Star Wars: X-Wing V: Wraith Squadron

by Aaron Allston

  The coldness in his gut solidified into a solid block of ice. “You’re wrong. You’re wrong about me.”

  “Then tell me,” she said, “how much time you spent thinking about me yesterday.”

  “What?”

  “That’s a simple question. How much time? Six standard hours? One? Ten minutes? Kell, give me a truthful answer. Set Honesty to On.”

  He thought it over, and as the answer came to him he felt his heart sink. “About fifteen minutes.”

  She smiled without humor. “You don’t spend very much time dreamy-eyed for a man who’s hopelessly in love, do you?”

  He looked down at the tabletop and didn’t answer. She continued, her voice ruthlessly gentle, “The good thing about fantasy lovers is they don’t need much of your time. They’re very low maintenance. Unlike real people. I’m very flattered that you feel you’ve fallen in love with a fantasy Tyria. But she isn’t me, Kell.” She rose and was gone.

  Miserable, he stared into his cup of caf—not seeking answers, just avoiding the eyes of those around him.

  She was right. Tyria was his idea of perfection. But the real Tyria? How close did she match his idea? He didn’t know.

  Face wandered by on his way out. “She shot you down?” he asked.

  “Vaped me. One shot.”

  “Cheer up. Maybe this was just a simulator run.”

  Nor did the day’s trials end there.

  Kell stopped in at his locker to retrieve his datapad. He keyed in his personal code and pulled the locker door open.

  Something shifted inside as he did so, then a mass of wriggling tentacles leaped out at him, landing on his chest, wrapping itself around him.

  Kell let out a yell, tore the slick creature from him, and hurled it to the ferrocrete floor. He gave it a fast kick to send it skidding up along the aisle of lockers. He drew his blaster from where it hung inside the locker and aimed at his attacker.

  It lay there on the floor, a collection of greasy tubes and metal springs. Its parts waved in the air, slowly settling down to stillness.

  Chuckles and laughter broke out from all directions. Kell looked around. Other pilots, X-wing and A-wing, peering in down the aisles, ducked away as his gaze fell across them.

  Face was one of the other pilots, but he didn’t pull back. “A prank.”

  “Very funny. Ha, ha.” Kell wiped the sudden sweat from his brow and returned his blaster pistol to the locker. “That’s the last thing I need. To be reprimanded for shooting up the locker room.”

  “Well, maybe the prankster will turn his attention to me. Won’t that be fun? I’ll destroy him psychologically. Put him in fear for his sanity. Cost him the will to live.”

  “Sounds good to me. Of course, I don’t know that you weren’t the prankster.”

  “True.” Face shrugged.

  Most of the rest of the squadron gathered for breakfast a little later in the morning.

  “So, I’m curious,” Phanan said. “Commander, Lieutenant, who do the old-timers think of as the greatest fighter pilot in the galaxy?”

  Wedge and Janson exchanged a look. “Well,” said Wedge, “we can hardly speak for the old-timers. As a matter of fact, you’re older than I am.”

  “I’m sorry. I actually meant your generation of pilots.”

  Wedge sighed.

  “It depends,” Janson said. “What are the criteria for ‘greatest pilot’? I mean, I’ve seen plenty of pilots with brilliant skill. Luke Skywalker is one of them. On the other hand, he didn’t fly regular combat missions for as long as most, so his kills aren’t up there with other pilots who have been around longer. Other pilots were extraordinary, too, but ended up drifting into the path of some Imp gunner and were vaped.”

  He glanced at his commander. “If you want to go by numbers and survivability, of course, there’s only one pilot who has survived two Death Star runs. From that perspective, Wedge Antilles is the best pilot ever.”

  Falynn snorted with amusement. The rest looked at her.

  Janson asked, “Something funny, Sandskimmer?”

  “Oh, no offense, sir.” The sarcastic edge to her voice suggested that avoiding offense was nowhere in her mission parameters. “But piloting is for the young. I’m sure Commander Antilles was very good in his prime. He may have been the best pilot at one time, long ago. And I know he’s a good trainer even today. But, Commander, you’re what? Forty?”

