Star Wars_ X-Wing 08_ Isard's Revenge - Michael A. Stackpole [72]
“Other questions?”
Khe-Jeen raised a hand. “No reports of fighters being stationed on Distna?”
“None, but intel is weak on that point.” Wedge sighed. “Look, people, we could run into anything out there, and the sims you’ll be running over the next two days will point that out. We’re not expecting heroics, we’re just there to get some data. Clearly, because we’re going in with a full squadron instead of just a flight for cover on the snoop-scoot, we’re prepared for trouble. Regardless, this is a recon mission, not a raid. We’ll fight what we have to fight and roll on out of there.”
He looked around the room and let the gravity of his words sink in for a moment. “Okay, two days from now we’ll be in the Corvis Minor system at approximately twenty-one hundred hours local time. Within six hours you should be back here, safe and sound.”
Janson laughed. “And in another forty-eight hours we’ll be back at Corvis Minor finishing the job by splashing that station.”
“Probably right, Wes, probably right.” Wedge hit a key on his datapad. “Okay, you all have the briefing details in your datapads. Sims commence in an hour. Let’s work hard at this here, people, so we don’t have to work hard over Distna.”
Corran slumped down outside the simulator cockpit and closed his eyes against the sting of sweat. This last run, the squadron’s third, had been the most grueling. The first recon run at Distna had showed minimal electromagnetic radiation, but occasional spikes above normal background readings demanded a closer look. As Nrin came in on a tighter pass, Interceptors and TIEs boiled out of Distna to tangle with the Rogues. The sim pitted them against a full flight group—half a wing—which left them outnumbered three to one. The faster Interceptors broke runs for exit vectors and herded the Rogues back toward the waiting TIEs.
He opened his eyes as Gavin grunted and slid to the floor. “Nice work there, Corran. You got, what, five of the eyeballs?”
“Yeah, but you vaped two squints and let us make a break for it.”
Asyr dropped down beside Gavin and rested a hand on his thigh. “You shouldn’t have waited around for me, Gavin. You should have just gotten out when you could.”
The young man shrugged. “The scenario was done, we’d gotten hammered. I had nothing to lose.”
Asyr’s claws snagged in the orange fabric of Gavin’s flight suit. “Listen to me, Gavin Darklighter, you cannot treat these sims as games. If my ship is disabled out there, I don’t want you disobeying orders and hanging around to protect me against impossible odds. If I have to die, I want to do so knowing that you continue to live. You have to promise me that’s what you’ll do.”
The Quarren, Nrin Vakil, approached, his boots clicking against the tile. “Do not, Captain Sei’lar, ask of Captain Darklighter such a sacrifice. Do not make him give such an oath.”
Intense pain rolled off Nrin in waves that sliced through Corran. “Voice of experience, Major Vakil?”
Nrin nodded slowly, his mouth tentacles knotting and unknotting slowly. “When I was with the squadron we had another pilot, a Mon Calamari, named Ibtisam. She died on Ciutric. Krennel’s pilots killed her. I killed many of them, but she did not make it.” His shoulders slumped forward a bit, and he leaned against Corran’s simulator. “She and I, we had been friends, close friends.”
Nrin crouched, resting his forearms on his knees, and looked at Asyr. “Had Ibtisam demanded of me such a promise, I would have been destroyed. I could not have left her alone, but I would have hated to violate my promise to her. In your heart, in all of our hearts, we know what the right thing to do is. We have to trust each other that we will do it, keeping faith