Gavin forced himself to step forward and reenter the
Gamorrean's hovel. The fetid stink returned to his nose and
found accompaniment in the horrible sights and sounds that
greeted him. The single-room hovel itself was scarcely larger
than his own room in the squadron headquarters--and he
found that a bit cramped for one. It had two doors--the one
he'd opened using a lock-descrambling unit and a back door.
A heating plate and water spigot to the left of the doorway
marked the extent of the dwelling's kitchen facilities. The
refresher station stood farther along that wall, in the corner.
Spattered blood covered all of it, sprayed along the
floor, up the walls, and across the ceiling. It had dried and
taken on a black hue, making the room look as if a shadow
had exploded. The explosion's epicenter lay in the back cor-
ner, on a raised black platform that glistened in what little
light made it in past Gavin.
A wet, gurgling sound pulsed arhythmically from that
corner. On the platform, restrained by bedding twisted about
him while in the throes of agony, the mortal shell of the
Gamorrean named Tolra somehow clung to life. Gavin could
see where the flesh had split, allowing leg and arm bones to
protrude. The skin itself had thinned to a green-grey translu-
cency and hung in ragged ribbons from ribs and fingers.
The Gamorrean seemed to sense Gavin's presence, be-
cause he turned to look at him. With a thick sucking sound,
like cold grease being slathered over machine gears, the skull
turned toward him while the fleshy sac encompassing it did
not. The Gamorrean's horns and tusks gashed his own skin,
then the thick muscles on the creature's neck snapped, leav-
ing the massive skull to 1oll unnaturally in a puddle of vis-
cous tissue.
A chill settled over Gavin. Though he knew Tolra was
dead and that the disease had long since eaten away any
trace of sapience, he nodded toward the Gamorrean. "You
saved them. You did it. May the Force be with you."
Shivering, he turned and walked from the room. He sat
down outside and stripped the filmplast covering off his
boots, then tossed them back through the darkened door-
way. He didn't bother to look up when a shadow fell over
him. "He's dead."
Asyr crouched down beside him. "The clean team will
get here shortly. Are you all right?"
Gavin thought a moment before he answered. "I will be,
and I think that scares me." "No reason it should."
"I think there is." He jerked a thumb toward the hovel.
"There is a Gamorrean in there who has been turned into a
mass of jelly. The disease killed him, but it did so in a way
that didn't let him die until he could experience every frag-
ment of pain possible. There's nothing left to him, but he was
still breathing when I went in there. He was so tough, he
probably lasted longer than a week in the end stages of the
disease."
The Bothan stroked Gavin's cheek. "He fought the dis-
ease. That's good."
"Sure, but the fact that we can find something noble in
this seems twisted." He shook his head. 'Tve seen more
death in my time with Rogue Squadron than I have ever seen
before, but nothing was so hideous as this. A year ago !
would have run screaming. Now I just clean my boots and
wait for guys with sterilizer units to show up. I'm changing
and I'm not sure I like it."
Asyr smiled gently at him. "It's called maturing, Gavin,
and not everyone likes it. Now me, I think you're maturing
very well."
Gavin half-coughed a laugh. "Thanks, but I still have to
wonder if it's right that we can see something like that and
just continue on."
"We continue on, my dear, because we must." Asyr's
voice developed an edge. "The Gamorrean, he summoned up
the strength to lock others out and protect them. That was
good. You and I, though, have a different mission. This dis-
ease doesn't appear to affect our species, so we have volun-
teered to help out during this public health crisis, but that is
not our primary purpose here. Our mission is to fly our
X-wings, to locate and destroy the kind of monsters who
would do this kind of thing to others. Doing that requires all
the maturity we can muster."
"I know." He rubbed a hand along her spine, then
looked over to where Emtrey was conversing with an Emdee-
oh and two men carrying portable plasma-incinerator units.
The droid would take samples; then the men would burn
everything in the hovel, including the first five millimeters of
ferrocrete, to a white ash that would be vacuumed up and
disposed of safely.
Gavin let Asyr help him to his feet. "You're right, of
course. I hope we can accomplish our mission. If we don't,
I'm afraid we'll have to take Coruscant down to bedrock,
and I don't think even that will erase the scourge of the
Empire from the galaxy."
I think even stormtroopers would find my men terrifyingly
efficient. From the dark security of the grav-car's interior,
Kirtan Loor watched as four Special Intelligence operatives
clad in civilian garb approached the building's door. As huge
and imposing as they were, they moved with a lethal fluidity
their armor normally hid. Almost casually, one of them
placed a thermite boring charge on the door lock and set it,
then accepted a blaster carbine from a compatriot and flat-
tened himself against the building's wall.
