Star Wars_ X-Wing 01_ Rogue Squadron - Michael A. Stackpole [19]
Corran nodded his head and looked up toward the front of the room where Bror Jace stood. Tall, slender, and handsome, the blond-haired, blue-eyed pilot had proven himself to be very good during the selection exercises. The Corellian thought he might even have liked Jace, but the man’s ego was as big as an Imperial Star Destroyer and likely to be just as deadly. The ego-cases Corran had known in CorSec had always burned bright but burned out early. At some point they got themselves into a situation they could have just as easily avoided had they been thinking clearly.
Corran smiled in Jace’s direction and caught a return nod from the black-haired woman to whom Jace was speaking. “Ooryl, how did Erisi Dlarit do in the exercise?”
“Middle of the hunt, after Nawara Ven and ahead of Ooryl. Lujayne Forge came in at the back of the group, with the others in between. The scores were still very good, but competition is stiff here.”
Wedge Antilles entered the room and marched down front to where the holographic briefing display grew from the floor like a mechanical mushroom. Joining him at the front of the room Corran saw the mystery pilot from the day before and a black 3PO droid with a nonstandard head. It looked more like the clamshell design seen on flight controller droids, where the concave upper disk overlapped the lower one, but left a facial hole. The unusual construction made sense, both given the lack of spare parts for droids and the fact that this droid was assigned to a fighter squadron. The little bit of a sagittal crest on its head made it look somewhat martial.
“People, if you would be seated. I’m Wedge Antilles, the commander of Rogue Squadron.” The green-eyed man smiled openly. “I’d like to welcome you here and congratulate you on being chosen for Rogue Squadron. I want to go over with you the basic criteria we used in making our selections and let you know what will be expected of you as your training continues and missions are assigned to us.”
Wedge looked out at his audience and Corran felt a bit of a shock run through him as their eyes met. His eyes have seen the years—have seen more than they should have. Corran knew of Wedge’s background because Hal Horn had been one of the investigators trailing the pirates who killed Wedge’s family at Gus Treta. Hal had kept his eye on Wedge and had pronounced him a lost cause when he started smuggling weapons for the Rebellion.
Wedge exhaled slowly. “You all know the history of this squadron. Even before we were formally created, we were given the job of killing the first Death Star. We did it, and lost a lot of fine pilots in the process. All of them were and are heroes of the Rebellion—they’ll be as famous as some of the old Jedi Knights in the years to come. Rogue Squadron saw a lot of action guarding convoys and raiding Imperial shipping after that. We covered the evacuation from Hoth, fought at Gall, and a year later, at Endor, we killed another Death Star. From there we went to Bakura and fought the Ssi-ruuk.
“After seven years of nonstop fighting, the leadership of the New Republic decided to rebuild and revitalize this unit. This was a wise choice because all of us—those who had survived—had seen a lot of new pilots come into Rogue Squadron and get killed in Rogue Squadron.” Wedge looked over at the mystery pilot. “All of the veterans wanted to see Rogue Squadron continue, but also wanted to see the pilots in it get the training they needed to survive.”
The TIE pilot nodded in agreement with Wedge’s statement. Wedge looked back at the new pilots. “About a year ago Admiral Ackbar, at the behest of the Provisional Council, presented me with the plans for re-forming Rogue Squadron. Rogue Squadron had become a symbol for the Alliance. It needed to live up to its legend and become once again