Star Wars - X-Wing - Starfighters of Adumar

by Aaron Allston

  his hip cloak around him in a dramatic flourish.

  Today, the people of Cartann had apparently discovered that Wedge and his

  pilots were flying at the air base. When they and Cheriss departed the base on

  their rolling transport, the street was thick with admirers. They clustered up

  against the rails, offering things to Wedge and the pilotsflowers, Adumari

  daggers, folded notes scented with a variety of exotic perfumes, necklaces,

  metal miniatures of the Blade-32 fighter-craft, objects too numerous to

  catalogue. Wedge accepted none of them, preferring instead to shake hands with

  as many of his admirers as could reach him, and his pilots followed suit.

  Their procession slowed to a halt at a major cross avenue, however,

  blocked by a similar paradepeople thronging around an identical wheeled

  transport returning from Cartann Bladedrome. Aboard, Turr Phennir and his

  Imperial pilots accepted the gifts and accolades from the crowd. Phennir gave

  Wedge a mocking smile as his transport rolled serenely past the stalled New

  Republic entourage.

  "What's his record for today?" Wedge asked.

  "He accepted two challenges, and he and his pilots shot down two half

  flightknives," Cheriss said. "Experienced pilots, good ones. He gained

  considerable honor today."

  "Yes, he's just rolling in the honor coupons," Wedge said. He didn't

  bother to refrain from glaring at Phennir's retreating parade. "They stick to

  the blood all over him." He caught sight of Cheriss's confused expression and

  waved the thought away.

  Tycho, at Wedge's ear, murmured, "Phennir has known for a day or two what

  we just found out today. That Adumari pilots just aren't very good."

  "A few of them have decent technical skills," Wedge said. "But not many.

  The attrition they experience has to be keeping their level of proficiency

  pretty low. Add that to their lousy tactical choices..."

  "Small wonder they treat us like supermen," Tycho said. "Us, and that

  happy band of Imperial murderers over there."

  In the days to come, Wedge's routine requests for an audience with the

  perator to discuss diplomatic relations were met with routine refusals and

  apologies. But Tomer reported that rumor had it that the perator and his

  ministers were drawing up a proposal for the formation of a world governmenta

  move, Tomer gleefully announced, that benefited the New Republic more than the

  Empire and therefore had to be interpreted as a slight gain for their side.

  Wedge, unconvinced, didn't bother to point out that the Empire would find it

  easier to rule this world through an existing planetary government.

  Each day, Wedge and Red Flight would return to the air base and conduct

  training exercises with Adumari pilots. Usually Red Flight used Blades, but

  sometimes they flew their own X-wings, to the astonishment of the Adumari, who

  were impressed with and appalled by the smaller crafts' greater speed,

  maneuverability, and killpower.

  In the first couple of days, the challenger pilots were all from Cartann,

  but soon afterward flightknives began visiting from distant nations with

  exotic names like Halbegardia, Yedagon, and Thozzelling. In spite of the

  contempt with which Cartann pilots treated these newcomers, Wedge made sure

  that Red Flight's attention was divided equally among all pilots who showed an

  interest.

  Each day, the kill numbers of General Turr Phennir and his 181st Fighter

  Group pilots climbed. According to Cheriss, Phennir's popularity also rose

  above that of Wedge and the New Republic flyers. "The Imperial pilots," she

  said, "show more affection for Cartann by doing things the Cartann way; how

  can the people of Cartann not respond with more affection?"

  "By remembering the sons and daughters they've lost?" Wedge suggested.

  The pilots' nightly activities usually involved accepting dinner

  invitations made by prominent politicians and pilots of Cartann. Sometimes

  these affairs were simple dinners, sometimes lavish spectacles of

  entertainment, sometimes storytelling competitions among the survivors of

  aerial campaigns.

  Wedge almost never saw Turr Phennir and the Imperial pilots at these

  dinners. Most were small affairs, orchestrated so that the host could showcase

  the pilots for a choice number of guests, and even at the larger affairs there

  seemed to be a growing division among Cartann nobleson one side, those who

  preferred the New Republic; on the other, those who preferred the Imperials.

  Increasingly, the more prestigious nobles seemed to extend their invitations

  to Turr Phennir rather than Wedge Antilles.

  Red Flight and Cheriss spent one afternoon visiting a facility Wedge

  hoped would one day serve the New Republic. Buried hundreds of feet below the

  city of Cartann, it was a missile manufacturing plant.

  The Challabae Admits-No-Equal Aerial Eruptive Manufacturing Concern was a

  succession of enormous rectangular chambers separated by tunnels. Portions of

  the ceiling above each chamber were open to an upper tunnel series, and it was

  from catwalks along these upper tunnels that the pilots observed the details

  of the manufacturing process.

  Chambers early in the sequence took in raw materials, including metals,

  man-made materials, and raw chemicals, and began processing them into

  components such as missile bodies, circuit board frames, wiring, explosives,

  and fuels. Chambers farther along would test missile body integrity, define

  and test the functions of circuitry, and test explosives and fuels for purity

  and reliability. Toward the end of the kilometers-long facility, chambers were

  used for final assembly and quality checking of finished missiles.

