Star Wars_ X-Wing 06_ Iron Fist - Aaron Allston [39]
Once it had belonged to an Imperial shipping corporation. It had been in dry dock in a repair hangar when the entire site was destroyed by elements of New Republic Intelligence. Its bow cracked, its superstructure buried under the wreckage of the hangar, it had been reported as destroyed by reconnaissance units of the Empire. Now, after a couple of seasons of repair, it flew again, its name changed, its history fabricated, its mission to support Wraith Squadron.
On its bridge, Wedge Antilles snorted. He supposed that was symbolic of the New Republic as a whole. Making use of the Empire’s castoffs, getting a few extra years of functionality out of them, almost always making do with scraps and crumbs in a way that confounded the remnants of the Empire. Yet it was a far cry from the pretty vision of an Empire-free future that the New Republic still doggedly pursued. He wondered if that image, where everything was new and gleaming and free of any memories of the Empire, would ever come to pass.
He glanced over at the man in the captain’s chair. Captain Valton seemed ideally suited to command of this ship. He, too, looked weathered and battered but still fit for many years of useful service. His long, tanned face was unmemorable, though his eyes were sharp, possessed of intelligence. Wedge thought that if they put him in a janitor’s uniform he’d blend right in with the service personnel of any New Republic or Imperial station, and wondered if the Wraiths might someday make use of that fact.
And, mercifully, he didn’t apparently have a need to hear himself talk. He saw Wedge’s side glance, looked over in case Wedge were trying to get his attention, and when he saw that was not the case, returned to the datapad on which he was calculating fuel-mass ratios, all without saying a word.
Wedge turned his attention to his Wraiths, visible through Sungrass’s forward viewports, hard at work painting the stolen interceptors. The one Tyria and Kell worked on was now decorated with a red spiderweb pattern, a design that was at once rakishly dangerous-looking and a little unsettling. Phanan and Face left the basic paint job of their interceptor unchanged but had added a ludicrous number of kill silhouettes to the hull—including a number of X-wing silhouettes to rival the genuine kills of Baron Fel, the Empire’s greatest ace after Darth Vader. Shalla and Donos were painting theirs with fake blaster scorings and had even painted the engine to look as though it were slightly askew, as if knocked out of alignment by enemy fire. Wedge wondered about the advisability of that; it would probably convince some enemies the interceptor was damaged, perhaps persuading some opportunistic pilots to finish it off when otherwise they might treat it with more caution.
He decided not to interfere. It was an experiment. They’d see how the enemies responded to their “damaged” interceptor.
His personal comlink crackled into life. “Commander.”
“Yes, Runt.”
“Narra returning. ETA fifteen minutes.”
“Thank you. Please set up the conference module. Out.”
He exited Sungrass through its docking tube and passed through the hangar, where the sharp smell of the paints scratched at his sinuses and the chatter of his pilots was so much more immediate. Good men and women in a brief respite from making war. He wished such respites were the norm.
Then, passing their interceptor, he saw Tyria finish another line of red spiderwebs, set her brush down atop her paint can, and wrap her arms around Kell to kiss him.
Wedge stopped short, a rebuke on his lips, a reminder that public displays of affection were not appropriate … and then he turned away and kept walking.
Such a warning might have been appropriate for other units, but not elite squadrons under his command. There were no restrictions against relationships between pilots, even when there was some disparity between their ranks, as was the case with Tyria and Kell. There were no regulations against demonstrations of affection in off-duty and most light-duty situations, such as this little painting exercise.