"How will you find anything out about them if you don't fly with them?"
"Every time they go out the launch tubes, I follow the mission from Flight Control, Captain. Believe me, I'm starting to get a pretty good idea of how they fly . . . and how they think. I'll start rotating the roster when I'm ready . . . and not before then."
"Well, I strongly suggest you speed up the process a bit, Colonel," Eisen said. "Get to know them and start flying with them. If you don't, I think you're going to have a serious morale problem. Is that clear?"
"As a bell, sir."
"Then you're dismissed." Eisen hesitated a moment. "And . . . good luck out there today, Colonel."
"Thank you, sir." Blair stood and gave Eisen a quick salute, then left the ready room. As he rode down the elevator to the Flight Deck, he reviewed in his mind everything the captain said. By the time the doors slid open, he was seething inside.
Someone plainly ran to Eisen behind his back, carrying tales, and hinting that Blair was unfit. Blair was sure he knew just who it was.
A knock on the door made Blair look up from his computer terminal. "Enter," he said.
"You wanted to see me, Colonel?" It was Maniac Marshall, wearing a flight suit and carrying his colorfully painted helmet under one arm. "I'm up for a patrol in fifteen minutes, so this'd better be quick."
"It will be, Marshall," Blair said coldly.
The major started to sit, but Blair fixed him with an angry stare. "I didn't give you permission to make yourself at home, Mister," he told the pilot. "You're at attention."
Marshall hesitated a moment, then straightened up. "Yes, sir, Colonel, sir," he responded.
"I have a little job for you, Major," Blair said, his voice low and dangerous. "This morning, before my escort run with Hobbes, Captain Eisen chatted with me about this unit's morale. He seemed to feel that I was not inspiring confidence and good feeling among my people here.
Marshall didn't respond. There was a long silence before Blair continued. "From some of the things he said, I suspect that someone in the wing has been going behind my back to him, carrying all sorts of complaints about the way I choose to run things. Needless to say, Major, I regard this as a very serious breach of protocol. Members of a flight wing do not go outside the chain of command with their petty jealousies and personal problems, and I intend to have no repetitions of this little incident. Therefore, Major, I'm putting you in charge of reporting any further violations of military procedure in the wing to me. If it comes to my attention that there have been additional incidents of wing personnel going outside the chain of command this way, I'll hold you responsible. Do I make myself clear, Major?"
"Crystal clear," Marshall said, enunciating each syllable precisely. After a long pause he added, "Sir."
"Very good, Major," Blair said. "I won't keep you from your patrol any longer. You're dismissed."
He leaned back in his chair as Marshall left the office, feeling some of the anger and tension draining from him. Blair was convinced from the very beginning that Marshall was the one who had been complaining to Eisen, but of course he had no proof. This put Maniac on notice without requiring any actual accusations.
The confrontation alleviated some of the frustrations of the morning operation. He and Hobbes had escorted the transport to the jump point without any sign of an enemy fighter. The return trip proved equally peaceful. That was good, in one sense, but it was beginning to seem as if he would never get a chance to compensate for their first unsuccessful mission. It was even more unnerving to discover that raiders had hit another ship leaving the Locanda System at the same jump point just an hour after Blair and Hobbes returned to the Victory.
The whole situation gave him pause for thought. He could not help mulling over the conversation with Hobbes after their first battle and the Kilrathi's speculations about the possibility of an intelligence breach. Could someone be feeding details of Confed ship movements to the enemy? And, if so, was there some specific reason why he and Hobbes might be singled out for special attention? Blair was still struck by the fact that the Kilrathi had seemed to want to avoid engaging Hobbes . . . .
He remembered old Cultural Intelligence briefings about Kilrathi social customs. Perhaps there was a high-ranking Imperial noble assigned to the Orsini System who had declared a formal state of feud with Ralgha nar Hhallas. That might make other pilots wary of getting involved, leading them to avoid action against Hobbes.
It sounded like a good working theory . . . but it still suggested that the Kilrathi knew much more about Confed operations than they should. Were they simply keeping close track of Terran communications or might there be spies in the fleet, even here aboard the Victory?
Did Cobra, the ex-slave, have any place in all this? Or was it all just an unfortunate but suspicious coincidence?
Blair hoped that was the case. He did not want to face the reality that someone in his flight wing was actually a Kilrathi spy.
"Sir?"
Blair turned his chair to face the door to the Flight Control Center. It was nearly midnight, ship's time, but he had decided to spend some extra hours tonight going over flight plans for the Wing's projected operations for the next day. He hoped to extend patrols to cover the Locanda jump point more effectively so that future losses in that volume of space might be avoided. If he couldn't find a better way to keep the Kilrathi raiders under control, he would talk Eisen into actually moving the carrier closer to the jump point for a more constant watch.
He was glad of the interruption. It was difficult and tedious work at best. After working for hours, any break in the routine was welcome.
Blair studied the slender, slightly-built young woman standing in the open doorway. She was another of Gold Squadron's pilots, Lieutenant Robin Peters, but so far he had not spoken with her. Nonetheless, Blair was impressed by both her combat record and her patrol performance since he had joined the ship. She was most frequently teamed with Chang as wingman. The two made a competent team. "They call you Flint, right?" he asked.
She nodded. "Glad to see you've at least looked over the flight roster, sir," she said with a faint smile.
"I've given it a glance," Blair responded.
"Then maybe you've noticed, sir, that there are other pilots on board, aside from Colonel Ralgha."
"People on this ship sure as hell do take a lot of interest in my choice of partners," Blair said. "Wingman assignments were still my prerogative, last time I checked."
"Sir," the lieutenant began, sounding tentative. "I come from a long line of fighter pilots. My brother, my father, his father before him . . . I guess you could say flying's in my blood."
"Your point being . . . ?"
"I know your record, and I would expect you to at least look over ours. We have racked up our share of kills. We're not scrubs out here, sir."
"Nobody said you were," Blair told her.
"No, sir, nobody ever said anything. But you've made it pretty clear you don't think the rest of us are worth flying with." She looked away. "If you don't give us a try, how are you ever going to decide if we're up to your standards?"