Kit took a deep, steadying breath as the veil of hyperspace flared incandescently before reverting to black space and white stars. You’ve got this, he told himself, gloved hand on the flight stick with his father’s chain and medallion wrapped around it. Just like training.

Eleven X-wings had emerged from hyperspace with him; below, invisible against the glow of Barkhesh, a formerly-Imperial Sentinel-class shuttle was descending into atmosphere.

“Rogues, listen up,” Commander Skywalker’s voice crackled in his ear. “Just as we planned. One Flight and Three Flight chase our shuttle down to the starport. Two Flight, it looks like there’s a TIE patrol thirty klicks toward the planet’s north pole. Wedge, take care of them first and then come down the gravity well to play high cover.”

“Roger, boss,” Captain Antilles said with a confidence Kit longed to possess. “Two Flight, let’s go. Change your transmit to the Two Flight’s channel.”

Kit settled in on Tycho Celchu’s wing as Antilles led the flight on a course correction to put them nose-to-nose with the TIE patrol. The other eight X-wings nosed down, heading down into atmosphere after the shuttle.

Far ahead on his scopes, Kit could make out a cluster of distant dots, no doubt the TIE patrol. “Late,” he called to his astromech, R5-L8, “confirm targets, type and number.” Numbers ran across his primary combat-multiview display. Six standard TIE line fighters, but they’re not the latest mark. He nodded, trying to reassure himself. Garrison on an Outer Rim world. Makes sense they wouldn’t have the latest and greatest equipment. Probably not the best pilots, either.

“S-foils to attack position,” the captain ordered. “Arm torpedoes. I’m shooting you all a target; try to take it at a distance with a proton torpedo. Let’s thin their numbers before we get to knife-fight range.”

Layered wings split apart and laser cannons came online. Late whistled, and a particular dot lit up brighter on Kit’s scope. The CMD switched over to warhead-lock mode, painting an outline of a TIE. He nudged his target reticule until the TIE was aligned with the boresight, and his R5 promptly started beeping as it calculated the lock.

“Thought we were short on torpedoes, Five,” Tycho commented.

“I’d rather burn torpedoes than pilots or X-wings, Seven.”

At three kilometers, Late’s beeping picked up in intensity, and at just over two kilometers the droid gave the pure, solid tone of a good target lock. “Firing,” he announced, squeezing the trigger.

Three more proton torpedoes joined his own, flashing across space nearly instantly on trails of red-hot fire. The formation of TIEs wavered and broke; two fireballs erupted, clean kills, one of them Kit’s target. He allowed himself a small smile even as his nerves jittered.

“On me, Eight,” Tycho called. “Let’s make this quick.”

“Copy,” he said, focusing on holding position on his element leader’s wing as they accelerated in at the TIE formation.

Tycho’s guns fired in staccato sequence, but his target slipped away, accelerating prodigiously. The TIE broke toward Kit, and Kit started squeezing the trigger when Tycho cut across his flight path, lasers still probing for his target. Kit half-cursed and released the trigger before he could accidentally riddle Tycho’s tail with weapons fire. Stay with your leader, let him shoot, he reprimanded himself as he refocused on holding the cover position.

The TIE dove, then climbed, then barrel-rolled, somehow weaving around Tycho’s shots. Kit cut his throttle back a fraction, allowing Tycho to slip out a bit further in front of him to give himself more time to react to his leader’s maneuvers.

His astromech whistled, a low warning sound. Kit glanced at his monitor, and his heart leapt in his throat. “Seven, we’re being bounced!”

“Break right!” Tycho barked, his own X-wing heeling over hard to the left as he abandoned his pursuit. Kit acted on reflex, the X-wing swerving into a hard starboard turn. Training snapped into place. TIE is orienting on Tycho, he observed mechanically, already reversing his turn back to port. Tycho looped back toward him, X-wing dancing as he poured more power into acceleration, leaping out ahead.

The TIE flashed in and out of Kit’s targeting reticule before he could react. “Kriff,” he muttered as he followed, Tycho dragging the pursuing TIE into a relatively straight line. “Kriff, kriff, kriff…” Tycho continued to evade, the TIE unable to tag him with its laser cannons, but the Imperial fighter was maneuvering too wildly for Kit to take a confident shot. His reticule flicked between grey, yellow partial lock, and green full lock faster than he could react. Ignore the targeting computer, he told himself. Make the shot by eye.

He twitched his flight stick back, just enough to raise his nose a few degrees, anticipating the TIE’s next break. Squeeze the trigger. Fire. The Taim & Bak KX4 cannons fired, a heavy repeating report that Kit could feel as much as hear.

The TIE ran into his fire and shattered.

“Eight, dive!” Samoc Farr’s voice shouted, and Kit was suddenly aware of his astromech squealing a warning.

His rear shields saved his life. Green laserfire splattered across the deflectors, lethal damage reflected away. The shields failed, but they’d done their job; the remaining weapons fire flashed over his canopy.

Then the X-wing rattled with an explosion. “You’re clear, Eight,” Antilles said calmly. “All TIEs down.”

“Late, damage report?” Kit managed, his hands shaking as he shook his head and tried to reorient himself. Text scrolled by on his primary monitor. “Anything critical?” he asked instead, unable to read the data dumped on the display while still trying to fly, finally registering the astromech’s distinct negative tone.

“Form up, Two Flight,” Antilles ordered. “Let’s get down the gravity well and see if the rest of the squadron left anything for us to do.”

Hobbie checked his scopes as One Flight screamed down through atmosphere. Ahead, Luke led the group; Mara tucked in just off his port wing, leaving herself mere meters of clearance to fire in an emergency. Puck was following in good position off Hobbie’s starboard s-foils, giving himself more space to maneuver than Mara had allowed herself. Half a kilometer back, Three Flight was descending on the same trail of fire, old-timer Zev in the lead position.

He shook his head and focused forward. Their ersatz target, the Sentinel shuttle, was ahead but losing ground to the pursuit fighters. Hobbie allowed himself a grim smile. Luke and Wedge did their math on this one and got the numbers right. We’ll catch up about the time we’re over the starport. Make it look good, count on their shields to take some punishment, and then we’re hitting ground targets.

“One Flight, heads-up,” Luke’s voice crackled on the comm, a veneer of calm over underlying eagerness. “Imperial garrison is already scrambling alert fighters. We’ve got two sections of TIEs moving to intercept.”

“Does that change our orders, boss?” Hobbie asked.

“TIEs will hit maximum firing range in forty seconds. Two and I are going to break pursuit of the shuttle and engage the first section at the thirty-second mark to keep them tied up. Three and Four, continue pursuit of the shuttle, then hit ground targets of opportunity. Three Flight, bounce the second section of TIEs coming in late.”

“Nine, Leader,” Zev’s voice sounded bored. “You don’t want help with the first section?”

“Negative, Nine, keep those TIEs busy to give Three and Four a clean run.”

Hobbie nodded slowly. Makes sense. If no one engages the first section, they get clean shots on us while we make our run on the shuttle. Skywalker’s clearly been learning. He keyed his comm to a private channel with Puck. “Four, remember that we’re just trying to make this look good, not actually vape our own people.”

“I make everything look good, Three,” Puck said cheerfully.

“Does that include the space tape I’m going to put over your mouth when we’re back on the carrier?”

“Especially the space tape.”

Hobbie shook his head and focused on the Sentinel shuttle, watching his rangefinder tick down. Ahead, Luke and Mara abruptly broke hard to starboard together, their formation tight and the maneuver crisp. Mara’s getting better all the time, he observed distantly, most of his focus on the shuttle and the starport. Definitely not the lost kid we taught to fly anymore. Though I’m glad Puck doesn’t feel the need to fly that tight on my wing, because a mistake would put both of us down.

“I’ve got tone, Three,” Puck announced.

Hobbie drifted his X-wing to port and dropped the throttle a hair. “You’ve got lead, Four.” From his perspective, Puck’s X-wing surged forward, though Hobbie knew it was an illusion as he now settled on Puck’s port wing.

Puck fired, his lasers shooting one at a time in rapid staccato. The hail of laserfire was sloppy, most of it flashing harmlessly past the shuttle; occasional bolts impacted the rear shields, but the few solid hits were far from sufficient to breach its defenses. “Good thing Rieekan doesn’t ration our laser cannons,” he joked.

“Keep wasting shots like that and we’ll get put on a strict Tibanna gas limit,” Hobbie complained.

“I thought a colorful and ineffective light show was the point, Three.”

“It is, but that doesn’t mean your accuracy doesn’t offend me, Four.” His astromech warbled a warning tone. “Break off, Four!”

Puck’s X-wing was already breaking to port, across Hobbie’s flight path. Hobbie cursed and jerked the stick back, barely climbing over Puck’s fighter, then rolled and followed into the port break. Ground emplacement turbolasers fired, but the X-wings were already out of the way, and emerald-green defensive fire hit nothing but open air.

“You kissed my rear shields,” Puck complained, strain in his voice as he maneuvered.

“Why’d you break across my flight path?” Hobbie countered irritably.

“You told me to break.“

“Not across my flight path!”

“Then next time give me a direction to break!”

Hobbie bit back his next retort. Arguing isn’t helping, he told himself, and we are absolutely going to run more sims when we get back to the Independence. Luke and Wedge are going to make us.

“Three, Four, you’re clear,” Cesi Eirriss’s voice called. “We spiked the turbolaser tracking you.”

“And we weren’t even supposed to be on ground suppression,” Wes added unhelpfully.

Hobbie gritted his teeth. “Four, reform on me. Let’s shoot something that we actually get to blow up.” He didn’t have to look hard. AT-STs and stormtroopers were beginning to make appearances around the Barkhesh starport. In the air, Luke and Mara were still tangling with the first section of TIE fighters; nearby, Three Flight was now tied up with the second formation of TIEs, a tangled web of contrails and laserfire occasionally punctuated by an explosion. Where do we make the most difference?

Luke robbed him of the decision. “Three, Four, suppress the walkers,” he called. “Keep the Imperials looking at us so they don’t pay attention to the shuttle.”

“Roger, boss,” Hobbie said, glancing at his scope and then out his canopy. “Four, let’s pluck some chickens.”

Six hundred meters to the north, a pair of AT-STs were firing toward Three Flight, mostly light laser cannon fire but occasionally loosing a missile. The scout walkers were barely more than armed boxes mounted atop bipedal mechanical legs; they were quick on the ground and lethal to Rebel infantry.

But armor designed to handle infantry small arms was hardly sufficient against a starfighter-grade Taim & Bak KX4 laser cannon.

Hobbie set up the run smoothly, double-checking to make sure Puck was off his starboard wing. “Four, take the right one,” he ordered as he began his strafing run.

The stormtroopers on foot escorting the walkers saw the X-wings, of course, and fired their blaster rifles. Bright red bolts pinged off Hobbie’s forward shields, but he ignored them. This would be so much worse if I were in a TIE fighter with no deflectors.

Both pilots opened fire at the same time.

Hobbie’s lasers struck the AT-ST squarely in the back of its boxy cockpit. The armor held against the first four blasts, glowing red with heat. The next four blasts punched straight through and then out through the front of the walker itself. Its pilots dead, the walker took one more uncertain step before beginning an unsteady forward fall to crash into the ground.

Puck’s target was already rotating toward the attackers, apparently warned by stormtroopers. Puck’s shot, aimed with a precision that demonstrated the lie of his earlier inaccurate fire against the shuttle, took it in the hip, severing the AT-ST’s leg and sending it crashing down into the street.

Then they were past, and Hobbie couldn’t see more, though the stormtroopers’ blaster fire now reached out and tapped against his rear shields. “Two scout walkers down,” he reported.

“Bawk, bawk,” Puck replied.

“Nice shot, Ten,” Zev complimented his wingman as the TIE detonated.

Karie’s voice was genuinely pleased. “Thanks for the setup, Nine!”

“Three Flight,” Skywalker’s voice cut in, “we’ve got another group of TIEs launching from the garrison. Six fighters, six bombers. I think our shuttle’s been made, but they need another minute or two to button up and lift. One Flight is still suppressing ground defenses. Can you intercept?”

Zev grimaced. “That’s an ugly fight, boss, but we’ve got it.”

“Three Flight, focus on the bombers,” Antilles’ voice cut in. “Two Flight has the escort fighters.”

“Copy that. Three Flight, you heard them. We’ve got six TIE bombers targeting our boys on the ground.” Zev was pleased to see Karie form up well off his port wing, while Cesi and Wes took up position several hundred meters to starboard. “Let Two Flight tangle with the fighters. The bombers are the real threat.”

Overhead, Zev could see a streak of fire falling from orbit, Two Flight coming in fast and hot. Half of the Imperial escort fighters were already beginning to nose up, climbing into a head-to-head confrontation instead of allowing Wedge’s group to bounce them cleanly. The rest were hanging back behind the TIE bombers.

That’s an odd choice. Zev frowned. They should be out in front, trying to break…

His R5 screamed a warning tone.

“Concussion missiles!” Zev barked. “Three Flight, evade!” He shoved his stick forward, sending the X-wing plummeting toward the ground. A concussion missile rocketed past his canopy and detonated, but he was far enough past to only catch a small buffeting from the explosion.

Karie hadn’t been as lucky.

“I’m hit!”

Zev glanced back and saw her X-wing trailing smoke. “Ten, report!”

There was strained silence for a moment. “Pulled in shrapnel from that explosion in my starboard intakes,” Karie managed. “Upper starboard engine is cutting itself to shreds.”

“Shut the engine down,” Zev ordered, mind racing. Still need to deal with the TIE bombers. “Stay on my wing and I’ll get you out of here.”

Wes and Cesi had jumped out ahead and were both firing. The TIE bombers, still out ahead but now much closer, were returning fire, fortunately inaccurately, but voluminous enough to prevent the two Rebels from taking a steady, aimed shot. 

Zev hesitated for a moment, deciding. Shuttle’s on the ground. Cesi and Wes are engaging six TIE bombers and three fighters, just the two of them. Karie’s crippled and if I lead her into that fight, the fighters will chew her to shreds. What do I do?

And then Skywalker’s voice echoed in his ear, a recent memory. No one goes alone.

Right. Stay with your wingman. “Ten, do you still have torpedoes?”

“Yes. Stand-off?”

“Target the TIE bombers,” Zev instructed. “Pick something that Eleven and Twelve aren’t engaging. I’ll keep the fighters off you.” He wished he felt as confident as the words sounded as he pulled back on his stick, gaining altitude to put himself in position to dive on any Imperial deciding to focus on the crippled X-wing.

Karie fired, a proton torpedo flashing through the blue Barkhesh sky for under two seconds before impaling a TIE bomber on the edge of the formation. The explosion set off sympathetic detonations from the bomber’s magazine, creating a far larger fireball than a single proton torpedo should have managed, consuming a second TIE bomber in the process.

One of the TIE fighters turned toward Karie and began to accelerate and fire from long range. Zev shoved his stick forward and began to dive to intercept. By instinct and eyeball, he guessed a point of intercept, dropped his reticule, and squeezed the trigger. The TIE ran into his fire and shattered.

Then Celchu and Valent, still at high velocity from their orbital dive, hit the remaining TIEs like a pair of nexu pouncing on baby banthas.

Zev started in his chair and belatedly realized that, while Wedge and Samoc had broken off their dive to engage the TIEs climbing toward Two Flight, Tycho and Kit hadn’t slowed at all. Gutsy, Zev admired for a moment.

“Shuttle is lifting,” Skywalker’s voice called. “Break off and form up. If you’re still engaged, call it out so we can provide fire support.”

“Eleven, Twelve, you heard the man,” he called. “Ten, status?”

“I’m running on three engines, Nine,” Karie said. “My astromech says the deflectors are damaged, too – they’re not running at full capacity.”

“Do you have enough power to climb to orbit?” Zev asked. “And what about your hyperdrive?”

“I can make orbit,” she confirmed, “and hyperdrive is reading as undamaged. I can get home.”

“Then follow me, and let’s get out of here.” In pairs, the Rogues were breaking off. Skywalker and Jade were already ahead of the shuttle, riding point as the bulky Sentinel climbed for orbit; Klivian and Naeco were finally breaking away from the starport, and the sheer number of fires burning on the ground looked suspicious to Zev’s eye. Surviving TIE fighters were breaking off and fleeing back to the garrison, the survivors apparently content to let the Rogues withdraw instead of continuing to the death. Cesi finished off one more TIE bomber before breaking off, Wes loosely holding proper position to cover her.

Not bad, Rogue Squadron, Zev thought with satisfaction. Not bad at all.

The next morning, Luke and Wedge ran all the Rogues through six simulator missions, three in the A-wing, three in the Y-wing. They debated using the stock simulations but ultimately chose to modify a single critical parameter: two-ship elements instead of standard three-ship doctrine.

Now, the two of them sat in the squadron briefing room, chosen because it boasted the best holoprojector in Rogue Territory.

Wedge looked over. “No bang-corn?”

“Not this time,” Luke said, a smile on his face as he opened the file. Two lists shimmered to life over the projector: the results of the sims, each of the Rogues ranked in order by overall score in each hull.

Wedge grimaced. “Let’s start with the Y-wings,” he said.

Luke nodded. “Top of the charts, by a good margin: Wes Janson.”

“Tierfon Yellow Aces,” Wedge grunted. “He’s the best gunner I’ve ever seen, but he’s a damn fine bomber pilot, too. There’s a reason that Colonel S’man wanted him in the air wing’s bomber squadron.”

“How insufferable is he going to be?”

“Very, but he’ll crack jokes about it more than rub it in.”

“Can he teach it?” Luke wanted to know.

Wedge paused to consider that. “I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “I’ve never seen anyone put Wes in a role like that. Maybe?”

“We’ll need to consider it.” Luke nodded at the list again. “Number two: Mara Jade.”

“That one was a surprise,” Wedge admitted. “I don’t know that she’s ever flown anything that slow. We trained her on the Spearheads and then the X-wing.”

“Did she ever fly Syndulla’s freighter?”

