Janson grinned. “Oh, it’s even worse than that.”
Wedge sighed. “Look, this is your last one. The next person after Wes who has bad news, we all just shoot him. Go ahead, Wes.”
“Cheriss is sweet on you.”
Wedge felt his shoulders sag. “Tell me you’re kidding.”
“Sorry, chief. Do you see the way she looks at you? And she gave you the decision on her challenge duel, to kill or not to kill. They say that’s a really big thing here. As subtle as flowers and sweets.”
“Wes, she’s half my age.”
“True.” Janson looked resigned. “I’ll help you, Wedge. I’ll go break the news to her, console her in her time of grief. I’ll—”
Wedge held up a hand. “Never mind what I just said. Let’s just shoot Wes.”
“I’m for that,” Hobbie said.
“What’s our strategy?” Tycho asked.
Hobbie gave him a curious look. “I thought we’d just all draw and fire. But I could count down to zero, and then we could draw and fire.”
Tycho gave him a mock-scowl. “Quiet, you. Wedge, what’s our strategy in dealing with all these serpentine politics?”
“Play dumb for now. Let everyone—Tomer, the rulers of Cartann, our own Intelligence network—think we believe everything they’ve told us so far. Follow Tomer’s plans for use of our time with just enough belligerence to remind them we’re fighter pilots. And find out what we can on our own. I’ll talk to Iella tomorrow. Hobbie, Tomer said that Intelligence certified our quarters as free from Cartann listening devices—but nobody certified them free of New Republic Intelligence listening devices; I want you to screen our quarters and see if our own people are eavesdropping on us. Tycho, Wes, I want you to visit Allegiance tonight; I’ll wager every credit I’m carrying that there’s an Imperial capital ship orbiting Adumar opposite our ship, and I don’t want Allegiance taken off-guard if there’s trouble.”
Janson spoke up, sounding hurt: “Can it be later tonight? I, uh, sort of made an appointment for this evening…”
Wedge just looked at him.
“I suppose not,” Janson said. “Tycho, didn’t anyone ever tell you that when you ask Wedge for strategy, he gives you work to do?”
The next morning, Wedge led Red Flight in a dive toward the trees, keeping a careful eye on the unfamiliar range meter. The cockpit of the Tarrvin-on-Kallik Blade-32 was unfamiliar to him; it wouldn’t do to get himself and his pilots killed because he wasn’t completely at home with the controls.
Or with the speed measurements, for that matter. Adumar didn’t measure things by the old Imperial standards; instead of klicks per Coruscant hour, flight speed was measured in keps, or thousand paces (measured by the stride of some long-dead Cartann perator) per Adumar hour. The Adumari measurement was about eighty percent of the Imperial standard, so Wedge had to do constant conversions in his head.
When the forest below began to turn into individual trees, streams, and riders on those banded-armor farumme reptiles, the control console began to chime insistently at Wedge. He knew that it was the collision alarm of the system’s computer, but it seemed to be set on fairly conservative numbers and distances. Only after several more moments, in which the chime became more loud and insistent, did Wedge haul back on the control yoke, bringing his Blade-32 out of its dive.
As he began to level off above the forest floor, he felt his maneuver pushing him back in the pilot’s seat, felt a slight dizziness as blood began to rush from his head. A moment later, the pressure eased and the dizziness diminished. He shook his head. The Blade-32 had inertial compensators like the New Republic and Imperial fighters he was used to, but their computers weren’t quite up to the task of calculating precise adjustments to keep the pilots from suffering all the ill effects of high-gravity maneuvers.
Still, he was flying again, testing a new fighter, tearing up the sky with gravity and engineering limitations his only enemies.
When he was chained to his desk and his general’s duties for days, weeks at a time, he could pretend that flying was something he had largely set aside, something he returned to occasionally for enjoyment. But at times like this, it was impossible to deny his pure love of flying, his need of it. It was impossible to deny the ache it caused him when he was unable to find cockpit time. Flying was a part of him, had been since his childhood, and he felt a flash of anger at the bureaucrats and deskbound organizers who, since his promotion to the rank of general, had given him assignment after assignment that kept him far from a cockpit most of the time.
