They were an odd pair. She was a slim young woman, dressed in the neat navy-blue uniform curiously bereft of rank insignia, clothes curiously incongruous with her long brown hair streaked silver and bright pink. He looked even stranger: a two-meter-high, hundred-fifty-kilo Gamorrean bulging in the same unmarked uniform. The waiting room was otherwise empty, but the office receptionist kept on peeking incredulous glances at them. Pretty strange, Myri thought, that they were supposed to be the commander and executive officer a covert ops unit.

Not that she minded being around Voort, of course. He'd been called 'Piggy' back when he'd flown with her father, three wars and a lifetime ago, but now he just went by Voort SaBinring, retired pilot, retired mathematic professor, now head of the squadron that, in her father and Piggy's time, had been known as Wraiths. She'd only vaguely known Voort before he left teaching to join the reformed Wraiths, and when he returned he'd been closed-off, often outright hostile to the younger pilots, though his experience and technical knowledge were invaluable, even in a group as full of unique skills as the Wraiths. But he'd begun to thaw, slowly. Sometimes she even saw his big lips curl away from his tusks into something like a smile. Her father had suggested that being with the new pilots made him feel younger.

They sat in the waiting room without talking. They sat for almost an hour, and Myri kept on checking her chrono to make sure. She was, admittedly, not always the punctual person, which was why she was less annoyed and more concerned. The head the Alliance Intelligence usually was punctual, so maybe something might have gone wrong.

After about an hour and fifteen minutes of waiting, the receptionist finally looked up from her desk and said, "Director Loran is ready to see you now."

Voort went first, Myri behind him. She could feel the receptionist staring into her back as she went.

The door slid shut behind them with a tight hiss. Garik Loran sat lazily behind his desk, feet propped on top, while Coruscant's traffic ran by in the twilight outside his window. His head was shaved smooth and his trim beard had turned with gray, but somehow he still managed to keep his holostar-good looks.

"Reporting as ordered, sir," Voort said, snapping as crisp a salute as a Gamorrean could. Myri did her own salute, but Loran waved them at ease.

"I'm sorry for the wait," Loran said, rolling some kind of mechanical sphere between his palms. "I just had to finale a few things."

"Oh course, sir," Voort said.

"Oh, relax, Voort," Loran shook his head. "You don't have to call me sir."

Piggy nodded, but didn't relax. Loran looked to Myri and said, "And how are you doing, Antilles the Younger? How's your father? I haven't talked to him in a while."

"He's doing well, sir. He and mom and enjoying retirement on Corellia."

"About time. He deserves it. We shouldn't have to keep hauling him out of bed every time there's a crisis."

"Is there one now?" Myri asked.

Loran chuckled. It was a brittle chuckle. "That's a good question. That's what we need Wraith Squadron- or whatever you're calling yourselves now- to find out."

"Technically, we don't exist," said Voort. "So you might as well call us Nothing Squadron."

"Nothing Squadron?" Loran cocked and eyebrow. "That's worse than Dinner or Silly Squadron."

"I don't know," said Myri, "I kind of like it. Has a certain mysterious quality to it."

"Well, whatever you're calling or not calling your-selves doesn't matter right now," Face kept rolling the sphere between his hands. "The point is, there's some-thing you need to investigate. We've received reports from certain friends in foreign places that a battle took place in the Unknown Regions, near the border with Imperial Space, about five days ago."

"Between what parties?" Voort asked.

Loran took a deep breath and pressed a button on his metal sphere. A blue holo-image sprung up in front of them, showing a wide, flat table with wreckage laid across it. She leaned in for a closer look and felt something sink in her gut. She'd never seen one in person, but had heard plenty of stories and seen plenty of holo-documentaries. She heard Voort suck in breath beside her.

"The Yuuzhan Vong," Loran nodded. "Further, we've been informed other wreckage, retrieved from the site, indicate vessels are Alliance origin, or at least those using military-grade equipment produced by KDY and Tam & Baik. We're sending your squadron out there to try and track down either of those fleets. Someone is fighting a war with the Vong out there and we need to find out everything we can about them. We don't want this war to spill out into the known parts of the galaxy. We don't even want word of it to get out, at all. The panic would be unthinkable and potentially dangerous."

Myri looked at Voort, then back at Loran. They had both fought in the Vong War, and lost people dear to them. Their eyes were dark and cold.