“I wouldn’t think so. Mara didn’t know her way around a cockpit before Hobbie and I started teaching her, and by that point the Phoenix Cell was pretty much gone. Other than the strike on Lothal and the weeks afterward when she was stranded there before the local resistance overthrew the Imperial occupation, I can’t think of there being time for her to have done it.”

Luke nodded, apparently content to move on. “Number three: Kit Valent.”

“That one’s less a surprise,” Wedge pointed out. “Valent spent years on tramp freighters, including flying them. Y-wing’s probably the closest thing to a freighter he’s flown since he joined the Alliance.”

“Y-wing’s still a lot more agile than a freighter. And his marksmanship scores, both with guns and proton bombs, were impressive for a man who’d never flown one before. Natural talent.”

“If we needed to launch the bombers tomorrow, he’d be in one of them,” Wedge agreed.

“And number four,” Luke said, “is Puck Naeco.”

“For a guy who likes punch lines, he’s got nerves of steel. That third sim, the run against a hardened Imperial garrison? He let his Y-wing soak flak to get a better shot.” Wedge shuddered. “Everyone else went high and took the shot from further away. Wes nailed it. Puck went in low, took the hits, and got the target up close, and still got out.”

Luke ran down the rest of the list more quickly. “You’re number five, I’m number six, though our scores fall into the average range. Upper end of average, but average. I wouldn’t hesitate to put either of us in a Y-wing for a mission if we were needed. Then Hobbie and Zev about as average as you can get. Karie, Doc, and Samoc could all probably be trained to do it, but they’re going to require a lot of sim time. And Tycho…”

“Tycho was a disaster,” Wedge agreed. “That was brutal to watch. How does a man who flies that precise fly that poorly?“

“Wrong sort of training. Tycho was a TIE pilot. He’s used to fast and nimble and fragile. The Y-wing is none of those and can’t be treated like it is.”

Wedge sighed. “Alright, Skywalker, let’s get it over with. The A-wing scores.”

“At the top, by a wide margin, is Tycho Celchu,” Luke said evenly.

“The A-wing doesn’t fly like a TIE fighter,” Wedge objected.

“You’re right, it doesn’t, but it requires the same skills. Precision, aggression, and commitment. It punishes hesitation. TIE pilots don’t hesitate.”

“There’s probably something to that.”

Luke nodded at the next name on the list. “Cesi came in number two.”

“That lady has guts to spare,” Wedge murmured. “Doc flew that A-wing sim like the galaxy depended on it. Threw herself into the interceptor scenario without a speck of hesitation.”

“Aggression and commitment,” Luke reminded him. “Cesi was relying on the A-wing’s speed to pull her through, and it did, at least in the sim.”

“The score doesn’t show it, but I think I’d trust her instincts over Tycho’s, at least right now. She flies like she wants to survive, too.”

“Number three is Samoc,” Luke noted.

“That one probably shouldn’t have surprised me,” Wedge admitted. “There’s a reason I like her on my wing. She’s got the instincts for an interceptor.”

“And number four is me.”

“I’m not going to stroke your ego, Luke.”

“Not expecting you to, though I’ll be happy to point out Samoc and I both scored high-average, not in the upper range where Tycho and Cesi are.”

Wedge’s lips compressed into a line. “The A-wing is a demanding platform,” he said grudgingly.

Luke took the hint. “Rest of the roster, running down,” he said casually. “Karie and Wes scored average. Zev and Kit both scored low-average. I think we could train Kit up on the A-wing, but I wouldn’t count on Zev becoming proficient.” Luke stole a glance at Wedge before continuing. “And scoring below-average, in order, Hobbie, Puck, Mara, and you.”

“Yeah. Me.” Wedge glared at the list as though it personally offended him. “The bottom. By a wide margin.”

Luke tried to hide the chuckle but failed.

Wedge’s glare moved to Luke.

Luke tried harder to hide the grin and failed worse.

“Must be nice to fly everything at least decent,” Wedge groused.

Luke finally relented. “Come on, Wedge, don’t you see it?”

“I see the worst training score I’ve ever posted in my career. Ever.”

Luke shook his head. “Stop focusing on yourself. Look at the pattern. Who did poorly?”

“Hobbie, Puck, Mara, and me,” Wedge repeated. “Why?”

“Wedge, all four of you trained on and flew R-22 Spearheads.”

Kriffing hell, Wedge thought. There it is.

The Kuat-built R-22 Spearhead was nearly two decades old, created at the end of the Clone Wars, with early batches produced under the assumption the newly formed Galactic Empire would adopt Kuat’s new fighter to replace the Clone Wars V-wing as its fleet interceptor. The Empire had instead chosen Sienar’s TIE starfighter line for adoption. A number of Rebel cells had managed to get their hands on old Spearheads and put them to use, including the Phoenix cell where Wedge and Hobbie had first served. It was only in the last year that famed Kuat starfighter engineer Walex Blissex had standardized a refit package, stripped the R-22 to the barest chassis he could manage, replaced the old KSE engines with massive, overpowered Novaldex J-77 sublight drives, and reshaped a last-generation superiority fighter into the fastest interceptor in the galaxy.

And apparently the muscle memory from flying an R-22 Spearhead doesn’t translate into flying an RZ-1 A-wing. The cockpit’s the same, the controls are the same, but the demands are different. Wedge closed his eyes. Stupid. I should have seen it.

Luke was still trying to hide his smile when Wedge opened his eyes. “You figured this would happen, didn’t you?”

“After I saw the look on your face when you climbed out of your A-wing sim run, absolutely,” Luke agreed. “If you’re going to fly the A-wing, you’re going to have a nasty adjustment period.”

“But for now, we have a roster of capable pilots,” Wedge said.

“We do,” Luke agreed. “We start cross-training with the pilots who did best, so we have the ability to deploy these soon. But we keep training everyone, so we can always fill a cockpit when we need it.”

Wedge nodded, hearing the unspoken implication. By the time we use the A-wings or Y-wings, the pilots who are currently our best in those fighters could be gone.

The two Rogues waited patiently outside the galley.

“What exactly are we doing here?”

“Acquiring critical morale supplies,” Wes said firmly.

“And why am I here?” Hobbie asked.

“I look less suspicious when I’m supervised. And no, Puck doesn’t count.”

“Oh, and these critical morale supplies wouldn’t happen to be another escalation between you and Naeco, would it?”

Wes snorted. “No need to escalate. Naeco already can’t keep up.”

“Speaking of, I have to ask. How’d you do the glowing pee trick?”

“Learned that one in the Tierfon Yellow Aces. Big ships like the Independence need ways to mark areas for examination or repair. One of the less popular ones, but still common enough, is a dye that usually only glows under ultraviolet light…but it has a fun chemical reaction with phosphorus. It also happens to be harmless to most sentients and tastes vaguely alcoholic. Drop it in something that’s already got an appropriate tang and you can’t taste it at all.” Wes grinned. “I keep a bottle of the stuff around for when it’s necessary.”

“Alcohol?” Hobbie frowned. “Puck wouldn’t have been drinking right before that.”

Wes snorted. “Hobbie, just because our commanding officer puts on a good face and our executive officer is Mister By The Book himself, doesn’t mean some of us don’t need a little help relaxing to sleep at night. And some require more than others.”

“And what critical morale supply are we after today?”

“Sugar,” Wes said.

“Sugar?”

“Sugar.”

“So does this have something to do with that jet juice distillery you and Puck are operating out of that supply closet off the hangar?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Wes said. “And no, it doesn’t.”

“Uh-huh.” Hobbie was unconvinced but dropped it for the moment. “What do you mean, Naeco can’t keep up?”

“I’ve been waiting over a week for a good prank. A week, Hobbie. There’s no challenge here. I feel like I’m clubbing a baby nerf,” Wes complained.

Hobbie glanced down, then back up. “Maybe you need to pay a bit more attention, Wes.”

“What?”

“Pull your pant leg up.”

Wes did as Hobbie asked and blinked. “Kriff.”

“I’d guess powdered dye in the boot,” Hobbie said helpfully. “Then you sweat. Now your foot matches your flightsuit.”

“Kriff,” Wes repeated.

“You Rogue Squadron pilots sure live down to your reputation,” a new voice said. “But that’s what I’d expect from a squadron that apparently can’t count to three. That’s why you delinquents can’t manage standard flight elements, isn’t it?”

Wes and Hobbie both turned. Three pilots were approaching, all dressed in standard orange flight suits with unit patches showing them as members of the air wing’s Y-wing bomber squadron. The leader, and the man who spoke, was a few years older than Hobbie, blond with cold green eyes, his face scarred with ugly slashes.

“We fly in pairs to keep it fair for the rest of you,” Wes said smoothly, attention refocused on the interlopers. “Skywalker is all about keeping the peace around here. Colonel S’man is already insufferable.”

“You’re a real wise guy,” the scarred man said, his voice getting darker. “You and your dilettantes flit around here and there and go tan for weeks off-ship while we’re here bleeding and dying.”

Wes went very still. “Plenty of us have already bled. We’re doing things different so we don’t all die to fossilized decision-making. Like S’man.”

The Y-wing pilot pushed closer to Wes, chest-to-chest. “You think you’re better than us? Better than the air wing pilots?”

“Only the ones we’re better than.” Wes considered for a moment. “So, I guess the answer is yes.”

Silence stretched for long seconds – long enough that Hobbie had visions of filling out incident reports.

“You Rogues are dangerous,” the scarred man said at last. “Don’t get good people killed when you kriff up.”

The Rogues’ briefing room had been rearranged, with a dozen chairs now arranged in two rows forming an arc around the holoprojector. Mara had arrived early with her datapad and sat in the back row, on one end. The rest of the Rogues filtered in shortly after, filling ten of the chairs. Skywalker, Wedge, and General Rieekan came in last, accompanied by Skywalker’s blue and white astromech.

The droid promptly rolled over to the holoprojector and plugged in.

“Welcome back to the fight, Rogue Squadron,” Rieekan said without preamble. “The Independence has been busy while you were gone, and the air wing doesn’t have the operational capacity I need for this mission. Congratulations on your first mission as a unit.”

No one spoke at that, and Mara found herself annoyed. I guess it’s true, she admitted to herself reluctantly. We’ve already been through so much, but all of it has been scrambles and emergencies and a half-built fighter group. This time we’re actually on a mission that we’ve planned for with our training done. Well, at least some training done, anyway.

“Strategically, we’re still in a poor posture after the loss of Massassi Base,” Rieekan continued. “We’re still relying on couriers for moving information between task forces, and we do not have the exact locations of the Defiance and Liberty task forces, for the sake of security. Alliance Intelligence has confirmed that the Empire has figured out how to track us when we use long-range communications, so courier ships will remain in place for now.”

“Is this a courier mission, sir?” Kit Valent asked.

Rieekan stared at the rookie pilot, a bit of exasperation on his face. Kit shut up. “Our most immediate problem is logistical,” the general continued as though he hadn’t been interrupted. “Supplies are tight since Yavin, and without long-range comms it has been difficult to arrange for necessary supplies. Imperial pressure on our own supply lines has been relentless. In the past month, the air wing conducted a number of operations involving Moff Ghorin’s holdings, which brought in food and fuel. We can keep ships in the air and stomachs full, but waging a war requires more than that.”

He nodded to the astromech. The holoprojector hummed to life; static resolved into a glowing green sphere. “This is Barkhesh,” Rieekan said. “It’s an Imperial-controlled agriworld. Not as productive as, say, Taanab or Ukio, but important enough the Empire has a permanent garrison there. The locals aren’t supporters of the regime and have been supplying us for years.”

Mara’s eyes narrowed. It’s an agriworld, but the food issue was apparently solved when we were gone. Wasn’t it?

“The local resistance spends about a year siphoning off Imperial supplies from local operations,” Rieekan continued, “and then arranges a rendezvous to turn over everything they can to us. One of their local operatives sent us a manifest – this year’s haul includes bacta, Tibanna gas, and baradium cores. They’re very proud of the baradium in particular; the Empire has an entire storehouse full of empty thermal detonator shells.”

Someone let out a low whistle, and Mara couldn’t help but agree. Gutsy. Even if the local garrison’s asleep on the job, that’s dangerous work.

“After the battle of Yavin, the Empire’s tightened their grip on the planet. The local resistance has the supplies, but they don’t have a way to get them off-planet to us.” He turned to Skywalker.

Skywalker picked up the briefing as though waiting for it. “The Barkhesh resistance can’t get the supplies to us, so we’re going to go retrieve them ourselves. Artoo?”

The droid warbled, and the holographic image shifted; the planet was replaced by a sprawling starport complex. “This is the primary spaceport on Barkhesh,” Skywalker continued. “Ground-based turbolaser defenses. Ground-to-air concussion missile batteries. TIE hangars. Light armor patrolling the perimeter, mostly AT-STs.” As he spoke, appropriate areas and images were highlighted in red by Skywalker’s astromech. “Defenses are substantial. The TIE squadrons are all local garrisons; intelligence says they’re sloppy.”

“That’s still more firepower than one squadron should tackle,” Hobbie said aloud.

“We’re not planning on occupying the place,” Wedge said dryly.

“The resistance cell moved the entire supply cache into one of the landing bays,” Skywalker continued. “General Rieekan is supplying us with an Imperial shuttle. We don’t have proper landing codes, or it’d be easy to retrieve the cache. Instead, Rogue Squadron is going to chase the shuttle down to the starport. The shuttle and its crew will put down and load the cache while we tangle with the local defenses. Once they’re loaded, we withdraw with the shuttle, escape to orbit, and jump out.”

“It’s brazen, I’ll give you that,” Mara said aloud before she could stop herself.

Skywalker grinned.

“We’re not committing to an occupation,” Wedge said, a firm reminder. “The goal is to tie up the defenses and keep them looking at us. We knock down TIE fighters and shoot up turbolasers, but we don’t let ourselves get drawn in far enough that someone gets shot down or killed. We need these supplies, but we also need Rogue Squadron pilots to come back alive.”

This isn’t a mission worth dying for, Mara interpreted, though the Empire gets a vote on that, too.

“Do we have individual assignments?” Cesi asked.

“By flight,” Skywalker said. “One Flight will chase the shuttle down and knock down the most threatening anti-air at the spaceport. Turbolasers and missile batteries first – they’re the most dangerous for our operation. Three Flight will focus on engaging any fighters the Empire puts in the air. Two Flight will remain at higher altitude on overwatch and assist One and Three Flights as necessary.” He looked around. “Any more questions?”

“What happens if someone goes down?” was Hobbie’s question.

“That would be your concern, yes,” Puck rejoined.

General Rieekan spoke up. “The local resistance has people working at the spaceport. If one of you goes down and survives, they’ll do their best to pick you up and get you clear of Imperial security.”

“We’re not using the new fighters?” Samoc asked.

Skywalker shook his head. “Rogue Squadron is primarily an X-wing unit. We’re only going to use the other fighters if our X-wings can’t do the mission. For this operation, our X-wings are the best tool for the job.”

Mara studied the hologram and found no point to disagree with Skywalker’s assessment. Suppress defenses, draw the Empire’s eyes, and then run away. This will be an interesting mission.

“Mission launch is oh-six-hundred,” Wedge said. “Eat decent and hit the racks early. We want everyone well-rested for Rogue Squadron’s debut mission.”

Twelve X-wings and a Gallofree transport reverted from hyperspace.

Luke scanned his forward scopes and let out a long sigh of relief. Finally. Far in the distance, engine glow barely visible to the naked eye, the Independence slowly cruised through realspace.

It had taken nearly five days for Rogue Squadron to track down their wayward home. After the evacuation from the training camp on Tatooine, they’d followed a trail of breadcrumbs. Their expected rendezvous was empty, and the system where the Independence should have been had she followed her schedule was empty. Wedge had reached out to emergency contacts and checked dead drops and sent Holonet transmissions into the void. The Rogues had refueled at Arkanis, made contact with a friendly cell on Adelphi, got into a cantina brawl instigated by Wes Janson on Sluis Van, and now, near Atrivis, finally caught up with the task force.

“Unidentified starfighters, this is Stalker Four,” an unfamiliar voice crackled on the comm. “Please identify.”

Luke toggled his comm on. “Stalker Four, this is Rogue Leader with squadron and transport, returning from training on Tatooine.”

Static filled the comm for several moments. “Rogue Leader, please transmit clearance codes.”

“Transmitting,” Luke said, turning in the cockpit and nodding at Artoo-Detoo. The astromech warbled an acknowledgement before transmitting a binary clearance code on the open channel.

“Stand by, Rogue Leader,” the pilot of Stalker Four said.

Luke could see the other fighter now – a Z-95 Headhunter with two more on his wings, on a loose intercept to allow him to visually identify the newcomers without wandering too close.

“We’re early,” Wedge spoke up on the squadron channel. “They weren’t expecting us.”

“We weren’t expecting to be back yet, either,” Luke agreed.

“Rogue Leader, this is Stalker Four. You are cleared to approach. Independence traffic control will direct you when you’re closer, but you’ll be assigned an approach lane to the Auxiliary Two hangar.”

“Thank you, Stalker Four.” Luke smiled and switched over to the Rogues’ channel. “Welcome home, Rogue Squadron.”

Rogue Squadron breached the magcon field in crisp pairs. Wedge and Samoc were the first into Auxiliary Two, with Luke and Mara as the last.

Luke was surprised to find their hangar wasn’t empty.

The dozen slips for their X-wings were freshly painted, neat along one side of the hangar. Opposite that, however, were eight more starfighters: four RZ-1 A-wings and four BTL-A4 Y-wings, the single-seat variants of the venerable bomber that the Alliance had used at Yavin IV. He frowned as he set his X-wing down in its slip and killed the engines, running through an abbreviated post-flight checklist. Did General Rieekan move a new squadron into our hangar while we were gone?

Canopies popped open and ground crew appeared, wheeling ladders and astromech cranes to the Rogues’ X-wings to allow them to disembark. Luke waited patiently in the cockpit for the support crew to move into position, though he was eager to be free of the confines of the fighter. Long-range travel in an X-wing definitely isn’t the most comfortable way to get around. The Millennium Falcon is a pile of junk and still far better for a long jump.

