• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

After one such ordinary encounter, Runt told him, “You think he means you harm.”

“I think he’s waiting for me to make a mistake. I just don’t know whether he intends to send my career into a trash receptacle or literally vape me in combat.”

“I think you are wrong,” Runt said. “I think your bad mind is imagining things.”

“I think all your minds ought to go out and play in a mine field sometime so that only one or two come back.”

Runt responded with a braying laugh. Kell shook his head; he could never tell what his wingman would find amusing.

Runt, too, was putting new skills to the test. Because of the multiplicity of his minds he was charged with reading the mail the ship’s former crewmen had received and writing responses for those who had been active correspondents—a small number, fortunately. He submitted his efforts to Face for both a human’s and a performer’s input, then broadcast them. He told Kell that the duty was strange and sometimes tedious, but was very helpful at teaching him to switch from one mind to another with greater speed and less effort.

Meanwhile, the ship’s two simulators were almost continuously occupied. The X-wing simulator became the near personal property of Tyria, who flew its missions obsessively, trying to bring her scores out of Wraith Squadron’s basement. Meanwhile, Falynn Sandskimmer monopolized the TIE fighter simulator, a tactic, she admitted, she hoped would make her the default choice for a wingman whenever Wedge flew TIE fighter missions. Tyria prevailed upon Grinder to program simulations of launches and landings in the difficult bow hold of Night Caller.

· · ·

In the ship’s mess, Kell and Phanan settled in on either side of Tyria. Intently studying her datapad, she was slow in noticing their arrival. “Oh. Hello.”

“We’re the committee to force you to relax once in a while,” Kell said.

Phanan nodded. “According to our mission chrono, it has been thirty-six standard hours since you enjoyed any aspect of your life, and twenty-three since you even cracked a smile.”

She managed one now, a very faint one.

Grinder, seated opposite her, said, “You’d think she was facing her final pilot’s examination. Relax, Tyria. You made it.”

“You don’t know anything about it,” she said. “Besides, I’m still the bottom-rated pilot in this unit.”

“Not in kills,” Kell said. “Because of the way Folor Base came off, Runt and I still have zero. You got one there.”

She waved away his objection. “You sacrificed one combat’s worth of kills and came up with a tactic that probably saved the Borleias. That’s a bright spot on your record, Kell, not a black one.”

“Well,” Grinder said, “there are ways to bring up your scores. Techniques a lot more effective than flying simulators hours every day until you’re bone tired and stupid from lack of food.”

She looked at him dubiously. “Such as what?”

“Well …” He looked around conspiratorially. “I shouldn’t do this, because if you improve your rating, that leaves me at the bottom of the squadron. But I don’t particularly mind. I could slice into your simulator records and bump them up a few points. Put you out of the danger zone. By way of compensation, I wouldn’t ask much—”

She came over the table at him, knocking him off his bench to the floor, and landed on him hard. She struck him in the face three times, over his shouts of pain and surprise, before Kell and Phanan could shake off their shock. They scrambled around the ends of the table, converging on her, and seized her arms before she could continue turning Grinder’s face into a bloody mess.

The other diners, a tableful of Cubber’s mechanics and technicians, watched in surprise; some were laying down bets just as Kell and Phanan yanked Tyria upright.

Her face was flushed, her expression not just furious but hate-filled as she glared down at the Bothan. “You bastard” she said. “How dare you—”

“You want me?” Grinder scrambled to his feet, his nostrils streaming blood. “A fair fight, not an ambush? Bring her to the lounge, boys—”

“Attention!”

All of them snapped upright, mechanics included. Wedge