Part 16 (1/2)
”Yes, Chief Councilor.” Cracken's dark eyes sharpened. ”What the Admiral is suggesting is that we cannot be certain Captain Celchu was the only spy in service to the Empire. The potential for betrayal does exist here and on the Ryloth side of things. While sending her out might endanger her, holding her back might be taken incorrectly by officials on Thyferra, dooming that deal.”
”But if she dies, that could also hurt us.” Mon Mothma shook her head.
”The lack of clear-cut decisions is what makes this job so difficult. The Thyferrans seem to set great store by Erisi Dlarit's flying with Rogue Squadron. I suppose we will have to let her go.”
Ackbar nodded. ”I concur. That is the tide on which you should sail.”
”And you, General Cracken,” Mon Mothma said, ”will have to make certain security around this mission is not breached. We cannot afford to have the mission disrupted, nor can we afford to lose Erisi Dlarit.”
”Of this, I am aware.” General Cracken nodded sol-emnly. ”I understand the gravity of the situation. If there is a leak, we'll find it--find it and eliminate it. The New Republic can afford for us to do nothing less.”
20.
”I am fairly certain, Colonel Vorru, that I do not like this turn of events at all.” Kirtan Loor peered down at the smaller man but clearly did not have quite the intimidating effect on him that Loor wanted. ”I invited you here to inform you of my plan as a courtesy, not to allow you to veto it.”
Fliry Vorru shrugged. ”Ah, but I have vetoed it.”
No! ”No! I cannot allow this.” Loor's hands balled into fists. ”My agreement with you was to let you select domestic targets that help weaken the New Republic's government. I have abided by your decisions in any case where the target was of that sort. This is not one of those cases.”
Loor stalked around his darkened office, flitting like a moth around the circle of light that anointed Fliry Vorru and made his white hair s.h.i.+ne brilliantly. ”The destruction of Rogue Squadron has been a priority with me since well be-fore they took Imperial Center, and now, now they are within my grasp. I have a squadron of X-wings here on Im-perial Center that I will use to attack Rogue Squadron's base and destroy them on the ground. It will be perfect and will allow me to finish a mission that has taken far too long to complete.”
Vorru leaned back in Loor's tall chair and put his booted feet up on the surface of the desk, scattering a stack of data-cards. ”What were once your priorities do not matter to me. I deem this attack too risky.
Cracken will suspect I leaked information about Rogue Squadron's impending mission to you.”
”No, no he won't.” Loor's fingers itched to be punching data up on his datapad--or to be strangling you, Vorru. ”I uncovered evidence of a run to Ryloth based on fluctuations in the secondary ryll-derivatives black market. I traced it back to a woman in the medical corps who's been making extra money producing her own brand of patent medicine. It's mostly lure, with ryll and a drop or two of bacta in it-- useless, of course, but she's begun to raise the price. It's as-sumed that when Rogue Squadron brings the rytl back to Coruscant, its effectiveness against the virus will be touted and her medicine will be in high demand. I can give her to you and you can point her out as the leak.”
”Suggesting that a quack producing a folk remedy led you to Rogue Squadron is what will get me implicated.”
”Nonsense.” Loor slapped his hands against his hips in frustration. ”You know as well as I do that Ryloth is as dark a den of iniquity as exists this side of Varl. The Twi'leks have not supported the Rebellion in any great numbers, so the most prominent Twi'lek in the New Republic is Nawara Ven. The Republic has to use him as their negotiator and, lo and behold, the prosecution asks for and gets a continuance of the case. That leaves plenty of time for Rogue Squadron to make the trip to Ryloth and back. The only obvious a.s.sump-tion is that they're going to make the trip.”
Loor shook his head. ”I've known where Rogue Squad-ron has been stationed for a while now. This is my opportu-nity to hit them right at a time when the failure of their mission will severely hurt the New Republic.”
”Your reasoning is flawless, Agent Loor, but that con-cerns me not at all.” Vorru's dark eyes glittered. ”I even find your devotion toward the elimination of Rogue Squadron admirable. However, your taking action against Rogue Squadron does not suit me at this time; therefore you cannot launch your a.s.sault.”
”And if I choose to ignore your advice?”
