Марта Уэллс - From a Certain Point of View

“All right. And are you ready, Red Leader?”

“Yes,” Wedge said, without thinking. And to his surprise, he found he meant it.

—

“We’re doing fine, Arfive,” Wedge said for the sixth time in the last hour, or maybe it was the seventh. “Just keep scanning.”

His X-wing was moving straight as an arrow through streamers of ionized gas, high above a scree of ice and rock, stellar debris that had failed to gain enough mass to coalesce into a sphere. At least it was pretty—the ionized gases were an unlikely combination of magenta and blue, shot through with ribbons of silver and gold.

He was too far away to spot the pirates’ base or their ships, but the sensor gear attached to his starfighter saw them plain as day and was busy collating data. An hour after he returned to Home One, it would have a detailed picture of the enemy forces.

Assuming they didn’t spot him, of course. If that happened, the best-case scenario was that he’d escape after shedding the sensor gear and discarding most of that carefully collected intel. And the worst-case scenario? No more Wedge Antilles.

“Almost done with the sweep,” Wedge told his droid, blinking sweat out of his eyes. “Then two hours back to Home One. Open a private channel to Red Eleven.”

He winced at R5-G8’s answering squeal—apparently his request for a recalibrated signaler was still on some to-do list, along with fixing his T-65’s overenthusiastic heater.

“Janson? Time to go home. How are they flying?”

“Well, nobody’s crashed into anything, which isn’t bad for a first hop. By the way, my mission chrono’s acting flaky, Red Leader. It’s telling me we’ve been out here for an hour fifty-three. What’s yours say?”

Wedge glanced at his console. “Hour fifty-eight.”

“Ah. See you at home, then.”

Wedge wondered why Janson sounded amused. Two minutes later, he sniffed the air in the cockpit curiously. Then he sniffed himself.

“Nothing, Arfive. Smells bad in here is all. Almost like…oh no. No no no . ”

That was tauntaun musk he smelled, and it was getting worse. Wedge fumbled under the console, searching for Janson’s little device, the one intended for Hobbie’s X-wing.

R5-G8 squealed in alarm.

“Yes, it’s a contaminant. No, it isn’t dangerous. No, Arfive. Do not open the cockpit to vacuum. Yes, I am sure. In fact, this is the least ambiguous order I have ever issued.”

Wedge suspected the two hours back to the rebel fleet might be the longest of his life. On the other hand, when they were over, he’d get to throttle Wes Janson.

—

But his anger drained away when he climbed down from his cockpit to find all eleven pilots waiting for him—variously applauding, holding their noses, or grimacing comically. They were all there, brought together courtesy of the twisted mind of Wes Janson.

Kott was the only one who didn’t seem amused. As the group broke up, Wedge inclined his head for her to follow him.

“What’s wrong, Red Three?” he asked, reaching into his pocket to touch the dispenser he’d found affixed to the underside of his flight console.

“Why play pranks?” Kott asked. “They endanger the mission.”

“When going into combat, sure. And if Janson did that, I’d throw him in the brig. But he wouldn’t have. He knew the operational phase of the mission would be complete by the time his little present unwrapped itself.”

“But something can always go wrong. Why introduce a new risk?”

“Because there are other risks. Such as falling into a routine. You get used to being behind the stick, so you get complacent, and then you get killed. Pranks force you to look over your shoulder, and that might be the thing that keeps you alive. Make sense?”

“Maybe. I need to think about it.”

“Fair enough. But I’m giving you a demerit for making me defend Wes while I smell like I came out of a garbage masher.”

“Demerit accepted,” Kott said, and actually smiled.

—

“Looks like they’re using an old asteroid mining station as a base,” the Contessa said.

“That’s what I thought, too,” Wedge said, looking down at the intel from his recon mission. “I count six fighters and gunboats on the ground.”

“There might be others,” the Contessa pointed out. “See this shadow and scarring? Could be an interior hangar, doubling as a ready room.”

“We’ll rig proton torpedoes. If visual scanning confirms, we hit it. I’m more worried about all these craft IDs. Besides the bandits on the asteroid, I counted fifteen ships in the area. That’s a lot for a brand-new squadron, and we don’t know what else they might have.”

“So what do you propose?”

“I dropped sensor buoys. I’d say give them two days to record comings and goings, so we can get a better confidence interval on the enemy’s strength. But you’re going to tell me I don’t have two days.”

“None of us do,” a woman said.

Mon Mothma was standing in the doorway. As always, the Alliance chancellor looked calm, and her white robes were clean and crisp. But he also saw the hollows below her eyes.

“Madame Chancellor,” he said, coming to attention and wondering if that was the proper form of address. And was he supposed to salute?

“No need for all that,” Mothma said. “What have you found?”

Wedge stepped back so she could look down at the datapad, listening as the Contessa went over what they’d discovered.

“Any hyperspace wakes?” Mothma asked. “Where are these pirates coming from and where are they going?”

Wedge called up the relevant parsecs of space.

“Their origin is probably the Vosch Cluster, here. They’ve blazed a hyperspace lane to the trade worlds around Caldra Prime and Caldra Tertius. We’re right here in the middle.”

Mothma nodded. “The Vosch worlds were always poor, and then their economies were hammered by the Clone Wars. I helped craft a relief bill in the Republic, but it got voted down—and of course the Emperor never cared. Little wonder they’ve turned to piracy. If our scouts had spotted the pirate traffic, we would have chosen a different rendezvous point. Bad luck, when we didn’t exactly have a shortage. What do you think, Commander Antilles? Can your squadron destroy them?”

“Yes,” Wedge said after a moment, but Mothma had heard the hesitation in his voice. “It would be a straightforward mission for an experienced squadron. But we’re not an experienced squadron. A lot could go wrong. And even if it doesn’t, we’ll lose pilots.”

“Because your squadron isn’t ready.” Mothma said. “That’s a statement of fact, Commander, not a criticism. ‘Miracle worker’ isn’t part of your job classification.”

“No, they’re not,” Wedge admitted.

“Then we should jump,” Mothma said, her lips a tight, thin line.

“Chancellor, don’t give that order,” Wedge said. “Luke will find us. The princess will find us. I’d never bet against either of them.”

“The risk is too great,” Mothma said, and Wedge could hear the pain in her voice.

“This entire rebellion is a risk that’s too great, yet here we are. One day. Give me just one day.”

“And how will one day make a difference?”

“It’ll give us sensor data from the buoys, and an attack plan to test in the simulator. If my squadron can’t destroy the pirate nest tomorrow, we jump.”

“But you’ll still lose pilots,” Mothma said.

“I will. But my pilots knew that the day they signed on, Chancellor. It didn’t stop them. It can’t stop us.”

Mothma looked from Wedge to the Contessa, then nodded gravely. “Then may the Force be with you, Commander.”