VALENTINE WALKER

War is unfair to all involved.

—From A Treatise on Modern War
by Grand Admiral Octavian Grant, IN, Retired

Dac, Outer Rim, 0 ABY

Valentine Walker woke up suddenly, rolling sleepily out of her bunk onto the floor of her quarters. A minute later an alarm went off, and she padded across the floor to flip it off. Only skivvies kept her from lacking all modesty.

Her quarters were luxuriously large—almost sinfully large, compared to what she was used to aboard Alliance warships—and she walked to the head, to relieve herself. If she'd been on a warship—or any ship, for that matter—her rank would have forced her to walk down the corridors until she came to a communal head, but here, in Imprimis Base, she had her own private head.

She washed away whatever grime had collected over the night, hanging her head in the shower and letting the water pour over her. After she'd stepped out of the shower stall, she stared into the fogged-up mirror.

A young woman stared back at her. She wasn't beautiful, she knew that. Her face was too hard, too angular, and her auburn hair had been trimmed short to where it only came to the bottom of her ears. If it weren't for the shape of her cheekbones, she could have passed for a man.

As her green eyes scrutinized herself further in the mirror, she could almost see her mother's face in her own. The thought of the short woman that had borne her brought a longing pain for home. For the security of family. She was probably still on Dantooine, waiting patiently for her daughter and son to come home to her and the farm.

Zeno wouldn't be coming home to anyone.

Her brother, Zeno Walker, had commanded the savage, desperate counterattack on Hoth which had bought enough time for everyone still evacuating. It had cost him his life, and the life of nearly every man under his command, except for those captured by the Imperial Army.

His body hadn't been recovered, partly because Hoth was still under Imperial control, but mostly because his command tank had been blown apart by a PLEX shoulder-launched anti-armor weapon.

Zeno had fought and died only two weeks ago, and the fact that she would never see her brother's impish smile again seemed unreal. Unreal.

She wore a carefully composed mask on her features, letting none of the pilots sitting around her see just how much grief and melancholy she felt this morning. The perception of confidence and swagger were as essential for a pilot—to her mind, at least—as oxygen, and she couldn't afford to lose either of them.

The commander of the air group was lining out the pilot rotations for the week, and Valentine wasn't truly listening. She only perked up when her name or callsign was mentioned.

"Bugs," the CAG said.

Valentine swiveled her eyes to look at the Navy commander. "Sir," she said. 'Bugs,' hadn't been her choice of a callsign, but that was one of the rules of pilot callsigns; the recipients of any such name shouldn't like it.

"I'm sorry to be boring you," the CAG said snarkily, "but if I could beseech a moment of your time . . ."

Some of the pilots laughed a little, and Valentine forced herself to smile. "Aye, sir," she said.

"Glad to see you're on top of it today, Bugs," the CAG said smiling slightly. "As I was saying though, you're up for shuttle duty ops today. Sorry. Good luck with those pampered brass karks."

Valentine nodded. "Aye, sir," she said. There was little more degrading for a combat pilot than to be stuck behind the controls of an ungainly, lumbering shuttle. But, in an odd way, she found herself looking forward to the time alone in between trips.

The CAG continued: "Flatpan will cover for Bugs in the CAP." At the mention of the combat air patrol, the room of pilots collectively groaned. The CAG held up his hand. "Yeah, yeah, I know, it sucks," he said. "Tough dredioj. The Base Commander says we're up next on the rotation, and that's that.

"Lieutenant Qydo says he'll have the birds ready to go in an hour, so let's hit the head, and get ready. Dismissed."

Dac Orbit, Outer Rim, 0 ABY

Shuttling Dac dignitaries around was a skraggy assignment. The Dac—Mon Calamari, Quarren, and even a few Humans—were, on a whole, good people, but their Royal Guard was short on practical know-how, and not lacking arrogance, making shuttling any of their officers around a hellish experience.

Most of the senior Royal officers didn't really care about her—she was just a pilot, after all—but many of the junior ones spoke to her like she was somehow responsible for all of the Alliance's strategic actions. It was beyond annoying to listen to the puffed-up lieutenant commanders berate her for things far outside of her control. She really couldn't disagree with her commander's estimation of the Dac officers as 'Pampered brass karks.' Not all of them, of course. Some—like Rear Admiral Gial Ackbar, though he was technically not a member of the Royal Guard any more—actually knew something.

