Star Wars.

I, Jedi.

by Michael A. Stackpol.

One.

None of us liked waiting in ambush, primarily because we couldn't be wholly certain we weren't the ones being set up for a hot-vape. The Invids-the pirate crews working with the ex-Imperial Star Destroyer Invidious-had so far eluded the best efforts of the New Republic to engage them. They seemed to know where we would be, when we would get there, and in what force, then planned their raids appropriately. As a result we spent a lot of time doing battle-damage a.s.sessments on their efforts, and they really pushed to give us plenty of BDA work.

Rogue Squadron had gone to ground to wait on several of the larger asteroids in the K'vath system. This location put us in close proximity to K'vath 5's primary moon, Alakatha. We powered down our engines and had our sensors in pa.s.sive mode only to avoid detection by the folks we wanted to trap. According to our mission briefing, New Republic Intelligence had gotten a tip they considered reliable that at least part of Leonia Tavira's pirate fleet would be hitting a luxury liner coming out of the resort coast on Alakatha's northern continent. Mirax and I had actually honeymooned there three years ago, before Thrawn turned the New Republic inside-out, so I had fond memories of the place and could well remember the wealth dripping in jewels and precious metals from the throats and hands of the New Republic's elite.

2.

I glanced at my X-wing's chronometer. "The Glitterstar is still on schedule?"

Whistler, nestled behind my c.o.c.kpit, hooted with just a hint of derision in his voice.

"Yes, I know I told you to let me know if there was a change and, no, I didn't think it had slipped your circuits." I forced my gloved hands open, then rotated my wrists to get rid of some of the tension. "I'm just anxious."

He blatted a quick comment at me.

"Hey, just because patience is a virtue, that doesn't make impatience a vice." I sighed and turned the latter half of it into a piece of a Jedi breathing exercise Luke Skywalker had urged upon me when trying to recruit me as a Jedi. Breathing in through my nose to a count of four, I held the breath for a seven count, then exhaled in eight beats. With each breath I let more tension flow out of me. I sought the clarity of mind I'd need for the coming battle-if the Invids materialized-but it eluded me with the ease the Invids had shown in escaping the New Republic.

Things kept seeming to happen fast. Mirax and I married fast, and while I did not at all regret having done so, events conspired to make our married life extremely difficult. Grand Admiral Thrawn and his antics ruined our first anniversary, and rescuing Jan Dodonna and the others who had once been imprisoned with me on the Lusankya had called me away during the second. And then the reborn Emperor's a.s.sault on Coruscant dropped a Star Destroyer on what had been our home. Neither of us were there at the time, which was standard operating procedure far too often.

In fact, the only benefit of being a.s.signed to go after the Invids was that their leader, ex-Moff Leonia Tarira, seemed to have a taste for a life of leisure. When her Invidious vanished between raids, we usually had a week of down time before having to worry about another attack.

Mirax and I put this free time to good use, rebuilding our home and our relationship, but with that came some consequences that I saw as incredibly disruptive-on the scale of Thrawn disruptive.

Mirax decided she wanted children.

I have nothing against kids-as long as they go home with their parents at the end of the day. Expressing this opinion in those terms to Mirax was not the smartest thing I had ever done and, in fact, proved to be one of the more painful ones. The hurt and pain in her eyes haunted me for a long time. Deep down, I knew there would be no dissuading her, and I wasn't even sure, in the end, I wanted to.

I did try, however, and employed most of the standard arguments to do so.

The "this is an unsettled time in the galaxy" ploy lost out to the fact that our parents had faced a similar choice and we'd turned out pretty well. The "uncertainty of my job" argument wilted beneath the logic of my life insurance and then withered away when Mirax gave me a glimpse at the accounts files-the real ones-for her import/export business. She pointed out that she could easily support the three or four of us and I'd not have to work a single second, outside of caring for the children. And, she noted, that carrying a child for nine full months meant she would already have 3.11 years of forty-hour weeks of child-care logged and that I would owe her.