The thought brought a small pang of sadness. I haven’t seen Han and Chewie in months. I wonder what they’re doing now?

A ladder finally appeared next to his fighter, and he scrambled down, pausing only long enough to toss his flight helmet back in his cockpit.

Most of the Rogues were already gathered between the A-wings and Y-wings, surveying the starfighters. Luke cast a critical eye over them as he approached. I don’t know if there’s such a thing as a new Y-wing anymore, but these were clearly all used hard before they were parked here. The A-wings are a bit better, but there aren’t exactly a lot of A-wings around. He opened his mouth to call to the Rogues, but Wedge beat him to the punch.

“Rogue Squadron, listen up!” Wedge shouted over the din of an active hangar. “We don’t know whose fighters those are. So we don’t touch. Even if, by some horrible mistake they’ve been assigned to us, no one is sitting in a cockpit until they’ve been checked out on simulators and qualified for it. Got it?”

“But they’re so sleek and fast,” Puck said with a terrifying grin.

“All the faster to crash with,” Luke said, shaking his head. “Orders, Rogues: finish post-flight on your X-wings, turn over all your maintenance requests to the ground crew, and then report to medical for a checkup. We’ve been off-ship for weeks.” A chorus of groans met the last order. He ignored it. “Then eat and sleep. After that, we’ll have new orders.” He clapped his hands once. “Dismissed, Rogues.”

Wedge appeared at his elbow. “And now, General Rieekan?”

“General Rieekan,” Luke agreed. “I’m sure he’s wondering why we’re back early.”

“You’re late,” General Rieekan said without preamble while Luke and Wedge were still saluting.

They exchanged a look. “Sir?” Luke ventured.

“I could have used you weeks ago,” Rieekan said dryly. “We’ve been running the air wing ragged. Imperial Moff Ghorin sold us supplies we badly needed after the Yavin evacuation, but it was all sabotaged. Could’ve used your squadron when we dealt with him.”

Luke hesitated, unsure of how to reply.

Rieekan saved him from his uncertainty. “You’re back much earlier than planned. What happened?”

“The Empire attacked civilian targets on Tatooine,” Luke answered, the words smooth and practiced. “We broke secrecy to intervene and drive off TIE bombers attacking noncombatants. Afterward, we evacuated our training camp and returned to the Independence.“

“Civilian targets,” Rieekan said slowly. “Were they after the civilians, or after your squadron?”

“I don’t have any hard evidence one way or the other, but I believe they were after us,” Luke said.

“How did the Empire know you were there?” the general asked dubiously. “Did one of your pilots break security protocols?”

Luke and Wedge exchanged looks, and Wedge spoke up. “We believe it was Sarkli.”

Rieekan blinked at that. “Sarkli. Was he there?”

“We have no idea, sir,” Wedge said. “But Sarkli was with us long enough to know where most of us were from. Given he defected to the Empire, or was a spy, we’re assuming that the Empire went looking for us.”

“And this didn’t come up in your pre-training planning?”

“No, sir,” Luke said. “It seems obvious in hindsight, but we didn’t account for Sarkli understanding our personal histories when we planned the training mission.”

Rieekan settled back into his desk chair, slowly leaning back. “I trust you’ve both learned the appropriate lesson from that?”

“Yes, sir,” Luke and Wedge answered together.

“Good, because I’m expecting to put Rogue Squadron to work very soon.” He leaned forward. “I hope you’re ready, because I need you.”

Luke merely nodded.

“First, I’m sure you saw the starfighters in Auxiliary Two?” He didn’t wait for a nod before continuing. “They’ve been assigned to Rogue Squadron. No, you’re not getting more pilots; we don’t have any to spare. Your unit is going to be called on to perform all sorts of missions in the near future, and sometimes those mission profiles will require capabilities not within an X-wing’s parameters. I need you to be able to handle anything I throw at you. Understood?”

“Sir,” Wedge said, clearing his throat, “that’s quite an ask given we’re still training our new combat doctrine.”

“You’ve got at least one very good bomber pilot in your squadron already,” Rieekan pointed out, “and a number of former R-22 Spearhead pilots that will probably transition easily to the A-wing. You don’t need every pilot capable of flying every ship, Captain – you just need enough to fly the fighters you need if the mission calls for it.”

Luke pressed his lips firmly together. I don’t like that at all, but I can see the logic in it. He’s giving us tools and telling us to be ready to use them.

“Second, I’ll have a mission for your squadron within seventy-two hours,” he continued. “Your arrival was fortuitous, because I thought we were going to lose our window of opportunity entirely.”

“What mission, sir?” Wedge asked.

“Supply retrieval. I’ll get you the details when we’ve finalized the plans with the locals on Barkhesh.” He waved a hand. “Third, I want written reports from both of you on your training exercises on Tatooine. What worked, what didn’t work, the lessons you learned, and how you expect to use this in combat going forward.” He leveled both of them with a steady gaze. “If Rogue Squadron is successful with these new tactics, I want a playbook we can hand to the rest of the Alliance Starfighter Corps. And finally,” his lips quirked, “get some sleep. You both look like hell.”

Mara followed Skywalker’s orders, as he would expect her to. She ran a comprehensive post-flight checklist and maintenance check on her X-wing, recorded all her findings, and turned it over to the ground crew. She knew it was likely pointless; they’d probably tear all of the Rogues’ X-wings down to the fuselage regardless and put them back together from the frame up to ensure they’d suffered no unreported damage during the training cycle on Tatooine.

The medical droid was very unhappy with the prominent bruise on her cheek, courtesy a punch from a Rodian on Sluis Van. Explaining it had been a cantina brawl instigated by Wes Janson hadn’t helped her case, nor had noting that she’d flown from Sluis Van to Atrivis without issue. Somehow she managed to talk the Emdee unit out of a head trauma protocol, likely due only to the number of injured air wing pilots rotating through the medical bay.

Sounds like things were exciting here while we were gone, Mara observed. No doubt things will be exciting for us now, too.

Rogue Territory was much how they’d left it; surprisingly, the caf maker was still space-taped to the wall. The label still prominently read Property of Independence Air Wing. “I thought by now S’man would’ve reclaimed that,” she murmured as she faced the door to her quarters.

The door hissed open quietly. The room was dark and only slightly stale; the Independence‘s air circulation system had kept it relatively fresh. Reflexively, she scanned the room as she set her pilot duffel down next to her bunk. It was sparse, as was her norm; aside from the contents of her bag, the only personal items she cared to carry with her were the DL-18 blaster ever-present on her hip and the Alderaanian pendant around her neck.

Her datapad still lay on the room’s small desk. And on that datapad, the unanswered message from Hera.

It’s waited this long, she told herself. It’ll wait a little longer.

She escaped from the room before the claustrophobia could grow.

The Rogues’ arrival had been relatively late, shipboard time, but after adjusting to local Tatooine time Mara wasn’t ready to sleep. Most of the Rogues appeared to have hit their bunks relatively quickly, choosing to sleep to try to adjust circadian rhythms to the Independence‘s day/night cycle, though a few were still awake when Mara left Rogue Territory. Antilles was busy in his office, the door open; Wes and Puck were in the common area, though they both suspiciously clammed up when she approached. She chose to dismiss their nonsense as a command problem and headed to the Independence‘s pilot mess.

As she’d expected, the mess was nearly empty at the late hour. A handful of the air wing’s pilots were sitting and talking in quiet tones over datapads, drinking caf – no doubt pilots assigned to night-shift patrols or assigned as alert pilots, only launching in case of emergency. Mara found a battered mug and a caf dispenser, filled the mug, and settled herself at a table in the corner where she could see out the viewport to the stars with a bulkhead still at her back.

The stars were starker, more beautiful from a viewport on the Independence than from any planet she’d ever set foot on. No atmosphere to filter light, no excess light from civilization to wash out the distant stars, left the view vivid and bright.

She thought about the message from Hera. She’d put it out of her mind when the Rogues had left for Tatooine, during the weeks of intense training. It hadn’t bothered her at all during the night in Mos Espa with Skywalker, or during the impromptu bonfire and drinks during the break in training, or during the long hike across the desert to a burned-out homestead. But now that she was back on the Independence, it suddenly felt intrusive, like she had to answer it. Like ignoring it was no longer possible.

Mara Jade had to make a choice. She sipped at the caf and grimaced. This certainly didn’t get any better while we were gone. Guess it was too much to hope for fresh supplies including non-vile caf.

“I take it the caf was better on Tatooine?” a vaguely familiar voice asked, amusement coloring his words.

Mara’s eyes flicked from the viewport to the figure standing in front of her. He hadn’t been stealthy in his approach; Mara had just been distracted. “Surprisingly, yes,” she said. “Probably helped that the caf wasn’t from Tatooine. Been a while, Hal.”

“It has,” the older man agreed, sliding into the seat across from her with a trace of stiffness. “Though I’m not the one who left the luxury of a Mon Calamari warship for a planet abandoned by water and good sense.”

Mara’s lip curled into the smallest of smiles. “For a retired man, you’re surprisingly well-informed.”

Hal’s return smile was broad and effortless. “Hardly a secret when Auxiliary Two is suddenly empty,” he pointed out. “After that, I asked questions.”

“And got answers,” Mara added, studying the man anew.

He looked much as he had when she’d first spoken to him, weeks or months ago. He was clearly not a young man anymore, perhaps as old as fifty. His dark hair was greying, and his skin showed wrinkles but no particular tanning. He wore an old pilot’s jacket, though it was devoid of rank badges or squadron insignia. His hazel eyes carried a restless energy that belied his age. He caught her staring. “Beware,” he said. “If you’re too good at flying, you may end up like me some day.”

“Retired?” she asked.

“Old.” He shook his head. “Don’t mind me.” He took another sip from the mug of no-doubt terrible caf, but he smiled as though it was Wes’s Taanabian home-grown beans. “So. Two-ship doctrine.”

Mara took a drink of her own caf and didn’t bother to hide the grimace. “I’d think an old retired man would have more interesting things to do than hassle, what did you call me? ‘The youngest combat pilot on the Independence‘ about new fighter tactics.”

“I like seeing your point of view on these things,” Hal said cheerfully. “I figured Skywalker and Antilles were going to put together a proper combat unit, not a parade squadron, but this all surpassed my expectations.”

“Maybe your expectations were too low.”

“Maybe,” he agreed. “Every time I look, though, it seems like there’s something new and interesting with your Rogue Squadron. And you,” he said, his smile unfaltering, “are more than meets the eye.”

Mara froze for the first time, a trickle of ice in her gut. “What?”

“Your squadron was barely off the Independence before General Syndulla herself showed up,” Hal continued, either oblivious to or ignoring Mara’s reaction. “Met with Rieekan. Heard she was looking for a particular Rogue Squadron pilot and was not real happy she wasn’t here.” He sipped at his caf again. “And if I can read a roster right, you’re flying wingman for Skywalker. He and Antilles built the squadron to fight, not parade, so there are only so many conclusions I can draw.” He set the mug down. “So let me ask you a question. Does the new doctrine work for the whole squadron? Or just for the top pilots?”

Mara was so off-balance she answered before she could stop herself. “We haven’t proven it for everyone yet,” the words tumbled out of her mouth. “On Tatooine, when we got jumped by the Empire, it was just four of us, and it worked well there.”

Hal nodded slowly. “And do you think it’ll work for the whole unit?”

“Yes.” There was no point in denying her opinion. “It requires trust and training and timing, but yes.”

Hal offered her another smile as he pushed away from the table. “Stay alive, Mara. I’d miss these late-night chats.”

“Are you ever going to tell me who you are?” she asked as he stood up.

“Told you before, I’m just Hal.”

“You’re a bad liar,” Mara accused him.

“Nonsense. It’s still working, so the lie must be good. Goodnight, Mara.”

The datapad was still sitting on Mara’s desk, an open accusation that made her quarters feel unbearable. Hal had, intentionally or not, poked the wound; leaving it open was no longer an option.

No more running, she told herself as she picked it up. It’ll be better for everyone if I answer her.

Mara considered, for a moment, recording a hologram; after all, Hera’s message had been a full holo recording. She abandoned the idea before she even tried it. Text is enough. Small, encrypted, brief. Nothing that compromises the squadron’s status if the wrong person sees it.

Slowly, she started to write. It was a halting process as she struggled with words, sometimes deleting text and trying again.

She concluded she’d rather fly into an Imperial ambush again than write a message to Hera Syndulla.

Hera,

I’m safe with Rogue Squadron. We returned from extended training successfully.

Captain Antilles and Lieutenant Klivian still hold themselves to the terms of your agreement on Yavin. Commander Skywalker is a good man and leader and has treated me fairly. I’m staying here, where I’m useful.

If I need help, I will reach out to you.

-Mara

It was short and awkward and probably completely inadequate. Mara encrypted the message and sent it to the internal messaging queue, where it would no doubt be transferred to a datacard for the next courier run.

But at least now I can sleep.

“Boss, what do we do?” Samoc’s voice crackled in Luke’s ear.

Luke considered for one long moment. They’re here for us, he thought. There’s no way to know it. But they’re here for us. How did they find us? That question could wait. Do I risk four of us for Mos Eisley?

And because he is Luke Skywalker, the question was answered before it was asked.

“Combat spread, full throttle,” Luke ordered. “Five, Six, hang back three klicks. Two, with me.”

Smoke was already rising from Mos Eisley as the X-wings streak east across the desert, a black column visible against the hard blue sky even with the glare of the twin suns blinding him. “Artoo, give me tactical,” he ordered.

The blue-and-white astromech whistled an affirmative, and Luke’s primary monitor painted a very rough map of Mos Eisley with six TIE bombers, divided into three-ship sections, each at the end of a bombing pass and beginning a lazy bank to bring them back around. His eyes narrowed. Too easy. He offered a glance toward the suns, nodding. It’s supposed to be too easy.

“Two, get ready to break on my mark. Me to the north, you to the south. Open up a couple kilometers of separation.”

“Copy,” Mara’s voice returned, steady but edged with eagerness and lacking entirely in confusion. She sees it, too.

“Break.” The X-wings split, opening up distance between them. Luke reversed his stick a few moments later, rolling back toward Mos Eisley, when the TIE fighters dove on him out of the sunlight glare.

Any lingering doubt that the Imperial operation had been staged to draw Rogue Squadron out evaporated like standing water in the Tatooine desert.

Luke continued his roll, snapped a shot off at the leader of the three TIEs diving on him, but couldn’t tell if he hit. Return fire glanced off his deflectors, insufficient to penetrate his shields. “Five, Six, continue to Eisley,” Luke ordered. “Take the bombers. Two, we take the fighters.”

He heard the acknowledgements but had no time to process them. The TIEs shot past him, one of them trailing smoke but still in the fight. Luke immediately leaned into a hard bank to port, glanced back and saw the TIEs pulling their noses up and over in a loop. The TIE leader sighted him at the top of the loop, rolled, and started pulling around toward him.

It was exactly what Luke had hoped for.

He reversed his turn, presented his thrusters to the TIEs, a rookie’s mistake. The TIE commander took it, throttle open wide and diving toward his vulnerable prey. Luke kicked the X-wing up on its starboard s-foils, pulled it into a loose barrel roll, keeping his speed up while giving the TIEs time to close. They took ranging shots at him, struggling to hit the dancing X-wing. Give them enough time and they’ll connect.

But now they’re out of time.

Mara opened fire, a stream of fire from her X-wing’s cannons. The first burst caught the port TIE, and it exploded cleanly. The TIE leader reacted and shoved his nose down, trying to dive away from the danger, but he was too slow; Mara walked fire across him, too, and the TIE came apart, cut to pieces by laser fire. The third TIE, already trailing smoke, broke hard to starboard and up, and Mara’s fire flashed underneath it. Then she, too, overshot, flashing past the maneuvering TIE.

Luke pulled out of the barrel roll, turning into a hard port turn. The TIE, struggling with damaged control surfaces, was falling, its pilot frantically working to recover before it could smash into the desert. Mara was almost settled back onto Luke’s wing when he fired, blowing the third TIE out of the air.

“Five, report,” Luke called, bringing his nose around toward Mos Eisley again.

“Three bombers down, three regrouping,” Wedge said, voice taut. “Another element of fighters jumped us out of the glare.”

“On our way.”

The desert flashed by, and Luke’s smile was predatory. It’s working, he noted with satisfaction.

Ahead, over Mos Eisley, one of the Imperial fighters detonated. The other two separated, a mistake they wouldn’t survive as Wedge and Samoc pounced.

Artoo whistled a note, and Luke double-checked his tactical display. “Remaining bombers are pulling back.”

“We can catch them, Leader,” Mara said.

Do it, his instincts told him. They can’t get away.

But that’s not the objective. We drove the Empire out of Mos Eisley. Now it’s time to get out of here.

Wedge’s target detonated before Luke and Mara could reach him; Samoc’s spiraled down, uncontrolled, to crash into Mos Eisley somewhere. Luke winced at that. Collateral damage. Can’t be helped.

“Rogues, form up,” he said. “Our time on Tatooine is over.”

The four X-wings rocketed across the desert, back toward the training camp, all pretense of stealth and secrecy abandoned. Wedge knew he should be bothered; their plan had called for weeks more of training, but that plan had been destroyed with the first proton bomb dropped on Mos Eisley.

But the new doctrine worked. Samoc and I took the TIE bombers apart and survived being bounced by a section of TIEs that had clearly been positioned to kill us. Not only did we survive, we took them apart, too. Pride trickled into his chest, though he tried to keep it under control. Luke and Mara took apart the first ambush group, too. Luke ran a bracket and when they focused on him, he set Mara up to take them. Exactly as we’ve been training.

He allowed the satisfied smile to sit on his face for a few moments.

“Rogue Six here,” Samoc interrupted his thoughts. “I’ve got a question about what just happened.” She hesitated for a moment. “Is it just me, or was that aimed at us?”

“Leader. It sure was structured that way. I’d bet there were more Viper droids scattered around the planet looking for us, too. The TIE bombers were meant to force us to scramble, and the fighters to knock us down.” Luke’s answer was unhesitating; he’d clearly been thinking about it.