  But though each chamber would have a different function from the ones

  nearest it, all chambers shared characteristics in common. There was a

  grimness to them all that lowered Wedge's spirits.

  Each chamber was filled with assembly lines, conveyor belts, and other

  machinery, all painted in the same lifeless tan-brown. Each chamber was

  occupied by hundreds, sometimes thousands, of workers, men and women, all of

  whom wore featureless garments in a darker brown. Walls were an eye-deadening

  off-white; floors were a dirt-colored brown. In chambers where manufacturing

  processes released smoke or soot, even the air was brown. Regardless of the

  air color, it was always sweltering.

  Wedge saw workers moving and laboring. He saw none smiling. None looked

  up to see him or his companions on the catwalk far above.

  "Where do they all live?" he asked. "I can't remember seeing masses of

  peopl e wearing workers' garments like those. Not anywhere."

  Berandis, the plant's assistant manager in charge of public concerns, a

  lean man whose mustache was topped by a series of ridiculous curls held in

  place by some sort of wax, gave him an easy smile. "Well, they live wherever

  they want and can afford, of course. Most are in turumme-warrens, above."

  "I'm not sure I understand."

  Cheriss said, "Turummes are reptiles, distant relatives of the farummes

  you've seen. They dig elaborate nests in the ground. So large banks of

  apartment quarters built below the surfac
e are often called turumme-waiiens.

  The warrens above a plant like this are always owned by the plant."

  "Some workers live aboveground, of course," Be - randis said. "There are

  no laws to keep them in the warrens. But few can afford aboveground housing.

  Mostly you see it with managers, stewards"

  "Informants," Cheriss said. "The occasional parasite."

  Berandis's smile did not waver, but he lowered the tone of his voice.

  "Manufacturing plants are the same all over Cartann," he said. "But we do

  offer a difference. Our missiles are the best, which is why we are the

  recipient of the government contract for all missiles for Cartann's Blade-

  Thirties and Blade-Thirty-twos. A pilot like you can stake your life on a

  Challabae missile and know that it will serve your purpose faithfully and

  reliably. This gives our workers something to be proud of."

  Hobbie nodded. "I can tell. You can see the pride on their faces."

  Berandis beamed, oblivious to sarcasm.

  On the long walk back to their start point, Cheriss dropped back behind

  Berandis to march with the pilots. Her voice artificially cheery, she said,

  "There is another advantage to having worker quarters above plant facilities,

  of course."

  "Which is what?" Wedge asked.

  "Well, if some enemy were to fill the skies above Cartann City and drop

  Broadcap bombs on the plant, the bombs would only penetrate as far as the

  warrens before exploding. The plant would take little or no damage." Her tone

  was light, but Wedge detected something in it bitterness or sarcasm, or

  perhaps both. He couldn't tell.

  Tycho said, "You've either worked at a plant like this or lived in the

  turumme-warrens, haven't you?"

  "Both," she said. "My mother worked at a food-processing plant until

  brownlung killed her. I worked there for a season before I was well

  established enough to make my living with my blastsword."

  "How, precisely, do you make your living?" Wedge asked. "By taking

  trophies from the enemies you defeat?"

  "No... though I did that at first. Now I use only blastswords

  manufactured by Ghephaenne Deeper-Craters Weaponmakers, and they pay me

  regularly so that they can mention that fact in their flatscreen boasting."

  "Endorsements," Hobbie said. "I could do that instead of flying. I've had

  offers from bacta makers. Bacta's a sort of medicine," he added for Cheriss's

  benefit.

  She offered a little frown. "You are not a well man?"

  "I'm well enough. But the ground and I get along so well we sometimes get

  together a little too vigorously."

  "So let me be sure I understand this," Wedge said. "Under Cartann City,

  there are lots of underground manufacturing concerns, huge ones, where they

  make missiles and preserved food and Blades and everything Cartann needs, with

  worker quarterswhere most workers have to live because they can't afford

  anything elseabove them but still underground."

  Cheriss nodded.

  "And we don't see these workers aboveground because?"

  "Because they're too tired at the end of a long day of working to do much

  but eat and watch the day's flatscreen broadcasts," Cheriss said.

  "How much of the population lives belowground, compared to what we've

  seen aboveground?"

  "I don't know." She shrugged. "Forty percent, perhaps. But don't feel

  that they are trapped, General Antilles. They can always break free of the

  worker's existence. They can volunteer for the armed forces. They can take up

  the life of the free blade, as I've done."

  "So the only sure way for them to get out is to risk their lives."

  She nodded.

  Wedge exchanged looks with the other pilots, and his appreciation for the

  world of Adumar dropped another notch.

  Later the same day, Tomer Darpen visited the pilots' quarters with some

  bad news. After two days of incarceration, the surviving four men of the six

  who'd tried to assassinate them had escaped. "Definitely with the aid of

  someone in the Cartann Ministry of Justice," Tomer said. "Whoever paid them in

  the first place had enough money or pull to enlist the aid of a whole chain of

  conspirators."

