He needed to team Dillon with a wingman who outranked him, that much was evident. Let Flash be the ranking officer on some patrol mission which ran into trouble and the result would be disaster. Blair knew he would have to match Dillon with either himself Hobbes, or Maniac Marshall — the only three pilots in Gold Squadron with the rank to keep Dillon under tight control.
Blair was sorely tempted to assign Flash as Maniac's wingman. The two deserved each other, and it might have been a valuable lesson for Marshall to see what it was like to fly with someone unreliable on his wing. But that would have been a risky choice at best. If Maniac didn't rise to the challenge, Blair would end up with two dead pilots. Even unreliable fighter jocks were assets not to be squandered so carelessly.
So the choice remained between himself and Hobbes. He hesitated over it for a long time before finally putting Flash on Ralgha's wing. Blair was concerned that he was letting his personal distaste for the younger man cloud his judgment. but in the end, he decided that the Kilrathi renegade's calm, tightly-controlled manner was the right counterbalance to Dillon's inexperience and enthusiasm.
Flash accepted the match-up with equanimity. Apparently he harbored no special feelings against the Kilrathi, and seemed content to fly with Hobbes. The two left on patrol soon after the jump and the patrol was successful, without incident.
But Blair found himself resenting the necessity which forced him to assign Hobbes and Flash together. He missed flying with Ralgha on his wing. Flint had done a competent job, and he had flown a couple of patrols with Vaquero that went well, but it wasn't the same. He still didn't know the others in the squadron the way he knew Hobbes, and he couldn't count on them to know his mind the way the Kilrathi always did.
Blair wearily straightened in his desk chair. Sometimes it seemed as if he would never get a handle on the assignment to Victory. He had always found it easy to meld into a new ship's company, but this time was different. He came on board determined to remain distant from the others. Blair needed to avoid getting too close, as he had done with his comrades on the Concordia. Blair doubted he could handle losing another shipload of friends . . . but he was finding it difficult to deal with day-to-day life among people who were still essentially strangers. Perhaps he had made the wrong decision from the start.
He slowly rose. The day's work was done and his bunk was waiting for him.
All that really seemed to matter anymore was getting through one more day, performing his duties, and somehow staying sane in the face of a war that seemed more insane every day. It was a far cry from the dreams of glory that had once beckoned Christopher Blair into the life of a fighter pilot, but duty — simple and straightforward — was all that remained for him.
CHAPTER IX
At first glance, there were no customers in the Rec Room when Blair entered, only the grizzled old petty officer who ran the bar. He was a member of the crew from the old Leningrad years ago; one of the handful of survivors who managed to escape the Kilrathi attack that destroyed her. The wounds he suffered in the escape were enough to have him invalided out of active duty, but Dmitri Rostov loved the Service too much to really retire. So he tended bar and swapped stories about the old days, never complaining about the arm and the eye sacrificed in the service of the Confederation.
Ironically, Leningrad was destroyed by the Imperial cruiser Ras Nik'hra, under the command of Ralgha nar Hhallas before his decision to defect. Blair had been pleasantly surprised to learn that Rostov didn't seem to hold a grudge against the Kilrathi, indeed he rather seemed to enjoy talking to the renegade when Hobbes came in to drink.
It was a pity some of the people who served with the Kilrathi pilot could not bury the hatchet the same way.
"Hey, Rosty, how's it going?" Blair gave him a friendly wave. "Don't tell me none of my drunks are hanging out here tonight."
Rostov shrugged and grunted as Blair approached the bar, gesturing toward the observation window on the far side of the compartment. One lonely figure stood framed against the star field, staring out at the void. It was Flint.
"A slow night tonight, Comrade Colonel," Rostov agreed. He ventured a heavy smile. "Perhaps you work them too hard, tire them out too much. Even when I get a customer, it is to look, not to drink."
"I'll take a scotch," Blair said. He waited while the one-armed bartender programmed the order then handed him the glass, using his thumbprint to charge the drink to his account. "Thanks, Bear."
He crossed to the window where Flint stood, but didn't speak. Part of him wanted to respect her privacy, but another part wanted to draw her out, discover something about the woman behind the barriers she put around herself. She was his wingman, and Blair needed to know more about her, even if she was reluctant to be open with others.
The lieutenant seemed totally absorbed in her own thoughts, and Blair doubted she even noticed him. But after a moment she glanced at him. "Sir," she said quietly. That one word carried a range of emotion, sadness, and loneliness mixed with a hint of stubborn pride, exposing a glimpse into Flint's soul.
"I didn't mean to disturb you, Lieutenant," Blair said. "I was just wondering what it was about the view that had you so . . . involved."
"Just . . . thinking, '' she said reluctantly.
"I flew here once," Blair went on. "A lot of places to hide in this system, with the moons and the asteroids. Your first time?"
Flint shook her head ruefully. "This is my home system sir," she told him. "My father commanded a Home Defense squadron after we settled here from Earth. Taught me everything he knew about flying."
"A family tradition, then," Blair commented.
She looked away. "He planned to pass it on to my brother David, but . . . the Kilrathi had their own plans."
"I'm sorry," Blair said, knowing the inadequacy of words. He should never have questioned her, dredging up the past this way.
"Everyone's lost someone, I guess," Flint said with a little shrug. "They don't give you medals for it. But coming back like this . . . it brings back a lot of memories, is all. A lot of stuff I haven't thought about since I went away to the Academy."
"You haven't been back since then?"
She shook her head. "Not much point. My mother took Davie's death hard. She just . . . gave up. He died when I was fifteen. My Dad was killed in the cockpit fighting the cats when they raided here the year after I left. He scored twenty-one kills over the years after Davie was killed. He said each one of them was dedicated to Davie's memory, so he'd have a proper escort of cats to join him in the afterlife. They said . . . they said he died trying to nail number twenty-two, which would have matched Davie's age, but Dad didn't make it." Her voice was flat, level, but Blair could see a hint of tears in her eyes. "I've made eighteen kills since I left the Academy. Four more for Davie, and then I start racking them up for Dad. Maybe I won't score fifty-seven for him, but I'm damned well going to try."
Blair didn't say anything for a long time. He wasn't sure what bothered him most, the woman s preoccupation with vengeance or the cold, matter-of-fact way she talked about it. It was almost as if she was so wrapped up in her quest that she had lost touch with the emotions that set her on the path in the first place.
Finally he changed the subject, gesturing toward the viewport. "Which one was home?"
She pointed to a distant gleam of blue-green, barely showing a disk. "Locanda Four. The main colony world." She paused. "It's a pretty world . . . or it was. Dark purple nights, with bright moons that chased each other across the sky. The insects would sing . . . different serenades, depending on the closeness of the moons. Davie and I would sit up late together, just listening . . ."