Trigit looked up. "Wait. There was another transport?"

"Yes, sir."

The admiral felt his stomach begin to sink. "Pilot, bring us to flank speed. I want us over that canyon now."

"Coming to flank speed, sir."

Janson's voice crackled over the comm unit, "Borleias reports she's away and within a couple of minutes of entering hypers.p.a.ce."

Then Crespin's voice; Wedge was pleased to hear that the aging pilot was still among the living. "Blue Squadron, Wraith Squadron, break off and regroup. We'll reunite at Rendezvous One."

"Blue Leader, Wraith Leader. Acknowledged. Best of luck." Wedge, just having completed another head-to-head run-through of the most energetic swarm of fighters, began a long circle. "Wraiths, you heard him. Break off. Form up on me."

The surviving TIEs, reduced in number by half and never reinforced by the presence of the Implacable, let them go-all but a pair of overeager eyeb.a.l.l.s who pursued and were vaped almost immediately by Janson and Piggy.

Wedge brought Wraith Squadron around to a southward course, toward base.

"Wraith Five, Wraith Six, do you read?"

"We read, Leader. We're coming. Too busy to calculate ETA."

The Implacable slowed to a full stop with its main tractor array poised over the fissure.

The sensors officer immediately spoke up. "Four ships incoming along that geographical formation. But they're not target Folor-Three."

Trigit frowned. "What do you mean? Who are they?"

"Two X-wings, two A- wings. No Corellian YT-1300s." No Millennium Falcon.

Trigit closed his eyes. Twice. He'd been fooled twice in one day. Not even his own children, bright and malicious as they were, had ever done that to him. He rubbed his forehead, at the headache that had suddenly appeared there. "Forget the tractor," he said gently. "Maximum laser bombardment. I want them dead."

Kell finished his transmission with the Implacable almost directly overhead. Then the Star Destroyer's laser cannons began raining columns of pure destruction down on them.

The first blast hit the fissure wall less than a hundred meters ahead, filling the fissure and sky above with blinding light and melting stone debris. Kell headed to starboard of the blast's center, flying by memory while his sight and sensors were useless, and cleared the blast field, only to run right into another one. He heard stone shards hammer against his c.o.c.kpit, against the side of his fighter. "Six, we're in trouble."

"Five, I'm taking lead." It was Runt's voice, but different, neither the polite Runt of ordinary conversation nor the inarticulate screamer who did his best flying.

Kell saw Runt overtake him, could barely pick him out visually and by sensor. Runt continued, "Blues, follow me in. This is an easy one."

Obligingly, Kell brought his fighter up on Runt's wing. Each debris cloud they cleared brought them into another one, more hammering sounds of stone shrapnel, more buffeting from the suddenly expanding clouds of gas that used to be ice and solid rock. But Kell maneuvered when Runt did and, miraculously, avoided tearing himself to shreds on the fissure walls.

Then, a sharp right turn and they were beyond the bombardment. Laser blasts the diameter of fighters hammered the fissure rim above them but did not reach the depths. Runt led them down to the fissure bottom and reduced their speed from insane to merely near-insane velocities.

"Great work, Six. Who was that?"

"The student. The one who remembers, who studies for tests."

"Tell him he just scored very high." Kell brought diagnostics up on his main monitor. They showed minor damage to both port strike foils and a slow leak, a very slow one, of cabin pressure. "Blue Nine, Blue Ten, status?"

"We're chewed up, Wraith Five. But we can make it back to the group."

"Good. This far from the Implacable, I think we'll save fuel and jump out of the Pig Trough, head in straight."

"Suits us."

Kell found his hands were shaking, that his heart was hammering like Twi'lek warrior music. He'd just led a Star Destroyer on a fruitless chase and survived its attempt at retribution-and that called for a celebration.

Just before they jumped out of the fissure, Kell set his comm unit to broadcast in the open. "Attention, Implacable," he said. "Be advised, you've just become the victims of Dinner Squadron!"

Runt's voice came in almost immediately: "And Silly Squadron!"

"Consider yourselves humiliated. And welcome to Folor. Out."

10.

Ten X-wings and the squadron's Lambda-da.s.s shuttle, the Narra, were already lining up for departure as Kell and Runt arrived. The late arrivals slid into formation with Phanan and Face, then Wedge brought the squadron up to speed and oriented them away from Folor.

