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[Black Fleet Crisis] - 02(115)



Mallar paled. “Yes, sir.” Slipping the data card and reader back into his pocket, he grabbed the handrail and hastened back up the ladder to the simulator.

“Eighty-two-Y, please,” he called to the operator as he opened the cockpit hatch. “And put me in a recon-X this time.”





Chapter 15


Strapped securely in the cockpit of his recon-X fighter, Lieutenant Rone Taggar went through his prepass checklist with unusually exacting care.

His target was N’zoth, the capital of the Duskhan League—the most important objective of the 21st Recon Group’s targets, and quite probably the best defended.

But it was not the danger ahead, on the other side of the hyperspace wall, that concerned him. What mattered was gathering the information he had been sent to collect and kicking it back out unjammed to the hypercomm receivers and data recorders waiting in the Fleet.

The beveled nose of the recon-X concealed six separate flat-scan imaging systems, each with its own independent pan and zoom. The scanning radar, infrared imager, and stereoscopic imagers were programmed to keep the planet centered in the data frame, filling it edge to edge. The other two systems were under the control of the R2-R recon droid, which would evaluate the images in real time and select both particular targets and the best scanning wavelength.

All six systems were linked to the hyperdrive controls and would begin operating the moment Jennie Lee entered realspace. The hypercomm data relay was auto matic as well, even to the selection of alternate channels if jamming signals were detected. The pass trajectory was programmed into the autopilot, which would take over the controls if there was a deviation of more than one percent without pilot inputs.

It was said, jokingly, that all a recon-X pilot was really needed for was to keep the R2 unit company, and that a pilot could have a heart attack in hyperspace and still fly a perfect mission. The unit’s second-in-command, Sleepy Nagelson—who was flying the Wakiza intercept had gotten his nickname when cockpit monitors recorded him sleeping through a recon run, back during the Thrawn affair.

But Taggar shrugged all that off. In heart and mind both, he believed what he had told his pilots before they set off on the mission: that the irreplaceable quality the pilot brought to the cockpit was caring about the outcome.

A pilot would keep trying when a machine would quit, because he understood the concept of failure, and the consequences mattered to him.

“There are no great stories told about drones that fought their way home with vital information, or rose above themselves to complete a perilous mission,” he had told them. “You’re there because you can make a difference. That’s what I’m asking of you—make a difference, and make sure the job gets done. That’s why there is a Twenty-first Recon Wing. Pilots—to your ships! I’ll see you all on the other side.”

The mission synchronization clock was counting down toward zero. For a moment Taggar paused to picture the other pilots, in other claustrophobic cockpits, nearing other targets scattered halfway across the Cluster.

Even though 21st Recon had been newly formed to serve the Fifth Fleet, he had flown with several of them before in other units, other wars.

He could picture all their faces, guess at all their moods.

00:15

Good recon, he thought, Sending the wish at them. And good luck.

Taggar’s nose had begun to itch, and he wrinkled it up in an unsuccessful attempt to salve it. He licked lips that had gone dry, flexed hands that had begun to stiffen from being held too tensely, checked systems that he had already checked three times.

00:05

Taggar’s mother, a Y-wing pilot, had died attacking a Star Destroyer in the frightful clash at Endor. His own good-luck ritual, performed before the start of every mission, was to rub his thumb left to right across his mother’s wings, which were taped above the navicom. Mother, I hope I make you proud today. 00:00

The universe suddenly expanded around Taggar’s recon fighter. Ahead lay a gray-green marble frosted with swirls of pale yellow clouds. The mission timer started to count upward as the imaging systems stirred in their mountings. Taggar flew a steady line as he read the reports from R2-R on his cockpit display.

IDENTIFIED:

ARAMADIA-CLASS

THRUSTSHIP

IDENTIFIED:

ARAMADIA-CLASS THRUSTSHIP IDENTIFIED: VICTORY-CLASS STAR DESTROYER IDENTIFIED: ARAMADIA-CLASS THRUSTSHIP IDENTIFIED: IMPERIAL-CLASS STAR DESTROYER IDENTIFIED: EXECUTOR-CLASS STAR DESTROYER

The list grew longer as N’zoth grew larger ahead.

Rone Taggar wanted to be afraid, but he did not have that luxury. He told himself he could be brave for five more minutes. In five minutes—perhaps less—it would be over.