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“So,” Forge concluded, “we have to change our tactics. To suit him. And that’s not good.”

Face Loran, from the little table he shared with Dia, said, “We don’t need to alter our tactics. We need to alter his. It looks like he hasn’t been bringing Iron Fist into gravity wells, probably because of the beating we gave him the last time he did, until today—when he had an overwhelming force. If he can keep doing that, he’s going to beat us.”

Elassar Targon stood at the bar, drumming on the bar top with his knuckles. “We need to follow all the leads we’ve been getting. Even if some of them are traps. What about the rumor of the bacta hijacking being planned?”

Shalla reached an oversized couch and twirled as she fell onto it so she lay faceup. “Too obvious,” she said. “Odds are a hundred to one that was one of Zsinj’s planted leads. We follow that and we get ambushed again.”

Elassar gave her a scornful look. “You’ve been doing all that analysis of leads, even before the Wraiths were back with Mon Remonda. Is that what you told the mission-planning staff?”

“It is.”

“So you’re the one who’s keeping General Solo running scared.”

Conversations subsided all over the pilot’s lounge as fliers turned to follow this exchange.

Shalla pulled herself back and upright so that she leaned back against one of the couch arms. She did not look happy. “You know, you’re wrong in so many ways it may take me a couple of days to straighten you out. First, I’m not the only one providing intelligence analysis to General Solo. I’m one of about thirty, and I’m a very distant link in that chain. Second, he’s not running scared. He just has responsibilities to keep his subordinates alive long enough for them to get the job done, a concept that may be a little lofty for a school-aged thrillseeker like you.”

Elassar’s face set. “Are we still no decor?”

Pilot’s parlance … by custom, only pilots were admitted to this lounge, and once inside, designations of rank, sometimes disparagingly referred to as “decor,” were largely ignored. Even so, it was sometimes a strain to maintain this custom when the most senior officers were present, which is why their visits to this lounge were infrequent and short.

Shalla nodded.

Elassar took a deep breath, apparently considering his words. When they emerged, they were more reasoned than the Wraiths and Rogues were used to hearing from him. “I’m not going to pretend I know more about Zsinj or about intelligence operations than you. I don’t. What I do know is that a pilot’s job is to fly and to vape the enemy. The advice you and the others are giving to our superiors is keeping us from doing that.”

“You’re right,” Shalla said. “But pilots have other jobs. Such as not flying straight into the ground, straight into a star, or straight into a battle situation chosen and lovingly set up by an enemy. I don’t question that you’re brave, Elassar. But are you so brave that you’re happy to die pointlessly?”

“So what do we do?” That was Dorset Konnair, an A-wing pilot of Polearm Squadron. She was a small woman of very pale skin and very dark hair, with a blue star-flare tattoo around her right eye. Her flight suit concealed her other tattoos, all of them in shades of blue. She was also very limber, as evidenced by the ease with which she sat, legs folded tailor-style, in her chair. Donos knew she was from Coruscant, which probably explained why she was quiet so often in pilot gatherings; Donos knew the kind of suspicion with which some New Republic veterans viewed Coruscant natives. “Either we keep running around gathering Zsinj’s crumbs and getting nowhere, or we bite on the bait he’s deliberately leaving and let him draw us in.”

Forge said, “We have to regain the initiative. Bait our own trap. Offer him something he can’t afford to refuse.”

Donos snorted. “Such as what? Mon Remonda? Have her limp through Zsinj-controlled space like a wounded avian and hope he comes swooping in to finish her off?”

“No,” Elassar said. He struck another