"Have we tried contacting Zonama Sekot?" Myri asked. Voort still looked cold. Loran looked away. She said, "We can contact them, right? We do know where it is, don't we?"

Loran gave a long, long sigh as he turned off the holo. "Antilles, you've just stumbled onto the second-most-important secret in the galaxy."

"That we've lost all contact with Zonama Sekot?"

He nodded.

"And what's the first-most-important secret?"

"Where it is now, obviously." Voort said.

Loran nodded. "I'm afraid we lost contact with Zonama Sekot shortly before the Corellian crisis started. At first we thought it was some kind of mechanical malfunction- energy storms blocking the transmission or something- but when we sent scouts to its last recorded location, Zonama Sekot had vanished. We were investigating its whereabouts, but when the crisis started, those resources were needed elsewhere."

"So a planetful of Yuuzhan Vong has been wandering the universe for five years now, and nobody knows where it is?" Voort sounded angry.

Loran nodded. "Information we've kept quiet, for obvious reasons. My predecessor wasn't exactly the most exemplary of leaders, so he didn't try to fix this problem even during peacetime. Now it's something we can no longer ignore."

"Okay," Myri said. "So we're hunting for a rogue planet, as well as two phantom fleets, in a huge uncharted region of space. Sounds like fun."

"And there's more," Loran said. "You're going to be working in conjunction with Imperial Intelligence."

"Imperial Intelligence?" Voort growled. "Are you sure that's a good idea, sir?"

"I'm not crazy about it, but you'll be working directly with our source of information in this case. It's someone I trust implicitly," His eyes flicked to Myri and lingered, only for a moment. "We'll be sharing information all the way. If the Vong are back on the warpath, it's a threat to us both."

"And this other fleet?" Voort asked. "If they're fighting the Vong, are we to consider them a threat as well?"

"On that you'll have to use your digression, but I want you to investigate carefully and be pragmatic. If some-one's intentionally trying to start a war with the Vong, then they're to be considered enemies and dealt with as such. Understood?"

Loran and Voort stared at each other for a moment. Then the Gamorrean nodded. "Understood. Sir."

"Very good," said Loran. He looked to Myri. "This is going to be an investigation, not the vanguard for a new war. You're to avoid combat if at all possible."

"Understood," Myri said.

Loran tossed the holo-sphere to Myri, who awkwardly caught it against her chest.

He said, "That also contains the time and location for your rendezvous with your Imperial counterparts. You're to only take your fighters. They'll be providing the capital ship that will serve as your base of operations during the expedition."

"I'm still not confident about working with the Imperials," Voort said. "Our squadron contains a talking Gamorrean, a Clawdite, and even a Yuuzhan Vong. Do you think the Imperials are going to be happy to work with us?"

"If you're worried about anti-alien prejudice, our contact personally assures me that that issue will be under control."

"Do they now?" Voort grunted. "So is the Empire finally becoming democratic and pluralistic?"

"Stranger things have happened." Loran shrugged. "Thought I can't think of any off the top of my head."

"Maybe my cousin really is a reformer," Myri crossed her arms over her chest. "I'll have to thank him personally once we see him."

Loran's eyes went wide. "How did you know-" Then he laughed, shook his head. "Lucky guess."

"Well, there's not that many Alliance sympathizers working with the Empire," Myri said, "Are there?"

Loran tapped his lips. "Need to know, Antilles."

"Of course," Myri rolled her eyes.

"What about the other fleet?" Voort asked. "You say the wreckage indicates Alliance construction?"

"Possibly. While you're gone, that's what my home team is going to be working on. We'll be scouring every ship registry we can find, trying to locate any indication that a large capital ship with KDY engines has gone missing."

"It's a big galaxy," Voort said. "It's full of old ships, even big ones that have fallen off people's radars. Alliance, Imperial, Hapan, Corporate Sector, even Old Republic..."

"I know, which is why this investigation is going to take time. Hopefully two teams ferreting out information in two different ways can lead us to one important conclusion." Loran leaned forward and folded his hands atop his desk, almost looking professional. "Everything you need to know is in that data-sphere. Antilles, it's to stay on your person at all times. I want you to keep information restricted until you're at the rendezvous point. Don't tell the other Wraiths- or Nothings, Dinners, whatever- any details about the mission until you're far away from Coruscant."

"I understand, sir."

"Good. Dismissed. Now get ready, you're shipping out tomorrow afternoon."

