“I know you want down. I’ll find a tech to do that.”
He turned toward the flight operations center and raised a hand to signal for a tech, but a woman slipped her fingers through his, then bumped him bodily back a step beneath the X-wing. She covered his mouth with hers and Corran enfolded her in a fierce hug. He clung tightly to her, drinking in the spicy scent of her hair and perfume as they kissed.
Eventually, reluctantly, he freed his mouth from hers and looked up into her smoldering brown eyes. “Damn, I have missed you so much, Mirax. I …”
She kissed him again. “You’re here, I’m here. The missing part is over, my love.”
Corran reached a hand up and stroked her cheek, brushing away a single tear. “Of happiness, I hope.”
“Very much so.” She pulled her face back a couple of centimeters and arched a black eyebrow at him. “No tears of joy from you?”
He shrugged. “You’d have a flood, but it’s bad for the pilot image thing, you know?”
Whistler’s harsh blatting from above them stole any need for Mirax to reply.
She jerked a thumb in the droid’s direction. “He’s right; you pilots take this image thing much too seriously.” Mirax flicked a finger up under his chin. “Then again, guys who weep never have done much for me.”
“You love me for my stoic attitude then?”
“No, dear, it’s the lightsaber.” She swung around on his left, slipping her right arm around his waist. “Do you need to report for debriefing, or can I steal you away?”
Corran frowned. “I think we covered everything on the trip back from Bilbringi.”
“So you want to just go home and fall into bed?”
He shook his head as they threaded their way through the chaos the squadron’s return had created. “I got plenty of rack time on
Home One
during the trip.”
“Not the question I asked, husband.”
Corran blinked. “I guess I
have
been away too long.”
“I’m sure Mirax will think of ways for you to make up for lost time, Lieutenant.” Wedge Antilles smiled broadly. “I hear she’s very inventive.”
“Wedge!” Mirax launched herself into his arms and gave him a big hug. “I knew Thrawn wouldn’t get you.”
Wedge smiled and brushed Mirax’s black hair back off her shoulders. “Well, someone had to keep Corran alive. I didn’t want to have to come back to Coruscant here and tell you he’d died.”
“Not a worry, not once.” Mirax brushed a hand across the rank insignia on the chest of Wedge’s orange flight suit. The round-cornered rectangle contained five dots in a cross pattern. “A General? Oh, Wedge, your folks would have been so proud.” Leaning forward, she kissed him on the cheek.
“Thanks.” Wedge slipped from her embrace and glanced
down. His face reddened slightly, then he looked up with a smile. “Not really what I planned for a life, but I’ve heard it said that life is what happens while you wait for plans to work.”
“I’ve heard that, too.” Mirax stepped back to Corran’s side and slid the fingers of her right hand through those of his left. “New rank and new responsibilities for you, I guess.”
“True.” Wedge frowned and looked around the hangar. “And I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask how you knew when to meet us and how you got in here. This is supposed to be a secure area.”
Mirax shot Corran a hard glance. “Been giving him suspicion lessons?”
Corran shook his head. “Not me. And I know the Terriks better than to ask such a question.”
“Good point, Corran.” Wedge nodded sheepishly. “I guess I should be thankful Booster hasn’t parked his
Errant Venture
here.”
Mirax laughed. “He would have, but he’s not fully trusting the story that Thrawn is gone. He thinks it’s a rumor meant to get him to bring his Star Destroyer out of hiding so Thrawn can add it to his fleet.”
Corran tapped a finger against his chin. “Booster versus Thrawn. Now there’s a match I’d pay money to see.”
“Just wait. Eventually Booster will decide that his jumping the
EV
around produced enough stories of an Impstar Deuce running around behind Thrawn’s lines that
he
was the reason Thrawn was distracted enough to die at Bilbringi.” Wedge smiled broadly. “Five years from now we’ll find we were flying with the
Venture
when we took out that Golan station.”
Mirax pressed fingers to Corran’s lips and gave him a glare that forestalled any comment about her father. “To answer your earlier question, General Antilles, your arrival was anticipated because Admiral Ackbar requested a party to welcome the squadron back. Emtrey, being efficient and interested in good value, communicated to me the needs for this celebration.”
Corran gently pulled Mirax’s fingers from his lips. “We’re having a welcome-home party catered by a droid?”
