Star Wars_ X-Wing 02_ Wedge's Gamble - Michael A. Stackpole [39]
Somehow, though, even their dire predictions amounted to nothing against Loor’s mind’s-eye image of Corran Horn helping to escort criminals from Kessel. Three of those on the list had actually been arrested on Corellia during Horn’s time with CorSec. It must have killed him to let someone like Zekka Thyne escape justice. What I wouldn’t have given to be there and see it.
Kirtan Loor forced himself to laugh again and willed himself to remain feeling triumphant, but could not. His basic fear of Corran Horn undercut his sense of superiority. Corran Horn, Gil Bastra, and Iella Wessiri had managed to deceive him long enough on Corellia that they were able to escape before he could have them arrested and jailed. He had found Gil Bastra after over a year and a half of searching, but Bastra maintained that’s because he had given clues to draw Loor after him. Prior to that he had thought he was close to Corran once, but that had been a mistake, and Loor had no idea where Wessiri or her husband was.
The fact that they had been able to fool him once meant he had to assume it was possible for them to fool him again. In the old days, before Ysanne Isard had summoned him to Imperial Center and pointed out his penchant for making unwarranted assumptions, he would have assumed he could not be fooled again. That would have guaranteed his being deceived. And that would have doomed me.
Because he worked to no longer allow himself to assume too much, he had reassessed Corran Horn. From this reassessment his fear had grown. Loor had always known Horn was capable of being a killer, and he had labored under the assumption that Horn had actually murdered a bunch of smugglers in cold blood. When it became apparent that those murders were a sham—Loor’s face still burned as he realized he had based his assumptions about those murders only on reports created by Gil Bastra—he saw Corran Horn as someone capable of using violence, but also as someone who could control his temper. Horn emerged as more cunning and that trait became more dangerous when coupled with his relentlessness.
To “motivate” Loor in his supervision of General Derricote’s project, Ysanne Isard had released the fact that Loor had killed Bastra into channels that would carry that data to the Rebel Alliance. She also let it be known that Loor was on Imperial Center. She had said at the time that she hoped such information would serve to distract Horn from looking into other matters very closely, but Loor knew it would just draw Corran to Imperial Center like vice draws Hutts.
I will have to be very careful when he gets here. If he gets to me it will be because I want him to, but on my terms and to my benefit.
As Loor neared his destination, the door to Derricote’s lab opened to an inrush of air and the General himself stood there beaming. Though cadaverously slender, there was no way Loor could squeeze past the General’s rotund form and enter the lab with the man just standing there. “I thought you wanted me to see something in the lab, General.”
Derricote brushed a hand back over his thinning black hair, then clapped his hands. “I do. The Quarren were very helpful, very helpful.”
“Put it in a report, General.”
“No, you must come see for yourself.”
Loor hesitated. The holograms appended to the first of Derricote’s reports had been enough to make him queasy. The idea of looking at experimental subjects in person did not appeal to him in the least. Well, perhaps just a bit, but only out of morbid curiosity.
“Lead the way.”
Derricote stepped out of the doorway and Loor entered the lab. Unlike the majority of suites in the Imperial Palace, the laboratory had stark, functional appointments. Bright lights reflected from white and silver surfaces and the only things even approximating decoration were red and yellow signs warning of biohazards, live