in his chair. "I would have expected more regret in your voice at that p.r.o.nouncement."

Vorru shrugged. "Black Sun was Xizor's dream, not mine."

Fey'lya folded his arms across his chest and remained standing. "And your dream is . . . ?"

"Freedom, the same as your dream." Vorru smiled. "The Empire treated criminals the same way it treated you Rebels. With the Empire's grip broken, you Rebels have be-come the New Republic and have gained legitimacy. The criminals who have long been repressed by the Empire are not all evil, but many have been trapped in a cycle of lawless-ness precisely because they knew they could expect no mercy from the Empire.

While they were not Rebels, they were no less victims of Imperial repression.

"To bring things to the point quickly, we no longer wish to be treated as criminals. We want a chance to gain legiti-macy and lead normal lives.

For this we realize we need to offer you something of value, and so we shall. We know the ways of the black market. We know how to disrupt it and break it. We know the ways of criminals and how to disrupt their activities. We know the underworld of Cornscant and we know how to bring to justice those you want to punish."

Doman Beruss stared at Vorru. "You want us to make you the Commissioner of the Cornscant Constabulary?"

"I do not think you that foolish, Doman Beruss. I knew your father and mother and I know you cannot be easily deceived." A smile came readily to Vorru's face--a smile Ackbar did not trust. "What I want is for my people to be allowed to administer the law in the underworld here. Your Security Force will have more than enough to do with the areas of Cornscant where you can project power. We already have various off-world populations forming their own mili-tias and civil defense corps, so why not tolerate a similar force created out of my people?"

Mon Mothma arched an eyebrow at Vorru. "Very few others have as colorful a history as you do, Fliry Vorru."

"But some of those who have equally notorious back-grounds are continuing in service to the government, though the leadership and philosophy have changed."

Ackbar slowly nodded. The realities of governing a vast panoply of worlds necessitated using the Imperial govern-mental apparatus to maintain communication and order. While a wholesale replacement of the bureaucracy would have been ideal, the fact was that, just as the Rebel military had relied on people with Imperial training, so the govern-ment was being forced to rely on clerks and administrators who had faithfully served the Empire until it fell. While most of these people had an allegiance to their jobs and not to the government, the tacit clemency granted to them in return for continuing to work did not sit well with many of the Rebels.

Fliry Vorru presented an interesting case. He had di-rectly contributed to the winning of Coruscant. While he underplayed his contribution, Vorru could easily have turned Rogue Squadron over to the Imperials, preventing the Rebel conquest of the planet. His support, despite the betrayal of subordinates, had facilitated the Rebel victory, making him a valuable ally.

And his request of us is an ally's request for trust. Ackbar half-closed his eyes. Vorru's request also made sense from a purely pragmatic position. While Cracken's law en-forcement organization would soon be functioning fully, it would never have been as effective in the underworld as Vorru would be. The Palpatine Counter-insurgency Front, black marketeering, and a dozen other problems needed at-tention on Coruscant, and yet Cracken still needed to attend to intelligence matters involving Warlord Zsinj and Ysanne Isard, wherever she was.

Vorru' opened his hands. "The question I place before you is this: will you grant me and my people the trust we have earned?"

Leia's eyes hardened. "The Empire was a common en-emy we had between us, hence our alliance. In acting against them you have earned trust, but I suspect you see the account more fully than we do."

"This is true, Leia, but Vorru's point is well taken." Mon Mothma pressed her hands gently against the table top. "The fight against the Empire is truly what bound the Alli-ance together. We must build on that basic level of trust if we expect the Republic to thrive. As long as Fliry Vorru's people are willing to abide by the conduct standards we set for our law enforcement and militia forces, they will remain within the bounds of our trust. If they step outside those guidelines, they will be outside their lawful duty and will be dealt with in a suitable manner."

"You will find me a most able and loyal servant in this matter, Mon Mothma."

"So I trust, Fliry Vorru."

"So we must all trust," Ackbar murmured.

Something dark flashed through Vorru's eyes as he turned toward the Mon Calamari. "I would have thought you above veiled threats, Admiral Ackbar."

"I am above them." Ackbar's mouth dropped open in a Mon Calamari grin. "I merely meant that we must take your word concerning your loyalty because your previous masters are all dead, and the greatest of them through our efforts. If you choose to read a threat in that set of facts, I cannot stop you from doing so."

