Novel References

X-Wing: Wraith Squadron

PAGE QUOTATION COMMENTS

1
The world below, Coruscant, former throne world of the Empire, was an unbroken landscape of urban construction, a vast city reaching from pole to pole, blanketed by gray clouds shot through with white and yellow flashes of lightning.
...
Even after all the time he'd spent here — even after the crucial role he'd played in conquering the world for the New Republic — he still could not get used to the arrogance of Coruscant. It was a world that could only rule or perish, for it produced nothing but soldiers, officers and bureacrats, and could not feed its population without importing massive quantities of food from around the galaxy.

location: Coruscant

2
"Hobbie? Is that you, Lieutenant Klivan?"
"That's Captain Klivan ... again, just for the next few minutes."

character: Hobbie Klivan, a rebel pilot with Rogue Squadron in The Empire Strikes Back and the Rogue Squadron comics. Temporarily promoted to Group Captain, skipping the intermediate ranks of Squadron Leader and Wing Commander. The temporary promotion may have the purpose of ensuring that Klivan is superior to Antilles, enabling him to give orders and instructions for the ceremonial landing.

2
Imperial Plaza: a ground-level ferrocrete circle so broad that in spite of the surrounding skyscrapers, it could be seen from high in the air at angles other than directly overhead.

location: Imperial Plaza

3

tactics: Three Diamonds Parade Formation, evidently used in stunt flying.

4
Even over the sound of repulsorlifts, Wedge could hear the cheers from the crowd.

technology: repulsorlifts are sometimes noisy, at least as they are applied in starfighter landing systems.

5
But now Ysanne Isard was dead, and Rogue Squadron's resignations were apparently misfiled...

It is interesting to contrast the New Republic's administrative flexibility with that of the Empire. Is this kind of retrospective mistake, serving a cheery notion of public good through dubious means, one of the habits that led to the corruption and downfall of the Old Republic?

5
Red Squadron's second-in-command, Wes Janson ...

character: Wes Janson, another veteran Rogue pilot, from the Battle of Hoth and Rogue Squadron comics.

6
"We brought in some Rogue Squadron veterans — Riemann, Scotian, Carithlee, several more — and a couple of new pilots each out of Gauntlet and Cosair Squadrons. ..."
...
"You're behind the times. Corsair was our first squadron, Gauntlet our second, and our third, Talon, was just commissioned."
"Who's commanding?"
"Lieutenant Myn Donos. A good pilot, smart —"
...
"smart, egotistical, self-centred, arrogant, insufferable — you know, a typical Corellian."

characters: more Rogue veterans; Lt Myn Donos; Gauntlet Squadron, Cosair Squadron, Talon Squadron - components of Antilles' wing?
Why does Lieutenant Donos command a squadron when he doesn't yet rank Squadron Leader? He's one rank too low. Or does this reflect a recent demotion?

7
This was a dark world with a polluted sky, its atmosphere formed from gases and smoke hurled from hundreds of active volcanoes.

location: Gravan Seven [named on p.28.]

9
If she reached the planet's broken surface, ... she might be able to elude them; there, her piloting skill rather than relative speeds of the fighters could allow her to lose pursuits, and any pilot who tried to follow her from above would quickly lose sight of her — this was the classic Trench Run Defence used against the first Death Star.

tactics: Trench Run Defence

10
"Minor damage to lower port strike foil," she answered.

technology: explict form of the slang "S-foil", used in reference to the starfighter's wings as weapon mounts.

11
... he fleetingly noted the nonstandard red stripes painted horizontally onthe starfighter's wing arrays before something else occurred to him: there were no sparks or smoke plumes emerging from its engines now. With the deception done, all false signs of the interceptor's weakness had been shut off.

The TIE interceptor which led the X-Wings into a trap was probably a member of the elite force formerly commanded by Baron Soontir Fel (comics).

13
... the walls were a soothing blue, the furniture smooth and rounded with colours of the sea, the air cool but uncomfortably moist.

location: Admiral Ackbar's office.

14
"I see no sign of a hangover on you, Commander. Must I conclude that you did not celebrate adequately?"
...
Ackbar's mouth bent in an approximation of a smile. A learned behavior — Mon Calamari did not communicate amusement that way. But Ackbar was well versed in human body language.

Ackbar, who elsewhere admits to difficulty in determining the age of humans by their facial features, is much better at detecting hangover. He is described as having some epxertise in reading humans by their body language.

14
Warlord Zsinj, a ontime Imperial admiral still in possession of a Super Star Destroyer, an eight-kilometre warship capable of pounding a planetary surface flat, was now the New Republic's most important military objective. His hit-and-run missions against New Republic sites were increasing in bold effectiveness and destructiveness, and the danger that he might assume Ysanne Isard's role as the center of an Imperial resurgence was not an empty one.

The colloquial term "Super Star Destroyer" and the five-mile fallacy are once again reiterated. This is an error: the Executor-class is actually something between eleven and twelve miles long.
character: Warlord Zsinj.

17
"... There's still the matter of pilots. Fresh out of the Academy, their training costing hundreds of thousands of credits apiece. ..."

Cost of training a starfighter pilot. Compare with the cost of training an Imperial stormtrooper officer, over half a million credits, in Soldier for the Empire.

19
Wedge met the others in the hangar aboard the cruiser Home One ...
...
"... the new squadron will be put together at Folor Base —"
Tycho winced. "Ah, yes, the centre of New Republic entertainment and lunar beauty."

starship: Home One, Admiral Ackbar's flagship during the Battle of Endor. Roughly two miles long in Return of the Jedi.
location: Folor Base, in the same sector as Commenor.

21-22

character: General Crespin, who was a colonel present in the birefing before the Battle of Endor. An Imperial defector.

26

character: Falynn Sandskimmer, female pilot with an insolent manner from Tatooine.

28

character: Myn Donos physical description.

29

Admiral Apwar Trigit looked down from his command chair into the bridge crew pit.

...

He rose, aware that with his greying black hair and beard, his lean form, and the silver and black uniform he'd designed himself, he was an imposing figure. He kept his walk graceful and casual as he departed the Imperial Star Destroyer's bridge — true, he served the Warlord Zsinj, but his chief officers must understand that he merely hired out his services and those of the Implacable, that he was his own master.

character: Admiral Apwar Trigit
"Admiral" Trigit commands a lowly destroyer, despite his rank. This may indicate severe depletion of Imperial resources even at this early date, or that Trigit is merely a minor, self-promoted warlord (like those found in the Galactic Core during Darksaber). His mercenary-like status seems to indicate the latter.

The Implacable's bridge has a command chair, a feature not seen in the movies.
location: Rancor Base
starship: Implacable

30

character: Warlord Zsinj
starship: Iron fist

31
"It would have been cheaper to have eliminated her. Your previous superior would have done it."
"Ysanne Isard kept all her officers in a constant state of fear." Trigit acknowledged. "And when they did fail her, or proved in any way to be a liability, she did eliminate them. So they knew there were no happy endings in their futures..."

Admiral Trigit contrasts circumstances under Isard's rule with those in his own group, within the forces of Warlord Zsinj. These men have a more conservative regard for their resources and the morale of their subordinates.

31

technology: Morrt-class droids. Reference to Gamorrean symbiote/parasites. The Morrt Project.

32

character: Voort saBinring, modified Gamorrean starfighter pilot.

33
"...Eventually I reached Obroa-skai."
"The library world."

location: Obroa-skai, know as the "library world". Also the location of the first scene in Heir to the Empire, at which time it was on the New Republic side of the Borderland Regions. Its political status in XWWS is not known. Jedi Master Luke Skywalker made use of this world's services in the Black Fleet Crisis novels.

35
Wedge and Janson exchanged glances. "The lieutenant and I once knew a very fine human pilot who went by Piggy. There's no `derogatory component' to it in this squadron. Rather, it's a badge of honour I hope you can live up to."

character: Jek Porkins, nicknamed "Piggy" was Red 6 at the Battle of Yavin.

36

character: Kell Tainer

37

characters: Tierfon Yellow Aces

44

Implied weapon range of "two klicks". Does this mean 2km distance range, 2km/s velocity range (more likely), or some other kind of unit? Cf. 1000km maximum range for proton torpedoes in A New Hope, according to the trench run target scopes. Laser cannon weapon ranges are almost certainly much greater in terms of distance, since even star destroyers can accelerate by at least 60km/s² [moving into position for the Endor trap, Return of the Jedi. Weapons are not much use if their distance range is smaller than the distance-scales of the starfighter's movement.

47

starship: reference to an Imperial Star Carrier.

48
Gold Two was not human. He was definitely humanoid, with arms, legs, torso, and head arranged in a comfortably recognisable fashion. But, though nearly as tall as Kell, he was very lean, covered in short brown fur, with an elongated face, huge brown eyes, a broad, flattened nose, and a mouse full of squarish white teeth. His features were better suited to a draft animal than a sapient being — but for the inquisitive, luminously intelligent quality of his eyes. He also had a head of hair that would be the envy of many a human, male or female;...
...
"We are Flight Officer Hohass Ekwesh."
"We? Is that a royal we?" That would explain the alien's apparent disdain for procedure.
"No, a collective—"

character: Hohass Ekwesh, a being with multiple minds. Whether this condition is normal for his species is not yet known.

51

location: Downtime, a restruant in Folor Base.

52

culture: Abrax Cognac
character: Tyria Sarkin.

53
"... Runt, are you talking about many organisms, or many minds?"
Runt smiled with the relieved satisfaction of someone who has finally gotten a point across. "Minds."
"You have many minds, and one of them is the pilot?"
"Yes! Yes."

Runt, and perhaps others of his species have multiple minds, but it is not clear whether these are really distinct personas or just changes of temperament. Runt seems to regard them as personas.

53-54

character: "Squeaky", a 3PO protocol droid; manumitted; a pilot. It sounds possible that Squeaky may be the U-3PO unit described in the SWCCG game, one of two protocol droids shown in A New Hope. (The other one was C-3PO.) There may have been other protocol droids unseen on film.

54

technology: Defensive batteries around a particular spaceport at Kessel have an effective range of 100km.

55
"... I grew up on Pantolomin, but my people were from Lorrd originally, so when I got back to civilisation my parents arranged to send me there. From Lorrd it was an easy step to reach the Alliance.

characters: Tom Phanan; Garik "Face" Loran; astromech droid.

56

culture: Various popular Imperial-era holodramas are listed.

57

locations: Pantolomin; Lorrd - originally described in Han Solo's Revenge.

58

Wraith Squadron has its very own token force-sensitive member.

61

characters: washouts.

66
"So first among equals of you flight officers is Kell Tainer. He's out backup mechanic when we're away from out support crew and is our demolitions expert. He also served with distinction among the commandos who helped take Borleias last year.

Kell Tainer served with Page's commandos, and participated in the assault on Borleias in X-Wing: Rogue Squadron. This distinguished unit was also mentioned in Heir to the Empire.
chronology: The time span between XWRS and XWWS is approximately one year, and definitely less than two years.

67

aliens: Thakwaash. The species of Hohass Ekwesh.

