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“Then you know.”

“I changed my mind, Myn. When Jesmin died. How could I look her in the eye if I just threw my life away? She fought to live. She’d be angry at me for wasting what she didn’t have a chance to enjoy.”

Donos didn’t answer. He didn’t have a reply for her.

“What about the Talons? Do they want you to die?”

“They must.”

“Stop that. You knew them. Would they want you to die?”

“Their families would.”

“No.”

“They’d want me to die because I led their fathers and brothers and sisters and cousins off to some nothing world to die for no reason.” He looked beyond Tyria’s shoulder to where Kell and Face stood. “He knows. Muscles there.”

Kell said, “I know what?”

“You want Janson to die.”

“No.”

“Don’t lie! He killed your father.”

“How did you know that?”

“Someone told me.” Donos shrank away from the question. No need to implicate Grinder, regardless of whether Donos chose to live or not.

Kell knelt beside Tyria and looked gravely down at Donos. “I used to want him to die. I killed him hundreds of ways in my imagination. But I changed my mind.”

“Just so you could argue with me!”

“No.” Kell seemed to sag. He looked tired and years older. “I doubt that I’ll ever play sabacc with him, Myn. But I want him to live. Because with him in an X-wing, it means that every year there are fewer Imps and warlord flyers out there endangering my sisters. My mother. My friends. And the families of the dead Talon Squad pilots will think even better of you than I do of Janson. Unless you kill yourself. If you kill yourself, they’ll tell themselves, ‘My father didn’t even have a chance; he was led by a coward.’ If they know you were a courageous pilot, they’ll say, ‘He died fighting for us.’ ”

Donos blinked, and for a moment he was far away from Night Caller, flashing at hyperspace speeds through the homes of the families whose members he had led to death. As he’d done so many times in the days and weeks after Talon Squad was obliterated. But this time, the faces he saw were not masks of anger and vengeance. Just sadness, sometimes; sometimes they were just curious and reflective faces turned up toward the stars.

“I’m sorry about Jesmin,” Donos said.

Tyria nodded and brushed a lock of sweat-drenched hair out of Donos’s eyes. “We all are.”

Donos looked up at Falynn. “I’m sorry about you.”

Falynn came forward. She wore an expression compounded of pain and even, Donos thought, jealousy at Tyria’s ministrations to him. “What do you mean?”

“I thought you wanted to get close. I kept you away. I was cold to you.”

“I understand why.”

“I think I need to go to bed now.”

Kell rose and helped Donos up.

Tyria also rose. “Will you be all right?”

“I don’t know.” Donos shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Breakfast is at eight hundred. We’d like to see you there.”

Donos nodded. “I guess I’ll be there.”

On the way back to his quarters, he felt so strange … All the pain he’d known since Talon Squad died was still there, but the exhaustion that had accompanied it seemed to be gone. It was as though toxins he’d been building up for ages had been bled out.

He fell onto his bed and was unconscious in moments.

The others watched him depart the lounge. Falynn followed him at a discreet distance, making sure he made it back to his quarters. Then Face slumped against the lounge bar. Kell sat heavily on one of the long couches. Tyria reached in to the simulator unit to power it down, then sat beside Kell.

“Well, that was fun,” Face said.

“It worked,” Kell said. His voice sounded as heavy as he felt. “And neither Commander Antilles nor Lieutenant Janson walked in on us. We got lucky.”

Tyria leaned back and closed her eyes. “Now, all Myn has to do is actually get up in four hours and we can say we did it.”

Kell said, “Now maybe Runt will get some sleep.”

“Oh?” Tyria asked. “He’s been sleeping badly?”

“On the shifts he pulled to sit with Myn, he talked to him endlessly. Tried every way he knew to get Myn to ‘switch to a less damaged mind.’ Something his people do with fair ease, even