"That's great news, sir."

Wedge gave him a challenging look. "Your job, and Phanan's, is to make sure that it stays great news, Face."

"Yes, sir."

"You're awfully subdued, Face. Your sarcasm generator not getting any power?"

"Something like that, sir."

"Relieved that this whole Lara Notsil situation hasn't shot your career into a black hole or made an enemy of General Cracken?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, I'll inform the smartmouths in the Wraiths that you're temporarily easy pickings for them. Dismissed."

8.

"She has just been a.s.signed to Wraith Squadron, which is aboard Mon Remonda," said General Melvar.

He and the warlord were alone in Iron Fist's officers' lounge. Yet the lounge was full of the noise of leisure and pleasure - pilots chatting, gla.s.ses clinking, drinks pouring-all part of an ambient-noise recording Zsinj usually played at such times.

The warlord froze with his drink halfway to his mouth. Melvar could smell the drink; it was a good Coruscant brandy. But Melvar knew that this had to be a synthesized subst.i.tute, alcohol-free; despite appearances, Zsinj never drank while in command of a ship. Yet he would knock down shot after shot of the synthesized stuff and allow his subordinates to believe that he was getting drunk, and his body language and speech would confirm that a.n.a.lysis.

Zsinj said, "But that's perfect. Arrange for her to give us Mon Remonda's course and schedule. We'll destroy it, and General Solo, and those most annoying X-wing units. For a prize like that, I'll set Gara Petothel up for life and give her whatever position on Iron Fist she wants."

"Other than mine, I hope."

"Including yours." Zsinj smiled. "I'll find something even better for you."

"The problem is, we're not yet in contact with her. It took us some time to put together a visual image of her, and more time to compare it against and disqualify all current female pilots in Antilles's squadrons, and even more time to trace it to Lara Notsil, a pilot candidate in training. She'd extensively changed her appearance."

"Wise of her."

"And then she was on a training frigate at an unknown location, and then in custody there, and then in an advanced training program there under intense scrutiny. We've been able to follow her... but never approach her."

Zsinj merely blinked at him. His expression said, How nice that you have a problem. Now solve it.

"So we've found one of her relatives. The relative will make contact for us."

"A relative of Gara Petothel?"

"No, of Lara Notsil, the woman whose ident.i.ty she took. The community where she grew up, New Oldtown..."

Zsinj shuddered. "Surely you're joking about that name."

"On Aidivy. It was blasted out of existence by Admiral Trigit when it refused to offer him supplies."

"You're sure he didn't destroy it because of that name."

"Since he's dead, I'll have trouble asking him. Anyway, one of the real Lara Notsil's siblings, from New Oldtown..."

"Don't ever say that name again. It annoys me."

"-returned home after spending months at a naval job under an a.s.sumed name. He was supposed to be serving time in a jail in his hometown-whose-name-is-nevermore-to-be-said."

"So you recruited him."

"I have an agent with him, teaching him to eat with implements, wear shoes, and pretend that Gara Petothel is his sister. He'll be transmitting a message saying, 'I'm alive, understand you are the same.'

With enough subtext that she'll have no problem figuring out what's going on."

"Good. Be speedy with this, Melvar. I want Mon Remonda off my trail as soon as possible. Its crew and pilots are too lucky and too efficient by far. Their continued existence threatens to be very expensive to me."

The world shown on the briefing room's holoprojector was not a promising one. A medium-sized chunk of reddish-brown rock with a few dark seas thrown in for contrast, it circled around a yellow star notable only for its averageness.

Wedge, on the dais, gestured to a tiny bright spot on the world's surface. "This is the world Lavisar, and this point is its chief port city, Syward. According to Lavisar's central library, the planet was once part of a much larger very-high-gravity world, one that was destroyed in a series of asteroid collisions; Lavisar was ejected. It's a world where heavy metals are abundant, with mining and refining industries to match, plus a strong economic base in shipbuilding."

"Just the sort of world Zsinj loves," said Face. At a questioning look from Rogue Squadron pilot Corran Horn, he explained, "We stumbled across the edges of a financial empire belonging to Zsinj, one no one knew about previously. He likes fairly innocuous worlds that have strong economies, and he usually owns at least one business there under an a.s.sumed name - a different name with each world. It might be that he wants to have a fallback position in case these worlds decide to side with the New Republic-his business would still be able to help fund his military activities."

Wedge continued, "And recent data supports the idea that Lavisar is one of these worlds. Although the world is just outside what we think of as Zsinj-occupied s.p.a.ce, a recently captured transmission, which our Intelligence people have decrypted, indicates that there is a Raptor unit in Syward, set up in the main construction plant of Skyrung Manufacturing, a licensee builder of Lambda-cla.s.s shuttles."