Over and above all that, she said I'd make a great father. She noted that my father had done a great job with me. Having learned from him the skills of being a father, she just knew I'd be wonderful with kids. In using that argument, she turned the love and respect I had for my father around on me. She made it seem as if I was dishonoring his memory by not bringing children into the world. It was a most persuasive argument, as she knew it would be, and hammered me pretty hard.

In retrospect, I should have given up at the start and saved the two of us a great deal of grief. She makes her living-a vely good living, it turns out-convincing all sorts of folks that junk no one else wants is absolutely vital to them. While she engaged me in logical discussions-focusing my defenses on that avenue of attack-she slipped past my guard on a purely emotional level. Little comments about what kind of child our genetic lottery would produce got me investing brainsweat in solving that puzzle. That went straight to the detective training in me-the training that wouldn't let me drop a case until I had an answer.

Which, in this case, meant a child.

She also managed to flick on the HoloNet monitors when some event featuring news about Leia Organa Solo's three-year-old twins was being shown. The children were frighteningly cute and their very existence had been blamed for a baby-binge in the New Republic. I knew Mirax was not so shallow as to be wanting a child out of envy or to be trendy, but she did note that she was Leia's age, and that it was a good time to have a child or two.

And that cuteness factor really can get under your skin. The New Republic media avoided showing the twins drooling and dripping the way children do, and they really maximized the appealing things about the toddlers. It got so that when I did remember dreams, they were of me cradling a sleeping child in my arms. Oddly enough, I stopped thinking of those dreams as nightmares pretty quickly and did my best to preserve them in my mind.

Realizing I was lost, I began to bargain for time. Mirax flat refused to accept fixed time dates, mainly because I was thinking in years, so I made things conditional. I told her once the Invids were taken care of, we'd make a final decision. She accepted my decision a bit better than I expected, which started preying on me, and making me feel guilty. I would have thought that was a tactic she'd decided to use, but she thought guilt was a hammer and she's definitely a vibroblade fan.

I exhaled slowly again. "Whistler, remind me when we get home, Mirax and I need to make a decision on this baby thing, now, not later. Tavira's not going to dictate my life."

Whistler's happy high staccato sailed down into a low warning tone.

I glanced at my primary monitor. The Glitterstar had lifted from Alakatha and another ship had appeared in-system. Whistler identified it as a modified bulk cruiser known as the BooU Full. Unlike the liner's sleek design, the cruiser was studded with warty protrusions that quickly detached themselves and began to run in on the liner.

I keyed my comm. "Rogue Lead, three flight has contact.

One cruiser and eighteen uglies heading in on the Glitterstar."

Tycho's voice came back cool and calm. "I copy, Nine. Engage the fighters with two flight. One has the cruiser."

I flicked over to three flight's tactical channel. "Light them up, Rogues, we have the fighters."

I started the engines, then shunted power to the repulsorlift coils. The X-wing rose like a ghost from a grave and came about to point its nose toward the liner. As Ooryl's X-wing pulled up on my left and my other two pilots, Vurrulf and Ghufran, arrived on the right, I punched the throttle full forward and launched myself into the fight.

A smile blossomed on my face. Any sapient creature making a claim to sanity would find hurtling along in a fragile craft of metal and ferro-ceramics to be stupid or suicidal. Pushing that same craft into battle merely compounded the situation, and I knew it. By the same token, very few experiences in life can compare to flying in combat-or engaging any enemy in a fight-because doing that is the one point where civilization demands us to harness our animal nature and employ it against a most dangerous prey. Without being physically and mentally and even mechanically at my best, I would die and my friends might even die with me.

But I had no intention of letting that happen.

With a flick of my thumb I switched from lasers over to proton torpedoes and allowed for single fire. I selected an initial target and eased the crosshairs on my heads-up display onto its outline. Whistler beeped steadily as he worked for a target lock, then the box surrounding the fighter went red and his tone became a constant.

I hit the trigger and launched my first proton torpedo. It streaked away hot and pinkish-white, trailed by others lancing out from my flight.

