Donos and Lara walked into the officers's cafeteria and stopped short. It didn't look the way it was supposed to.
Tables, normally arrayed in neat rows, had been dragged out of line into zigzags, into four-table rectangles. Though the chamber was sparsely occupied, even that was different; normally the diners would be scattered across the chamber, but now they were concentrated at three or four tables.
Donos and Lara approached the closest table. The one where their commander sat with General Solo and Chew bacca. Sabacc cards were laid out on the table before them.
"Excuse me, sir," Donos said, "I hate to interrupt—"
Wedge looked up. "What did you call me?".
"Uh, sir."
"Who do you think I am?"
Donos glanced at Lara, but she seemed as puzzled as he. "Commander Wedge Antilles, New Republic Starfighter—"
Wedge shook his head. "No, no, no. I just look like him. If I were Antilles, wouldn't I be wearing appropriate rank insignia?"
It was true; he wore none. For that matter, neither did General Solo.
"In fact," Wedge said, "what's that you're wearing? Lieu tenant's insignia ?"
"Uh, yes—"
"Off," Wedge said.
"Off," Solo repeated.
"Off off off off," Wedge said.
Donos pulled the rank insignia from his jacket. Lara followed suit with hers.
Wedge visibly calmed. "That's better," he said. "Wait. Where's your astromech?"
Donos's mouth worked for a moment as he considered responses. "I don't think I have an answer that will please you. Sir. Or Not-Sir. Whoever you are."
"You certainly don't. The astromechs are the backbone of Starfighter Command. Hardest-working beings in the galaxy. They need some rest and recreation, too. Don't you agree?"
"I, uh,I do."
"Good. Get out. Don't come back without your astro mechs." Wedge gathered up the sabacc cards. "New hand. Who's in?"
When Face wandered in, his R2 unit Vape wheeling along be hind him, the cafeteria was more than half-full. It was also loud; card games and conversations dominated most of the tables. Some of the kitchen staff appeared to be on duty, bringing out drinks and various sorts of snacks, but they cheerfully exchanged sharp words with the officers present in a way they'd never do under ordinary circumstances. Officers sat with enlisted men and women, and, though uniforms suggested which was which and the services being represented, there were no rank insignia to be seen.
Chewbacca waved him over. Face and Vape moved up to his table.
Over his hand of cards, Wedge gave him a cool appraisal. "It's the one who looks like Captain Loran. But he has his astromech and no rank. He'll pass."
"Thank you, uh, one who looks like Commander Antilles."
"He catches on quickly," Wedge said. "One second. Vape, cold one."
A trapezoid-shaped plate at the top of Vape's ball head slid open. There was a chuff of compressed air, and a condensation- dewed bottle leaped up into the air. Wedge caught it with his free hand and set it down on the table before him. "Thanks, Vape. Thanks, one-who-looks-like-Face. That'll be all." He turned back to his game.
Face said, "You weren't supposed to know about that. And it certainly shouldn't have worked for you."
"I look just like the group leader. That gives me special privileges."
"Besides, it was my last one."
"Well, come back when you're fully stocked."
The others at the table—men and women who looked like General Solo, Chewbacca, Captain Todra Mayn of Polearm Squadron, Gavin Darklighter and Asyr Sei'lar of Rogue Squadron, laughed.
Face turned away. "Run along and play," he told Vape. "This is going to be an interesting evening."
Wedge's mutiny of anonymity spread through the ship with a sort of quiet persistence. No officers on duty abandoned their tasks to join it, but crewmen coming off duty gravitated to the officers's cafeterias and, when the mutiny became too populous, into adjoining noncommissioned crew cafeterias, briefing halls, and auditoriums as well.
And nowhere in the mutineers's sections of Mon Remonda were name tags or rank designations to be found. Donos, walk ing the perimeter of the mutineers's sections with Lara in a state of baffled good humor, saw Rogue mechanic Koyi Komad win a week's wages from Captain Onoma in a card game as blood thirsty as any TIE fighter vs. X-wing engagement. He saw Chewbacca simultaneously arm wrestle a naval lieutenant and a civilian hand-to-hand combat trainer so vigorously that both humans were thrown to the floor; they arose laughing and massaging wrenched arms.
Astromechs huddled in corners, exchanging chirps and trills that few organisms could interpret but that apparently kept them highly amused. Donos and Lara had to stop short of a portion of floor bounded by lines of observers; a group of R2 and R5 units sped through a twisting, winding course marked by colored tape on the floor. Corran Horn's Whistler was in the lead, Wedge's Gate was in second place, and both units were tweetling in the excitement of the moment.
Whistler and Gate maintained their one-two standings across the finish line and a crowd of bettors erupted in cheers and catcalls. Donos heard Horn's voice rise above the crowd noise: "I told you, I told you. Next time, make it an obstacle course with security measures. Whistler will still smoke them all."
"If I weren't sure I was only half-crazy," Donos said, "I'd be certain I was hallucinating."