68

location: Toprawa, and its fate. Was mentioned elsewhere, including in conversation between Ysanne Isard and Kirtan Loor in one of the earlier X-Wing novels.

70

character: Cubbar Daine, chief mechanic of the Folor Base. This is one of the rare times when a subofficer is given attention in a novel about starfighter forces. His precise rank is unknown at this point.

71

technology: inertial compensators, also known as "inertial dampers" in other novels.

73
"Oh, yes. I was a year on Hoth, passing by that slab of rust and bad wiring every day. I never got to service her — Solo and his Wookiee friend hated for anyone but them to work on her. You can always recognize her by the specific pattern of corrosion."
Kell heard a distant pop as the ship breached the magcon field, which obligingly permitted the ship through but held the tunnel's atmosphere within.

starship: Millenium Falcon
continuity: Cubbar Daine was at Echo Base on Hoth.
chronology: The rebels were at Hoth for at least one year.
technology: atmospheric containment field.

74
"...Sorry I missed you when you got back from Thyferra, but I was off on another pointless leg of the search for Zsinj."
...
"You're not still doing that? I was under the impression that you were on the Mon Remonda and that the Millenium Falcon would be in storage until Zsinj was flushed out."
...
"I escaped Coruscant and its endless diplomatic functions with the Mon Remonda mission, but we haven't had any luck on the Zsinj pursuit in the last few weeks...."

starship: Mon Remonda, Solo's flagship in the campaign against Warlord Zsinj. Interesting chronological indication: his mission against Zsinj has already begun. This limits the amount of time between the events of this novel and those of The Courtship of Princess Leia, and X-Wing: The Bacta War.

77
"With the shuttle's personnel retrieval tractor beam, Janson will be maneuvering a target, which will be about three hundred metres behind him. ..."

technology: Range of shuttle tractor beam exceeds 300m.

85
The file appeared on Admiral Trigit's datapad, its title "Recent Morrt Project Data-Gathering Results and Conclusions." Its listed author was Gara Petothel, the code-slicer who had been so useful to him in providing information leading to the demise of Talon Squadron.
...
"...and tell Night Caller to prepare a load of the new Empion mines. We'll plant them in the unoccupied systems closest to Commenor, ..."

technology: Morrt Project; Empion mines.
character: Gara Petothel. See also p.102.
starship: Night Caller.

90
"... But, Commander, you're what? Forty?"
Wedge Managed to look amused and regretful at the same time. "Twenty-eight."
...
Wedge said, "You're only nine years from that same grim fate."

chronology: Wedge Antilles is 28 years old; Falynn Sandskimmer is 19 years old.

91
The Pig Trough was an anomalous geographical feature of Folor. It was a meandering lunar fissure, created at some distant time when the moon's surface was not quite cool and tectonic plates were still in motion. Its near terminus was only a klick from Folor Base, and the lengthy geographical feature wandered for thousands of kilometres to the northeast, then cut sharply northwest for an even greater distance. The nearer portions of the trough were too broad, with curves too gradual to be of any use to the trainers, but more distant portions were used by pilot trainees for trench maneuvering and bombing practice.

location: Pig Trough, a feature on Folor which seems to be an extinct tectonic feature, perhaps associated with subduction between plates. The scale of the Trough implies that the world is at least several thousand km in circumference, so it is not a minor object. The fact that it once had enough internal radiogenic heating to drive tectonics may also hint that it is larger than Earth's moon (which never developed tectonic motion).

92,94
Kell shook his head. "I've serviced rigs like that. They're not like recreational skimmers. Their repulsor fields extend out ahead a few metres. They have to be anticipatory to keep those haulers from gutting themselves on rough terrain. ..." The hauler went skyward, gaining enough altitude to lose repulsorlift contact with the ground, and Wedge's vehicle gained another handful of metres on her.
...
His vehicle's weight forced hers down, compressing her repulsor emissions, slowing her vehicle.

technology: practical mechanics of repulsorlift propulsion.

95
"Also, we now have a unit designation. Courtesy of Tyria Sarkin, we are Wraith Squadron."
...
Runt asked, "What is a wraith?"
"Something I heard about in my childhood," Tyria said. "Dark things that come in the night for you. That's what I think we are. For the Empire, for the warlords, we're the phantoms under the bed, the monsters in the storage cubicles."

Question: Wasn't this squadron name also used by a pre-Yavin rebel squadron? I have a vague recollection; it was in the SWCCG.
Answer: [J.Goodenbery] I believe you are referring to Specter Squadron, out of Renfarra base. It was a Y-wing squadron, and the ship flown by Jon "Dutch" Vander at the battle of Yavin was designated "Specter One".
The term "wraith" was also used colloquially by Niles Ferrier in reference to his Defel henchman in Dark Force Rising.

96
"... I have transmitted requisition forms to your astromechs and to your datapads; please use them, and always check your spelling. ..."

language: The fact that spelling mistakes are possible implies that the alphanumeric characters used to type Basic words are not entirely phonetic.

96
He pointed into the mass of stars at a bright golden one. "Here's Commenor. You are here. Here's Corellia and more Core systems. Farther out, we reach border and then Rim territories. This star is nicknamed Doldrums for its lovely, featureless, uninhabited planets.

locations: Doldrums, in astrographical relation to Commenor, Corellia, the Core and the Inner Rim.

98-99
Commenor was a planet fringing on Core worlds territory. Its government dealt and traded with the New Republic, with the shrinking Empire, even with the warlords.
...
"Orbital Spaceyard 301 has been ordered to clear a servicing berth for private yacht Implacable."
Kell frowned. "Implacable is the kind of anme they give to Imperial capital ships."
"Five, the berth they've cleared is the largest they have. This is no pleasure yacht."
"...Implacable is an Imperial star destroyer commanded by Admiral Trigit. He went rogue when Ysanne Isard died. ..."

locations: Commenor, and summary of its neutral political status at this point in galactic history. Commenor appears to have over three hundred orbital docking stations, and the largest berth on number 301 is suitable for a star destroyer.
chronology: Timing of Trigit's independence coincides with end of X-Wing: The Bacta War.

99
... he viewed the moon Folor through the bridge's transparisteel windows. An ugly, mountainous, frost-coated thing, it was well positioned to be of considerable use to the Rebels.

location: Folor, further physical description.

102
His sensors officer looked up at him from the crew pit. "Sir, I'm reading launch of a capital ship. A Gallofree medium transport, from its sensor echo. and maneuvering characteristics."
...
"Lieutenant Petothel." He kept his voice cool, calm."
His new favorite data analyst looked up from her station's screen. She was a lean woman with medium-length hair and a beauty mark on her right cheek. Her features were elegant, mesmerising; he often had to make an effort not to stare."

starship: Gallofree transport; probably similar used to those seen launching from Hoth in The Empire Strikes back.
character: Lt. Gara Petothel. Admiral Trigit is distracted by her physical characteristics. See also p.85.

103

Two New Republic transports, the Borleias and Bright Nebula, are named.

107
If Kell had calculated it correctly, he'd be able to give Wraith Squadron and Blue Squadron a bare few minutes of warning from point of first sighting to the time the TIEs reached the Trough.

Several minutes' warning implies that the TIEs are traversing the moon's surface at an average speed which is on the order of a mere thousand kilometres per minute.

108
"Dorset Konnair, Blue Nine. The pretty boy to my port is Tetengo Noor, Blue Ten. ..."

characters: Dorset Konnair, Tetengo Noor - two of the A-Wing pilots of Folor's Blue Squadron.

109
Their numbers agreed to two significant digits. Kell transmitted them, encrypted, a short burst aimed directly at Folor Base; with luck, the attackers wouldn't pick up the signal, wouldn't be able to track it, or would dismiss it as irrelevent.

technology: At this range, the base must be well below the horizon from Tainer's vantage. Therefore this directed burst mode of communications is carried by a form of energy or medium that is capable of penetrating thousands of kilometres of rock, without significant distortion.

113
Uh, records indicate that the Millenium Falcon has had three distinctive sets of parameters just since the death of the Emperor—"
"Yes, yes. Continual retooling and all that."

technology: The long-range identifiable characteristics of a retooled freighter can be changed without involving significant changes to the shape of the hull; at least in the case of the Millenium Falcon.

115
He'd felt that way himself eight years ago, when ordered to break off his attack on the first Death Star.

chronology: These events take place 8 years after A New Hope. Wedge Antilles was approximately 20 years old during the Battle of Yavin.

125
Tuatara Lone was a holo actress on Sluis Van. Short, shapely, so cute she was toxic, she was particularly adept at portraying madcap girls with odd lifestyles or nosy investigators capable of bluffing their way out of any problem. For three years, Kell had been mesmerised by her, seeing every one of her comedies and dramas, agonising at night over her beauty, projecting himself into fantasy situations where he'd rescue her from harm or solve a crisis threatening her happiness.
Then he'd learned that the actress was in fact extremely happily married, with two children and another on the way.

character/culture: Tuatara Lone, an actress known on Sluis Van.

126
... this was indeed the system they were aiming for, that was Xobome, but they'd arrived well outside the region they'd targetted.

location: Xobome system; uninhabited. Situated somewhere near Commenor and Folor.

127,130
They'd been hit by some sort of ionisation bomb, he was sure of it; in his experience, only an ion cannon could scramble all a starfighter's electronics this way. But what had hit them was more powerful, and ion cannons couldn't cause a ship in hyperspace to pop back into realspace prematurely.
...
"You'd need foru basic components. No, five. First, a pretty standard ion projector, probably rigged for a single detonation instead of multiple shots. Second, an electromagnetic pulse generator, with the same area of emission. Third, a sensor rig that can detect hyperspace anomalies — that is to say, ships jumping into the system. Fourth, a gravitational pulse generator like the ones off the Imperial Interdictors. And fifth, a communications device — probably a one-shot hypercomm unit, something to throw off a single alarm at the time of detonation."

technology: empion mines; effects.

129,130
"...head on over to Xobome 6. land and effect what repairs you can, ..."
...
Up ahead, a tiny white dot, Xobome 6, appeared among the stars and began to grow.

location: Xobome 6, a planet which is not too inclement for spacesuited extravehicular excursions.

130-131
"... most nav courses are plotted from the point of departure to the centre of the system where you plan to arrive — that is, the sun. It's simple and it's safe; you taught us that. You can set distance so you drop back into real space short of the system, with no chance of hitting any natural gravity well, or you can fire straight into the system, and if you hit a gravity well before you reach your destination, it pops you back into real space before you're close enough to the centre of gravity to endanger you. ..."

technology: Conventional methods for making a hyperspace jump.

131
Kell had had a little training in zero-gee, hard-vacuum work. He'd done some exterior repairs on a cruiser over Sluis Van and had gone through the standard demolitions training in planting charges on a vessel in orbit.

One might expect that repairs to large starships in vacuum and zero-gravity would be carried out by droids. Tainer has been personally involved in repairs to some kind of cruiser in space. Perhaps this says something about the limitations of droid intelligence?