A red light blinked three times on the thermite charge,
then a smoke-shrouded gout of white fire burst to hissing
life. The harsh light transformed the shadowed Imperial Cen-
ter street into a chiaroscuro landscape burned clean of imper-
fections but still full of menace. One of the operatives
punched a hooked prybar through the center of the fire and
yanked the door open, then his three compatriots dashed
through.
The blue backlight of stun-fire strobed momentarily
through the doorway and gaps in the window shading. Loor
waited for a moment, then saw two more flashes. A human
figure appeared in the doorway and nodded in his direction,
then retreated into the shadows of the building's interior.
Loor opened the grav-car's door and emerged. He gath-
ered a cloak about himself and pulled the hood up to conceal
his face from incidental observation. He strode forward pur-
posefully, but he imagined himself a pale imitation of Darth
Vader. Tall and skeletally slender, with dark hair, he had
been told he resembled a young Grand Moff Tarkin. While
that comparison had been one he had used to his advantage,
he would have preferred to inspire Vaderian terror in those
with whom he dealt.
He squeezed past the two operatives at the doorway and
stepped over the drooling Ithorian lying in the center of the
antechamber. Beyond it, through a short corridor and past a
third operative, he arri
ved in a room that resembled a rodent
nest more than it did a human dwelling. It stank of mildew
and old, musty sweat, th ough the occupant's new terror
added piquant elements to the room's stale bouquet.
Loor looked down at the small, balding man pinned to
the stained mattress by the muzzle of a blaster. "Your sur-
roundings are so miserable, I am almost moved to pity you,
Nartlo, but then, pity is wasted on the dead, isn't it?"
"What are you talking about?" The man's brown eyes
bulged with terror. "I don't know you. What did I do?"
"True, you do not know me, but you have brokered
some cure for friends of mine. It has been selling at a high
price, but they tell me that you have told them the market
has crashed. At the same time they noted that the supply of
cure you returned to them had gone from 95 percent purity
to 75 percent purity." Loor shook his head slowly, mourn-
fully. "My friends feel you have lied to and cheated them."
"No, no, I didn't do that." Nartlo tried to claw his way
into a sitting position, but the operative beside the makeshift
bed kept him rooted in one spot. "I drew off some of the
bacta as a sample, but a deal went bad and I lost it. I didn't
figure they'd believe I lost it, so I tried to cover up what I'd
done. I'm sorry."
"And stupid if you expect me to believe a story that was
ancient when the Old Republic was born." Loor let anger
into his voice and won a groan from his victim. Because of
the surveillance he had on Nartlo, Loor did know that the
story was not wholly false. Some of the bacta had been lost
when a deal went sour, but only some. The rest of the miss-
ing cure had been donated to an alien pleasure house for the
employees' own use. Nartlo had spent a week basking in
their considerable gratitude. "Tell me we won't find a
Rodian concubine's sucker-marks on your back if we strip
off your shirt."
Nartlo accompanied his curling up into a fetal ball with
a low moan. "I owed some favors."
"You gained some favors, more than you owed." Loor
took a step closer to the bed, forcing Nartlo to crane his neck
back to look up at him. "Now you owe me favors."
"Anything you want, anything."
"Good." Loor turned to the right and nodded at the
operative menacing the small man. The operative withdrew a
step and Nartlo coughed as the pressure eased on his rib
cage. "You told my friends that the market for cure had
crashed. Explain."
"The Rebels picked up a lot of cure. I don't know when
or where, but it was recent and was really very quiet. Rogue
Squadron was involved, though, I know that much. I've been
selling some of your cure to people who do business with
people who work for people in the Provisional Council, see.
They've been buying to be able to keep themselves and their
supporters healthy--no matter the plague doesn't seem to
affect them."
Loor smiled within the dark sanctum of his hood. The
New Republic government had put into place programs that
were designed to be fair to the victims of the Krytos virus.
The scarcity of bacta meant virtually all of the public supply
went to individuals who were infected, with the goal being to
save their lives. By curing them, public health officials could
limit the spread of the disease. Others, mostly those from
uninfected populations, argued that a prophylactic use of
bacta to prevent the spread to new populations would be
best. Public health officials argued that there was no proof
pre-exposure bacta therapy could prevent someone from be-
coming infected with the virus, but that did nothing to stem
the desire to get bacta and use it as preventative medicine.
