“Well,” he said, when the inspection was finally finished. “This doesn’t bode well for the future, does it?”
He allowed himself to glare at the pilots who’d had to request items from the supply officer, then sighed out loud. “You need to learn to pay close attention to detail,” he said. “I suggest, very strongly, that you learn.”
Turning, he marched out of the compartment, leaving Wing Commander Paton to lecture the pilots who’d slipped up, badly. Outside, he met Rose and Commander Amelia Williams, who nodded shortly to him. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of the XO, but she seemed competent and didn’t seem inclined to mess around with his responsibilities. That alone was enough to endear her to him.
“We found only a small amount of illicit goods,” Amelia said. “Either they didn’t have the opportunity to find much at Sin City or they had more sense than we expected.”
“That’s a relief,” Kurt said, as he followed them into a small room. It was also odd. The last time he’d been to Sin City, he’d had to avoid the attentions of hundreds of sellers, all of whom seemed to think he had money to burn. “Anything particularly dangerous?”
“Just this,” Rose said, picking up a headband from the table. “We don’t know who it belonged to.”
Kurt sighed as he took it. The headband directly simulated the pleasure centres in a person’s brain, allowing them to forget their troubles in a wash of orgasmic pleasure. It was definitely safer than drugs, legal or illegal, and it had few physical effects, but the mental addiction could be impossible to break. Once, he’d tried it as a teenager, then thrown it away in horror at just what it had done. A few more doses, he knew, and he would have done anything for another one. The last he’d heard, the girlfriend who had introduced him to the experience had been sent to a mental hospital. She could easily be dead by now.
“We’ll know if someone is addicted soon enough,” he said. Symptoms would appear within a day or so, hopefully before they actually tried to fly a starfighter. It would play merry hell with his training schedule if they had to force everyone to wait until someone either showed signs of withdrawal or nothing happened within two to three days. “Maybe they didn’t have time to become addicted.”
He sighed. The last group of pilots might have included some of the dregs of the service, but at least they hadn’t been complete newcomers.
“We’ll have to hope,” he said. “What else did we find?”
He cast an eye over the small pile. There were several small bottles of alcohol — they’d go into the R&R collection — a small handful of unidentified pills that had to be illicit drugs and a number of datachips. Probably pornography, Kurt decided, and probably something not entirely acceptable in polite company. He picked up the chip, toyed with inspecting it, then dropped it into the disposer. Moments later, the drugs and all of the datachips had been destroyed.
“Check the bottles, then put them in the shared stockpile,” he ordered Rose. “As long as these are the only problems we should be fine.”
“I can’t say I’m impressed,” the XO said. “There should be punishment duties at the very least.”
Kurt eyed her, stung. “Commander,” he said, “these are young and stupid rooks, not experienced pilots. Mistakes — and attempts to parse out the limits of the rules — are fairly standard for them.”
“Between them,” the XO said, “they have been forced to pay out over a thousand pounds, merely to replace items of clothing they forgot to bring. I don’t think it bodes well for discipline.”
The hell of it, Kurt knew, was that he agreed with her. It didn’t bode well for discipline, particularly in the cramped confines of a carrier’s pilot barracks. But, at the same time, he knew that most of the newcomers had barely enough training to get through the intensive course. They’d certainly not been taught anything past piloting, perhaps in the hopes they’d pick it up while on deployment, and it showed. By God, it showed.
“They have only had three months of training, Commander,” he said, carefully. “I believe we will have plenty of time to teach them how to comport themselves as proper crewmen as well as pilots.”
“I hope you’re right,” the XO said. “Have you completed the inspections?”
Kurt nodded, once.
“The Captain wishes to speak with you, as soon as convenient,” the XO said. “I suggest you go now.”
“Yes, Commander,” Kurt said. He’d been in the Navy long enough to know that when the Captain called, you went at once, unless there was a genuinely life-threatening emergency underway. And there wasn’t one now. “I’ll go see him at once.”
James was working his way through yet another set of paperwork when the hatch buzzed, informing him that someone was waiting outside. He hit the switch to open the hatch, then pushed the handful of terminals to one side as Wing Commander Schneider entered the small compartment. The Wing Commander looked tired, even though he’d had several days of leave between his last assignment and the return to Ark Royal. But there was no time to consider the problem now.
“I’m sorry for summoning you,” he said, as he motioned for the CAG to sit down. He was gloomily aware that his voice sounded awkward. “But there is a topic I have to discuss.”
“Yes, sir,” Schneider said, sitting down.
James frowned. The CAG sounded… guilty. Perhaps he thought James was going to blame him for the poor inspection results, particularly as Schneider had been one of the instructors at the Academy. But James had no intention of throwing the blame around so unpleasantly, not when he remembered being a young and stupid graduate himself. He’d had some wild times in Sin City too.
“You have a pilot assigned to your command,” James said, carefully. He wished he could just tell Schneider the truth, but it would make it harder for him to give a honest answer. “I believe you also taught him at the Academy. His name is Charles Augustus.”
Schneider looked puzzled, yet oddly relieved. “Sir?”
“I need to know your impressions of him,” James said. “What do you make of him?”
He cursed, inwardly, as Schneider considered. The CAG was far from stupid — and it was rare for a starship’s commanding officer to take any interest in a single junior crewman, unless the crewman had done something very good or very bad. He would deduce that there was some reason for the interest and do… what? The Royal Navy was generally very good at preventing predators from rising to positions of power, but there had been some failures…
“He’s certainly capable,” Schneider said, finally. “Smart, motivated, rarely makes the same mistake twice… and one of the very few not to forget anything when the rooks were shipped from the Academy to the Old Lady. But he has a chip on his shoulder about something, sir, and I don’t know about what. His file is curiously light.”
James groaned, inwardly. A light file suggested a false name; indeed, a complete false identity. And that meant that people very high up in the Admiralty had signed off on creating the identify for Charles Augustus. It wouldn’t be hard to deduce his true identity from the simple lack of many other prospective candidates.
“I expect you to keep an eye on him,” James said, finally. “But you are not to discuss this with him at all. Do you understand me?”