"I'll admit, I was a bit disappointed that you weren't allocated a version of the full-sized flight complex aboard a Star Destroyer," Jaina remarked, typing Aunt Mara's override into her comm to open up the quarters assigned to the frigate's TIE Pilots. "I'd have expected a film room or a tech room, at least."
"I'm not sure what to make of the fact that you locked me out of my own quarters," Kogo countered. "Especially because you're using my ex-girlfriend's override code."
Ex-girlfriend? Jaina wondered, pausing and squinting at him. Had Kogo dated Aunt Mara, or one of the other Emperor's Hands?
"Red hair, green eyes, Imperial assassin, taught you half your unarmed-combat moves. I think we share a bladed-weaponry instructor, too."
Jaina bit back the objection that Aunt Mara was a former Imperial assassin. She wasn't entirely sure exactly when she'd defected, and she didn't want to get into that question too deeply. She filed away the implication that Kogo had been important enough in the Empire to have some sort of relationship with an Emperor's Hand. But maybe there was a rational explanation. The Force had taught her that implausible coincidences happened. "How did you two meet?"
"She used to take the unconventional-combat classes when I was at CPI. You know how she likes to sneak around the Palace district using crawl-ducts and climbing gear, and slice her way through military security systems for fun. Still doesn't change the fact you locked me out of my own quarters using Mara's code-key."
Jaina pondered that. Teaching hand-to-hand and bladework to cadets sounded like Mara's idea of recreational activity. Abseiling up the old CPI skytower to break into someone's window and the slicing the Coruscant Security computers to erase all traces of her movements definitely did. And while the idea of a teenage Mara Jade using those skills to go on dates with Cadet Koga was a bit disorienting, Jaina supposed she'd been entitled to a private life when she was the Empire's top assassin. "Well, I'm glad to know we've got friends in common. As to why I'm using her override… I didn't want my brother using this place as a love-nest," she shrugged "Did you?"
"You're reminding me that your Rebel cell consists of a very un-military group who specialise in bladed-weapon boarding tactics." Kogo said easily, and laughed as the doors slid open in front of them. "I've been kidnapped by space pirates."
"And you like it, Flight Lieutenant," Jaina grinned, nudging him into the room with the barrel of her gun. The hub of the pilots' quarters was a circular central lounge which doubled as a rec-room and a briefing area, with a display screen on the bulkhead beside the door and a central holoprojector in front of it, faced by a single row of curving seats which looked as though their upholstery hadn't been renewed since the start of the Clone Wars.
A K-series control droid was hovering on the raised walkway behind the seats. Originally designed to handle the command of a planetary flight-control hub or a droid-crewed freighter, its combination of procedural precision and flight-pattern analysis made it an obvious choice to oversee the automated support of the frigate's TIE Defenders - the same processor and software package had been re-used in the M-3PO supervisor assigned to each New Republic X-wing squadron. Jaina had found this one hiding in the flight locker when she'd been checking out the forward section of the ship. One of the few droids aboard the frigate that hadn't joined the anti-Imperial revolt instigated by Fiver or been decapitated by her brother's pet Yuuzhan Vong berserker, she'd used Aunt Mara's override to compel it to acknowledge her as an Emperor's Hand, and forced it to give her a guided tour of the TIE Pilots' quarters.
"Master Kogo," the droid said, with a precision in its voice that Jaina suspected was a deliberate signal of its hostility towards her. "I believe that Rebel saboteur have taken over the ship - but this young woman subverted my core programming with an AT3 directive and introduced herself as another Emperor's Hand."
"Relax, Kato," Kogo said, with a gesture that looked like a deliberate recognition signal, and a flash of reaction in the Force that was too quick for Jaina to really catch. "We're just playing a sex game."
Jaina snorted hard at that. "You're impossible."
But she was enjoying herself. And she was pleased at the way the droid stepped back and went politely into standby. Getting Threepio to do that had never been so easy.
"So, what are we doing?" Kogo asked. "Watching a holomovie while we decided which one of us should defect to join the other's side?"
Jaina pursed her lips. "You have a pretty good collection. Hitchhiker and Light the Sky on Fire make sense, and Battle of Borleias is sort-of obvious. But bootlegs of the original multi-episode versions of Lair of the Space Slug and Pirates of Kessel…? Are those even legal in the Empire?"
