CHAPTER TWO
Blair stood in the anteroom leading to the Orion's observation deck, cooling his heels and savoring a cup of real coffee with real cream. He could not recall the last time he had sipped the genuine article, certainly not since his emigration to Neph Two. The beans didn't grow there naturally, and the imported stuff was far too expensive for a colonel on retirement half-pay.
He inhaled the rich aroma as he wondered why Tolwyn had recalled him. It certainly wasn't because he was one of the admiral's favorites. His relationship with Tolwyn had generally been polite, though cool. He smiled. Tolwyn rarely did anything without reason, though his having reasons and his communicating them were two different things entirely.
He teased his swollen lip with his tongue as he pondered why Tolwyn had selected the Orion for their meeting. The admiral would have to travel out from Earth to L5, an unusual expense of both time and money for him to commit to a mere colonel. He wondered what made such effort necessary, unless the admiral had other reasons for being on the station.
The presence of the battle station at the Lagrange point surprised him. He knew that the Orion had been in low earth orbit as part of Terra's last line of defense and that the Kilrathi had severely damaged it in their attack. He tapped the cup against his teeth as he tried without success to recall a newsfax or tape-delay broadcast reporting the move. He doubted that it had been reported, a lapse he found curious given the station's size and the tremendous expense of boosting it up Earths gravity well.
Why the sudden interest in L5? he wondered. A body placed there would remain indefinitely, courtesy of the offsetting tugs of gravity of Earth, Luna and the sun. He knew that in Earth's ancient history there had been an attempt to use L5 and the other Lagrange points as construction sites for huge metal colonies, but the discovery of the jump-drive and the plethora of main sequence stars with Earthlike planets had nixed that. Now, it seemed someone was taking a step back in history.
An aide de camp entered through the thin door that separated the anteroom from the upper observation deck. "The admiral will see you now."
Blair regretfully surrendered his coffee cup to her. She opened the door and stepped back, gesturing for him to enter.
Tolwyn stood on the opposite side of the room, hands clasped behind his ramrod straight back as he looked out the large observation windows. Blair saw two huge silvery, lattice-covered shapes in the middle distance. He suspected that his shuttles circuitous inbound route had been designed to avoid giving him a view of them.
Blair crossed the room to him, letting the sounds of his heels on the metal floor announce his presence. He stepped to within six feet of the admiral's back and brought his heels together with a soft click as he came to attention. "Colonel Christopher Blair of the Space Forces Reserves, reporting as ordered, sir."
Tolwyn didn't turn. "That was a bit formal for you, wasn't it, Colonel?"
"I'm not used to being drafted, sir," Blair replied dryly, "I'm a little vague on the protocols."
Tolwyn tipped his head slightly. "I had my reasons." He paused. "At ease, Colonel. Will you join me by the window?"
Blair broke from his brace and moved to stand at Tolwyn's right, where he could see both the ships and Tolwyn's face. He stood silently a moment, taking in the panoramic view.
Blair glanced at the admiral. Tolwyn's uniform (shipboard, officers' greens, flame retardant) was creased and impeccably tailored, as always. His own uniform had been in a box in the quartermaster's stores until twelve hours before. It fit, but not well. He'd always been casual about his uniforms, preferring to let his reputation do his talking for him. This time, however, he felt rumpled and shabby.
Tolwyn turned towards him, his blue eyes unreadable in his seamed face. Tolwyn looked as he always did, neither old nor young, his close-cropped white hair notwithstanding. Blair chose to remain at ease, rather than coming to attention as regulations and custom dictated. The two men shared a long look.
Tolwyn was the first to look away. "I see you've put on weight," he said, patting his own flat stomach. "Civilian life must agree with you."
"I get along," Blair replied noncommittally.
Tolwyn nodded agreeably, the first thaw in his cool demeanor. "You took up sheepherding, didn't you?"
"Farming," Blair corrected dryly.
Tolwyn shrugged, his casual dismissal suggesting the two were one and the same. "I envy you."
"How's that?" Blair asked warily.
"On the farm, issues are simple," the admiral replied, "out here, things get tougher."
"How's that?" Blair repeated, his attention fully on the admiral.
Tolwyn pointed down towards the blackened frames that jutted from the Orion's side. "That," he said, "is all that remains of launch bay number three. A single Darket flew into it and exploded. The bay was full of fighters, fully fueled and armed, and all spotted for launch. The explosions destroyed the bay and spread fires through the ventilation system before the computer closed them down. Havoc spread throughout the station. A quarter of the crew died." He looked at Blair. "All from a single Darket."
"I don't understand," Blair replied.
"Sometimes, Colonel," Tolwyn said, "a tiny flame can start a great big fire." He pursed his lips. "My job is to put the flames out, before they become fires." The admiral shifted his gaze. "They're beauties, aren't they?"