Vorru twisted his head slightly sideways. ”Do you really want to test me, Kirtan Loor?”
Loor hesitated, losing his chance to snap back a defiant answer. Anyone else asking that question would have filled the words with impending doom, but Vorru asked it in an easy tone, as if asking a child if she were certain she wanted to do something that was obviously dangerous. His expres-sion, his posture, bore no obvious menace, and yet Loor found himself more fearful of Vorru than he would be of a buzzadder coiled and ready to strike in his place.
”Testing you would get neither of us anywhere.”
”I always thought you were more than reasonable.” Vorru swung his feet off the desk and swiveled the chair around so he could stand. He withdrew a datacard from inside his militia tunic and tossed it on the desk. ”You and your people have been good and have done nothing of im-port for nearly two weeks. I have found you a new target.”
Loor exchanged places with Vorru, spun the chair around, and dropped into it. He pulled himself around to face the desk and saw Vorru's shadowed form standing op-posite him. Loor shoved the datacard into his datapad, punched up a directory, then opened the file labeled ”tar-get.die.” The architectural renderings of a building showing stress points filled the small screen.
The Intelligence agent looked up. ”It's small. I don't see bacta storage areas or barracks facilities. What is it?”
”A school.”
”School?” Loor frowned. ”You mean a training acad-emy?”
”No, a school. For children.”
”Children of the Rebel leaders.h.i.+p?”
”Hardly. They've been too busy to breed.” Vorru shook his head quickly.
”This is just a normal school, with normal children--some aliens, but mostly human.”
”Why?”
”Why? Because the students are drawn from the local population.”
Loor's frown deepened, and confusion made his voice tenuous. ”No, why hit a school?”
”Come now, Agent Loor, you didn't expect to get great results without inflicting great pain, did you?” Vorru laughed lightly. ”You probably thought you could cling to some shred of honor. By hitting factories and military facilities and places where adults congregated, you could put fear into them. By hitting bacta distribution centers, you could make parents concerned about the welfare of their children, but it would be the Krytos virus that killed the children, not you. Is that it?”
”I . . . perhaps ...”
”Perhaps nothing, that is exactly what you were think-ing. And because of it, your efforts would have been for naught.” Vorru leaned forward, supporting his body on both arms. The light from above hid his eyes in black triangles. ”Threaten a child and you will unite the parents against you. Kill a child and those who have lost it will retreat in mourn-ing.
Those around them will feel their pain and likewise look to their own families. They will keep their children close and out of schools. This will shatter the Rebellion's ability to indoctrinate the young. It also makes the Rebellion look un-forgivably weak. People will demand things be done and it will be left to me to do them.”
And one of the things you shall do is use me as a scape-goat for your evil. The illusion of control over his own situa-tion evaporated in a heartbeat. To Loor his future was clear: He would carry out more and more heinous missions for Colonel Vorru; then, eventually, Vorru would betray him. He would remain alive and free until Vorru had no further use for him, then he would be broken and displayed as proof of Vorru's virtue.
It struck Loor as almost comical that he could see Vorru's desire to strike at a school as evil, yet his desire to hit Rogue Squadron was nothing more than duty. The differ-ence, ultimately, was that the strike at Rogue Squadron would advance the cause of the Empire, while the strike at the school would only strengthen Vorru's position. We are not as far apart as ! would like to think, but neither are we as close as Vorru sees us.
Nor am I as stupid as he thinks I am. Loor hit a b.u.t.ton on the datapad and read the list of materials needed to un-dertake the operation.
”When?”
”A week. There will have been no news of the trial in that time, so this will really attract attention.”
Loor's head came up. ”Will you need me to sacrifice some of my men to your militia?”
”Not immediately.” A shadowed smile spread across the small man's face.
”I have several troublesome individuals who need to die in an airspeeder explosion. The chemical composition of the explosives will match those in the school bombing. That will send Cracken's people off in a direction I want and leave you free to operate.”
”Will you be selecting another target for us?”
Vorru straightened up, retreating into shadow. ”No. Just go ahead and pick out a half-dozen targets you want to hit and I'll pick one or two from your list. I'll use them as tests for my subordinates to see if they can figure out how we can profit from these things. Compet.i.tion will keep them sharp.”