"Well, then." Cracken took a datacard from a pocket and held it out.
"Your orders. You and the pilots you choose will rendezvous with Allegiance at
the coordinates provided here. Tell your pilots nothing about the mission
until the rendezvous."
Wedge offered him nothing but a steady stare. "I need this leave,
General. This is no joke. Find someone else."
"You need. Antilles, the New Republic needs. You've never turned your
back on the New Republic in its times of need."
Wedge felt his last hope slipping away, to be replaced by anger. "What's
it like, General?"
Cracken's expression turned to one of confusion. "What's what like?
Adumar?"
"No. What's it like to have so many resources? So that you can simply
turn to your staff and say, 'I need so-
and-so for this task. Find me the button I can push so he'll do whatever
I say, regardless of what it costs him.' What's that like?"
Cracken's face flushed. "You're coming dangerously close to
insubordination, General."
"No, General." Wedge took the datacard from Cracken's hand. "I'm not your
subordinate. And what I'm coming dangerously close to is violence. Perhaps
you'd better leave."
Cracken stood there a moment, and Wedge could see him struggling against
saying something further. Then the man turned away. The door opened before
him.
As he passed through it, Cracken said, "Pack your dress uniform, General.
" Then he was gone.
Wedge's X-wing and the three snubfighters accompanying him dropped out of
hyperspace at the same instant.
Unfamiliar stars surrounded them. But within visual range was something
he recognizedthe white triangular form of an Imperial-class Star Destroyer, a
1.6-kilometer-long package of destructive force.
His sensor unit tagged it immediately as Allegiance, his expected
rendezvous. But his heart rate still quickened a bit as he oriented his X-wing
toward the vessel.
For many years, Star Destroyers had been objects of dread among Rebel
pilots. Wedge had fought against so many of them, participating in the
destruction of some, losing friends to several. Over the years, the New
Republic had captured a number of them, turning their awesome firepower
against the Empire. Now they were almost a common sight in New Republic Fleet
Command, but Wedge could never rid himself of the presentiment of evil he felt
whenever he saw one.
His comm unit beeped and words appeared on the text screenacknowledgment
by Allegiance that they had recognized him, authorization for landing, and a
small schematic indicating the small landing bay, suited for dignitaries,
where they were supposed to put down.
"Red Flight," he said, "we are cleared to land. Main starfighter bay.
Follow me in."
He heard acknowledgments from his three pilots, then began a long, slow
loop around toward the Star Destroyer's underside.
Almost immediat ely his comm unit crackled. "X-wing group, this is
Allegiance. You, uh, seem to be off your approach vector for Bay Alpha Two."
"Allegiance, this is Red Leader," Wedge said. "We're inbound for the main
bay. By orders of the expedition commander." He let the comm officer stew over
that one for a moment. He, Wedge, was the expedition commander.
There was a moment of delayjust long enough, Wedge estimated, for the
comm officer to make one short broadcast to the ship commander and get one
short reply. "Acknowledged, Red Leader. Allegiance out."
Wedge and his companions took up position beneath the gigantic vessel and
rose within the spacious confines of the ship's main bay. Wedge hovered,
ignoring the flight line worker beckoning to him with glowing batons, and took
a look around.
Starfighters stood ready to launch into battle A-wings, B-wings, X-
wings, Y-wings, and even TIE fighters that had once fought the New Republic.
Retrofitted with shields, the TIEs were now a common sight in friendly
maintenance. The metal floors and bulkheads wore a dull sheen, showing age and
wear but also cleanliness, rather than a shine suggesting that the captain was
too concerned with appearance. These were good signs.
The smaller bay they'd originally been directed to could have been put in
tiptop shape for their arrival with comparative ease, but the state of affairs
in the main bay was a better indicator of how the ship was being run, and
things here looked good.
Wedge finally allowed the worker to direct Red Flight to a landing spot,
near the vessel's single squadron of X-wings. The unit patch on those
snubfighters, showing a single X-wing soaring high above a mountain peak,
identified them as High Flight Squadron. Wedge nodded. They weren't the best
X-wing unit in the fleet, but they were a veteran squadron with plenty of
battle experience.
As he and his fellows set down, Wedge saw the main doorway into the bay
open upward and a crowd of people enter at a run. Some of them skidded as they
spotted Red Flight and turned in the direction of the recently arrived
snubfighters. Among them were a man in a Fleet Command captain's uniform, the
usual complement of junior officers and guards, and, most odd of all, what
looked like a woman with two heads, one of them shining silver.
Wedge descended his access ladder and turned to face the delegation. He
felt and heard his own pilots fall into line behind him. He extended his hand
toward the highest-ranking officer. "Captain Salaban. I was glad to hear you'd
been promoted off Battle Dog."