Nartlo swiped at spittle recking the corners of his
mouth. "Seems there's going to be enough now so the provos
think they won't need their own supply."
Loor frowned. "Impossible. It would take a decade of
bacta cartel production to satisfy the demand here."
"Could be, sir, could be, but right now the word is out
that the New Republic's government has things under con-
trol."
"It's a lie, of course, but a good one." Loor slowly sank
down onto his haunches, letting his cloak pool around him.
"You believe this bacta supply exists?"
"I think some does, sir, yes, sir."
"You will learn about it. All about it."
Nartlo's eyes grew large again. "I don't know as I can,
sir. Security is tight."
"You owe me, little man." Loor's growl cowed Nartlo.
"You will go to your contacts and this time offer to buy cure
at a good price."
"What if they don't want to sell?"
"Tell them that they will find exposure of their previous
black market bacta dealings rather painful and embarrass-
ing. If that is insufficient, perhaps making an example of one
or more of them would be persuasive. I can and will do
that." Loor nodded toward the operative to his right. "Blast-
ers have more than just a stun setting on them, you know."
Nartlo licked at dry lips with a dry tongue. "Yes, sir, I
know."
"Good. I want to know how much they have, how long
they think their supply will last. I need to estimate when the
price will climb again."
"I can understand that, sir."
large a facility they would need to store it and how best to
destroy it. Loor began to smile. I could even just spread the
rumor that they have more than enough bacta to cure every-
one, then reveal the true amount they have in their stores.
The gap between what is hoped for and what is real should
create a lot of unrest. That is a suitable fall-back plan, and
one which I can pursue while seeking out and destroying the
containment facility.
"And, Nartlo, you will try to find out whatever you can
about their storage, transport, and distribution network. If I
do go buying more bacta as a hedge against shortage, I
would prefer to go directly to the source. I would like to cut
out the middlemen, no offense intended." "No, sir, none taken."
"Good, good. I'm glad we understand each other." Loor
straightened up again. "I will be interested in hearing what
you can find out."
Nartlo nodded enthusiastically. "You can count on me."
"I am counting on you. See to it that you do not fail
me."
"Yes, sir." The small man shivered. "But, sir, I was won-
dering . . ." "Yes?"
"How do I . . ."
Loor laughed in as sinister a manner as he could man-
age. "We will find you. Have something for me in two days."
"But that's not enough time."
"But it is all the time you have, Nartlo." Loor turned
and swept from the room. The operatives crowded behind
him and the two at the door preceded him to his grav-car.
Loor climbed into the back, one of them got behind the con-
trols, and the other three disapp
eared into the night.
"Drive."
Inertial forces pushed Loor back into the car's plush
upholstery. He began composing the report he would send
off to Ysanne Isard. The fact that the Rebellion had gotten its
hands on a new supply of bacta would not please her. She
had wanted the demand for bacta to bankrupt the Rebellion,
but Rogue Squadron's capture of more bacta meant it was
not nearly as pricey for the Rebels as Iceheart desired. The
only way to counteract that bit of luck was to locate and
destroy the bacta store, which was exactly what he intended
to do.
The problem is that no matter how quickly I resolve this
matter, it will not be quick enough for her. It occurred to him
that her messages to him suffered little reduction in their
venom, despite having to be recorded and transmitted in-
stead of being delivered in person. He would have thought
that the distance between them would have insulated him
from her criticisms, but it had not. She seemed to have a
preternatural ability to point up to him errors he had made,
no matter how slight, and that kept him constantly off bal-
ance.
He realized that if he told her he was having some of his
people train for a strike on the bacta facility before he knew
what that mission would take, she would point out that he
was wasting time and resources. He decided he would put
men into training for smaller missions that could serve as
diversions or that would, at the very least, provide the train-
ing framework upon which the bacta strike mission could be
built. Iceheart might maintain that he was wasting resources
that could be better used to locate the bacta facility in the
first place. But trying to argue that stormtroopers could be
used as spies was not the sort of blunder Isard would make.
The gray-car broke free of sub-urban roadway and shot
up into the night sky. Countless towers flashed past, each lit
as brilliantly as the fire of the thermite charge, but not nearly
as harshly. tte wondered how many of the people and aliens
living in those towers were rejoicing over the secret word
that their worries about the Krytos virus would soon be over.
Many. Too many.
Loor let his own laughter become a parody of the sound