"I'm pretty sure the Rebellion should ban that two-hour holiday special they recut the footage into," Kogo countered. "Besides, the girl who plays Salla Zend is cute."
"That's your justification?" she asked, hands on hips, looking a little offended. Does that mean that short brunettes are his type? Hardly, if he dated Mara. Stop being paranoid.
"They're really good holos," Kogo shrugged. "You've never explained why an X-wing pilot is crewing for her brother's pirate ship."
Jaina pursed her lips at that. Good question. "I guess I have a little of my dad's taste for insubordination. I think I annoyed someone connected to Borsk Fey'lya."
"Always a good move."
"Thanks." Weird how that part makes every bit as much sense twenty years in the past. "I'm officially on extended leave, but really helping to train a new unit of irregulars."
"You're working with a gang of pirates supported by the more disreputable elements of the New Republic, you mean."
She thought of Kyp, and Booster Terrik, and Rigard Matl, the former TIE Pilot who led the mercenary fighter wing that flew alongside the Jedi Knights. "Well, yeah."
"You know, if more of you Rebels indulged your pirate instincts, I could see this as the basis for Galactic peace."
"I think you have an impractically romantic view of the Galactic Empire," Jaina countered, with a smile.
"Maybe your pirates and our pirates just need to get in bed together?" he suggested. "Metaphorically, I mean."
Another snort. "Defect and then we'll discuss that part?"
"Hey. I like my uniform, and my TIE Defender."
She frowned at that. "You have a point."
So they settled on the couches - just close enough for Jaina to feel comfortable - and watched Borleias, an Imperial propaganda movie which depicted one of Rogue Squadron's rare defeats against the Empire. The fighter-combat scenes were actually pretty good, with late-variant Z-95s doubling for X-wings, and the Rebels were presented relatively fairly, though Jaina felt a little uncomfortable at the scenes of TIE Interceptors blasting their way through X-wings, and disoriented by the fake Wedge Antilles, with a long nose, pursed lips, and obviously-dubbed voice. And of course, there was the riduculous ending where Ysanne Isard showed up with a fleet of Star Destroyers to make the victory seem far more decisive than it had really been.
"Ysanne Isard was not a good person!" Jaina objected, as the credits rolled. The Empire might have some exceptionally stupid propaganda sometimes, but this was one fight she was confident that she should win.
"Director Isard is still very much a hero of the Empire," Kogo teased. "She's also very, very good in bed."
"You're impossible," Jaina said, swinging one of the cushions from the couch round into him. Kogo blocked with his fists, a quick move even in his cuffs, then frowned.
"Do you want to fight me, or make out with me?" he asked.
She scowled at that. "I fight people for fun," she warned him. "A safe alternative to getting personal."
The silence that followed felt awkward, and she found herself wondering if her enthusiasm for hand-to-hand sparring matches was just a way to express suppressed sexual urges. Kogo's expression made clear he'd picked up on the subtext, too, and in what seemed like an uncharacteristic moment of gentlemanliness, was avoiding pressing further.
"Kriff," she breathed.
"Something else?" he offered.
"What else is there in this place?" she asked, looking round. They could probably kick back with some readers, but Kogo's disk shelf was taken up with recognition guides rather than proper tech manuals. Apparently he didn't drink, which spoiled her mood a little. The games loaded on the holosystem, like the holosmutters, apparently belonged to his wingman. Which was a shame, because they had the Imperial version of Cybersoft's Battleground, and inevitably, TIE Fighter.
Jaina leaned back, and looked over the shoulder of her couch.
Behind the seats, a row of hatches opened off the curving rear wall - accessing sparsely-furnished bunkrooms for Kogo and his wingman, an unfurnished cabin with four berths that Jaina had assumed was for visiting shuttle crews, a common 'fresher, and a walk-in closet with a row of black Imperial flightsuits on a rail.
And at the end, a wider pair of blast doors. She'd strolled through the hatch during her inspection tour with Kato, into a training bay which had two TIE simulators on the deck.
Jaina grinned.
"You want to sim against me?" she asked.
Kogo answered with a lift of his cuffed wrists. "I'm not really dressed for the cockpit. Besides, the simulators are set up for formal training missions. We don't just pal around and shoot each other for fun."
She laughed. "Just as well. I'd kick your Imperial rump."
The Imperial gave her a funny look at that. "What I was thinking..." he began, and frowned.
