Star Wars - X-Wing 07 - Solo Command

by Aaron Allston

  "No," Lara said. Then heads turned her way again and she felt herself flush red once more.

  Face's voice remained calm. "Why not?"

  "Well... on the Wraiths's other missions, we often found the name Zsinj was using on-planet, but never found any other major business enterprises owned by those names. Either he's investing in one business per planet, or he's using multiple names for multiple businesses. If history is any indication, there's no use in running down those names—not yet. If we ever want to try to mess with his accounts, his assets, using that name is good. For what we're doing with this mission, though, it's just a distraction. Something to cost us time his people may be us­ing to hunt us down. In fact, I don't recommend that first bit, about finding the name he's using in his association with Bin-ring, until after we've done our major raid, or maybe simulta­neously. It may not be an important enough piece of information to risk anything on acquiring it."

  Face considered. "Maybe you're right. Very well. Lara's right. We will be staging a raid on their major fabrications fa­cility, in the hope that he's following true to form and has a spe­cial Zsinj facility tucked away in there somewhere—or at the very least in the hope that we can figure out where the secret fa­cility is from data in the public facility. So we'll follow our standard member assignments and protocols—"

  "No," Lara said. Several Wraiths and Rogues laughed outright Face put his head down for a moment, then raised it, his expression one of long suffering, and turned to Wedge. "Is this what it's like for you?"

  Wedge smiled. "You have no idea."

  "From the bottom of my heart, I apologize, most sincerely, for every time I spoke up in a mission briefing. I mean it."

  Wedge nodded. "I appreciate that, but I have to tell you: you've only just started to suffer."

  "I believe you." Face turned back to Lara. "No, what?"

  She gave him an apologetic look. "We've changed proto­col already. We have Rogue Squadron on hand to look out for us. If we don't integrate this resource—this very, very danger­ous and capable resource—"

  Impassive, Tycho gestured, waving for her to keep the compliments coming.

  "—from the very beginning, then there's no reason to have them along. We'd have to improvise their participation."

  "She's right," Tycho said. "And I've had some thoughts about this. We could have the Wraiths, before or during their intrusion, get to certain key spots on the Binring buildings and plant targets there. Infrared markers, comm tracers, anything to give us an edge. Then if they needed to call an air strike, they could give us very precise data on where we needed to put our damage. 'Thirty-seven meters on heading two-five-five from Marker Number Three' is very precise, and our astromechs could integrate those instructions onto our heads-up displays on the fly."

  "Good point," Wedge said. "Face, you haven't done enough work in figuring out how to exploit all your resources."

  "I'm not used to having resources."

  Wedge nodded. "Welcome to the real Starfighter Com­mand. And having to think like a soldier instead of a pirate. Ail right, people, let's hear the rest of Face's plan. We're going to dissect it and reassemble it into something more likely to keep us all alive."

  Brightness—illumination piercing the pinkness around him— awakened Piggy.

  He could hear nothing, feel almost nothing—only the res­pirator adhering to his face, supplying him with air to breathe. It took him a split second to recall where he was, why most of his senses seemed to be failing him. Then he opened his eyes.

  As with the last couple of times he'd awakened, he floated, suspended, in a bacta tank taller than a Wookiee. The bacta medium colored everything pink. He could see, beyond the confines of the tank, the antiseptic wardroom that was his tempo­rary home. A medical technician, a dark-haired human female, waved at him, offering a smile that humans called "perky." He knew that human males could not help but be cheered by it. Nor was he entirely immune to it; the fact that she made the ef­fort to reach him still lifted his spirits a notch. He waved in re­turn, his motion slowed by the thick liquid.

  Something was different. He ran through his checklist of surroundings, events, and circumstances to see what had been added. Nothing. He reversed it to look for what had been removed.

  Pain. Ah, that was it. He didn't hurt anymore. He looked down at his stomach, which had not so long ago featured an injury that looked like a smoking crater, and saw only new flesh and some scar tissue.