While employing proton torpedoes against fighters is seen as overkill by some pilots, within Rogue Squadron using such a tactic was always seen as an expedient way of lowering the odds against us-odds that were usually longer than a Hutt and decidedly more ugly.

The Invids used a form of custom-designed fighter called a Tri-fighter.

It started with the ball c.o.c.kpit and ion engine a.s.sembly of Seinar System's basic TIE fighter-a commodity which, after hydrogen and stupidity, was the most plentiful in the galaxy-and married it to a trio of angular blades set 120 degrees apart. The bottom two served as landing gear, while the third came up over the top of the c.o.c.kpit. The fighter still had the TIE's twin lasers mounted beneath the c.o.c.kpit, while the third tine sprouted an ion cannon. The ships also had some basic shields, which explained why they were more successful than your basic eyeball, and side viewports cut into the hull gave the pilot more visibility.

Because the trio of tines looked as if they were grasping at the c.o.c.kpit, we'd nicknamed the design "clutch."

The shields and extra visibility didn't help the clutch I'd targeted. The proton torpedo jammed itself right up the left engine's exhaust port and actually punched out through the c.o.c.kpit before detonating. The fighter flew into the roiling, golden ball of fire and just vanished. Three more clutches exploded nearby, then another three exploded off to starboard, where two flight was coming in.

"Pick targets carefully, three flight. Ooryl, we're on the pair to port."

"Ten copies, Nine."

I kicked my X-wing up on the port stabilizer foils and hauled back on the stick. Chopping power to the engine, I tightened the circle, then rolled out to the right as the pirates started a long serpentine turn. I switched over from missiles to dual lasers and immediately got a yellow box around the lead fighter. I goosed the throttle back to full to close range and keyed my comm. "I'm on the leader."

Oorvl gave me a double-click on his comm to let me know he'd gotten the message. Nudging the stick just a bit right, the targeting box went green and I hit the firing b.u.t.ton. Two red bolts. .h.i.t the target. The first fried the shields. The clutch trailed sparks from the shield generator like a comet trailing ice. The second bolt pierced the c.o.c.kpit and though it hit kind of high, it hit hard, too. Sparks shot from the hole and the clutch began a slow spiral down toward Alakatha.

Ooryl rolled to port as the other clutch broke. I brought my X-wing around in behind him as he lined his shot up. Tile Gand's first two shots blasted past the shields and burned fur-rows in the ship's hull. The next two drilled the engines, jetting the disintegrating ship forward on a golden gout of flame. The flame abruptly died, leaving the Tri-fighter to tumble through s.p.a.ce out toward the asteroid belt.

Up through the c.o.c.kpit canopy I could see the green and white streaky ball of Alakatha and the Glitterstar rising up from it. Off to starboard the Booty Full seemed to crouch in the void like a malignant insect. The turbolasers along its spine and in a bellv turret fired out, trying to track one fiight's X-wings, but the shots were no real danger to the fighters. Colonel Celchu, Hobbie, Janson and Gavin Darklighter were old hands at pull-ing the teeth of raiders like these. As long as we kept the clutches busy, the Booty Full had no chance.

The X-wing's first slashing attack came from Tycho and Hobbie. They rolled through and each drove a proton torpedo into the aft shields.

Coming from the other direction, Gavin and Wes Janson strafed the ship with laser fire. Gavin's second burst melted the belly turret clean away while Janson's shots nibbled away at the ship's aft vector jets. The Booty Full was done, though I had no doubts it would take a couple more pa.s.ses before the crew realized that and surrendered.

I followed Ooryl up and around the back toward the fight. It had fairly well degenerated into a chase-and-kill run. The loss of seven ships before they even saw their enemies had clearly shocked the pirates and, more importantly, brought their numbers down close to ours. While clutches were more agile than X-wings-not by much, but by enough to make fighting them difficult-they couldn't outrun us or outgun us. Lacking the discipline of a trained military unit like Rogue Squadron, when panic set in, they fell apart and made our job that much easier.