"But if I get out of hand you will destroy me?"

"You have earned trust." Ackbar leaned forward and gave Vorru a wall-eyed stare. "Spend it unwisely and I will do what I must to settle your account."

12.

All the while in the back of the grav-cab, Wedge tried to puzzle out what Mirax had found on the Pulsar Skate that could threaten the Alliance.

With anyone else Wedge would have made an allowance for hyperbole, but Mirax had never been p.r.o.ne to melodrama. In fact, she tends to see issues and emergencies rather clearly.

Wedge shivered. Once before the Ashern rebels of Thyferra had inserted a virus into bacta shipments that in-duced an allergy to bacta in those who were treated with it. This, in effect, left them without treatment for a whole host of ills. If Mirax possessed evidence that the batch of bacta stolen from Zsinj had been similarly contaminated, not only would it doom millions of people to die from the Krytos virus, but the withdrawal of the bacta from the health ser-vices system on Coruscant would spark riots that would kill many more people.

That would surely rip the Alliance apart. Non-humans would say that the bacta was being h.o.a.rded for use by hu-mans in case the Krytos virus jumped species and began to kill them. Humans would also be blamed if non-humans were hurt or killed by the contaminated bacta, and any attempt to blame the contamination on the Ashern rebels would be decried as false and part of a human conspiracy, since it was well known that the Zaltin and Xucphra com-bines were run by humans.

Let it be anything else but bad bacta.

Wedge had the droid flying the cab let him off three blocks and two levels from the hangar where Mirax kept the Pulsar Skate. While he wanted to get there as quickly as possible, the urgency in her voice kindled a desire for caution in him. He'd learned a lot from Mirax's father, Booster Ter-rik, about the need for caution, especially at those times when events seemed to be moving too fast to allow any de-lay. Wedge regretted the lack of a sidearm, but he did have a comlink and took a moment to preset it to the squadron's emergency frequency.

He forced himself to slow down as he wandered toward the hangar. He stopped to look at the holographic displays set in shop windows or to read the latest news as it sped past on the omnipresent news-scrolls.

With each stop he looked around and tried to spot anyone paying over much attention to his presence. He saw no signs he was being followed, but took the added precaution of wandering into a tapcaf, going out through the lower level, then coming back up and head-ing to the hangar.

At the door Wedge announced himself. The computer got a good voiceprint match, then opened the door. Wedge stepped through into the security lock area. After the door closed behind him, another door in front of him opened up and allowed him into the hangar itself.

A smile slowly spread across his face as he looked at the Pulsar Skate.

The modified Baudo-cla.s.s yacht had the overall shape of a broad-bladed dagger. The twin engines at the aft formed an abbreviated hilt. The broadest parts of the blade curved down to form gentle wings that swept up to a rounded prow. The ship very much did resemble the Corel-lian deep-sea skate for which it was named. It had sailed through a lot of pa.r.s.ecs between the time its hull was first welded and its current presence on Coruscant.

He quickly crossed the darkened hangar floor and made his way up the loading ramp. At the top of the gangway he nodded to Liat Tsayv. The Sull.u.s.tan returned the nod with-out comment, and raised the muzzle of his blaster carbine enough so Wedge could pa.s.s unmenaced. The normally voluble Sull.u.s.tan's grim silence gave Wedge a measure of how serious Mirax thought the situation was and filled him with a sense of dread.

He made his way past the galley and crew lounge to the hold. The hatch stood open, and through it he could see Mirax sitting on a duraplast crate. She looked well, though she still wore her brown hair in a long braid that she doubled up and fastened at the back of her head. She'd started wear-ing her hair that way since Corran's death and Wedge remembered her having done the same thing when her father had first been sent away to Kessel. That's Mirax being seri-ous and remote, wailing her feelings off so she doesn't have to deal with the pain.

A single red light provided all the illumination for the hold, yet it did little more than illuminate a two-meter-wide globe within which Mirax sat. Everything else remained in shadow, yet from the way Mirax looked out into the dark-ness, Wedge could tell something alive lurked there.

A cold chill shot down his spine, and all manner of irra-tional thoughts exploded in his brain. He paused in the hatchway and stared out into the blackness, trying to see what captivated Mirax's attention. He thought he saw red light glint off a rounded black dome, which he translated into Darth Vader's helmet. No, he's dead. It can't be him again.