Regular fighter missions were a thing of his past, and he missed them terribly. But perhaps they were a thing of his future as well. Perhaps someday he could find himself a post, as General Salm and General Crespin had before him, that would allow him regular command of a fighter wing. That prospect gave him some hope for his military future.
He checked his sensor board, or lightboard—the screen with the green wire-frame grid the Adumari called a “lightbounce system”—and saw that Tycho, Janson, and Hobbie were still tucked in tight. Off in the distance, their escort of four Cartann fighters was still in formation.
But Wedge’s visual check showed that Janson was upside down. “Janson, orient yourself,” he said. “You’re belly to sky.”
“Negative, boss. I’m right side up. You three inverted coming out of that headache maneuver.”
Wedge glanced up, saw only sky and sun above him.
Janson’s voice came again, a taunt this time: “Made you look.” He righted his Blade-32.
The lightboard beeped at him. It showed an incoming flight of a half-dozen Blades, four advanced, two in the rear. Wedge’s communications system buzzed. “Hail General Antilles! The Lords of Dismay Flightknife issues a challenge.”
Wedge sighed. He was already well familiar with some of the Adumari pilot terminology, such as the use of “flightknife” for “squadron.” For the sixth time since Red Flight had commenced this familiarization run, he switched over to general frequency and said, “Antilles here. Denied.”
“Another time, then. Confusion to your enemies! Farewell!” The incoming fighters began a slow loop around to head back the way they’d come.
“They love you, Wedge.” That was Janson’s voice.
“This is the only planet where everyone who loves me also wants to kill me,” Wedge said. “All right. Opinions, people? On the fighters, I mean.”
“A bit like flying wishbones,” Janson said. “These Blades have the kind of mass and solidity I like in the Y-wings. But sluggish.”
“I like the weapons arrangement,” Hobbie said. “Two lasers forward, two lasers back. Two missile ports like the X-wings… but we’re carrying sixteen missiles, not six. More punch against capital ships. If we could swap proton torpedoes for the lower-powered explosives these are carrying, that’d be a lot of bang.”
“I’ve been reviewing engineering records and damage statistics,” Tycho said.
Janson laughed. “While we’ve been maneuvering?”
“Restraining myself so you could keep up with me left me plenty of time for intellectual pursuits,” Tycho said. “I also composed a symphony and drafted a plan to bring peace to the galaxy. Anyway, without shields, these things come apart under any missile hit. But they’re structurally tough, more so than X-wings, so they hang together after taking more collateral damage or laser hits. I’d like to see how much maneuverability they lose with a set of shields, hyperdrive, maybe a gunner’s seat installed. If it’s not too great a loss, we may have a viable fighter-bomber here, something useful in fleet actions against capital ships.”
“Good point,” Wedge said. He rolled his fighter over and up again, decided he didn’t much like the way the atmosphere bit at his flight surfaces. “All right, let’s take them back to the hangar. Wedge Antilles out.”
That was a code signal, the use of his full name. After bringing his fighter around so that it was headed back toward Giltella Air Base, one of two bases clo
se to the city of Cartann, he switched the microphone off his fighter’s comm system, then pulled an elaborate comlink headset out of a flight-suit pocket. Tycho had brought these back from the Allegiance last night, comlinks with scrambler attachments. Wedge set its registers to a previously agreed-upon scramble code.
Hobbie had determined that their clothes were free of listening devices, but he’d found two such objects in their quarters, obviously of New Republic make. Not being Intelligence-trained, he’d said that he wasn’t confident that he could find them all. That meant their quarters were not a safe place to discuss things in confidence. With Cheriss or Tomer with them most of the rest of the time, this left few occasions for private conversation between them.
Wedge dialed the power down on his headset so its signal was unlikely to be intercepted at ranges of more than a few hundred meters. He pulled off his pilot’s helmet, setting it in the little cargo space behind his seat, and put on the headset. “One to Flight. Are you reading? Answer by number.”
“Two, ready.”