It took Blair a moment to realize that Tolwyn had changed the subject and was referring to the twin super carriers hanging in space. "Yes, sir," he replied, choosing a safe answer.
Tolwyn smiled. "These are the future of power projection—our newest fleet carriers, the Vesuvius and the Mount St. Helens. They'll be CVs 70 and 71 when they're commissioned." He smiled. "They're the best, most modem expression of tactical design and thought."
Blair turned his attention to the huge ships. He had seen news-vid reports of their construction, but the holo-tapes hadn't given him any idea of their sheer size.
The carriers looked to be about twice the length of the Concordia, which had been one of the largest CVs in the Fleet before it had been destroyed over Earth.
The nearer ship appeared to be largely complete. It had two cigar-shaped external bays that ran parallel to its center mass and were connected by short, squarish pylons. The bays were well-proportioned, their lines flowing into the main hull and giving the massive ship a sleek, lethal look. Blair, accustomed to the boxy, utilitarian appearance of Terran construction, whistled in surprised appreciation.
The second ship, floating somewhat further away, was still under primary construction. Blair could see the shiny exposed ribs of the unfinished launch bays and the exposed skeleton around the nose. Hundreds of lights glittered like fireflies along the ship's flanks. It took him a moment to realize the winking stars were welders.
"They look Kilrathi," he said.
"We have incorporated the latest Kilrathi technology," Tolwyn admitted grudgingly, "which might account for the superficially Cat appearance. We borrowed some ideas from the super carriers they launched against Earth."
Blair said nothing, seeing a flicker of emotion on Tolwyn's face. It had, indeed, been Tolwyn's finest hour, Blair realized. A bomb carried by a Kilrathi agent had wiped out the Joint Chiefs and Tolwyn was named commander of all Earth defenses in the crisis. It had been Tolwyn who had warned against the Kilrathi truce, which had granted the Cats time to bring their new carriers on-line. It was Tolwyn who led the masterful fighting withdrawal all the way from the frontier to Earth orbit . . . it was Tolwyn who had saved humanity when all seemed lost. Blair felt a moment of sympathy for the admiral. If, at that moment of victory, Tolwyn had been lost he would have been remembered forever as the greatest hero of the war.
Blair remembered how, in spite of all their differences, he had looked upon him with awe during that campaign; calm, unflappable, inspiring those around him to give their all, for they knew the man at the top was the best combat commander in the fleet. If only he had retired then, or been kicked upstairs to head of Joint Chiefs, the humiliations that came afterwards would have been avoided. Blair guessed that it was there that this change in the admiral had really started. Joint Chiefs should have been his next command, but political insiders, many of whom had fallen for the Kilrathi truce, were quickly back in the saddle and pronounced that the admiral was "too valuable a field commander" to be pulled from action by the promotion. Tolwyn was the goose who had laid the golden egg of a victory undreamed of, but when called upon to do it again, he had failed. That failure must now be eating at his soul.
"The design of these new ships, in spite of the borrowing, are entirely human, Colonel. I was head of the advisory board that laid out the specifications."
Blair sensed that Tolwyn had somehow picked up on his thoughts; he looked away from the penetrating gaze.
"Each will mass a quarter million gross tons, carry a crew of seventy-eight hundred, and will maintain a complement of over four-hundred fighters and utility craft."
Blair whistled again. A fleet carrier generally carried a single wing with about a hundred fighters and bombers. "I thought they were propaganda," he said.
"Oh?" Tolwyn's eyebrows arched in surprise. "How so?"
Blair shrugged. "I didn't think we had the ability to build something this big." He glanced at Tolwyn. The admiral nodded his head fractionally, signalling him to continue.
Blair took a deep breath. "The Kilrathi bombs wiped out most of Earth's northern industrial cities. They also pasted the lunar shipyards." He tipped his head towards the ships. "It just doesn't seem possible to build these without a shipyard or local industry, especially with a depressed economy. We've even heard rumors of starvation and food riots."
Tolwyn frowned. "You ought to pay closer attention to the real news. We've made considerable progress in rebuilding infrastructure." He tapped his chin with one forefinger. "Still, you may have a point." He nodded his head decisively. "We'll get some media up here, let them see the construction firsthand. That'll answer the propaganda question. It might boost morale as well."
Blair wanted to comment that he suspected the sight of such extravagance might, in fact, have the opposite effect with a lot of civilians.
"Admiral," Blair asked, gesturing towards the Vesuvius, "how are you doing this?"
Tolwyn pointed toward a small cluster of ships hovering near the carriers. "Those are foundry ships," he said, "mobile factories designed to travel from system to system, building the tools that planets needed to fix and upgrade their industries. I saw that they could also serve as a stopgap until we were able to restore our shipbuilding capability. So, I borrowed them." He smiled proudly. "Their output is a fraction of what Earth's was, but beggars can't be choosers."
"What about the Inner Worlds?" Blair asked. "Don't they need them?"
