• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“Thank you, sir.”

“Their level of discipline is not that of line units however, Admiral.”

Wedge looked over at General Salm. The irritation in his voice matched the sour expression on the small man’s face. Having come up through the ranks of Y-wing pilots, Salm had not been pleased when the Rogues staged a training attack on a full wing of Y-wing bombers. Though he had approved the exercise and had flown lead in one of the squadrons, he clearly had not expected things to go so badly for his trainees. The Rogues had lost four of their own fighters, but had destroyed all but six of the Y-wings. Salm was one of the survivors, which Wedge felt was a good thing and would have asked his pilots to leave Salm alone if he had thought of it beforehand. Despite that, the nearly eight-to-one kill ratio had been better than even Wedge had imagined possible and had made Salm furious.

“I appreciate the General’s assessment of my squadron, but these are elite pilots. I think making allowances for their high spirits promotes high morale.” Wedge lifted his chin. “My people have a lot to live up to …”

“Right now,” Salm sniffed, “they’re living down to the squadron name.”

“Begging your pardon, General, I think you’re judging Rogue Squadron too harshly.” And it’s because we made your Guardian, Warden, and Champion squadrons look as if they were Lame, Sick, and Dying! The fighter pilot looked at Ackbar. “Sir, there have been no incidents, aside from the exercise in which General Salm was a willing participant, in which Rogue Squadron has done anything untoward.”

The Mon Cal military leader set the datapad down. “I think General Salm has legitimate concerns about modified computer code being downloaded into his Y-wings’ computers. I understand it painted your squadron crest on their primary monitor after they were shot down by your people.”

Salm’s eyes blazed and Wedge fought to keep a smile off his face. Gavin Darklighter had created the crest and with Zraii’s help had linked a digitized image of it into the start-up and communications packages in the squadron. The crest, which featured a twelve-pointed red star with the Alliance crest in blue at the center, had an X-wing at each point of the star. Though the image was not sanctioned by the Alliance, astrotechs had started painting it on the squadron’s X-wings and Emtrey had requisitioned unit patches that featured the design.

Wedge had been unable to determine if it was Corran, Nawara, Shiel, Rhysati, or some combination thereof who had talked the Verpine chief tech into adding the image to the Target-Aggressor Attack Resolution Software package, but he did know that Horn’s R2 unit had done some of the code-slicing. When the TAARS package informed the downed Y-wing pilots of their status in the exercise, as Ackbar noted, the Rogue crest showed up to annoy the bomber jocks.

“I undertook an investigation into that situation, sir, and have restricted the unit’s recreation time until I find out who did what in this whole thing.”

Salm scoffed at that explanation. “You have arranged for your squadron to use the recreation facilities exclusively. They get more time in the gymnasium now than they ever did before, and the squadron briefing room has more recreational equipment than the Officers’ Lounge here. Lujayne Forge spends more time as a social secretary for your brood than she does training.”

“General, I’m building a squadron that will be given difficult missions, which means I need them to trust each other. If that means they have to be cliquish, then so be it.”

Ackbar rose from his chair and walked over to where a blue globe of water hung suspended in a repulsorlift cage. The apparatus negated gravity, allowing the water to form a perfect globe. Within it a school of small fish with neon blue and gold stripes flashed this way and that. The Mon Cal studied it for a moment, then inclined his head toward Salm.

“It does not strike me, General, that your earlier complaints about the TAARS tampering involved how Rogue Squadron