Wedge smiled at Mirax. "I'm here. How are you do-ing?"

"I'm holding it together, Wedge, really." Her tone matched the hopeful nature of her words, giving Wedge rea-son to feel slightly relieved.

"Thanks for getting here so fast. I don't know who else could help me with this, but it turns out you were their choice anyway."

Mirax gestured off into the darkest part of the hold. "Wedge Antilles, this is Qlaern Hirf, a Vratix native of Thyferra and a proud member of the Ashern Circle."

"The honor is ours, Commander Antilles." The voice from the shadows came deep and deliberate. Wedge heard his name p.r.o.nounced with respectful precision; the hard sounds--the C in Wedge's t.i.tle and the t in his name- -were slightly abbreviated, as if snapped instead of spoken. Ooryl Qrygg, the squadron's Gand, produced similar sounds when he spoke, though even bringing to mind the image of the exoskeletoned pilot did not fully prepare Wedge for his first sight of the Vratix.

Qlaern moved from the shadows and into the circle of light slowly and benignly. The insectoid creature's head fea-tured two bulging compound eyes, and Wedge realized it was light reflected from one of these that his imagination had transformed into Vader's headgear. The Vratix's bent anten-nae dangled over its triangular face, and its curved mandibles remained pressed one against the other.

The Vratix's stalk-like neck broadened into a cylindrical thorax and abdomen. The first of three pairs of limbs, which hung from the point where the neck joined the thorax, con-sisted of two trifold arms that ended in three long, delicate fingers and a thicker thumb, and sprouted stout hook-claws from the middle arm segment. The second and third sets of limbs were legs, yet they were mismatched. The middle legs connected with the body below what would have been the ribs on a human. Longer and far more powerfully built than the other pair of legs, their configuration led Wedge to imag-ine the Vratix capable of great leaps and savage kicks in combat. The last pair of limbs were certainly more than ves-tigial, serving as they did to keep the Vratix's abdomen from dragging on the ground, but they reminded Wedge of little more than the landing gear on an X-wing: useful to have when you need them, but built to be tucked away when work had to be done.

The Vratix body appeared to have a uniformly grey color to it, but Wedge put that down to the lack of light in the hold. The claws on its forearms were black, but with lighter flecks, which led Wedge to believe the black color was cosmetically applied, not something native to the creature itself.

"I am pleased to meet you, Qlaern Hirf." Wedge smiled and extended a hand toward the Vratix.

Qlaern's hand came in toward Wedge's, then moved past it and came up. The Vratix brushed its fingers over Wedge's face. The creature's flesh, which Wedge expected to be cold and hard like armor, was dry and warm. While he could feel the solidity of the exoskeleton beneath it, the scaly texture of the skin covering the Vratix somehow made the creature seem less alien to Wedge.

Mirax reached out and brushed a hand over the flesh of Qlaern's right foreknee. "The Vratix find both sound and vision to be deceptive senses.

As Qlaern reports it, both sight and sound are things that are of the past the moment you perceive them. Only touch reports information that is con-current with the gathering."

"Interesting perspective." Wedge shifted his hand around to grip the Vratix's arm above the curved spikes. "Qlaern, you are the Ashern agent who tipped us to the presence of the bacta that Zsinj had captured?"

"We are responsible for that occurrence." Qlaern tilted his head to the right and then the left. "We would have preferred to transfer the bacta directly to you, but this was not possible. Our affluence is not such that we could present our gift in the manner we wished."

Wedge frowned. "I am not certain I understand what you are saying."

Mirax scooted over on the crate. "Sit down, Wedge. This gets complicated."

Wedge sat beside her. "Am I going to like this?"

"Parts of it, sure." Mirax smiled weakly at him. "At least, I think you will."

Qlaern spread his forelegs slightly to bring his face down to their level. "You know of our world."

"Some. Thyferra is a world in the Polith system, quite temperate in nature and an excellent world for agriculture. Thyferra is where bacta is produced and distributed by Zal-tin and Xucphra, the two corporations that have a monopoly on the bacta trade. The corporations are decidedly feudal in nature, with humans de facto governing a world where the Vratix are the majority."