131-132
... the world of Xobome 6, rotating with a slow majesty. Somewhere down there, on a high plain blasted by freezing winds, most of the Wraiths were trying to make repairs to their own less-damaged X-Wings. They were probably looking up now and envying Kell his comparatively warm environment suit.

location: Xobome 6, improved physical description. See also pp.129-130.

136
"A laser cannon is nine metres long, Five."
"Not the essential components and housing, sir. Strip out all the computerised aiming and synchronisation equipment, the diagnostics, the flashback suppressor, I think we could chop it down to a metre and a half, two metres."

Size of an X-Wing laser cannon. How can the cannon be nine metres long, when the fighter itself is only about twleve metres long? This requires an explanation.

136
The canopy on the X-Wing came up and Phanan clambered out, surrounded by the distinctive glow of a personal magcon field. ... Kell saw from Phanan's expression that cold was already eating its way through the atmosphere around his compromised suit.

technology: "magcon" field traps air near the surface of the rebel pilot but it does not make vacuum survivable.

144-145
147
Even at this distance and through the crude imager of the datapad, Piggy could see a bright vertical slit of light appear at the bow as the hold doors there were opened. two large silhouettes emerged from the light and rapidly grew as they came closer.
...
He was on his back on a metal floor. It was a miniature hangar space, mostly filled with four gigantic metal racks situated side by side; the two end racks held TIE fighters upright. He was almost directly beneath the starboard-side TIE fighter. Forward was the open hold door framing starfield and the planet Xobome 6. ...
Nothing directly ahead but metal stairs going up. but above them was a grey catwalk, and on it men in mechanics' overalls running toward an exit.
...
At the top of the brackets, he was only three feet from the hold ceiling.

Bow hold of the Night Caller, an unusual Corellian corvette.

146
The trooper fired at him but the TIE fighter's solar wing, held before Piggy like a shield, absorbed the bolt.

Hints that the wing of a TIE is some kind of solar power device. That would be an absurd implication; sunshine does not deliver enough power to operate any important system of such a dynamic device as a starfighter. The most probable function of a TIE's wings is to radiate waste heat from the reactor systems, as indicated in TIE Fighter: The Official Stategy Guide. [See also p.224.]
NB. "absorption" of the bolt does not imply something mysterious or that the wing was unharmed. It just means that the damage was not significant compared to the wing as a whole.

147

If he remembered the layout of Corellian corvettes from the training he'd received, there would be a floor of officer and guest quarters above the hold, and the ship's bridge would be immediately above that.

The layout of the Corellian Engineering Corporation Corvette is described. This description matches the blueprints found in the Star Wars Technical Journal.

149

character: Captain Zurel Darillian. The former commander of the corvette Night Caller, now captured by the New Republic, was Imperial Captain Zurel Darillian. See p.156 for physical description.

150
"It has been very heavily modified from the standard corvette, Commander. Where the Tantive IV had a luxury quarters deck beneath the bridge, Night Caller has eliminated deck, I suspect to make extra room in the bow hold for the four TIE fighters. The bow has also been widened, the hull armour on the sides of the bow narrowed, electronic apparatus taht should be between bulkheads there moved somewhere else. The topside hold has been converted into a skimmer hangar. There are no laboratories; that's where the luxury quarters are located."
Wedge nodded. "It appears that this was no retrofit job. It came out of the shipyards this way."
...
From the main weapons console, Janson said, "They've given up one of their bow turbolaser twin cannons and installed a tractor beam instead."
"Most ships this size have a tractor."
Janson grinned. "I mean a real tractor beam. Something suited to a frigate or larger war vessel, not just a beam suitable to drag a fighter around."
...
"...They have a state-of-the-art Imperial HoloNet system, a real luxury on a vessel this size, ..."

Features of the Night Caller, which appears to be a representative of a new class of corvette. In order to fit four TIE fighters, the hammerhead must be substantially bigger than that of Tantive IV.
technology: Though this is unusual, a vessel with the size and power of a corvette is not too small to mount some limited form of hyperwave communications device.

151
"I also got their schedule, mostly visiting unaligned planetary systems and demonstrating that Zsinj has muscle, ..."
"Viamarr 4, Xartun, Belthu, M2398, Todirium, Obinipor, Fenion. ..."

locations: Various systems near Warlord Zsinj's sphere of influence, remaining unaligned four years after the Battle of Endor.

152

technology: Morrt droid, physical description.

156

starship: Communications room of the Night Caller.
character: Captain Darillian, physical description.

157

culture: Win or Die, a popular propaganda movie made during Palpatine's rule.

158

technology: Night Caller's hypercomm, distinguished from genuine self-powered HoloNet transmissions.

159-160

Modifications made to Night Caller, allowing it to hold and conceal a partial X-Wing squadron in addition to its TIE fighters.

161
The records said Viamarr 4 was an agricultural world, somewhat higher in gravity than Coruscant standard; its chief export was a subterranean fungus whose offshoots and tubers sometimes grew to the diametre of a kilometre or more. The fungus, inaccurately called Viamarr Blackroot for its colour, was well liked for its meaty texture and nutrient balance.

location: Viamarr 4; its fungal life.

162
No shields. No ejection seat. TIE fighters were disposable attack vehicles for disposable pilots, and Wedge never cared to feeled disposable.

The suggestion of the absence of ejector seats is interesting, especially considering the evidence of The Empire Strikes Back. Perhaps Wedge's thinking simply reflects an unfounded prejudice of rebel pilots? Perhaps there are a few TIEs that actually do lack ejection seats?

163
A while later they dove into the atmosphere of Viamarr 4 and headed toward Velery, the planetary capital, a community of a hundred thousand on the largest continent of the southern hemisphere. The land surrounding the capital was largely forested, with numerous tiny communities of wooden buildings.

location: Velery, capital city of Viamarr 4.

164

technology: Mark One Z-95 Headhunters, an out-of-fashion starfighter design.

167

character: Governor Watesk.

170
"The records they sent to us have the land transfer registered to a person named Cortle Steeze. I must assume that's an alias for Zsinj, but we should look for the name anyway. Whoever Steeze is, he has his choice of how the land is to be subdivided and zoned. ... A good-sized island. Fifty klicks long by about thirty wide."

character: Cortle Steeze, possibly an alias for Warlord Zsinj, who owns a large island on Viamarr 4. His purposes on the island are unknown.

172

Home One is incorrectly referred to as an MC80. The ship is actually over 2.5 times the length of the standard MC80 described in West End Games roleplaying materials.

177
Wedge was introduced to a small, neat man with a weathered face, Captain Choday Hrakness of Agamar, the new ship's captain, and to a tall, elegant-looking brown-haired woman of Coruscant, Lieutenant Atril Tabanne, his second-in-command, ...

characters: Captain Choday Hrakness; Lt Atril Tabanne.

183

character: Colonel Repness, a New Republic army officer in charge of a facility for remedial pilot training.

185

culture: Antarian Rangers.

187
Face also wore ab Imperial lieutenant's uniform, modified to bear the extravagant rank insignia unique to Night Caller.
The man before him, Governor Nojin Koolb of the Outer Rim world of Xartun, smiled in appreciation of face's words.

culture: Decadence of the warlord forces - breakdown of former uniform conventions.
character: Governor Nojin Koolb.
location: Xartun, an Outer Rim world with two suns [p.188] and at least two moons [p.195].

188

character: Lord Houghten Ween, alias of Zsinj, owner of a transparisteel factory.

197
There were crystal-clear cubes three metres on a side, with small circular holes and an opening, one metre by one metre, cut into the side; there were large, thick sheets shaped as irregular polygons; there were curved disks over two metres in diameter, looking like enormous lenses.
Wedge looked at these last items. "TIE fighter front viewports," he said. "And the big sheets, unless I'm mistaken, are bridge or lounge windows for a capital ship."

technology: transparisteel windows in Zsinj's factory on Xartun.

200
It fired a return shot. It hit the TIE fighter viewport Tyria hid behind. The viewport instantly opaqued and the laser blast did not penetrate; the transparisteel slowly began to fade to glasslike clarity.
She breathed a sign of relief. These viewports had already gone through their phototropic shielding treatment. They'd stop anything short of the blast from a tripod-mounted laser cannon.

The viewport of a TIE fighter blocks a blaster bolt. This is very interesting considering the incident in the Crimson Empire comic in which a TIE pilot is shot through such a window.

212
Tyria said, "I think we're agreed that he's almost organising it as though he were a resistance organisation. Cells kept isolated from one another, with ships like Night Caller being the only connection."
"It makes me feel a little odd," Wedge said. "In a sense, we're becoming the Empire and warlords like Zsinj are becoing the Alliance. We've become a legitimate government with fixed locations we have to reinforce and protect. They're operating from secret bases, mobile bases; they're using the hit-and-run tactics we perfected. the galaxy has turned upside-down since the Emperor died."

Strategy and tactics of galactic domination, four years after the Battle of Endor.

213

locations: Saffalore, within the Corporate Sector; site of Binring Biomedical project that created Piggy.
The Corporate Sector, featured in the Del Rey Han Solo novels and mentioned in others, is referenced.

216

location: Belthu, a wealthy colony world known for mining.

216-217

The next stop in sequence was not a settled world; in fact, the planetary system had only a number designation, M2398, in the New Republic and Imperial records.
location: M2398, a remote system inhabited only by a nest of cold pirates.
Both the New Republic and the Empire apparently use the same alphanumeric system for classifying star systems. This system may have also been in use during the time of the Old Republic; the Empire had little reason to change the names of thousands of unimportant star systems.

224
TIE fighter wings were designed to recharge ship's lasers and to provide some armour, ...

technology: TIE fighter radiator panels wrongly attributed some kind of solar power generation function. [See also p.146.]

233

The base was an elderly, damaged Kuat Super Transport VI container ship. With its engines in the shape they were, Wedge doubted the vessel would ever lift, even from the half-standard gravity of this moon. The engines were just barely functional enough to provide power for artificial gravity, life support, and communications. A smaller hauler, an aging Corellian bulk freighter, apparently served to haul half squads of Uglies through hyperspace to whichever areas they chose to patrol.

The Kuat Super Transport VI may have been manufactured by the famous Kuat Drive Yards or one of its subsidiaries (such as Kuat Systems Engineering). The ships are larger than "Corellian bulk freighters," which may refer to the popular Corellian Engineering "Action" line of ships.

The engines of the Super Transport VI, and perhaps other starships, seem to power all of the vessel's systems.

234
Wedge stood before the pirate captain, a beefy, black-bearded man who had admitted to the name of Arratan.

character: Arratan, leader of the M2398 pirates.

246
"You've heard of Talasea, in the Morobe system?"
Zsinj frowned. "Some sort of agricultural colony world, wasn't it? An economic failure?"
"That's correct. It was abandoned. Not long ago, it was temporarily used as a secret base by Rogue Squadron."

location: Talasea, Morobe system. A site in X-Wing: Rogue Squadron.

246

starships: The Imperial corvette Constrictor and escort frigate Provocateur are first mentioned.