Wedge's voice came over the comm unit. "Wraiths, I have the pleasure of reporting no losses among our forces. Ton Phanan has reported some minor injury; fortunately, he has our doctor with him. Everyone else has sustained some vehicle damage, none critical. For a unit's first engagement against a numerically superior force, that's brilliant flying."

"Leader, Eight. How did Blue Squadron make out?"

"Not so well, Eight. Five lost, serious damage to most of the rest. We have two kills today for Face, which brings his total to six-you're an ace, Loran."

"Do I get a trophy with that?"

"No, but someone may buy you a drink. I also need to commend Wraith Five and Wraith Six for exemplary tactics in drawing the Implacable away from us-"

"Thank you, sir!""Pipe down, Five. Also to mention that I'm thinking of putting you two on report for that stunt with the clear-air broadcast to the Implacable. What were you thinking?"

"Uhhh... I guess we weren't, sir. I was just shot through with adrenaline because I'd survived."

"Well, I expect it all balances out, and by way of reward and punishment I'll just hammer medals straight into your skulls."

"Thank you, sir. Uh-who's piloting Narra?"

Another familiar voice cut in. "It's Cubber, Five. I have Squeaky with me."

Wedge said, "That reminds me. Wraiths, be advised that instead of taking the first transport off this rock, Squeaky raided your quarters and lockers, bagging anything he thought would be of importance to you, especially personal items; they're all aboard the Narra."

There was a chorus of thanks, whistles, and short cheers over the comm.

Then Squeaky's voice: "It was enlightened self-interest, I a.s.sure you.

Had I not done this, I would have been barraged with requests for replacements for your lost goods. I'm far too busy to attend to such irrelevant requests."

"Leader, Five. What's our destination?" Folor had shrunk to a small coin-sized disk of silver-gray behind them; their current course was taking them around Commenor in a wide arc.

"As before, Doldrums. We're going to take the same navigational exercise as before. We'll be joining the rest of the Folor Base evacuees at Doldrums."

"They're going there, too? That's an odd coincidence."

"No coincidence, Five. When I reported the Implacable coming in, I also told General Crespin of our training mission and mentioned that Doldrums would be a good site to stage a regrouping. The rest of the evacuees are going there in one jump; we're going to do our exercise just because we can use the practice. Which reminds me-I need fuel reports from each of you."

Malicious cheer clearly visible on his face even through the wavering hypers.p.a.ce connection, Warlord Zsinj's hologram smiled at Trigit. "Well?"

Trigit didn't bother to conceal his glum mood. "I have both good news and bad to report. The good news: the base on Folor is gone, and I think I gave it enough of a pounding to make it impractical for the Rebellion to reestablish it."

"Good! And?"

"Due to some unantic.i.p.ated reconnaissance and some superior tactics on their part, the Rebel garrison got away without significant loss. We, on the other hand, had substantial losses. Twenty-six TIEs of various types destroyed, another eleven damaged so badly that they withdrew from the engagement. I've already transmitted a requisitions request to your bridge."

"Apwar, Apwar! They outmaneuvered you with such ease, and you expect me to replace your losses?"

"Yes, of course. I don't ask for unnecessary excesses of supplies when I perform brilliantly for you, and I do ask for ordinary replacements on those few occasions I come up short. So far, I believe you have little to complain about." Trigit finally let a smile spread across his face.

"Besides, I had already set some activities in motion to capture possible evacuees. With luck, I'll have some better news to report to you in the near future."

Zsinj sighed, rippling the holographic image. "Very well. I'll signal you when I have replacements available for you. In the meantime, keep-"

"-you informed. As ever, sir."

Zsinj gave him a frosty smile and wavered out of existence.

Before they made the jump to hypers.p.a.ce, Wedge switched his comm over to give him a private channel with Janson. "Wes."

"I'm here."

"What was Piggy doing?"

"I'm not sure how to describe it. I think he was running like a tactical planning computer. In addition to doing all his own flying-he vaped one interceptor-he seemed to be keeping track of all the Wraiths and their current opponents. He offered a few suggestions at critical times and gave us a handful of kills we wouldn't have had otherwise."

"I've never heard of anyone able to do that."

"Well, he's not human. He's not even exactly Gamorrean."

"What's your a.s.sessment of the overall squadron?"

