Unfit for a Normal Life (A Wes Janson Story) Part 1
Author: CarrKicksDoor
Title: Unfit for a Normal Life
Fandom: Star Wars
Timeframe: Two and a half years post the Hand of Thrawn duology
Keywords: Wes Janson, Shalla Nelprin, Inyri Forge, Wraith Squadron
Summary: Drama. Romance gone wrong. Espionage. And that was the easy part.
Status: Complete.
Notes: Part of the Quotation Roulette challenge. Also late. But I was sick. That's my excuse. Also, Elli loves me and will let me be late.
Will be posted in four separate parts as I get it edited.
Insanity is a minority of one. ~ George Orwell
He had no wisecracks to offer now. He could only offer one of his other skills, one that might make him unfit for a normal life when this war was finally done. The skill that made him proficient at killing people...Janson didn't sight in-he aimed by instinct, by the natural point of his weapon, and fired again. The second stormtrooper took the shot in the dark visor material over his right eye. ~ X-Wing: Solo Command, Aaron Allston
***
He sat at the bar, slowly nursing a lomin ale. It was his third this evening, the two before nursed just as slowly, the end result being that the original clientele of the bar had cleared out, and the rough and tumble crowd of Trandoshans, Rodians and stupid humans had come in.
He supposed staying made him a stupid human, but he really had no intention of moving from his seat in the corner. His eyes tracked the serving girls as they skillfully warded off unwelcome advances and handed out drinks to the late night crowd here in the lower levels of Coruscant, but without much interest. One observer watching from a booth would have said the man at the bar was looking for trouble-but not in the traditional sense. The man sitting at the bar was watching for trouble, and there was a difference.
He minded his own business, and people left him alone. Whether that was because he was minding his own business or because he had a BlasTech DL-44 blaster strapped to both hips and looked like he knew how to use them, only the observer from the booth would have been able to say.
One of the girls squealed as a Trandoshan grabbed her arm. The bartender reached under the counter for his rifle, but the man at the bar put a hand out and set down his drink. “Let the lady go,” he said, just loudly enough for everyone to hear. Someone thumped the musicbox, and the music abruptly quit, and the observer in the booth stirred. The bartender left his rifle where it was under the bar, because if a well-meaning patron wanted to get himself shot instead, he was welcome to do so.
The Trandoshan snarled something, rising, his two friends standing behind him. “You will do something about it, human?”
The man's left blaster was out and fired before anyone could do anything, the blue stun blast engulfing the Trandoshan. The reptilian stumbled backwards, falling into a chair, unconscious. His friends snarled, and the man's blaster turned towards them. “I wouldn't. I'm faster with my other hand, and my other blaster isn't set to stun. Get out and take your friend with you.”
The two Trandoshans looked at one another, and a low rumble from another corner made them realize that they were now not only facing down the human from the bar, but were outnumbered by the Wookiees they'd tracked in here in the first place. Without another word, they picked up their comrade and dragged him out the door.
Someone hit the musicbox again, and the annoyingly loud Ishi Tib tune began playing where it had stopped. Righting the chair, the man from the bar helped the waitress up and pressed a coin into her hand before resuming his position at the bar.
He sat back down at the bar and returned to his lomin ale. The other patrons gave him a wide berth as they ordered their drinks, except for the observer from the booth, who stood and wound her way through the crowd to sit next to him. “Lum. Wes.”
He looked sideways at her. “Shalla. I thought that was you over there.”
“So you've taken to rescuing bargirls in your retirement?” she asked, as the mug of lum was set before her with a splash. “I never knew you to pack quite so much firepower.”
He took a long drink of his ale and didn't answer her question. “Any reason one of Wraith Squadron's finest came to track me down in a low level Coruscant bar?”
“Any reason a Hero of the New Republic is drinking himself into oblivion down here in the first place?” she answered mildly.
“Did you want something?” he asked quietly.
“Major Wes Janson,” she said in a lowered voice, pulling a datapad out of her jacket, “you are hereby requested by General Cracken to join Wraith Squadron for a limited duration.”
Janson snorted. “Requested?”
“You're retired. Can't order you. It was a rather emphatic request from Cracken, the way Face tells it.”
“Should have known Cracken was still running things,” Janson said under his breath. “What does he want me to do?”
“Help us break into stuff. Help us steal stuff. Help us blow stuff up. Deal one high-ranking Bothan of our acquaintance a quiet message from the military before the elections,” she said, a small wicked smile gracing her face.