262
One of the problems with the New Republic was that many of its pilots had literally and violently been at odds in the past. It sometimes caused trouble when a pilot now under New Republic command had shot down other New Republic pilots. But some people Wedge absolutely trusted had been Imperials: Tycho Celchu, current leader of Rogue Squadron; Hobbie Klivan, who had defected with Biggs Darklighter and the rest of the crew of the Rand Ecliptic; even Han Solo had been an Academy graduate and briefly an officer.

Incorporation of former-Imperial personnel into the New Republic armed forces. This must be an increasing concern as the New Republic expands to assimilate most of the preexisting bureacratic, naval and military structures of the galaxy.

264-265

location: planet Storinal.

267-268

location: Revos, city on Storinal.

271
Agamar, an Outer Rim colony world, was a rough place whose inhabitants had to be equally rough to survive. Not surprisingly, the rustic ways, stubbornness, and durability of the men and women of Agamar earned them an undeserved reputation for stupidity across the Old Republic and the Empire. Even today, half the jokes told in Basic about stupid people cast them as men and women of Agamar.

location: Agamar.

275
Scohar was much like Revos, only far larger, and dotted with recreational complexes that included thrill rides that simulated danger without ever harming a visitor.

loction: Scohar, another city on Storinal.

278

characters: Rondle, Partus, Dewback Kord. NCOs from the Hawkbat, part of Zsinj's navy. Partus is female; the others are male.

282

Use of Hebrew letter "aleph", rather than Latin (rebel fighters) or WEG's "Aurebesh".

293
Grinder was startled to feel something scratching — actively scratching — at the other side of the surface he was leaning against. Peering down, he saw that he was propping himself up against a stack of small containers labeled STORINI GLASS PROWLER. The picture on the container showed a translucent arthropod that walked upon two legs and apparently seized its prey with the other two in a nearly humanoid fashion.

creature: Storini Glass Prowler.

295

"... I even reconnected the plasma bomb."
Wedge came upright. "The what? "
"They had a high-temperature device set to trigger if any of the disease agents breached their security seal and threatened to escape the complex. The thing would have instantly incinerated the Institute and a few city blocks around it — which I assume they consider an appropriate measure to keep some of those diseases in check."

A frightening feature of some Imperial hospitals is mentioned.

296,
303,
310

Further usage of the "aleph" letter.

315
Night Caller and Hawkbat made rendezvous at the appointed date, in a system whose dim orange sun sustained no life on any of its seven planets. Hawkbat's captain, Bock Nabyl, apologised for not being able to meet with Captain Darillian face-to-face, ...
...
A day later Night Caller put in at the Todirium system, whose bleak third planet was home to a colony mining iron and refining durasteel.

locations: barren orange-sunned system; Todirium system.
character: Bock Nabyl, captain of the Hawkbat.

316-317
He pried open the top of the box containing the insect and upended the box ... Flecks of some nameless substance, perhaps insect food, drifted out. Then something black, not an insect, slid free, and he caught it as it fell.
A small, cheap datapad, the kind that was not programmable, with a memory unit only large enough to contain a little data. Its face read "Storini Glass Prowler, Care and Feeding."
He shook the box again and the translucent insect slid out, dropped wriggling to the seat, and stood upright. It turned to look at Grinder as if evaluating him for a possible meal, then slowly looked around in a circle, analysing its new surroundings.

creature: Storini Glass Prowler emerges. Behavior.

318
They now crossed over some tilled fields, the crops a weird blue-green Wedge would not have thought belonged in nature, and irrigation canals.

Crops on Todirium are blue-green in colour. Antilles' reaction suggests that this is not the usual colour of crops on worlds familiar to Corellians.

326

creature: Storini Crystal Deceiver, lethal close cousin of the Glass Prowler. Imaginary (Face put it in the encyclopedia to fool Grinder).

332
They emerged from hyperspace a hundred light-years from the Morobe system, into a system with a white dwarf for a sun.

location: nameless barren system. Near Morobe.

332

Night Caller was the last ship on station. Already in formation were the Imperial Star Destroyer Implacable, the Imperial escort frigate Provocateur, and the Corellian corvette Constrictor.

Some Zsinj-controlled ships are mentioned.

335

Instantly, all three vessels launched their TIE fighters: Night Caller's four from her former escape pod ports, Constrictor's four from her bow hold, and Provocateur 's two dozen from her hangar bays.

The escort frigate Provocateur carries two squadrons of fighters. Thus, it is not necessarily a Kuat Drive Yards Nebulon-B, which is said to normally carry only one squadron.

345

They were in the inflatable dome that served the temporary Talasea camp as an officers' mess, unwinding over beer and brandy that tasted something like ship's fuel.

...

Wedge took another pull from his petrochemical-flavored brandy.

Star Wars ships use petrochemicals as fuel?
The performance characteristics of most starships and their weapons, particularly the big vessels like star destroyers, hint at more compact energy sources, with efficiencies close to or exceeding what would be expected from perfect annihilation. If the drives are annihilation-based, then any kind of matter could be used as fuel, so long as it was easy to store and handle within the ship. Other novels mention more primitive energy sources, such as fusion. These are probably not sufficient for some feats like powering the jump to hyperspace, but may have a peripheral role in sustaining the primary energy-generation process (whatever that may be).

348-349
...I am pleased to be able to present you with a first for Wraith Squadron: the Kalidor Crescent."
The assembled pilots oohed and broke rank to applaud. The Crescent, always granted for bravery and piloting skill used in unison, was a mark of prestige throughout the armed forces.

culture: An award called the Kalidor Crescent. Does this have any relation to the medals and awards appearing in the LucasArts computer games? According to B.Carletti it is seen in the original X-Wing game.

353
Their next jump was to the Obinipor system, deeper in the Outer Rim but still in the path of the New Republic's gradual expansion. Obinipor, the next stop on Night Caller's circuit, was a free colony with an admirable mix of natural resources: metals suited to the fabrication of power generators, and active vulcanism providing the colonists with ready power of their own.

location: Obinipor system.

355

The commander of the ill-fated Provocateur was Imperial Captain Joshi.

355

tactics: Ackbar Slash.

358-359
Ession, Lucaya system, fourth planet (Corporate Sector). Settled four thousand years ago. Major centre for industrial manufacture. Nonaligned. Night Caller's last visit was eigteen months ago. No record of Zsinj-related contacts at that time.
...
"Pakkerd Light Transport," he said. "Before the death of the Emperor, it was a division of Sienar Fleet Systems that built TIE fighters and Interceptors. After the Emperor died, Sienar sold it off and now it builds a `complete line of repulsorlift utility vehicles.'"
...
"Owner, Oan Pakkerd. Probably another false Zsinj identity. Chief officer, Vanter Raffin. Head of security, Hola Paskalian."

location: Ession, planet in the Corporate Sector manufacturing starfighters for Warlord Zsinj. The planet has more than one moon [p.360].
chronology: Night Caller has served Warlord Zsinj for at least eighteen months. Are these terrestrial months or Coruscant months?
characters: Oan Pakkerd; Vanter Raffin; Hola Paskalian.

360
Floating a few hundred metres directly above them, sustained by tireless repulsorlift engines, was the Imperial-class Star Destroyer Implacable.

":Imperial-class" seems to be a rebel colloquialism for the Imperator-class star destroyer.
The destroyer can comfortably rest on its repulsors in a gravity field 0.4 times standard. This might be a reference to the Earth standard, or it might be the Coruscant standard, which is calculated in Standard Units.

361

tactics: follow best (involves moving ahead to lure enemy ship into a false sense of security)

362
"Do you know how long it has been since I saw my home, sir?"
"Two years, seven months." Trigit glanced off to the side. "And six days. Thankyou, Lieutenant."

chronology: The duration of Captain Darillian's absence from Coruscant. Are these months in the terrestrial sense, or else the 35-day Coruscant standard?

371
Ahead, the blast doors separating bridge from security foyer began to close. Trigit gave up all pretense at dignity and dropped flat, elbow crawling with the speed of a much younger man. He scrambled into the foyer moments ahead of the door closing and was helped up by a stormtrooper.

Blast doors at the back of the star destroyer bridge close when atmospheric integrity is lost. This mechanism would have been ineffective in the case of the Executor at the Battle of Endor, because the area behind the bridge would also have been punctured by the remains of the incoming A-Wing.

371-372

Trigit pointed at the chief communications officer. "Get the auxiliary bridge to transfer bridge functions to the consoles here." The deck shuddered faintly under his feet. "Are our shields up?"
"Checking." The officer brought up a diagnostics readout. He winced. "Sir, they took out the shield generator domes when they hit the bridge."

The Implacable has a single auxiliary bridge.

The scanner globes atop the standard KDY bridge tower are once again incorrectly referred to as shield towers.

372
He felt a shudder in the keel as the ship's repulsors were called upon to hold a position they were not designed to assume; only the moon's four-tenths of a standard gravity permitted the maneuver at all.
...
The corvette jerked and her engines moaned. She rose a few metres more above the moon's surface — then hovered, thrusters blasting away, tethered to the moon by her own tractor beam.

The thrust of the Night Caller's engines is comparable to the combined pull of the tractor beam and Ession's moon's gravity.
Surface gravity on Ession's moon is four-tenths of Coruscant standard. Coruscant standard is somewhat higher than Earth's gravity, at least according to numbers derived from Galaxy Guide 2. [See Standard Units.]

373

Reference to star destroyer's communications tower.

375

Mentions bow guns on the Night Caller. This is further evidence that the ship is in a class very distinct from the Tantive IV corvette. There are no bow guns on the Tantive IV, although other designs of Corellian combat starships have turrets on either side of the hammerhead, or mounted dorsally.

385
"...I have my personal Interceptor standing by. It is equipped with a hyperdrive, as are its two escort Interceptors. ..."

A TIE Interceptor modified to carry a hyperdrive. It must be wondered whther this would be visibly different from the regular Interceptors. Could this actully be the same model as Lord Vader's TIE, or an advanced fighter of Avenger or Defender design?

391
Coldness gripped at kell as his body heat fled his inadequately insulated pilot's suit and the magnetic containment field around it.

technology: Another indication of capabilities and limitations of rebel pilot flight suits; their containment field.

394-395

"Captain, we accept the commander's offer."
Wedge went cold. He knew that voice.
The captain's voice returned. "You're only an observer here. You don't issue orders to —" Then a scream.
Face's voice: "Sithspit, he's vaped his own man."
The precise voice returned. "I apologize. A slight question of chain of command. Commander, you have a deal. All Implacable forces, break off now. Come to heading two-seventy."

...

Wedge's weapons officer stared wide-eyed. "You looked like you knew him."
"You might way that. That was Baron Soontir Fel."
The officer paled and returned his attention to his weapons board. Baron Fel, since the death of Darth Vader, was accounted the best Imperial pilot living, and his elite 181st Imperial Fighter Group was the most accomplished fighter unit the Empire could field.
What was he doing as an observer on Admiral Trigit's ship?

character: Baron Fel, flyer of airspeeders, pilot of TIE fighters, destroyer of Z-95s, captain of Dreadnaughts, and observer of rouge Imperial warships returns again.
The question Antilles ponders is a good one, since Baron Fel apparently was captured and defected to the New Republic about three years previously, in the X-Wing Rogue Squadron comic series.

