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Runt, his big eyes solemn, said, “We know why we are here. We lose track of ourselves. But Lieutenant Janson says we are doing better, with many thanks to Kell.”

Kell smiled. “You’re worth it. One day you’ll be able to toggle between minds as though they were channels on the holoprojector. Tyria, Face, it’s you two I don’t get. You two don’t act like screwups—”

Phanan glared with his good eye. “Unlike the rest of us, you mean.”

“That’s right. You especially.”

Far from being offended, Phanan grinned at the rejoinder. “Just so that’s clear.”

Face leaned back, relaxed. “I bought my way into the fighter corps, Kell. That’s what my first commander said, and he’s right. I used my own money to purchase an A-wing, under kind of odd circumstances, and to get the training I wanted. Flew two missions with Colonel, I mean General, Crespin’s Comet Group and had to punch out or eat a bomber torpedo. Bought an X-wing next time just for variety … and ended up back at the base run by Crespin, just my luck.

“The general thinks I’m a dilettante who did too much good for the Empire in the old days ever to make up for it. Maybe he’s right … but when he told me I’d never amount to anything, I snapped back at him like an idiot. I said I was just following in his footsteps. Well, that was it for my career. Until this opportunity came up.” He shrugged.

“You’re that rich.”

“Not rich enough to keep buying fighters, no. I hope to be accepted as a real pilot someday. Enough so that if I lose this snubfighter, the Alliance, rather than my personal accounts, will replace it.”

They all turned to Tyria, who looked uncomfortable under their scrutiny. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said.

“Fair enough,” Face said. “But tell us this: Does whatever it is that brought you here fall within the parameters we’ve been talking about? Something may have wrecked your chances for advancement?”

She was silent, but nodded.

“Interesting,” Face said. “There’s something else. I noticed one of the quartermasters delivering Lieutenant Donos a hard-shell case that suggested ‘laser rifle’ to me—”

Phanan smirked. “There’s another vaped career. You know that sim run on the volcano world? I heard—”

Kell’s comlink beeped. As he reached for it, each of the other pilots’ comlinks also signaled for attention. He turned away from them and activated it. “Flight Officer Tainer.”

The voice was female, impersonal, and, he suspected, recorded. “Your presence is required immediately in the X-wing squadron briefing amphitheater. Repeat, your presence is required immediately in the X-wing squadron briefing amphitheater.” There was a click as the speaker disconnected. Kell heard the comlinks behind him all repeating the same message.

He looked at the others. “I think we have a unit roster,” he said.

6

The briefing amphitheater was a white dome. Several dozen seats were assembled along the wall of one half of the dome; long curved tables, a dais and lectern, and a holoprojector curved along the other half.

Tyria sat at the end of one row of seats. Phanan smoothly moved in to sit beside her, but Kell, uncharacteristically awkward, bumped him out of the way with his hip and sat there instead. “Oh, sorry, Phanan. Were you there? I didn’t see.”

Phanan smiled, unperturbed. “Perhaps you need an optical enhancement. I could arrange for you to lose an eye; then you could put in for one.”

“Thanks, no.”

Ten pilots arrayed themselves among sixty seats; then Wedge Antilles and Wes Janson entered the chamber. The door closed behind them. Kell felt his ears pop as a pressure seal activated.

Janson took a chair by one of the long tables; Wedge stood before the lectern and holoprojector. Without preamble, he said, “I’d like to congratulate you on surviving our initial culling process. We had forty-three candidates; you ten survived. We’d actually hoped to have twelve, a full squadron roster of new pilots, but to put it simply, you ten were good enough and the other thirty-three weren’t.”

Wedge