"Sensor data let me identify the Backstab by its exhaust signature. A few more inquiries suggested the Survivors were returning here from Nal Hutta." I shrugged. "Information about your relocation might not have been widespread, but it wasn't impossible to find, either. I was owed some favors so I used them. As it is, only the scanner records in the shuttle can tie you to that raid, and now you have them."

Nive smiled. "Except for the copy you left with the people you have holding Biril."

"Now that you mention it." I nodded. "I'm not a stupid man."

"I hope not." Jacob Nive offered me his hand. "If you are, coming here is likely the most stupid thing you have ever done. The good thing about that is that it's also likely the last stupid thing you will ever do."

The Survivors might well have been the best of the Invids, but that wasn't saying much in the overall scheme of things. The denizens of Rock Squadron all struck me as what Rogue Squadron would have been had we lost to the Empire and spent our time dirtside in seedy towns, waiting for a chance to plunder pitiful folks who were worse off than we were. I'd been around more sullen and depressing people, but they were prisoners on the Lusankya, with little hope of survival or rescue.

Everyone grumbled and grunted when I was taken out to the hotel where the squadron was billeted and introduced. Nakk Kech, Rock's leader, pointed me to a room in the hotel that had been well-used before me. The curtains had been drawn tight, and I didn't mind that at all because I really didn't want a good look at the room itself. A wadded pile of bedclothes in the corner appeared to be where the previous occupant had laired and, if the stench from the refresher station was any indication, the previous occupant understood the room's purpose, but hadn't gotten the hang of indoor plumbing.

Kech watched me closely, prepared to judge me by my reaction to the room.

The stubble on Kech's face bristled brown and gray, just like the thinning hair on his head. "It's the best we got."

I shook my head. "It's the best you've got available."

Kech smiled. "Yeah, that's it."

"And that's not good enough." I walked down the hall and pounded on the next door. "Open up."

A Shistavanen Wolfwoman tore the door open and snarled at me. She had white fur and pink eyes and though a bit smaller than the other Shistavanens I'd met, she'd have ripped me to pieces in seconds. As she tore the door open, I also caught a whiff of her room and learned who had been living in that first room.

I flashed her a big smile. "I'm your neighbor. Nice to meet you."

Kech's booming laughter drowned out the Shistavanen's harshly whispered response. I nodded at the albino. "Later."

Kech shook his head, his brown eyes full of mirth. "Caet Shrovl will be your wingman. She's good, specially in void-fights. Doesn't favor a lot of light."

I pointed at the next door. "Better choice?"

Kech shook his head. "Actually, I'm your best choice."

I frowned at him. "You think I should take your room away from you?"

The older man smiled slowly. "You could try and you might succeed, but that would be insubordination and a.s.saulting a superior officer, which is a capital offense with the invids. You wouldn't live to reap the benefits of your station. Your best bet is to toss a few bits to some locals and have them clean that other room out for you."

"Think so?"

"I figure you want to prove you're tough by kicking someone around, but I don't run the squadron that way. You kick someone's b.u.t.t, take his room, he gets angry with you, causes discord in the unit, and someone has to be gotten rid of." Kech folded his arms across his chest. "You want to prove you're tough, knock someone from one of the other squadrons around; or, better yet, someone from one of the other Invid companies here. In the Survivors, the only thing that counts is your flying skill."

I opened my arms wide. "Fine, let's get to flying, then."

Kech nodded. "Thought you'd never ask. I'll get someone to clean your room up while we're out at the training center."

"How much?"

He shrugged. "Let's see how good you are. If you're good enough that I want you rested to save my hide, I might even cover it for you."

The Survivors didn't have the sort of state-of-the-art training facility I was used to working in. Kech and I piled into a land-speeder that took us out to an annex at the s.p.a.ceport. He drove straight into the hangar and brought the dusty red vehicle to a stop beside two beat-up Tri-fighters. All battered and sc.r.a.ped, close up they looked like giant versions of a child's toy-one that had seen a lot of rough play.

Kech plucked a helmet from a wall rack and tossed it to me. "You take number one and I'll take deuce. Comlink is built into the helmet. Listen to what I tell you to do and then do it. You've flown a TIE before, right?"

