Read Star Wars: X-Wing I: Rogue Squadron for Free Online Page A

from the X-wing’s starboard engine cowling. His fingertips brushed the spanner’s end, sending it into a spin toward the ferrocrete deck of the hangar. A half second later, when his right knee slipped and unbalanced him, he realized having failed to catch the tool was the least of his problems. He tried to hook his left hand on the edge of the open engine compartment, but he missed with that grab, too, leaving him set to plummet headfirst in the hydrospanner’s wake.
    Still trying to prepare himself for the agony coming from a fractured skull, he was surprised to find pain blossoming at the other end of his body. Before he could figure out what had happened, his flailing left hand caught hold of the cowling it had missed before, aborting his long fall to the ground. He hauled himself back onto the S-foil and lay there on his belly for a moment, considering himself very lucky.
    As the pain in Corran’s rump lessened, Whistler’s scolding gained volume. Corran rubbed a handback over his left cheek and felt a small tear in the fabric of his flight suit, prompting him to laugh. “Yes, Whistler, I am very lucky you were quick enough to catch me. Next time, though, can your pincer catch a little less of me and a bit more of my flight suit?”
    Whistler blatted a reply Corran chose to ignore.
    The pilot twisted around onto his seat with only mild discomfort. “So, do I still need the tool, or did the last adjustment do it?”
    The droid’s tone ran from high to low in a fair imitation of a sigh.
    “No, of course I still need it.” Corran frowned. “You should have caught it, Whistler, not me. I can climb back up here by myself. It can’t.” Even as he said that and slid toward the S-foil’s forward edge, it occurred to him that he’d not heard the hydrospanner hit the ground.
That’s odd
.
    Peering over the edge of the wing, he saw a smiling, brown-haired woman holding the hydrospanner up in his direction. “This belongs to you, I take it?”
    Corran nodded. “Yeah. Thanks.”
    She handed it to him, then climbed up on the cart he’d used to get up on top of the S-foil. “Need some help?”
    “No, I’ve pretty much got it handled, despite what the droid says.”
    “Oh.” She extended her hand toward him. “I’m Lujayne Forge.”
    “I know, I’ve seen you around.”
    “You’ve done a bit more than that. You flew a dupe against me in the
Redemption
scenario.” She leaned her slender body against the side of his fighter, bisecting the green and white wording that indicated the X-wing was the property of the Corellian Security Force. “You put the
Korolev
down.”
    Corran tightened the hydrospanner over the primarytrim bolt on the centrifugal debris extractor and nudged it to the left. “That was luck. Nawara Ven had already taken the shields down with his missiles. It was more his kill than mine. You still did well.”
    Her brown eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “I guess. I have a question for you, though.”
    Corran straightened up. “Go ahead.”
    “The way you took that bomber after me, did you do that just as part of the exercise, or was there something more to it?”
    “Something more?”
    Lujayne hesitated, then nodded. “I was wondering if you singled me out because I was from Kessel?”
    Corran blinked in surprise. “Why would that make any difference to me?”
    She laughed and tapped the CorSec insignia on the side of the fighter with a knuckle. “You were with CorSec. You sent people to Kessel. As far as you’re concerned, everyone on Kessel is either a prisoner or a smuggler who ought to have been a prisoner. And when the prisoners and smugglers liberated the planet from the Imps, well, that didn’t change anything in your eyes, did it?”
    Setting the hydrospanner on a safe spot, Corran raised his hands. “Wait a minute, you’re jumping to a lot of conclusions.”
    “Maybe, but tell me, you didn’t know I was from Kessel?”
    “Well, I did.”
    “And tell me that didn’t make