“And breaking into his house?” Janson asked. Normally he would have been incredulous. At this point, he was inebriated enough to merely sit and listen.
“Actually, you've been invited,” Shalla said. “He's hosting a party in a few days. A good portion of the Rogue Squadron alumni will be there.”
Janson looked back down at his reflection in his ale. “I haven't gotten any invitation.”
“Yes, you did,” she said gently. “Three days ago. How long has it been since you've been home, Wes?” He didn't answer. “It's been a week, hasn't it? You haven't been home since the divorce papers came.”
“Leave Inyri out of this,” Janson said, his voice very low.
“It's been a week, hasn't it?” Shalla pressed. “Look, we could use your help.” She downed the rest of her lum in one drink. “But it you want to sit here and convince yourself that you're not worth a damn, be my guest.”
Her coin clattered on the bar as she walked away from him. He watched her take three steps before he spoke. “Shalla.”
She turned back around to look at him, and it took him a moment to gather the breath to gather the breath to say what he meant. “What do you need me to do?”
Shalla moved back to the bar. Taking the lomin ale out of his hand, she set it down on the bar. “Go home.”
A flicker of pain crossed his face, but without another word, he turned and walked out the door.
Blowing out her breath in relief, Shalla disappeared into the darkness to make sure Janson actually made it home.
***
The empty apartment smelled of recycled air when Janson entered it, blurry-eyed and tired. The bright lights blinked into existence upon his entrance and he winced, having spent the last week in darker locales. Dimming the lights, he continued into the flat, pulling off his gunbelt and dumping it into the chair by the door.
Looking around, most of Inyri's knickknacks were still decorating the shelves separating the kitchen off the entrance from the living area. She hadn't come back to get them, although he supposed she didn't really have room where she was staying with her trainee squadron.
Grabbing a glass of water, he sat down at his comm screen. It was stopped at the official message from the Coruscant Registrar, appended with the divorce papers Inyri had authorized. Swallowing the bitter taste in his mouth, he skipped down the list of messages-advertisements, a message from the Antilles household he ignored, a few transaction authorizations from his week out, a message from Hobbie-finally, the message from Fey'lya, labeled Official Mail.
Selecting it, he sat back, taking a sip of water to help his parched throat. Fey'lya's face appeared. “Greetings. Please do me the pleasure of joining me at a party at my home in honor of our armed forces. Simply reply to this message with your acceptance. I look forward to seeing you there.” The Bothan's face disappeared and a text message with the time and date lit up the screen.
Janson ran a hand over the stubble on his face and replied in text. Ignoring the rest of his backed up messages, he shut his comm screen down. He stopped at the door to their bedroom, contemplating sleep. His bedroom, with the double bed, still rumpled from his attempt to sleep. He shut the door and the hydraulics slammed shut. He'd never quite managed to fix that.
Lying down on the sofa, he turned on the holo. Coruscant Hourly immediately appeared, and he scowled a habit he'd been unable to break-turning it back to Coruscant Hourly, which he hated and Inyri lived on, whenever he turned the holo off so it would be on when she came wandering out of the bedroom in the morning.
Switching it to a comedy channel, he leaned back and drifted off to sleep.
***
He woke to the smell of burning caf. Scorching caf, actually, a smell he considered one of the worst in the galaxy. Opening his eyes to find himself in his apartment, Janson realized there was in fact a pot of caf in the kitchen overflowing.
Jumping up off the sofa cursing, Janson emptied the drawer of towels, sopping up the overflowing caf and turning off the caf maker. Glaring at the carafe, he realized it had been pouring out caf the entire week he'd been gone and scorching the bottom as it boiled away.
Sighing, he emptied out the carafe and looked at it in misery. The buzzer to his door rang, and he wiped his hands off on a dry spot of a towel. “Just a second!”
Slapping the open switch, he was suddenly met with the smiling face of Shalla Nelprin. “Good morning, Wes.”
“That's debatable,” he answered. “Come in.”
She did, her eyes taking in the mess in the kitchen. “Having a problem?”
He snatched up the towels with undue ferocity. “No. No problem. Not like my caf machine hasn't been running for a week straight.”
“Ah, that's what that smell is,” she said. “Here.” Moving to the shelf, she pulled down the fragrancer Inyri had bought-because she'd never realized men just smelled. “This ought to help.”