Ooryl settled in on one and hit it with a full quad burst from his lasers. The clutch exploded, but boiling in through the explosion came another clutch making a head-to-head pa.s.s at Ooryl. The clutch got off a shot with the ion cannon that sent a lightning storm skittering over Ooryl's shields, but they died before the ion blast did. The motivator blew on his R5 unit and Whistler reported his engines were out.

"Ooryl, go for a restart." I didn't know if he still had comm or not, but I offered that bit of advice and fired a dual burst at the clutch.

Hastily aimed, the shot missed low, but did cause the clutch to veer off.

Rolling out to the right, I headed in after him. "This is Nine on one.

Someone watch my back."

Vurrulf, the Klatooinan in three flight, barked a harsh, "I copy, on it,"

so I felt a bit safer in pursuing the clutch. One of the worst things a pilot can do is to get so locked in on a target that he misses what else is happening. When situational awareness focuses down on one target, the hunter becomes hunted and never knows what hits him. It's a rookie mistake and while I'm no rookie, I'm not immune to it.

The clutch's pilot was good and clearly had no desire to die, but Whistler wasn't reporting that he'd powered down his weapons, so he was just as clearly willing to fight. I tried to settle in on him, but he modulated his throttle and used his ship's agility to keep breaking before I could get a lock. I snapped a couple of shots off at him, but they missed wide or high. Try as I might, I was having trouble keeping up with his shifts and cuts.

I pulled back on the throttle and let him gain some distance. His juking antics continued, but with range the movements that had ripped him out of my sights in close barely broke the edges of my targeting box. I hit the firing b.u.t.ton and sent two paired bursts at him. One pair lanced through the aft shield and man-gled one of the landing tines. The other two energy darts clipped the thrust vector vents on the port side, limiting his maneuverability.

Whistler displayed a comm frequency being used by the clutch and I punched it up on my comm unit. "This is Captain Corran Horn of the New Republic Armed Forces. I will accept your surrender."

A woman answered me. "Don't you know, Invids never surrender?"

"Not true of the Booty' Fool."

"Riizolo is a fool, but he doesn't have a capital warrant out on his head. I do." She laughed. "I have nothing to live for, except my honor.

One pa.s.s, Horn, you and me."

"You'll die." A single pa.s.s would negate the clutch's agility advantage.

She had to know that.

"But perhaps not alone." Her ship stopped jinking and headed out on a long loop. "Allow me this honor." The clutch turned and began its run at me.

I wanted to do as she asked, and would have, except for one thing: the Invids had proved over and over again that they had no honor.

I switched to proton torpedoes, got a quick tone-lock from Whistler and pulled the trigger. The missile shot from my X- wing and sprinted straight for her ship. As good as she was, the clutch pilot knew there was no dodging it. She fired with both lasers, but they missed. Then, at the last moment, she shot an ion blast that hit the missile. Blue lightning played over it, burning out every circuit that allowed the torpedo to track and close on her ship.

I'm fairly certain, just for a second, she thought she had won. The problem with a projectile is that even if its sophisticated circuitry fails, it still has a lot of kinetic energy built up. Even if it never senses the proximity of its target and detonates, that much ma.s.s moving that fast treats a clutch c.o.c.kpit much the way a needle treats a bubble.

The torpedo drove the ion en-gines out the back of the clutch, where they exploded. The fighter's hollow remains slowly spun off through s.p.a.ce and would eventually burn through the atmosphere and give resort guests a thrill.

Whistler made my threat screen all green indicating no more active hostiles in the area. Three flight reported in and Ooryl was back up and running. His forward shield had collapsed and refused to come back up, but otherwise he was fine. Vurrulf and Ghufran reported no trouble with their X- wings. As it turned out only Reme Pollar in two flight had been hit hard enough to be forced extra-vehicular, but she reported she would be fine until the Skipray blast boat from the Glitterstar picked her up.

I switched the comm over to the command channel. "All green here, Rogue Leader."

"I copy, Nine. Looks like this wasn't the trap we feared it would be."

"No, sir, it doesn't."

"Have your people prepare to rejoin the fleet."

"As ordered, Colonel."