The Raptors were Zsinj's elite enforcement units. Better trained and better equipped than Imperial stormtroopers, they were the most commonly seen and recognized symbol of Zsinj's power, much as the ubiquitous TIE fighter was the universal symbol of Imperial domination.

"So what is the plan?" asked Tal'dira, one of Rogue Squadron's Twi'lek pilots. "Aerial strike, commando strike, or a combination of the two?"

"Maybe neither. Shalla, let's have your report."

Shalla stood, apparently a little nervous under the scrutiny of the Rogues. "I did an a.n.a.lysis of the way Mon Remonda and her task force have been responding to various outside stimuli-captured transmissions, confessions of captured Zsinj personnel, that sort of thing - not including official orders from the New Republic. This was against the possibility that Zsinj has been leaking information to gauge our responses. And although there is some variation in response time, this task force shows a pretty consistent set of responses. Each stimulus is graded as high priority, medium, low, and of possible interest - those are my terms, not those of the task force's officer corps - and a response is a.s.signed according to grade. High priority, for example a response to a distress call from a New Republic ship that is nearby and under attack, will yield, without variation, an a.s.sault force of a size calculated to be marginally superior to the enemy force, sent in a straight-line path from Mon Remonda's current location to the site of the trouble. A stimulus like this one, the Lavisar signal, will inevitably call for a ground team to confirm the signal source is a target, followed by an aerial strike." She shrugged as if in apology. "These responses have been predictable." She sat down and began fidgeting.

"And predictability," said Corran Horn, "gets you killed."

"Then what should we do?" That was Gavin Darklighter, the Rogues' pilot from Tatooine, a brown-haired young man whose innocent features and country-boy demeanor belied his combat experience. "Instead of an aerial strike, send flowers and sweets?"

"It's better than going in as usual," Shalla said. "It would confuse them."

Asyr, the Bothan flier, who sat beside Gavin with her arm upon his, shook her head, rippling her fur. "But at the first point we don't respond predictably, we tip Zsinj off that we're onto him."

Wedge smiled at her, and it was a hard-edged smile. "Welcome to the dilemmas of command. You're right. Now, let's make the situation even worse. After I received Shalla's-wait a moment."

He took his comlink from its clip and spoke into it.

"Yes?"

The Rogues and Wraiths heard a murmur from the comlink's speaker but could not make out the words. Wedge said, "Yes, by all means. A good time for it." He returned the device to its clip. "After Shalla made her preliminary report on this matter to me this morning, General Solo, Captain Celchu, and I went over the data of Mort Remonda's mission so far. Intelligence reports are very sketchy, but indicate that in at least five of the sites this task force has attacked in recent sorties, Raptor movements have drastically increased and been quite public immediately after the sorties. Anyone want to hazard a guess ?"

There was no immediate response. Then the Rogues' executive officer, Nawara Ven, raised a hand.

"Go ahead."

"If Zsinj wants to lead us around and gauge our responses, he has to do so by giving up targets for us to attack. Until a moment ago, I was a.s.suming he was giving up targets he owned or occupied, places that weren't very important to him. But that wouldn't necessarily result in more public Raptor activity after the raids." He frowned in concentration. "But if he were planting evidence that sites that didn't belong to him actually did..."

Tyria said, "Then we'd be a.s.saulting sites he wouldn't particularly mind being hit."

Nawara gave her a close look. "Even worse. If they were planets and facilities he'd been trying to add to his empire by diplomacy, but failing, our attacks would have knocked down their defenses drastically.

Leaving them open to easier conquest by Zsinj ... or at least further negotiation with him, and not from a position of strength."

Face put his hand on his head to quell a sudden threatening headache.

"You're saying that the task force has been doing his work for him. All in the name of running down every lead."

Wedge nodded. "Very possibly. Further examination of available data on Lavisar's central library computer indicates that the population has a strong independent streak, which accounts, more than anything else, for its continued lack of interest in joining the New Republic or Zsinj, or rejoining the Empire, which lost control of the planet after the Emperor's death.

"So our task is to respond predictably to this 'stimulus,' as Shalla puts it, without doing Zsinj's work for him, and without setting ourselves up for Zsinj's inevitable trap. Hobbie, this was your idea."

The mournful-faced second-in-command of the Rogues stood uneasily. "Zsinj has every confidence that we can penetrate standard planetary defenses and get our snubfighters and support crews to the surface. We generally do. So my idea was to send down a ground crew, plant a bomb on the side of their main sensor station, and set it off... and it doesn't destroy the emplacement. They keep full sensors."

Gavin Darklighter frowned. "Wait a minute, wait a minute. So we go blasting down toward the planet and they're completely aware of our approach ?"

Hobbie nodded. "And they send up their forces and we turn tail, having been repelled by the mighty defenders of Lavisar."