He gritted his teeth as the fragrancer pulled the burned caf smell out of the air and started to return it to the typical fresh smell. “What did you what, Shalla?”
“Squadron briefing this afternoon. Thought I ought to roust you from your slumber, although I can see the caf already did that,” she said, flopping down on the sofa with the remote and changing it to Coruscant Hourly. Looking over the top of the sofa at him, she remarked, “You might want to get cleaned up. You're covered in caf, you need a shave, and Wes?”
“What?” he growled.
“You smell.”
She turned back towards the news, and frustrated, he realized she was right. Gathering up the caf-soaked towels, he went into the bedroom and dumped them in the laundry along with the clothes on his back. Jumping in the sonic shower, he could hear Shalla moving about in the other room. By the time he emerged, fully dressed and leaning against the door frame shaving, he'd found she'd started a new pot of what smelled like squadron strength caf and there was something resembling breakfast on the table.
After two bites of it, he remembered why he did all the cooking. Inyri couldn't-
Choking down about half of Shalla's well-meaning meal, he begged off the rest, and just hoped there was something better to eat at the squadron briefing.
***
“Out of luck,” he muttered, only faced with a pot of caf.
“Out of luck what?” Kell asked aside.
“I had to eat Shalla's cooking this morning,” Janson answered.
Kell winced and dropped a hand on Janson's back in sympathy. “I'll get Tyria to fix you up something. The woman is a wonder. Jedi Knight, ranger, mother of my child and an excellent cook.”
“You are a lucky man,” Janson said, a shadow of a smile crossing his face, and he saw Kell realize how he'd just gone on about Tyria. “How's your boy?”
Kell's face brightened. “Growing like a Wookiee. If this keeps up, he'll hit two meters in no time.”
An ear-splitting whistle stopped most of the shatter in the room, and what the whistle didn't stop, Face's glares did. “Settle down. We've got work to do.”
“Must we?” A Twi'lek Janson didn't recognize said.
“Yes, we must,” Face said. “Now, ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce our temporarily assigned help, Major Wes Janson.”
A rowdy roar of cheers and rude noises erupted form the pilots. Janson raised a hand. “Thank you, thank you. I'm pleased to again be in such disreputable company.”
Face raised a hand to quiet the jeers and laughter. “Knock it off. I'd like us to actually get out of here without too many interruptions today.”
“That'll happen,” Kell spoke up from the back with a laugh.
“Enough out of you, Demolitions Boy,” Face said, running a hand through his hair.
“We're waiting for an opportunity to shave his head,” Shalla whispered. “That gesture is really starting to irritate people.”
“For once,” Face said, activating the hologram generator, “we're not hitting anything that involves long travel time-at least not the first part. We are staying right here and going after a member of the New Republic High Council.”
“Kill Pwoe?” Elassar said hopefully. “Can we please kill Pwoe?”
Face glared. “We are going after New Republic citizens. We aren't killing anyone.”
“But Pwoe called me Pointy-Head,” Elassar protested.
“And you called him Tentacle-Face and earned me a lecture on disciplining my pilots,” Face said sternly. “We're not killing anyone.” He waited half a beat for any objections to this before continuing. “We are, however, going to cause some rather lovely damage to Fey'lya's pocketbook and his politics.”
The room was divided between those stunned into silence and those attempting not to laugh in a gesture of near-triumph.
“Fey'lya,” a human in the front said. “Face, if we get caught hitting Fey'lya we'll roast. In a very special level of the nine hells. He'll see to it.”
“Well, I'm not keen on the idea of getting all crispy myself. Hence, Major Janson,” Face said, gesturing to Janson.
Janson held up his hands. “Oh, no. I'm not getting crispified again for you people.”
Shalla barked out a laugh before she could stop herself. “It's not funny,” Janson protested. “I ate bacta for days after that adventure.”
“Fortunately, Fey'lya's flat isn't rigged to burn people to a crisp,” Face said. “Just his rhetoric.”
The image floating in midair changed from that of the Wraith Squadron crest to a picture of a large estate. “This is Fey’lya’s estate on Kothlis,” he said. “He’s got a rather large security force built up-one large enough to outfit some small worlds as an army. This is the army he’s been effectively using to keep a quiet chokehold on Bothan politics. His rivals on Bothawui end up caving or meeting mysterious accidents. What’s stumped us has been where he’s been getting the weapons to outfit them.”
“So now we know who it is?” the same human from the front asked.
