Star Wars_ X-Wing 07_ Solo Command - Aaron Allston [122]
“I don’t know, sir.” Donos’s eyes lost focus as they stared off into the distance—perhaps to some future. His expression suggested that this future was not appealing to him. “I don’t know who I’d be then, sir.”
“Fair enough.” Wedge regarded the lieutenant for a moment.
This wasn’t the Donos he’d met several months before. Not a man whose every worry, every crisis was kept bottled up inside.
Wedge typed a few words into his terminal and sent the file on to the ship’s central computer. “Donos, for your information, you were right. I’d rather be in an X-wing, and for the upcoming and future engagements I plan to be. And so will you. I’m certifying you fit to fly. You’ll be back with the Wraiths at Vahaba.”
Donos’s eyes opened wide. “Thank you, sir.”
“Thank me after you’ve performed your duties to my satisfaction. That’s when I’ll know I haven’t made a mistake. Dismissed.”
Vahaba was a red giant circled by numerous planets. At some time in the past, a celestial catastrophe had destroyed the largest of those worlds and scattered its remains in a thin ring around the sun. The asteroids were spread across such an enormous distance that the Vahaba Asteroid Belt was not a hazard to navigation; any capital ship could blast through it at full acceleration with minimal worry about collision with one of the belt’s misshapen stony satellites.
Not that Mon Remonda was close enough for her handlers to feel even that minimal worry. To Han Solo’s eye, Vahaba was a distant red dot, and none of the system’s planets was visible to the naked eye. Solo’s fleet hung in space so far out that no set of Imperial sensors within the planetary system would pick them up. Meanwhile, pairs of X-wings off Mon Remonda and his fleet’s other cruisers scoured the system.
And found nothing.
He resisted the urge to gripe, to drum on his chair arm, to ask once more if there were any updates. Or to tell the new sensor officer to quit looking at him. He’d felt the woman’s curious gaze on him ever since Stellar Web joined his fleet.
To the bridge crew, Stellar Web was an unknown, tagged Contact M-317. It hovered some considerable distance from the rest of the fleet, far out of the range of the most capable visual enhancer. Messages from Contact M-317 were supposed to be sent directly to Solo, and the communications officer was under direct orders not to monitor, not to record them.
Solo and a few others knew the distant ship to be an Imperial Interdictor-class cruiser, the new flagship of Admiral Rogriss. But it would be best for that information not to spread.
“New contact, sir.” The sensor officer’s quiet words nearly jolted Solo out of his seat.
“Let me see,” Solo said, and brought up his own chair’s terminal screen.
It lit up with a wobbly visual image. Distant ships, forming up slowly into an attack group. Solo nodded. Two Star Destroyers, one Imperial-class, one Victory-class. Two Dreadnaughts. One smaller ship, a featureless needle at this distance; Solo couldn’t recognize it.
“Standard for a Zsinj group,” Solo said. “The question is, is this all he’s deploying to Vahaba, or is it just part of his fleet?” He raised his voice. “What’s the source of this recording?”
“A wingpair from Corsair Squadron, off Mon Karren” said the comm officer. “They recorded this, using only visual sensors so they’d be harder to spot. Then one of the pair returned with the data while the other stayed out there to monitor.”
“Where is this?”
“At the approximate orbit of the outermost planet, on the approach from Halmad.”
“Reinforce the X-wings monitoring this group with another pair. As our reconnaissance units come in for refueling, assign half of them to concentrate on the orbit of the outermost planet, on the direct-line approaches from other surrounding stars.”
“Yes, sir.”
Solo settled back. His heart was pounding just a little faster.
“Sick of it yet?” Face asked his temporary wingman.
“We are growing absolutely sick of it, Face,” said Runt. The need for hyperdrive-equipped reconnaissance pairs had placed him with Face for this mission.
The starfield