I nodded. It was in simulation, but I figured that was close enough for this kind of stuff. "Weapons?"

"Powered down targeting stuff. You figure you want to go at it a bit, I'll light you up just fine."

I hauled myself up on the craft's ball c.o.c.kpit and slid into it. The third fin barely allowed the hatch to open and made it kind of tough to get into the ship, but I managed anyway. Standing on the pilot's seat, I secured the top hatch, then dropped down and pulled on my helmet. I strapped myself into the chair and began to familiarize myself with the c.o.c.kpit and controls.

First thing I noticed was how roomy the c.o.c.kpit seemed com-pared to that of a Headhunter or X-wing. The pod's spherical shape meant, naturally, there would be spare room. The spherical shape also meant it had no nose, per se, which took a lot of getting used to. I felt as if I were strapped to an engine for my flights.

The TIE's steering yoke had been replaced with a stick that had a trigger, a targeting control k.n.o.b, and a multi-position switch for shifting between weapons systems. The grip felt molded for my hand, and the stick itself had good but restricted play. I didn't think the craft would fly like an X-wing, but the controls would feel similar and that was a plus.

The huge c.o.c.kpit windscreen and peripheral panels provided a very good field of vision. The primary sensory monitor and two secondary monitors sat on a bar bisecting the windscreen disk, but really didn't interfere with what I could see. Throttle was on the left, though it operated by twisting a handle instead of pushing a stick forward. A smaller handle similarly con-structed controlled the repulsorlift coils. The comm panel was also on the left, allowing me to access it without pulling my right hand off the stick. Shield controls were still on the right, however, which could make for some difficult decisions in the heat of combat.

Etheric rudder pedals were down below the monitors.

I clipped the lead from my helmet into the comm panel socket. "Idanian here."

"Kech here. Lower right is your ignition sequence panel. Once all the lights are green, you are good to go. Head out on ten percent power, bearing zero two six, and wait for me."

"I copy." I reached down and flicked all the switches, then waited for the system lights to cycle through red and yellow before going green.

Once that happened, all the monitors sprang to life. I fed power into the repulsorlift coils and kept a steady hand on the stick. I twisted the throttle up to ten percent power and guided the clutch forward until it broke out onto the ferrocrete expanse in front of the hangar. Once there, I tried out the rudder pedals and found the ship moved pretty well to the right and left. It might not have been as maneuverable as the Interceptor, but had the X-wing beat to stardust in that category.

Kech brought his clutch out and raced it past mine, pulled the front up and jetted upward on a column of ion exhaust. "It's not a landspeeder, Idanian. We're pilots, not drivers. Get some atmosphere below you."

I smiled and hit the throttle. "As ordered, Rock Lead."

I made my ascent more gradual, working upward in a spiral that let me a.s.sess power and maneuvering as I went. The Tri-fighter, when compared to an X-wing, really didn't come off that badly. Sensor range seemed a bit light, but without proton torpedoes or concussion missiles, the need to hit at extreme range vanished. The ship's rolls were a bit sluggish, but the climb rate was good and dive rate was impressive.

Above all, though, the craft's agility impressed me. The rudder response allowed for quick shifts in which way the bow pointed. More importantly, the throttle and repulsorlift levers functioned in multiple ways. With the throttle, pulling back on it would, in essence, shift the craft into neutral, killing thrust. The b.u.t.ton on top of the lever would reverse thrust, so when it was lowered back down again, the engines would be blowing backward. With this quick cut-out method of working, a maneuver like a reverse throttle hop wouldn't require chopping thrust back and pushing it up again, but just taking it offline. Likewise the repulsorlift coils could be left with a power setting in place, but pulled offline until needed. Crank back the throttle, cut in the coils, and the clutch could dance.

Clearly the Invids I'd faced before were not the best available.

Kech wasn't bad, and I showed him that I was no neffherder, either. After he guided me through the basics, we played some tag. He got the better of me by a narrow margin, but what seemed to impress him was that the score was so low. "You're not easy to hit, you know, Idanian."

"I copy, Lead." I laughed aloud as we came in on our return approach to the training facility. "Promotes longevity."

"It's good you think that way-we've got a mission."