The holoimage flipped again to Fey’lya’s large apartments in the Imperial Palace, a suite rivaling only the Solos. “Fey’lya has a safe in his study where he keeps all his important information backed up on datacards. Normally, we’d try to slice it, but-well, Asher, explain.”
Asher, the human from the front, spoke up again. “Basically, Ghent invented the encryption Fey’lya’s using. To get in without being caught is nigh impossible and could take months-maybe years because of the remote connections and firewalls. Give me a datacard encrypted with it, and I don’t have to worry about finesse. I’ll have it cracked in twelve hours-mostly because I have access to the algorithms Ghent uses.”
“Which is where Major Janson comes in,” Face said. “Fey’lya is hosting a party celebrating our legendary heroes of the New Republic military. None of us were invited, but Major Janson was.” He gave the wickedest smile seen in or out of the holos. “He’s going to steal our datacard for us.”
“And then we get to blow stuff up?” Kell asked hopefully.
“Then you get to blow stuff up,” Face said. “Start thinking about what we’re going to need. I’ve uploaded schematics of Fey’lya’s private security measures to your datapads. Dismissed.”
The pilots began filing out of the auditorium, leaving Face, Janson and Shalla in the room with the still present hologram of the floorplan of Fey’lya’s suite. “Get into his study,” Janson said. “I’ll need a good excuse to be in there.”
“Actually, we have one ready for you,” Face said. He looked sideways at Shalla. “Your wife is going to be there.”
It almost seemed to take a moment for those words to sink into Janson’s consciousness. “What?”
Shalla moved between Janson and Face. “Wes-“
“You wouldn’t have liked it if I’d suddenly surprised you with Dia,” Janson said, venom present in his voice.
Face’s expression grew dark, and he turned his back to Janson, striding out of the amphitheatre. “Be back tomorrow morning,” he said harshly.
Janson’s jaw tightened as the door shut behind Face, and Shalla turned. “Please don’t be angry.”
“I’m going home,” he said, gritting his teeth.
“I’ll go with you,” she said, reaching for her jacket. A hand stopped her, a hand that she could have broken seven different ways if she’d chosen.
“I don’t need a baby-sitter,” he growled. Dropping her arm, he walked out the door, leaving Shalla standing alone in the briefing room, a worried frown on her face.
***
Title: Unfit for a Normal Life
Fandom: Star Wars
Timeframe: Two and a half years post the Hand of Thrawn duology
Keywords: Wes Janson, Shalla Nelprin, Inyri Forge, Wraith Squadron
Summary: Drama. Romance gone wrong. Espionage. And that was the easy part.
Status: Complete.
Notes: Part of the Quotation Roulette challenge. Also late. But I was sick. That's my excuse. Also, Elli loves me and will let me be late.
Will be posted in four separate parts as I get it edited.
Insanity is a minority of one. ~ George Orwell
He had no wisecracks to offer now. He could only offer one of his other skills, one that might make him unfit for a normal life when this war was finally done. The skill that made him proficient at killing people...Janson didn't sight in-he aimed by instinct, by the natural point of his weapon, and fired again. The second stormtrooper took the shot in the dark visor material over his right eye. ~ X-Wing: Solo Command, Aaron Allston
***
He sat at the bar, slowly nursing a lomin ale. It was his third this evening, the two before nursed just as slowly, the end result being that the original clientele of the bar had cleared out, and the rough and tumble crowd of Trandoshans, Rodians and stupid humans had come in.
He supposed staying made him a stupid human, but he really had no intention of moving from his seat in the corner. His eyes tracked the serving girls as they skillfully warded off unwelcome advances and handed out drinks to the late night crowd here in the lower levels of Coruscant, but without much interest. One observer watching from a booth would have said the man at the bar was looking for trouble-but not in the traditional sense. The man sitting at the bar was watching for trouble, and there was a difference.
He minded his own business, and people left him alone. Whether that was because he was minding his own business or because he had a BlasTech DL-44 blaster strapped to both hips and looked like he knew how to use them, only the observer from the booth would have been able to say.
One of the girls squealed as a Trandoshan grabbed her arm. The bartender reached under the counter for his rifle, but the man at the bar put a hand out and set down his drink. “Let the lady go,” he said, just loudly enough for everyone to hear. Someone thumped the musicbox, and the music abruptly quit, and the observer in the booth stirred. The bartender left his rifle where it was under the bar, because if a well-meaning patron wanted to get himself shot instead, he was welcome to do so.
