Wraith Squadron (6 page)

“I tend to disagree.”

“Your experiences do not match mine. And in my experience, a Gamorrean flyer tends to receive an undue amount of abuse from his fellows. Not just pranks. Sometimes sabotage. Lies. Challenges.”

“You didn’t strike your officer?”

“I have struck several fellow pilots in well-moderated challenge matches. I have never had to strike one more than once. You will notice that charges were filed against me within half an hour of the alleged incident. No one I have ever struck has been able to speak coherently within half an hour of my striking him. Sir, he struck at
me;
I blocked his blow. He has chosen to remember that as an attack. He is willing to drop charges only because he is not strong enough to accept responsibility for the full measure of his persecution of me.”

Wedge considered. “Well, that’s about all for now. Candidate training begins tomorrow.” He rose. The others followed suit, and he shook the Gamorrean’s hand. “By the way, what do you like to be called? Voort?”

“I am content with Voort. But many others call me Piggy. I am content with it, too, for I can ignore the definite derogatory component that goes with it.”

Wedge and Janson exchanged glances. “The lieutenant and I once knew a very fine human pilot who went by Piggy. There’s no ‘derogatory component’ to it in this squadron. Rather, it’s a badge of honor I hope you can live up to.”

“I will try to do so.”

When the Gamorrean was gone, Wedge said, “I wonder what Porkins would have thought of him.”

Janson shrugged. “We’ll know better when we’ve flown with him.”

“Well, who’s next? A mynock? A womp rat?”

“My, you are getting paranoid. No, next, and last, is a human male, Kell Tainer from Sluis Van. I think he’s exactly the leader type you want to replace you when it’s time to return to Rogue Squadron. Assuming Myn Donos doesn’t return to normal.”

“Good. Show him in.”

A moment later Flight Officer Tainer entered.
General Crespin is going to love him
, Wedge decided.

Kell Tainer stood nearly two meters tall, with a handsome, sculpted face that holorecorders would adore. Dark hair cut short framed light blue eyes—a couple of shades lighter and they’d make him look like a madman, but at this shade they were piercing, mesmerizing. He was built like an athlete, actually a little too broad in the shoulders to be entirely comfortable in an X-wing’s cockpit, but that was a problem for which he would already have learned to compensate.

Kell snapped to a precision salute and held it until Wedge returned it. “Flight Officer Tainer reporting, sir, and a pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise. Let me introduce you to my second-in-command, Lieutenant Janson.”

Kell had turned toward Janson and was in midsalute as Wedge spoke. Wedge watched as the pilot’s back suddenly locked upright. Tainer’s salute pose and salute became iron-rigid. Kell did not meet Janson’s eyes, but he did ask, “Lieutenant
Wes
Janson, sir?”

With a bewildered expression, Janson said, “That’s me.” He finally remembered to return the salute.

Kell turned back to Wedge, kept his gaze focused above Wedge’s head. “I apologize, sir. I cannot join this squadron. I withdraw my application. Permission to leave?”

Wedge said, “Why?”

“I’d prefer not to say, sir.”

“Understood. Now answer the question.”

Kell seemed to vibrate for a moment as his muscles strained against one another. Then, his voice low, he said, “This man killed my father, sir. Permission to leave?”

Janson, his expression shocked, came around to Wedge’s side of the desk. His gaze searched Kell’s face, and a shadow of recognition crossed his features. “Tainer—your name wasn’t always Tainer, was it?”

“No, sir.”

“Doran?”

“Yes, sir.”

Janson looked away, his eyes tracing something back through the years.

Kell said, “Permission to leave, sir?”

“Wait in the hall,” Wedge said.

Kell left. Wedge turned to his second-in-command. “What’s this all about?”

4

Janson returned to his chair, finding his way into it by touch; he seemed to look into the past, not seeing anything around him. “My first kill—did I ever tell you that my first kill was an Alliance pilot?”

“No.”

“Not something one advertises. Back then, I was a pilot trainee in the Tierfon Yellow Aces. With Jek Porkins.”

“Good old Piggy.”

“The original. Those were the days when a training squadron might just get picked to do a strike mission that should have gone to an experienced squad—”

“Like today, you mean.”