That got laughter from most of the pilots.

"Rogue Squadron doesn't run," said Corran Horn, dead-pan.

"Unless we really, really have to." That got more laughter.

"No," said Wedge, "this will be Wraith Squadron's mission."

"We don't mind running," Face said. "Even when we don't have to."

"More importantly," Wedge continued, "we need to establish that Wraith Squadron is indeed on Mon Remonda. Every chance we get, we have to support the deception that we're here all the time. So-hold on, here's someone I want you to meet."

The door at the back of the briefing chamber finished hissing up and open. In walked a woman in standard New Republic pilot's uniform, still carrying her helmet and bag of possessions. Face recognized Lara, despite the bandage she wore on her left cheek. He waved her over and she headed his way.

Wedge continued, "Rogues, Wraiths, I'd like to introduce you to Lara Notsil, newest pilot in Wraith Squadron. She hasn't seen any action yet, but she's already brought clown a black-market ring operating on a New Republic training frigate. That's a pretty good start."

Over the other pilots' applause, Lara settled in beside Face. He decided that she looked weary, probably from her long flight in, but alert.

"Thank you," she said. "But before anyone feels that his own sideline business is threatened, let me just say that I am susceptible to bribes."

That got a chuckle, and Wes Janson drew a hand over his brow as if relieved.

Wedge waved to return everyone's attention to him. "Back to Lavisar, the subject at hand... we will be sending down an Intelligence team, to plant our dud of a bomb... and to stay there after our task force leaves the area. We're going to take Shalla's a.n.a.lyses and present them to the planetary governor. Try to persuade him that Zsinj was setting him up and that we, in our pragmatic mercifulness, let him go. Maybe he'll be grateful. Maybe he'll side with the New Republic. Second best would be him remaining with the Empire... but as a confirmed enemy of Zsinj."

Face said, "That's pretty dangerous for our agents on the ground, isn't it?"

Wedge nodded. "Only one member of the team will make contact with the governor. It'll be a volunteer from our Intelligence pool. If he or she doesn't return... the rest of the team will transmit the bad news and decide whether to stage a rescue operation or just try to get offworld."

"He likes sunfruit liqueur," Lara said.

Wedge stared at her. "Come again?"

"Governor Carmal of Lavisar. He likes sunfruit liqueur. I mean, just having some as a present for him might help a little bit."

"How do you know this?"

She shifted, a little uncertain under the directness of Wedge's stare.

"When I was making my living on Coruscant, I worked for a shipping company, processing data for them. Lavisar was in their records as 'lost by separation,' a term meaning the company had trade relations with them before Coruscant fell to the New Republic but not afterward. There was a lot of data on worlds and companies 'lost by separation,' including information that the New Republic doesn't have because it's trade-specific, so the company representatives might have a slightly easier time resuming relations once contact was made again."

"Good to know. Do you have some sort of perfect memory?"

"Well, a trick memory. Miscellaneous facts, trivia, statistical information, they all get pulled into my head and stay there forever. I'm not so good with faces, but I can tell you all the official holidays of more than fifty worlds, and some holidays from another five hundred or so."

"Interesting." Wedge turned to Squeaky, the 3PO unit with mismatched gold and silver body parts, who lurked, as was his custom, at the back of the briefing hall. "We..."

"You don't need to say it," the droid said, his tone admon-ishing. "We need sunfruit liqueur. And, doubtless, some of the good stuff from a tropical world that knows how to turn it out, not one of the Coruscant synthetics. I'll get to work on it with my customary efficiency."

"Well, in that case, let's wrap things up with our customary efficiency.

The squadrons' senior staff will be putting together the mission profile, but anyone who wants to earn some extra points can work up his own version of this approach-balk-and-run mission, and we'll take the best parts of what we get. Questions? No? That's all."

"A moment of your time, sir?" Tyria Sarkin stood in the door-way to Wedge's quarters. She looked distinctly unhappy.

"Of course. Come in."

She declined to sit, instead standing at ease-though her tense pose suggested that relaxation was impossible for her.

"Sir, there are lots of rumors about Flight Officer Notsil and that black-market ring."

"Yes?"

"And I think you ought to know..." An expression of dismay struggled across her face, but she managed to banish it.

"No, you should have known some time ago, and I'm sorry I didn't tell you. But you need to know that you might lose me as a pilot."

"Why?"

"Because Notsil wasn't the first pilot candidate Major Rep-Colonel Repness came to with this starfighter-stealing scheme."

Wedge regarded her steadily. A number of puzzle pieces suddenly clicked into place. Face's and Phanan's personal involvement in this Repness matter. Phanan had talked of a former trainee who'd spilled the story of Repness's black-market activities to him... but had hinted that this trainee had washed out and had met Phanan on Coruscant.