The captain, a lean, bearded man with skin the color of tanned leather,
still breathing hard, hesitated. Obviously confused for a moment as to whether
he should salute properly or follow Wedge's informal fashion of greeting, he
chose the latter and shook Wedge's hand. "Thank you, sir. And welcome aboard.
Allow me to introduce you to my senior officers..."
It was a ritual Wedge knew from countless repetitions in the past. He
committed each officer's name and face to memory, hoping his retention would
last until the end of the mission; it usually did.
Then the captain gestured to the two-headed woman. "And the mission
documentarian, Hallis Saper."
Wedge could finally give her his full attention. She was a tall woman,
taller than he by two or three centimeters, with long brown hair worn in a
braid and wide-open features; she looked as though she'd recently arrived from
a one-shuttle agrarian world. He could not read her eyes, as they were
concealed behind goggles darkened almost to opacity. She wore a brown jumpsuit
festooned with belts, pouches, and pockets.
And on her right shoulder, held on a bracket affixed to her clothing, was
the silver head of a 3PO protocol droid. Its eyes were lit.
"I'm so happy to meet the most famous pilot of Starfighter Command," she
said; her voice was pleasant but loud, unrestrained.
"Thank you," he said. "Urn, I couldn't help noticing that you have two
heads."
She smiled. "This is Whitecap, my holo-recording
unit. I put him together
from a ruined protocol droid and a standard holocam. I added memory and some
basic conversational circuitry and programming. He looks wherever I lookthe
goggles have sensors that track my eye movementand records whatever I see."
"I see," Wedge said. He didn't, but the words served as building tones
useful for plugging up holes where conversation should be. "Why?"
"I record a lot of interviews with children. Studies suggest that they
find 3PO units nonthreatening."
"Ah. And have you had much luck with this approach?" He was pretty sure
he knew the answer to this one.
"Well, not yet. I'm still working out the kinks in the system."
It would help if you started with the fact that you're a two-headed lady
with eyes that children can't see, Wedge thought, but kept it to himself. "And
now you're taking a temporary break from children to record Starfighter
pilots."
She nodded. The 3PO head remained stationary on her shoulder, unaffected
by her motion. "It's a wonderful opportunity. Thank you."
"Well, you're welcome. But I'm afraid that Whitecap is going to have to
suffer some additional coding. I need to be able to issue a verbal command and
shut him off. Circumstances sometimes demand privacy."
Hallis fidgeted. "That was never part of the arrangement. I'll have to
refuse."
"Very well. You'll be getting some very good footage of the inside of
your cabin."
"Oh. Well, in that case, I accept. I'll do the coding myself."
"And then hand Whitecap over to the Allegiance's code-slicers briefly
for, oh, code optimization."
Hallis's smile flickered for a moment and Wedge knew he'd guessed
correctly. Hallis must have intended to arrange things so that a second code
issued by her would secretly override Wedge's shutoff command. "Of course,"
she said, but there was now just a trace of brittleness to her voice.
Wedge returned his attention to Captain Salaban. "Allow me in turn to
introduce you to my pilots. I present Colonel Tycho Celchu, leader of Rogue
Squadron."
Tycho offered the ship captain a salute. "Sir." He was a lean man, blond,
graying in dignified fashion at the temples, with handsome features and an
aristocrat's bearing. The perfection of his looks might have made him appear
severe, even cruel, in earlier years, but the beatings life had handed himthe
loss of his family on Alderaan at the hands of Grand Moff Tarkin and the first
Death Star, capture and attempted brainwashing by Imperial Intelligence head
Ysanne Isard, and suspicion on the part of New Republic Military Intelligence
forces that despite his escape he had succumbed to that brainwashing and was
an enemy in their midstall had weathered him in spirit if not in form. Now,
he still looked in every way the cold aristocrat... until one looked in his
eyes and saw the humanity and the signs of distant pain there.
"This is Major Wes Janson, and if you're not aware of his exploits, I'm
sure he'll be delighted to give you the whole story."
Janson shot Wedge a cool look as he shook the ship captain's hand. "Good
to be here." He turned to the documentarian. "Oh, and, Hallis, I'm better
known for my breathtaking looks than my fighting skills, so don't forget that
this is my good side." He turned his head so Hallis's recorder would get a
straight-on look at his left profile.
Wedge suppressed a snort. Janson's self-promotion came out of a desire to
entertain rather than from any serious case of narcissism, but he was as good-
looking as he suggested. Like Wedge and a majority of other successful fighter
pilots, he was a few centimeters short of average height, but Janson was
unusually broad in the shoulders, and endowed with a body that showed muscle
definition after only light exercise and was not inclined to fat. His hair was
a rich brown, and his merry features were not just handsome but
preternaturally youthful; he was now in his thirties but could pass for ten
years younger. A most unfair combination, Wedge thought.