“Three, ready to run off at the mouth.”
“Four, I’m a go.”
“All right, gentlemen, what’s news?”
“One, Four. On the lightboard, I keep seeing fighter maneuvers about one hundred fifty Adumar klicks southwest—”
“That’s keps.”
“Thank you, Three. Southwest, and with what I’ve been able to tell from these broken-up signals, they’ve been doing pretty much what we have. My bet is that Turr Phennir and his pilots are also out familiarizing themselves with the Blades.”
“Good to know, Four.”
“One, Three. There’s something I just don’t get.”
“This is news?”
Wedge smiled. “Quiet, Four. Go ahead, Three.”
“Why does the perator of Cartann assume that the Empire just won’t move in here and take over? Why does he think they’ll cooperate in this competition to win their favor and then just go home if they lose?”
Wedge thought about that. “Three, here’s a guess. You’re thinking in terms of the Empire we knew when we joined the Rebellion. Today’s Empire is a fraction of that size, with a heightened sense of economy. To conquer this world, they’d have to commit and probably spend a lot of resources. To do so, they might even have to smash flat the very industry they want to obtain. The Empire would win, no doubt. But they’d lose more than they’d gain. It would probably never be a cost-effective decision.”
“Good point, One. I just can never think of the Empire as anything but this gigantic thing with limitless resources.”
“Back to normal communications,” Wedge said. “The air base is coming up.” Ahead were the familiar colors and shapes of the Cartann air base from which they had taken off—several concentric rings, hangar buildings surrounding central control buildings, all of them with elaborate balconies.
Minutes later, they had landed and returned the Blade-32s back to the flightknife that had loaned them, declined yet another challenge from that flightknife, and been rejoined by Cheriss just outside the hangar. “Did you enjoy them?” she asked, her eyes shining.
“Yes, we did,” Wedge said, and led the way toward the wheeled contrivance that would carry them back into the city. “Very hardy fighter-craft.” The girl’s expression suggested that she awaited further praise for the Blades, so he added, “Obviously a vehicle of conquest.”
She nodded, happy. “There is none better. And it is obvious that you’ve learned to master it very swiftly.”
“Well… we managed not to crash,” Wedge amended. “I wouldn’t say we’ve mastered it.”
“Oh, you were putting them through their paces as though you’d been flying them for years,” she said. “And the Imperial fighters accepted a challenge today and shot down four members of Blood on the Flowers Flightknife.”
“Shot down?” Wedge frowned. “How many survived?”
“One,” she said. “Ejected, badly wounded. He’ll have some scars to brag about.” Her voice became a little more soft, more shy. “Will you be accepting challenges, too? Maybe tomorrow?”
Wedge, out of the corner of his eye, saw Janson grinning at him. Wedge slowed his pace and managed to step on Janson’s foot before the other pilot could adjust. Over Janson’s yelp, he said, “Tell me, are all your challenges live-fire exercises, or do you ever use simulators?”
Her smile faded, replaced by an expression of confusion. “What’s a simulator?”
“A device that simulates what you see and feel when you’re in a fighter’s cockpit. It uses computers, holograms, and inertial compensators to mimic almost exactly the experience of flying, so you can get in a lot of training without risking valuable machinery or even more valuable pilots. You don’t have anything like that?”
“Well… in other countries, pilots sometimes duel with weakened lasers matched with laser receptors, and with missiles that have weakened charges that create a large pigment cloud, so they don’t have to kill one another.”
“In other countries… but in Cartann, all your pilot duels are live-fire?”
Cheriss nodded. “Yes. Oh, not all are fatal. A pilot might eject and the winner might decide not to shoot him on the way to the ground. That’s what happened today with the Imperials. When that happens, both will live. Assuming the crowd on the ground doesn’t beat the loser to death for his defeat.”
“How do you keep from losing pilots at an astounding rate?”
She considered. “Well, that’s why the government instituted the Protocols. Pilots who wish to duel must demonstrate that both will benefit from a duel.”
“For example?”