"We understand, sir." Voort said, and snapped his best salute. Myri awkwardly shifted the data-sphere to her left hand and did the same. Loran nodded and said, "All right, good luck. And be safe."

"We will," Voort nodded as he let down his salute. "I'll get everyone home."

"I hope so," Loran nodded gravely, and something passed between them. Some old veteran thing, Myri was sure. "Dismissed."

Five minutes later they were riding the turbolift down to the transit platform. Neither could think of anything to say. The dataglobe felt heavy in Myri's pocket. When the turbolift jerked to a halt, they walked down the hall at a brisk pace, past dozens of soldiers, officers, clerks, and droids who had no idea that the galaxy might be on the verge of another Yuuzhan Vong invasion. In covert ops you got used to knowing things 'normal people' didn't, but suddenly it drove home the gravity of the situation. As they walked, Voort said in a low voice, "We'll call up the Wraiths when we get back to base. I'll take everyone out to a cantina."

"You?" Myri stared. Voort wasn't the partying type.

"They'll need a fun send-off," Voort said. "A last hurrah."

Myri nodded gravely and get her attention ahead of her. As they approached the exit to the landing bay, a woman walked briskly past her. She caught the flash of bronze hair balled into a ponytail, a sharp nose, and cool blue eyes. Myri's hand jerked out and grabbed her by the arm, half-spinning the woman to face her in the middle of the corridor.

"Myri!" Syal gaped at her younger sister. "What are you doing here?"

"Confidential," Myri grinned. "What's up with you?"

Syal jerked her arm away and stiffened. "Something pretty similar."

"Everybody seems busy nowadays," Myri's eyes darted up and down her sister's uniform. "Hey, those bars look new. When did they make you a fleet captain?"

"Four months ago," Syal avoided Myri's eyes.

"Oh, right, I think dad mentioned it. So what, does my big sister have her own ship now?"

"I've been stationed at Fondor," she said. "Mostly overseeing supply and asset tracking."

"Oh, okay. Well, welcome back to Coruscant."

Syal nodded, once.

"Hey, listen, I'm going to be leaving tomorrow. You know how it is with ultra-top-secret spy stuff, really exciting. I don't know when I'll make it back, but we're having a meet-up tonight, all us Wraiths. Or Nothings, or whatever we are now. You want to come?"

Syal shook her head. "Sorry, I'm busy. You know how it is."

"Yeah," Myri forced a smile. "I sure do. See you later then."

"Later," Syal nodded, and quickly walked away. Myri watched her back until it turned a corner and disappeared. Then she remembered the big Gamorrean standing at her side.

"Hey Voort, you don't have siblings, do you?"

"Not to my knowledge."

"It's probably simpler that way." Myri blew out a long sigh. "Well, whatever. Let's have fun tonight, right?"

"Yes," said the stolid Gamorrean. "Fun."

-{}-

When Loran finally finished, Syal Antilles didn't know what to say.

She stood in front of his desk, hands clasped in front of her, staring at him but through him, through the transparisteel of his window, through the skyscrapers turning aglow as the light in the sky went down.

She felt sick to her gut, and it took all her military training not to let it show. But Loran had known her since she was a child, and he saw through her with ease.

Frowning, he asked, "Can you do this, Commander?"

She blinked and tried to focus on the man in front of her. "I'll do whatever mission you give me, sir."

Loran shook his head and leaned forward, hands clasped on his desk, looking uncharacteristically serious. "Syal, technically it's not my mission to give. I went to Admiral Bwa'tu for this and got his special permission to borrow the services of Naval Intelligence. I figure they'd have better resources for this than civilian intel."

"I understand that, sir. If anyone has the resources to track down a fleet of missing ships, it's Naval Intelligence. I've spent months at Fondor overseeing asset tracking so I'm familiar with their systems."

"I know. That's why I chose you."

"Is that the only reason, sir?"

"You know it's not. Call it nepotism if you want, but I'm not just choosing you because of your father, just like I'm not sending Voort out there because he's my friend. You're people I know and I trust your profess-sional abilities."

"Are you sure I'm the one you want, sir?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Are you trying to talk yourself out of a job, Captain?"

"No, sir. It's just that this seems to be a very important mission."

"That's putting it mildly. If we can figure out where this renegade fleet came from, we can figure out who is behind it and, I very much hope, put a stop to it before it starts another Yuuzhan Vong war."

"It's a heavy responsibility, sir. I'm honored."

