Star Wars_ X-Wing 01_ Rogue Squadron - Michael A. Stackpole [14]
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.”
4
Corran made a vain grab at the hydrospanner with his right hand as the tool slipped from the X-wing’s starboard engine cowling. His fingertips brushed the spanner’s end, sending it into a spin toward the ferrocrete deck of the hangar. A half second later, when his right knee slipped and unbalanced him, he realized having failed to catch the tool was the least of his problems. He tried to hook his left hand on the edge of the open engine compartment, but he missed with that grab, too, leaving him set to plummet headfirst in the hydrospanner’s wake.
Still trying to prepare himself for the agony coming from a fractured skull, he was surprised to find pain blossoming at the other end of his body. Before he could figure out what had happened, his flailing left hand caught hold of the cowling it had missed before, aborting his long fall to the ground. He hauled himself back onto the S-foil and lay there on his belly for a moment, considering himself very lucky.
As the pain in Corran’s rump lessened, Whistler’s scolding gained volume. Corran rubbed a hand back over his left cheek and felt a small tear in the fabric of his flight suit, prompting him to laugh. “Yes, Whistler, I am very lucky you were quick enough to catch me. Next time, though, can your pincer catch a little less of me and a bit more of my flight suit?”
Whistler blatted a reply Corran chose to ignore.
The pilot twisted around onto his seat