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She paused. She already knew her answer, but they had to think she was considering it. Finally, she said, “If it were Wedge Antilles’s command, either Rogue Squadron or that new one, Wraith Squadron, yes, I’d do it.”

“I’ll talk to him today.” Face rose and Phanan followed suit. “I’ll let you know as soon as I have an answer from him.”

She gave him a brave little nod.

And when they’d gone, she clamped both hands over her mouth, the better to hold in the whoops of victory that threatened to escape her.

When they were a few steps from Lara Notsil’s door, Phanan said, “Commander Antilles is going to take you to pieces.”

“I know.” Face shouldered his way through the thick stream of pedestrians.

“You’ll be pulling punishment detail until you’re forty.”

“Probably.”

“When you put this idea in front of him, flames are going to come out of his mouth and burn you from head to foot.”

“That’s true. But one thing makes it easier for me to take.”

“What’s that?”

“You’re going to be there burning with me.”

Phanan grimaced. “You’re such a good friend.”

Flight Officer Shalla Nelprin dove toward the ground—as far as the narrowing gaps between Coruscant’s endless sea of buildings would allow her to descend. She could see blurs in the viewports, blurs that had to be startled faces.

The pair of TIE fighters on her tail pursued her with agility, matching her maneuver with little effort, still firing their linked lasers at her tail. She leveled off, juking left and right as much as the narrow confines would let her, and green laser blasts slammed into buildings on either side of her and into her reinforced rear shields.

“I can’t shake them, Control,” she said. “They’re good.”

The voice of Runt Ekwesh came back. “Shalla, why do you think Warlord Zsinj employs so many former Intelligence officers? Implacable, Night Caller, and more ships and officers we’re learning of—”

Shalla’s snubfighter shuddered as another laser blast slammed into her stern shields and penetrated to reach her hull. She glanced at her diagnostics board. Minimal damage to hull, no indication of other problems. Yet. “Control, do you mind? I’m flying for my life here.”

“It is only a simulator run. Your scores are not being recorded.”

“Treat every simulator run like the real thing and stay alive longer. That’s what my daddy says.” She dropped down another ten meters to fly under, rather than through, a walkway connecting two skyscrapers. One TIE fighter mimicked her, the other rose and flew over the obstruction. “All right. First, they were available. Ysanne Isard, head of Intelligence, is killed a few months ago by Rogue Squadron. This gives every one of her subordinates a choice. Work for this council now running what’s left of the Empire, work for one of the warlords, go pirate, or go hide. Wait a second.”

Below and ahead was another enclosed crosswalk; beyond it, immediately below the crosswalk’s level, two buildings widened so that there was scarcely any room between them. Shalla dove again, came up immediately beneath the walkway, and rotated ninety degrees, her wings now pointing skyward and groundward, to fit in the narrowing gap between buildings.

As before, one TIE fighter went high and the other followed her closely. But the TIE-fighter profile was not as variable as that of an X-wing; because of its solar array wings, no matter how it was turned, the TIE fighter needed more than six meters of clearance in any direction.

In this narrow gap, her pursuer didn’t have them. It hit the four-meter opening between buildings and the buildings sheared both wings off, top and bottom. The TIE fighter dropped, its ball-shaped cockpit bouncing between buildings on its way down until it detonated.

A new voice—Shalla thought it was Kell Tainer’s—came across next. “Good flying, Nelprin. One to go.”

“Thank you.” The gap between buildings widened. She rotated until she was horizontal again. “So, all of a sudden there are lots of Intelligence operatives and ships available.