  Wedge managed to look amused and regretful at the same time. “Twenty-eight.”

  “Exactly! Your reflexes are shot. There’s only so far experience can go to overcome that handicap.”

  Janson said, “Sandskimmer—”

  Wedge said, “You’re only nine years from that same grim fate.”

  “If I should live so long, I’m sure I’ll find some way to make myself useful. Just like you have.”

  Wedge stood. “Come along.”

  “I’m not through eating, sir.”

  “You’re young. You can afford to miss a meal.” Wedge reached over and drew Falynn’s tray away from her. “Come on.”

  Reluctant and annoyed, she stood. “Where?”

  “We’re going flying. A little competition. If you’re up to it.”

  “Now, wait. That’s not fair. Until I’m through training, you still have some points on me in X-wings.”

  “How about repulsorlift ore haulers? Do you give up any points to me in those?”

  “No, sir!”

  “Come along.”

  The rest rose to follow, but Janson waved them down. “Finish your breakfasts and assemble in the briefing room. I’ll follow and transmit. This should be interesting.”

  It was the oldest, dingiest hangar on Folor Base, and not truly in use by the New Republic military. It held vehicles from the mining colony that had originally inhabited Folor, vehicles that were still functional but not in use by the base garrison.

  Among the vehicles on hand were three repulsorlift vehicles large enough to carry four X-wings nose to tail, with beds deeper than a man is tall. The vehicles still bore scratched traces of their original gray coats of paint and their beds were littered with dust and pebbles from the last ore loads they carried, years ago. None of the three had an enclosed cockpit.

  Datacards still in place in their simple computers indicated they’d been serviced within the last year, and all three started up when activated. Wedge and Falynn listened to all three, agreed on which two engines sounded best, and flipped a decicred coin to see who’d get the best one. Falynn won.

  Minutes later, wearing vacuum suits, they guided the open-air vehicles through the hangar’s magnetic containment field and headed at a leisurely pace toward the near end of the Pig Trough.

  The Pig Trough was an anomalous geographical feature of Folor. It was a meandering lunar fissure, created at some distant time when the moon’s surface was not quite cool and tectonic plates were still in motion. Its near terminus was only a klick from Folor Base, and the lengthy geographical feature wandered for thousands of kilometers to the northeast, then cut sharply northwest for an even greater distance. The nearer portions of the trough were too broad, with curves too gradual to be of any use to the trainers, but more distant portions were used by pilot trainees for trench maneuvering and bombing practice.

  On the lip just above the first descent into the Trough, Wedge and Falynn brought their ore haulers to a halt. “Comm check,” Wedge said. “You receiving?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wes?”

  “I’m here. I’ve dropped a flare four klicks up the trench. That’s your goal.”

  “Sandskimmer, you ready?”

  “I’ve been ready since I confirmed seal on my suit.”

  “Go.” He issued the command in a mild tone, but there was nothing restrained about the way Wedge kicked his ore hauler forward, roaring down the Trough’s shallow slope as though he were in command of a fast-moving combat assault vehicle.

  “Cheater!” Falynn was only a split second behind h
im. Well before they reached the bottom of the slope, she’d drawn almost even with him to the left. She sideslipped into him.

  Wedge felt rather than heard the impact, but it didn’t maneuver him out of line. He grinned. Only the greenest pilot would have failed to anticipate the maneuver and compensate for it. He gunned his engines and leaned into his leftward slide. The nose of his hauler was still a few meters ahead of hers and thus able to push hers out of line. He shoved her until her left side began to scrape along the rift wall; the sudden friction slowed her and he shot out ahead.

  “Keep trying, Sandskimmer. I’m old. I might be tiring already.”

  Her curses lit up the comm unit.

  The other pilot trainees gathered in the briefing room and watched the visual sensor feed from Janson’s X-wing. Janson was pacing the ore haulers at an altitude of about fifty meters. Kell guessed that Janson was running on repulsorlifts, occasionally hitting the thrusters, else he wouldn’t be able to move slowly enough to keep them in his sensor view.

