Wedge nodded. "But a happy pirate is a career pirate. You do remember that the Hawk-bats are a front, a sham?"

Kell and Phanan exchanged looks suggesting that this was news to them.

"That's what I thought. Anything else?"

Runt said, "Yes. We have also identified the regular sched-ule and course of a refueling tanker that leaves Helmed, takes a tour of government mining operations in the asteroid belt, and returns to the city of Hullis. It is now escorted by a couple of TIE fighters, but I think that with the proper surprise we could take them before a distress signal is sent. If we capture the tanker but fly it along its regular course, that gives us one opportunity to drop our entire squadron and perhaps Sungra.s.s as well down on Hullis, should we ever need to mount a larger-scale mission there... or just capture a refueling tanker should we ever need one."

"Good to know. All right, Wraiths..."

"Hawk-bats," corrected Kell, absently.

Wedge gave him a stern look. "Wraiths, make sure your pirates' take is logged to the last credit for your report to Coruscant. Now, with the good work you did while we were gone, you've added quite a lot to the sting the government of Helmed has to be feeling." He began counting items off on his fingers.

"We've hurt them militarily with the theft of the interceptors and then of the replacement parts. We've put civilian pressure on them with that water-vehicle raid. We've hurt them economically with the money changers'

strike, and that will also result in more civilian pressure. And we've demonstrated that we can enter their airs.p.a.ce and leave at will, no casualties, no apparent effort that they can discern, and that's the most important thing. They've lived at a relative level of peace for too long and don't know how to cope with a unit like the Wraiths. With any luck, that will put them in the camp of Zsinj and his protection..."

"So Zsinj can come and squash us," said Face.

Wedge smiled. "If you're as tough to squash as you are to predict, he'll be in for an unpleasant surprise.

"All right. Let's keep the pressure up on them. I want those two starfighter bases eliminated - a clear message to the Imperial forces on Halmad that anything they can construct, the Hawk-bats can knock down.

And I think, to demonstrate our superiority and their helplessness, we ought to stage those two eliminations simultaneously. So let's settle in and do some planning."

One of the base's inhabitable cargo modules had been equipped to serve as the squadron's cafeteria, with an adjoining module serving as the galley.

While most of the Wraiths had been away on Mon Remonda, Kell and mechanic Cubber Daine had used laser cutters to open a large portion of the wall facing the Trench, giving it the aspect of a large viewport minus transparisteel, and had improvised additional chairs and tables out there. Now the Wraiths had a dining choice of "inside" or "outside on the patio." Face had seen Wedge shaking his head over these minute decorative differences, but the squadron commander had never stepped in to regiment the Wraiths on such matters.

Tonight, after the last long planning session before Operation Groundquake - as Tyria had nicknamed the plan to knock down two Imperial bases - Face ate at a table "on the patio." Usually he shared a table with Phanan, a platform from which the two of them could harangue the other diners, but tonight his wingman was at an inside table with Lara Notsil. Face couldn't fault Phanan his choice of companions; Lara was attractive, quick-witted, good company. He saw her laugh at one of Phanan's jokes.

There was a little tension in her body language. She probably still didn't feel that she fit in with the Wraiths. It was likely that she wouldn't for a while.

Lara spoke a few words to Phanan, good cheer still evident in her expression, then policed her tray and left. Phanan remained behind.

And Face saw his partner do something uncharacteristic. Phanan slowly settled into an att.i.tude of stillness so profound that it would have been difficult for an observer to tell whether he was alive or dead, had he not been breathing. Other than the slow rise and fall of his chest, nothing moved; his one human eye was closed, and his posture gradually slumped into an att.i.tude of profound resignation, of complete defeat.

Face rose and approached him, stepping over the low lip of the new opening. "Ton ?"

Phanan jerked upright, and his expression was suddenly merry. "Face! Just the man. Polish my boots, would you, son? I have a mission tomorrow."