"They're not as good as Rogue Squadron was when you reorganized the squadron. But they're still pretty good. Why?"

"They're just... different. Hand them an ordinary set of instructions and they'll carry them out in an ordinary fashion. Hand them an objective without instructions and they accomplish it some strange way. Like that whole fake Millennium Falcon ploy, and what Piggy was doing, and the data they got off Commenor's planetary computer net. I'm having a hard time antic.i.p.ating them."

"Hey, you picked them."

"I-I picked them? What were you doing during those pilot interviews?"

"Daydreaming."

"Traitor." Wedge hit the comm key to send a click, signaling the end of the conversation, and switched back to squadron frequency. "Wraiths, thirty seconds to jump."

During the first of three long jumps leading them to Doldrums, Kell forced himself to calm down, to settle his nerves.

He couldn't quite extinguish his jubilation, though. In his first combat mission as a pilot, he hadn't so much as fired a shot at an enemy, but he'd executed tactics that might have saved the Borleias from destruction or saved some of his fellow Wraiths from death under the guns of the Implacable.

Even Wedge Antilles had been impressed-at least, more impressed than annoyed.

The jump was long enough, though, that he couldn't just reflect on his recent victory. There was Tyria to consider.

How would he persuade her that she was wrong about his feelings for her?

First, obviously, he'd have to think about her more during the day, to answer her objection on that score... What else did he need to do?

He considered that, approaching the problem from a dozen logical angles, but an answer he had not expected and did not like began to lurk at the periphery of his thinking. Finally it moved in, squeezing aside his other trains of thought, and demanded that he pay attention to it.

Tyria hadn't been wrong. She was right. You don't actually love her.

Kell frowned at the traitorous voice. What are you, one of Runt's leftover minds?

You don't love her. You feel about her the way you did about Tuatara Lone when you were fifteen.

Tuatara Lone was a holo actress on Sluis Van. Short, shapely, so cute she was toxic, she was particularly adept at portraying madcap girls with odd lifestyles or nosy investigators capable of bluffing their way out of any problem. For three years, Kell had been mesmerized by her, seeing every one of her comedies and dramas, agonizing at night over her beauty, projecting himself into fantasy situations where he'd rescue her from harm or solve a crisis threatening her happiness.

Then he'd learned that the actress was in fact extremely happily married, with two children and another on the way. Kell, finding himself out of the running in a race he had actually never entered, was crushed. He moped around his home and was nearly fired from his job as a mechanic.

Only when he entered the New Republic armed forces and was too busy to do anything but work and sleep had he forgotten his pain.

Now she was back, Tuatara Lone in all her beauty, hovering before him alongside Tyria. And that drove it home, his two obsessions side by side, as no previous argument had: He really was in love with holograms, images that only dimly reflected the real women they represented.

Tyria was right. You don't love her.

I know. Shut up. Just go away. He sighed, dejected.

Thirteen beeped at him. Startled out of his painful rev - erie, he saw the timer on his main monitor counting down one standard minute-time until arrival in the Xobome system, the uninhabited first stop on their route to Doldrums. He did a visual check around his X-wing, seeing only the usual effect of a hypers.p.a.ce jump, the corridor of light formations in endless, beautiful motion. Everything normal, and he had enough fuel, just barely, for the two farther stages on to Doldrums.

At twenty-seven seconds until the end of the jump, the stars appeared as elongated columns like millions of laser beams extending into infinity, and then snapped into a motionless starfield. Immediately a bright glow swallowed the stars, erased them.

Kell's instrument panels and forward viewports went dark. A bright flash of light rocked his snubfighter. A shower of sparks erupted from his main monitor, landing on his flight suit, threatening to set his legs on fire.

There was more smoke in the c.o.c.kpit than those sparks could have produced.

He cursed and batted at his legs to put out the sparks. His vision and the viewports cleared, the starfield outside returning to normal. In the distance, he could see one star that was noticeably brighter than all others; if this was indeed the system they were aiming for, that was Xobome, but they'd arrived well outside the region they'd targeted. He could see another X-wing half a klick or so to his starboard, drifting slowly away; he couldn't make out the pilot, but if it was the closest snubfighter to him, it should be Runt.

His instruments remained dead, and there was no hiss of air to indicate his life-support systems were functioning. Glancing back, he could see lights flickering on Thirteen; the droid seemed to be in the middle of startup procedures.