"And Major Derek Klivian," Wedge concluded.
The fourth pilot leaned in for a handshake. He was lean, with dark hair
and a face best suited to wearing mournful expressions. "Captain," he said.
Then he, too, turned to the documentarian. "Everyone calls me Hobbie," he
said. "And I'll get back with you on my last name. Lots of people misspell it.
"
Wedge resisted the urge to look into the eyes of the recording unit. He
knew that second head would attract his attention during upcoming events; it
was best to train himself now to ignore it. But he couldn't help but wonder
what sort of scene would emerge from this recording, what part it would play
in the documentary Hallis would be assembling. Or how he'd look beside his
more colorful subordinate pilots. Wedge was, like Janson, below average
height, and he thought of himself as one of the most ordinary-looking men
alive. But admirers had told him that his features bespoke intelligence and
determination. Qwi had said there was a mesmerizing depth to his brown eyes.
Other ladies had been charmed by his hair it was worn short, but as long as
military regulations-allowed, and was the sort of fine hair that stirred in
any breeze and invited ladies' hands to run through it.
He gave an internal shrug. Perhaps he didn't suffer as much as he feared
in comparison with extroverts like Janson. He just wished that when he was
shaving he could see some of these traits his admirers noted.
"I'd appreciate it," he said, "if we could get a temporary paint job on
the X-wings. Red Flight One, Two, Three, Four," He pointed to himself, Tycho,
Janson, and Hobbie in turn. "A white base, but Rogue Squadron reds for the
striping, no unit patch."
Salaban nodded. "Easily done."
"So," Wedge said, "what's first on our agenda settling in to quarters
or a mission briefing?"
Salaban's expression suggested that the question was not a welcome one.
"Settling in, I'm afraid, sir. There won't be a briefing until you land on-
planet. Intelligence decided not to provide a liaison at this time."
Wedge bit back a response that would not have sounded appropriate in the
mission documentary. "We're going in cold?"
Captain Salaban nodded.
Wedge forced a smile for the holocam. "Well, just another challenge,
then. Let's see those quarters."
2
Wedge was still occasionally fuming, days later, when Allegiance dropped
out of hyperspace at the edges of the Adumar solar system. There was such a
thing, of course, as overplanning. With too much time and too much desire to
put every mission detail into a mission profile, it was possible to lose
perspective on which objectives were most important, on which tactics were
most effective.
But this was the polar opposite of that situation. He didn't know any
more now about the people of Adumar than when he received the datacard from
Cracken. As he sat in his X-wing, running through his preflight checklist, he
had available to him only a set of coordinates on the planet's surface. Once
Allegiance made its ap
proach to the worldan odd, inconvenient path like an
obstacle i course, with direction changes at one of the system's uninhabited
worlds and one of Adumar's two moons Wedge and his three pilots would launch
and make the final approach to their destination... whatever it was that the
mathematical coordinates represented. One of Allegiance's shuttles, filled
with support personnel, in-
cluding Hallis Saper, had already descended to make preparations for
their arrival.
"Red Flight, this is Allegiance. Our final leg terminates in one minute."
Wedge glanced at his comm board. The minute was already counting downhis
R5 unit, Gate, had also received the transmission and, on his own initiative,
begun a count down. Wedge said, "This is Red Leader. Understood. We launch at
arrival plus five seconds. Red Flight, are you good to go?"
"Red Two, ready." That was Tycho, as economical of words as he was of
motion.
"Red Three, four lit and ready to burn." Janson's inimitable voice and
enthusiasm were evident even across the standard X-wing comm distortion.
"Red Four, nothing's gone wrong yet." There was almost a hopeful note to
Hobbie's dour tone.
Wedge felt Allegiance heel to starboard, a maneuver lasting ten seconds,
and it ended just as his countdown dropped to zero. "Red Flight, launch." He
suited action to words, bringing his X-wing up on repulsorlifts until it was
three meters above the hangar floor, then drifting forward over the main
hangar access. Below was a great dark mass featuring occasional sprinkles of
lightAdumar's night side. He angled until his nose was straight down, then
smoothly brought up his thrusters and shot toward the planet's surface. His
sensor board and a visual check to either side showed his three companions
tucked in close beside and behind him in diamond formation. He oriented toward
the planet's direction of spin; Allegiance's orbit was above the planet's
equator. "Leader, Two. We have company." Wedge checked his sensor board again.
It showed two red blips paralleling their course, about ten klicks from one
another and ten klicks above Red Flight's course. As he watched, another two
blips began rising from below on an identical course. The sensors designated
them
"Unknown Type." He took a look at them with visual sensors, but could
just barely make out a black fuselage and an unusual split to the rear