“Six. How did they find us? The Empire doesn’t have much presence here.” Wedge could visualize her shaking her head. “That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”

Mara answered, her voice cold. “Two here. Sarkli.”

Wedge’s triumphant feeling slowly froze into ice. Sarkli. All of our planning, and we didn’t consider what information he took back to the Empire. He knew Luke is Rogue Leader and is from Tatooine. We’ve been off the grid for weeks now. If the Empire is tracking fighter deployments from the Independence and we stopped showing up, they probably started looking for us.

“Lead. That’s my take on it, too. Sarkli probably provided the Empire with a roster of all the Rogues who had joined the squadron before Ralltiir. The Empire’s probably got eyes everywhere remotely related to most of us. They found us here.”

“Five, Lead. Have you ordered the evac?”

“I tried.” Luke sounded amused. “I couldn’t reach anyone awake at camp. We’ll fix that.” He sobered. “When we get back to camp, I want Two and Six to stay in the sky. Patrol at five thousand meters and keep an eye out for any more Imperial activity. Five and I will go down and get the evacuation started.” Luke’s X-wing began to descend toward the camp, though he didn’t ease off the throttle. “Call it out on squadron comms if you sight any Imps.”

Wedge eased off the throttle, frowning at Luke’s approach pattern. What is he doing?

And then a moment later, he shook his head as Skywalker buzzed the camp, fifty meters off the ground, the X-wing’s engine screaming and throwing up a wave of dust and sound as the squadron commander woke the camp.

Luke settled the X-wing onto its landing struts, dust and sand swirling. “Keep the engines warm, Artoo,” he called to his astromech. “If another Imperial patrol shows up, we’ll need to launch again right away.” He popped the canopy open and flung himself out of the fighter, landing in a crouch on the hardpack.

Rogues were staggering out of the barracks. Wes and Puck were both holding their heads, their eyes bloodshot. Maybe they didn’t go straight to sleep last night, Luke thought with dark amusement. At least they’ll be flying hungover, not drunk. “Rogues, listen up!” he shouted over the thrum of his fighter’s sublight engines and the whine of Wedge’s repulsorlifts. “The Empire’s here on Tatooine and looking for us. We’re evacuating right now.”

That got everyone’s attention. “The Empire’s here?” Kit spoke up.

“TIEs over Mos Eisley, terror attack,” Luke said grimly. “They were trying to draw us out. We stopped the attack, but now they know we’re here.”

“Orders?” Tycho asked, the only Rogue who looked like he’d been awake longer than five minutes.

Wedge materialized next to Luke. “Mind if I?”

Luke shook his head.

“Tycho, Kit, pre-flight all eight of the cold X-wings. Astromechs can handle most of it, but we need everything ready to go in under thirty minutes. Once you’ve got the process started, pre-flight the transport, too.” He waited just long enough to get nods of acknowledgement from both men.

“Hobbie. Puck. Pull the camo netting off everything and drag it out to the edge of camp. We’re not going to waste time trying to bundle it back up to take with us. It’s disposable. Then start breaking down the temporary shelters.”

Hobbie’s expression was sour; Puck looked unusually grim. Both men have been through this sort of evacuation before, Luke thought.

“Wes, Cesi, Zev, and Karie, start breaking down shelters and loading them on the transports. They’re temporary, not disposable, and the Independence‘s quartermaster will be a lot happier with us if we bring them back. We’re packing those in the transport first because they take up a lot of room. After they’re loaded, we load up everything else: the generators, fuel canisters, food pods, and every other scrap of logistical kit we brought with. We pack those around the shelters in the transport.”

“What if the Empire finds us before we’re done?” Cesi asked.

“Then we take what we’ve got packed and get the hell out. We’re not losing people over equipment, but we’re not leaving equipment if we can help it,” Wedge said grimly.

Zev’s hand was in the air. “What do we do with the Skyhoppers?”

“We leave them,” Luke said simply. “We don’t have room on the transport, and they’ve served their purpose. I’d bet in less than a week the Jawas find them and make them disappear.”

Wedge clapped his hands. “Let’s move, people! I want to be off the ground in thirty minutes!”

The Rogues scattered at a run, weariness forgotten under the adrenaline of imminent danger. Luke turned to Wedge. “You and I?”

“We make sure we don’t leave anything useful behind,” Wedge said grimly.

“Useful as in…”

“Intelligence data.”

“Right.” Luke pondered for a moment. “Okay, so that means any and all training materials. And the flight computers on the Skyhoppers.”

Wedge nodded. “I’ll make a pass for datacards and flimsiplast. You want to start on the Skyhoppers?”

It took thirty-seven minutes for eight X-wings and the Gallofree transport to be preflighted, the prefabricated buildings broken down and packed away, the Skyhoppers’ data cores pulled, and the remnants of the camp to be swept away. Six Skyhoppers were left behind; Hobbie and Puck had pulled the excess camo netting over them, but they would no doubt be found before long. Rogues suited up, strapped into X-wings, and lifted in pairs while a pilot droid brought the ponderous Gallofree into the air, slow and clumsy compared to the nimble starfighters.

Mara spent that thirty-seven minutes watching her scopes with disciplined focus, her mind churning. Visibility is death, Mara. The Empire knows we’re here. The cockpit is a lot cooler than the desert. If I make a mistake, Rogues could die. Training is over. The war is coming back. Thirty-seven minutes of balancing on a knife’s edge, waiting for the Empire to pounce again. Only when the rest of Rogue Squadron was airborne did her fear recede.

The Rogues launched from the ground by wing pairs, climbing toward the position Mara and Samoc held at five kilometers overhead, waiting on overwatch.

Mara was vaguely annoyed that the last pair to launch was Skywalker and Wedge, bringing up the back of the string of fighters with the Gallofree climbing in their wake. She waited patiently until the fighters had joined, then broke formation by mutual agreement with Samoc and formed up in her proper place on Skywalker’s wing.

“Rogue Group, keep an eye on long-range sensors,” Skywalker ordered over the comm. “One Flight, we’re on point. Two Flight, stay over the transport plus two kilometers altitude. Three Flight, cover the rear.”

The X-wings rose on high throttle, the atmosphere thinning as they climbed toward space. Mara watched and waited and watched for the inevitable Imperial ambush, a final attempt to knock Rogue Squadron out of the sky.

It gave her time to look back at the planet falling away. After all that, the clean hangars of the Independence sound better all the time, she thought. Climate-controlled environments. Filters that don’t need changing hourly. My own quarters.

And yet…

“Rogues, I’m transmitting navigation data for our first jump,” Skywalker said, interrupting her musing. “Follow me.”

Stars stretched into starlines, and Tatooine vanished behind the blue-white veil of hyperspace, leaving Mara alone again with her thoughts.

And yet I would have stayed longer, she admitted to herself.

Wedge ducked into the prefab mess hall an hour later to check on breakfast preparations.

Luke was clearly exhausted, quietly chopping tubers with a knife, his movements efficient but far from brisk. Wes was frying rehydrated protein several meters away. Dehydrate the protein, rehydrate it, then fry it to take moisture back out. I think I prefer straightforward starfighter combat.

And Puck, rather unhelpfully, was trying to pull Luke into his latest nonsense.

“Wes and I have been debating it for weeks,” Puck said. “Come on. You could settle the bet. I’ll even give you ten percent of my winnings if I was right.”

“Puck, I’m pretty sure a Jedi wouldn’t use his lightsaber to dice tubers,” Luke said mildly. “Any more than I’d use my X-wing’s laser cannon to fry a bantha steak.”

“I’m pretty sure Jedi ate like normal people. That means they would’ve had to cook, too. It’d be far more efficient, boss.”

“Cooking that bantha steak with a laser cannon would be fast, too.”

“Come on. Just once?”

Wedge cleared his throat.

Puck looked up, a cheerful smile plastered on his face. “Oh, hey Captain. I was trying to persuade the commander to settle a debate Wes and I have been having.”

“A bet, not a debate,” Wedge said. “And I’m betting on continued kitchen duty in your future.”

“Captain, we’re men of science.”

Wedge shook his head. “Luke? A moment?”

The other man nodded, laid down his knife, and came around to join Wedge at a table near the door.

“What were you thinking?” Wedge asked quietly, striving to keep his tone even.

“That the people who raised me deserved to be remembered,” Luke said bluntly, but there was weariness, not heat in his voice. “Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru died because of the Rebellion. The Empire came looking for the droids, and killed them for the crime of having bought them from Jawas.”

Wedge nodded, recalibrating. “I get it, Luke, I do. But that was a really stupid way to do it.”

“You mean alone, at night, on foot across the desert?” Luke’s expression was difficult to read, but Wedge thought it was a mix of pain and amusement.

“Exactly that. And Mara deciding to go after you doesn’t mean you weren’t breaking your own rule about going anywhere alone.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Luke agreed. “I just…I had to, Wedge. They sacrificed a lot to raise me. They tried to keep me out of the war. And the stormtroopers killed them for it.”

“There’s a lot of that going around.” Wedge’s lips compressed into a line. “That sounded flippant. Sorry.”

“No. You’re right. A lot of the Rogues have lost people. Family, friends.” Luke rubbed his eyes. “If you’re asking whether I’m planning on doing it again, the answer is no. I paid my respects.” He offered the smallest of smiles. “I’ll take the consequences for it, too.”

Wedge leaned back in his chair, considering. Yes, it was reckless. Going off alone in the desert like that was stupid and reckless. But… “Have I ever told you what happened to my parents, Luke?”

“Pirates,” Luke said after a moment. “On a space station? I don’t think you’ve ever told me the whole story.”

“My parents owned the refueling depot on the Gus Treta station in the Corellia system,” Wedge said. “Pirates had come in and were refueling. Corellian Security came poking around and identified them. The pirates took off and started a fire to delay CorSec and cover their escape. My parents died saving the station.”

Luke nodded, listening.

“Booster Terrik, a smuggler who was friends with my parents, helped me track the pirate crew down and handed me the clearance codes to a Z-95 Headhunter. My first combat flight in a starfighter was burning down a pirate gang.” He shook his head. “I was Mara’s age and hadn’t trained as a fighter pilot. It was stupid and reckless. I have a lot of regrets, both before and after my parents died, but that mission? I don’t regret that.” He offered Luke a look. “So, for the record, I understand.”

“So now what? We pretend everything’s okay?”

Wedge winced. “No, don’t pretend everything’s okay, but we work to make it okay.”

Luke stared. “So what happened after that? Because you’re not telling me something.”

He hesitated for a few moments. “I used the insurance payout from Gus Treta to buy a small freighter and started hauling cargo. On one of my runs, I ended up talking to an Imperial recruiter. He sold me on the necessity of Imperial safety and security for the galaxy, and how anything less meant more Corellian kids ended up orphaned because of scum-sucking pirates.”

“That was when you enlisted?” Luke asked. “And got sent to Skystrike?”

“Not before I had one hell of an argument with Booster. I said a lot of things I wish I hadn’t. He told me my parents would’ve hated my decision to join the Empire; I told him he wasn’t much different than the pirates who killed my parents. I haven’t spoken to him or his daughter since.” He closed his eyes for a moment, then forced them open again and met Luke’s gaze. “I’d rather you and I figure this out than I lose another friend because we’re both too bull-headed.”

Luke nodded. “First, though, I finish kitchen duty.”

Wedge waved a hand. “I think you’ve done enough.”

“No,” the other disagreed. “It’s good for discipline and morale both if the Rogues see I get the same punishments for making terrible decisions.” He offered a smile. “But we’ll figure this out, Wedge.”

Neither Luke nor Mara flew that day, both too tired to safely take to the sky, but by the following day they were back in the thick of drills. The Rogues continued to push the Skyhoppers to their limits, and Luke saw the pairs begin to truly work together. In controlled skirmishes, he saw Kit anticipate Tycho’s break across his nose, slowing just enough to ensure he didn’t obstruct his element leader’s maneuver. He saw Cesi and Wes, locked in a simulated dogfight with Zev and Karie, pass the lead slot back and forth seamlessly three times in thirty seconds when the other called for it with an advantageous angle. He watched Puck maneuver, smooth as shimmersilk, around steady-as-a-rock Hobbie to force an error against Wedge and Samoc, splitting them apart at a critical moment, allowing Hobbie the kill on Wedge.

It’s working, he decided. Rogue Squadron might actually work. 

And then there were the X-wings. Luke and Wedge had agreed to minimize the number of sorties they flew in the starfighters; compared to the Skyhoppers, the maintenance requirements to keep them flying were astronomical. But after so much work in the airspeeders, getting back in their combat fighters wasn’t just an improvement; it was a delight. They flew the X-wings sporadically, usually in the afternoon when the Tatooine heat was at its most oppressive, when the glare from the desert would wash out the sensor traces of the squadron for any long-range or orbital observers. With Mara on his wing, he felt like he’d been born to fly the fighter. But the sand was their enemy, even more persistent than the Empire; every flight required the Rogues to scrape clean intake filters. I never thought I’d miss a star cruiser’s hangar. It’s not pristine, but it’s a lot cleaner than a Tatooine dust storm.

But after another four days of drilling, Luke called for a rest day again; maneuvers were becoming sloppy, unforced errors were beginning to creep up in drills, and Luke would gladly trade a day of drills for rest if it meant no pilots crashed in a training accident. Wedge didn’t bother arguing with him.

Luke felt entirely justified when Wes and Puck both headed into the barracks and promptly fell asleep without the sort of impromptu party they’d used to unwind the last time he had called for a rest day. Exhaustion winning out over alcohol and nonsense was a good marker of just how hard the Rogues had been pushed.

He had tried to keep up lightsaber practice during the weeks on Tatooine, but the days had been demanding between flying, teaching, analyzing, and maintenance. Luke’s little training area – not much more than a 10-meter-diameter circle drawn in the sand – was inside the camp’s perimeter, but only just. The idea of forcing himself through half an hour of drills seemed insurmountable, so Luke instead decided to try the meditation exercise he’d repeated during the security lockdown on the Independence.

Luke sat down, cross-legged, in the center of his drilling area. He started by calming his breathing, counting seconds as he inhaled, held, and finally released again. The worries and stresses bled out of him, and profound exhaustion followed. He was sorely tempted to walk back to the barracks he shared with Wedge and sleep. Instead, when he finally felt centered, he reached out to the Force.

It felt at first like faint tingles across his skin, stray discharges from an inadequately shielded power coupler. It grew in strength as he sat motionless, turning into a warm trickle. It reminded him, for a moment, of everything good he could remember: Uncle Owen’s gruff approval of a job well done, Aunt Beru’s ever-present care, the celebration on Yavin IV after he destroyed the Death Star. The exhaustion fell away, not gone, but no longer important when the Force itself offered strength and comfort.

Stretch out with your feelings, Obi-Wan’s voice echoed in his ear. And Luke did, focusing on the Rogues.

One by one, he became aware of each of them with the Force in turn as he focused, and was surprised by the clarity of the connection. Is it because I know them better? Because we’ve spent all this time training together?

He concentrated, one at a time, on each of the Rogues, though the impressions he felt largely reflected exhausted sleep. Zev, Tycho, Wes, Puck, Hobbie, all fast asleep with the experience of veterans catching precious rest when possible. Cesi, tired but focused on something. Probably reading, Luke decided. Wedge was awake, his thoughts in a disciplined pattern that Luke couldn’t quite make out. Is he running drills in his head? I guess that wouldn’t surprise me. Samoc and Karie, awake and in the mess hall instead of barracks; their thought patterns were similar enough Luke guessed they were talking to each other over a cup of caf. Kit was focused on something – writing a letter, Luke guessed.

Luke hesitated. I promised Mara. But this isn’t forcing anything on her. This isn’t requiring anything from her. I think it’s okay. He focused, reluctantly, on his wingman. As he had aboard the Independence, he at first got the impression of nothing at all; but as he sat longer with the sensation, he glimpsed her as an eclipsed star, a moon hiding her glow in the Force. Like I felt before on the Independence. He pondered that, then remembered his impression of her in the Force during the ambush where she should have died. I felt her clearly then. But she was actively using the Force then to survive. Does she feel like this because she’s blocking it out?

He let the Force ebb away, and exhaustion quickly replaced it. Somehow, he thought with a small smile on his lips, I don’t think she’s going to want to experiment on this. Let it go, Luke. Deciding again that he hadn’t broken the boundary she’d drawn, he yawned and headed for the barracks to sleep.

The twin suns were barely over the horizon, but the Tatooine sand was already beginning to reflect heat as Wedge stumbled out of the barracks. Sleep had not come easily, and in his half-awake state he still wasn’t sure what had woken him. Caf will help it all make sense, he decided muzzily as he headed toward the mess.

He was met just inside the mess hall door by Luke, who was holding two steaming mugs of black bliss. Wedge blinked at him a few times. Farmer, he decided. Of course he’s up with the suns. He accepted a mug from Luke.

“Good morning, Wedge,” he said with altogether too much cheer. “Most of the Rogues are still asleep, but I thought we could take an early-morning run in the X-wings.”

Wedge drank, deeper than he normally would, ignoring the burn of the too-hot drink. “We?”

“You, me, Mara, and Samoc.” He turned a bit, and Wedge realized that the two women were both sitting in the mess with their own mugs. “Up for a flight? Not a drill, just a flight.”

Wedge rubbed his eyes, blinking as the caf helped clear his thoughts. “Been a while since we just flew. Yeah, that sounds good.”

Four X-wings lifted from the training camp. Luke smiled, feeling the best he had in weeks. The ghosts of Tatooine had receded from the forefront of his thoughts, and the starfighter felt like an extension of his body. With Mara on his wing and Wedge flying the other pair beside him, he felt content. Almost feels like flying with Biggs, he reflected, though the usual gloom that accompanied any memories of his lost friend failed to penetrate this morning.

He led the group toward Beggar’s Canyon, far to the northwest. They stayed low and relatively slow, doing nothing to draw attention to the existence of four Rebel starfighters in good repair.

The good feeling began to fade and Luke had time to wonder. Why did I want to fly the X-wings this morning and not the Skyhoppers?

“Rogue Leader,” Samoc’s voice cut in on the channel suddenly. “I’ve got some odd contacts, seventy degrees to port.”