"A mission?" I coughed lightly and, raising my hand reflexively, bounced it off the helmet's faceplate. "I've logged, what, all of an hour on this beast?"

"Better than some of the pilots with the Red Nova crew. They ran into Rogue Squadron a couple of months back and got hammered pretty d.a.m.ned hard." I heard a low chuckle. "Don't worry, we won't be doing anything like that this time out. Just a simple loot-n-scoot."

I cut my throttle out and brought the repulsorlift coils online as we neared the hangar. "The Invidious going to be with us?"

"Nope, this is personal business." Kech laughed harshly.

"Won't be that lucrative, but will feel very good."

The mission, it turned out, had its roots in the Imperial a.s.sault on the Eyttyrmin Batiiv pirates-the attack that reduced them to the sorry company known as the Khuiumin Survivors. The Imperial Victory-cla.s.s Destroyers Bombard and Crusader had killed over ninety-seven percent of the pirates, leaving them with the Backstab and a handful of fighters.

The Survivors had sworn they would avenge themselves on the captains of those two Destroyers, and one, Captain Zlece Oonaar, had obtained pa.s.sage on the Galaxy Chance. Someone on Chance had decided that selling Oonaar out was a better bet than anything being offered in the onboard casino, and word got to Nive.

The Chance was a Corellian corvette that a rival of Booster's had outfitted as a miniature version of the Errant Venture. I think Booster would have ignored Chance except for one thing: the owner had painted it bright red. Booster had wanted to do that with the Errant Venture, but nowhere in the galaxy could he find enough red paint to do the job. In fact, the only color available in sufficient quant.i.ty at reasonable prices was Star Destroyer White-a fact that Booster considered proof that the Emperor had been out to annoy him personally all along.

To describe the briefing we got before heading out as marginal is to code up a new definition for the word. I got slapped into third flight, with Caet and two other females, both human. I got the designation "Rock Nine"

purely by chance, but that was good since I would answer to it almost reflexively. Our flight was given the task of flying cover while the other two Rock flights neutralized Chance's weaponry and eliminated the four Uglies-TIE-wings, it was speculated. Backstab would carry us to the site, and a Skipray blastboat would go over and pluck Oonaar from the Chance. The other flights got the shot at Chance because they were all true Survivors, not just folks who had joined later like me.

It struck me that a mission of such importance would have been a natural for Bolt Squadron, but I was informed that Nive had drawn a squadron for the honor at random. I had no doubt Remart was regretting his shift to Bolt Squadron. I got the impression that none of the other pilots in Rock Squadron were sorry to see him gone, and more than a few thought his discomfort at being left out was rather delicious.

We got shuttled up to the Backstab and went EV to get into our fighters.

Like TIE-fighters, the Tri-fighters had no atmosphere or life support equipment, requiring us to carry our own. This made going EV and crawling up over the hull to get into our ships less difficult than if X-wing pilots were to try it. I made it in, secured my hatch, powered up and checked in. Others did likewise, but in no way was there very much comm discipline called for or observed.

The Backstab went to lightspeed, made one interim jump, and then headed off toward where the Chance was supposed to be. Our trip took a full three hours and, for the first time, I really appreciated the extra room in the c.o.c.kpit. I would have appreciated even more having atmosphere in there, so I could remove my helmet, have something to eat and maybe catch a nap. While the c.o.c.kpit did afford me excellent visibility, there isn't that much to see in hypers.p.a.ce.

On that flight I realized how much I actually missed Whis-tler. I know people aren't supposed to get sentimental about astromech droids, but I'd had him for years. He used to get the usual memory wipes and programming upgrades back then, but I think he found a way to download chunks of his personality into the CorSec mainframe and recover it later. Whistler was sneaky and independently-minded that way, which was good for me. If not for him I'd have been dead a dozen times over.

On long flights Whistler and I would discuss various things-like fatherhood-and I could count on him as being a good sounding board.

Actually, he was very much a mirror in the sense of my father's old saying. When I started getting out of line, Whistler would call me on it and, more times than not, he was right. Of those few times he was not, well, I'm sure there were times when he was not right.

