The answer “It’s none of your business” rose to the top of his mind, he even heard it in his most snappish tone, but he restrained himself from saying it. He didn’t know how badly such a response might cut her. “Yes, it was.”
“If you slipped away just to avoid exposing me to something—”
“No, it was nothing like that.”
“I’m not as young as I look, you needn’t worry about shocking me—”
“Cheriss.” He sighed and closed his eyes. “Listen. When I was your age, I borrowed a Headhunter, that’s a type of starfighter, from a friend, and used it to kill the men who were responsible for my parents’ deaths. A deliberate act of revenge. The whole universe changed. All the things that had surprised or shocked or offended me just the day before became nothing, instantly.” He opened his eyes, sought out her gaze, and finally was able to hold it. “Like me, you’ve had blood on your hands from an early age. So I know you’re not going to be shocked. I’m not trying to protect you.”
“Was she … a pilot? The woman last night?”
He considered that question, wondered just how far he was willing to answer her curiosity, and said, “No.”
Her face brightened. “No? No.
No
. I hope you fly well today. I mean, I know you will fly well today, but I hope others see. Remember to specify match numbers when you accept a challenge.”
Wedge nodded. He’d already learned about that protocol. If he didn’t “specify match numbers” when accepting a challenge, such as by saying “we accept four,” the attackers could bring as many pilots as they wanted against him. The usual protocol was to accept as many challengers as he had pilots in his own flight or squadron.
He watched as Cheriss, suddenly, mysteriously transformed into a happy young woman again, trotted up to the front of the transport and leaned over the rail into the wind.
He moved back to his pilots. “Any of you understand that? Her mood swing?”
Tycho said, “I think I’d shoot myself before getting involved in this conversation.”
Hobbie shrugged. “Not one of my languages, Wedge.”
Janson threw up his arms, tossing his cloak back over his shoulders. It was a practice move; he’d already done it forty times this morning. He drew the cloak back around him, where Wedge could see its flexible flatscreen panels in front, the moving images they showed of Janson on the receiving stand the other night, and he nodded. “I understood her, boss. But you don’t want to know. Trust me on this.”
“Anytime Janson says ‘you don’t want to know,’ ” Wedge said, “it’s like juggling thermal detonators. Each time you grab and throw, you know your thumb might hit the trigger …” He sighed and turned to Janson. “I want to know.”
“You asked for it … You told her your lady friend wasn’t a pilot, right? Cheriss also isn’t a pilot. Here, she
can’t compete with pilots in prestige. But you saw a lady who wasn’t a pilot. You just told Cheriss, ‘Yes, you too have a chance with me.’ ”
Wedge stood there, contemplating, unconsciously rocking in place to compensate for the transport’s swaying motion across the ground. “Wes, you were right,” he said.
“You didn’t want to know.”
“I didn’t want to know.”
Janson grinned. “Boom.”
Wedge and Tycho flew a head-to-head pass against Janson and Hobbie. As the numbers on their range meters rolled toward zero, he watched the brackets on the lightboard as they surrounded the two “enemy” Blade-32s. At first, the brackets were fuzzy and indistinct; then they grew in solidity as the lightboard sensor technology gradually improved its lock on them. At the same time, his sensor board began emitting a deep, ominous, throbbing noise, warning of the enemy’s improving chance to target him.
The lightboard brackets went to full opacity at the same instant the throbbing warning hit its maximum volume. Wedge immediately rolled to port and dove, losing hundreds of meters of altitude in a matter of seconds, then came nose-up again, seeking Janson and Hobbie, who were similarly energetic in their attempt to elude a laser lock.
Wedge got the Blade-32 oriented toward his two targets, pleased with the way the starfighter increasingly felt natural to him. Visuals and his lightboard showed Janson breaking to starboard, Hobbie to port; he looped after the former and trusted Tycho to complement his action by going after the latter target.
He barely had Janson lined up in his weapon brackets when his target opened fire on him, stitching him with several blue pulses from his vehicle’s rear-firing lasers.
Wedge growled at himself; unused to dueling with vehicles with rear weapons, he’d forgotten about them momentarily, while Janson, an experienced rear gunner, had utilized them from the start. But Wedge’s sensor board indicated that the simulated laser damage he’d sustained was not critical. Wedge began bobbing and sideslipping, attempts to keep Janson from achieving another targeting lock, and waited for his opportunity.