“Odd? How so?”

“They’re small, boss. Airborne, moving slow, and small. Smaller than the Skyhoppers.”

There was nothing left of Luke’s good feeling now. “Vectoring,” he called, banking to port. “Be ready for anything, Rogues.”

They cruised at low throttle over a high dune, and in a depression they saw them: small, cylindrical targets floating on repulsorlifts, five in all. Two of them immediately turned toward the X-wings and fired, a pair of blaster bolts flashing into Luke’s forward shields.

“Viper droids!” he barked in surprise, even as the other three droids fired downward toward a homestead. “They’re attacking the locals. Break, break!”

He rolled his X-wing up on its starboard s-foil and banked away, hard, sparing only the smallest glance to ensure Mara was with him. Wedge and Samoc were already breaking to port, splitting the droids’ fire. Luke jammed the throttle forward, acceleration pressing him back in his seat. In seconds, they were out of range.

Luke had no intention of letting the droids complete their mission. Whatever it is.

“Five, I’m coming in from the south,” he said. “I’ll draw their fire. You and Six take them. One pass.”

“You got it, boss.”

“Two, you with me?”

“On you, Leader,” Mara’s voice sounded as though she was about to drink a mug of burnt caf from the Independence‘s galley late at night.

“Negative,” Luke said. “Drop back half a klick. I’ll take the first pass to draw their fire, and you sweep in behind me to pick up anything Five and Six miss.”

“Roger.”

Luke watched the blips on his scopes align, nodded once to himself, and accelerated for his pass. “Going, Five. Don’t be late.”

All five of the Viper droids were rotating to focus fire on Luke’s X-wing as he cleared the ridge at high speed. Deflectors aren’t great in atmosphere, but they can take a couple hits. Don’t want to take concentrated fire, though, he winced. He pushed the stick forward, sending the X-wing even lower; the Vipers’ first salvo of fire sailed harmlessly past his canopy, not even touching the deflectors. Sand billowed up behind him as he skimmed over the surface. Worry about the intake filters later. Survive now.

Then he was screaming past the Vipers. They rotated to track him, firing repeatedly. Most of the bolts sizzled past the fast-moving X-wing harmlessly, but a handful impacted the rear shield, drawing a protesting squeal from Artoo.

Then Wedge and Samoc arrived from the north, descending on the droids like a pair of Tatooine mastiffs.

Luke could barely see anything aft through the haze of dust and sand, but three explosions were clearly visible through the cloud. The blasterfire aimed at him ceased as the surviving Vipers pivoted to instead focus on the rapidly-retreating Wedge and Samoc. Luke banked to port, setting up for another pass.

Then Mara came over the ridge, following the same line Luke had taken; her lasers, quad-linked, fired twice, and both remaining Vipers evaporated in a cloud of gas and fire.

“Nice work, Rogues,” Luke called. “Form up.”

“Lead,” Wedge’s voice cut in, “we’ve got more problems.”

Luke glanced over, saw Mara settle in on his wing again. “Five?”

“Distress call on civilian traffic frequencies,” Wedge said grimly. “Imperial TIE bombers are approaching Mos Eisley.”

Wedge waited in the prefab briefing room as the Rogues filtered in, feeling oddly nervous. He chided himself internally. You flew against the Death Star, Antilles. Why are you nervous about handing out the new pair assignments?

But he also knew the answer. Because I don’t want a bad wing assignment to get someone killed. The worst part about trying something new is knowing you’re going to make mistakes along the way.

Luke was the last into the tent, walking in with Tycho. He said something to the Alderaanian that Wedge couldn’t hear before they parted ways, with Celchu seating himself in the last open seat in the briefing room while Luke walked to the front.

“I hope you’ve all slept off your hangovers,” Wedge opened, “because we’re ready to move into the next phase of training.”

“Does that involve someone else getting kitchen duty?” Puck asked.

“That remains to be seen.” Wedge picked up his datapad and turned the screen on. “Commander Skywalker and I spent the first ten days of training observing how all of you worked together, and we’ve finalized our roster.” He cleared his throat. “Before I begin, I want you all to understand something: your assignment is not a reflection of your skills or our opinion of your ability. Rogue Twelve is not a less prestigious position than Rogue Two. Understood?”

There was a general murmur of assent. Good enough. They should already know Rogue Squadron isn’t a normal unit and the old expectations don’t apply.

“Commander Skywalker is Rogue Leader,” Wedge started.

Wes Janson sighed theatrically. “My leadership skills are once again overlooked. Here I had hoped…”

“For more kitchen duty, I know. Rogue Two is Mara Jade.” Wedge spared her a glance. The Rogues’ youngest pilot looked apprehensive, but not surprised. He risked a look around the briefing room, and was satisfied that the expressions ranged from curious to nods of understanding. Good. No one thinks I’ve lost my mind yet, except maybe me.

“Rogue Three is Derek Klivian. Rogue Four is Puck Naeco.” Puck’s smile stretched from ear to ear. Hobbie rolled his eyes.

“I’m flying as Rogue Five. Rogue Six is Samoc Farr.” The Chandrilan woman had a small smile, apparently satisfied with the assignment.

“Rogue Seven, Tycho Celchu. Rogue Eight, Kit Valent.” The Alderaanian looked sober, but that was a step up from his usual stone-faced expression. Valent looked relieved.

“Rogue Nine, Zev Senesca. Rogue Ten, Karie Neth.” Zev nodded as though expecting the assignment; Karie’s smile was genuine.

“And finally,” Wedge concluded, “that leaves Cesi Eirriss as Rogue Eleven, and Wes Janson as Rogue Twelve.” He set his datapad down. “In any given pair, the leader is the odd number, and the wingman is the even, though that needs to remain fluid in combat as an engagement unfolds. When we break into four-ship flights, Luke leads One Flight, I lead Two Flight, and Zev leads Three Flight. Questions?”

Cesi’s hand was in the air. “Can I requisition a different wingman?”

“You can try, but if High Command had a better one, you’d already have him.”

“In my defense,” Wes said, “the captain pointed out Rogue Twelve is no less prestigious than Rogue Two.”

“Rogue Two doesn’t own a copy of Fifty Shades of Ryloth,” Cesi retorted.

“You don’t actually know that,” Wes shot back. “And I told you before, that wasn’t me.”

Wedge cleared his throat. “Your days of kitchen duty are certainly coming to a middle.” Chuckles rolled around the Rogues, but their attention was focused forward again. “Now that we have pairs assigned, we’re on to training. Commander?”

Luke stepped forward to take the center, allowing Wedge to step back. “The first phase of training was about drilling basics into everyone. If something goes wrong, any of us should be able to fly with anyone else in the squadron. But from this point forward, you’re going to be training with your wingman. We’ll be doing more skirmishes, yes, but we’ll also be drilling comm failures, wingman loss, improvising a rejoin, and any other potential failure Wedge and I have nightmares about. If you think of a scenario we’re not drilling, talk to me so we can come up with a plan.”

“On the subject of comm failures,” Tycho spoke up, “how do we prevent the comm overload we had during the Independence ambush? Is that what the comm failure drill is about?”

Luke shook his head. “Wedge and I have built out a more comprehensive comm protocol. All Rogue pilots will be set up to listen to three channels: fleet, squadron, and flight. In combat, you’ll be talking on squadron or flight channels. If comms get too noisy, your astromech can cut the fleet channel from your comm. We’re prioritizing hearing each other, though as we get better flying as pairs, we’ll need less voice chatter to work together.” He looked around at the squadron. “We were lucky that no one died last time. We’re not going to depend on luck the next time.”

“Are we still flying the Skyhoppers?” Samoc asked. “Or are we back in the X-wings now?”

“Skyhoppers for most of our flight hours, but we’ll start taking the X-wings up for limited drills, too. The maintenance overhead on the X-wings is far higher than the Skyhoppers, so don’t expect a lot of stick time there yet.”

Hobbie grunted. “Last thing we want is an X-wing down for repairs if the Empire finds us.”

We may be far from the eyes of the Empire, Wedge thought grimly, but all it takes is the wrong glance in our direction and we’d be running again.

“Any more questions?” Luke looked around, but no more hands raised. “All right, then. Wedge has the new training schedule ready, so let’s get started.”

Eight days of training passed, and Luke proved to be an even harder taskmaster than Wedge.

Wedge laid out a training plan; Luke enforced it. New drills were demonstrated, and then Luke required pairs to fly them until perfected. And then he’d have the Rogues run them a day later, after they’d completed the newest set of exercises, to prove they had learned the lesson completely.

Wedge entirely approved.

They started with variations on the same exercises they’d already run: breaks, split-and-reform, defensive turns to provide offensive opportunities, brackets, all run repeatedly for pilots to adjust to flying exclusively with their wingmen, each exercise increasing in speed and requiring ever-increasing precision to complete successfully. And then they ran all those exercises again, layering in simulated equipment failures, comm blackouts, and lost pilots. With only five flying Skyhoppers, Luke ran the exercises as two versus one, two versus two, and two versus three, pointing out to the Rogues that any combination was possible.

Rogue Squadron could very well be the first squadron in the war to adopt the two-ship element, but Luke pointed out, repeatedly, that there was every chance some Imperial ace was drilling his squadron in the same tactics.

Luke didn’t exempt himself from the drills, either; as near as Wedge could tell, Luke was pushing himself harder. Outside of his wingpair drills with Mara, he flew more in the aggressor role than anyone else, pushing each of the Rogues to their limits. Once he found a failure point, he’d stop long enough to help pilots correct mistakes, and then he’d be back to pushing each of his people to become better.

Wedge found Luke’s single-minded drive disconcerting.

Through it all, Wedge spent his downtime reviewing telemetry, specifically Luke and Mara’s data. He wasn’t surprised to see Mara’s telemetry continue to look normal; Luke had explained, more briefly than Wedge would’ve liked, that Mara deliberately kept the Force at arm’s length. But more surprising was Luke’s telemetry; he, too, was flying less like a Holostar and more like the rest of the Rogues during drills, albeit with the instinct of an Outer Rim bush pilot who’d spent his formative years in a Skyhopper.

The schedule was grueling; the Rogues ate and slept and maintained the Skyhoppers, but the rest of their waking hours were in the cockpit or the classroom reviewing tactics and telemetry. Even Wes and Puck’s nonsense fell away, with Puck’s good cheer fading into a tired grumble over supper one night. “We’re drilling like TIE pilots.”

Tycho had disagreed. “The Empire drills TIE pilots into obedience and discipline. Commander Skywalker is drilling us to survive.”

Wedge had kept a close eye on the newer pilots. Samoc was nearly unflappable, and while she looked exhausted at night, her flying on Wedge’s wing had been crisp and predictable in the way he needed. Kit’s nervous energy had bled off, though Wedge had observed him more than once staring at the gold chain and medallion that usually lived in his pocket. Superstition isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes it keeps pilots climbing back into the cockpit. And Karie had grown more confident in her flying, occasionally pushing Zev Senesca in ways that surprised Wedge.

But it was moments outside of training where Wedge saw unexpected progress. He saw Hobbie and Puck playing cards, and Hobbie legitimately smile. He saw Kit talking to Tycho about crewing on a tramp freighter, and Tycho, for just a moment, smiling at something funny. He saw Cesi volunteering to help Wes clean up after evening mess one night. They were small moments, but those small moments were demonstrations that the Rogues – tired, pushed to their limits – were beginning to look after their wingmen.

Which is why he shouldn’t have been surprised about what happened on the eighth night.

The twin suns had slipped over the horizon, and Mara told herself she should be in bed. The squadron had retired to their barracks, and snores were audible from both of the prefab shelters. And yet Mara sat inside the deeper shadow of the mess, cup of caf in hand, contemplating the days of training.

Visibility is death, Mara. The familiar mantra echoed in her mind. She ignored it this time. I don’t have to justify it. I can be a pilot.

She set her datapad down on the table and looked up just in time to catch a flicker of motion through the open door.

Mara froze; her only motion was her right hand dropping to the grip of her blaster.

Her brain caught up a moment later, registering the motion was a person, walking quickly and quietly through the camp. The gait was familiar. Skywalker?

She waited until he was out of sight, then rose to her feet and headed to the mess hall’s door.

Tatooine boasted three moons in addition to its twin suns, and there was plenty of light from the rising moons to spot Skywalker, dressed in civilian clothing with a blaster conspicuous on one hip and lightsaber on the other, walking out past the camp perimeter. His step was quick without rushing, suggesting he had a destination in mind, but wherever it was, it wasn’t inside the training camp.

Mara hesitated. Skywalker was the one who gave the order. No one goes anywhere alone. And there he goes. Alone. She chewed on her lip as she considered, briefly, whether to rouse Wedge. Then she shook her head. No.

Against her better judgment, she followed Skywalker across the perimeter, out of the camp, and into the desert.

His pace was brisk, and he moved with the earned confidence of a native. He didn’t walk a straight path, instead meandering north and south to pick easier climbs when the terrain rose and gentle descents where it fell. He never looked back.

Mara, to her mild annoyance, found her best approach was to follow his path. She tried cutting short his gently curving trail to catch up to him, but found the extra effort it required slowed her, and she fell further behind. He wasn’t running, but he didn’t seem inclined to slow down to let her catch up, and she wondered whether he even knew she was there.

The night grew brighter, but the shadows deeper, as the moons continued a complex dance across the sky. Two of them were bright and clearly visible; the third, on a far more elliptical orbit, was barely more distinctive than a star. Kilometers began to stretch behind them, and the desert air grew colder and more biting. At least the exercise is keeping me warm, Mara thought sardonically. If I had known Skywalker was heading out on a death march across the desert, I would have woken Wedge.

Wouldn’t I have?

She wasn’t sure. She was certain, however, that she regretted not bringing a canteen of water, and her muscles were protesting the pace. She’d been tired before they had left the camp, and the long walk was doing nothing to alleviate that.

The desert noises were not comforting, either. The occasional gust of wind lifted sand and blew it in her face, stinging her eyes and drowning out other noises. Fauna grunted and groaned, and it was difficult to tell how near or far away wildlife was; she was certain the nearest bantha was at least half a kilometer distant, but many other creatures were clearly closer and, she hoped, much smaller.

None of it seemed to disturb Skywalker from his steady march.

Hours rolled past, and Mara’s limbs grew heavier with every passing kilometer. She no longer held any hope of catching up to Skywalker, but she forced herself to match his pace; losing sight of him altogether could be a death sentence for both of them. Or at least me. Damn farmboy would probably wander back into camp just fine.

She lost sight of him when he dropped over the top of a dune. She forced herself to pick up her pace, muscles screaming for rest, hurrying up the slope, but when she crested, she found Skywalker had stopped a hundred meters away.

It was a small Tatooine farmstead. Mara had seen a handful of them during training exercises, from a distance in the air. Skywalker had talked about them, briefly, when asked by Kit. They were small, permanent homes, usually housing only one or two families. Most of the homestead was below ground, away from the oppressive Tatooine sun. They were usually self-contained, providing their own power, sewage, and ventilation systems, with carefully controlled, indoor hydroponic systems to minimize moisture loss while still providing food. Many locals had their own machine shop or garage as well, relying on themselves for survival on the harsh planet.

This farmstead, though, was distinctly different; the walls bore the char of an old fire. A nearby tech dome over the garage was cracked and crumbling, no doubt from internal damage. Sand had begun to reclaim the homestead, pushed by brutal Tatooine winds, but the process was incomplete. A small dome, made from baked local materials of some sort, or perhaps fused sand, had been breached by whoever had burned the homestead.

We’ve flown near here on a training flight, Mara realized. On one of the exercises Wedge led during the first week, when Skywalker was back at camp. Skywalker never led us out this direction.

He was standing in front of the dome, and she could hear that he was speaking; but the distance was too great, his voice too soft, for her to understand what he was saying.

Mara forced herself to think through the implications. This was his home, she concluded. Before the Empire came and burned it down and killed his uncle and aunt while looking for droids. Which means he came back here to…

She sat down on the top of the dune and waited, deliberately choosing not to intrude. Her hand strayed to the Alderaanian pendant around her neck as she watched; her fingers fiddled with it unconsciously as she observed, feeling like an intruder even from her distant vantage point.

Skywalker stood down in the ruins of the homestead for perhaps thirty minutes, occasionally moving, but never far. When he spoke, it was never loud enough for Mara to understand. Whatever pain he was wrestling with, he clearly was keeping it to himself.

It was a decision Mara could understand entirely.

At last, he turned and started up the dune to where she sat, her muscles having eased from pleas for mercy to mere grumbles for sleep. When he reached her, his face was damp, and the dust on his face was streaked with clean lines. His voice, however, was steady. “You didn’t need to come,” he said after he studied her a moment.

“‘No one goes anywhere alone,’ Skywalker,” she admonished him gently with his own words. “That’s the rule. And I am your wingman.”

He offered Mara a hand, and she took it; he helped pull her up to standing. “This isn’t a combat engagement or training exercise,” he said wryly.

“So?”

Skywalker studied her for a moment. “Let’s go,” he said at last, leading back into the desert. This time, however, his pace was slower, and Mara fell into step beside him.

As they walked, he fumbled under his poncho for a moment before withdrawing a canteen of water. He passed it to her without comment. Mara took it, unscrewed the cap, and was rewarded with a stream of cool water that eased her parched throat. Wordlessly, she drank until it was half gone, then passed it back to him. Skywalker took a few swallows, far less than she’d drunk, then screwed the cap back on and returned it to wherever he had clipped it out of sight.

The walk back was both easier and harder. Easier, because Mara wasn’t straining to keep up with Skywalker’s desert-native pace; harder because she was exhausted. They’d flown a full day of training exercises before this impromptu hike across the sand; Mara’s reserves were running low. She suspected Skywalker wasn’t doing much better, but his face was a mask that didn’t seem to acknowledge the pain and weariness he had to be feeling. Nonetheless, the desert felt less terrifying now that she was actually walking with him.

