Kell, at the pilot's seat of the Narra, swore and hit his comm. "Six, we have a ground emplacement setting up for your return. Leader reports the roof opening; you're about to have company." He flipped the switch to light up the shuttle's engines and guns.

"We copy, Five." Runt's X-wing heeled over and headed west.

"If you do that," Janson said, "we're going to have to scramble out of here without our TIE fighter support."

"What do you recommend? We sit back and watch them flame Runt?" All the shuttle's occupants heard the roar of the TIE fighters leaving their bunker. "Since that emplacement is taller than the trees, Runt's going to be within its line of sight for a couple of klicks at least-"

Janson shook his head. "Trust your squadmates, Kell."

As if to punctuate his words, a brilliant needle of laser energy leaped from the top of the s.p.a.ceport's main terminal building and hit the gun emplacement. Kell saw the laser burn through the chair, through the gunner's body. The gunner slumped and the emplacement continued its rotation, no longer tracking a target.

"Donos," Kell said. "Sorry. I forgot."

Two TIE fighters emerged from the target bunker and headed west in pursuit of Runt.

Tyria said, "I'm going out to cover Donos's arrival."

Janson nodded. "Be careful."

Kell added, "Do what the man says."

The bunker's doors clanged down into place. The crew chief on duty called out, "Back to normal," and switched on the light.

Two black-clad commandos, a man and a woman, their faces covered in dark masks, stood in the hangar, covering the mechanics with blaster pistols.

Another two were already going through the door into the office portion of the bunker-somehow they knew the gesture that told the movement sensor to open the door.

The male commando said, "Not exactly normal. Don't make a move."

Face entered the bunker's command center, his pistol out and at the ready, Atril just behind him.

The officer on duty was turning away from a security monitor and drawing his blaster as they entered. Face snapped off a shot and missed. Atril's shot was accurate - gruesomely accurate; it caught the man full in the face before he had a chance to fire. He dropped to the polished and waxed duracrete floor, his hair on fire.

Face gestured to the other person in the room, a gray-haired uniformed woman who was already raising her hands. "Put that out before it sets off the fire alarms." He was annoyed to hear his voice try to crack.

Silent, she complied, taking a jacket from the back of a chair and using it to smother the smoky fire.

Face managed to put a little more authority into his voice. "Now. What's the standard recall code for the TIE fighters who just left?"

The woman, her task complete, rose to her feet and put her hands up again. "I don't know."

Face glanced over his shoulder at Atril. "Kill her." He saw her eyes widen and gave her the tiniest shake of his head The bunker officer said, "Sakira. S-A-K-I-R-A." Her lip turned downward. "It's his daughter's name."

Face moved to the main control board. Its primary moni - tor showed the red blip of Runt's X-wing outbound, two blue blips of the TIE fighters closing rapidly upon it. He typed SAKIRA into the keypad and sent the code.

Almost immediately a man's voice came over the comm speaker: "Sun Leader to Base, please confirm last transmission."

Face waved the surviving bunker operator to the panel. She approached, stiff-legged, but her face twitched and she did not use the comm. "If I confirm the code, they'll know it's wrong," she said, her tone sullen.

Face sighed, then keyed the comm. He kept his voice low, making it as bland as possible. "Confirm recall Sakira," he said.

"Base, copy. Returning home. He had him, Base. Why the change?"

"New orders. Come on in."

"Base, will comply."

Face discovered he was sweating. Comm distortion would help a bit, but this was Imperial equipment; its distortion was less severe than New Republic comm gear. If that pilot had any suspicions, he could be calling the s.p.a.ceport's control center or another fighter base even now...

But the image on the sensor screen showed the TIE fighter blips looping around and returning.

Face keyed his comlink. "Six, they're breaking off. Go to terrain-following mode and ease your way back."

"Eight, we copy."

Atril led the female officer back into the hangar. Face sat at the main control board. For the few minutes, it was a waiting game.

Alarms sounded all over the s.p.a.ceport. A detachment of guards reached the gun emplacement and used a remote to bring it down to ground level. They dragged the gunner's remains out of the chair's remains and another trooper took his place. Kell hurriedly powered down the Narra's systems so a sensor sweep would not detect them.