It came a moment later. Janson’s Blade began a quick drift to port. Wedge hit the trigger for his vehicle’s missiles, launched one into and slightly left of Janson’s drift, then traversed right and fired again. Janson, quick on the reflex, shied right out of the first missile’s path … and the second missile detonated two meters ahead of his Blade, blanketing the starfighter in a thick cloud of obnoxious orange paint. Janson emerged from the explosion with streaks of orange along his flanks and a large spot of it on his forward viewport.
“I am slain,” Janson said, his tone lofty. “What mischance ever brought me to this dismal world, where bags of paint would spell my doom?”
“You’ve been listening to the Adumari too much,” Wedge said. He checked his lightboard. It showed Tycho and Hobbie, a few kilometers out, heading toward them in formation. “How’d you do, Tycho?”
“A rare one for Hobbie,” Tycho said. “Brought me to one hundred percent damage with laser fire.”
“Tycho’s too used to really maneuverable fighters,” Hobbie said. “TIE fighters, A-wings … the X-wing is the most sluggish thing he’s ever spent a lot of time with. The Blade is just too much like flying a boulder for him.”
The four formed up again, began a long loop around the broad tract of forest that Giltella Air Base had assigned for their training exercises.
“Still no challenges,” Wedge said. “By this time yesterday, we’d had three or four of them at least.”
“I don’t think they’re going to go for simulated
weapons,” Tycho said. “They’re so keen to see blood, Wedge. The last group of people I saw with that sort of enthusiasm for killing was Imperial stormtroopers fresh from boot camp. It’s kind of unnerving.”
“I still have to figure out what sort of reason to give them for simulated duels,” Wedge said. “Something they’ll accept within the parameters of their honor code.”
“Oh, that’s simple,” Hobbie said. “Do to them what you do to us at times like that.”
Wedge frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Tell them
what
you’re doing but not
why
. Then let them speculate. Listen to them as they speculate. When they come up with an idea you really, really like, tell them ‘You finally guessed right. That was my reasoning all along.’ ”
“I don’t do that,” Wedge said. “Much.”
“All the time, boss.”
Wedge caught a new pattern of motion on his lightboard, six blips incoming. “Heads up. We have something.”
A moment later, a new voice came across the comm board, a brassy one that rang in their ears: “Strike the Moons Flightknife issues greetings to New Republic Red Flight, and a challenge!”
Wedge kept his comm unit tuned to broadcast at low strength and only on Red Flight’s frequency. “Tycho, call Giltella Air Base and make sure these guys are really equipped with sim weapons.” He switched to the general frequency and upped his broadcast power. “Red Flight to Strike the Moons Flightknife, greetings. I will consider your challenge. Please give me the particulars about your pilots.”
“I am Liak ke Mattino, captain, fourteen years’ experience, eighteen war kills, thirty-three duel kills, one ground kill. I bring five pilots before you. In order of precedence, they are …”
Wedge listened to the litany of accomplishments with half his attention. He could have obtained the same information by tapping on the blip representing ke Mattino and the other Blades on the lightboard; the board’s text screen would have then shown the appropriate data from the transponders on their fighters. But demanding an oral recitation was a good way to stall.
Tycho’s reply came a minute later, toward the end of Captain ke Mattino’s inventory: “Giltella confirms Strike the Moons is equipped with sims, General.”
“Thanks, Tycho.” Wedge switched back to general frequency. “Captain, we accept your challenge. We accept four, your choice. Standing by.”
They waited while the Strike the Moons pilots chose among themselves. Two Blade-32’s peeled away from the Cartann half squad and circled out to a much greater distance. Then the other four fighters banked in the direction of Red Flight.
“Break by wings,” Wedge said. “Fire at will.” He banked hard to starboard, Tycho tucked in behind him and to his left, and waited to see how the enemy would react.
All four enemy Blades turned to follow Wedge and Tycho.
Wedge shook his head. That was an odd tactical choice. He heard the first throbbing of targeting locks being brought against him and began evasive maneuvering. For practice’s sake, he opened fire on his pursuers with his lasers, though he had no better laser locks than they did. On his lightboard, he could see Hobbie and Janson pulling into position in pursuit of the four Blades.
