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1

He made no pretense at being fully human. He had probably been born human, but now mechanical limbs—obvious prosthetics with no skinlike cover concealing their artificial nature—replaced his right arm and both legs, and the upper-right portion of his bald head was a shiny metal surface with a standard computer interface.

He made no pretense at being friendly, either. He approached the members of Wraith Squadron as they sat, crammed into their booth, and with neither threat nor comment he snatched a wine bottle from the next table over and brought it down on Runt Ekwesh’s head.

The bottle didn’t break. It offered a musical toonk sound and coughed up a little wine from its open neck, and Runt, the furred alien with the long, big-toothed face, slumped in his seat, his eyes rolling up in his head.

Most of the members of Wraith Squadron were pinned in place—with nine pilots crammed into a circular booth built for five, they had little room to move. But Kell Tainer, seated at the opposite end of the ring from Runt, scrambled to his feet.

Instead of diving toward his wingmate’s attacker, instead of charging with a fist cocked back to punch the man, he slid sideways toward his target, then came up in a side kick that caught the cyborg under his chin and lifted him clean off the floor, slamming him to the bar’s floor.

Most of the members of the squadron slid out of the booth in Kell’s wake. Other patrons of the bar, human and otherwise, also rose, their expressions suggesting they were unclear on whether to join in this traditional form of bar entertainment.

Commander Wedge Antilles, the squadron’s leader, stayed put. He turned toward the squadron medic, Ton Phanan—the man with the mocking manner, well-trimmed beard and mustache, and prosthetic plate over the left side of his head. “How is he?”

Phanan shook his head as he delicately moved his fingers across Runt’s skull. “I don’t think anything’s cracked. He’s probably just concussed. You knew he had a hard head.”

The cyborg was up now. He and Kell were an odd contrast. The cyborg looked like a fatal skimmer-and-pedestrian accident whose remaining parts had been cobbled together by an insane mechanic, while Kell, with his classic blue eyes and sculpted features, his formidable height and obvious conditioning, looked like a holoposter for military recruitment. But their smiles were identical: humorless, cold, threatening.

The cyborg reached into the next booth, past bar patrons who shrieked and ducked away, and yanked free the table bolted to the floor. He hauled it backward, then swung it faster than any human could manage, but Kell ducked forward, rolled under the table, came up on his feet a mere hand span in front of the cyborg, and planted one-two-three blows in his attacker’s gut. The cyborg staggered backward and Kell lashed out with a foot, kicking the table from his fingers with an ease that made the move look casual.

The other bar patrons seemed to settle on a consensus: They held back and began putting down bets. Wedge nodded over the wisdom of that choice. Though the Wraiths were in civilian clothes, it was obvious they were in good condition, and for all the patrons knew, Kell might be only typical of their fighting skill rather than one of their best hand-to-hand fighters.

Piggy, the Gamorrean pilot, leaned back against the Wraiths’ table to watch the proceedings—to the extent that the semipermanent smoky haze hovering at chest level and above permitted easy viewing. He glanced over his shoulder at Runt. “Is he hurt?” His voice emerged both as incomprehensible grunts and as electronic words, the latter being emitted by a nearly invisible speaker implanted in his throat.

“Everybody asks that,” Phanan complained. Through with his examination of Runt’s skull, he now shone a small light into Runt’s eyes one by one. “Nobody ever says, ‘What a mess! I hope the doctor is not emotionally harmed by having to deal with it.’ He’s coming around. He’ll probably be dizzy for a few days.