More troopers were running around on the duracrete near the s.p.a.ceport's main terminal bunker. Looking for Donos, Kell knew. If the sniper was on top of his game, he'd have rappelled down the side of the bunker moments after killing the gunner. Tyria would know where he was, but he dared not use his comlink to reach her; he might interrupt her at a critical time.

Feet clattered up the shuttle's ramp and abruptly Tyria and Donos were peering into the barrels of Janson's and Kell's ready weapons. "All clear," Tyria said.

Kell sheathed his blaster and raised the ramp. "Anything from Joyride Group?"

Janson, in the copilot's seat, shook his head.

The TIE fighters were slowing to hover over the open doors of the bunker when the comm board sounded again. "Control Aleph-One, this is Central.

Why did you break off pursuit of Target X-3085?"

Face grimaced and activated his microphone. "Central, the target's escape profile suggested an ambush. It was not in an escape posture. This indicated to me that it was leading our fighters toward a superior force."

"You decided that on your own initiative, Aleph-One?"

"That's correct, sir."

"Interesting choice, Aleph-One. You know it's subject to review."

"Yes, sir. I stand by it, sir."

"Very well. Your men coming in safe?"

"Two eyeb.a.l.l.s incoming hot and normal."

"Two what?"

Face shut off his mike and swore to himself. Then he switched it back on.

"Uh, eyeb.a.l.l.s, sir. That's Rebel talk. I thought you'd be amused."

"Aleph-One, recite your day code."

Face switched the mike off and yanked it free of its housing, then keyed his comlink. "Leader, we've been made."

The two TIE fighters descended to a smooth landing. Wedge kept his c.o.c.kpit dark, though his engines were hot, and waited.

The TIEs' access hatches did not open. A moment later their engines lit up again and they roared skyward.

"Three, fire!" Wedge had a confirmed lock on his targeting computer as soon as the port-side TIE fighter rose over him. He triggered his lasers.

The blast shook his grounded vehicle but hit the ascending starfighter dead-on, hulling it. The TIE fighter continued upward only another twenty or thirty meters, slowing, then stalled and dropped.

Falynn, in her TIE fighter, fired twice. Her second shot hit her target where its spherical body met its starboard wing pylon. The blast didn't sever the pylon, but chopped halfway through it. The vehicle's next maneuver, a dizzying spin to the side, did the rest, tearing the pylon completely free. The fighter spun out of sight.

Wedge's target came straight down back into the bay. Wedge instinctively leaned away from the descending, burning mess. It smashed down right next to his vehicle, showering his TIE fighter with half-melted debris. His starfighter shook from the impact. "Gray Eight, Gray Thirteen, I'm afraid you're on foot; your rides are vaped."

"Acknowledged. Narra, can you swing by for a quick pickup?"

Wedge heard Kell's voice: "We're already in motion."

"Three, Leader. We're airborne." Wedge nudged his control yoke and was suddenly roaring skyward.

The replacement gunner swung around to try to track the rogue TIE fighters from Bunker Aleph-One. Then Central was back in his headphones: "There's a Lambda-cla.s.s shuttle moving sixty meters west of your position. We think they're part of the same crew. Target and fire."

The gunner almost had the lead TIE in his brackets, but the pilot was good, very good, constantly juking around, then dropping nearly to ground level to roar along behind a bunker or bulk cruiser. "I'm a little busy here," he said. "You're sure the shuttle is the primary target?"

"They're not going to have their most important people on the starfighters, idiot. Do as you're told."

The gunner sighed, then rotated his cupola around to cover the shuttle, which was moving on repulsorlifts more or less toward the TIE ready bunker.

Toward two dark-clad figures running toward it. The shuttle's boarding ramp was opening.

He bracketed the shuttle's midsection-then heard the oncoming roar of a TIE fighter. A glance over his shoulder showed the starfighter swooping at him, lining up for a shot - He leaped clear. He leaped out over fifteen meters of fall above a hard duracrete landing, and before he was halfway down he saw the cupola explode under brilliantly accurate laser fire from the TIE fighter.