X-Wing: Wraith Squadron
PAGE	QUOTATION	COMMENTS
1	The world below, Coruscant, former throne world of the Empire, was an unbroken landscape of urban construction, a vast city reaching from pole to pole, blanketed by gray clouds shot through with white and yellow flashes of lightning. ... Even after all the time he'd spent here — even after the crucial role he'd played in conquering the world for the New Republic — he still could not get used to the arrogance of Coruscant. It was a world that could only rule or perish, for it produced nothing but soldiers, officers and bureacrats, and could not feed its population without importing massive quantities of food from around the galaxy.	location: Coruscant
2	"Hobbie? Is that you, Lieutenant Klivan?" "That's Captain Klivan ... again, just for the next few minutes."	character: Hobbie Klivan, a rebel pilot with Rogue Squadron in The Empire Strikes Back and the Rogue Squadron comics. Temporarily promoted to Group Captain, skipping the intermediate ranks of Squadron Leader and Wing Commander. The temporary promotion may have the purpose of ensuring that Klivan is superior to Antilles, enabling him to give orders and instructions for the ceremonial landing.
2	Imperial Plaza: a ground-level ferrocrete circle so broad that in spite of the surrounding skyscrapers, it could be seen from high in the air at angles other than directly overhead.	location: Imperial Plaza
3		tactics: Three Diamonds Parade Formation, evidently used in stunt flying.
4	Even over the sound of repulsorlifts, Wedge could hear the cheers from the crowd.	technology: repulsorlifts are sometimes noisy, at least as they are applied in starfighter landing systems.
5	But now Ysanne Isard was dead, and Rogue Squadron's resignations were apparently misfiled...	It is interesting to contrast the New Republic's administrative flexibility with that of the Empire. Is this kind of retrospective mistake, serving a cheery notion of public good through dubious means, one of the habits that led to the corruption and downfall of the Old Republic?
5	Red Squadron's second-in-command, Wes Janson ...	character: Wes Janson, another veteran Rogue pilot, from the Battle of Hoth and Rogue Squadron comics.
6	"We brought in some Rogue Squadron veterans — Riemann, Scotian, Carithlee, several more — and a couple of new pilots each out of Gauntlet and Cosair Squadrons. ..." ... "You're behind the times. Corsair was our first squadron, Gauntlet our second, and our third, Talon, was just commissioned." "Who's commanding?" "Lieutenant Myn Donos. A good pilot, smart —" ... "smart, egotistical, self-centred, arrogant, insufferable — you know, a typical Corellian."	characters: more Rogue veterans; Lt Myn Donos; Gauntlet Squadron, Cosair Squadron, Talon Squadron - components of Antilles' wing? Why does Lieutenant Donos command a squadron when he doesn't yet rank Squadron Leader? He's one rank too low. Or does this reflect a recent demotion?
7	This was a dark world with a polluted sky, its atmosphere formed from gases and smoke hurled from hundreds of active volcanoes.	location: Gravan Seven [named on p.28.]
9	If she reached the planet's broken surface, ... she might be able to elude them; there, her piloting skill rather than relative speeds of the fighters could allow her to lose pursuits, and any pilot who tried to follow her from above would quickly lose sight of her — this was the classic Trench Run Defence used against the first Death Star.	tactics: Trench Run Defence
10	"Minor damage to lower port strike foil," she answered.	technology: explict form of the slang "S-foil", used in reference to the starfighter's wings as weapon mounts.
11	... he fleetingly noted the nonstandard red stripes painted horizontally onthe starfighter's wing arrays before something else occurred to him: there were no sparks or smoke plumes emerging from its engines now. With the deception done, all false signs of the interceptor's weakness had been shut off.	The TIE interceptor which led the X-Wings into a trap was probably a member of the elite force formerly commanded by Baron Soontir Fel (comics).
13	... the walls were a soothing blue, the furniture smooth and rounded with colours of the sea, the air cool but uncomfortably moist.	location: Admiral Ackbar's office.
14	"I see no sign of a hangover on you, Commander. Must I conclude that you did not celebrate adequately?" ... Ackbar's mouth bent in an approximation of a smile. A learned behavior — Mon Calamari did not communicate amusement that way. But Ackbar was well versed in human body language.	Ackbar, who elsewhere admits to difficulty in determining the age of humans by their facial features, is much better at detecting hangover. He is described as having some epxertise in reading humans by their body language.
14	Warlord Zsinj, a ontime Imperial admiral still in possession of a Super Star Destroyer, an eight-kilometre warship capable of pounding a planetary surface flat, was now the New Republic's most important military objective. His hit-and-run missions against New Republic sites were increasing in bold effectiveness and destructiveness, and the danger that he might assume Ysanne Isard's role as the center of an Imperial resurgence was not an empty one.	The colloquial term "Super Star Destroyer" and the five-mile fallacy are once again reiterated. This is an error: the Executor-class is actually something between eleven and twelve miles long. character: Warlord Zsinj.
17	"... There's still the matter of pilots. Fresh out of the Academy, their training costing hundreds of thousands of credits apiece. ..."	Cost of training a starfighter pilot. Compare with the cost of training an Imperial stormtrooper officer, over half a million credits, in Soldier for the Empire.
19	Wedge met the others in the hangar aboard the cruiser Home One ... ... "... the new squadron will be put together at Folor Base —" Tycho winced. "Ah, yes, the centre of New Republic entertainment and lunar beauty."	starship: Home One, Admiral Ackbar's flagship during the Battle of Endor. Roughly two miles long in Return of the Jedi. location: Folor Base, in the same sector as Commenor.
21-22		character: General Crespin, who was a colonel present in the birefing before the Battle of Endor. An Imperial defector.
26		character: Falynn Sandskimmer, female pilot with an insolent manner from Tatooine.
28		character: Myn Donos physical description.
29	Admiral Apwar Trigit looked down from his command chair into the bridge crew pit. ... He rose, aware that with his greying black hair and beard, his lean form, and the silver and black uniform he'd designed himself, he was an imposing figure. He kept his walk graceful and casual as he departed the Imperial Star Destroyer's bridge — true, he served the Warlord Zsinj, but his chief officers must understand that he merely hired out his services and those of the Implacable, that he was his own master.	character: Admiral Apwar Trigit "Admiral" Trigit commands a lowly destroyer, despite his rank. This may indicate severe depletion of Imperial resources even at this early date, or that Trigit is merely a minor, self-promoted warlord (like those found in the Galactic Core during Darksaber). His mercenary-like status seems to indicate the latter. The Implacable's bridge has a command chair, a feature not seen in the movies. location: Rancor Base starship: Implacable
30		character: Warlord Zsinj starship: Iron fist
31	"It would have been cheaper to have eliminated her. Your previous superior would have done it." "Ysanne Isard kept all her officers in a constant state of fear." Trigit acknowledged. "And when they did fail her, or proved in any way to be a liability, she did eliminate them. So they knew there were no happy endings in their futures..."	Admiral Trigit contrasts circumstances under Isard's rule with those in his own group, within the forces of Warlord Zsinj. These men have a more conservative regard for their resources and the morale of their subordinates.
31		technology: Morrt-class droids. Reference to Gamorrean symbiote/parasites. The Morrt Project.
32		character: Voort saBinring, modified Gamorrean starfighter pilot.
33	"...Eventually I reached Obroa-skai." "The library world."	location: Obroa-skai, know as the "library world". Also the location of the first scene in Heir to the Empire, at which time it was on the New Republic side of the Borderland Regions. Its political status in XWWS is not known. Jedi Master Luke Skywalker made use of this world's services in the Black Fleet Crisis novels.
35	Wedge and Janson exchanged glances. "The lieutenant and I once knew a very fine human pilot who went by Piggy. There's no `derogatory component' to it in this squadron. Rather, it's a badge of honour I hope you can live up to."	character: Jek Porkins, nicknamed "Piggy" was Red 6 at the Battle of Yavin.
36		character: Kell Tainer
37		characters: Tierfon Yellow Aces
44		Implied weapon range of "two klicks". Does this mean 2km distance range, 2km/s velocity range (more likely), or some other kind of unit? Cf. 1000km maximum range for proton torpedoes in A New Hope, according to the trench run target scopes. Laser cannon weapon ranges are almost certainly much greater in terms of distance, since even star destroyers can accelerate by at least 60km/s² [moving into position for the Endor trap, Return of the Jedi. Weapons are not much use if their distance range is smaller than the distance-scales of the starfighter's movement.
47		starship: reference to an Imperial Star Carrier.
48	Gold Two was not human. He was definitely humanoid, with arms, legs, torso, and head arranged in a comfortably recognisable fashion. But, though nearly as tall as Kell, he was very lean, covered in short brown fur, with an elongated face, huge brown eyes, a broad, flattened nose, and a mouse full of squarish white teeth. His features were better suited to a draft animal than a sapient being — but for the inquisitive, luminously intelligent quality of his eyes. He also had a head of hair that would be the envy of many a human, male or female;... ... "We are Flight Officer Hohass Ekwesh." "We? Is that a royal we?" That would explain the alien's apparent disdain for procedure. "No, a collective—"	character: Hohass Ekwesh, a being with multiple minds. Whether this condition is normal for his species is not yet known.
51		location: Downtime, a restruant in Folor Base.
52		culture: Abrax Cognac character: Tyria Sarkin.
53	"... Runt, are you talking about many organisms, or many minds?" Runt smiled with the relieved satisfaction of someone who has finally gotten a point across. "Minds." "You have many minds, and one of them is the pilot?" "Yes! Yes."	Runt, and perhaps others of his species have multiple minds, but it is not clear whether these are really distinct personas or just changes of temperament. Runt seems to regard them as personas.
53-54		character: "Squeaky", a 3PO protocol droid; manumitted; a pilot. It sounds possible that Squeaky may be the U-3PO unit described in the SWCCG game, one of two protocol droids shown in A New Hope. (The other one was C-3PO.) There may have been other protocol droids unseen on film.
54		technology: Defensive batteries around a particular spaceport at Kessel have an effective range of 100km.
55	"... I grew up on Pantolomin, but my people were from Lorrd originally, so when I got back to civilisation my parents arranged to send me there. From Lorrd it was an easy step to reach the Alliance.	characters: Tom Phanan; Garik "Face" Loran; astromech droid.
56		culture: Various popular Imperial-era holodramas are listed.
57		locations: Pantolomin; Lorrd - originally described in Han Solo's Revenge.
58		Wraith Squadron has its very own token force-sensitive member.
61		characters: washouts.
66	"So first among equals of you flight officers is Kell Tainer. He's out backup mechanic when we're away from out support crew and is our demolitions expert. He also served with distinction among the commandos who helped take Borleias last year.	Kell Tainer served with Page's commandos, and participated in the assault on Borleias in X-Wing: Rogue Squadron. This distinguished unit was also mentioned in Heir to the Empire. chronology: The time span between XWRS and XWWS is approximately one year, and definitely less than two years.
67		aliens: Thakwaash. The species of Hohass Ekwesh.
68		location: Toprawa, and its fate. Was mentioned elsewhere, including in conversation between Ysanne Isard and Kirtan Loor in one of the earlier X-Wing novels.
70		character: Cubbar Daine, chief mechanic of the Folor Base. This is one of the rare times when a subofficer is given attention in a novel about starfighter forces. His precise rank is unknown at this point.
