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“Jess?” She stared, confused, at his lopsided smirk. “Got a flight helmet for me?” He pretended not to see the sudden softening of her expression. “Something sporty, in my size, Jess, with a hole in it to match the one in my head.”

IV

HAN tagged after Jessa in another quick run across the base. They entered one of the lesser hangar domes where the air was filled with the whine of high-performance engines. Six fighters were parked there, their ground crews attending them, checking out power levels, armaments, deflectors, and control systems.

The fighters were primarily for interceptor service—or rather, Han corrected himself, had been a generation ago. They were early production snubships; Z-95 Headhunters; compact, twin-engined swing-wing craft. Their fuselages, wings and forked tails were daubed with the drab spots, smears, and spray-splotches of general camouflage coats. Their external hardpoints, where rockets and bomb pylons had once been mounted, were now bare.

Indicating the snubs, Han asked Jessa, “What’d you do, knock over a museum?”

“Picked them up from a planetary constabulary; they were using them for antismuggling operations, matter of fact. We worked them over for resale, but hung on to them because they’re the only combat craft we’ve got right now. And don’t be so condescending, Solo; you’ve spent your share of time in snubs.”

That he had. Han dashed over to one of the Headhunters as a ground crewman finished fueling it. He took a high leap and chinned himself on the lip of the cockpit to eyeball it. Most of its console panels had been removed in the course of years of repair, leaving linkages and wiring exposed. The cockpit was just as cramped as he remembered.

But with that, the Z-95 Headhunter was still a good little ship, legendary for the amount of punishment it could soak up. Its pilot’s seat—the “easy chair,” in parlance—was set back at a thirty-degree angle to help offset gee-forces, the control stick built into its armrest. He let himself back down.

Several pilots had already gathered there, and another, a humanoid, showed up just then. There was little enough worry on their faces that Han concluded they hadn’t flown combat before. Jessa came up beside him and pressed an old, lusterless bowl of a flight helmet into his hands.

“Who’s flown one of these beasts before?” he asked as he tried the helmet on. It was a bad fit, too tight. He began pulling at the webbing adjustment tabs in its sweat-stained interior.

“We’ve all been up,” one pilot answered, “to practice basic tactics.”

“Oh, fine,” he muttered, trying the helmet on again. “We’ll rip ’em apart up there.” The headgear was still too tight. With an impatient click of her tongue, Jessa took it from him and began working on it herself.

He addressed his temporary command. “The Authority’s got newer ships; they can afford to buy whatever they want. That fighter spread coming in at us is probably made up of IRD ships straight off the government inventory, maybe prototypes, maybe production models. And the guys flying those IRDs learned how at an academy. I suppose it’d be too much to hope that anybody here has ever been to one?”

It was. Han went on, raising his voice over the increasing engine noise. “IRD fighters have an edge in speed, but these old Headhunters can make a tighter turn and take a real beating, which is why they’re still around. IRDs aren’t very aerodynamic, that’s their nature. Their pilots hate to come down and lock horns in a planetary atmosphere; they call it goo. These boys’ll have to, though, to hit the base, but we can’t wait until they get down here to hit them, or some might get through.

“We’ve got six ships. That’s three two-ship elements. If you’ve got anything worth protecting with those flight helmets, you’ll remember this: stay with your wing man. Without him, you’re dead. Two ships together are five times as effective as they would be alone, and they’re ten times safer.”

The Z-95s were ready