Star Wars_ X-Wing 05_ Wraith Squadron - Aaron Allston [177]
Ackbar met Wedge’s gaze again and shook his head. “We have no news on any official cooperation between the remains of the Empire and Zsinj. No idea why the Empire would loan the One Eighty-first to the warlord. No news of Fel, the details of his return … or his family. I am sorry. I will let you know if his name crosses my desk.”
“Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.”
In the hangar temporarily assigned to the vehicles of Wraith Squadron—seven battered X-wing snubfighters, two battle-scarred captured TIE fighters, and a comparatively pristine-looking Lambda-class shuttle—they explained the colonel’s decision to the Wraiths who had not been called in for the second stage of interrogation. “I hate to say it,” Wedge said, “but leave is effectively canceled. I want volunteers to act as guards for Runt and Wes until they’re discharged. I want someone on duty here with our vehicles until we lift for our next assignment, and I want everyone walking around with eyes behind as well as in front. Understood?”
The Wraiths nodded. “I’ll work out a duty roster,” Face said.
“Why you?” Kell asked.
Face smiled at the big man. “Because Janson’s not here to do it. Because I was promoted two minutes ahead of you, so I outrank you. Check back with me in a few minutes and I’ll have assignments ready to transmit.”
As the Wraiths moved their separate ways, Phanan threw his arm over Kell’s shoulder. He looked at Tyria. “Tyria, if you’d excuse us for a moment, I have a few words to say in private to your toyfriend—”
She gave him an arch look. “My what?”
Kell straightened, causing the shorter man’s arm to slide off, and glared. “Her what?”
“What did I say?” Phanan shrugged. “A few moments.”
She shrugged and moved to her X-wing.
“Did you catch the name of the colonel?” Phanan asked.
Kell’s scowl turned from irritation to confusion. “I don’t think Commander Antilles mentioned it.”
“Repness.”
Kell glanced over at Tyria, but she had one of her snub-fighter’s engine ports open and was intent on the machinery within. “That’s the name of the trainer who tried to get her to steal an X-wing. Before she joined the Wraiths.”
“The same. I checked on him as we were marching back from the interrogation. He’s still training pilots, now here on Coruscant, though he’s about to be assigned to the training frigate Tedevium. He has other duties as well, mostly high-profile volunteer stuff—not unusual for an ambitious officer. He was officer of the day today for the subbase the military police belong to, which is why he debriefed us on the incident.”
Kell took a deep breath. Atton Repness was an instructor for New Republic pilot trainees who were on the verge of washing out of the training program. He had a reputation as being good at salvaging pilots thought unsalvageable. But Kell and Phanan knew that he had secretly altered Tyria’s failing grades to make them passable, then tried to enlist her in an effort to steal an X-wing, and had used the revelation of the grade forgery to blackmail her into silence. “You wouldn’t have mentioned him if you didn’t already have a plan,” Kell said. His voice was hard.
Phanan smiled. “That’s what I like to hear. Acknowledgment of my superior intellect along with a desire to hurt somebody else very badly. It’s a good day for me.
“Yes, I have a plan. We know of one and only one tactic he has used. He approached a struggling pilot candidate, female, attractive—we don’t know whether those characteristics are important to his thinking, but let’s put a skifter in the deck and make sure—and helped her two ways. Extra training, for legitimate gains in her scores, and doctoring of her grades, to ensure she passed … and to ensure that she was in debt to him, or could