71		technology: inertial compensators, also known as "inertial dampers" in other novels.
73	"Oh, yes. I was a year on Hoth, passing by that slab of rust and bad wiring every day. I never got to service her — Solo and his Wookiee friend hated for anyone but them to work on her. You can always recognize her by the specific pattern of corrosion." Kell heard a distant pop as the ship breached the magcon field, which obligingly permitted the ship through but held the tunnel's atmosphere within.	starship: Millenium Falcon continuity: Cubbar Daine was at Echo Base on Hoth. chronology: The rebels were at Hoth for at least one year. technology: atmospheric containment field.
74	"...Sorry I missed you when you got back from Thyferra, but I was off on another pointless leg of the search for Zsinj." ... "You're not still doing that? I was under the impression that you were on the Mon Remonda and that the Millenium Falcon would be in storage until Zsinj was flushed out." ... "I escaped Coruscant and its endless diplomatic functions with the Mon Remonda mission, but we haven't had any luck on the Zsinj pursuit in the last few weeks...."	starship: Mon Remonda, Solo's flagship in the campaign against Warlord Zsinj. Interesting chronological indication: his mission against Zsinj has already begun. This limits the amount of time between the events of this novel and those of The Courtship of Princess Leia, and X-Wing: The Bacta War.
77	"With the shuttle's personnel retrieval tractor beam, Janson will be maneuvering a target, which will be about three hundred metres behind him. ..."	technology: Range of shuttle tractor beam exceeds 300m.
85	The file appeared on Admiral Trigit's datapad, its title "Recent Morrt Project Data-Gathering Results and Conclusions." Its listed author was Gara Petothel, the code-slicer who had been so useful to him in providing information leading to the demise of Talon Squadron. ... "...and tell Night Caller to prepare a load of the new Empion mines. We'll plant them in the unoccupied systems closest to Commenor, ..."	technology: Morrt Project; Empion mines. character: Gara Petothel. See also p.102. starship: Night Caller.
90	"... But, Commander, you're what? Forty?" Wedge Managed to look amused and regretful at the same time. "Twenty-eight." ... Wedge said, "You're only nine years from that same grim fate."	chronology: Wedge Antilles is 28 years old; Falynn Sandskimmer is 19 years old.
91	The Pig Trough was an anomalous geographical feature of Folor. It was a meandering lunar fissure, created at some distant time when the moon's surface was not quite cool and tectonic plates were still in motion. Its near terminus was only a klick from Folor Base, and the lengthy geographical feature wandered for thousands of kilometres to the northeast, then cut sharply northwest for an even greater distance. The nearer portions of the trough were too broad, with curves too gradual to be of any use to the trainers, but more distant portions were used by pilot trainees for trench maneuvering and bombing practice.	location: Pig Trough, a feature on Folor which seems to be an extinct tectonic feature, perhaps associated with subduction between plates. The scale of the Trough implies that the world is at least several thousand km in circumference, so it is not a minor object. The fact that it once had enough internal radiogenic heating to drive tectonics may also hint that it is larger than Earth's moon (which never developed tectonic motion).
92,94	Kell shook his head. "I've serviced rigs like that. They're not like recreational skimmers. Their repulsor fields extend out ahead a few metres. They have to be anticipatory to keep those haulers from gutting themselves on rough terrain. ..." The hauler went skyward, gaining enough altitude to lose repulsorlift contact with the ground, and Wedge's vehicle gained another handful of metres on her. ... His vehicle's weight forced hers down, compressing her repulsor emissions, slowing her vehicle.	technology: practical mechanics of repulsorlift propulsion.
95	"Also, we now have a unit designation. Courtesy of Tyria Sarkin, we are Wraith Squadron." ... Runt asked, "What is a wraith?" "Something I heard about in my childhood," Tyria said. "Dark things that come in the night for you. That's what I think we are. For the Empire, for the warlords, we're the phantoms under the bed, the monsters in the storage cubicles."	Question: Wasn't this squadron name also used by a pre-Yavin rebel squadron? I have a vague recollection; it was in the SWCCG. Answer: [J.Goodenbery] I believe you are referring to Specter Squadron, out of Renfarra base. It was a Y-wing squadron, and the ship flown by Jon "Dutch" Vander at the battle of Yavin was designated "Specter One". The term "wraith" was also used colloquially by Niles Ferrier in reference to his Defel henchman in Dark Force Rising.
96	"... I have transmitted requisition forms to your astromechs and to your datapads; please use them, and always check your spelling. ..."	language: The fact that spelling mistakes are possible implies that the alphanumeric characters used to type Basic words are not entirely phonetic.
96	He pointed into the mass of stars at a bright golden one. "Here's Commenor. You are here. Here's Corellia and more Core systems. Farther out, we reach border and then Rim territories. This star is nicknamed Doldrums for its lovely, featureless, uninhabited planets.	locations: Doldrums, in astrographical relation to Commenor, Corellia, the Core and the Inner Rim.
98-99	Commenor was a planet fringing on Core worlds territory. Its government dealt and traded with the New Republic, with the shrinking Empire, even with the warlords. ... "Orbital Spaceyard 301 has been ordered to clear a servicing berth for private yacht Implacable." Kell frowned. "Implacable is the kind of anme they give to Imperial capital ships." "Five, the berth they've cleared is the largest they have. This is no pleasure yacht." "...Implacable is an Imperial star destroyer commanded by Admiral Trigit. He went rogue when Ysanne Isard died. ..."	locations: Commenor, and summary of its neutral political status at this point in galactic history. Commenor appears to have over three hundred orbital docking stations, and the largest berth on number 301 is suitable for a star destroyer. chronology: Timing of Trigit's independence coincides with end of X-Wing: The Bacta War.
99	... he viewed the moon Folor through the bridge's transparisteel windows. An ugly, mountainous, frost-coated thing, it was well positioned to be of considerable use to the Rebels.	location: Folor, further physical description.
102	His sensors officer looked up at him from the crew pit. "Sir, I'm reading launch of a capital ship. A Gallofree medium transport, from its sensor echo. and maneuvering characteristics." ... "Lieutenant Petothel." He kept his voice cool, calm." His new favorite data analyst looked up from her station's screen. She was a lean woman with medium-length hair and a beauty mark on her right cheek. Her features were elegant, mesmerising; he often had to make an effort not to stare."	starship: Gallofree transport; probably similar used to those seen launching from Hoth in The Empire Strikes back. character: Lt. Gara Petothel. Admiral Trigit is distracted by her physical characteristics. See also p.85.
103		Two New Republic transports, the Borleias and Bright Nebula, are named.
107	If Kell had calculated it correctly, he'd be able to give Wraith Squadron and Blue Squadron a bare few minutes of warning from point of first sighting to the time the TIEs reached the Trough.	Several minutes' warning implies that the TIEs are traversing the moon's surface at an average speed which is on the order of a mere thousand kilometres per minute.
108	"Dorset Konnair, Blue Nine. The pretty boy to my port is Tetengo Noor, Blue Ten. ..."	characters: Dorset Konnair, Tetengo Noor - two of the A-Wing pilots of Folor's Blue Squadron.
109	Their numbers agreed to two significant digits. Kell transmitted them, encrypted, a short burst aimed directly at Folor Base; with luck, the attackers wouldn't pick up the signal, wouldn't be able to track it, or would dismiss it as irrelevent.	technology: At this range, the base must be well below the horizon from Tainer's vantage. Therefore this directed burst mode of communications is carried by a form of energy or medium that is capable of penetrating thousands of kilometres of rock, without significant distortion.
113	Uh, records indicate that the Millenium Falcon has had three distinctive sets of parameters just since the death of the Emperor—" "Yes, yes. Continual retooling and all that."	technology: The long-range identifiable characteristics of a retooled freighter can be changed without involving significant changes to the shape of the hull; at least in the case of the Millenium Falcon.
115	He'd felt that way himself eight years ago, when ordered to break off his attack on the first Death Star.	chronology: These events take place 8 years after A New Hope. Wedge Antilles was approximately 20 years old during the Battle of Yavin.
125	Tuatara Lone was a holo actress on Sluis Van. Short, shapely, so cute she was toxic, she was particularly adept at portraying madcap girls with odd lifestyles or nosy investigators capable of bluffing their way out of any problem. For three years, Kell had been mesmerised by her, seeing every one of her comedies and dramas, agonising at night over her beauty, projecting himself into fantasy situations where he'd rescue her from harm or solve a crisis threatening her happiness. Then he'd learned that the actress was in fact extremely happily married, with two children and another on the way.	character/culture: Tuatara Lone, an actress known on Sluis Van.
126	... this was indeed the system they were aiming for, that was Xobome, but they'd arrived well outside the region they'd targetted.	location: Xobome system; uninhabited. Situated somewhere near Commenor and Folor.
127,130	They'd been hit by some sort of ionisation bomb, he was sure of it; in his experience, only an ion cannon could scramble all a starfighter's electronics this way. But what had hit them was more powerful, and ion cannons couldn't cause a ship in hyperspace to pop back into realspace prematurely. ... "You'd need foru basic components. No, five. First, a pretty standard ion projector, probably rigged for a single detonation instead of multiple shots. Second, an electromagnetic pulse generator, with the same area of emission. Third, a sensor rig that can detect hyperspace anomalies — that is to say, ships jumping into the system. Fourth, a gravitational pulse generator like the ones off the Imperial Interdictors. And fifth, a communications device — probably a one-shot hypercomm unit, something to throw off a single alarm at the time of detonation."	technology: empion mines; effects.
129,130	"...head on over to Xobome 6. land and effect what repairs you can, ..." ... Up ahead, a tiny white dot, Xobome 6, appeared among the stars and began to grow.	location: Xobome 6, a planet which is not too inclement for spacesuited extravehicular excursions.
130-131	"... most nav courses are plotted from the point of departure to the centre of the system where you plan to arrive — that is, the sun. It's simple and it's safe; you taught us that. You can set distance so you drop back into real space short of the system, with no chance of hitting any natural gravity well, or you can fire straight into the system, and if you hit a gravity well before you reach your destination, it pops you back into real space before you're close enough to the centre of gravity to endanger you. ..."	technology: Conventional methods for making a hyperspace jump.
131	Kell had had a little training in zero-gee, hard-vacuum work. He'd done some exterior repairs on a cruiser over Sluis Van and had gone through the standard demolitions training in planting charges on a vessel in orbit.	One might expect that repairs to large starships in vacuum and zero-gravity would be carried out by droids. Tainer has been personally involved in repairs to some kind of cruiser in space. Perhaps this says something about the limitations of droid intelligence?
131-132	... the world of Xobome 6, rotating with a slow majesty. Somewhere down there, on a high plain blasted by freezing winds, most of the Wraiths were trying to make repairs to their own less-damaged X-Wings. They were probably looking up now and envying Kell his comparatively warm environment suit.	location: Xobome 6, improved physical description. See also pp.129-130.
