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The Twi’lek let one of his brain tails drape itself over Rhysati’s shoulder and lightly stroke her throat. “If the General didn’t report Corran’s actions, military discipline would break down. Any pilot with a crack-brained scheme—not to characterize what you did as crack-brained, mind you—could disobey orders and, most likely, get himself killed.”

Erisi leaned forward with her elbows on her knees. Corran noticed that her flight suit was unzipped far enough to give him a fair view of her cleavage. “But Corran didn’t get himself killed …”

Corran smiled. “But it was a near thing. One of the pig-drivers shot his torps late. They lost my signal, then picked it up again when I was heading away from the Ravager. When I noticed they were coming after me I realized that Whistler hadn’t killed the jiggle program he had running to randomize my flight as I headed into the Lancer’s light. I wanted to break hard, but he had me locked in on a twenty-degree cone, so all I could do was fly straight.”

“Then how did you …?” Even a puzzled frown couldn’t detract too much from Erisi’s beauty.

“I told Whistler to cut it out. I was thinking the jiggle code when I said it. Whistler, being a bit more direct in his problem solving, just cut the homing beacon the torps were using to track me. They lost their target, couldn’t reacquire it, and exploded. The second or so it took them to do all that took me outside their blast radius.”

Rhysati smiled and gently patted Nawara’s brain tail. “Well, we’re happy your R2 unit takes such good care of you. And I, for one, want to thank you for doing what you did out there. That Lancer would have killed a lot of us if we had tried to take it out the normal way.”

The Twi’lek nodded. “The traditional Rogue Squadron way—leaving bits and pieces of X-wings scattered around.”

The blue-eyed woman from Thyferra frowned at Nawara. “We have a new tradition now, and Corran’s action is a glorious part of it. We’ve had three missions and we’ve lost none of our pilots—and this when Commander Antilles told us our first five missions would kill a bunch of us off.”

“Erisi, we have lost a pilot.” Corran scratched at his chest where he’d been shot. “We almost lost three more on Talasea. Don’t start thinking we’re invulnerable. The missions we’ve had so far have been relatively simple.”

“I know that, Corran. I don’t think of us as leading charmed lives.” Her eyes tightened slightly, but Corran sensed no ire in the changed expression. “In reading about the unit’s history, it has always flown well on simple missions. Even so, our kill rates and repair rates are better than ever before. I don’t doubt we’ll have missions that will push us to the limit, but if statistics have any truth in them, we’ve not been burning up all our luck on our missions.”

“Speak for yourself.” Corran winked at her. “At the Bank of Luck, I’ve hit my credit limit.”

Nawara jerked a thumb at the cabin’s closed doorway. “Well, there’s a wing of bomber jocks willing to make payments on your account. Right now they’re settling for buying the Rogues a couple of rounds down in the recreation center.”

“They’re toasting Bror for picking up two eyeballs over Grand Isle.” Rhysati rolled her eyes. “They’d rather be buying drinks for you.”

“He’s the hot pilot from the run. Two is more than I got.”

Erisi frowned at him. “But you got the frigate.”

Corran shook his head. “No I didn’t.”

“What?”

The Twi’lek explained. “If Corran had so much as shot one laser burst at the frigate, then he would have gotten a piece of the kill, but fractions below a half are not recognized as being worthy of being recorded. Warden Squadron got the frigate—Corran is able to verify it, but he gets nothing for it.”

“That’s not fair.” Erisi looked from Nawara to Corran and back again. “He should get credit for the kill.”

“Erisi,” Rhysati began, “if you’re shooting at some squint and he jukes and your shots illuminate an eyeball, would you want the squint to get credit