"Your logic is faulty," Lara said. "If you were zero percent crazy, you'd be certain you weren't hallucinating. If you were one hundred percent crazy, you'd be equally certain this was real. Only at your current state of fifty percent insane do you doubt what you see."
"No fair. If I take you back to the pilots's lounge and dance with you again, will you stop picking at my flaws in logic?"
"Sure," she said. "That was my motive in the first place."
The mutiny endured from early evening to late evening of the next calendar date, with a pair of sabacc games the last to break up, and galley workers grumbling only halfheartedly as they swept up the trash left behind by a day of blissful, if intermittent, irresponsibility.
Solo and Wedge were among those who abandoned the last surviving card game. Solo rubbed tired eyes and said, "Not bad, man-who-looks-like-Wedge. What's Stage Three?"
Wedge gave him a smile he might have learned from a toothy Bothan. "In Stage Three, we track down Zsinj and blow him up."
"Good plan. I like it."
9
The next morning, once hangovers were shaken off and infusions of caf had taken hold, the crew of Mon Remonda moved more briskly, with weeks of frustration and bone weariness at least partially shaken loose.
At a briefing of the Rogues and Wraiths late in the day, Wedge said, "For those of you who were curious, tomorrow's mission does not seem to have been endangered by the mass amnesia that seems to have struck my pilots—no one seems to be able to recall what he was up to yesterday." That drew some chuckles. "Assuming our brains are working correctly again, we can probably get through a preliminary operational briefing now."
He tapped keys on the lectern keyboard and a holoprojection sprang into existence beside him. It showed a solar system— medium-sized yellow sun and a dozen planets around it. Their orbits were indicated by glowing dotted lines. "This is the Kidriff system. It's along what we think of as the Imperial/Zsinj border, as far coreward as Zsinj's influence extends. Its occupied world, Kidriff Five, is a very wealthy one, a heavy trade depot that develops and exports metal alloys—several improvements in Sienar TIE fighter hulls in recent years came about because of Kidriff developments.
"Kidriff Five's government patterned the world's building and expansion plans very heavily on Coruscant, as a way of be coming more attractive to the Empire and the Imperial court." Wedge activated another image, and the holoprojector displayed a city vista—a seemingly endless sea of skyscrapers that would not look out of place if dropped whole onto Coruscant. The sky, however, was not as hazy or as thic
k with storm clouds as Coruscant's typically was. "It wouldn't have been a bad site for Ysanne Isard to set up her government seat in exile—except, by the time the Rogues threw Isard off Coruscant, Kidriff had already fallen to Zsinj.
"We've recently received a lot of data on Kidriff and other Zsinj-occupied worlds in Imperial sectors. Analysis showed that the data had been scrubbed of certain types of information useful to the New Republic. But the scrubbing seems to have been hasty, and did not entirely eliminate the fact that there had been activity by a pro-New Republic faction in the months before Zsinj took over." Wedge called up another image, this time of a region seemingly divided equally between stretches of skyscrapers and stretches of heavy rust-colored foliage. "Kidriff Five's Tobaskin Sector. Seat of their rebel activity, which may or may not still exist. That's our target."
Janson spoke up. "And what do we do there, chief?"
"Very little, actually." Wedge brought up the image of a Corellian YT-1300 freighter. "This is not the Millennium Falcon. It's our simulacrum, which Chewbacca and a few unlucky mechanics have been transforming into a likeness of the Fal con. They painted false rust on good hull and put good paint on rusty hull so the blotches match up, and have made some other modifications. We've dubbed it the Millennium Falsehood. We're given to understand that it's approximately spaceworthy."
From the back of the briefing hall, Chewbacca uttered a sustained grumble that left the pilots no doubt that the Wookiee didn't think much of the freighter.
Wedge continued, "Chewbacca and I will pilot the Falsehood to Tobaskin Sector and land in one of those forest tracts. We'll let off a couple of intelligence operatives who are going to try to make contact with any surviving pro-New Republic factions there. But our main job is to wait there until we're seen, then take off for space."
"Which accomplishes what?" Janson asked. "Actually, I know the answer. But I thought you ought to have at least one shill in the audience."
"Good to see you're developing a skill you can use in civil ian life," Wedge said. "This allows the apparent Millennium Falcon to be seen well within Zsinj's territory on a world where Zsinj knows there has been pro-Rebel activity. It's one piece of data that will pique his interest. We're going to do this again and again. At a certain point, when the Falsehood has developed a predictable pattern of mission activity, Zsinj will, we hope, show up to destroy her."
Lara raised a hand.
"Notsil."
"Um, I don't know whether this has entered your mission planning, sir, but if you go to an Imperial world, they'll proba bly want to kill you. And if you do land and let yourself be no ticed later, they'll probably want to kill you then." She gave him a look as though she were an ingenue full of pride in her sudden tactical realization. Pilots around the amphitheater laughed.