136	"A laser cannon is nine metres long, Five." "Not the essential components and housing, sir. Strip out all the computerised aiming and synchronisation equipment, the diagnostics, the flashback suppressor, I think we could chop it down to a metre and a half, two metres."	Size of an X-Wing laser cannon. How can the cannon be nine metres long, when the fighter itself is only about twleve metres long? This requires an explanation.
136	The canopy on the X-Wing came up and Phanan clambered out, surrounded by the distinctive glow of a personal magcon field. ... Kell saw from Phanan's expression that cold was already eating its way through the atmosphere around his compromised suit.	technology: "magcon" field traps air near the surface of the rebel pilot but it does not make vacuum survivable.
144-145 147	Even at this distance and through the crude imager of the datapad, Piggy could see a bright vertical slit of light appear at the bow as the hold doors there were opened. two large silhouettes emerged from the light and rapidly grew as they came closer. ... He was on his back on a metal floor. It was a miniature hangar space, mostly filled with four gigantic metal racks situated side by side; the two end racks held TIE fighters upright. He was almost directly beneath the starboard-side TIE fighter. Forward was the open hold door framing starfield and the planet Xobome 6. ... Nothing directly ahead but metal stairs going up. but above them was a grey catwalk, and on it men in mechanics' overalls running toward an exit. ... At the top of the brackets, he was only three feet from the hold ceiling.	Bow hold of the Night Caller, an unusual Corellian corvette.
146	The trooper fired at him but the TIE fighter's solar wing, held before Piggy like a shield, absorbed the bolt.	Hints that the wing of a TIE is some kind of solar power device. That would be an absurd implication; sunshine does not deliver enough power to operate any important system of such a dynamic device as a starfighter. The most probable function of a TIE's wings is to radiate waste heat from the reactor systems, as indicated in TIE Fighter: The Official Stategy Guide. [See also p.224.] NB. "absorption" of the bolt does not imply something mysterious or that the wing was unharmed. It just means that the damage was not significant compared to the wing as a whole.
147	If he remembered the layout of Corellian corvettes from the training he'd received, there would be a floor of officer and guest quarters above the hold, and the ship's bridge would be immediately above that.	The layout of the Corellian Engineering Corporation Corvette is described. This description matches the blueprints found in the Star Wars Technical Journal.
149		character: Captain Zurel Darillian. The former commander of the corvette Night Caller, now captured by the New Republic, was Imperial Captain Zurel Darillian. See p.156 for physical description.
150	"It has been very heavily modified from the standard corvette, Commander. Where the Tantive IV had a luxury quarters deck beneath the bridge, Night Caller has eliminated deck, I suspect to make extra room in the bow hold for the four TIE fighters. The bow has also been widened, the hull armour on the sides of the bow narrowed, electronic apparatus taht should be between bulkheads there moved somewhere else. The topside hold has been converted into a skimmer hangar. There are no laboratories; that's where the luxury quarters are located." Wedge nodded. "It appears that this was no retrofit job. It came out of the shipyards this way." ... From the main weapons console, Janson said, "They've given up one of their bow turbolaser twin cannons and installed a tractor beam instead." "Most ships this size have a tractor." Janson grinned. "I mean a real tractor beam. Something suited to a frigate or larger war vessel, not just a beam suitable to drag a fighter around." ... "...They have a state-of-the-art Imperial HoloNet system, a real luxury on a vessel this size, ..."	Features of the Night Caller, which appears to be a representative of a new class of corvette. In order to fit four TIE fighters, the hammerhead must be substantially bigger than that of Tantive IV. technology: Though this is unusual, a vessel with the size and power of a corvette is not too small to mount some limited form of hyperwave communications device.
151	"I also got their schedule, mostly visiting unaligned planetary systems and demonstrating that Zsinj has muscle, ..." "Viamarr 4, Xartun, Belthu, M2398, Todirium, Obinipor, Fenion. ..."	locations: Various systems near Warlord Zsinj's sphere of influence, remaining unaligned four years after the Battle of Endor.
152		technology: Morrt droid, physical description.
156		starship: Communications room of the Night Caller. character: Captain Darillian, physical description.
157		culture: Win or Die, a popular propaganda movie made during Palpatine's rule.
158		technology: Night Caller's hypercomm, distinguished from genuine self-powered HoloNet transmissions.
159-160		Modifications made to Night Caller, allowing it to hold and conceal a partial X-Wing squadron in addition to its TIE fighters.
161	The records said Viamarr 4 was an agricultural world, somewhat higher in gravity than Coruscant standard; its chief export was a subterranean fungus whose offshoots and tubers sometimes grew to the diametre of a kilometre or more. The fungus, inaccurately called Viamarr Blackroot for its colour, was well liked for its meaty texture and nutrient balance.	location: Viamarr 4; its fungal life.
162	No shields. No ejection seat. TIE fighters were disposable attack vehicles for disposable pilots, and Wedge never cared to feeled disposable.	The suggestion of the absence of ejector seats is interesting, especially considering the evidence of The Empire Strikes Back. Perhaps Wedge's thinking simply reflects an unfounded prejudice of rebel pilots? Perhaps there are a few TIEs that actually do lack ejection seats?
163	A while later they dove into the atmosphere of Viamarr 4 and headed toward Velery, the planetary capital, a community of a hundred thousand on the largest continent of the southern hemisphere. The land surrounding the capital was largely forested, with numerous tiny communities of wooden buildings.	location: Velery, capital city of Viamarr 4.
164		technology: Mark One Z-95 Headhunters, an out-of-fashion starfighter design.
167		character: Governor Watesk.
170	"The records they sent to us have the land transfer registered to a person named Cortle Steeze. I must assume that's an alias for Zsinj, but we should look for the name anyway. Whoever Steeze is, he has his choice of how the land is to be subdivided and zoned. ... A good-sized island. Fifty klicks long by about thirty wide."	character: Cortle Steeze, possibly an alias for Warlord Zsinj, who owns a large island on Viamarr 4. His purposes on the island are unknown.
172		Home One is incorrectly referred to as an MC80. The ship is actually over 2.5 times the length of the standard MC80 described in West End Games roleplaying materials.
177	Wedge was introduced to a small, neat man with a weathered face, Captain Choday Hrakness of Agamar, the new ship's captain, and to a tall, elegant-looking brown-haired woman of Coruscant, Lieutenant Atril Tabanne, his second-in-command, ...	characters: Captain Choday Hrakness; Lt Atril Tabanne.
183		character: Colonel Repness, a New Republic army officer in charge of a facility for remedial pilot training.
185		culture: Antarian Rangers.
187	Face also wore ab Imperial lieutenant's uniform, modified to bear the extravagant rank insignia unique to Night Caller. The man before him, Governor Nojin Koolb of the Outer Rim world of Xartun, smiled in appreciation of face's words.	culture: Decadence of the warlord forces - breakdown of former uniform conventions. character: Governor Nojin Koolb. location: Xartun, an Outer Rim world with two suns [p.188] and at least two moons [p.195].
188		character: Lord Houghten Ween, alias of Zsinj, owner of a transparisteel factory.
197	There were crystal-clear cubes three metres on a side, with small circular holes and an opening, one metre by one metre, cut into the side; there were large, thick sheets shaped as irregular polygons; there were curved disks over two metres in diameter, looking like enormous lenses. Wedge looked at these last items. "TIE fighter front viewports," he said. "And the big sheets, unless I'm mistaken, are bridge or lounge windows for a capital ship."	technology: transparisteel windows in Zsinj's factory on Xartun.
200	It fired a return shot. It hit the TIE fighter viewport Tyria hid behind. The viewport instantly opaqued and the laser blast did not penetrate; the transparisteel slowly began to fade to glasslike clarity. She breathed a sign of relief. These viewports had already gone through their phototropic shielding treatment. They'd stop anything short of the blast from a tripod-mounted laser cannon.	The viewport of a TIE fighter blocks a blaster bolt. This is very interesting considering the incident in the Crimson Empire comic in which a TIE pilot is shot through such a window.
212	Tyria said, "I think we're agreed that he's almost organising it as though he were a resistance organisation. Cells kept isolated from one another, with ships like Night Caller being the only connection." "It makes me feel a little odd," Wedge said. "In a sense, we're becoming the Empire and warlords like Zsinj are becoing the Alliance. We've become a legitimate government with fixed locations we have to reinforce and protect. They're operating from secret bases, mobile bases; they're using the hit-and-run tactics we perfected. the galaxy has turned upside-down since the Emperor died."	Strategy and tactics of galactic domination, four years after the Battle of Endor.
213		locations: Saffalore, within the Corporate Sector; site of Binring Biomedical project that created Piggy. The Corporate Sector, featured in the Del Rey Han Solo novels and mentioned in others, is referenced.
216		location: Belthu, a wealthy colony world known for mining.
216-217	The next stop in sequence was not a settled world; in fact, the planetary system had only a number designation, M2398, in the New Republic and Imperial records.	location: M2398, a remote system inhabited only by a nest of cold pirates. Both the New Republic and the Empire apparently use the same alphanumeric system for classifying star systems. This system may have also been in use during the time of the Old Republic; the Empire had little reason to change the names of thousands of unimportant star systems.
224	TIE fighter wings were designed to recharge ship's lasers and to provide some armour, ...	technology: TIE fighter radiator panels wrongly attributed some kind of solar power generation function. [See also p.146.]
233	The base was an elderly, damaged Kuat Super Transport VI container ship. With its engines in the shape they were, Wedge doubted the vessel would ever lift, even from the half-standard gravity of this moon. The engines were just barely functional enough to provide power for artificial gravity, life support, and communications. A smaller hauler, an aging Corellian bulk freighter, apparently served to haul half squads of Uglies through hyperspace to whichever areas they chose to patrol.	The Kuat Super Transport VI may have been manufactured by the famous Kuat Drive Yards or one of its subsidiaries (such as Kuat Systems Engineering). The ships are larger than "Corellian bulk freighters," which may refer to the popular Corellian Engineering "Action" line of ships. The engines of the Super Transport VI, and perhaps other starships, seem to power all of the vessel's systems.
234	Wedge stood before the pirate captain, a beefy, black-bearded man who had admitted to the name of Arratan.	character: Arratan, leader of the M2398 pirates.
246	"You've heard of Talasea, in the Morobe system?" Zsinj frowned. "Some sort of agricultural colony world, wasn't it? An economic failure?" "That's correct. It was abandoned. Not long ago, it was temporarily used as a secret base by Rogue Squadron."	location: Talasea, Morobe system. A site in X-Wing: Rogue Squadron.
246		starships: The Imperial corvette Constrictor and escort frigate Provocateur are first mentioned.
