3

Kirtan Loor struggled to keep a self-satisfied smirk from ruining the stern expression he had worked hard to cultivate. He wanted to appear implacable. He needed to be merciless.

He feared he would fail on both counts, but laid the blame on his eagerness to confront an old nemesis finally brought to heel. What had been a blot on his record would soon be expunged. More importantly, people who had ridiculed him would learn they had grossly underestimated him. And in doing so they had doomed themselves.

Kirtan held his head erect as he marched down the companion way on the Expeditious. The Carrack-class light cruiser had not been built to accommodate people of his height, so he felt some of his black hair brush against the ceiling. A more cautious man would have slumped his shoulders slightly and lessened the chance of bashing his head on a light fixture or bulkhead support. Kirtan, having once been told that he looked every inch a taller, younger Grand Moff Tarkin—from thinning widow’s peak and lanky frame to sharp features in a cadaverously slender face—did his best to emphasize the resemblance.

Even though Tarkin was nearly seven years dead, the resemblance still earned him some respect. On an Imperial naval vessel, respect for an Intelligence officer such as himself was in short supply, so he took what he could get. The military arm of the Empire clearly resented having the government being run by the Emperor’s former Intelligence chief, and they took their displeasure out on the least of her servants.

Kirtan ducked his head and entered the antechamber of the Expeditious’s brig. “I am here to interview the prisoner you took off the Starwind.”

The Lieutenant in charge glanced at his datapad. “He just got back from medical.”

“I know, I’ve seen the report.” Kirtan glanced at the hatchway leading to the detention cells. “He has been told nothing about the results?”

The soldier’s face darkened. “I’ve been told nothing about the results. If he has a disease, I want him out before he infects the …”

The Intelligence operative held a hand up. “Calm yourself, you’ll bounce your rank cylinder out of your pocket in a moment.”

The Lieutenant raised a hand to check his rank badges and when he found them in place he blushed. “Play your little games with Rebel scum, not me. I have serious work to do.”

“Of course you do, Lieutenant.” Kirtan flashed a smile that was more predator than comrade, then turned toward the detention cells. “Which one?”

“Holding cell Three. Wait here while I get you an escort.”

“I won’t need one.”

“You may not think so, but he’s listed as rating a four on the Hostility Index. That rating requires two officers to accompany an interrogator.”

Kirtan shook his head slowly. “I know, I gave him that rating. I can handle him.”

“Remember that when you’re in a bacta bath washing away his fingerprints.”

“That I shall, Lieutenant.” Kirtan grasped his hands at the small of his back and started off through the hexagonal companionway. His black boots made a solid clanking sound on the metal grating and he measured his steps carefully to keep the sound rhythmic and daunting.

The hatch to cell Three opened with a hiss of pressurized gas. Yellow light spilled out into the corridor and Kirtan folded himself halfway to double to fit through the opening. He paused inside the cell and stood tall. He narrowed his eyes, then immediately thought better of it. He always said it looked as if I were wincing in pain.

The older, heavyset man swung his legs around off the cot and levered himself up into a sitting position. “Kirtan Loor, I thought it would be you.”

“Did you?” Kirtan injected sarcasm into his voice to cover his own surprise. “How could that be?”

The old man shrugged his shoulders. “Actually, I rather counted on it.”

What? The Intelligence officer snorted. “You mean you thought no one but me would be able to puzzle out your whereabouts.”

“No, I mean that I thought even you could figure out how to find me.”

Kirtan rocked back slightly from the venom in the prisoner’s voice, bumping the back of his head on the top of the hatchway. This is not the way this is supposed to be going. Narrowing his eyes, he stared down at the old man. “You, Gil Bastra, are going to die.”

“I figured that the moment your TIEs started shooting at me.”

Kirtan slowly crossed his arms. “No, you don’t understand how desperate is your situation here. You thought you outsmarted me and the Empire. You were cautious, but not insurmountably so. You are dying even now.”

Bastra’s bushy grey eyebrows met in a frown. “What are you talking about?”

“When we took the Starwind I ordered a medical evaluation for you. You may have forgotten that I always remember what I have seen and heard, and in doing so you have forgotten how you ridiculed me for using skirtopanol to interrogate a smuggler working for the Rebellion. You told me then that he died during interrogation because his boss, Billey, had his people dose themselves with lotiramine. It metabolizes the interrogation drug and can induce chemical amnesia or, in some cases, death.”

Kirtan gave Bastra a cold smile. “Your medical scan shows elevated levels of lotiramine in your blood.”

“I guess you’ll just have to kill me the old-fashioned way, then.” Bastra smiled openly, flashing white teeth in a thick, stubble-coated face. “Since Vader was the last Jedi, I guess you’ll even have to get your hands dirty doing it.”

“Hardly.”

