Star Wars_ X-Wing 06_ Iron Fist - Aaron Allston [22]
“I love an understanding commander,” Phanan said. “Know where I can get one?”
“Myn Donos, still Nine. Flight Officer Nelprin—can you still hear me back there?—you’re his wing, Wraith Ten. Piggy, you’re still Wraith Twelve, and Tyria, you’re now on his wing as Wraith Eleven. I lead Group One, Face leads Group Two, and Donos leads Group Three. Questions?”
Wedge waited for the inevitable reaction from Kell. Previously, Kell had led Group Two and had been very twitchy whenever Face received recognition that might affect his own—Kell’s—position, and now Face had replaced him as group leader.
But Kell looked easy with the new arrangement, which surprised Wedge considerably.
It meant—Wedge wasn’t sure. Either Kell was content to let Face have a go at command, or Kell’s goals had changed and command was not so high on the list.
Wedge would wait. The truth would come out eventually. “Intelligence gives us a good candidate for our new piratical occupation. The world is called Halmad. It’s an Outer Rim world not far from the loose border to what we consider Zsinj-controlled space. It’s also a trade center at the hub of several well-traveled trade routes. A century or so back, their mining industry—ground, lunar, and asteroid belt—failed, leaving a number of facilities abandoned there. New Republic Intelligence has a team already in-system to check them out for us; if they haven’t found us a base by the time we arrive, they will at least have found us a place from which to stage.”
Kell asked, “Do we get the Night Caller back? Since we’ll be pirating in TIE fighters, I assume we’ll have to have something to haul us around when we hit sites out of our home system.”
Wedge shook his head. “Not the Night Caller. Think about it. Admiral Trigit is destroyed by a covert fighter squadron supported by a Corellian corvette, and then a pirate squadron pops up supported by a Corellian corvette? That would probably set off at least one alarm bell in Zsinj’s mind.” He gave Kell a grim smile. “No, we’ll receive hyperspace transport from an old Xiytiar-class transport. Unarmed. Slow. Creaky. Leaky. And instead of having a cargo bay full of your sophisticated metal brackets to hold our fighter craft, we’ll be using a few crossbeams and netting—so we can quickly switch out X-wings for TIE fighters without having to reconfigure our brackets every time.”
Kell sat back, his expression suggesting he’d just swallowed a mouthful of hydraulic fluid.
Phanan’s hand shot up. “Do we get new snubfighters?”
Wedge shook his head. “No. No new X-wings for the foreseeable future. We got lucky when we were putting the squadron together; when Rogue Squadron captured Ysanne Isard’s facilities on Thyferra, we also seized a number of X-wings she’d been accumulating for various Intelligence missions. That’s where four of our snubfighters came from. But the New Republic hasn’t had another windfall like that, and Incom is producing new X-wings as slowly and meticulously as ever. So we’re stuck with what we have … and what we can seize. Dia Passik was transferred with her snubfighter, but we’re still four short to make up a full squadron. However, the two TIE fighters we have remaining from the Implacable attack, the ones Wes and Piggy were flying, are assigned to us. And part of our assignment involves acquiring new fighter craft for our pirate identities … and that means stealing whatever we can get our hands on. From the Imps and from the warlords, that is. Do any of you new pilots have TIE-fighter experience? Simulated or real?”
Both the women raised their hands. Castin Donn looked unhappy that he couldn’t follow suit.
“Excellent. Castin, Kell, Phanan, since you three lack X-wings and TIE experience, I recommend you spend time in the TIE-fighter simulators and checking out our small complement of TIE fighters. Once we’re at our new station, that is. For now, you have only a little while to pack and settle your affairs; the transport Borleias