Star Wars_ X-Wing 07_ Solo Command - Aaron Allston [90]
“So work on it. Now get back to your unit and see if you can patch them up emotionally.”
Face had been gone only a moment when someone knocked.
Wedge shook his head. This was not going to be a good afternoon. “Come in.”
Donos entered his office and stood at attention.
Wedge let him remain that way. It had been a very few months ago that Donos had entered one of his offices for the very first time, remaining stiffly at attention just like this. Now, as then, the pilot’s features were expressionless; his gaze was carefully fixed on the wall over Wedge’s head.
“Yes?” Wedge said.
“After due reflection, I have concluded that my earlier intention was the correct one. I have come to formally resign my commission. It’s my only possible course of action.”
Wedge waited, but Donos didn’t elaborate. “Why?”
“I have performed acts that are an embarrassment to this unit and that will inevitably result in the end of my flying career. I feel that it is best to end it myself, without further inconvenience to you or to the unit.”
Wedge regarded him steadily. Yes, this was just like the first time, with Donos’s true thoughts hidden behind the mask of his face, kept rigidly at bay by his personal discipline. And his words had been so precise. “I’m sorry,” Wedge said, “I didn’t catch all of your last statement. ‘To end it myself—’ ”
“Without further inconvenience to you or to the unit. Sir.”
Wedge sighed. He rose, unfastened his right boot, drew it off, and stood it upright on his desktop. “You, too, Donos. Your right boot. Put it there.”
Confusion struggled with the imperturbability on Donos’s face. “Sir, I don’t understand.”
“Do it.”
When Donos complied, setting his boot beside Wedge’s, the commander sat, putting his feet up on the desk. “Lieutenant, sit down. Put your feet up. That’s an order.”
They sat, two officers each with one boot off, their feet up on the desk, for long moments of silence. Finally Donos said, “Sir, I don’t think you’re taking my request seriously.”
“You’d be surprised at how seriously I’m taking it. Now, start that little speech again, Lieutenant. Come on, you know it. It goes, ‘I have performed acts that are an embarrassment to this unit …’ ”
“You’re mocking me.”
“No, I’m testing a theory. I think that in this ridiculous pose, you won’t be able to convincingly recite the speech you have so laboriously written for yourself.
“Let me guess,” Wedge continued, and began counting off items on his fingers. “In your resignation speech, you take full responsibility for your actions. You throw yourself into the path of the oncoming investigation so that the unit will not suffer. You apologize eloquently. And with your words, you anaesthetize yourself so you don’t have to feel anything when your fellow pilots look at you or when your superior officers tell you what they think of you.”
Donos’s face flushed. He rose. “I didn’t come here for you to make fun of me—”
“Sit!” Wedge made a bellow of the word, and Donos flinched. “And get your feet back on top of the desk. Right now.”
Donos complied. His face did not fade to a normal color.
“That’s better. Now, let’s have it without the speech. In not just your own words but your real voice. Start.”
Donos looked as though he were silently practicing swear words. Then he said, “I’m here to resign my commission in Starfighter Command.”
“Because you want to, or because you feel you ought to?”
“Because it’s better to punch out before the oncoming missile hits you.”
“Well, that’s an ironic turn of phrase, in light of today’s events. Who is the incoming missile?”
“Whatever board investigates the events at Kidriff Five. And, if I may say so, sir, you.”
“I’m going to drum you out of Starfighter Command?”
“Yes, sir. You’ll have to.”
“I do not invite you to speak for me, Lieutenant. But let’s assume that I don’t have to do this, that the investigating board will do it. Why will they do it?”
“Because I deliberately shot at a fellow pilot, or a surrendering enemy, or whatever she was—” Donos’s voice was suddenly hoarse “—in the face of a superior