Star Wars_ X-Wing 07_ Solo Command - Aaron Allston [21]
“Never can tell when a Corellian will pop up,” Donos said.
The pilots were diverted by a banging sound—Elassar hammering his head and horns against the top of the bar. His face a mask of tragedy, he suspended hammering to look at his fellow pilots. “Now I am done,” he said. “I have performed the unluckiest deed possible. I’ve suggested that my commanding officer runs away from combat, and I’ve done so within his hearing.”
“True,” Shalla said. “To make it worse, you did it when we’re still on alert status. Meaning you can’t even blot out the memory with drink.”
“Don’t remind me. Shalla? Dear friend, kind lieutenant?”
“Yes?”
“Will you kill me? Please?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Runt. With your great strength, you could tear one of my arms off and say it was a handshaking accident.”
Runt shook his head and offered up a human-style smile.
“Kell! You hate me, don’t you? Well, I have an offer for you …”
“Not now, Elassar. We have more important people to kill.”
Face perked up. “You know, Inyri, we could do what Kell and Runt did back in the raid on Folor Base.”
Forge snorted. “Run a couple of X-wings along together with malfunctioning shields and just pretend we’re the Millennium Falcon?”
“I didn’t mean that specifically. But in a general sense, yes. What they did was to fake up a Millennium Falcon. With more time and more resources, we could do a better job.”
Forge considered and looked among the other pilots. Theirs were a mixed lot of dubious and approving expressions. “Maybe.”
Face continued, “Don’t you Rogues have the universe’s best quartermaster?”
“Emtrey, yes.” Forge nodded. M-3PO, called Emtrey, was a protocol droid attached to Rogue Squadron. He had a reputation for phenomenal skills at scrounging. “But he’s not as good as he used to be. We had to throttle back some of his programming.”
“Still …”
“Still, it’s worth thinking about.” Forge stood. “Let’s find a conference room with a holotable and fire some ideas around.”
The doors rose to admit Corran Horn. The former CorSec agent looked suspiciously at the pilots rising to their feet. “What did I miss?”
Some of the pilots laughed. In the months Rogue Squadron had been on Mon Remonda, Corran Horn and Han Solo had never been seen at the same place and time. It had spawned a running joke among the other pilots—the notion that, despite their disparate ages and personalities, they were the same person in disguise.
“We’ll tell you in the conference room,” Forge said. “You’re late, so you get to take the notes.”
Elassar fixed Horn with an imploring expression. “Lieutenant! With your skills, you could kill me and make it look like an accident. Please …”
• • •
Han Solo poked his head into Wedge’s office. “Got a minute?”
Wedge turned from his terminal and the report he was composing on the day’s aborted mission. “Come on in. Distract me. Please.”
The general seated himself with characteristic casualness and grimaced at the work Wedge was doing. “I thought you ought to be aware of some scuttlebutt. I tried to catch you at the pilot’s lounge, but you were hiding.”
Wedge snorted. “I had to have some words in private with the squadrons’s executive officers. About pilot morale. What is it?”
Solo’s face lost its usual cocky expression. Suddenly, alarmingly, he looked older and more tired. “It has nothing to do with Levian. This was relayed to me by some friends on Coruscant. The Intelligence investigation into the assassin who tried to kill Ackbar is looking into the possibility of a widespread Twi’lek conspiracy.”
“Conspiracy to do what?”
“They have no idea. The Twi’lek planet Ryloth has always traded with anyone who had credits. Intelligence says there’s a large warrior caste that resents the way the planet was dominated by humans for so long, and hates