"And intimidated?"

"I didn't fight the Vong, sir. I was too young for that. I remember being on Borleias during the seige, and I remember the fall of Coruscant, but I never actually saw action against them."

"I know. Your job is to see you, and everybody else your age or younger, never has to."

She looked down at his desk and didn't say anything.

Loran exhaled. "Talk to me, Syal. Not as your boss. Talk to me as Face, the family friend. I'm trying to do you a favor. Since the end of the war you've been stuck on asset tracking jobs and captaining picket patrols. And you've seemed content with it. To be frank, that doesn't seem like the young lady who enrolled in the Academy under a false name and clawed her way up to a captain's rank without any laurels to help her up."

"That captain's rank came from Jacen Solo, sir. He gave it to me during the Battle of Centerpoint." She couldn't bring herself to call him 'Face,' or to look him in the eyes. "That wasn't exactly a mark for promotion in the new administration."

"But you got one anyway."

She shrugged lightly. "The chief asset tracker at Fondor retired. They needed a new one."

Loran gave a little sigh. "This is about Tiom, isn't it?"

She looked down at her hands. It had been four years since he died at Balmorra, and she still hadn't forgotten the rough, warm feeling of her fiancé's fingers inter-locking with her own.

"It's a sad thing to say, but losing people we care about comes with the life we lead."

"Please sir," She exhaled sharply, "I don't want to talk about it."

"I'm sorry," Loran held up both hands and leaned back in his chair. "Syal, I'm not going to force you to take this job. It's a critical position, and if we end up having to send a full task force into the Unknown Regions, well, you're very likely to be at the front of it. So there's a lot of responsibility, and a lot of risk. But someone has to do it and I honestly believe it should be you."

He put a little steel in his voice. "So please, let me know now, because I can't wait for you to resolve your personal problems. Will you help me find this renegade fleet, or will you go back to Fondor and count shuttles for the next twenty years?"

He made her feel like a chastened child. She straight-ened her shoulders and said, "I'll take your offer, sir."

"Very good." Loran nodded and rose from his chair. "In that case, let me go fetch a pot of caf."

"Sir?" she blinked.

"I said we don't have time to waste and I meant it. Get ready for a very long night."

-{}-

Viull Gorsat, commonly called 'Scut,' tried to have fun. He almost succeeded.

The Wraiths (as they still called themselves informally, lacking any other good agreed-on designation) had chosen to descend on a pub called the Ricochet, which was neither a fine officer's club near Intel headquarters nor a broken-down, crime-infested dive in the lower levels. It was a middle-of-the-road place, chosen as to accommodate the varied tastes of the Wraiths.

The ale was good enough, but the air was warm. Scut's skin felt sticky beneath the masquer he wore and he wanted to rip it off, but he knew the others in the pub wouldn't not react calmly if a Yuzzhan Vong suddenly appeared in their midst.

The vat-grown organism clung to the pores of his real skin, creating a second layer that gave him the appearance of a bland-looking normal human. His forehead was lowered and hair added to his scalp. A slightly-hooked nose was piled on top of his flat nostrils. Thicker lips formed around teeth that, along with his eyes, were the only parts of his true body visible to the outside world.

Scut had been born part of the Shamed Ones, now considered Extolled, but had been raised from childhood by a family of eccentric scientists. He'd followed the path of his human parents into the fields of exobiology and genetic engineering, and that, just as much as his Yuuzhan Vong blood was why Scut was here now, even if he didn't have much first-hand memory of his people.

After an entire life of living and working alongside the 'normal' people the galaxy, he was almost used to hiding in a second skin, but not quite.

As he hunched over the counter and sipped his drink, he looked around the Ricochet and tried to track the other Wraiths. Turman Durra, former actor and Clawdite master of disguise, was standing in a corner with human demo expert Trey Courser. They were putting the charm on a pair of unfamiliar women. Myri Antilles, who had donned a slinky dress and added even more highlights to her hair, was not talking with a young man her age, as Scut expected, but with Sharr Latt, the squadron's other executive officer. In another booth sat Jesmin Tainer, ex-Antarian Ranger, communications expert Thaymes Fordrick, weapons specialist Wran Narcassan, and Devaronian medic Drikall Bessarah, and they all looked fairly drunk.

