Star Wars_ X-Wing 03_ The Krytos Trap - Michael A. Stackpole [131]
Years of training overrode conscious thought in Iella. As bolts began to track in her direction, she coolly triggered a double-burst that stopped the assassin’s charge only a stride or two from the lift. The bolts stabbed deep into the man’s gut, snapping him forward. Blaster-bolts from his guns traced parallel lines down the ferrocrete as he hunched over, dropped to his knees, then fell forward on his face. His blaster pistols clattered down beside him, abandoned as his hands clutched at his ruined belly.
Keeping her blaster on his form, she ran forward and kicked the pistols away. The assassin made a sound, a little moan, and it cut her legs out from under her. She sank to her knees beside him and rolled him onto his back. Even before she saw his face, the sounds he made and the feeling of his bony shoulders told her who he was. Intellect momentarily overrode emotion, providing her the clues she needed to confirm his identity, then it retreated as pain and despair exploded in her.
She pulled his head into her lap and brushed strands of hair from his face. “Why, Diric, why?”
“Lusankya.”
Iella’s breath caught in her throat. “No, no, that can’t be.”
“She broke me. She made me into one of her own. She had me placed in Derricote’s lab to watch him.” Diric winced fiercely, and his body went rigid for a moment. “She sent me to kill him before he could betray her. I had no choice. That wasn’t him, though.”
Iella shook her head. “No. It was Kirtan Loor.”
Diric managed a weak smile. “Good. I never liked him.” He reached a hand up toward her face, but it never got there. “I’m dying.”
“No.” She fished for a comlink in her pocket. “I’ll get emergency medical droids here.”
“No, Iella, no. Isard made me what others accuse Tycho of being. He isn’t. She had me reporting on him, too. From what she did, I cannot be saved.” His tongue wet thin lips. “I can’t live in suspicion, as a puppet. It would make life too … boring.”
“Diric, no, we can help you.”
“It’s over. I love you. She wanted me to kill you. I couldn’t resist.” He smiled weakly. “I could defy—the trigger that opened the lift was supposed to be linked to a bomb. I did what I could. So you could stop me from betraying myself by killing you.” Pain contorted his face. “Thank you for freeing me.”
With her hand, Iella smoothed the pain on his face into peace, then realized he’d slipped away. Her throat thick, her eyes welling with tears, she gently lowered his head to the ferrocrete floor and kissed him one last time.
Kirtan Loor lay on the ferrocrete and could feel nothing. He knew this was not good. That he was dying was an inescapable conclusion and it outraged him. He tried to feed that outrage as much fuel as he could, but he simply ran out. The anger and fury in him collapsed in on itself, imploding into a black void that sucked the last bits of life from Kirtan Loor.
At the heart of that void existed one fact, the one true thing that had marked his entire life. Gil Bastra had seen it. Corran Horn and Iella Wessiri had seen it. Ysanne Isard had seen it. Loor had done all he could to combat it, but it was a defect that was inborn and immutable. I make assumptions. I refuse to look beyond them for reality. I am defeated by them.
He stared up at the ferrocrete ceiling, seeking in its haphazard patterns some cosmic truth, but the only truth he found ground away at him. She did not send an assassin to kill me, she sent him to kill Derricote. I am dying in his place, for his crimes. Is there anything worse?
For some reason the image of Corran Horn came to him. Horn said there was nothing worse than dying alone. He fought to dismiss that idea, but as darkness nibbled away at the corners of his sight, he allowed as how that, just once, Corran Horn had been right.
39
Despite his fatigue, Wedge couldn’t remember having felt better. Strapped into the cockpit of his