Star Wars_ X-Wing 09_ Starfighters of Adumar - Aaron Allston [27]
Wedge felt his shoulders sag. “Tell me you’re kidding.”
“Sorry, chief. Do you see the way she looks at you? And she gave you the decision on her challenge duel, to kill or not to kill. They say that’s a really big thing here. As subtle as flowers and sweets.”
“Wes, she’s half my age.”
“True.” Janson looked resigned. “I’ll help you, Wedge. I’ll go break the news to her, console her in her time of grief. I’ll—”
Wedge held up a hand. “Never mind what I just said. Let’s just shoot Wes.”
“I’m for that,” Hobbie said.
“What’s our strategy?” Tycho asked.
Hobbie gave him a curious look. “I thought we’d just all draw and fire. But I could count down to zero, and then we could draw and fire.”
Tycho gave him a mock-scowl. “Quiet, you. Wedge, what’s our strategy in dealing with all these serpentine politics?”
“Play dumb for now. Let everyone—Tomer, the rulers of Cartann, our own Intelligence network—think we believe everything they’ve told us so far. Follow Tomer’s plans for use of our time with just enough belligerence to remind them we’re fighter pilots. And find out what we can on our own. I’ll talk to Iella tomorrow. Hobbie, Tomer said that Intelligence certified our quarters as free from Cartann listening devices—but nobody certified them free of New Republic Intelligence listening devices; I want you to screen our quarters and see if our own people are eavesdropping on us. Tycho, Wes, I want you to visit Allegiance tonight; I’ll wager every credit I’m carrying that there’s an Imperial capital ship orbiting Adumar opposite our ship, and I don’t want Allegiance taken off-guard if there’s trouble.”
Janson spoke up, sounding hurt: “Can it be later tonight? I, uh, sort of made an appointment for this evening …”
Wedge just looked at him.
“I suppose not,” Janson said. “Tycho, didn’t anyone ever tell you that when you ask Wedge for strategy, he gives you work to do?”
The next morning, Wedge led Red Flight in a dive toward the trees, keeping a careful eye on the unfamiliar range meter. The cockpit of the Tarrvin-on-Kallik Blade-32 was unfamiliar to him; it wouldn’t do to get himself and his pilots killed because he wasn’t completely at home with the controls.
Or with the speed measurements, for that matter. Adumar didn’t measure things by the old Imperial standards; instead of klicks per Coruscant hour, flight speed was measured in keps, or thousand paces (measured by the stride of some long-dead Cartann perator) per Adumar hour. The Adumari measurement was about eighty percent of the Imperial standard, so Wedge had to do constant conversions in his head.
When the forest below began to turn into individual trees, streams, and riders on those banded-armor farumme reptiles, the control console began to chime insistently at Wedge. He knew that it was the collision alarm of the system’s computer, but it seemed to be set on fairly conservative numbers and distances. Only after several more moments, in which the chime became more loud and insistent, did Wedge haul back on the control yoke, bringing his Blade-32 out of its dive.
As he began to level off above the forest floor, he felt his maneuver pushing him back in the pilot’s seat, felt a slight dizziness as blood began to rush from his head. A moment later, the pressure eased and the dizziness diminished. He shook his head. The Blade-32 had inertial compensators like the New Republic and Imperial fighters he was used to, but their computers weren’t quite up to the task of calculating precise adjustments to keep the pilots from suffering all the ill effects of high-gravity maneuvers.
Still, he was flying again, testing a new fighter, tearing up the sky with gravity and engineering limitations his only enemies.
When he was chained to his desk and his general’s duties for days, weeks at a time, he could pretend that flying was something he had largely set aside, something he returned to occasionally for enjoyment. But at times like this, it was impossible to deny his pure love of flying, his need of it. It was impossible to deny the ache it caused him when he was unable