Star Wars_ X-Wing 02_ Wedge's Gamble - Michael A. Stackpole [148]
Lights flashed on brilliantly in an instant, stabbing forked pain into his brain. He heard a door whoosh open and the careful, deliberate clank-clack of shoes on metal lattice steps, but he made no attempt to look in the direction of the sound. He refused to look, part of him knowing the individual had desired to make an entrance, and he congratulated himself for his restraint.
He waited until the sound of the footsteps stopped before he slowly brought his head up. He kept his eyes all but shut, letting eyelashes and welled-up tears protect his eyes against the light. Out of the corner of his right eye he saw a blot of red, so he slowly turned his head toward it and looked up. Even before he got to the mismatched eyes, he knew who she was and he hoped against hope she was a figment of whatever drugs they’d pumped into him.
Her first words came cold and even, tinted with just a hint of curiosity. “I would have expected you to be more formidable somehow.”
“Clothes make the man,” he said. At least he thought he said it. He did hear sound coming out of his mouth, a kind of harsh croaking that seemed closer to Huttese than Basic. Had he any spit to let gurgle in his throat as he spoke he’d definitely have been taken for a Hutt.
“Ah, the infamous Horn wit.”
Corran opened his eyes wider and shuffled on his knees around to face her. “I left most of it back on Free Coruscant.”
She brought her hands up and clapped gently. “I’m amazed a man in your condition can make jokes.” She squatted down and caught him across the face with an openhanded slap he never saw coming. “I’m amazed a man in your situation would make jokes.”
Corran played his tongue over his split lip. “Lieutenant Corran Horn, Alliance fleet, Rogue Squadron.”
Ysanne Isard stood again but he didn’t bother following her with his eyes. “Very good, defiance. I like defiance.”
“If that were true, you’d find all you want on Coruscant.”
“Indeed, perhaps I would. That is no concern of yours, however.” Her low chuckle filled the room and made it seem even colder. “I’ll have you know that your Rebel forces are indeed now in control of Imperial Center. What they have discovered, though they know not the depth of the problem, is that Imperial Center is a poisoned world, a sick world. It is a black hole from which they cannot escape. They have truly bitten off more than they can possibly chew and they will be choked to death because of it.”
“I’m not inclined to take your word for all this.” Corran put as much disdain in the sentence as he could muster, but what she said disturbed him. Shiel and Nawara Ven and Portha had all become ill enough that they could not participate in the squadron’s final action. He didn’t think anyone could have gone forward with releasing some sort of plague on a world deliberately, but then he’d not thought anyone would use a weapon that destroyed whole planets on an inhabited world. The Empire had done the latter, so using a biological agent to destroy people and leave the world infrastructure intact just seemed like an economical refinement of Imperial doctrine.
“I neither desire nor care about your belief in what I say. Ultimately what you think is immaterial to me. I have you, you are mine, and I will do with you what I see fit.”
Corran brought his head up despite the pain. “What you did to Tycho Celchu to get him to betray me? He gave you the codes for my ship. That’s how you got me.”
She looked down at him and her eyes narrowed. “Oh, well done, Horn, well done. I would deny this, of course, but the latest word from Imperial Center is that Tycho Celchu has been arrested by Alliance Intelligence