“You never were one to break a sweat doing any work on Corellia, were you, Loor?” Bastra slumped back against the bulkhead. “I don’t think you would have fit in even if you’d made an effort. You were always your own worst enemy.”

“I wasn’t meant to fit in. You were Corellian Security, I was Imperial Intelligence attached to your office.” Kirtan forced himself to calm down a bit and unknotted his fists. Lowering his hands to his sides, he tugged on the hem of his black tunic. “And now you are your own worst enemy. You have accelerated blastonecrosis.”

“What? You’re lying.”

“No, no I’m not.” Kirtan let pity slip into his voice. “The lotiramine is very effective in masking the tracer enzymes for the disease. Here, on this ship, our medical facilities are far superior to those you would find among Rebels. We were able to pick out the enzymes.”

Gil Bastra’s shoulders slumped and his grey head bowed. His hands came together around his bulging stomach. “The fatigue, loss of appetite. I thought I was just getting old.”

“You are. And you are dying.” The Intelligence officer idly stroked his sharp chin with a long-fingered hand. “I can do nothing about the former problem, but there are ways to cure blastonecrosis.”

“And all I have to do to be cured is turn in my friends?”

Looking down upon the grey lump of a man across from him, Kirtan felt momentarily embarrassed by memories of having feared Gil Bastra’s judgment of him and his work. Bastra had not been his direct supervisor, but he had been the one to assign officers to work with Intelligence, and Bastra’s lack of respect had been reflected through the personnel sent to work with Kirtan. Every time that Kirtan had felt in control and superior, Bastra had managed to undercut him and shame him.

Is this another of those times? Kirtan caught himself and nodded slowly. “There is more fight in you than you would want me to believe there is. I know you fashioned the new identities for your confederates and did a very good job of it, too. In fact, you only made mistakes in your own cover. Still I knew that you’d find yourself a freighter and hop around the galaxy, as your heart pleased. You were too old to change your lifestyle to something totally alien to avoid detection. You decided to gamble and now you have lost.”

The old man’s head came up slowly. Kirtan saw fire still smoldering in the blue eyes. “I’ll give you nothing.”

“Yes, yes, of course you won’t.” The Intelligence man laughed lightly. “You forget, I learned interrogation from a number of very good people, including yourself. I will get information from you. When I do—and you know I will—Corran Horn, Iella Wessiri, and her husband will be mine. It is inevitable.”

“You’re overestimating your abilities, and underestimating mine.”

“Am I? I think not. I know you well enough to know you’ll only break under extreme pressure. I can and will take you to the edge of your endurance, then float you in bacta until you are ready to continue interrogation.” Kirtan folded his hands together. “However, you are just one relay in the network that will bring the others to me. Corran Horn is too volatile to stay confined in any role you create for him. And I know that role had to be very constricting for him.”

Bastra’s chest heaved mightily with a sigh. “And how do you know that?”

Kirtan tapped his temple with a finger. “You think I have forgotten the falling out the two of you had? You decided to protect him because his father had been your partner when you started out, but you are a vengeful man, Gil Bastra. Whatever role you created for Corran would squeeze him every day, just to remind him he owed his life to a man he hated.”

Fat rippled beneath the prisoner’s grey jumpsuit as he laughed. “You do know me.”

“I do indeed.”

“But not well enough.” Bastra gave him a grin that was all teeth and defiance. “I am vengeful—vengeful enough to engineer things so a disgraced Intelligence officer would spend the rest of his career dashing around the galaxy trying to capture three people he once worked with. Three people who escaped out from under his hooked beak, and were able to do so because his nose was so up in the air all the time that he couldn’t notice the most obvious of mistakes they made.”

Kirtan used scorn to smother his surprise. “I caught you, didn’t I?”

“And it took you the better part of two years to do so. Ever wonder why? Ever wonder why, when you were about to give up, a new clue would surface?” Bastra surged forward and stood. Though the prisoner was nearly thirty centimeters shorter, than Kirtan, the Intelligence officer felt somehow dwarfed by him. “I wanted you following me. Every second you were on my trail, every moment I looked easier to catch than the others, I knew you’d come after me. And while you were coming after me, you wouldn’t be going after the others.”

Kirtan pointed a trembling finger at the old man’s face. “That doesn’t matter because you can and will be broken. I will have from you the things I need to find the others.”

“You’re wrong, Kirtan. I’m a black hole that’s sucking your career down into its heart.” Bastra sagged back down onto the cot. “Remember that when I’m dead, because I’ll be laughing about it for all eternity.”

This cannot continue. I will not be humiliated any longer! “I’ll remember your words, Gil Bastra, but your laughter will be a long time coming. The only eternity you’ll know is your interrogation, and I guarantee—personally guarantee—you’ll go to your grave having betrayed those who trusted you the most.”