The Krytos Trap by Michael A. Stackpole Page A

stood farther along that wall, in the corner.
    Spattered blood covered all of it, sprayed along the floor, up the walls, and across the ceiling. It had dried and taken on a black hue, making the room look as if a shadow had exploded. The explosion’s epicenter lay in the back corner, on a raised black platform that glistened in what little light made it in past Gavin.
    A wet, gurgling sound pulsed arhythmically from that corner. On the platform, restrained by bedding twisted about him while in the throes of agony, the mortal shell of the Gamorrean named Tolra somehow clung to life. Gavin could see where the flesh had split, allowing leg and arm bones to protrude. The skin itself had thinned to a green-grey translucency and hung in ragged ribbons from ribs and fingers.
    The Gamorrean seemed to sense Gavin’s presence, because he turned to look at him. With a thick sucking sound, like cold grease being slathered over machine gears, the skull turned toward him while the fleshy sac encompassing it did not. The Gamorrean’s horns and tusks gashed his own skin, then the thick muscles on the creature’s neck snapped, leaving the massive skull to loll unnaturally in a puddle of viscous tissue.
    A chill settled over Gavin. Though he knew Tolra was dead and that the disease had long since eaten away any trace of sapience, he nodded toward the Gamorrean. “You saved them. You did it. May the Force be with you.”
    Shivering, he turned and walked from the room. He sat down outside and stripped the filmplast covering off his boots, then tossed them back through the darkened doorway. He didn’t bother to look up when a shadow fell over him. “He’s dead.”
    Asyr crouched down beside him. “The clean team will get here shortly. Are you all right?”
    Gavin thought a moment before he answered. “I will be, and I think that scares me.”
    “No reason it should.”
    “I think there is.” He jerked a thumb toward the hovel. “There is a Gamorrean in there who has been turned into a mass of jelly. The disease killed him, but it did so in a way that didn’t let him die until he could experience every fragment of pain possible. There’s nothing left to him, but he was still breathing when I went in there. He was so tough, he probably lasted longer than a week in the end stages of the disease.”
    The Bothan stroked Gavin’s cheek. “He fought the disease. That’s good.”
    “Sure, but the fact that we can find something noble in this seems twisted.” He shook his head. “I’ve seen more death in my time with Rogue Squadron than I have ever seen before, but nothing was so hideous as this. A year ago I would have run screaming. Now I just clean my boots and wait for guys with sterilizer units to show up. I’m changing and I’m not sure I like it.”
    Asyr smiled gently at him. “It’s called maturing, Gavin, and not everyone likes it. Now me, I think you’re maturing very well.”
    Gavin half-coughed a laugh. “Thanks, but I still have to wonder if it’s right that we can see something like that and just continue on.”
    “We continue on, my dear, because we must.” Asyr’s voice developed an edge. “The Gamorrean, he summoned up the strength to lock others out and protect them. That was good. You and I, though, have a different mission. This disease doesn’t appear to affect our species, so we have volunteered to help out during this public health crisis, but that is not our primary purpose here. Our mission is to fly our X-wings, to locate and destroy the kind of monsters who would do this kind of thing to others. Doing that requires all the maturity we can muster.”
    “I know.” He rubbed a hand along her spine, then looked over to where Emtrey was conversing with an Emdeeoh and two men carrying portable plasma-incinerator units. The droid would take samples; then the men would burn everything in the hovel, including the first five millimeters of ferrocrete, to a white ash that would be vacuumed up and