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“No,” said Gant. “Actually, we have a pretty good idea of what happened there.” The colonel circled the table and Mallar once before sitting down and placing an interview recorder between them. “When did you first learn the nature of the mission?”

“The nature of the mission? You mean the ferry duty, or that we would be escorting Tampion?” When Gant showed no sign that he was going to answer, Mallar went on. “I was called to the training commander’s office at oh-nine-fifty the day before yesterday, and I was told I had been assigned to a recon-X ferry flight.”

“And that was the first you knew of that assignment?”

“Yes—well, no. Admiral Ackbar told me the day before, when we were at the simulator, that there was a chance they might need pilots for a ferry mission. But I didn’t know anything else until Captain Logirth called me in. I got the details at the mission briefing, the same as everyone else.”

“What details were those?”

“It was a mission briefing,” Mallar said, puzzled that Gant would need an explanation. “Ship assignments—the jump vector—the formation we’d be using—the mission schedule—the lift order—the fact that we would be escorting Tampion, and that some of us would be returning in the shuttle.”

“Is that all?”

“Well—there were some technical details on comm configuration and so forth, yes.”

“When did you learn that Commodore Solo would be aboard the shuttle?”

“Not until we were in our ships, ready to lift. Lieutenant Bos recognized the commodore as he was boarding. Before that, all we were told was that the shuttle would be carrying command staff.”

Gant nodded. “How much time elapsed between the mission briefing and the cockpit call?”

“Four hours.”

“I need for you to account for your whereabouts during that four hours. Don’t leave anything out.”

“I went right to the simulators and spent two hours doing lifts and formation work. On the way back to the lockers, I stopped for about ten minutes at the Memory Wall, looking at names. I took a five-minute scrubdown, then I crawled into a sleep tube and spent the rest of the time trying to—sleep, that is.”

“Who’d you talk to?”

“I hardly talked to anyone. Lieutenant Frekka, my simulator controller. I said a few words to Rags—Lieutenant Ragsall, who flew as Ferry Seven in our group—in pilot country.”

“What did you say?”

“I asked him how many of us he thought the Fifth would keep,” said Mallar.

“And what did he say to that?”

“He said that in combat, you don’t usually lose the mount and get the rider back—that the chances were that with a new fleet they’d need almost as many pilots as they needed fighters.”

“Who else did you talk to?”

Mallar shook his head. “The crew chief for my recon-X, the flight leader—that’s all I can remember. Major, I was nervous, and when I’m nervous, I don’t start a lot of conversations.”

“What were you nervous about?”

“About making a mistake. About making people regret giving me a chance.”

“Did you talk to anyone off the base?”

“I never left the base.”

“What about your comlink?”

“No.”

“Are you sure? Shall we look at the comm log?”

“I didn’t talk to anyone—wait, I tried to call Admiral Ackbar. But he wasn’t available.”

“Admiral Ackbar again,” Gant said. “Do you have a special relationship of some kind with him?”

“He was my primary flight instructor. And he’s my friend.”

“You managed to make friends in high places pretty quickly, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re trying to say. When I woke up in the hospital, Admiral Ackbar was there. Our friendship’s been at his initiative—I wouldn’t have known who he was to seek him out. I didn’t know who he was until much later.”

“If it’s at his initiative, why did you call him?”

“Because I’d just gotten good news, and I didn’t have anyone else to share it with who’d understand.” Mallar leaned forward, spreading his hands flat on the tabletop. “Look, Major—I know we screwed up, and I know I’m going to be sent back. But every one of us would rather have died than show up here without the commodore.”

“Really,” said Gant. “My information is that not a single member