Skywalker didn’t talk much on the long walk back. Occasionally he said something to adjust their route back to camp, and once he stopped her and silenced her, whispering to her after a few moments that there were Sandpeople half a kilometer south and that they wanted to avoid any confrontation. Mara had no idea who the Sandpeople were, but it wasn’t the first time Skywalker had altered his plans to avoid them, and she had no reason to believe he was exaggerating. He was clearly wrapped up in whatever emotions the destroyed homestead had evoked.

The night sky had begun to lighten when the training camp finally came into view. We spent the entire night walking across the desert, Mara thought tiredly. Sunrise is half an hour away or so. Barely time to eat and clean up before we’re going to be back in the cockpit. Her legs ached, her throat was dry, and she wanted nothing more than to crawl into her bunk and sleep.

They were perhaps a hundred meters away from the camp when Mara realized, to her chagrin, there was someone waiting at the edge of the perimeter.

Skywalker never slowed, leading the way straight to where Wedge was waiting with arms crossed. He finally came to a stop, face-to-face with Wedge, but neither man spoke.

Wedge’s eyes flicked over to Mara. He looked her up and down for a moment. “Get some sleep, Jade.” He looked back at Skywalker. “Luke. Kitchen duty.”

Mara blinked at that. The executive officer is assigning his commanding officer to kitchen duty? That can’t be right. She looked over at Skywalker.

He merely nodded.

“Jade,” Wedge repeated. “Sleep.”

Mara looked between the two men for a moment longer, but the only thing she could conclude was, I’m missing something. Maybe it’ll make sense after I sleep.

The barracks was quiet and dark. Her bunk was blessedly warm and comfortable, and she fell asleep almost immediately.

The first rays of dawn were gleaming over the horizon as Wedge sat down with his datapad and a cup of caf, enjoying the cool of the Tatooine morning before it turned into the daily blast furnace.

He took a drink from the battered cup, grimaced at the burned taste, and looked at the roster again. The memory of the previous day’s discussion with the younger man still sat uncomfortably in the back of his mind. For a guy who’s not yet twenty, Luke can be really perceptive sometimes. I’m not sure he was right, but he was more right than he was wrong.

With an effort, Wedge pushed his stewing down and focused on the task at hand, looking at the roster. Essentially, he had six pilots he was absolutely certain of: himself, Puck Naeco, Zev Senesca, Hobbie, Cesi Eirriss, and Wes Janson. Veteran Rebel pilots with plenty of flight hours, combat experience, and the durasteel core the squadron needed. Certainly, they each had their own flight styles and personality quirks, but Wedge had no doubt they’d be reliable in combat and follow orders.

Tycho Celchu, if he survived, would become that sort of pilot himself in another three to six months, though right now Wedge didn’t know what to think of the Alderaanian. He kept to himself and was about as expressive as Wedge’s battered mug. Luke had described the man as brittle, and it fit. Wedge didn’t know how to fix it, though there had been a few traces recently of Celchu’s shell cracking and allowing something of the man underneath to come out.

Karie Neth, Kit Valent, and Samoc Farr were all green pilots. There was plenty of potential in all three of them, but they required seasoning that would only be acquired through surviving.

Mara Jade was an issue all her own, as far as Wedge was concerned, though Luke’s words on that subject stung him as he considered. He’s probably right. I’ve filtered too much of my opinion about Mara through Syndulla’s protective streak, and I did a disservice to everyone that way. Though how to classify her was still a bit of a mystery; she definitely wasn’t green like the newest Rogues, but she wasn’t a seasoned veteran, either. And the Force nonsense that Luke agreed to just ignore doesn’t make it any easier.

He wished fervently, for just a moment, that he understood it.

And then there was Luke Skywalker himself, the leader of the squadron and even more difficult to define than Mara. Nineteen years old, made a commander due to his heroics at the Battle of Yavin, an Outer Rim farmer whose first time in an X-wing was maybe four months prior, and the most naturally-gifted fighter pilot Wedge had ever met. By any reasonable expectation, he should be an utterly green pilot who needed the protection of a veteran; and yet, he had flown repeatedly into ridiculous odds and came out alive with a streak of kills that would be the envy of any fighter pilot in the last twenty years. He was learning small-scale fighter tactics at a prodigious rate, to the point that Wedge, if he was feeling honest, felt a flicker of jealousy.

Wedge wasn’t feeling particularly honest right now.

Twelve pilots. Six pairs. Three flights.

He started at the top of the roster.

SKYWALKER/ANTILLES

It was tempting, in the way Puck’s jet juice was tempting. Flying with Luke in combat was exhilarating; during Skyhopper drills, he could keep up with Wedge like no one else, anticipating breaks and brackets before they were called. But like the jet juice, the downsides were extensive: too much command responsibility wrapped up in one pair where a lucky Imperial gunner could cause a leadership crisis, and too much squadron effectiveness at the point of the spear. He scrubbed it off the datapad almost immediately.

SKYWALKER/CELCHU

The Alderaanian was skilled, machine-precise while drilling. Luke could work with that and turn it into a new sort of weapon.

Of course, Luke can fly with anyone. He showed that over and over again during the drills. Is that the best way to use either Luke or Tycho?

He knew the answer to that already and scrubbed the entry off his datapad.

Okay, don’t start with Luke. Start with the rookies. He pulled two names together and nodded to himself.

CELCHU/VALENT

Tycho had been quietly mentoring Kit Valent. The rookie tended toward overthinking and spiraling; Celchu had been helping him slow down and concentrate. It gives Tycho something to think about besides Alderaan, and Kit’s been looking to Tycho for guidance more all the time. He grimaced. I’d probably like putting Kit with Hobbie better, but maybe this fixes two problems instead of one.

SENESCA/NETH

Wedge took a drink of the rapidly-cooling caf. Karie and Hobbie were too conservative during the Independence ambush, but she needs an old hand to steady her who won’t hold back while still keeping an eye on her. Zev can do that. Their Skyhopper drills weren’t phenomenal, but Karie’s best drills happened with me and Luke. She didn’t trust anyone else to be where she needed them to be, so she spent more time looking and less time flying. These two together for a couple months and Karie will know Zev is reliable. Zev will be more focused on the fight if he has a rookie wingman, too.

Four pilots assigned, eight to go. One rookie left: Samoc Farr. She’s probably the best of the rookies. He contemplated, for a moment, putting Farr on Luke’s wing. She’s good, but she wouldn’t be able to keep up when Luke gets weird. And Luke would slow down to make sure he doesn’t leave her behind. It’d be good for her but bad for Luke’s effectiveness.

He looked at the veteran list again.

Hobbie’s a cynic, but he’s a survivor. He’ll keep her alive long enough for her to grow into her talent. He frowned. Though she won’t push him to be aggressive in a fight. It’d be the same problem we had during the Independence ambush. Wedge paused, choosing to skip over Farr for a moment.

KLIVIAN/NAECO

That pairing instinctively felt better. Puck is good, better than he gives himself credit for. If he’s flying with Hobbie, he’ll have the reliability he needs to let himself get aggressive, and Hobbie can’t just sit at the back of the engagement and let others do the work because Puck won’t let him. It will push them both to be better. They’ll temper the worst impulses of the other. And yes, Puck is going to drive Hobbie up a wall. It’ll be worth it if it means they both are pushed to be better.

Hobbie might not think so, but this isn’t his decision to make.

Wedge stared at the roster. I know where the rest of this is going to go. I don’t like it. But I don’t have to like it for it to be the correct decision.

JANSON/EIRRISS

Luke had pointed out, rightly, that during the Independence engagement, Wes had taken the lead and dragged Cesi through the entire fight. But during the Skyhopper training, Eirriss had proven herself more than willing to call Janson out on his nonsense, forcing him to hold formation, to cover when she took the lead, and to provide the stability Janson needed to let himself go loose and aggressive.

He considered putting Farr with either Janson or Eirriss, then immediately scrubbed that idea by process of elimination. Putting Farr with Janson would be a disaster for the rookie, and pairing Farr with Eirriss meant Janson would end up flying with either Luke or Wedge. Luke would, of course, accept it with good grace and spend too much of his time in combat keeping Janson leashed; Wedge was certain he could fly well with him, but not while also keeping a close eye on the larger tactical fight. If I wasn’t the executive officer, it’d be fun to fly with Janson. But I have command responsibilities to keep in mind.

He considered for a moment further. I’ll make Eirriss lead for the element, too. That should help.

ANTILLES/FARR

Samoc was green, but she was the sort of rookie who’d stay on his wing and call out on comm if something happened that he missed. It was the conclusion he’d circled earlier. She was technically gifted, had good instincts, but needed seasoning. He could work with that and it wouldn’t annoy him in combat the way one of the other rookies might, and he could teach her good habits – the sort that would keep her alive when hard light started flying. And with a few months of intensive drilling, she’d learn his own quirks well enough that he could focus on the squadron’s tactical picture, not just the immediate fight.

Which leaves exactly what I would’ve avoided a week ago.

SKYWALKER/JADE

Wedge stared at his datapad and forced himself to think logically. Yes, Syndulla would hate it. Will hate it, when she hears about it. But that doesn’t make it wrong. He frowned, took a drink of now-cold caf. Luke relies on her by instinct. He’s not even aware he’s doing it unless I point it out to him. Unbidden, a memory surfaced: Luke telling Wedge in brief detail about the discussion he’d had with Mara about the Force. She won’t be dazzled by him, but she’s also willing to tell him if she thinks he’s making a mistake. His lips compressed into a tight line. And if he goes strange in a fight, she’s one of the three or four pilots in the Rogues that might actually keep up with him, or see the shape of what he’s doing and actually do something useful herself with it.

This still feels like juggling thermal detonators, though.

He put the datapad down for a moment, closing his eyes. And I have no idea if there’s something else between them, too. I assumed there was once already and was wrong.

Wedge opened his eyes and looked at the roster again. Yes, he decided. Yes, this is Rogue Squadron. And I can justify all of it.

He stood up, dumped the mug out in the sand, picked up his datapad, and headed to the mess to find fresh caf.

“You know, Jade, on your day off, you’re supposed to take the day off,” Wes Janson’s voice floated under the Skyhopper.

“Not all of us are hungover, Janson,” Mara grunted, pulling hard on the hydrospanner until she was satisfied the fastener was secure.

“No need to shout,” Janson grumbled, though his tone was more amused than annoyed.

Her smile was smug, though no one could see it. “I also like knowing the Skyhopper I’m flying tomorrow isn’t going to turn me into a smear in the desert.”

“You don’t know which one you’ll be flying.”

“Good thing I’m working on all of them, then,” she said, sliding out from under the Skyhopper on the repulsor creeper. “For some reason, I want to keep the rest of you alive, too.”

To her surprise, Janson was offering her a mug of caf. She took it, sipped it, and her eyes widened in surprise. “This is actually pretty good,” she admitted.

“Don’t get used to it. We only had a little.”

Mara took another sip. Rich, no burnt taste. “Where’d this come from?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Janson said dryly.

“Try me.”

“It’s mine.”

Mara raised an eyebrow. “And who did you steal it from?”

Wes snorted. “No one. I’m from Taanab. We grow some of our own. This is the last of what I brought with me after my last trip home, over a year ago. Was saving it for a special occasion.”

“Training on Tatooine is a special occasion?”

“Recovering from a hangover on Tatooine is a special occasion.” He raised his own cup. “To surviving.”

Mara clinked her mug with his and took another sip. “I figured you’d hoard this for your partner in crime.”

Janson’s face colored. “My…what?”

“Naeco.”

Wes offered a short chuckle, his expression clearing. “Puck doesn’t appreciate caf that tastes better than burnt engine grease.”

“So what did I do to earn the caf?”

“You’re keeping us all alive?” he offered, gesturing at the Skyhopper.

It was Mara’s turn to offer a chuckle. “If it wasn’t me doing it, it’d be someone else. Maybe even you.”

“That seems reason enough.” Wes took a drink from his caf, and his eyes settled on her, as though seeing her for the first time. “Or maybe I’m curious.”

“Curiosity killed the tooka,” Mara said, her tone sharper than she intended.

Wes ignored it, sipping at his caf. “Everyone has a story,” he continued. “Lot of the Rogues don’t have much for living family anymore. I’m lucky; I’ve got family back home on Taanab, though between Arcon Multinode and the Empire I can’t exactly drop in to visit. Wedge’s parents are dead and he’s not on speaking terms with the closest thing he has to an uncle. We’re standing on our esteemed commander’s homeworld, but stormtroopers killed his family. Celchu’s whole world is gone. Naeco’s got family on Denon, but they’re Imperial loyalists so they’re not on speaking terms.” His eyes narrowed. “But what about you?”

Of all the ways Mara had considered her day might go wrong, this hadn’t been one of them. “What about me?”

“I’m pretty sure you didn’t spring from General Syndulla’s forehead full-formed. Wedge and Hobbie are terrified of her on your behalf, but you’re clearly not her kid.”

“Oh? Why are you so certain?”

“You’re not a Twi’lek, Jade. I’d have noticed.”

Something twisted in Mara’s chest. “I’m not a book for you to pick up and read, Janson.”

“No, you’re not,” Wes agreed, “but you are a Rogue. You’re one of us.” He leaned forward. “So, where are you from?”

Mara shrugged uncomfortably. “Don’t know.”

“Parents?”

“Don’t know.”

Wes studied her silently for several long heartbeats before straightening. “You really don’t know.”

“That’s what I said.” She offered the barest of shrugs. “I don’t dwell on what I don’t know. That won’t keep me alive. It won’t keep you alive. And it certainly won’t help me fly an X-wing.”

“Like you need the help.”

Mara started to reply, but was interrupted by the arrival of another pilot.

“Wes,” an irate Puck Naeco spat, “why does my pee glow in the dark?“

Janson looked up at the sky. “It’s not dark.”

“It is in the refresher!”

“That sounds like a personal problem,” Janson said affably. “Have you spoken to the medical droid?”

Mara, grateful for the interruption, moved the creeper to the next Skyhopper and slid underneath, out of sight, and began to open the belly access panel.

The twin suns had already set when Tycho slipped out of the barracks to go for a walk.

He’d barely made it twenty meters when another figure materialized from the mess, falling into step beside him.

“You don’t have to do this every night, Zev,” Tycho said quietly.

“Rule one of camp: ‘No one goes anywhere alone,’ remember?” Zev said with a trace of a smile.

“I was there when Commander Skywalker said it.”

“Then you know why I’m doing it.”

Tycho shook his head as they moved away from the dim noise and activity of the camp. The Rogues were settling in for the night, but fusion generators still hummed and droids trundled back and forth in the sand, performing maintenance and monitoring. The two men approached the loosely-defined camp perimeter and turned, walking parallel to the edge instead of crossing over.

“How do you feel tonight?” Zev asked after a while.

Tycho considered. “Numb, mostly. Last night I was drunk enough to feel something for a while. The hangover wasn’t worth it.”

Zev grunted and continued to walk, letting silence hang between them.

“How long did it take?” Tycho asked several minutes later.

“To feel normal?”

“Yes.”

Zev considered. “After Kestic Station? Three or four months before I felt more than numb. But that was when I found out it was my fault. I’d gotten sloppy and led the Empire there. Then months of guilt and anger.” He spared Tycho a glance. “The guilt is natural. But it’s not your fault.”

Tycho nodded slowly. “Easier to say than believe.”

“Yes. And I’m going to carry the guilt until the day I die.” Zev seemed to ponder for a while as they continued their slow circuit. “You’ll always carry the hurt. But not the guilt. Enough time, and your brain will admit it’s not your fault. But the anger, that’ll probably last until you die.”

“Anger is better than numb.”

“Just don’t let it burn you out.” The older man was contemplative. “The new tactics, the new doctrine. Rogue Squadron could become the best squadron in the galaxy. But it’s going to demand more from all of us to make it work, Tycho. You ran the Ralltiir simulation, right? What happened with Skywalker and Jade and Sarkli?”

Tycho nodded.

“Sarkli managed to do a lot of damage because the old three-ship element offered him room to maneuver without anyone depending on him. The new tactics are better, more effective, but there’s no room to run off and die on your own.” His smile was small. “There are people depending on us. Our wingmen. The squadron. Alderaan’s gone. Kestic Station is gone. But there are still people depending on us.”

The Alderaanian hesitated before putting the thought into words. “Dying would be easier.”

“Dying doesn’t bring back the dead. And dying now might kill people depending on us.” Zev’s voice took on a cold edge. “And I’m not lying down and dying without taking more of the Empire with me.”

Tycho recognized an echo of the sentiment in his own chest. Somewhere under the leaden, numb blanket, there was an ember of righteous fury still smoldering. “I understand that.”

“I figured you would.”

The two men continued their slow circuit of the training camp perimeter as the skies darkened and the stars began to sparkle.

The Rogues drilled hard for another five days in the Skyhoppers.

Luke and Wedge ran the Rogues through all the pairings, practiced maneuvers, and then ran all the pairings again.

The results often weren’t what they expected.

After reviewing the telemetry from the Independence ambush, Luke had thought he had a good grasp on how the pair dynamics would shake out, but he was rapidly proven wrong. Wedge’s initial notes on who he’d expected to work well together were similarly worthless, forcing them both to conclude that they’d drawn conclusions prematurely.

Luke and Wedge had agreed that putting Wes and Puck together in a wingpair would be chaos incarnate, but they tried it anyway to see how effective it would look in the two-vs-three doctrine. Wedge suspected they’d end up separated and picked apart, given that both pilots flew aggressively. Instead, as a pair, they flew far too conservatively to be effective. Wedge had been entirely flummoxed by the results, and it wasn’t until after Luke had slept on it that he’d understood the issue: both pilots knew the other was aggressive and didn’t trust the other would stay together. Lack of trust killed their effectiveness.

On the other hand, when paired with one of the steadier veterans, like Zev Senesca or Hobbie, both of them were happy to take the aggressive approach, knowing instinctively that they could rely on their wingman to be where they needed to be, allowing them to lean fully into their instincts without fear.