The Vratix's head bobbed on the end of its neck. "Good. Not as much as she who is Mirax knows, but good."

"Please, tell me what I do not know."

"We have insufficient time for that, we think." Qlaern's head craned back as a sibilant hiss issued from its mouth.

Wedge looked at Mirax. "Sarcasm? A laugh?"

"I think so."

"Forgive us, but so many times we find humans say things they do not mean."

"Ah, then tell me what you believe I need to know."

"Much better." The Vratix settled a hand on Wedge's knee. "The healing properties of bacta were discovered dur-ing the days of the Old Republic.

It was apparent to all that bacta was a miracle cure for many ailments and infirmities. The corporations which now control Thyferra and bacta made narrow profits, but made them on a wider range of sales. They set up many satellite manufacturing centers, all under license, all with Vratix verachen overseeing the final processes no matter where they took place.

The thought then was to beat compet.i.tion by producing better bacta for less than anyone else could."

"You mean there once was compet.i.tion for the bacta market?"

"For more time than there has not been, but all of it before you were born. The Clone Wars made one thing abun-dantly clear--a supply of bacta could heal even the most grievously wounded soldiers and render them receptive to mechanical replacement limbs. This meant they could return to combat, saving the military the cost of training new war-riors. As a pilot you know how much expense goes into training, so the saving is clear."

"And I know many a pilot, myself included, who owes his life to bacta therapy."

"So it is." Qlaern nodded solemnly. "The Emperor de-cided that the only group that should have a guaranteed supply of bacta was his military. He systematically sup-pressed small manufacturers of bacta in favor of Zaltin and Xucphra. They realized greater profits by letting the market-place set the price and utilized Imperial soldiers to wipe out independent growers and to round up all the verachen to return them to Thyferra."

Wedge frowned. "Twice now you have used the word 'verachen.'"

"We are verachen." Qlaern tapped his free hand against his thorax. "Bacta is an organic product made through the blending of alazhi with kavare.

Kavam is itself a compound made of other ingredients. Alazhi, because it is grown, comes in various potencies depending upon location, soil content, rainfall, and even spontaneous mutation. Verachen oversee the proper combination of these components into the bacta. Each lot has a minimum potency, but sometimes the bacta will be most potent and work extremely well. Such is the batch we have presented to you as our gift."

"Gift?" Wedge placed his hand atop Qlaern's hand. "Please do not think me dense, but there are some things you say as if you expect me to already understand them."

"Forgive us. We have been foolish."

"That's partially my fault, Wedge." Mirax added her hand to the pile on Wedge's knee. "The Vratix are not ex-actly a hive mind, but there does appear to be surface thought exchange among Vratix who spend a lot of time in close proximity to one another. The reason 'verachen' is plu-ral is that while Qlaern here might be the supervisor in charge of a batch process, Qlaern will have subordinates who act almost as remotes, reporting back and receiving or-ders on a subsensory level of some sort.

Qlaern may have been under the impression. you and I similarly shared thoughts."

"So you know what he's talking about?"

"I think so--and, actually, Qlaern is not a he per se. The Vratix can both father and bear young, depending upon stages in their life cycle, which I guess is rather long." She inclined her head toward the Vratix.

"When it speaks of the Clone Wars, it's speaking from life experience."

"Huh?" Wedge smiled. "So, will you clear up this gift thing for me?"

"Sure, if you don't mind, Qlaern."

"We are grateful for your aid."

Mirax drew in a deep breath. "The Vratix have made you a gift of the bacta and all that entails."

"Why me?"

Qlaern's antennae twitched. "Your fame has made you known to us. You are known as a fair and wise man who values loyalty. This we value as well."

Wedge's eyes narrowed. "I appreciate that, but I still don't understand.

What's in this for the Vratix?"

The Vratix inclined its head toward Mirax. "This you must explain, for you will do it better than we will."

Mirax nodded, then took another deep breath. "The Vratix are giving this bacta to you because they want you, Wedge Antilles, to represent them before the Provisional Council. They want to join the New Republic."

"What?" Wedge's surprise at being asked to represent the Vratix immediately faded beneath a sense of disaster. Thyferra was the sole supplier of bacta, but the world had steadfastly remained neutral in the civil war. Everyone be-lieved that this was so they could gouge both the Empire and the Alliance, thus enriching themselves while the war raged.