His wife smiled. “I gave him a choice: his budget or his selections. Things will kick off in your base recreation center about eight.”
Wedge nodded. “You making a
ryshcate
?”
“That’s my intention. I pretty much have everything I need at home.” Mirax glanced at Corran. “Save, perhaps, an assistant.”
Corran pointed back to where a tech was using a crane to pull Whistler out of his green and white X-wing. “Whistler will be available in just a second.”
Her grip on his hand tightened. “Not quite the assistant I had in mind.”
Corran felt a burst of heat rush up his body, then his face reddened. He looked over at Wedge. “If you don’t mind, General, I guess I have some cooking to do.”
Whistler’s diligent timing of the baking
ryshcate
and his promise of a shrill alarm when it was done enabled Corran and Mirax to spend time outside the kitchen of their small apartment. The kitchen itself, while boasting some of the best appliances available, felt as cramped as an X-wing cockpit when all three of them tried to crowd in there. They retreated to a small living room, which was built side-by-side with the smaller of the apartment’s two bedrooms. Mirax used that room as an office for her import-export business, which meant it remained crammed with all manner of odd things. Corran didn’t mind that, though, since the clutter made it difficult to offer the room to Mirax’s father as a place to stay on his visits to Coruscant.
Mirax had redecorated the master bedroom while Corran was off with Rogue Squadron chasing Grand Admiral Thrawn. Redecorating while a war raged may have seemed frivolous, but Corran could understand it. He knew Mirax had not been idle during the Thrawn crisis. She had spent a great deal of time rescuing refugees from worlds Thrawn had threatened and running supplies to those who needed
them. When she returned to their apartment in Coruscant, the empty bedroom she had shared with him emphasized the fact that he wasn’t there.
By changing it around, by rearranging it into something she would show me when I returned, she worked toward making a future as opposed to worrying about an uncertain present.
Once the baking process had been turned over to Whistler, Mirax gladly and anxiously showed him all the changes she had made. He found the new bed very comfortable, the carpet woven of Ottegan silk very soft, and the nerf-wool towels decidedly greedy in drinking up the water left behind after a hot, steamy stint in the refresher station. Mirax had even made changes in his wardrobe, having added a couple of suits that were stylishly cut—though the bright colors did seem a tad harsh on his eyes.
Mirax snorted at his protests about the color of the outfit she wanted him to wear. “That vibrant green in slacks and tunic, with an ivory banded-collar shirt beneath, that’s the style now, Corran. The Empire made its last attempt to destroy the New Republic. Wearing dour Imperial colors, or the drab sort of things folks wore when fighting them, is out. Those clothes served to hide one away, but no longer.”
“It’s one thing to not be hiding away, but another to make yourself a target.” He smiled as he watched Mirax settle little dangling earrings in her lobes. The jewelry had a silvery sheen to it, much like the highlight and accent color of her gown. Corran couldn’t quite figure out how the long black dress, which had been cut low in the front and lower in the back, managed to get silver highlights—
perhaps, it uses some weirdly shaped thread in the weave that reflects from certain angles
—but it clearly made Mirax into a target. “Very impressive gown.”
“Why, thank you. You got it for me for our anniversary.”
Corran started to speak, then hesitated and frowned. He saw Mirax watching him in the mirror, so he just winced. “I didn’t forget the day, you know.”
“I know. I got the message you sent. I knew this was the sort of thing you’d get if you were here, so I just helped you out.” She turned and kissed him on the lips. “You know,
even though we’ve had to spend a fair amount of time apart, I am very happy to be married to you.”
“As I am to you.” Corran stroked the bare flesh over her spine as he kissed her. “The next Imp or warlord or pirate that decides to keep us apart is dead, just clean dead.”
“My thoughts exactly, my dear.” She kissed his nose, then turned him and steered him toward the door. “Perhaps the Rogues should issue a communiqué to that effect and peace will reign from now on.”
Despite a personal preference for remaining at home with Mirax and getting caught up with her life, Corran did enjoy the party his wife had arranged. In the almost three years he had spent in the squadron, he had gotten to know his fellow pilots well. He’d spent an incredible amount of time with them, usually under conditions that would most generously be described as adverse. They’d all become very close, and seeing them without the pressure of combat let Corran realize just how much he cared for them.