At the Independence ambush, Luke had pointed out to Wedge that Cesi Eirriss was reluctant to take lead (and Janson reluctant to yield it), limiting their ability to operate as a pair; but in training, Cesi had unflinchingly overridden Wes in simulated combat when she had the better line or yielded when Wes had the better shot. Wedge had offered the observation that the Independence ambush had been a high-stress, unexpected fight with a brand-new doctrine, and training was allowing better pairings to emerge. In other pairings, Cesi was unflinching under fire as both lead and wingman, flying like she understood what the galaxy was demanding and determined to provide it.

After more evaluation, Luke and Wedge also agreed the three greenest pilots needed to fly with veterans. Karie Neth was the best of them, having survived some actual combat minutes, but in the heat of the moment tended to fall back onto her instinct and forget her new training. Luke was certain more repetitions would help integrate her training into her instincts, but until she was more reliable, she’d do best staying in the wingman position. Kit Valent, on the other hand, tended to overthink instead of trusting his instinct, slowing him down; he needed a partner he’d trust until he trusted his own instincts. Samoc Farr was the most precise flyer of the trio and was doing well in simulation, but Luke wanted to see how she’d respond to actual combat flight. He hoped she’d be aggressive enough to push one of his conservative veterans, like Hobbie, out of a default defensive posture.

Wedge grumbled at length about Tycho Celchu after every evaluation. “He flies like a droid,” was the sentence Luke had heard the most often from his executive officer, and to be fair, the telemetry did little to disprove it. Among all twelve Rogues, Tycho was the most mechanically correct pilot, taking absolutely correct lines in almost every situation. He lacked the conservative, defensive flying of Hobbie or the aggressive edge of Puck; he simply was. Luke suspected they’d end up putting one of the rookies with Celchu, because he’d keep a wingman alive, but Luke fervently wished he could find a way to crack the man’s shell. He was withdrawn, seldom smiled, seldom frowned, and showed all the emotional range of a flight computer. I don’t want him to break in the cockpit in the middle of a mission, Luke had privately despaired.

And then there was Mara. Luke supposed she should be included in the list with the green pilots, but she flew far more like a seasoned veteran than her age would imply. In training, she flew at least decently well with everyone, though Wedge had observed that she tended to fly like her wingman. Pairing her with Zev resulted in a highly conservative pair that could survive almost anything but with few kills to show for it; pairing her with Cesi or Wedge led to a lot more kills but increased risk; putting her with the rookies was three times over a disaster, with none of them producing anything approaching combat chemistry.

Luke suspected he knew the optimal solution, but outside the cockpit he wasn’t ready to trust his instincts.

Wedge was waiting in their shared quarters when Luke ducked inside, out of the blazing suns, carrying a tray of food.

“If Wes and Puck can manage to behave for another two days, they’ll finally be off kitchen duty,” Luke remarked. “I’m not sure who we’ll put in charge of cooking.”

“I wouldn’t be in a hurry to pick out the next person for the mess,” Wedge deadpanned, not looking up from his datapad.

“Probably.” Luke set the tray down before seating himself across from Wedge. “Training notes?”

“Is there anything else to do on this rock?”

“You could take up moisture farming. It’s lucrative here.”

“Or I could move to a planet where the water lets itself out of the air.”

Luke nodded and poked at his food with a utensil, finally setting it down. “How close are you to finalizing pairs?”

Wedge frowned, looking up for the first time to meet Luke’s gaze. “Me? I thought we were doing that together.”

“We need to talk,” Luke said bluntly. “About all of this.”

The datapad went down on the table. “Talk about what?”

Luke took a deep breath. “Okay, I’m going to talk, you’re going to listen.” Keep it coherent, Luke. “The training run, five days ago. You sabotaged my comms.” He leaned forward, meeting Wedge’s hazel eyes. “You did that deliberately, and it wasn’t part of the training for that stage. I’ve read through all the training curriculum you wrote, and we’re not doing simulated comm failures for at least another week. You deliberately tried to undercut me, didn’t you?“

Wedge sat for a moment, clearly thinking it over. “I did,” he admitted. “You made a stupid bet with Janson.”

“That wasn’t your call to make,” Luke said, striving to keep his voice even, though a little anger slipped in anyway. “Wes needed to be fully committed to the engagement for the lesson to sink in.”

“Luke, you’ve never trained fighter pilots before.”

“You’re right, but I did grow up in a Skyhopper cockpit with a lot of braggarts who hated owning up to their own shortcomings. I wasn’t publicly humiliating Wes; I was making sure he remembered what was about to happen.” Luke leaned forward. “If you have a problem with how I’m doing something, you talk to me, you don’t try to undermine my authority. You’re my executive officer. I can’t run the squadron without you. But I also can’t run it if you pull that sort of stunt again. The squadron won’t follow me if you don’t have my back.” He shook his head. “I’m not asking for an apology. Just don’t do it again.”

Wedge’s expression was mixed as he worked through Luke’s rebuke.

That’s good enough for now. “The other topic we need to discuss: Mara.”

This time Wedge’s expression hardened. “What about her?”

“Wedge,” Luke said, his voice becoming more gentle, “you have to stop worrying about Syndulla.”

Whatever words the Corellian had been expecting out of Luke’s mouth, that statement clearly wasn’t it. “What?”

“You’ve got a blind spot the size of a Star Destroyer, Wedge. I think Hobbie does, too. You both served under Syndulla in Phoenix Group, and you’re both terrified something is going to happen to Mara because of it.” Luke shook his head. “She’s a combat pilot, and a good one. You can’t coddle her because you’re afraid of a Rebel general outside your chain of command.”

Wedge found his voice. “You’ve never seen an angry Hera Syndulla.”

“You’ve never seen a Tatooine sandstorm,” Luke replied with a shrug. “It doesn’t matter. Do you remember what Mara told us when we interviewed her back on Yavin?” When Wedge shook his head, Luke supplied the answer. “If I’m in your squadron, I follow the orders you give me and no one else’s. She was afraid of this exact thing.” He held up his hand to forestall comment. “There’s history I don’t know about, I know. But Wedge, we’re building a squadron. She’s earned her place here several times over. If you coddle her because you’re scared of Syndulla, you’re sabotaging the squadron and doing everyone a disservice.”

“Anything else I’ve been wrong about?” Wedge asked sardonically.

“I’m sure I could come up with a list if I asked Hobbie,” Luke replied. “Next subject. Pairings.”

“Like I said before, I thought we were doing that together,” Wedge said, letting a breath escape.

Luke was already shaking his head. “No. I’m turning it over to you.”

Wedge studied him for a moment. “Because of the promise you made to Jade.”

“That’s one of the reasons, yes.” Luke didn’t need to elaborate, and Wedge didn’t push; they’d already had that argument the day after Luke had talked to Mara about the Force after Wedge had drawn conclusions from combat telemetry. “But also because I think you’ll do a better job of it. I operate too much on instinct, and this isn’t instinct work – it’s datapad work.”

“And if you don’t like the roster I come up with?” Wedge asked, a bit of edge in his voice. “You’re already questioning my judgment, Luke.”

“Then I learn to live with it,” Luke said simply. “I just told you to talk to me if you have a problem with a command decision I make. I have told you where I have a problem with the command decisions you have made. And now I’m extending trust again.” He met the other’s eyes, expression steady and unflinching. “You’re still my executive officer. Draw up the roster.”

The twin suns setting was usually a signal to the Rogues to fall into their racks and sleep. Morning flight hours in the Skyhoppers, afternoon classroom instruction, and constant maintenance to keep the airspeeders flying, along with camp maintenance, cooking, and even regular checkups on the X-wings to ensure the starfighters were ready to fly at a moment’s notice, filled the day to the point of exhaustion.

Tonight was different, though. After the afternoon classroom session, Commander Skywalker had ordered a stand-down for the next day. No flying, no training, no classroom, just rest.

Janson had told Mara, “Straight west of camp when the second sun hits the horizon,” while ladling protein slop onto her tray at the evening meal, and against her better judgment she found herself walking out with Cesi Eirriss.

Over a small dune, in a sandy depression just outside the nominal perimeter of the training camp, Wes and Puck had been busy.

A pit had been dug and lined with stone, now filled with burning scrub brush and bushes common in this particular stretch of Tatooine. Camp chairs were stuck in the sand in a circle around the fire, and most of the Rogues were already present.

Wes raised a flask. “Jade! Eirriss! Come join us, ladies!”

Mara snorted as they descended into the hollow. “Please tell me that isn’t the poison you were brewing on the Independence,” she said.

Wes sniffed, mock-haughtily. “Poison? Hardly. Also, this is Puck’s batch.”

“Please tell me you have something other than jet juice,” Cesi said with a raised eyebrow.

Hobbie spoke up from a chair on the far side of the fire. “They do. It doesn’t mean it’s better.”

Puck was already rifling through a crate. “What kind of savages do you think we are? We’ve got a couple of bottles of Corellian whiskey, for one.”

“Whyren’s Reserve?” Cesi asked, a note of hope in her voice.

“I’m a Rebel pilot. I don’t have the credits for Whyren’s. It’s Double Worlds.”

Cesi made a face. “Better that than your homebrew. Unless you have anything else.”

“We’ve got a couple bottles of lum,” Puck said helpfully. “And two bottles of Tatooine wine.” He frowned. “I have no idea where these came from.”

“That was from me,” a familiar voice said from the top of the ridge.

Mara turned and saw Skywalker and Wedge descending into the hollow.

Wes and Puck exchanged guilty looks.

“You’re off-duty, Rogues,” Wedge said with a wry smile. “I would have been surprised if you weren’t out here drinking.”

“To hangovers,” Wes said, lifting a battered metal cup in the air.

The Rogues gathered around the fire, all present now. Mara glanced between them: Karie and Kit, both already flushed; Samoc nearby with a wicked smile; Zev and Tycho, deep in a private conversation; Hobbie sitting and staring into the fire; Wes and Puck rummaging through bottles of spirits; Cesi content to stand near the fire for the moment with Mara; and now Luke and Wedge joining them. Mara frowned at the last pair, clocking a bit of discomfort in Wedge’s posture and masked strain around Skywalker’s eyes. Not my business, she decided after a moment.

Wes came up with more battered cups, passing them into empty hands, including Mara’s, before Puck came around with one of the bottles of Tatooine wine. “Calwell Farms,” the latter man announced as he filled cups in turn. “The finest of Tatooine beverages.”

“Cheapest,” Skywalker corrected. “Moisture farm teenagers don’t exactly have a lot of credits. Calwell tastes okay and never cost much.”

When everyone’s cup had been filled, Wes lifted his in the air. “To the planet that water abandoned,” he toasted.

Mara peered at her cup for a moment, hesitating. Alcohol of any form wasn’t really a part of her life; the Ghost crew seldom imbibed, and before that, a clouded head wasn’t conducive to survival. The rest of the Rogues were all drinking the sweet-smelling wine, though. Hell with it. I’m a combat pilot. How bad could it be? She lifted the cup and drank, swallowing fast.

It burned going down, and she barely kept from coughing.

To her surprise, several of the Rogues actually did cough.

“This is your good wine?” Zev asked.

Skywalker smiled. “For Tatooine? Yes.”

Wedge shook his head. “Puck, Wes, get us something good to drink.”

The fire burned as the Rogues sat and the sky grew darker. Mara let the conversation wash over her, not eager to speak but finding some strange contentment in the presence of the squadron and the warmth growing in her chest as some of the Corellian whiskey made its way around.

It was Janson who threw out the challenge. “Best piloting story. And by best I mean funniest. Let’s not be boring and heroic here. Looking at you, boss. No one wants to hear about blowing up a Death Star.”

Skywalker smiled, but to Mara it looked distant, like his mind was elsewhere. Or maybe it was the alcohol.

“You first, Wes,” Wedge said.

Wes was more than happy to share with a captive audience. “Tierfon Yellow Aces,” he said, “because all my best stories start there. We were training on Y-wings. We had a bombing range setup with multiple targets on a low-gravity moon. Our usual training configuration was a set of dummy free-fall bombs with minimal guidance.” He smiled, cheer and alcohol evident on his face in equal amounts. “Jek Porkins and I were supposed to fly a run with our training officer. We showed up, preflighted, and took off for the range.”

“Pretty dull so far,” Cesi commented. “Come on, Wes, amuse us.”

“I’m getting there. We get to the range, and the training officer leads us through a couple of simulated passes, safeties on, no bomb drop. Just to get a feel for it. We set up for the fourth pass, and he tells us to go safeties-off and we’re being scored based on our accuracy.” His face grew even merrier. “We’re over the range and hit the releases. And way too late to do anything, we found out our Y-wings had been loaded with live proton bombs, not dummies.” He flared his fingers out in a simulated explosion. “Turned the entire target range into one big smoking crater. Our trainer was not happy, chewed Porkins and me both out for requisitioning the wrong equipment for the training run…until he realized he was the one who’d ordered the ground crew to arm the Y-wings.” His grin stretched ear-to-ear. “Porkins and I both got full marks for accuracy. There wasn’t a target left standing.”

Chuckles spread around the fire.

Puck told a story next: an early training mission in an R-22 Spearhead, coming in to land on a frozen lake and accidentally hooking the throttle control on the sleeve of his flightsuit as he set down, sending the fighter skidding across three hundred meters of ice before it ended up buried nose-first in a snowbank. His flight instructor hadn’t said a word but handed him a shovel and told him to report for debrief once the Spearhead was parked in its designated slip.

Kit volunteered a tale from his first trip off Huulia. All of fifteen years old at the time, he’d hired on as a crewman on a tramp freighter. At their first port-of-call, the captain had told Kit to talk to the customs official. Kit, knowing some of the freighter’s cargo, had tried to bribe the man, only to be informed later he was the captain’s second cousin once-removed or some such. He never got his credits back, with the captain calling it a tax on stupidity.

Hobbie spoke next, just a few words. “A few weeks after Wedge and I jumped ship, General Syndulla had me on a training rotation on Atollon in a Spearhead. I overshot the landing zone when we were doing touch-and-go practice runs and crashed the trainer. Had to walk half a klick back to base. The next day, Syndulla had me on the combat roster. She told me if I was lucky enough to survive a crash like that, I was lucky enough to survive a combat.”

“That’s a Syndulla story, not a Klivian story,” Janson protested.

Hobbie had shrugged and retreated into silence.

Tycho Celchu offered his own misdeeds at the Imperial training academy at Prefsbelt IV. A night of drinking with his fellow cadets, including Skywalker’s Tatooine friend Biggs Darklighter, had led to spectacularly bad decision-making that ended with the academy commandant’s personal TIE decorated with a ludicrous number of fighter kills. Celchu maintained that the kill tallies had been calculated based on the commandant’s bragging about his combat exploits. His instructor, one Imperial captain Soontir Fel, had officially been unable to ascertain which cadets were responsible and had privately told Celchu to make sure nothing so stupid happened a second time.

Mara thought, for the first time, she saw a crack of real emotion on Celchu’s face, but she couldn’t identify it. Grief? Anger? Some odd bit of fondness for his instructor and fellow trainees? It was impossible to tell.

Karie Neth’s tale involved transposing coordinates on a navigation drill in flight school, leading her flight of Z-95 Headhunters hundreds of kilometers out of position. She maintained her own innocence, however, suggesting it was her instructor’s mistake and he refused to fess up.

Wedge told a brief story about a smuggling run he took for the Rebellion after his defection, hauling a cargo of blaster rifles on a stolen Imperial shuttle through a blockade to a resistance cell on the surface. He was intercepted by a customs patrol on his inbound route and convinced the inspector, who was on his first tour without an immediate supervisor, that the cargo was for the Imperial garrison on the surface.

Zev volunteered his own memory of gunrunning; his cover cargo included Corellian whiskey and, unbeknownst to him, it was subject to local tariffs. The Imperial port inspector completely missed the hidden cargo of A280 blaster rifles, but fined him for failing to declare the whiskey. The resulting fine had eaten up the entire profit from the smuggling run.

Samoc’s misdeeds dated back to the tender age of fourteen, when she’d crashed an airspeeder on Chandrila into a private beach house owned by the Mothma family. Mon Mothma herself had accepted Samoc’s apology and restitution for repairs to her property, and had paid for a year of piloting lessons for the young woman to ensure it didn’t happen again.

Cesi volunteered her own tale next, though it wasn’t strictly a piloting misadventure. “My doctoral thesis was on the fragility of Imperial governance and the inevitability of rebellion. My advisor told me my research was thorough, my citations immaculate, and my conclusions well-supported. He also explained to me, in exquisite detail, what Imperial powers-that-be would think of it when it came to some government official’s attention in the Imperial Education department. And he offered me, quietly, a name and office on Alderaan I should contact if I wanted to put my thesis to work in the real galaxy.” The Twi’lek shook her head. “The contact and the office are both gone now, of course. But she put me through an aptitude test and I was as surprised as anyone to score highly on all the prerequisites for starfighter combat. I can’t say pilot was on my list of aspirations, but here I am.”

Mara unconsciously fingered the pendant, which had slipped out from under her shirt. Her hand gripped it tightly when eleven heads turned toward her, and she realized it was her turn.

“Yavin Four,” she said aloud. “After I officially certified on the X-wing thanks to Wedge and Hobbie, General Merrick asked me if I’d be interested in joining Blue Squadron. When I said yes, he took me for a check flight in orbit.” A small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “We ran a skirmish against some Red Squadron pilots. I scored one kill during the dogfight. I got so target-fixated I completely ignored my astromech screaming at me and shot down Merrick.”

Laughter rolled around the campfire, and Mara couldn’t keep the smile completely in check. “Afterward, he told me it was very fine maneuvering, but he was glad the Empire didn’t use X-wings because he’d hate for me to accidentally mistake him for an enemy.” She shook her head. “He put me through a whole week of target identification drills.”

“What about you, Commander?” Puck asked.

Skywalker looked down in his cup, then at the mostly-empty bottle of Tatooine wine. He’s the only one drinking the stuff, Mara noted with amusement.

“I’m not sure I’ve drank enough to tell any of the good stories,” he said wryly after a moment. “Most of my stories are about people who aren’t here anymore. Doesn’t feel right to tell them.” He looked up, around at the Rogues, and then raised his cup. “To absent friends,” he said after a moment. “To those who came before us, and those who will come after us.”