The Trandoshan snarled something, rising, his two friends standing behind him. “You will do something about it, human?”
The man's left blaster was out and fired before anyone could do anything, the blue stun blast engulfing the Trandoshan. The reptilian stumbled backwards, falling into a chair, unconscious. His friends snarled, and the man's blaster turned towards them. “I wouldn't. I'm faster with my other hand, and my other blaster isn't set to stun. Get out and take your friend with you.”
The two Trandoshans looked at one another, and a low rumble from another corner made them realize that they were now not only facing down the human from the bar, but were outnumbered by the Wookiees they'd tracked in here in the first place. Without another word, they picked up their comrade and dragged him out the door.
Someone hit the musicbox again, and the annoyingly loud Ishi Tib tune began playing where it had stopped. Righting the chair, the man from the bar helped the waitress up and pressed a coin into her hand before resuming his position at the bar.
He sat back down at the bar and returned to his lomin ale. The other patrons gave him a wide berth as they ordered their drinks, except for the observer from the booth, who stood and wound her way through the crowd to sit next to him. “Lum. Wes.”
He looked sideways at her. “Shalla. I thought that was you over there.”
“So you've taken to rescuing bargirls in your retirement?” she asked, as the mug of lum was set before her with a splash. “I never knew you to pack quite so much firepower.”
He took a long drink of his ale and didn't answer her question. “Any reason one of Wraith Squadron's finest came to track me down in a low level Coruscant bar?”
“Any reason a Hero of the New Republic is drinking himself into oblivion down here in the first place?” she answered mildly.
“Did you want something?” he asked quietly.
“Major Wes Janson,” she said in a lowered voice, pulling a datapad out of her jacket, “you are hereby requested by General Cracken to join Wraith Squadron for a limited duration.”
Janson snorted. “Requested?”
“You're retired. Can't order you. It was a rather emphatic request from Cracken, the way Face tells it.”
“Should have known Cracken was still running things,” Janson said under his breath. “What does he want me to do?”
“Help us break into stuff. Help us steal stuff. Help us blow stuff up. Deal one high-ranking Bothan of our acquaintance a quiet message from the military before the elections,” she said, a small wicked smile gracing her face.
“And breaking into his house?” Janson asked. Normally he would have been incredulous. At this point, he was inebriated enough to merely sit and listen.
“Actually, you've been invited,” Shalla said. “He's hosting a party in a few days. A good portion of the Rogue Squadron alumni will be there.”
Janson looked back down at his reflection in his ale. “I haven't gotten any invitation.”
“Yes, you did,” she said gently. “Three days ago. How long has it been since you've been home, Wes?” He didn't answer. “It's been a week, hasn't it? You haven't been home since the divorce papers came.”
“Leave Inyri out of this,” Janson said, his voice very low.
“It's been a week, hasn't it?” Shalla pressed. “Look, we could use your help.” She downed the rest of her lum in one drink. “But it you want to sit here and convince yourself that you're not worth a damn, be my guest.”
Her coin clattered on the bar as she walked away from him. He watched her take three steps before he spoke. “Shalla.”
She turned back around to look at him, and it took him a moment to gather the breath to gather the breath to say what he meant. “What do you need me to do?”
Shalla moved back to the bar. Taking the lomin ale out of his hand, she set it down on the bar. “Go home.”
A flicker of pain crossed his face, but without another word, he turned and walked out the door.
Blowing out her breath in relief, Shalla disappeared into the darkness to make sure Janson actually made it home.
***
The empty apartment smelled of recycled air when Janson entered it, blurry-eyed and tired. The bright lights blinked into existence upon his entrance and he winced, having spent the last week in darker locales. Dimming the lights, he continued into the flat, pulling off his gunbelt and dumping it into the chair by the door.
Looking around, most of Inyri's knickknacks were still decorating the shelves separating the kitchen off the entrance from the living area. She hadn't come back to get them, although he supposed she didn't really have room where she was staying with her trainee squadron.
Grabbing a glass of water, he sat down at his comm screen. It was stopped at the official message from the Coruscant Registrar, appended with the divorce papers Inyri had authorized. Swallowing the bitter taste in his mouth, he skipped down the list of messages-advertisements, a message from the Antilles household he ignored, a few transaction authorizations from his week out, a message from Hobbie-finally, the message from Fey'lya, labeled Official Mail.
