Star Wars_ X-Wing 07_ Solo Command - Aaron Allston [71]
“Off off off off,” Wedge said.
Donos pulled the rank insignia from his jacket. Lara followed suit with hers.
Wedge visibly calmed. “That’s better,” he said. “Wait. Where’s your astromech?”
Donos’s mouth worked for a moment as he considered responses. “I don’t think I have an answer that will please you. Sir. Or Not-Sir. Whoever you are.”
“You certainly don’t. The astromechs are the backbone of Starfighter Command. Hardest-working beings in the galaxy. They need some rest and recreation, too. Don’t you agree?”
“I, uh, I do.”
“Good. Get out. Don’t come back without your astromechs.” Wedge gathered up the sabacc cards. “New hand. Who’s in?”
When Face wandered in, his R2 unit Vape wheeling along behind him, the cafeteria was more than half-full. It was also loud; card games and conversations dominated most of the tables. Some of the kitchen staff appeared to be on duty, bringing out drinks and various sorts of snacks, but they cheerfully exchanged sharp words with the officers present in a way they’d never do under ordinary circumstances. Officers sat with enlisted men and women, and, though uniforms suggested which was which and the services being represented, there were no rank insignia to be seen.
Chewbacca waved him over. Face and Vape moved up to his table.
Over his hand of cards, Wedge gave him a cool appraisal. “It’s the one who looks like Captain Loran. But he has his astromech and no rank. He’ll pass.”
“Thank you, uh, one who looks like Commander Antilles.”
“He catches on quickly,” Wedge said. “One second. Vape, cold one.”
A trapezoid-shaped plate at the top of Vape’s ball head slid open. There was a chuff of compressed air, and a condensation-dewed bottle leaped up into the air. Wedge caught it with his free hand and set it down on the table before him. “Thanks, Vape. Thanks, one-who-looks-like-Face. That’ll be all.” He turned back to his game.
Face said, “You weren’t supposed to know about that. And it certainly shouldn’t have worked for you.”
“I look just like the group leader. That gives me special privileges.”
“Besides, it was my last one.”
“Well, come back when you’re fully stocked.”
The others at the table—men and women who looked like General Solo, Chewbacca, Captain Todra Mayn of Polearm Squadron, Gavin Darklighter and Asyr Sei’lar of Rogue Squadron, laughed.
Face turned away. “Run along and play,” he told Vape. “This is going to be an interesting evening.”
Wedge’s mutiny of anonymity spread through the ship with a sort of quiet persistence. No officers on duty abandoned their tasks to join it, but crewmen coming off duty gravitated to the officers’s cafeterias and, when the mutiny became too populous, into adjoining noncommissioned crew cafeterias, briefing halls, and auditoriums as well.
And nowhere in the mutineers’s sections of Mon Remonda were name tags or rank designations to be found. Donos, walking the perimeter of the mutineers’s sections with Lara in a state of baffled good humor, saw Rogue mechanic Koyi Komad win a week’s wages from Captain Onoma in a card game as bloodthirsty as any TIE fighter vs. X-wing engagement. He saw Chewbacca simultaneously arm wrestle a naval lieutenant and a civilian hand-to-hand combat trainer so vigorously that both humans were thrown to the floor; they arose laughing and massaging wrenched arms.
Astromechs huddled in corners, exchanging chirps and trills that few organisms could interpret but that apparently kept them highly amused. Donos and Lara had to stop short of a portion of floor bounded by lines of observers; a group of R2 and R5 units sped through a twisting, winding course marked by colored tape on the floor. Corran Horn’s Whistler was in the lead, Wedge’s Gate was in second place, and both units were tweetling in the excitement of the moment.
Whistler and Gate maintained their one-two standings across the finish line and a crowd of bettors erupted in cheers and catcalls. Donos heard Horn’s voice rise above the crowd noise: “I told you, I told you. Next time, make it an obstacle course with security measures. Whistler will still smoke