The Backstab reverted to reals.p.a.ce right on top of Chance. Flights one and two deployed, taking slashing runs at the corvette. Rock Four exploded when she caught a direct hit from one of the ship's double turbolaser cannons. The green energy bolts just peeled the c.o.c.kpit back like the petals of a flower bud, shredding it and casting long jagged tendrils of armor into s.p.a.ce. The clutch's ion engine exploded, letting the craft's three fins spin away through s.p.a.ce. The rest of the Chance's cannons filled s.p.a.ce with a lot of energy, but Rock Four was the only thing Chance's gunners. .h.i.t before we slagged their guns.

The six TIE-wing fighters flying sentry duty around Chance should have run as soon as we arrived. The TIE-wing consists of a TIE fighter ball c.o.c.kpit married to the engine nacelles from a Y-wing fighter. It truly lives up to the name Ugly, and in Rogue Squadron we used to refer to them as "Die-wings." Sluggish and ungainly, they looked like wildernerfs being hit by a pride of taopari. All six lasted no more than five minutes. I found watching the dogfight frustrating because my squadron-mates missed shots that should have ended it all much sooner, and two of them paid for their lousy marksmanship with their lives.

The Skipray that had come with us, Vibroblade, started over toward Chance when another ship-a private yacht-entered the system on our entry vector.

That wasn't a surprise-I didn't know where we were, but there were enough planetary bodies in the area that routes in and out had to be severely limited. What was a surprise was the half-dozen, hyperdrive-fitted Headhunters flying cover for the yacht. They clearly didn't like seeing us there so while the yacht came about and headed away again, the Headhunters came in on us hard with enough triple-blasters blazing.

I didn't wait for an order releasing me. "Ten, on me," I snapped through the comm and engaged my throttle. The clutch lurched forward. I rolled and dove toward the Head-hunters and two came up at me. With my thumb I flicked the weapon selector over to ion cannon, hit a little rudder to flash the incoming pilots my flank, then straightened the clutch out and pulled the trigger.

The blue ion bolt nailed the lead Headhunter's left S-foil. Azure lightning played across the forward shield, boiling it away. The shield didn't collapse, but the lightning storm on the shield made it tough for the pilot to see me. His return shots went wide on either side, then we were past each other before he could get another shot.

Caet shot at the second Headhunter. Her twin laser blasts caught the Headhunter on the nose, piercing the shield and causing a brief flash of light. Even without Whistler present to let me know what happened, I knew from the location that the Headhunter had lost its combat sensor package.

The pilot would be blind in s.p.a.ce and, in a dogfight situation, that meant he was as good as dead.

I snapped a quick shot off at another Headhunter, then popped my throttle off and pulled back on the stick. I cut the throttle to half, re-engaged it to complete the half-loop, then ran it up again and rolled out to port. That dropped me on the tail of one of the Headhunters that was running in on Eleven. I pumped two ion bolts into the Headhunter's aft shield. The first shot took the aft shield down and the second played over the length of the ship. Sparks shot from the engine cowlings-unless the pilot could get a restart going, he was done.

Red-gold blaster bolts lit my shields from starboard. I hit right rudder and swung the clutch's tail out of the Headhunter's line of attack. The next bolts streaked past on the port side, so I rolled to starboard, dove and curled up in a long loop. Rolling out to port I saw another Headhunter making a run on Caet. The pilot was intent on her, so I came in on an oblique angle and hit with my first shot. That took his aft shield down, so he rolled starboard to get away from me. I applied a lot of left rudder, swung my nose around and laced his port S-foil with another bolt.

His blaster on that side exploded and the ship started to roll, which told me vector jets on that side were also having trouble. I rolled to starboard and would have swooped in to finish him, but a glance at my tactical sensor screen showed me a Head-hunter vectoring in on me, and I had a feeling that was the guy who'd tried to get me earlier. I held my roll slow and showed him my belly, then yanked back on my stick and started a dive. He rolled to set himself up to come after me and I knew I had him.

I cranked my throttle down to thirty percent, then reversed it, killing my momentum. I let it hang there for three seconds, then dialed thrust back up. As I did so, my Headhunter friend went streaking by me, and I dropped into his exhaust. My first shot nailed his rear shield. He broke right, so I climbed, inverted and ruddered my way back onto his tail.