Selecting it, he sat back, taking a sip of water to help his parched throat. Fey'lya's face appeared. “Greetings. Please do me the pleasure of joining me at a party at my home in honor of our armed forces. Simply reply to this message with your acceptance. I look forward to seeing you there.” The Bothan's face disappeared and a text message with the time and date lit up the screen.
Janson ran a hand over the stubble on his face and replied in text. Ignoring the rest of his backed up messages, he shut his comm screen down. He stopped at the door to their bedroom, contemplating sleep. His bedroom, with the double bed, still rumpled from his attempt to sleep. He shut the door and the hydraulics slammed shut. He'd never quite managed to fix that.
Lying down on the sofa, he turned on the holo. Coruscant Hourly immediately appeared, and he scowled a habit he'd been unable to break-turning it back to Coruscant Hourly, which he hated and Inyri lived on, whenever he turned the holo off so it would be on when she came wandering out of the bedroom in the morning.
Switching it to a comedy channel, he leaned back and drifted off to sleep.
***
He woke to the smell of burning caf. Scorching caf, actually, a smell he considered one of the worst in the galaxy. Opening his eyes to find himself in his apartment, Janson realized there was in fact a pot of caf in the kitchen overflowing.
Jumping up off the sofa cursing, Janson emptied the drawer of towels, sopping up the overflowing caf and turning off the caf maker. Glaring at the carafe, he realized it had been pouring out caf the entire week he'd been gone and scorching the bottom as it boiled away.
Sighing, he emptied out the carafe and looked at it in misery. The buzzer to his door rang, and he wiped his hands off on a dry spot of a towel. “Just a second!”
Slapping the open switch, he was suddenly met with the smiling face of Shalla Nelprin. “Good morning, Wes.”
“That's debatable,” he answered. “Come in.”
She did, her eyes taking in the mess in the kitchen. “Having a problem?”
He snatched up the towels with undue ferocity. “No. No problem. Not like my caf machine hasn't been running for a week straight.”
“Ah, that's what that smell is,” she said. “Here.” Moving to the shelf, she pulled down the fragrancer Inyri had bought-because she'd never realized men just smelled. “This ought to help.”
He gritted his teeth as the fragrancer pulled the burned caf smell out of the air and started to return it to the typical fresh smell. “What did you what, Shalla?”
“Squadron briefing this afternoon. Thought I ought to roust you from your slumber, although I can see the caf already did that,” she said, flopping down on the sofa with the remote and changing it to Coruscant Hourly. Looking over the top of the sofa at him, she remarked, “You might want to get cleaned up. You're covered in caf, you need a shave, and Wes?”
“What?” he growled.
“You smell.”
She turned back towards the news, and frustrated, he realized she was right. Gathering up the caf-soaked towels, he went into the bedroom and dumped them in the laundry along with the clothes on his back. Jumping in the sonic shower, he could hear Shalla moving about in the other room. By the time he emerged, fully dressed and leaning against the door frame shaving, he'd found she'd started a new pot of what smelled like squadron strength caf and there was something resembling breakfast on the table.
After two bites of it, he remembered why he did all the cooking. Inyri couldn't-
Choking down about half of Shalla's well-meaning meal, he begged off the rest, and just hoped there was something better to eat at the squadron briefing.
***
“Out of luck,” he muttered, only faced with a pot of caf.
“Out of luck what?” Kell asked aside.
“I had to eat Shalla's cooking this morning,” Janson answered.
Kell winced and dropped a hand on Janson's back in sympathy. “I'll get Tyria to fix you up something. The woman is a wonder. Jedi Knight, ranger, mother of my child and an excellent cook.”
“You are a lucky man,” Janson said, a shadow of a smile crossing his face, and he saw Kell realize how he'd just gone on about Tyria. “How's your boy?”
Kell's face brightened. “Growing like a Wookiee. If this keeps up, he'll hit two meters in no time.”
An ear-splitting whistle stopped most of the shatter in the room, and what the whistle didn't stop, Face's glares did. “Settle down. We've got work to do.”
“Must we?” A Twi'lek Janson didn't recognize said.
“Yes, we must,” Face said. “Now, ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce our temporarily assigned help, Major Wes Janson.”
A rowdy roar of cheers and rude noises erupted form the pilots. Janson raised a hand. “Thank you, thank you. I'm pleased to again be in such disreputable company.”
Face raised a hand to quiet the jeers and laughter. “Knock it off. I'd like us to actually get out of here without too many interruptions today.”
