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By Root 1336 0

Imperial captain’s bars. He was seated in an imposing command chair and was much given to irritating theatrical gestures as he spoke. “We have been charged,” he said, “with weaving the net that will capture any Rebels who are so fortunate as to survive the destruction of the base on Folor and flee. Our assignment: lay Empion bombs along the four most likely escape routes and then wait at the astrographical center of that array to snatch up whatever poor insects fall into our trap.” He leaned forward, eyes glittering. “Personally, I hope some of them can effect repairs in the time it takes us to get to them. I could do with a bit of a fight.”

The Wraiths burst out in laughter. Jesmin hit a button on the main console and the captain’s image froze there, his expression still suggesting he had just let the viewers into his confidence with that little revelation.

“What is this?” asked Kell.

Face leaned back and stretched. “That’s our former ceiling decoration, Captain Zurel Darillian. He apparently kept the ship’s log in full holo.”

“What an ego.” Kell shook his head. “That must take up massive storage.”

Face said, “The ego or the graphics?”

Jesmin turned one eye admonishingly toward Face, then nodded toward Kell. “Oh, it does. But I thought that since Face was an actor, he should see this man’s performance. I have seldom seen anything so florid, so self-satisfied, so … repellant.”

“Oh, I have,” Face said. “I once sat in Ysanne Isard’s lap.”

Kell and Jesmin stared at him. Kell said, “You’re kidding.”

“Oh, no, I’m not. Win or Die had just been released Empire-wide. I played a little boy, a son of two patricians of the Old Republic, only I know that the Empire is the way to go and I try to run away to safety with the new Emperor. But my dad doesn’t see it that way and shoots me in the back, and I die in the Emperor’s arms, begging him to finish conquering the galaxy so that the evil of people like my parents can be eradicated …”

Jesmin burst out in gales of laughter, then clamped both hands over her mouth while she shook. When she had herself under control, she said, “Face, that’s horrible.”

Face grinned. “That was the old propaganda machine. So I got a trip to Imperial Center, I mean Coruscant, to meet the real Emperor. But he’d been called away to deal with some problem—I heard later that he had just received one of the early reports informing him of the degree of organization the Alliance actually had, and he wasn’t in a very good mood. So I saw Ysanne Isard instead, and she sat me in her lap and told me what a good boy I was.”

Kell finished with his hair and slung the towel over his shoulder. “What was that like?”

“Something like being stroked by a poisonous reptile wearing a human suit, only not quite so comforting.” Face shuddered. “The most crushing blow I ever felt after joining the New Republic was learning that Rogue Squadron had killed Isard—meaning that I wouldn’t be able to. Anyway, Captain Darillian is nothing in comparison. He was just a petty guy who reached his ultimate level of usefulness driving a minelaying barge for a warlord and then had to be scraped off the floor.”

Jesmin said, “You’d better finish getting ready, Kell. We take off in half an hour.”

“How are we doing that? I mean, with most of us returning to the X-wings, who’s going to pilot Night Caller and who’s going to deal with the prisoners?”

“We landed four X-wings in the topside hold, strapped them down tight almost on top of one another so they’d fit,” Jesmin said. “And the Narra is hooked up to the corvette’s port docking station. Commander Antilles will be piloting the corvette—he says he used to pilot Corellian freighters—and Phanan, Face, Grinder, Squeaky, Cubber, and I will be aboard.” Her voice turned sarcastically sweet. “I think we will be able to manage.”

“Well … all right. You have my permission.” Kell reflected. “Say, since we’re sending messages to Warlord Zsinj, why can’t we just track them along the HoloNet and find out where he is?”

Jesmin said, “Face asked the same thing. And it might be that simple if we had regular