  Donos said, “She’s actually moving that bucket around pretty well. She was probably a pretty hot stick back on Tatooine.” He sounded more analytical than admiring, but it was the longest single statement Kell had heard from him.

  Kell shook his head. “I’ve serviced rigs like that. They’re not like recreational skimmers. Their repulsor fields extend out ahead several meters. They have to be anticipatory to keep those haulers from gutting themselves on rough terrain. If she doesn’t know that, she’ll bounce—there she goes.” Indeed, the front end of Falynn’s hauler rose an additional two meters as the craft approached a boulder outcropping. The hauler went skyward, gaining enough altitude to lose repulsorlift contact with the ground, and Wedge’s vehicle gained another handful of meters on her.

  Donos said, “She’ll take him.”

  Kell pulled a handful of coins from his pocket. “Ten credits.”

  “You’re on.” Donos’s coin joined his on the tabletop.

  The other pilot candidates rummaged through pockets and began pulling out coins, money-transfer cards, jewelry, pieces of candy.

  They ran now with Falynn’s bow to Wedge’s stern. Whenever she sideslipped to try to pass, he broke in that direction, blocking her move. The richness and color of her nonstop cursing were testimony to his success.

  It couldn’t last forever. She slid rightward, he followed suit—and noticed too late that the maneuver led him right onto a nest of boulders. Their proximity kicked his bow up into the air and she slid around to his left, passing him before he reestablished contact with the rift surface.

  He laughed. “Not bad, Falynn. You’ve proved you can learn at least one thing a day.”

  “You’re going to look funny spitting out lunar dust while you’re teaching me, sir.”

  Ahead, the rift turned leftward. Near the right wall was a tumbled pile of stone; between it and the wall itself the floor curved gently upward. Left of the pile was broad, open ground.

  Falynn headed for the broadest open area. Wedge slid rightward, angling between the stone pile and the wall. As he squeezed between them, his repulsors kicked loose stones from the pile of boulders, raining them down on Falynn’s hauler. Her reflex slid her leftward and he gained on her going around the turn; he was a few meters ahead as they came out of the curve.

  “Obviously you can’t win by flying fair, sir. What happens when we get to the end? Do you shoot me?”

  “I’m thinking about it.”

  The end of the run was within sight, a distant red glow where Janson had dumped his flare. The rift bottom was flat and smooth to the right of the straightaway, but grew stony and broken along the center.

  Falynn drifted right. Wedge drifted left, toward the more difficult terrain. He saw Falynn turn to look at him; he couldn’t read her expression through the vacuum suit’s polarized shield, but knew she had to wonder what his plan was in giving up the speediest approach to the finish line.

  She gained on him as they approached the rockiest portion of rift floor. But as they reached the point where the tumbled boulders were worst, he sideslipped right and his nose crossed over the highest of them. The move kicked him up several meters.

  And he came down right on top of her hauler.

  His vehicle’s weight forced hers down, compressing her repulsor emissions, slowing her vehicle. His own repulsors kicked him forward off her hauler. He held his control wheel on course by brute strength. His hauler straightened out as it came fully down off hers and onto the rift floor—and a second later he passed the glowing flare, Falynn’s hauler tucked in right behind him.

  “You—you—”

  “That’s right, Sandskimmer. I won.”

  “You cheated.”

  He laughed as he slowed his hauler and swung its nose around. “Falynn, consider this. When an Imperial laser cuts through your canopy and hits you, the energy will superheat the water in your tissues. They will literally explode. If there’s enough of your X-wing to retrieve, they’ll have to hose down the inside. When that happens, will you complain that the TIE fighter pilot cheated?”

  Her voice was grudging. “No, sir.” She followed him through his maneuver.

  “What will you say?”

  “I won’t say anything. I’ll be dead.”

  “So to keep one of these bad boys from cheating until you’re dead, what are you going to do?”