“Well, it’s much less common today. You know that. That day, our mission was an ambush of an Imperial freighter and its TIE fighter escort. They were to come in to a landing at a temporary Imperial staging base we’d found out about. We were in Y-wings. One unit of the Yellow Aces was to strafe the base and run, leading off the garrisoned flyers, while the rest was to hit the freighter. To take it, if possible; we really needed the food and fuel.”

“So what happened?”

“The first part of the mission went as planned. But as the freighter came in, we saw that the TIE fighter escort was twice as big as advertised. And one of our pilots, a former freighter pilot from Alderaan, Kissek Doran, had a panic attack and took off in his Y-wing. Piggy and I were sent out to bring him back … or shoot him down.”

“And you did?”

The words exploded out of Janson: “Wedge, I had to! If he communicated on any standard frequency, if he crossed into the base’s sensor range, if he bounced high enough that the moon’s horizon no longer concealed him; if any of these things happened, we were compromised and the unit might have been slaughtered. Porkins tried to crowd him down to land, but he couldn’t, and I—” The words stuck in his throat for a moment. “I shot him down. I had to use lasers. Couldn’t risk the ion cannon; its energy pulse might have been detected. The blast cracked his cockpit; vacuum killed him. His scrounged flight suit wasn’t up to it.”

“It sounds as though you did everything you could to keep him alive.”

“Yes, until I killed him. I knew he had a wife and two or three kids back on Alderaan. I figured they’d died when the first Death Star destroyed the planet.”

Wedge took up Janson’s datapad and scanned Kell’s record. “It doesn’t say anything here about Alderaan or the Doran family.”

“They must have changed their family name, falsified records. The unit commander went to visit them, not long after he’d sent them the official notification of Kissek’s death. The story he was going to give her, supporting the one in the notification, was that he died in battle … but Kissek’s wife had already heard the truth from someone. Accused the Tierfon Yellow Aces not only of killing her husband but of ruining the family name. Maybe she tried to fix things by changing their name and moving away.”

Wedge sighed over the datapad. “Look at this. Tainer was a fighter-craft mechanic on Sluis Van. When he came to the Alliance, he trained as a demolitions expert. Served with Lieutenant Page’s commandos, then demonstrated a native
talent for fighting in re-creational simulators and got permission to train in the real thing. Have you ever met Page?”

“No.”

“A good man. Teaches his people well. Wes, we really need Tainer … if we can persuade him to stay.”

Janson gave him a look that was all mock cheer. “Oh, wonderful. I killed his father. He hates me. He knows how to make
bombs
. Come on, Wedge, how does this story end?”

“If he’s an honorable man, you’re in no danger.”

“So he gets to the boiling point, and then he pops like the cork on bad Tatooine wine.”

“All Tatooine wine is bad.”

“Don’t change the subject. Anyway, keep reading.”

Wedge returned his attention to the datapad. “In training, one Headhunter crashed. One X-wing set down hard enough that it took a lot of damage. He claimed unresponsive controls both times?”

Janson nodded. “Typical response from someone who can’t accept responsibility for his failures.”

Wedge looked up and gave his fellow pilot a piercing stare. “So, back when you were hot to add him to our roster, how were you going to convince me to overlook this little crash-landing problem?”

“Wedge …”

“Answer the question.”

Janson looked unhappy. “I was going to point out that he could have been correct. The two crashes aren’t consistent with his skill index. He’s good, and I mean brilliant, in the simulators.”

Wedge considered the information on the datapad for long moments. “Well, I’ll accept your explanation. I want us to try him out. If he doesn’t work out, I’ll scrub him. If he does work out and yet the two of you can’t work together …”

“In the long run, you actually need him in this unit more than you need me.” Janson’s voice was weary. “In that case, with your permission, I’d transfer back to the Rogues. I can swap with Hobbie.”

Wedge nodded, solemn. “Thanks, Wes.”

·  ·  ·

Janson let Wedge do all the talking. Wedge imagined that it felt better not to have Kell Tainer turn any attention toward him whatsoever.

Wedge explained the situation in a few words, then asked, “Tainer,
are
you an honorable man?”

The pilot, his back once again locked into correct but overtense military posture, said, “I am.”

“Do you think Lieutenant Janson is any less honorable?”