  "They'll be coming after us again," Hobbie said, a mournful note in his

  voice.

  Cheriss shook her head. "They were not just defeated but embarrassed last

  time. They'll be instructed to come after you again to regain their honor. But

  instead they'll probably run. And so they'll either vanish from the face of

  Adumar... or be found dead in an alley, a warning to others who might

  contemplate failure."

  Still, Wedge was not entirely displeased with the way things were shaping

  up. His informal flying school at Giltella Air Base was actually proving to be

  a satisfying experience. Increasingly, pilots both from Cartann and foreign

  nations were discussing Wedge's philosophies as much as his tactics and

  skills, and doing so without contempt. One Cartann pilot, barely out of his

  teen years, a black-haired youth named Balass ke Rassa, finally summed it up

  in a way that pleased Wedge "If I understand, General, you are saying that a

  pilot's honor is internal. Between him and his conscience. Not external, for

  his peers to see."

  "That's right," Wedge said. "That's it exactly."

  "But if you do not externalize it, you cut yourself off from your nation,

  " Balass said. "When you do wrong, your peers cannot bring you back in line by

  stripping away your honor, allowing you to regain it when you resume proper

  behavior."

  "True," Wedge said. "But by the same token, a group of people you

  respect, even though they don't deserve it, can't redefine honor for their own

  benefit, or to achieve some private agenda, and then use it to control your

  actions."

  Troubled, the youth withdrew from the post-duel conversation and sat

  alone, considering Wedge's words, and Wedge felt that he had at last achieved

  a dueling victory.

  6

  The night of the discussion with Balass ke Rassa was one of the few in

  which the pilots had declined all dinner invitations, giving them a chance to

  dine in their quarters and get away from the pressure of being on display

  before the people of Cartann.

  As the ascender brought them up to their floor, Jan-son said, "They're

  calling me 'the darling one.' "

  "Who is? "Wedge asked.

  "The court, the crowds. They have tags for us all now, and I'm the

  darling one. Tycho is 'the doleful one."

  Tycho frowned. "I'm not sad."

  "No, but you look sad. Makes the ladies of Cartann's court want to

  comfort you. They're so sad about wanting to comfort you that you could

  comfort them."

  Hobbie snorted. "And Tycho the only one of us with a successful

  relationship with a woman. Missed opportunities, Tycho."

  They paused before the door to give its security flatcams primitive

  devices by New Republic standards, but still capable of facial recognition

  time to analyze their features. Janson continued, "Hobbie is 'the dour one.'

  Not too much romance in that, Hobbie. And Wedge is 'the diligent one.' That

  may not sound too romantic, Wedge, but 'di
ligent' has a couple of colloquial

  meanings here that add to your luster"

  "I don't want to know," Wedge said. The doors opened. "Say, look who's

  here."

  Hallis sat on the monstrously overinflated chair situated in one corner,

  her legs up over one of the chair arms. She waved. Her recording unit,

  Whitecap, said, "Say, look who's here" in inimitable 3PO unit tones.

  Wedge led his pilots in. "What's with Whitecap?" he asked.

  "What's with Whitecap?" Whitecap asked.

  Hallis made a cross face. "Oh, something's gone wrong in his hardware."

  "Oh, something's gone..."

  "I was recording some of General Phennir's challenge matches out at the

  Cartann Bladedrome. When the pilots were leaving, the crowd got a bit unruly

  and I was knocked down. Since then, Whitecap repeats back everything anyone

  says within earshot. I can't get him to stop."

  "... get him to stop."

  Janson grinned at her. "Some days make you just want to beat your heads

  against a wall, don't they?"

  Hobbie said, "Maybe not. The young lady might not have her heads on

  straight, after all."

  Tycho said, "Still, I think she ought to get her heads examined."

  Wedge looked at them, appalled.

  "Pilots," Hallis said. "How did I ever get this assignment? Who did I

  offend?"

  "...did I offend?"

  "Still," she said, "you'd better be nice to me. I know you don't take me

  seriously, but you ought to." Her expression was unusually earnest.

  "...you ought to."

  Wedge sprawled on a sofalike piece of furniture large enough to

  accommodate three full-sized people comfortably. "Hallis, it would be easier

  if you didn't look like something out of a tale to frighten children."

  "...to frighten children."

  "All right, "she said.

  "All right."

  She pulled her goggles off and set them aside. Then she reached up to

  press a control on Whitecap's clamp; with a hi ssing noise, it relaxed and the

  recording unit began tilting from her shoulder. She caught it as it pitched

  forward, then moved across the room to set it within a cabinet. She closed the

  cabinet door with an irritated thump; from inside, Whitecap did a credible job

  of imitating the noise. "Better?"

  Wedge tried to make his tone neutral, nonjudgmental. "What is it, Hallis?

  "

  She straightened from the cabinet and gave him a serious look. "Someone