  Good. He would be leaving soon. He wasn't bored, was never bored—he could always work up problems of math, of navigation, of logic to keep himself occupied. But the lack of contact with others, the lack of activity that was useful, was beginning to annoy him.

  There was motion outside his tank. He focused on several people walking with purpose into the wardroom, toward him, surrounding his tank—his fellow Wraiths. Their expressions were cheerful, and it was not the forced cheer that several had exhibited during previous visits.

  The perky technician was waving at him, and when she had his attention, she gestured upward. He glanced up to see the top hatch opening. He kicked himself upward and moments later emerged into real air for the first time in many days.

  When he once again had his feet on the ground, had a robe around him and a towel to mop away the remaining traces of bacta medium, he could begin to take in the words of his comrades.

  Face said, "Forgive the intrusion, but we heard that the new vintage of Piggy was being decanted."

  Lara said, "But it looks like it's turned to vinegar."

  Dia said, "And it's corked."

  A young Devaronian he did not know said, "I am pleased to meet you. I need you to kill me. Nobody else will."

  The perky technician said, "You'll need as much as possible to avoid activities that put a strain on your stomach muscles."

  Janson said, "To make sure you remember this little event, we've had some special things made up for you. Bacta-flavored candy. Bacta-flavored brandy. Bacta-flavored cheese."

  Shalla said, "Kell and I worked up an instructional manual for you. It's called, How to Dodge."

  Piggy mopped away at his damp skin and allowed himself a slight smile. It was good to be home.

  The third meteor shower in as many days peppered the frozen arctic regions of Saffalore's northern hemisphere. Few of the meteors survived long enough to hammer the planet's surface; most burned up from the friction of their descent through the atmosphere, often leaving behind long trails to mark the fiery ends to their travels. A few had enough mass left to strike the ground as meteorites, often leaving deep craters in the hard, uncultivated ground.

  And then there were the fabricated objects in their midst. Starfighters, almost two dozen, maneuvered away from the true meteorites and pulled up sharply from their descent, miss­ing collisions with the ground sometimes by only a few dozen meters.

  There were no rebukes for too-chancy flying over the comm waves. These pilots were keeping comm silence, staying in vi­sual range of one another.

  Three of the vehicles were TIE interceptors, the most lethal starfighters of the Empire. The remainder were X-wings, heavily laden with extra fuel pods under their S-foils.

  The danger with an intrusion like this, Donos decided, is that it's boring enough that you become distracted, and still dangerous enough to leave you dead. Terrain-following flying was a tricky skill. Most of what they would be crossing tonight was tundra, hard-frozen ground and an ice sheet over it, offer­ing little to endanger them. But there were occasional hilly re­gions and one mountain range to cross before they reached their objective. Under a comm blackout, each pilot had to keep a close eye on the sensors; he couldn't rely on the sharp sight of his fellows.

  Donos kept his focus on the sensors. Focus was no problem for him. As a sniper for the Corellian armed forces, he'd learned to keep his attention unwavering on his target. Lives had de­pended on his ability to do so. He'd been good at it.

  Of course, at a certain point, the suspicio
n that there was something wrong, something unfair, with what he was doing had begun to eat away at him. Yes, every target he had taken down as a sniper had been on the verge of killing an innocent... or many innocents. But the fact that he could never afford to give them a chance still nagged at him.

  Enlistment in Starfighter Command had seemed the an­swer. He'd proven that he had the reflexes, the technical ground­ing necessary to become a pilot. There was never any moral quandary—everyone he brought down as a pilot had a chance to shoot back. He'd risen quickly and surely through the ranks, earning his lieutenancy within a year, being granted the tempo­rary rank of brevet captain soon afterward.

  His own command, Talon Squadron. Every member ex­cept Donos killed in the ambush on an uninhabited world no one wanted. Leaving him with a blot on his career he might never be able to erase. A blot on his mind he might not ever be able to heal.