Tainer took his time in replying. “No, sir.” The words sounded as though they were being ground out of him.

“You took an oath to serve the New Republic, and you have to understand that we need your precise skills more than you need to avoid reminders of what happened to your father. Janson took the same oath, though in his case it was to the Alliance to restore the Republic, back when you were still playing with toys. And he understands that we need his skills more than he needs to be free of the dislike you have for him … or of the memory of doing something he didn’t want to do. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So I’m going to ask you to stay. For now. If you two can’t work together, we’ll make arrangements. But I have to warn you, with your record, placement in any other unit means you’re not likely ever to fly a fighter again. You’ll probably end up back in the commandos.”

“I liked the commandos.”

“Yes, but you’ll never be able to repair your father’s name there. You’ll never show the galaxy that the name ‘Doran’ doesn’t translate as ‘pilot and coward.’ ”

Tainer’s head snapped down and he finally met Wedge’s gaze. His eyes were as full of rage as any Wedge had ever seen; Wedge resisted the temptation to take a step backward. “How
dare
you—”

Wedge kept his own voice low. “Attention.” He waited three long beats, until Tainer again assumed the proper pose and returned his attention to the wall above Wedge’s head. Then Wedge continued, “I dare, if that’s the word, because it’s the truth. I’ll bet you’ve had this dream, a dream of being
a pilot and restoring the honor to your family’s name, since you were back on Alderaan. Well, you’ve yet to fly a combat mission and you’re already about to wash out of the pilot ranks. Here’s your last chance. So, do you stay or do you go?”

Tainer’s jaw worked for several moments, but he made no sound. Then: “I stay. Sir.” His voice suggested that he was speaking in spite of a deep stab wound.

“Good. Dismissed.”

When Tainer was gone, Janson let out a low whistle. “Wedge, I’m not criticizing … but that was the coldest maneuver I’ve seen in a long time.”

“You fly through vacuum, you sometimes need cold-space lubricants instead of blood.” Wedge slumped wearily back in his chair. Suddenly he felt impossibly tired, and wondered how many pilots would regularly bring him problems like these.

Kell strapped himself into his seat, an effort made a little difficult because the cockpit was so tight around him, and flipped the four switches igniting his X-wing’s fusial thrust engines—actually, igniting the ersatz engines on this X-wing simulator. Simulators being as sophisticated and realistic as they were, it was sometimes an effort to distinguish them from reality; they even used gravitational compensators to simulate zero gee during deep-space mission simulations.

Around him, in the viewscreens that simulated the X-wing’s transparisteel canopy, he saw a fighter launch bay; he knew the real one was actually half a klick above him, much closer to the lunar surface.

His board indicated that all four engines were live and performing at near-optimal levels. “Gold One has four starts and is ready. Primary and secondary power at full. All diagnostics in the green.”

His comm system crackled. “Gold Two, identical report. Ready to fly.”

Kell didn’t know who Gold Two was; the other pilots in this Gold group mission had been sealed into their simulators
already by the time Kell had arrived for the mission. He wondered if they’d been getting in a few minutes extra practice before the exercise. He wondered if he should have been doing the same.

Gold Two’s voice, distorted through the comm system, was not deep but seemed to be male; odd pronunciation suggested that Basic was not his native tongue.

“Gold Three, everything is nominal. Ready to go.” Those were the mechanical tones of Piggy, the Gamorrean. Kell was interested in seeing how that pilot flew; Piggy was the one candidate trainee who was physically even broader than Kell, even more uncomfortable in the standard X-wing cockpit.

“Gold Four, everything nominal, ready to go.” A female voice. Kell had met several female candidates trying out for places in this squadron, but comm distortion kept him from being able to match this voice to anyone he’d met.

Lieutenant Janson’s voice crackled in his ear, not distorted at all; Kell stiffened. “Launch in sixty,” Janson said. “We have incoming spacecraft, eyeballs and squints, screening a capital ship. Engage and hold them ten klicks from base. Your job is to keep them off us long enough to launch our transports. You fail, we die. Training protocol one-seven-nine is in effect. Control out.”

Kell tried to force his shoulder muscles to relax. He switched the comm over to a direct channel to his wingman. “Gold Two, what’s training protocol one-seven-nine?”