“If a new pilot wants to duel an older, experienced pilot, that situation probably fails to meet the Protocols. You see, the new pilot would benefit if he won—he would have received training at the hands of a better, and would gain fame for having killed him. But the old pilot would not really benefit. He could mark one more kill on his board, but it would be of no consequence, so he would not benefit. Therefore his commander would not approve the duel.
“But if a new pilot had invented a new maneuver or fighting technique, the older pilot could benefit from facing it. If his commander was impressed enough with the younger pilot’s inventiveness, he might permit the duel.”
“You say other countries perform simulated-weapons duels. Is there a loss of honor in using them?”
“In Cartann, yes. There, I suppose not—they lose enough honor just for belonging to a lesser nation.”
“What would it mean if I agreed to a duel, but insisted on using simulated weapons?”
Her face went slack, the expression Wedge had come to recognize as meaning she was thinking hard. Finally she said, “I’m not sure. Either you would lose honor, or the use of simulated weapons would gain in honor.”
“If I did it again and again, and won every time?”
“I think, I have to think, that simulations would gain in honor.”
“Interesting. Perhaps, tomorrow, when we come out here I’ll ask for Red Flight to be equipped with weakened lasers and paint missiles.”
Tomer had no news for them when they returned to their quarters late that afternoon. No appointment with the perator or his ministers to discuss the possibility of Adumar’s entry into the New Republic. No revised orders from Intelligence.
They accepted a dinner invitation Wedge had received at the previous night’s celebration, at the lavish home of Cartann’s Minister of Trade. Yet the politician, a lean man who hobbled on an artificial leg, the result of ejecting from a disintegrating Blade-28 and being hit by shrapnel from his own fighter, had no interest in discussing trade; he wanted to hear nothing but tales of Wedge’s exploits.
They dined at a long table on the minister’s broad balcony—in order, Wedge suspected, that the owners of the balconies all around might see them and be envious of the minister’s guests. Wedge and his pilots quickly learned to spell one another, each taking up the thread of a story i
n turn so that the others might eat. Cheriss kept quiet throughout, listening wide-eyed to tales of Endor and Borleias and Coruscant.
Afterward, they took the ascender—the slow-moving, rattling, open-sided Adumari version of the turbolift—down to the third floor aboveground. The building’s first three stories were mostly taken up with a massive lobby, a showcase to impress visitors, and the ascender did not go all the way to the ground; visitors had to descend those three stories by a sweeping staircase, and at the outside door they would reclaim their blasters.
Janson led the way down the stairs at a half trot. “I hope we get to your diplomatic duties soon, Wedge. I really look forward to them.”
Wedge grinned. “As opposed to night after night of dinners with star-struck functionaries?”
“You said it,” Janson said. “I really hate all the adulation.” Then, as he rounded the main curve in the staircase, six Adumari men, climbing the stairs, drew blastswords, the foremost two of them lunging at him.
Time seemed to dilate for Wedge. He saw Janson whip off his preposterous cloak and entangle the two blastswords; the weapons’ points fired off, pumping blaster energy into the garment, setting it afire in two places. The other four men charged around Janson and his two opponents, passing them on the wall side of the stairs.
Wedge leaped forward onto the curved banister—polished hardwood, it did not budge under his weight and offered little friction. He slid down it as if mounted sidesaddle on a riding beast. As he passed Janson, he brought his left leg up and unloaded a kick against one of Janson’s opponents, the maneuver almost pitching Wedge over the side to the floor two stories down. The blow caught the man full in the face, throwing him back and down the stairs, rolling almost as fast as Wedge slid.
Wedge regained his balance and dropped off the banister to land beside the man, who lay faceup sprawled across half a dozen carpeted steps. Wedge snatched up the man’s blastsword and turned back up the stairs.
The last of the men who’d been rushing past Janson had turned again to descend toward Wedge. Janson had his own enemy wrapped up in a wampa-hug and was bending the man back across the banister; the enemy’s face contorted in pain as his spine curved too far in a direction it was not meant to go. Janson’s blastsword was still in its sheath; his burning cloak lay on the step beside his foot, its flames licking higher.
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