  He raised the visor on his helmet and pressed his hands to his eyes. His inclination was to steer away from these thoughts. He couldn't afford to do that. The emotions that rose—threatening to overwhelm him—whenever he sent his mind down this course were enemies he had to defeat. He had to hammer away at them until they left him alone forever. And he had to keep control of himself while doing it, so others would not see his weakness.

  He'd lost eleven subordinates, fellow pilots, some of them friends. He'd lost his command; Talon Squadron had been de­commissioned. He'd even lost his mind, or at least misplaced it, turning into an emotional wreck sometime later, when the loss of his astromech plunged him back into vivid memories of the destruction of Talon Squadron.

  His new squadmates had lured him back to reality. Had forced him to look once again at life. To begin thinking again about his present, about his future.

  He returned his attention to his sensors. There would be no future if he plowed into a hillside.

  All right, then. There were two paths open to him ... as­suming he didn't get killed before he could begin to follow them.

  First was the one that had dominated his thinking ever since Talon Squadron had died. For months, he'd considered putting in for a transfer to Intelligence, or resigning his com­mission altogether, so he could devote his life to tracking down the individuals who had destroyed Talon Squadron.

  Inyri Forge had been right. Revenge was a powerful moti­vator. A desire for revenge, for justice, was always with Donos. It welcomed him to each new day when he awoke, lurked at the back of his mind as he did his work, made soothing promises to him every night when he drifted off to sleep. And sometimes it occupied his dreams. He knew, deep down, that if he were able to find the responsible parties under his snubfighter guns or in the sight of his laser rifle, he'd pull the trigger without hesitation, without qualm ... regardless of what it cost him.

  Of course, two of the most important conspirators behind the destruction of his squadron were already dead. Admiral Apwar Trigit had planned the ambush. Lieutenant Gara Pe­tothel had provided Trigit with the data he needed for that op­eration. Petothel had died on Trigit's Star Destroyer, Implacable, and Trigit had died soon after, trying to escape in a TIE inter­ceptor, brought down by Donos himself.

  But others had to have been involved. Imperial Intelli­gence operatives had gotten Lieutenant Petothel her false iden­tity and her posting with Fleet Command. They'd smuggled her from New Republic-controlled space to Implacable. Ele­ments of the 181st Imperial Fighter Group now inexplicably helping Warlord Zsinj had participated in the ambush. There were plenty more conspirators who needed to die.

  But part of him no longer wanted to be the instrument of that death. An ever-growing part of him wanted to live a nor­mal life. And that led to his second choice, the one he'd been toying with ever since he had recovered from his collapse: stay in Starfighter Command and try to rebuild his career, regain his respectability ... renew his life.

  A woman named Falynn Sandskimmer had loved him. He didn't know whether he'd loved her in return, whether he'd even been able to at the time. But he'd had affection for her, and what she'd felt for him had reminded him of what it was like to be a normal human. She, too, had died aboard Implac­able, before he'd ever had the chance to sort out his feelings for her.

  And now ... he checked his sensor board for Wraith Two. There she was, toward the head of their formation, tucked in neatly behind Wraith One. Lara Notsil.

  He'd exchanged so little with Notsil. Some advice. One ground mission in which he'd saved her from kidnapping at the hands of Zsinj agents. Conversation in pilots' lounges and during leave time.

  But for the little amount of time they'd shared, she did oc­cupy a lot of his thinking. Her intelligence and her beauty drew him. And her secrecy: she seemed to have no affection for the life she'd lost, the life of a farm girl from the world 6f Aldivy, and yet so much of her was private, locked behind doors that obviously led to her childhood.

  And one other thing seemed so familiar to him: the way she seemed adrift, cut off from her past, yet having no apparent idea how to navigate toward her future. He understood that part of her, felt tremendous sympathy for her. They were so alike.

  Yet that would mean nothing if neither one of them did anything about it. She might not even be aware of how he felt, of what he was thinking.

  She isn't aware, an inner voice told him. And she's not go­ing to be. Don't foul up her life the way you've fouled up your own. Do something conclusive with your life. Resign your commission. Hunt down your enemies. Settle the accounts of your pilots.