Face gestured at his own lieutenant's insignia.

"Oh, that's right. In spite of my superior intellect, you figured out who to bribe first. My loss." Phanan rose and quickly cleaned off his tray, stowing it in the rack set aside for that purpose.

"Are you all right?"

Phanan looked at him, evidently confused. "Of course. Oh, the boots thing is a disappointment, of course. Maybe I can get Wedge to clean them."

Face snorted. "You're angling to get in some laser target-ing practice, aren't you ? As the target."

"No, I've been there. No desire to repeat the experience." Phanan stretched and yawned. "I'd better hit my bunk. Mission tomorrow."

"That's right."

Phanan breezed past him with a final smile and headed up the Trench toward the flight officers' quarters. Face let him go, but felt unsettled, as though he'd seen some sort of simulacrum of Phanan walk by, with the real Phanan missing and unac-counted for.

An hour later, after doing a last simulation run against Fellon Base, Face stopped by the quarters Phanan shared with Piggy. His initial rap at the door elicited no answer, so he knocked again.

"Go away. Or, if you're at lieutenant rank or higher, go away, sir."

"I need to speak to you, Ton."

"Tomorrow."

"Right now."

"I'm with somebody."

"I know. Piggy said you'd asked him to bunk out for the evening. This will only take a moment."

The door into the modified cargo module opened with a hiss. It wasn't a mechanical hiss; the modules didn't have hydraulic doors. The noise was a sound of exasperation, and Phanan made it. The cybernetically enhanced pilot wore a loose robe of scarlet silk and an irritated expression.

"What?"

Face squeezed past him into the module's first chamber.

These modules were divided into three chambers, the largest for socializing, the next largest containing two bunks, the smallest acting as a refresher. Face saw that the terminal here in the main chamber was alive but with nothing on it.

"There's no one here."

"Keep your voice down. She's back in the bunkroom."

"There's no one there, either."

"Are you calling me a liar?" There was no anger in Phanan's tone, just curiosity.

"You don't drink when you're entertaining. And I can smell the booze in the air."

Phanan shrugged negligently and pulled a bottle from his robe pocket. The label identified it as Halmad Prime, doubtless a diverted part of the shipment the "Hawk-bats" had seized off Barderia. Phanan held it out.

"Care for some?"

"No. What's the matter, Ton?"

Phanan shut the module door and sat-slouched, rather - on the chamber's inflatable sofa. "I get drunk faster these days."

"A sign of age?"

"No." Phanan shook his head. "There's less of me for the alcohol to pollute. Every year, less meat, more machine. So the alcohol goes to work faster."

Face pulled the terminal chair around and sat wrongways in it so he could lean forward against its back.

"I'm not sure I understand."

"She wasn't interested, Face. In me."

"Lara ?"

"Yes, Lara. Well, actually, at various times, Falynn, Tyria, various ladies on Folor, Borleias, and Coruscant, then Shalla, Dia, and most recently Lara." He tipped the bottle up and took a long pull from it.

Face snorted. "Maybe you need to work on your technique. What sort of invitation did you make her?"

"Ah, that's just it. I didn't make any sort of invitation. I just sat with her, and talked with her, and read her eyes. She thought my jokes were funny. She was interested in my stories about the campaign we waged with Admiral Trigit. She liked me, I think she did. But... other than that... nothing. I held no other appeal for her. And that's the way it's been for quite some time."

"Look, Ton, being at war kind of limits all our social lives. I'm sure you'll find someone..."

"Finish that idiotic gesture of rea.s.surance and I'll be obliged to put your face through this wall," Phanan said.

His tone was mild, but there was no mistaking the seriousness in his words. He wasn't even looking at Face, he hadn't moved or tensed, yet something in his tone made his threat very real.

"You don't understand."

"Make me understand."

