The Krytos Trap (14 page)

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 Terrik, about the need for caution, especially at those times when events seemed to be moving too fast to allow any delay. 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 heading 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
-class 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 Corellian deep-sea skate for which it was named. It had sailed through a lot of parsecs 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 Sullustan returned the nod without comment, and raised the muzzle of his blaster carbine enough so Wedge could pass unmenaced. The normally voluble Sullustan’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 wearing 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 serious and remote, walling 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 darkness, Wedge could tell something alive lurked there.

A cold chill shot down his spine, and all manner of irrational 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 doing?”

“I’m holding it together, Wedge, really.” Her tone matched the hopeful nature of her words, giving Wedge reason 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 pronounced with respectful precision; the hard sounds—the C in Wedge’s title 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 featured 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 antennae 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, consisted 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 imagine the Vratix capable of great leaps and savage kicks in combat. The last pair of limbs were certainly more than vestigial, 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 concurrent 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 Zaltin 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 during 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 competition by producing better bacta for less than anyone else could.”

“You mean there once was competition 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 abundantly 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 warriors. 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 decided that the only group that should have a guaranteed supply of bacta was his military. He systematically suppressed
small manufacturers of bacta in favor of Zaltin and Xucphra. They realized greater profits by letting the marketplace 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 kavam. 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 exactly 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 plural 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 orders 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 believed that this was so they could gouge both the Empire and the Alliance, thus enriching themselves while the war raged. To keep Thyferra happy, the Alliance had even inducted two of its human residents—one from a Zaltin family and the other from a Xucphra family—into Rogue Squadron. Bror Jace, the pilot representing the Zaltin corporation, had been killed fighting against the Empire. Erisi Dlarit, the other Thyferran, still flew with the squadron, and viewed the Ashern as murdering terrorist monsters.

And there’s the problem
. If the New Republic granted the Ashern any sort of status, the Thyferran government would react harshly and swiftly. Any hope of getting bacta from the cartel—no matter how successful Erisi’s backdoor efforts in that regard might be—would die quickly and horribly. If the bacta supply dried up, the Krytos virus would ravage Coruscant and, quite likely, spread to other worlds and kill billions of individuals.

If I refuse the request
 … 
then what?
Wedge looked up at Qlaern. “The bacta you made available to us, there’s nothing wrong with it, is there? We’re not in a situation where you have to mix something else in for it to be effective, such that if I refuse your request, the bacta will be useless or harmful, are we?”