"Hm?" Jaina quirked an eyebrow, half-smiled at him.
"If I may," the droid voice of Kato interjected. "As Master Kogo knows, this frigate is configured pick up recruits and prepare them for the Empire's service, so we have the full basic training program for the Starfighter Corps installed in the simulator room. If you are not yet qualified on the TIE Fighter, Emperor's Hand, then Master Kogo or myself could take the control podium and let you test your performance against the system."
"Kato," Kogo warned, holding up his hands. A frown crossed his forehead, as he debated whether to say something. "You're spoiling my date with this attractive young lady."
"Apologies, Master Kogo," the droid said, though it didn't sound like sincerity.
But Jaina was intrigued. "Basic training?"
"Forget it," Kogo said, a little too quickly. A glance juked past her, a glare at the droid that was harder than any look she'd seen from him before.
Jaina gave him a disbelieving look, then frowned, and shook her head. "You're just worried that you'll get your ass licked by a pilot who's had no more formal flight training than acrobatics in a skyhopper and a school project in recreational maintenance."
"There's some stuff in there I wouldn't mind exploring," he shrugged, looking uncharacteristically conflicted. Then his jaw firmed. "But the simulator room's really not the place for this."
Jaina looked at him in silence, her dark eyes against his, considering.
She gave him a wicked grin, but not the sort that was an invitation to dance, and picked up her pistol from the couch beside her. "Back to your, ah, temporary quarters, flyboy."
"Sex-game," he explained to the droid, as she marched him out of the door.
They didn't speak until they were back at the cells. "I'm going to let you cool off. I'm going to cool off too, and hang out with my Wookiee ex-boyfriend, go a few rounds on the mat with him, and fix a hyperdrive together, and maybe once I've calmed down, we can see how we feel about each other."
Kogo looked at her in silence, as if he was hesitating about saying something. She slammed the hatch down in his face, and went straight back to the pilots' lounge.
"Hey," she said to the droid. "Kogo says I can use the simulator. You can set me up for the complete TIE Corps recruitment experience?"
Perhaps the machine hesitated for just a moment. "Certainly, Emperor's Hand."
She felt a slight shiver as she caught the edge in the droid's tone. Then she smiled. Makes a change from Threepio and astro-droids. "Okay, you go into the sim room and get the training package set up."
"Do you need help with the uniform, Emperor's Hand?" the droid asked.
She shook her head. "Nope."
Jaina started to undress as soon as the droid was through the hatch, shrugging off her jacket and unfastening her weapons belt. She had never had much of a sense of modesty, and she had lost the last of her inhibitions about proximity and personal space in her time with the Rogues - even aboard a New Republic assault cruiser, the pilots' quarters were compact to the point of minimalism, with shared bunkrooms and one shower for the entire squadron, nothing like the vast multi-level flight complex on board the Chimaera, or even the relatively generous accommodation which Kogo and his wingmate enjoyed aboard the Ravelin. So long as Force-sensitives weren't having noisy sex on the other side of the bulkead, she was entirely comfortable wandering around a random pilot's quarters in her undershirt and shorts.
She hadn't worn Imperial flight gear since she'd been competing in the Rockyard races at Dubrillion, but she already knew the drill.
She pulled on the black jumpsuit, strapping the wrist and collar tabs tight and checking the built-in socks. Then came the flying gloves, which sealed tight onto the wrists, the boots, and finally, the body harness with its chest-mounted support-pack, and the bulky helmet, connected to it by two long breather tubes. She tucked the helmet under her arm, and walked through into the simulator room.
For a moment, she just stood there, smiling at the TIE cockpits.
This was more like it.
"Here," the droid said, handing her a different helmet, with what looked like a unit insignia on the dome above the visor. "This one's set up for the simulator."
"Thanks." She tied her hair up quickly as an afterthought, pulled the helmet on, and felt the tightness around her neck as it connected.
The padded strap around her forehead and scalp felt a little tight around the front, but she sort-of-maybe liked that, too.
The visor came alive, trapping her in a headspace with a half-dozen holo displays. All of them were neutral for now, showing no information in their frames, but they'd be bright with simulated flight readouts soon enough.
She smiled broadly, now the droid couldn't see her. She was actually starting to enjoy this.
"Okay," the machine said. "You've done this before."
"Watch me," Jaina grinned.