Phanan looked up at the low ceiling of the cargo module as if seeing through it, as if staring at a starry sky in the hope that it could provide inspiration. "A long time ago, back at the Battle of Endor, the frigate I was working on as a doctor was. .h.i.t by an Imperial barrage. Blew out whole sections of the hull, sucked crewmen out into hard vacuum. I was. .h.i.t by a falling beam superheated by laser fire. One minute I'm helping a pilot with a concussion, the next minute that pilot's been dead for two weeks and I'm just waking up with a mechanical half a face and a mechanical leg.

"Ever since then, no woman has looked at me with any sort of serious interest."

"It's not the leg or the face, Ton."

"I know that, you moronic nerf." Phanan glared at him, the glowing optic that served him as a left eye making the expression malevolent. "But something died when I was. .h.i.t in that medical ward, and I think it was my future. I think people, maybe only women, can just look at me and say, 'There's no future in him.'"

"That's ridiculous."

"There's no mechanical replacement for a future, Face. And every time I take a hit, and they have to cut away another part of me and replace it with machinery because I'm allergic to bacta, every time that happens I seem to be a little further away from the young doctor who had a future.

He can't come back, Face. Not all of him is here anymore."

"Ton..."

"Don't give me some line about my not knowing what I'm talking about because I'm drunk and morose. I know I'm drunk and morose. But the truth of what I'm telling you is around me all the time, even when I'm not drunk. Even when I'm enjoying everything about my life. No future, and no one in my future."

"You have your friends, Ton."

Phanan nodded. "Yes, I do. And I'm grateful for them. But my friends are my present. And when I try to look from where they are to where my future is, there's just no one there. No future."

"I don't know what to tell you. I wish you didn't feel this way."

"Me either."

"Give me the bottle."

"I know. Mission tomorrow." Phanan handed over the bottle, two-thirds of its contents gone.

"If you're not right for the mission tomorrow morning, I want you to tell me."

"Yes, Lieutenant."

Face wanted to say more, but the sudden formality of Phanan's last reply had somehow propelled him out of the conversation. He just shook his head and left.

10.

Tyria entered the bunkroom module she now shared with Lara and waved the datacard she held.

"Mail from home."

Lara gave her an uncertain smile.

"Should I leave so you can watch it in private? That's not a problem."

"It's not for me. Most of my family is gone, and what's left is on Toprawa - and no mail comes off Toprawa." This was true; the world, where Rebel Alliance forces had staged delivery of information that had been vital to the destruction of the first Death Star, had been punished by the Empire as an act of warning. Its cities had been destroyed, its people reduced to barbarism. "And this is addressed to you. I'd be happy to leave if you want privacy."

Lara took the card, curious, and slid it into the appropriate slot on her terminal. Her name came up at the top of the screen, and a prompt to enter her pa.s.sword. File information showed that the message was much too large for a mere text transmission, so it was bound to be voice and image.

"No, that's all right. I have no secrets." She entered her pa.s.sword and brought up the mail message.

A man's face, good-looking and somewhat roguish, surrounded by black hair cut close and a trim mustache; behind was a plain beige wall, a table with some holos on it, an open viewport showing a landscape of blasted, black ground.

"h.e.l.lo, Lara," the man said. "I don't imagine you ever thought you'd hear from me again."

Lara frowned. Who was this man? Then she recognized his face, a face she'd only seen a couple of times in files she'd hastily memorized some time ago, and she felt her jaw drop.

"It's-it's-Tavin Notsil. My brother."

"I thought he was supposed to be..."

"I know you must have thought I was dead," the recording continued. "Just as I thought you were. It seems that fate has spared us both. I'd made some unusual arrangements with the town constable and was earning an honest living on the Sea of Aidiv under an a.s.sumed name when New Oldtown was. .h.i.t. I came home and everything I knew was gone. But now I find out that you've survived. I can't tell you how happy I am."

Lara felt Tyria squeeze her and heard her whisper "Congratulations."

But Lara's mind was racing down pathways far from human contact.