Caet raced past and pumped two laser blasts into him. One collapsed the aft shield and the other holed his starboard S- foil. His roll slowed appreciably and became unstable as the vector jets in the damaged S-foil weren't matching the output from the other side. The pilot just goosed his throttle forward to get away, since he couldn't fly fancy any more.

The Headhunter even had enough speed to outrun my clutch.

Outrunning an ion bolt, on the other hand, is a lot harder. My shot caught his ship dead on in the back. Little blue tendrils of electricity ran over the fighter like nightmare fingers, scratching out sparks and little puffs of vapor. The ship shut down immediately, continuing off on its course.

I saw Caet coming back around for another run on it, but I called her off. "Abort, Ten. He's done."

"Not dead."

"Out of the battle. Leave him." I triggered an ion blast that pa.s.sed between her fighter and the stricken ship. "You can have the kill, but there's no reason to kill a pilot just doing his job."

"Right to kill is mine." She snapped her words off as if in pain. "Do not deny me."

"You owe me. I shucked the one on your b.u.t.t." I started my clutch forward, angling in on her. "He's mine and I want him alive."

I heard Nive's voice come through on the tactical frequency.

"All targets are neutralized. Stand down Flight Rock Three."

"I copy," I reported.

"Copy." Caet's snarl did not have me looking forward to talking with her after the mission returned home.

"Nine, go to Tactical Two and scramble."

"As ordered, sir." I switched the comm unit over to the secondary tactical frequency and hit the scramble switch. The encryption key, which had been uploaded to each fighter from the Backstab, would keep the conversation private between Nive and me. "Nine here, Captain."

"Nice shooting, Nine. Why ion? You could have killed the Headhunters in one shot the way you fly, but you used ion and made it tougher." Nive let a little anger drift into his voice. "Was this a game for you?"

"No, sir." I paused for a moment, not so much to gather my thoughts as figuring out how to express them. "The Head-hunter pilots were just doing their jobs. If we kill them, we're just butchers and killers and any bodyguards in the future know they should go after us full out because we're going to vape them. The yacht was gone. Chance can pick these guys up and next time we give them an opportunity to back off and they will."

"Maybe." Nive paused. "Makes sense, of course, but few things in warfare ever do."

"Worth taking a chance if no one dies."

Nive snorted. "You that squeamish?"

"I've got my share of deaders logged in my accounts, Captain. If I can get it without blood, I think it's better." I shook my head. "If that's not thinking that's welcome here, I can just take my shuttle and leave."

"No, no need for that." Some of the tension in Nive's voice eased. "That kind of thinking is more than welcome here. You're one of us now, Idanian, one of the Invids. Let's hope more of you rubs off on us than the other way around."

Caet and I did have words on our return to Khuiumin 4--well, not words exactly, but the scars healed within two weeks and you can't notice the one on my right cheek unless I get a deep tan. Even before the physical evidence of our fight had gone away, however, Caet voted with four other of Rock Squadron's survivors to make me the leader of a new three flight.

Kech helped me choose three pilots to fill it and Caet moved into first flight to replace Rock Four.

Over the next month I spent a lot of time with my new recruits, drilling them. I'd gone through the same routine count-less times before with new pilots coming into Rogue Squadron, but I found Rock Squadron to be the dark side of what I had known with the Rogues. In terms of discipline, Khuiumin 4 made Yavin 4 look like Lusankya. Trying to instruct hungover pilots is about as tough as teaching a rancor to sing and dance-and the rancor's att.i.tude about the whole process would probably be better. The pilots in my squad clearly thought they could fly, and while they were not bad, they weren't up to the level I wanted. I was responsible for their lives, and I had no desire to go into a fight with undertrained pilots who would die and leave me alone out there.

The best of the lot was Timmser, a tall woman who wore her hair very short and very blond. Her temper was about as short as her hair, and she initiated a couple of cantina-clearing brawls when she wandered into the Warren, which is where the Red Nova crew and Riistar's Raiders tended to hang out. There was little love lost between those groups and the Survivors; and Timmser's status as an ex-Raider didn't help ease the tension there. In a Tri-fighter she had a good sense of what was going on around her and had a knack for hitting on deflection shots.