As far as Wynssa Starflare was concerned, the blare of the sirens was the sweetest sound in the known universe.
She hadn't been back from the gym for ten minutes that a knock on the door of her suite had revealed Captain Corlag, followed by a serving droid bearing a heavy tray; and no amount of polite, and even not-so polite demurring, had managed to shake him off. Sprawled on the sitting-room couch – the man had a way of spreading himself, legs extended in front of him, arms draped over the padded backrest, Corellian brandy snifter in hand – he'd insisted on telling her long and convoluted tales of influence and backstabbing within military and Court circles. Every now and then, he leaned forward over the armrest of her own chair, exhaling increasingly alcoholic breaths in her general direction. Early on, Wynssa has made a quick decision – to try and get him drunk while maintaining a glacial, Ice-Queen persona. Pouring brandy into the Captain had been ridiculously easy, she now reflected. It was even possible that the Ice Queen part had indeed prevented him from actually lunging at her – he did take her rebuffs with some attempts at apologizing, every time. The snag was that however drunk he'd become, Corlag, a big man, still didn't act incapacitated. What will it take to knock him out? He's well into the second bottle, and his speech is hardly slurring. Not for the first time Wynssa considered the possibility that in hitching a ride on "Empire's Revenge", she might have made a stupid decision.
So when klaxons loud enough to crack transparisteel had suddenly drowned the Captain's last meandering story, she'd felt grateful more than anything else. Hands on her ears, she sprang to her feet, mimicking surprise and shock.
"My dear Wynssa, don't worry! It's a drill!"
She shook her head wildly as if she couldn't hear in the alarms' racket, eyes wide and face frozen in a style she had perfected while shooting "Imperial Forever." Why won't this imbecile take the hint? Unfortunately, Corlag seemed to feel it behoved him to protect her. Advancing on her purposefully, he'd almost cornered her against a bulkhead when he lurched and staggered against the serving droid. Seeing an opening, Wynssa darted under his flailing arm between the droid and the couch. She caught a short breath in the middle of the sitting-room, faced with a choice of two doors, and elected to rush out into the corridor – the idea of locking herself in her bedroom with a maudlin Captain Corlag banging on the only door definitely didn't appeal. The drill guaranteed a certain amount of confusion in the ship's corridors, and she could always argue afterwards that she'd been too scared to think...
Amend "confusion" to "chaos", she thought the minute she found herself in the middle of a general rush of troops in every direction. Now what?
***
Commander Piett cast a hard, sweeping look across the bridge, now operating at full readiness, every weapons station manned and powered up, TIE squadrons at the ready in their hangar bays, the comm and sensor officers flanking his small command staff on either side of the parallel crew pits. On the tactical holo, now enlarged four times to be easily readable by all officers from their bridge stations, the Duros fleet had barely moved. "The son of an unmarried Nek battle dog wants me to blink first," Piett spat under his breath. It helped a little, but not much. And where the frell was the captain?
"I would imagine our Duros friend is beginning to feel doubtful himself, sir," lieutenant Thrawn's cool voice said in a quiet undertone.
Piett took a few seconds to consider the junior lieutenant standing next to his—no, Corlag's! he reminded himself—command chair. For the past hour, he'd been acting for all practical purposes as his first officer, nominally in charge of tactical. There had been some funny looks, but Piett didn't care – the man had called the situation correctly, and seemed to have uncanny powers of organization in patching together a coherent battle order out of a crew that had obviously let far too long without proper drills instead of mindless physical exercises. When we're out of this, I'm going to redraft the entire shifts rota, he swore to himself. Some of the night teams here haven't worked with the day officers in months.
***
If this is a drill, I don't want to know what the real thing is. Wynssa had never been caught in such a suffocating press of people, not even at the Ralltiir Holo Festival, which could go pretty wild. And I had an airlimo and security guards aplenty. She would not panic. Panic was the surest way to get in trouble. Look at the bright side, Corlag sure won't catch up with me now.
There was a flow to the crowd, she noticed – most of the troops seemed to know where they were heading. Except that she wasn't part of whatever general plan – battle plan? – they were following. With difficulty, she pushed her way laterally to the corridor's near wall, and stopped there, her back firmly against the durasteel, staring at the torrent milling past her. Soldiers, crewmen, techs, stormtroopers, black-clad TIE pilots... She was still wearing her gym leotards, she realized. The gym! She could certainly return there for a while. It was bound to be quieter. And—
But she wouldn't dare hope for that yet. She started to struggle against the current, always hugging the wall on one side. Some of the men who bumped into her cursed; one trooper whistled at her tight getup and reached for her, but she batted his hand away, and he was gone. When she finally reached the turbolift she aimed for, her breath was short and she was more shaken than she wanted to acknowledge. Twice the lift spat out a crowd of uniformed crewmen, until she decided to board it in the wrong direction and follow the movement down. It's got to go back up eventually. Her back to the bulkhead again, nose squished against someone's olive-green uniform sleeve, she rode what felt like miles down to the bowels of the Star Destroyer. Finally the turbolift emptied of its last occupants – three grey-overalled techs who'd eyed her clinging exercise outfit curiously – and Wynssa gratefully hit the gym level panel.
During the long ride up, as the cabin filled again, she was careful to keep to the immediate side of the door, fearful that she wouldn't be able to get off at her level if she let herself be pushed all the way back again. It worked, and scuttling out, she finally found herself in the familiar, much less crowded passageway to the sports complex. Practically running, she reached the gym doors, palmed the hatch control, and dashed into the entirely deserted facility, breathing hard. Now stop it, you stupid girl, you never were in any serious danger. But she couldn't stop herself from shaking, and sat rather abruptly on the rowing machine's bench. After a few minutes, another thought came to her. Just you wait, Zilkha, until I tell you. Publicity, ha! That brought enough of a smile to her lips that she was able to stand up again, and try and consider what she should do next.
Now if this were tomorrow, at least I'd have something less revealing to wear—
Wynssa fumbled in her gusset pocket. Sure enough, the key to her locker was still there. No harm in having a look. She walked all the way to the back of the big facility and the access to the changing rooms, cautioning herself against unreasonable expectations. It took her two tries before she managed to insert and turn the key.
Inside the locker, neatly folded, was a tech's outfit, of the same grey that she'd just seen in the turbolift, and she let out the long breath she didn't know she was holding. I don't even want to know when he had the time to think of this. Ripping off her leotards, she gratefully shrugged herself into the baggy overalls, zipping the front all the way to her chin. This, at least, would make her less conspicuous. Peeking again inside the locker, she saw a new grey cap that had been hidden by the overalls. Perfectionist, she thought, smiling in spite of herself. Grabbing it, she found it strangely heavy. There's something inside—
It was a comlink, together with a short note on a piece of flimsy. "This is tuned to my personal frequency. Let me know if you had second thoughts after all. T."