  True. He shouldn't force his way into her life, only to abandon her when he went off on some justified spree of re­venge. Better to leave her alone.

  But what if he could offer her as much life, as much of a fu­ture, as he thought she could offer him?

  Now you 're using that misfiring hunk of erratic machinery you refer to as a brain.

  That startled him. The words were in the voice of Ton Phanan, a fellow Wraith; they were typical of his ordinary con-

  versation. Ton, who'd died mere weeks ago. Ton, who had also decided that he had no future, and perhaps had died because he couldn't bring himself to struggle for his life as hard as he should.

  And there it was. Donos did have a future, as Ton did not. Donos could choose to abandon it and pursue his life of re­venge, and then maybe . . . maybe . . . come back from it if he lived. Or he could just choose to live. Which meant doing something harder than he'd ever done before.

  He might just have to forgive himself for letting his pilots die.

  He might just have to initiate a conversation with a young woman who was suddenly important to him.

  It was a spot where the hillside leveled out in a treeless glade some seventy meters in diameter. Without repulsorlifts, they could never have all landed upon it, but Rogue Squadron and Wraith Squadron arrayed themselves precisely, in neat rows and columns.

  As the pilots scrambled out of their cockpits under the sliver of a moon, Wedge said, "Get those camouflage covers out. Transfer any fuel remaining from the auxiliary tanks into the interceptors. Snap it up. I want us blanketed down and out of sight in ten minutes. We have dawn in less than an hour. Hob­bie, Corran, Asyr, Tal'dira, I want you out on first watch. Every­one else, four hours' sleep. Face?" He crooked a finger.

  He and Face took a few steps aside to be out of the bustle of pilot preparations. The ground underneath was covered by shin-high grasses that were too pale a green to be healthy-looking in Wedge's eyes. "We had a pretty good look at the northeast approaches to Lurark. Did you see anything to give us new problems?"

  Face shook his head. "I don't think so. The big question is how to acquire transport—the city doesn't seem to be set up for pedestrian traffic."

  "That's up to you. Sleep on it."

  Face managed a rueful grin Wedge could barely see in the moonlight. "Oh, sure. As though I could sleep."

  Once he had the camo covers tied down over his X-wing and had made sure that his astromech, Clink, was settled in, Donos sought out L
ara. He found her under her own camouflage cover, kneeling on the starboard S-foils of her snubfighter, whispering to her own R2, Tonin. Fie waited patiently until she emerged and extended a hand to help her down. "Could I have a word with you?" he asked, and was immediately annoyed with him­self, at the formality of his voice.

  "Of course."

  He led her into the deeper shadow between her X-wing and Kell's TIE interceptor. "There's something I wanted you to think about." There, that was better—a more normal tone to his voice, in spite of the way his chest suddenly felt compressed. He was in full control again.

  "What's that?"

  "Me."

  She looked at him, and one eyebrow went up, a mocking look. "Rebel pilots have the biggest egos in all the known universe..."

  "Well, it's not like that. I'm asking out of a sense of fair­ness. Since I'm spending all this time thinking about you."

  Her smile faded. "Myn, I'm not amused."

  "Good. I'm not trying to amuse you. Look, I just spent a long time working up the nerve to bring this up with you at all. It was harder than almost anything I've done. So don't be amused. Take it seriously."

  She took a step back from him, bringing her up against the wing array of Kell's interceptor. "No, no, no. Just turn around and go find someone else to be interested in. I'm not right for you."

  He couldn't keep the smile from coming to his face. "Oh, that's a very good sign."

  "What is?"

  "You didn't say, 'Go away, I don't like you.' You started suggesting reasons that are theoretically in my best interest."

  She wrapped her arms around herself, as though to pro­tect herself from a chill, and glared. "I don't like you."

  "Now you're lying. You do that a lot, just like Face. I'm getting better at figuring out when you're doing it." He stepped in close. "You can't get rid of me by lying to me."

  "I'm a mess. I'm barely fit to fly."

  "Me, too. We make a perfect couple."