"This had occurred to us. Data on the Kidriff system suggests that their security is very lax in order to promote fast, efficient trade—they're far more interested in making sure cargo gets taxed than in protecting government and military installa tions, which tend to be buried very deep and hard to hit. So our belief is that we can just fly the Falsehood in. We'll kill our transponder stream once we're low enough, so they won't know where we landed. They'll assume it's a smuggler's ploy and look for us. We'll be going in with Captain Celchu's X-wing cou pled to our hull, and he'll detach to act as our escort on the trip hack out. But before we go in, the Wraiths who are assigned TIE interceptors will go in and make a preliminary landfall. If their security queries are more difficult than we suspect, they can signal us and wing out of there. Otherwise, they'll be on hand to join Tycho for escort duty on the flight out. The rest of the Rogues and Wraiths will be orbiting the planet's primary moon to offer additional support when they chase us off-world."
Wedge looked among the seated pilots. "We'll be taking out targets of opportunity, mostly enemy starfighters, on the way out. Our mission is to disengage with as little loss as possi ble. Does anyone see any specific flaw in this operation?"
Runt sneezed. He looked around, embarrassed. "Sorry. No flaws. Just bacta tickle in our sinus cavities."
"Which brings up another point," Wedge said. "The medi cal reports of the Wraiths who sustained burns look good. I don't see a sign that any Wraith has not recovered sufficiently to be part of this operation. But if any of you does still feel that he's not up to the mission, let me know privately. Believe me, no one will hold it against you."
There was silence.
"Any more questions? No? Tomorrow morning we'll get the final flight data, drop out of hyperspace outside the Kid-riff system, and execute this thing. Until then, get some rest. Dismissed."
Face leaned in, his expression conspiratorial. "We're work ing on a secret weapon for desperate situations on our com mando raids. Runt is strengthening his lungs, his sinus cavities."
Lara said, "Before each mission in which we go into the field, we load Runt's nose with plasteel ball bearings."
"Then," Face said, "if we're captured and end up in the hands of just a couple of guards, Runt can take in a deep, deep breath and sneeze those ball bearings out at them."
Lara nodded, her own expression earnest. "In secret tests, we've clocked the ball bearings erupting from his nose at just over five hundred klicks per hour. Definitely subsonic, but still fast enough to penetrate flesh and light stormtrooper armor."
Elassar looked back and forth between them. "Hey, wait a minute. That would never work." The two conspirators dissolved into laughter, and he continued, his voice petulant, "I was being serious. Can't you be serious? Someone's going to be in trouble."
"You just summon us up some luck," Face said. "We're re lying on you."
As they filed out of the briefing chamber, Elassar said, "I don't know. I have a bad feeling about this one, a bad feeling."
"Why?" Face asked. "When we were going into the briefing, you were as happy as a bantha on a mountain of blumfruit."
"Runt sneezed."
Face looked the younger pilot. "Why, yes he did. I forgot about that. Doomed the whole lot of us, did he?"
"No, this is serious. He sneezed right when the commander got to the point where the commander asked about flaws in the plan. That means there is such a flaw, and we didn't notice it, and Runt will be in trouble then."
"No, no, no." Face shook his head. "That's what it would have meant had it been an accidental sneeze. But it wasn't. It was a deliberate sneeze."
Elassar looked at him, his expression puzzled. "Why would he sneeze deliberately?"
Lara said, "He was clearing his chamber."
"What chamber?"
Rostat Manr was good at his job. As a Sullustan, he was supposed to be adept at piloting, at navigating, but he knew that he and his fellow Sullustan ship handlers had gotten their reputation far more through hard work than through natural inclination.
Rostat had been rewarded for his hard work, too. For four years he'd flown Y-wings for the Rebel Alliance—now known as the New Republic. Less than a year ago, sick of war, certain that he'd done his duty for the cause he believed in, he accepted a position flying tugs for a civilian firm: Event Vistas, a cruise-vessel line. Only a few months ago, he'd been promoted to chief pilot aboard Nebula Queen, one of the line's newest and most beautiful cruise vessels.
But now, he was in danger of losing all he had gained. The thought, as he stared out the viewport at the growing circle of color that was the planet Coruscant, made him sad.
He couldn't tell anyone. They'd laugh at him. Then they'd demote him ... at best.
For no one wanted to employ a pilot with Ewoks in his nose.
He could feel them dancing, hear the faint, tinny sounds of their music and singing as they made merry in his nostrils. All the digging he'd done had failed to dislodge them. He couldn't think about anything but the Ewoks, and what it would take to rid himself of them.
All he had to do was crash Nebula Queen down upon Coruscant's surface. Then everything would be all rig
ht. He smiled. Soon, soon.
As the cruise ship reached the point it should have maneu vered into high Coruscant orbit, Rostat kept her headed into the atmosphere. A carefully calculated approach, the precise speed and angle needed for her to breach the planetary atmosphere without igniting. He really needed for enough of the ship to be left to hit the planet's surface, after all.
"Rostat?" That was his captain, a human female originally from Tatooine. Other humans described her as old and leathery, but Rostat didn't have their perspective on human features. "What are you doing?"
Rostat looked at her, trying to mask his alarm. "You know, don't you?"
"I know you're out of your approach plane."
"No. I mean, about my nose."
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