“That'll happen,” Kell spoke up from the back with a laugh.
“Enough out of you, Demolitions Boy,” Face said, running a hand through his hair.
“We're waiting for an opportunity to shave his head,” Shalla whispered. “That gesture is really starting to irritate people.”
“For once,” Face said, activating the hologram generator, “we're not hitting anything that involves long travel time-at least not the first part. We are staying right here and going after a member of the New Republic High Council.”
“Kill Pwoe?” Elassar said hopefully. “Can we please kill Pwoe?”
Face glared. “We are going after New Republic citizens. We aren't killing anyone.”
“But Pwoe called me Pointy-Head,” Elassar protested.
“And you called him Tentacle-Face and earned me a lecture on disciplining my pilots,” Face said sternly. “We're not killing anyone.” He waited half a beat for any objections to this before continuing. “We are, however, going to cause some rather lovely damage to Fey'lya's pocketbook and his politics.”
The room was divided between those stunned into silence and those attempting not to laugh in a gesture of near-triumph.
“Fey'lya,” a human in the front said. “Face, if we get caught hitting Fey'lya we'll roast. In a very special level of the nine hells. He'll see to it.”
“Well, I'm not keen on the idea of getting all crispy myself. Hence, Major Janson,” Face said, gesturing to Janson.
Janson held up his hands. “Oh, no. I'm not getting crispified again for you people.”
Shalla barked out a laugh before she could stop herself. “It's not funny,” Janson protested. “I ate bacta for days after that adventure.”
“Fortunately, Fey'lya's flat isn't rigged to burn people to a crisp,” Face said. “Just his rhetoric.”
The image floating in midair changed from that of the Wraith Squadron crest to a picture of a large estate. “This is Fey’lya’s estate on Kothlis,” he said. “He’s got a rather large security force built up-one large enough to outfit some small worlds as an army. This is the army he’s been effectively using to keep a quiet chokehold on Bothan politics. His rivals on Bothawui end up caving or meeting mysterious accidents. What’s stumped us has been where he’s been getting the weapons to outfit them.”
“So now we know who it is?” the same human from the front asked.
The holoimage flipped again to Fey’lya’s large apartments in the Imperial Palace, a suite rivaling only the Solos. “Fey’lya has a safe in his study where he keeps all his important information backed up on datacards. Normally, we’d try to slice it, but-well, Asher, explain.”
Asher, the human from the front, spoke up again. “Basically, Ghent invented the encryption Fey’lya’s using. To get in without being caught is nigh impossible and could take months-maybe years because of the remote connections and firewalls. Give me a datacard encrypted with it, and I don’t have to worry about finesse. I’ll have it cracked in twelve hours-mostly because I have access to the algorithms Ghent uses.”
“Which is where Major Janson comes in,” Face said. “Fey’lya is hosting a party celebrating our legendary heroes of the New Republic military. None of us were invited, but Major Janson was.” He gave the wickedest smile seen in or out of the holos. “He’s going to steal our datacard for us.”
“And then we get to blow stuff up?” Kell asked hopefully.
“Then you get to blow stuff up,” Face said. “Start thinking about what we’re going to need. I’ve uploaded schematics of Fey’lya’s private security measures to your datapads. Dismissed.”
The pilots began filing out of the auditorium, leaving Face, Janson and Shalla in the room with the still present hologram of the floorplan of Fey’lya’s suite. “Get into his study,” Janson said. “I’ll need a good excuse to be in there.”
“Actually, we have one ready for you,” Face said. He looked sideways at Shalla. “Your wife is going to be there.”
It almost seemed to take a moment for those words to sink into Janson’s consciousness. “What?”
Shalla moved between Janson and Face. “Wes-“
“You wouldn’t have liked it if I’d suddenly surprised you with Dia,” Janson said, venom present in his voice.
Face’s expression grew dark, and he turned his back to Janson, striding out of the amphitheatre. “Be back tomorrow morning,” he said harshly.
Janson’s jaw tightened as the door shut behind Face, and Shalla turned. “Please don’t be angry.”
“I’m going home,” he said, gritting his teeth.
“I’ll go with you,” she said, reaching for her jacket. A hand stopped her, a hand that she could have broken seven different ways if she’d chosen.
“I don’t need a baby-sitter,” he growled. Dropping her arm, he walked out the door, leaving Shalla standing alone in the briefing room, a worried frown on her face.
***