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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 everyday, 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