262	One of the problems with the New Republic was that many of its pilots had literally and violently been at odds in the past. It sometimes caused trouble when a pilot now under New Republic command had shot down other New Republic pilots. But some people Wedge absolutely trusted had been Imperials: Tycho Celchu, current leader of Rogue Squadron; Hobbie Klivan, who had defected with Biggs Darklighter and the rest of the crew of the Rand Ecliptic; even Han Solo had been an Academy graduate and briefly an officer.	Incorporation of former-Imperial personnel into the New Republic armed forces. This must be an increasing concern as the New Republic expands to assimilate most of the preexisting bureacratic, naval and military structures of the galaxy.
264-265		location: planet Storinal.
267-268		location: Revos, city on Storinal.
271	Agamar, an Outer Rim colony world, was a rough place whose inhabitants had to be equally rough to survive. Not surprisingly, the rustic ways, stubbornness, and durability of the men and women of Agamar earned them an undeserved reputation for stupidity across the Old Republic and the Empire. Even today, half the jokes told in Basic about stupid people cast them as men and women of Agamar.	location: Agamar.
275	Scohar was much like Revos, only far larger, and dotted with recreational complexes that included thrill rides that simulated danger without ever harming a visitor.	loction: Scohar, another city on Storinal.
278		characters: Rondle, Partus, Dewback Kord. NCOs from the Hawkbat, part of Zsinj's navy. Partus is female; the others are male.
282		Use of Hebrew letter "aleph", rather than Latin (rebel fighters) or WEG's "Aurebesh".
293	Grinder was startled to feel something scratching — actively scratching — at the other side of the surface he was leaning against. Peering down, he saw that he was propping himself up against a stack of small containers labeled `STORINI GLASS PROWLER`. The picture on the container showed a translucent arthropod that walked upon two legs and apparently seized its prey with the other two in a nearly humanoid fashion.	creature: Storini Glass Prowler.
295	"... I even reconnected the plasma bomb." Wedge came upright. "The what? " "They had a high-temperature device set to trigger if any of the disease agents breached their security seal and threatened to escape the complex. The thing would have instantly incinerated the Institute and a few city blocks around it — which I assume they consider an appropriate measure to keep some of those diseases in check."	A frightening feature of some Imperial hospitals is mentioned.
296, 303, 310		Further usage of the "aleph" letter.
315	Night Caller and Hawkbat made rendezvous at the appointed date, in a system whose dim orange sun sustained no life on any of its seven planets. Hawkbat's captain, Bock Nabyl, apologised for not being able to meet with Captain Darillian face-to-face, ... ... A day later Night Caller put in at the Todirium system, whose bleak third planet was home to a colony mining iron and refining durasteel.	locations: barren orange-sunned system; Todirium system. character: Bock Nabyl, captain of the Hawkbat.
316-317	He pried open the top of the box containing the insect and upended the box ... Flecks of some nameless substance, perhaps insect food, drifted out. Then something black, not an insect, slid free, and he caught it as it fell. A small, cheap datapad, the kind that was not programmable, with a memory unit only large enough to contain a little data. Its face read "Storini Glass Prowler, Care and Feeding." He shook the box again and the translucent insect slid out, dropped wriggling to the seat, and stood upright. It turned to look at Grinder as if evaluating him for a possible meal, then slowly looked around in a circle, analysing its new surroundings.	creature: Storini Glass Prowler emerges. Behavior.
318	They now crossed over some tilled fields, the crops a weird blue-green Wedge would not have thought belonged in nature, and irrigation canals.	Crops on Todirium are blue-green in colour. Antilles' reaction suggests that this is not the usual colour of crops on worlds familiar to Corellians.
326		creature: Storini Crystal Deceiver, lethal close cousin of the Glass Prowler. Imaginary (Face put it in the encyclopedia to fool Grinder).
332	They emerged from hyperspace a hundred light-years from the Morobe system, into a system with a white dwarf for a sun.	location: nameless barren system. Near Morobe.
332	Night Caller was the last ship on station. Already in formation were the Imperial Star Destroyer Implacable, the Imperial escort frigate Provocateur, and the Corellian corvette Constrictor.	Some Zsinj-controlled ships are mentioned.
335	Instantly, all three vessels launched their TIE fighters: Night Caller's four from her former escape pod ports, Constrictor's four from her bow hold, and Provocateur 's two dozen from her hangar bays.	The escort frigate Provocateur carries two squadrons of fighters. Thus, it is not necessarily a Kuat Drive Yards Nebulon-B, which is said to normally carry only one squadron.
345	They were in the inflatable dome that served the temporary Talasea camp as an officers' mess, unwinding over beer and brandy that tasted something like ship's fuel. ... Wedge took another pull from his petrochemical-flavored brandy.	Star Wars ships use petrochemicals as fuel? The performance characteristics of most starships and their weapons, particularly the big vessels like star destroyers, hint at more compact energy sources, with efficiencies close to or exceeding what would be expected from perfect annihilation. If the drives are annihilation-based, then any kind of matter could be used as fuel, so long as it was easy to store and handle within the ship. Other novels mention more primitive energy sources, such as fusion. These are probably not sufficient for some feats like powering the jump to hyperspace, but may have a peripheral role in sustaining the primary energy-generation process (whatever that may be).
348-349	...I am pleased to be able to present you with a first for Wraith Squadron: the Kalidor Crescent." The assembled pilots oohed and broke rank to applaud. The Crescent, always granted for bravery and piloting skill used in unison, was a mark of prestige throughout the armed forces.	culture: An award called the Kalidor Crescent. Does this have any relation to the medals and awards appearing in the LucasArts computer games? According to B.Carletti it is seen in the original X-Wing game.
353	Their next jump was to the Obinipor system, deeper in the Outer Rim but still in the path of the New Republic's gradual expansion. Obinipor, the next stop on Night Caller's circuit, was a free colony with an admirable mix of natural resources: metals suited to the fabrication of power generators, and active vulcanism providing the colonists with ready power of their own.	location: Obinipor system.
355		The commander of the ill-fated Provocateur was Imperial Captain Joshi.
355		tactics: Ackbar Slash.
358-359	Ession, Lucaya system, fourth planet (Corporate Sector). Settled four thousand years ago. Major centre for industrial manufacture. Nonaligned. Night Caller's last visit was eigteen months ago. No record of Zsinj-related contacts at that time. ... "Pakkerd Light Transport," he said. "Before the death of the Emperor, it was a division of Sienar Fleet Systems that built TIE fighters and Interceptors. After the Emperor died, Sienar sold it off and now it builds a `complete line of repulsorlift utility vehicles.'" ... "Owner, Oan Pakkerd. Probably another false Zsinj identity. Chief officer, Vanter Raffin. Head of security, Hola Paskalian."	location: Ession, planet in the Corporate Sector manufacturing starfighters for Warlord Zsinj. The planet has more than one moon [p.360]. chronology: Night Caller has served Warlord Zsinj for at least eighteen months. Are these terrestrial months or Coruscant months? characters: Oan Pakkerd; Vanter Raffin; Hola Paskalian.
360	Floating a few hundred metres directly above them, sustained by tireless repulsorlift engines, was the Imperial-class Star Destroyer Implacable.	":Imperial-class" seems to be a rebel colloquialism for the Imperator-class star destroyer. The destroyer can comfortably rest on its repulsors in a gravity field 0.4 times standard. This might be a reference to the Earth standard, or it might be the Coruscant standard, which is calculated in Standard Units.
361		tactics: follow best (involves moving ahead to lure enemy ship into a false sense of security)
362	"Do you know how long it has been since I saw my home, sir?" "Two years, seven months." Trigit glanced off to the side. "And six days. Thankyou, Lieutenant."	chronology: The duration of Captain Darillian's absence from Coruscant. Are these months in the terrestrial sense, or else the 35-day Coruscant standard?
371	Ahead, the blast doors separating bridge from security foyer began to close. Trigit gave up all pretense at dignity and dropped flat, elbow crawling with the speed of a much younger man. He scrambled into the foyer moments ahead of the door closing and was helped up by a stormtrooper.	Blast doors at the back of the star destroyer bridge close when atmospheric integrity is lost. This mechanism would have been ineffective in the case of the Executor at the Battle of Endor, because the area behind the bridge would also have been punctured by the remains of the incoming A-Wing.
371-372	Trigit pointed at the chief communications officer. "Get the auxiliary bridge to transfer bridge functions to the consoles here." The deck shuddered faintly under his feet. "Are our shields up?" "Checking." The officer brought up a diagnostics readout. He winced. "Sir, they took out the shield generator domes when they hit the bridge."	The Implacable has a single auxiliary bridge. The scanner globes atop the standard KDY bridge tower are once again incorrectly referred to as shield towers.
372	He felt a shudder in the keel as the ship's repulsors were called upon to hold a position they were not designed to assume; only the moon's four-tenths of a standard gravity permitted the maneuver at all. ... The corvette jerked and her engines moaned. She rose a few metres more above the moon's surface — then hovered, thrusters blasting away, tethered to the moon by her own tractor beam.	The thrust of the Night Caller's engines is comparable to the combined pull of the tractor beam and Ession's moon's gravity. Surface gravity on Ession's moon is four-tenths of Coruscant standard. Coruscant standard is somewhat higher than Earth's gravity, at least according to numbers derived from Galaxy Guide 2. [See Standard Units.]
373		Reference to star destroyer's communications tower.
375		Mentions bow guns on the Night Caller. This is further evidence that the ship is in a class very distinct from the Tantive IV corvette. There are no bow guns on the Tantive IV, although other designs of Corellian combat starships have turrets on either side of the hammerhead, or mounted dorsally.
385	"...I have my personal Interceptor standing by. It is equipped with a hyperdrive, as are its two escort Interceptors. ..."	A TIE Interceptor modified to carry a hyperdrive. It must be wondered whther this would be visibly different from the regular Interceptors. Could this actully be the same model as Lord Vader's TIE, or an advanced fighter of Avenger or Defender design?
391	Coldness gripped at kell as his body heat fled his inadequately insulated pilot's suit and the magnetic containment field around it.	technology: Another indication of capabilities and limitations of rebel pilot flight suits; their containment field.
394-395	"Captain, we accept the commander's offer." Wedge went cold. He knew that voice. The captain's voice returned. "You're only an observer here. You don't issue orders to —" Then a scream. Face's voice: "Sithspit, he's vaped his own man." The precise voice returned. "I apologize. A slight question of chain of command. Commander, you have a deal. All Implacable forces, break off now. Come to heading two-seventy." ... Wedge's weapons officer stared wide-eyed. "You looked like you knew him." "You might way that. That was Baron Soontir Fel." The officer paled and returned his attention to his weapons board. Baron Fel, since the death of Darth Vader, was accounted the best Imperial pilot living, and his elite 181st Imperial Fighter Group was the most accomplished fighter unit the Empire could field. What was he doing as an observer on Admiral Trigit's ship?	character: Baron Fel, flyer of airspeeders, pilot of TIE fighters, destroyer of Z-95s, captain of Dreadnaughts, and observer of rouge Imperial warships returns again. The question Antilles ponders is a good one, since Baron Fel apparently was captured and defected to the New Republic about three years previously, in the X-Wing Rogue Squadron comic series.

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