Star Wars_ X-Wing 06_ Iron Fist - Aaron Allston [64]
There was a little tension in her body language. She probably still didn’t feel that she fit in with the Wraiths. It was likely that she wouldn’t for a while.
Lara spoke a few words to Phanan, good cheer still evident in her expression, then policed her tray and left. Phanan remained behind.
And Face saw his partner do something uncharacteristic. Phanan slowly settled into an attitude of stillness so profound that it would have been difficult for an observer to tell whether he was alive or dead, had he not been breathing. Other than the slow rise and fall of his chest, nothing moved; his one human eye was closed, and his posture gradually slumped into an attitude of profound resignation, of complete defeat.
Face rose and approached him, stepping over the low lip of the new opening. “Ton?”
Phanan jerked upright, and his expression was suddenly merry. “Face! Just the man. Polish my boots, would you, son? I have a mission tomorrow.”
Face gestured at his own lieutenant’s insignia.
“Oh, that’s right. In spite of my superior intellect, you figured out who to bribe first. My loss.” Phanan rose and quickly cleaned off his tray, stowing it in the rack set aside for that purpose.
“Are you all right?”
Phanan looked at him, evidently confused. “Of course. Oh, the boots thing is a disappointment, of course. Maybe I can get Wedge to clean them.”
Face snorted. “You’re angling to get in some laser targeting practice, aren’t you? As the target.”
“No, I’ve been there. No desire to repeat the experience.” Phanan stretched and yawned. “I’d better hit my bunk. Mission tomorrow.”
“That’s right.”
Phanan breezed past him with a final smile and headed up the Trench toward the flight officers’ quarters. Face let him go, but felt unsettled, as though he’d seen some sort of simulacrum of Phanan walk by, with the real Phanan missing and unaccounted for.
• • •
An hour later, after doing a last simulation run against Fellon Base, Face stopped by the quarters Phanan shared with Piggy. His initial rap at the door elicited no answer, so he knocked again.
“Go away. Or, if you’re at lieutenant rank or higher, go away, sir.”
“I need to speak to you, Ton.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Right now.”
“I’m with somebody.”
“I know. Piggy said you’d asked him to bunk out for the evening. This will only take a moment.”
The door into the modified cargo module opened with a hiss. It wasn’t a mechanical hiss; the modules didn’t have hydraulic doors. The noise was a sound of exasperation, and Phanan made it. The cybernetically enhanced pilot wore a loose robe of scarlet silk and an irritated expression. “What?”
Face squeezed past him into the module’s first chamber. These modules were divided into three chambers, the largest for socializing, the next largest containing two bunks, the smallest acting as a refresher. Face saw that the terminal here in the main chamber was alive but with nothing on it. “There’s no one here.”
“Keep your voice down. She’s back in the bunkroom.”
“There’s no one there, either.”
“Are you calling me a liar?” There was no anger in Phanan’s tone, just curiosity.
“You don’t drink when you’re entertaining. And I can smell the booze in the air.”
Phanan shrugged negligently and pulled a bottle from his robe pocket. The label identified it as Halmad Prime, doubtless a diverted part of the shipment the “Hawk-bats” had seized off Barderia. Phanan held it out. “Care for some?”
“No. What’s the matter, Ton?”
Phanan shut the module door and sat—slouched, rather—on the chamber’s inflatable sofa. “I get drunk faster these days.”
“A sign of age?”
“No.” Phanan shook his head. “There’s less of me for the alcohol to pollute.