• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“No.”

“Not something one advertises. Back then, I was a pilot trainee in the Tierfon Yellow Aces. With Jek Porkins.”

“Good old Piggy.”

“The original. Those were the days when a training squadron might just get picked to do a strike mission that should have gone to an experienced squad—”

“Like today, you mean.”

“Well, it’s much less common today. You know that. That day, our mission was an ambush of an Imperial freighter and its TIE fighter escort. They were to come in to a landing at a temporary Imperial staging base we’d found out about. We were in Y-wings. One unit of the Yellow Aces was to strafe the base and run, leading off the garrisoned flyers, while the rest was to hit the freighter. To take it, if possible; we really needed the food and fuel.”

“So what happened?”

“The first part of the mission went as planned. But as the freighter came in, we saw that the TIE fighter escort was twice as big as advertised. And one of our pilots, a former freighter pilot from Alderaan, Kissek Doran, had a panic attack and took off in his Y-wing. Piggy and I were sent out to bring him back … or shoot him down.”

“And you did?”

The words exploded out of Janson: “Wedge, I had to! If he communicated on any standard frequency, if he crossed into the base’s sensor range, if he bounced high enough that the moon’s horizon no longer concealed him; if any of these things happened, we were compromised and the unit might have been slaughtered. Porkins tried to crowd him down to land, but he couldn’t, and I—” The words stuck in his throat for a moment. “I shot him down. I had to use lasers. Couldn’t risk the ion cannon; its energy pulse might have been detected. The blast cracked his cockpit; vacuum killed him. His scrounged flight suit wasn’t up to it.”

“It sounds as though you did everything you could to keep him alive.”

“Yes, until I killed him. I knew he had a wife and two or three kids back on Alderaan. I figured they’d died when the first Death Star destroyed the planet.”

Wedge took up Janson’s datapad and scanned Kell’s record. “It doesn’t say anything here about Alderaan or the Doran family.”

“They must have changed their family name, falsified records. The unit commander went to visit them, not long after he’d sent them the official notification of Kissek’s death. The story he was going to give her, supporting the one in the notification, was that he died in battle … but Kissek’s wife had already heard the truth from someone. Accused the Tierfon Yellow Aces not only of killing her husband but of ruining the family name. Maybe she tried to fix things by changing their name and moving away.”

Wedge sighed over the datapad. “Look at this. Tainer was a fighter-craft mechanic on Sluis Van. When he came to the Alliance, he trained as a demolitions expert. Served with Lieutenant Page’s commandos, then demonstrated a native talent for fighting in re-creational simulators and got permission to train in the real thing. Have you ever met Page?”

“No.”

“A good man. Teaches his people well. Wes, we really need Tainer … if we can persuade him to stay.”

Janson gave him a look that was all mock cheer. “Oh, wonderful. I killed his father. He hates me. He knows how to make bombs. Come on, Wedge, how does this story end?”

“If he’s an honorable man, you’re in no danger.”

“So he gets to the boiling point, and then he pops like the cork on bad Tatooine wine.”

“All Tatooine wine is bad.”

“Don’t change the subject. Anyway, keep reading.”

Wedge returned his attention to the datapad. “In training, one Headhunter crashed. One X-wing set down hard enough that it took a lot of damage. He claimed unresponsive controls both times?”

Janson nodded. “Typical response from someone who can’t accept responsibility for his failures.”

Wedge looked up and gave his fellow pilot a piercing stare. “So, back when you were hot to add him to our roster, how were you going to convince me to overlook this little crash-landing problem?”

“Wedge …”

“Answer the question.”

Janson looked unhappy. “I was going to point out that he could have been