I relayed the order to my people, but before we could reach my designated rendezvous point, the fleet made a microjump in from the edge of the system. A Mon Calamari Cruiser and two Victoo,-cla.s.s Star Destroyers formed a triangle in the s.p.a.ce above Alakatha. We'd come to the system aboard Horne One and used microjumps to get in as close as we did.

Because the information about the Booty Full had been unusual, we expected it might be an ambush, so the fleet had waited to see if the Invids would pounce on the Rogues.

If they had, we would have gotten a chance to finish them once and for all.

I keyed my comm. "Colonel, if we were expecting the pirates to jump us, and they did not, was this mission a success?"

"Good question, Nine. This is one of these missions where only Intelligence will be able to tell us how we did." Tycho hesitated for a moment. "Then again, we lost only machines, not people. It's a victory anytime that happens."

Two.

Te K'vath system was far enough from Coruscant to be trendy and desirable for seclusion-though the price of a mug of lum there would have been enough to discourage most folks from enjoying their holiday. Mirax and I never would have gone there three years ago, but Wedge Antilles had recommended it, and someone in management had been convinced that our partic.i.p.ation in the libera-tion of Coruscant made Mirax and me just the sort of glare couple to attract the notice of the New Republic's fashionable elite. As a result we didn't pay for anything while we were there, and stopping the Boot), Full over A]akatha helped me feel a bit better about having enjoyed the world's hospitality.

The Glimmerstar requested an escort all the way to Corus-cant, which Home One agreed to supply. This meant our return trip would be at the leisurely pace dictated by the liner instead of the faster speed of which the Mon Calamari Cruiser was capable. The Rogues could have taken our X-wings home, but the trip would have locked us in the c.o.c.kpit for a full twenty-four hours, which I looked forward to with the same enthusi-asm I had for discussing old times with Mirax's father. It would have been nice if the Glimmerstar had allowed us to spend the extra day of travel time on the liner, but their grat.i.tude ex-tended only as far as letting us study the ship's beautiful lines from afar.

We had duties enough to keep us busy anyway, and despite the oppressive humidity, the Mon Cal Cruiser's accommoda-tions were not that bad. After landing my X-wing and getting Whistler set up for recharging, I caught a quick meal in the galley, then joined the rest of the squadron in a briefing room for our debriefing. We all rode Reme for going EV, but we were glad to have her back and enjoyed her descriptions of the Glimmerstar's blast boat. After that I grabbed some rack time, slept for eight hours, worked out a bit and headed for the galley for some breakfast.

Ooryl raised a three-fingered hand and waved me over to the table he occupied all by himself. I smiled and nodded to him, then grabbed some breakfast cakes and an artificial nerfmilk protein beverage. I almost balked at it, because consuming any-thing that doesn't sit well on the stomach can be a mistake when eating with a Gand, but I was very thirsty.

I dropped into the chair opposite Ooryl and did my best not to glance down into the bowl from which he was feeding. "Any-thing interesting happen while I've been down?"

Ooryl's mouth parts moved apart in his approximation of a smile and his compound eyes glittered brightly. His grey-green flesh was of a hue slightly darker than the sauce on the tenta-cles he was fishing out of the bowl, and contrasted sharply with the bright orange of his flight suit. k.n.o.bby bits of his exoskele-ton poked at odd angles from within the fabric, as if his flesh were having an allergic reaction to the color.

"Nothing Ooryl considers out of the ordinary."

I frowned. The Gands had a tradition of speaking of them-selves in the third person and not using the p.r.o.noun "I" be-cause they thought it was the height of arrogance to do so. Only those Gands who had committed acts so great that all Gands would know of them were allowed to speak of themselves as "I." The whole of Rogue Squadron had even gone to Gand and been part of Ooryl'sjanwuine-jika, the ceremony that conferred that right upon him. For him to have reverted to third person meant something was bothering him.

"What is the matter?" I narrowed my green eyes and stared into his black faceted orbs. "You can't be embarra.s.sed about getting shot by that Invid."

Ooryl slowly and deliberately shook his head. "Ooryl is ashamed that he has not been able to help you with your prob-lem."