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“Go on.”

“You’ve heard of Talasea, in the Morobe system?”

Zsinj frowned. “Some sort of agricultural colony world, wasn’t it? An economic failure?”

“That’s correct. It was abandoned. Not long ago, it was temporarily used as a secret base by Rogue Squadron.”

“Ah, that’s it. One of Ysanne Isard’s other pets assaulted them there. And failed to exterminate them, obviously.”

Trigit kept his smile frozen to his face, but the comment about Iceheart’s pets rankled him. Zsinj obviously considered him one of those pets. “Yes, yes. Well, the Morrt Project is recording an unusual number of hits from Morobe. The visual data we’re receiving suggests a wide variety of ships. X-wings, A-wings. Rebel transports. One of them was the Borleias, the last transport to lift from Folor Base.”

Zsinj took a deep breath. “Anxious to avenge yourself on the Folor survivors, Apwar?”

“I’m not too proud to admit it.”

“Then, by all means, deal with it. I’ll send you, oh, Provocateur as support. Night Caller and Constrictor likewise. That should be a sufficiently lethal fleet for a new base, even if elements of the Rebel fleet are lingering there.”

“Thank you.”

“Then you can run off and deal with these forces shadowing Night Caller. I think I can trust you to eliminate an X-wing squadron and a commando unit by yourself.”

“Your faith in me makes my heart drip with goodwill.”

Zsinj gave him an irritatingly superior smile and waved farewell. His holoimage faded.

Trigit gritted his teeth. Owing to Trigit’s failure at Folor, Zsinj had been able to fling out far more barbs in their recent conversations than Trigit could defend himself against. That had to end soon. Perhaps at Morobe Trigit would do well enough to quiet the warlord.

He could only hope.

In a service conduit above the corridor accessing the officers’ quarters, Kell Tainer hung upside down.

It wasn’t a pose he preferred. But the relay box he was servicing was in the vertical conduit halfway between the corridor and the horizontal service shaft above. At this late hour, he could go wake up Cubber or one of the other mechanics and find out where they’d stowed the ladders, or he could hook his legs over the lip where the two shafts met, hang upside down for a couple of minutes, and fix a conductor relay that had been shaken loose by battle damage.

So he played a game with himself, seeing if he could get the relay reseated before the blood rushing to his head made him dizzy.

He had the cover off the relay box and was wrestling with the relay itself when he heard them, footsteps and voices beneath him. He heard the name “Donos” and went very still.

The first voice was Wedge’s. “The first time we have to scramble for action, the secret’s out.”

The second was Janson’s. “Is there anything we can do? We could arrange things so that only a half squadron of Wraiths was standing by at the next target zone. We could arrange it so that Donos was part of the off-duty pilot group—”

“And risk the lives of the others if it’s another ambush like the last one? No, Wes. But keep thinking about it. If you can find anything I can reasonably do—reasonably—I want to hear about it.”

“Yessir.”

Footsteps moved away. Kell looked down. By arching his back, he could see just the back of Janson’s head. The lieutenant didn’t move; he had his head down. He had to be thinking the situation over.

Thinking about Donos. Kell suppressed a whistle. Wedge and Janson both knew about Donos—knew, at least, that he had been incapacitated. They knew the Wraiths were covering it up. But none of the Wraiths had realized that those two were doing the same, giving them time. Time to give Donos a chance to pull out of it.

The thought hit Kell like an electrical jolt. But that meant—

He grabbed the far edge of the perpendicular shaft, levered his legs free, and dropped to the corridor below.

Janson spun at the sound of something hitting the metal floor behind him.

It was a big man in a crouch—Janson threw himself backward, slamming into the bulkhead wall, and grabbed at his