But she'd just dropped off a load of snotty midshipmen at one the many the low orbit mooryards, and—for the time being—had the shuttle to herself. The silence was a blessed relief. There was no one to have to pretend to be confident and cocky in front of, and she could linger over her brother's death more freely.

She wondered if her mother knew about her only son's death. With a sudden flurry of emotion, she realized she had to be the one to tell her mother—she doubted the Alliance Army even knew where Zeno had been from.

"This is Flight Control actual, Bugs," a voice on the comm system squawked, breaking into her reverie.

"Go ahead, Flight Con actual," she said, keying her mic.

"There's a long-range non-atmo shuttle coming in from the Fleet. Bigwig aboard."

Valentine sighed. "Where and when?"

"Glad to hear you're so interested, Bugs," the voice said humorously.

"Go kark yourself—you don't have to deal with the passengers," Valentine responded.

There was a laugh; at least the owner of the voice had a sense of humor. "Shuttle will rendezvous at Lagrange Point Three in one-six minutes. Drop him off at Imprimis." There was a moment of staticky silence, and a little amused chuckle came over the channel. "Try not to kill him—he really is a bigwig."

"No promises."

The scraping noise of the docking clamps made Valentine flinch, but then the noise was replaced a moment later by the solid clang that echoed throughout the shuttle. The pressures of the two shuttles equalized, and the airlocks were opened.

Valentine turned in her seat to get a look at the figure who drifted through the airlocks, and she gasped silently in surprise as she noticed the beige-gray of an Imperial uniform on the man. She had frozen in surprise, and she hardly noticed the silver pips that—despite the color of his uniform—marked the man as an Alliance Navy commander. He turned, and closed the airlock behind him.

The man glanced at her, an eyebrow moving upward slightly, as he saw the feminine shape of her cheekbones. "Lieutenant," he said, quickly discerning her rank from the colored patterns that had been painted onto her helmet.

Valentine realized she had been staring, and forced herself to turn her attention to the controls of the shuttle. "Welcome aboard, sir," she said without looking at him.

"Thank you." The man drifted through the tight confines of the shuttle, finally coming to the cockpit, where he strapped himself into the co-pilot's seat. "Let's get underway, Lieutenant."

"Aye, sir."

With the airlock closed, Valentine detached the docking clamps that had held them together with the long-range, non-atmospheric shuttle. She used the RCS thrusters to maneuver her shuttle to a safe distance, then lit off the main engines. A little acceleration bled through the compensators, before it eased off a bit to more tolerable levels.

The Alliance officer wearing the Imperial uniform glanced at her and said, "Fighter jock?"

His question surprised her, but she nodded. "Aye, sir." She was silent for a moment. "How could you tell?" she asked, after another moment. Most female pilots had been refused combat roles by the Navy.

"No internal gravity," the officer said. A slight smile appeared on his scarred features. "That, and you have '597th VFA' painted on your helmet—sort of gives it away."

She laughed a little. The sight of a man in an Imperial uniform sitting beside her was . . . unnerving. She half expected him to shout, 'Die, Rebel!' and draw his service pistol.

His countenance didn't help calm whatever unease she felt. There was one, long scar that ran down the side of his face, from above his ear down to the hinge of his jaw, and it gave him a disfigured look. There were other scars on his face, some small, some less so. The collar of his uniform was buttoned high, but she could see where one scar ran down the side of his neck, and disappeared under the beige-gray fabric.

He seemed to notice her unease, since he smiled again. He didn't say anything though, he just continued to smile his little smile. His sapphire eyes seemed unaffected by what his lips were doing, however, and they stayed cool and detached.

"Flight Con, this is Bugs actual. I've got the bigwig, and I'm coming back to the barn," she said into her headset's pickup.

"Copy, Bugs," a voice said over her headset. "Handing you off to landing control officer."

There was a brief, quiet laugh from beside her, and she turned to look at the officer. He was smiling slightly again. "Lieutenant, I have been called many things—most of them too crude to be mentioned in the presence of a lady—but never 'bigwig.' " He laughed lightly again.

It was amazing what the laughter did to his scarred face. It didn't make him handsome, but it made him . . . not unpleasant to look at. Strangely enough, Valentine found herself laughing along with the officer. For the first time in two weeks, it didn't have to be forced. "You must be from the Core, sir," she said.

"Oh? How did you gather that?"

"No other man would have called me a lady." She laughed again.