Then he hit, and disobedient shuttles and starfighters were no longer his problem.

"We've now stolen a Corellian corvette and two TIE fighters That's good, but it's not enough. I think we should steal at least one of every type of ship in use by the Imperial Navy or the warlords."

Wedge smiled. "Ending with a certain Super Star Destroyer called Iron Fist?"

"That would round out the collection, don't you think?"

Though a squadron of TIE fighters left the city of Scohar and followed them to the outer planet where Night Caller waited, their lead was such that they were able to dock all four craft, orient themselves out-system, and go to hypers.p.a.ce before their pursuit reached them.

They gathered in the lounge for drinks and congratulations, Atril still, for the moment, a fellow commando instead of a member of the bridge crew.

"Here's to everyone making it off that rock," Kell said, and everyone joined him in a "Hear, hear."

"Though Falynn and I managed to get slightly busted up, mostly through our own dumbness."

Falynn said, "Hear, hear."

Wedge noticed Janson's expression; the man seemed pensive. "What is it, Wes?"

"Well, I was just thinking. We've really set ourselves on a new mission and have a long way to go."

"What mission?"

25.

Night Caller and Hawkbat made rendezvous at the appointed date, in a system whose dim orange sun sustained no life on any of its seven planets. Hawkbat's captain, Bock Nabyl, apologized for not being able to meet with Captain Darillian face-to-face, and explained that an unseemly illness was spreading through the crew. Quarantine measures were in force. Captain Darillian claimed to understand fully.

So representatives of both crews, working in vacuum suits, transferred a set of stealth satellites from Hawkbat's main cargo hold to Night Caller's belly hold, then both ships went their separate ways, their crewmen never having seen one another in the flesh.

A day later Night Caller put in at the Todirium system, whose bleak third planet was home to a colony mining iron and refining durasteel. The corporate computer system coordinating activities worldwide was not easy prey for Grinder's skills at slicing, but the corporate chief, speaking to Face's Captain Darillian, asked whether Night Caller wanted to pick up the latest load of refined alloys. Since previous stops had not indicated that the corvette had taken on such loads, Face told the man that Zsinj would send a cargo hauler for the alloys... but he insisted on sending "Lieutenant Narol" down to examine the cargo. Face reported back hours later with the precise location of Zsinj's warehouses.

"This will be a standard stoop-and-shoot mission," Wedge told his pilots.

"With one difference. We know we're going to be recorded. We know because we're setting out the spy satellites ourselves. So as long as we'll be giving Zsinj information, we want it to be the worst information possible.

"Cubber, I want you to repaint all the X-wings with Rogue Squadron's colors."

The mechanic looked unhappy. "If there's anything I hate worse than redoing a bad job-"

"It's redoing a good one. I know. And it gets worse, because immediately after the mission, you'll have to strip all that paint and reapply the Wraith Squadron colors." Wedge shrugged. "Or we can let Grinder do the repainting and put you in his c.o.c.kpit for the mission."

"No, thanks. I'll paint."

Wedge continued, "So, we unload and situate the satellites. Piggy, I want you and Grinder to calculate the most likely point where an X-wing squadron would enter the system and what their most likely avenue of attack against the planet would be. We'll set up the satellites along that path and get the best possible images for Zsinj and Trigit. Since we'll be doing so much work in vacuum suits, I want Face and Phanan in X-wings flying cover, just in case of trouble. Phanan, you can use mine. As long as you treat it well."

"I'll try not to spill my lomin-ale all over it."

"How professional of you. Then, we load up the X-wings, activate the satellites, and jump out of system. The next day, we come back in the X-wings and perform our ground strike.

"So, spend some time today and tomorrow getting used to calling one another by Rogue call signs. And, Face, when addressing me, don't forget to call me Tycho once or twice. We'll be broadcasting in the clear, like most snubfighter units, instead of using Wraith Squadron's encryption."

Face nodded.

"After the strike, we'll jump to rejoin Night Caller. Simple, in theory.

Questions?"