Cups raised in response to the toast. Rogues drank. Wes and Puck heckled him about his lack of story, but Skywalker didn’t relent. The stars were out now, the twin suns long asleep over the horizon. The fire had burned down to embers. The Corellian whiskey was gone, the two flasks of jet juice were empty – even Mara had risked a swallow of it and regretted her decision – and the Rogues were slowly settling into companionable quiet as exhaustion crept over them.

In twos and threes, the Rogues began to head back to their quarters, where sleep awaited. Karie and Samoc first; a few minutes later, Zev and Tycho and Kit; Wedge and Hobbie after, Puck right behind them, with Wedge pausing just long enough to exchange a look with Skywalker that Mara didn’t quite understand; then Wes and Cesi, which struck Mara as odd. And then only Mara remained with Skywalker, the fire nothing but embers.

“You didn’t tell a story,” Mara said at length.

“No.” Skywalker looked down in his cup, then tossed the remaining contents into the sand. “Didn’t want to ruin the mood. The squadron needed the relief tonight.”

Mara studied him for a moment, deciding. “Thank you,” she said.

He looked up, meeting her gaze and raising an eyebrow. “For?”

“Not asking.”

Skywalker nodded, his expression a complicated mix. “You’re welcome.” He kicked sand over the coals; it took only a minimal effort before all trace of the fire had been extinguished. “Get some sleep. Tomorrow is a day off. But after that, we’ll be moving into the next stage of training.”

“Permanent pairs?” Mara asked before she could stop herself. This is why I shouldn’t drink, she chided herself.

“Wedge is drawing up the roster.” Skywalker’s smile was genuine. “Though knowing him, it’s probably already done. We don’t know how much time we really have before we’re called back to the fight, and I want Rogue Squadron to be ready when the moment comes.”

They made it to the fifth morning of Skyhopper drills before the cracks started to show.

The T-16 with the cracked ion manifold had been declared unsafe to fly drills by Zev, Mara, and Hobbie in turn, even after repairs. Luke had decided instead to cannibalize it for parts, and it was now permanently grounded.

After the first day of pair drilling, Luke had pointed out that they could reduce downtime by putting two pilots in a Skyhopper at a time, meaning ten Rogues could be in the sky with no downtime to swap pilots. If Luke and Wedge were in one Skyhopper and Wes and Puck were in a second, they could run pair drills first with Luke and Wes, immediately followed by Luke and Puck, then Wedge and Wes, and finally Wedge and Puck, all without having to land.

Wedge had put the plan into practice, and it was allowing them to test pair configurations much more rapidly than he’d initially planned, but the Skyhopper cockpits were cramped with two pilots shoulder-to-shoulder, and tempers were getting thin.

The current round of drills pitted a pair of Rogues using the new two-ship elements against a trio of Rogues as an aggressor flight using the standard three-ship element and following strict by-the-book flying. Wedge had designed the exercise both to test for natural pairs and to teach the Rogues to rely on the additional flexibility of a looser wingman to overcome a numerical disadvantage. It was exactly the sort of fight the Rogues would be facing when they used the new formations in live combat, and Wedge wanted to find weaknesses and reinforce good habits before the Empire got a chance to kill them.

The Skyhoppers had been fitted with low-powered targeting lasers and a handful of sensitive receivers designed to register a simulated hit. The datalinks were all handled by encrypted comms, managed by Luke’s astromech. That droid has some esoteric programming, Wedge observed. I wonder what Bail Organa used it for?

Days of hard flying, relentless heat, and classroom instruction had frayed patience.

Wedge observed from the right seat of the Skyhopper; Luke was strapped in on the left side as pilot-in-command. He was currently leading the aggressor group, with Tycho and Hobbie as his wingmen, opposing Wes and Mara, three kilometers of airspace between them.

“Rogues, Aggressors, ten second countdown,” Luke said calmly. “Then standard rules of engagement. Starting now.” There was a click on the comm as Wes and Mara changed to a private channel to coordinate.

Wedge clicked the chronometer in his hand and settled back in his seat, content to watch without speaking.

Luke waited an extra two seconds past the end of the countdown before pushing the throttle forward smoothly, accelerating but not as hard as he might have pushed the Skyhopper. Tycho and Hobbie matched his velocity, and he spoke calmly. “Aggressors, banking port,” he called as he began bringing the airspeeder around toward his opponents.

Distantly, Wedge could see Wes leading Mara in a short, sharp climb for altitude, then leveling off and beginning to accelerate toward them. Rules of engagement restricted them from firing at a target over five hundred meters away, which prevented either side from long-range kills but opened the opportunity for preliminary maneuvers.

As Wedge had expected, at two kilometers out, Wes and Mara split; Wes banked north, Mara south, opening hundreds of meters between them in seconds. It was the simple bracket maneuver Wedge had been training them on, designed to force an opposing element to either fragment, losing their concentrated fire advantage, or focus on one half of the pair, leaving themselves vulnerable to the other half.

“Keep together, Aggressors,” Luke commanded.

Wedge frowned. That’s not what I expected, he thought as he glanced between his datapad and out the canopy. Luke turned the Aggressor group to the north, focusing on Wes as the distance fell. Wes banked further, then further still, the rate of closure dropping.

“Reverse,” Luke called, stick swinging back, and suddenly the Aggressor group was banking south toward Mara, head-to-head in a three-versus-one.

Mara, to her credit, firewalled her throttle and dove, trying to make herself hard to hit. All three Aggressor Skyhoppers fired, the targeting lasers registering as a high-pitched, soft, repeated thump-thump-thump instead of the heavier, deeper sound Wedge associated with the guns on his X-wing. On his datapad, her Skyhopper flashed as Artoo-Detoo declared hits, simulated damage but not a kill.

Luke inverted the Skyhopper and pulled back on the stick, sending the airspeeder screaming through a split-s with Hobbie and Tycho maintaining their positions. Never supposed to go inverted in a repulsorcraft, Wedge thought with an amused smile tugging his lips as much as the g-forces. Of course, Luke probably never read the manual. Or he did and he ignores it anyway, because bush pilots treat rules more like guidelines. He spared a glance at his datapad. Mara was banking to port, trying to buy enough time and distance to link back up with Wes. On the other hand, Wes had missed the Aggressors changing target and had lost precious seconds and distance, putting him badly out of position to support his wingman.

Tycho opened fire on Mara’s Skyhopper as the Aggressors leveled off, and more hits registered on the datapad; then the icon went red as Artoo declared a kill. Luke grunted, ruddered back to starboard to force a head-on with Wes, and all three opened fire. A moment later, Wes’s icon went red as well.

“End exercise,” Wedge called. “End ex, end ex.”

The comm channel clicked as Wes and Mara rejoined.

“…far out,” Mara was saying. “You should have reversed…”

“Then you should have called it,” Wes said, irritation in his voice. “I’m not a mind-reader.”

“I’m not your damned astromech,” Mara retorted. “Keep your eyes on your instruments and on the sky.”

“No, my astromech has survival instincts and would have warned me so we don’t die.“

“End ex,” Luke said dryly, and silence filled the channel for two heartbeats. “Wedge? Observations?”

“The pair split too far,” Wedge said, striving to keep humor out of his tone. “Though I think they both already realized it.”

Both Mara and Wes erupted on the comm, trying to argue over each other. “Stop,” Luke said, his voice mild but bringing immediate silence.

Wedge shot him a sidelong look. How does he do that? “For the record,” he continued, “Wes, you drifted way out of position because you missed the reverse from the Aggressor group. And Mara, you should have called it. Overcommunicate with your wingman.”

“You make it sound easy,” Wes grumbled, more controlled but still irritable.

“Not easy. Necessary,” Luke corrected. “Nobody can see everything in the fight, so when we see danger we call it out. And this is a small fight – we should all be able to track an engagement this size. This isn’t anything like the Independence ambush.”

“You’ve got the board stacked in your favor,” Wes continued. “You’re flying with the two pilots who have breathed and slept and drilled standard three-ship tactics for years. It’s easy to sit on your side and take us apart and tell us we’re not doing it right.”

Wedge started to open his mouth, but Luke glanced over and shook his head to silence him.

“Okay, Janson. Let’s go again. I’ll fly the two-ship group, you fly Aggressor. Pick the pilots for the rest of the exercise. You win, I polish your boots. I win, you polish mine.”

Wedge facepalmed. Getting cocky, Commander?

“You’re on,” Wes said immediately. “You and Mara as Rogue, I’ll keep Hobbie and Celchu as Aggressor.”

“Done.” Luke’s voice was confident, fully in his element. He pulled back on the stick, breaking formation and climbing to gain distance. Wes and Mara broke formation, Wes settling in at the head of the Aggressor group and Mara sliding onto Luke’s wing.

Wedge looked over at him. You already knocked Wes down a peg. This bet was a stupid idea, Luke, and I don’t see anything good coming from it. He considered for a moment. Maybe I need to bring you both down another notch.

“Move out to three klicks separation,” Luke ordered, leading Mara away. “And then prepare for merge.”

Wedge’s stomach lurched as Luke added power to the Skyhopper’s engines. He glanced over and saw a smile on Luke’s face – not the predatory grin he half-expected, but something more akin to delight merely at flying and competing.

Luke glanced back. “Switching to private channel,” he said. “Call the start of the exercise.”

“Ten seconds to live,” Wedge called. “Counting down.”

The timer hit zero, and Wes’s Aggressors were in motion, accelerating in a broad, smooth turn toward the Rogue element. “On me,” Wes called on the open channel, audible in Wedge’s ear but hidden from Luke. “We’re going to target Jade.”

“Stay with me,” Luke said calmly, his own turn leisurely as he brought the Skyhoppers up to combat speed, keeping his course perpendicular to the Aggressors.

Wedge’s eyes narrowed. Yeah. We’re doing this.

Luke’s grip on the stick tightened as the Aggressors closed. “Get ready,” he warned Mara, though Wedge, still on the open channel, couldn’t hear her reply.

When just over a kilometer of separation remained, he called “Now!” Luke swung into action, the Skyhopper turning straight toward the Aggressors, the throttle firewalled and stick shoved forward in a stomach-churning dive that pressed Wedge back in his seat. He spared a glance at his datapad and saw Mara’s Skyhopper holding off their wing, though she hadn’t cut the turn as hard and had slipped from starboard to port and lost meters of distance.

The Aggressors were firing, and Luke snapped the airspeeder’s nose up. His own targeting laser fired in return, enough to make Hobbie flinch.

“Break right!” Janson called, audible in Wedge’s ear but unknowable to Luke.

Wedge chose that moment to disconnect Luke from the Rogue comm channel. Simulated comm failure, he justified to himself.

“Breaking left!” Luke called, unaware Mara couldn’t hear him. She followed the maneuver but she lost more space.

The Aggressor formation crossed with the Rogues, too close and too tight to shoot, Luke and Mara below Wes, Hobbie, and Tycho.

“Bracket!” Luke called as he reversed. “Slow and I’ll drag them across!”

Mara held formation.

Rogues and Aggressors crossed again, reversing toward each other, the two formations flying a flat scissors. “Bracket!” Luke called again, most of his focus on flying. “Mara?” He spared a glance at Wedge.

Wedge couldn’t hide the smirk. “Comm is jammed,” he said dryly.

“Oh, is that what’s happening?” Luke shook his head and hauled back on the stick, breaking out of the scissors. Mara fell back, late to follow the break, the space opening up further, to the edge of mutual support.

Wedge looked over again. Luke’s face was hard, and Wedge considered for a moment that he may have made a mistake.

Luke banked a half-second to port, then starboard, then port again, as if indecisive about his maneuver, before finally committing to the port turn. Wedge glanced at his datapad in time to see Mara commit to the starboard turn.

And then the Aggressor formation was climbing hard in Luke’s wake. “They’re separated!” Wes hollered. “Take the boss!”

Luke held the port turn a heartbeat longer than Wedge would’ve dared, then reversed back to starboard. Bad call, Wedge thought to himself. Should’ve held the left bank. They’re flying the same airspeeder and they couldn’t have outturned you.

And then Wedge’s jaw dropped as Mara slid in neatly behind the Aggressors as Luke pulled them back across her flight path, targeting laser firing nonstop as she raked fire across Tycho, registering the first kill in under two seconds.

Wes let out a startled “Kriff!” before his Skyhopper, too, registered as dead under Mara’s sustained fire. Hobbie broke hard across Mara’s flight path, too fast for her to get the third kill, but Luke was already inverting into a split-S, textbook-perfect, and five seconds later had scored the third kill on Hobbie.

Luke gave Wedge a pointed look.

Wedge re-enabled the comm.

Silence reigned for a full five seconds. “I hate this planet,” Wes said at last. “I’ll polish the boots after I’m done peeling tubers with Puck.”

Wes’s day had not improved by late afternoon.

The afternoon classroom time had been spent reviewing the morning’s drills, and Wedge’s critique had been relentless. Learning that Commander Skywalker and Jade had beaten him, Hobbie, and Tycho thoroughly without comms had done nothing positive for his ego.

The Tatooine farmboy beat the Taanab farmboy like a rented gong, Wes thought as he picked up another tuber from the crate and set to work peeling it. It wasn’t hard work, especially after you’d peeled as many as Wes had in the last few years, and it left him altogether too much time to think. And I can’t even open the latest round of jet juice, because I’m probably flying tomorrow.

And Puck wouldn’t shut up.

The Denon pilot was a meter away, dicing peeled tubers into small cubes to fry, and he continued prattling.

“Hey, do you think Commander Skywalker would let us borrow that lightsaber he carries around?”

Wes looked up from his tuber. “He’s told me no thirty-seven times so far.” He nodded idly. “Maybe thirty-eight is the right number.”

“I was just thinking,” Puck said, “about tubers. It would make this go a lot faster.”

“How so?” Wes asked, barely paying attention to the conversation but trying to focus enough so he didn’t cut a finger. Last thing I need is to catch some stupid Tatooine blood infection and get grounded again. Porkins flew my cockpit at Yavin and died because I was sick. Which Rogue would die in my place this time? The thought wasn’t logical, but his mood was spiraling and he couldn’t seem to stop it.

“Think about it,” Naeco said cheerfully. “You peel the tubers, which we can’t get around, because nobody wants to eat a tuber with the skin on. But then I dice them into these little squares. And then we fry them in oil to make them edible, or boil them in water and mash them, or whatever. But if we had a lightsaber, I bet it would fry the tubers when I dice them. We’d have food in half the time.”

“Jedi cooking possibilities are endless,” Wes said, nodding sagely.

“Wes.”

He looked up. “What?”

“Rogue Squadron to Wes Janson. Where are you?”

Wes shook his head. “You know, I thought Yavin 4 was bad. Hot, humid jungle. When the commander said ‘Tatooine’, I thought at least it’s a dry heat. But a blast furnace is even worse than a jungle.”

Puck snorted. “Told you before, you should be working on your tan. When we get back to the Independence, we’ll be the best-looking squadron around. Even Stone Cold Celchu will look good for the ladies, and he’s got all the warmth of an asteroid.”

He finished with a tuber, dropping the cubes into a bucket. He walked over to where Wes was sitting and started collecting the peeled tubers. “So what are you going to do with the boots?”

“The boots?” Wes asked, still brooding.

“Skywalker’s boots. Don’t tell me you’re going to just polish them.”

Wes snorted. “I lost the bet, fair and square. So no, I’ll polish his boots, and then figure out something to do later, when we’re off this dust bowl.”

“Ha.” Puck shook his head. “Is that what you’re brooding over?”

“What?”

“Rogue Squadron to Janson. You’re clearly bothered over something, and it ain’t the tubers.” Puck leaned in. “You shouldn’t feel bad. You lost that fight because of Commander Skywalker. Jade’s a tough wingman assignment. She’s too busy pretending she doesn’t need anyone to…”

Wes hit him.

Which was two seconds before Wedge Antilles walked into the mess.

Puck was dragging himself back to his feet, Wes was on his feet but didn’t remember standing up, and Wedge just stood looking between the two men, letting the silence drag on. “Explain this,” he finally said.

Neither Puck nor Wes spoke for a moment, before Puck said, “Sir, we were discussing hand-to-hand takedowns…”

Wedge just stared until Puck shut up. Then he spent another ten seconds looking between Puck and Wes before he finally asked, “Is this going to be a problem again?”

“No, sir,” they both said in unison.

“Then I’m going to pretend I didn’t see anything. You’re already both on kitchen duty and I need you two training, not grounded. Got it?”

“Yes, sir,” they both echoed.

Wedge shook his head and walked out.

They waited several seconds to ensure Wedge wasn’t coming back. Puck looked over at Wes. “I’m not sure what I said to deserve that.”

Wes sighed and picked up another tuber. “Don’t make excuses for me,” he said at last. “Just…don’t. Jade’s not the problem. I was sloppy, and if I make excuses, I don’t improve. And if I don’t improve, more pilots die because I’m not the flier I should be.” He started to peel again. “Sorry about the jaw.”

“Don’t worry, you punch like a Chadra-Fan,” Puck said, a hint of his earlier humor seeping back into his own voice.

They worked for several minutes in silence.

“I wouldn’t take you for the hothead type,” Puck commented after a while, not looking up from his cutting board.

“What do you know about Taanab?”

“Agri world. Tallgrains and nerfs, I think. Your homeworld?”

Wes nodded. “When you’re the runt working fields with a crew full of bigger kids, you learn to keep your temper clamped down or you get the shavit beat out of you. So I learned to crack jokes instead. Make the other guy lose his temper first.” He grinned. “Learned the hard way how to fight, too.”

Puck pondered that for a moment. “Is that what farmboys do for fun? Crack jokes and fight?”

“You know better than that. We also drink heavily.”

“Commander Skywalker doesn’t strike me as the sort of guy who got in a lot of fights,” Puck said contemplatively.

“No, his friends were all the racing types. He doesn’t fly that Skyhopper, he wears it.”

“You think he drinks, too?”

Wes snorted. “We’ve been on this planet for all of a week. I think the local entertainment begins and ends with whatever the local homebrew is.” He picked up another tuber. “I bet the commander can drink most of the squadron under the table.”