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Until then, she’d do whatever she could to keep them alive. To help them win. Soon, she’d confess all to her commander, Wedge Antilles, and he’d use her knowledge to help bring Zsinj to ruin.

Soon.

She shook away these distracting thoughts and forced herself to listen to her commander’s words.

“Wraith Squadron,” Wedge said, “has an admirable history of executing missions on its own, with minimal support … or no support at all. Let’s assume that Zsinj has come to this realization. What we’re going to do is change the rules on him. The Wraiths will be going in with their usual tactics … but they’ll have a little support standing ready. By which I mean Rogue Squadron.”

Several of the Wraiths made appreciative comments, but Gavin Darklighter of the Rogues made a face. “Now we’re baby-sitters,” he said.

Face shot him an amused look. “What if we light up a target for you baby-sitters to hit?”

“A real target,” Gavin said. “Not just some defenseless motor pool or repair facility.”

“A real target,” Face said. “Something that shoots back.”

Gavin schooled his face into an expression resembling dignity. “Then I’ll be content to baby-sit. This time.”

“Are you through?” Wedge asked. There was no censure in his voice, but side conversations quieted. Gavin nodded.

“Good,” Wedge said. “Now, the Wraiths have a general agenda. Acquire information on what Zsinj might be doing at Binring Biomedical. We suspect a connection because his facility on Xartun was constructing the exact sort of cell Piggy essentially grew up in on Saffalore, at Binring. When Face, acting as Kargin of the Hawk-bats, had dinner with Zsinj, the warlord expressed considerable interest in the story of Lieutenant Kettch, a fictitious Ewok pilot with a story identical to Piggy’s. This also suggests that the warlord has ties to facilities that perform modifications on humanoids. The Wraiths are to find out what they can about this modification program and Zsinj’s ties to it.

“Piggy hasn’t bothered to hide his background. Once he joined Starfighter Command, he became the most conspicuous Gamorrean serving the New Republic, and it became futile to hide where he came from. So our enemies may know we’re coming. They probably don’t know when. If there’s anything left to find, it will probably be protected by standing defenses that have been geared for Piggy’s squadmates. Which is one more reason to change tactics when appropriate. I’ll hand this over to Wraith One.”

He sat and Face stood. The younger pilot looked very sure of himself these days, Lara decided. Not arrogant, but at ease with what he was being called on to do. That was a good sign.

“We’re going to take our mission in stages,” Face said. “Mon Remonda support crews are going to make a visit to an asteroid belt around one of the planets in the Saffalore system and divert several waves of small and mid-sized asteroids toward Saffalore. These will simulate a series of natural meteor showers. The Rogues and Wraiths, in our respective starfighters, will be accompanying the third, largest, shower into the planet’s atmosphere, which will hit—if our mathematicians get their numbers right—in their polar ice cap, where their sensors are less substantial. We’ll fly in ground-following mode from our arrival point to a site near Lurark, the center of their planetary government. There the Rogues will set up base camp and the Wraiths will head on in to Lurark.

“Our initial goal is to find out where on Saffalore is the facility where Piggy was altered. The way Piggy has explained it, the circumstances under which he was smuggled out prevented him from knowing where he’d been held, though he suspected that it was within a few hundred kilometers of Lurark, if not in the city itself. A good guess would be the main Binring Biomedical facility in the city. But our first step there will be to try to find out what name Zsinj is using at the business end of Binring Biomedical. A simple check on their planetary net or a visit to whatever they use for a central business registry office ought to do it.”

“No,” Lara said.

Face