Finally, also perched on the bar but far more conspicuous than a masqueraded Yuuzhan Vong, was Wookiee quartermaster Huhunna and Gamorrean squad leader, Voort 'Piggy' SaBinring. Every non-Wraith in the pub was eying the unlikely pair and trying not to be obvious about it. Scut found the whole scene amusing, but maybe that was the ale talking.

At some point Huhunna left SaBinring alone. The Gamorrean saw Scut hunched over the counter just a few meters away. Their eyes met in the pub's dim lighting but neither moved. When SaBinring had rejoined the Wraiths, his reaction to Scut had been harsh to say the least, even compared to other veterans of the Yuuzhan Vong war that Scut had known. In time, SaBinring had come to accept him, and their relation-ship now was one of professional trust, but not friendship.

For a reason he could not explain, Scut picked up his drink, walked over to SaBinring, and took the spot the Wookiee had just vacated. He took a drink and then asked the first thing to come to his head.

"What do you think would happen if I took off my masquer?"

SaBinring's little eyes blinked. "I wouldn't if I were you."

"Well, why not? I might as well join the freak show."

It was exactly the wrong thing to say. SaBinring snorted angrily. "I'm not a freak. Neither are you."

"I hope so," Scut sighed. He usually tried not to dwell on his heritage, but tonight was particularly unsuccessful. By now the other Wraiths accepted the man behind the masquer, but that afternoon, as Myri and SaBinring briefed the squadron on their upcoming mission, he could feel their awkward, half-hidden glances.

"You don't have to worry about my loyalties," he said.

"I wasn't," SaBinring said. Scut looked at him, trying to tell if he was being nice or actually truthful, but that animal Gamorrean face was as unreadable as ever.

A Wookiee hollered in one corner of the pub and every head turned to look. Huhunna was standing in a corner with Shar Latt waving one long shaggy arm. SaBinring took it as a beckon and excused himself as gracefully as a massive Gamorrean could, leaving Scut at the bar alone again. That was fine, he thought, though as he took another drink he wondered where Myri had gone off to.

He got his answer a second later. The young woman appeared next to him and called for another drink. Myri Antilles was a party girl, supposedly to the chagrin of her venerated parents, but tonight she was not dragging a trail of male admirers. Once she got a drink she took a sip, put it on the counter, leaned forward with elbows on the formica top and bare shoulders hunched. Finally, she looked at Scut.

"You hanging in there?" she asked with a tired smile.

"Always," Scut said. "How are you?"

"Peachy," she said. "It's going to be a hell of a mission, isn't it? Probably the most important we've ever done."

"Probably," Scut said. He couldn't think of anything that came close. Busting crooked Alliance admirals was child's play compared to hunting down two renegade fleets trying to restart the most deadly war in galactic history.

"Do you have any siblings, Scut?" she asked.

"Two," he said. "Human, of course."

She nodded. "Do you get along with them?"

"As much as anyone gets along with their siblings. We had ups and downs. But they treated me well, considering."

Myri sighed. "Syal and I... We were always different. Syal was more like mom and dad. She was always about duty, and proving herself, and being a good little soldier. I always wanted to see her lighten up. She had a nice guy, Tiom, and she started smiling a lot more. I was happy for her."

From her tone, Scut could tell there wasn't going to be a happy ending. "What happened?"

"He died," she said. "At Balmorra."

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah, so am I. Lot of good any of that does Syal." Myri sighed again. "I just want to help my sister. That's the mature, grown-up thing to say, isn't it? It doesn't matter how much we fought growing up. I want to help her now."

"Skate, why are you telling me this?"

"That's why I want to come back," she said. "That and, y'know, saving the galaxy and making mom and dad proud and all that. But mostly, I want to see Syal smile again."

"That's a good reason," Scut said, and meant it.

He wasn't sure what he was hoping for from this mission. Saving the galaxy and parental adoration were good, yes, but he wanted something more too. He wanted to prove something, though he wasn't exactly sure what he wanted to prove, or who he'd prove it to. Whatever the reason, though, a sudden weight had settled on his shoulders since this afternoon's briefing. It felt like his entire strange life had been leading to this great leap into the unknown.

Myri was watching him intently. The masquer clinging tight to his skin betrayed his emotions almost as if it were his real face. Their eyes met, briefly, and a smile came to her face. She picked up her glass and clinked it against his.

"Cheer up, Scut. All we have to do is save the galaxy and solve our stupid personal poodoo," she grinned. "How hard could it be?"

He had to smile back, but his heart wasn't in it.