He smiled as he watched Gavin Darklighter dancing with Asyr Sei’lar. Corran remembered Gavin when he came into the squadron as a tall kid, just past that gawky phase but not by much. His light brown hair and brown eyes combined with a soft-spoken, easygoing personality that instantly inspired trust and friendship. Through the years Gavin had matured—with the goatee and mustache he now sported an external sign of the growing-up he had done.
The war transformed him from a desert-world farmboy to an ace pilot and a man who thinks before he acts.
Asyr Sei’lar, the Bothan female with whom Gavin had built a relationship, had a playful light burning in her violet eyes. While she might have been described as petite, and her black and white fur did give her a kittenish appearance, she moved with a fluid grace that hinted at a lot of power in her frame. Corran respected her as a pilot and because of choices she had made.
She stuck with the squadron in defiance of the wishes of her Bothan superiors, and she’s continued to see Gavin despite disapproval as well.
Bucking authority,
especially for a Bothan, took serious steel in the spine, but Asyr had plenty.
Ooryl Qyrgg, Corran’s long-time Gand wingman, came walking over to him, bearing a small plate covered with a rainbow of long, glistening, protoplasmic strips. He plucked one from the plate in a three-fingered hand, then delicately sucked it into his mouth, letting his mandibles click shut as it disappeared. A clear membrane nictitated over Ooryl’s compound eyes and the Gand hissed in what Corran had long ago learned to recognize as Ooryl’s approximation of a self-satisfied sigh.
“Tasty, are they?”
“Yes, Corran, very much so.” His mandibles spread apart in the best grin Ooryl could muster. “But an acquired taste. On Gand there are some races that cannot eat these
uumlourti
—they will actually die if they do. I do not think you would like them.”
Corran patted his friend on the gray-green exoskeleton over his left shoulder. “Truth be told, I’ve never been much for food that rates high on the slimy scale. And risking death to find out just isn’t something I want to do right now. But, don’t let me stop you.”
“I have no intention of that, Corran.”
The Corellian pilot shook his head. “There was a time, though, when you would have.”
“Ooryl does not quite understand that comment.”
“Looking at Gavin, I was thinking back to when I joined the squadron. Back then you had not been made
janwuine
, so you always referred to yourself as Ooryl or Qyrgg. You were not so forthright, but more cautious. Then you grew in your confidence and your skill, and it was—
is
—great.”
Ooryl gave him a sidelong glance. “The Ooryl you describe would have probably pointed out that he learned much from you during his time with the squadron.”
“Probably.”
“
I
, on the other hand, would not inflate your ego that way.” His mouthparts snapped open and closed sharply. “I am kidding you, yes?”
“I got it, Ooryl. You really
have
learned.”
“Yes. I have learned to appreciate my friends.” Ooryl gestured at another couple on the dance floor. “Captain Celchu remained focused on fighting the Empire despite being under suspicion of being a spy. Winter remained supportive of him despite the charges the New Republic laid against him. We were all happy when he was proved innocent, but Tycho never showed signs of being bitter.”
“True, he took his vindication in stride.” Corran looked around the room at the other squadron members. Hobbie and Janson were off in a corner chatting up a couple of Bothans. Inyri Forge, Nawara Ven and his wife, Rhysati Ynr—who Corran had seen only occasionally since she resigned from the squadron to start a family with Nawara—sat at a table listening to an old man tell tales of his days in a cockpit. Myn Donos had joined Wedge in speaking with General Salm, while the Quarren female, Lyyr Zatoq, and the male Issori, Khe-Jeen Slee, both appeared to be deep in conversation with Koyi Komad, a Twi’lek who had once served with Rogue Squadron as the chief mechanic.
“We’re all so different, but united because of our experiences in the squadron. That we were able to come together gives me some hope for the New Republic.”
“Yes, I have hope in that, too.” Ooryl slurped another
uumlourti.
“It is good to see all of our friends here.”
“True. I’d forgotten we had so many.” Corran smiled and nodded at a tall, bearded man who worked his way through the crowd toward him. Corran knew he had met the man in the past, but he couldn’t place him. Then the man raised his right hand in an abortive wave and Corran saw he was missing the last two fingers of his right hand.
“Sithspawn!”