  “I guess I’ll have to learn to cheat, sir.”

  “Congratulations. You’ve proved you can learn two things in a single day.”

  · · ·

  At mission briefing that afternoon, Wedge announced, “We have two pieces of good news. Our other four snubfighters are in, and Cubber’s crew has cleared them for use.” He paused as the squadron applauded, then continued. “Also, we now have a unit designation. Courtesy of Tyria Sarkin, we are Wraith Squadron.”

  Several of the pilots made appreciative noises. Face merely looked disgusted.

  Runt asked, “What is a wraith?”

  “Something I heard about in my childhood,” Tyria said. “Dark things that come in the night for you. That’s what I think we are. For the Empire, for the warlords, we’re the phantoms under the bed, the monsters in the storage cubicles.”

  Runt smiled, showing big teeth, and narrowed his eyes. The expression made his long face look sinister. “We like that.”

  Wedge said, “So Tyria wins the three-day pass … but not today; we still have a run to do. A full squadron run, for the first time. Other news: we now have a squadron supply officer. Please come on in.”

  The pilots turned toward the entrance. The supply officer’s arrival was heralded by a set of rhythmic squeaks.

  “We are in trouble,” Kell said.

  Squeaky, DownTime’s 3PO server, walked in and up to the speakers podium. He turned to the pilots. “Let me begin by saying that I am delighted to bring my years of experience to this novice squadron. I expect that my skill will keep some of you alive.”

  Phanan whispered, “Inevitably, some of us will prefer to die.”

  Squeaky continued, “I am also pleased once again to be serving a fine officer named Antilles. A pity what happened to the last one. I am sure we will all pitch together to keep fate from repeating itself.”

  Wedge looked pained. Most of the pilots knew that a Captain Antilles, no relation to the commander, had been master of the Tantive IV and had died at the hands of Darth Vader.

  “In dealing with you,” Squeaky said, “I will match courtesy with courtesy, insult with insult, incompetence with incompetence. I have transmitted requisition forms to your astromechs and to your datapads; please use them, and always check your spelling. Thank you.” He bowed to Wedge and moved to sit by Lieutenant Janson.

  Wedge’s mouth twitched as he too obviously restrained a smile. “Thank you, Squeaky. Wes?”

  Janson stood and tapped his datapad. The room’s holoprojector glowed into life, and on it appeared a dark field with a few dozen glowing points arranged within
it: a small-area starmap.

  He pointed into the mass of stars at a bright golden one. “Here’s Commenor. You are here. Here’s Corellia and more Core systems. Farther out, we reach border and then Rim territories. This star is nicknamed Doldrums for its lovely, featureless, uninhabited planets. That’s our destination.

  “Each of you is to spend an hour with your astromechs putting together a three-stage course to get us to Doldrums and a two-stage course to bring us back. These navigational paths should follow normal security guidelines for limiting observers’ abilities to follow our course or trace our routes.

  “When you’re done, transmit your course to Control. We’ll choose the one we like best, the one that burns the least fuel and appears the most elegant … and then we’ll fly it as a test of your hyperspace skill and accuracy. Questions?”

  There were none.

  “Good. We’ll see you in the hangar in an hour.”

  The pilots rose to head toward their X-wings and astromech droids. Face looked rueful. “I can’t believe you, Tyria. I thought I had that pass locked up.”

  “What squad names did you suggest?” she asked.

  “Well, there was Silly Squadron.”

  She shook her head. “We’d have to repaint the X-wings.”

  “Then there was Rogue Squadron.”

  “Taken.”

  “I know, but it was a good idea. Then there was Dinner Squadron.”

  “I take it you were faint from hunger when you were coming up with these.”

  “How did you know?”

  Less than two hours later, Wraith Squadron was skirting Commenor, preparing to slingshot past it to get clear of its gravity well and into the proper orientation for the first leg of Piggy’s proposed course. Folor was moments from disappearing behind Commenor’s horizon when Jesmin transmitted, “Wraith Leader, this is Two. I have transmissions on an Imperial channel.”