Star Wars_ I, Jedi - Michael A. Stackpole [148]
“Maybe.” Nive paused. “Makes sense, of course, but few things in warfare ever do.”
“Worth taking a chance if no one dies.”
Nive snorted. “You that squeamish?”
“I’ve got my share of deaders logged in my accounts, Captain. If I can get it without blood, I think it’s better.” I shook my head. “If that’s not thinking that’s welcome here, I can just take my shuttle and leave.”
“No, no need for that.” Some of the tension in Nive’s voice eased. “That kind of thinking is more than welcome here. You’re one of us now, Idanian, one of the Invids. Let’s hope more of you rubs off on us than the other way around.”
THIRTY-FIVE
Caet and I did have words on our return to Khuiumin 4—well, not words exactly, but the scars healed within two weeks and you can’t notice the one on my right cheek unless I get a deep tan. Even before the physical evidence of our fight had gone away, however, Caet voted with four other of Rock Squadron’s survivors to make me the leader of a new three flight. Kech helped me choose three pilots to fill it and Caet moved into first flight to replace Rock Four.
Over the next month I spent a lot of time with my new recruits, drilling them. I’d gone through the same routine countless times before with new pilots coming into Rogue Squadron, but I found Rock Squadron to be the dark side of what I had known with the Rogues. In terms of discipline, Khuiumin 4 made Yavin 4 look like Lusankya. Trying to instruct hungover pilots is about as tough as teaching a rancor to sing and dance—and the rancor’s attitude about the whole process would probably be better. The pilots in my squad clearly thought they could fly, and while they were not bad, they weren’t up to the level I wanted. I was responsible for their lives, and I had no desire to go into a fight with undertrained pilots who would die and leave me alone out there.
The best of the lot was Timmser, a tall woman who wore her hair very short and very blond. Her temper was about as short as her hair, and she initiated a couple of cantina-clearing brawls when she wandered into the Warren, which is where the Red Nova crew and Riistar’s Raiders tended to hang out. There was little love lost between those groups and the Survivors; and Timmser’s status as an ex-Raider didn’t help ease the tension there. In a Tri-fighter she had a good sense of what was going on around her and had a knack for hitting on deflection shots.
Over the first months with the Survivors, I spent most of my time dirtdown in Vlarnya, which is about as thrilling as it sounds. The days got hot enough that most folks spent their time in the semi-sunken cantinas that served as informal squadron homes. The Survivors primarily hung out at the Crash cantina. The decor was rather ghoulish—pilots would bring in bits and pieces of debris from kills or from crashes they’d survived. Chunks of transparisteel or Quadanium alloy hung from the ceiling and, in the dim light, presented navigational obstacles for even folks as small as I am. Timmser actually gashed her forehead in there before she got used to negotiating the debris-maze.
I visited the Crash regularly, but tended to spend a fair amount of my free time wandering through Vlarnya. Aside from the Aviary—the indigs’ name for the district where the pilots tended to reside—Vlarnya looked like pretty much any other marginal town dependent on spaceport trade for its survival. The fields outside of town grew enough fresh vegetables that the prices for them weren’t wholly outrageous. Vlarnya had no native industries—cantinas and gambling establishments don’t really scan that way to me—save for a local brewery that turned out a decent lomin-ale-type product. It was good enough, in fact, that all seven of the pirate crews working out of Vlarnya declared