The laser locks grew stronger. Wedge said, “Let’s give Wes and Hobbie something to shoot at,” and shoved his control yoke forward, sending his Blade into a steep dive, and rotating so they still only had a side angle on him.
The four pursuers followed but did not rotate. Wedge kept up his laser fire against one of them and grinned. If he understood the simple Adumari lightbounce system correctly, the bigger the metal cross section it saw, the farther away it could get a good laser lock. In exposing their bellies to Janson and Hobbie, the four Blades had substantially increased their cross sections, which the two New Republic pilots should be seeing just about—
He saw missile streaks appear like magic lines between Hobbie’s and Janson’s Blades and two of the enemy craft. Paint clouds erupted, one an appalling pink, one a lavender, and one enemy Blade emerged from each. Both the “kills” broke off from the fight, moving out to meet the two pilots sitting out the conflict.
That left two. No, one. One of the remaining Blades broke away to join the other kills. As it departed, it broadcast, “Ke Mattino congratulates Antilles on a good stop.”
Wedge checked his sensor board. He must have racked up enough hits to put the enemy captain in the kill column. His own Blade showed twenty percent damage; he’d picked up a couple of grazes himself.
The surviving enemy Blade came doggedly on after Wedge and Tycho. Wedge leveled off smoothly and switched his comm system back to Red Flight frequency. “Let’s try a simple one,” he said. “Break to starboard and rejoin Wes and Hobbie. I’ll lead him back for a head-to-head against you.”
“Done, boss.” Tycho broke away sharply. As Wedge expected, the pursuing Blade paid him no heed, continuing on after Wedge.
Wedge juked and jinked, making himself a hard a target to hit, though he saw his simulated laser damage climb to thirty percent, then to thirty five percent. This pilot was a good shot. But his maneuvering pointed him
back toward the other three members of Red Flight. As soon as his sensor board indicated that he could get a good shot at his own pilots, the blip that was the last enemy Blade changed to a kill marker and circled off to rejoin its fellows.
“A good exercise, Strike the Moons,” Wedge said. “Care to go again?”
There was a noticeable delay before the enemy captain replied. “Again? The duel is done.”
“Yes, but nobody’s a smoking crater, and we have fuel enough for two or three more at least. Do you want to go again, maybe let the two pilots who didn’t go last time come against us now?”
There was still confusion in the captain’s voice, but he said, “We could do that.” And moments later, four Blades, two that had taken part in the previous exercise and two that had not, broke away from the circling formation and came again against Red Flight.
Captain ke Mattino was a tiny man, lean of form and rising barely to Wedge’s nose, but his long and elaborately curled mustache doubtless helped increase his personal majesty to acceptable levels. He sat opposite Wedge in the Giltella Air Base pilots’ bar and nodded as Wedge spoke, every bob of his head setting his mustache to swaying.
“The problem is not in your skills,” Wedge said. “It’s in your tactics. In every exchange, you kept your whole group together and went with all ferocity after the highest-profile enemy … me. You know what that makes you?”
Ke Mattino looked suspicious. “Dead?”
“Well, I was going to say
predictable
. But predictability, in this case, meant dead, so you’re right.” Wedge glanced down the table, where his three pilots and ke Mattino’s listened intently.
“But circumstance dictates tactics,” ke Mattino said,
his voice a protest. “The greatest honor comes from killing the most prestigious enemy.”
“No,” Tycho said. “That’s the second greatest honor. The greatest honor comes from protecting those who are depending on you. Which you can’t do if you get yourself killed.”
Wedge nodded. “The question is, are you earning honor so that your loved ones can be proud of you as they stand over your grave, or so they can be proud of you when you come home at night?” He raised his brewglass to drain it, but was hit by a hollow feeling as his words came back on him: The question was merely an academic one to him. He had no one to come home to. He even had fewer friends than he’d thought, having somehow lost Iella while he wasn’t looking.
To disguise his sudden feeling of disquiet, he went to the bar to get his brewglass refilled, leaving Tycho to continue in charge of the conversation. Two words were still haunting the back of his mind, intruding when he wasn’t absolutely focused on some other subject:
Lost Iella
.