Tolwyn shrugged. "They're enterprising people. They'll figure something out." He looked slyly at Blair. "They might even build more for themselves."
Blair let his sarcasm show. "Wouldn't you just take those, too?"
"Probably," Tolwyn replied, taking him at face value. "I could use a few more." He tipped his chin towards the foundry ships. "They really are marvels. With them, we can produce everything we need right here on site, right down to smelting our own ore. We get some raw ore sent up from Luna, mostly specialty stuff for alloys. They boost it up using railguns. Most of the iron ore we get, though, comes from the asteroid belt out beyond Mars.
"All our mining ships have to do," Tolwyn elaborated, "is apply enough energy to knock the asteroids out of their orbits and aim them at L5. I'm told the vector mechanics are tricky and it takes the ore a couple of years to get here, but we get most of the iron we need for durasteel for a few centi-credits per ton."
He laughed. "That's why we're building here." He patted the observation port. "Occasionally, the catchers miss a piece and we have to dust it, but this old girl still has enough juice in her to do that."
Tolwyn tipped his head towards the grapefruit-sized moon. "We've also begun a reclamation project for the ships we lost at Luna. We do import a lot from out-system, but it's less than you might think." He smiled as he looked out on the ships. "I've seen to it that these two have a pretty high priority. Getting transport hulls to haul what we need isn't a problem."
Isn't a problem? Blair repeated silently. He thought of his troubles getting spare parts on Nephele. The colony world's problems seemed emblematic of the Confederation as a whole; a deteriorating economy, a worn-down infrastructure, and an exhausted population compounded the lack of trade, jobs, and confidence in the government. Taken together, they added up to a serious crisis.
It appalled him that the factory ships and the transports were being used to build warships and haul military freight rather than being used to rebuild the economy.
Blair frowned, surprised at his own internal shift. He had no adult experience in the civilian world before his retirement, and hadn't really understood what the populace was going through to support the war. Two years grubbing in the dirt in Nephele to bring in a crop and fighting with the Farm Bureau had broadened his horizons in ways he'd never expected.
Tolwyn didn't miss the shift in his expression. "I take it you don't approve of my little project?"
Blair shook his head. "Admiral, we just finished a war—a war we were losing. We got lucky with one sucker punch, but otherwise we were on our way out." He glanced over at Tolwyn. "For what's being committed here," he paused, trying to organize his thoughts, "in terms of resources, wouldn't it have been better to build two or three new fleet carriers, or better yet—a couple of dozen jeep carriers, which you thought up in the first place?"
He saw the flicker of a smile at the intended compliment and his own response was one of feeling angry with himself for sucking up in such a manner. The problem was the jeep carrier concept had a hell of a lot of merit; they were cheap to build, and could put assets into a dozen systems for the price of one standard carrier. An old buddy of his, Bonderavsky, had risen to rear admiral at the close of the war commanding a jeep carrier task force.
"We need transports as well, sir. They could serve a dual purpose of replacing the fleet transports lost in the war while helping rebuild the economy, and a bunch of these factory ships . . . you know, to help rebuild the economy . . ." He faltered under Tolwyn's bemused glance.
"When did you become a bleeding heart, Colonel?" Tolwyn asked, his voice light. "Please remember that even with these two on-line we'll still have only two-thirds of the fighter strength we had before the attack on Earth."
"I thought the war was over," Blair said dryly
"Don't fool yourself," Tolwyn said quietly "We're still at war." He paused. "We're at war to save ourselves." Blair kept his expression neutral as Tolwyn continued. "We're mired in a depression, Colonel. The unity that held us together through three decades is fraying now that the Kilrathi have faded. Law and order are concepts that are crumbling throughout the Confederation. We're drifting, losing our sense of purpose."
He looked away from Blair and out the observation port. Blair saw his face reflected in the glass, framed by the two carriers. "These ships are symbols that we are, in spite of our current troubles, undiminished. They'll unite us now that we have no enemy to face."
"Are they symbols?" Blair asked, alarmed by the direction and tone of Tolwyn's words. "Or threats?"
"Colonel," Tolwyn said coldly, "you're on the edge of being insubordinate. The second you put that uniform on, you were subject to Fleet discipline."
His voice softened. "In the Kilrathi, we had a common enemy, something we could face together. Now that's gone, and we're losing touch with our common heritage." He looked at Blair. "We have to work together to restore our common faith, our unity."
Blair took the olive branch. "So, what does that have to do with me?"
"I'm sure you've heard of the crises in the Border Worlds," Tolwyn said.
"Bits and pieces," Blair answered. Then unable to resist the gibe at the continuing censorship, added, "The news services aren't as informative as they once were, however."
Tolwyn nodded, again taking Blair's comment at face value. "In the last several months, Colonel, we've suffered a series of escalating attacks. It started with pirate raids, terrorism, sabotage—all conducted by persons unknown and on a fairly small scale. It's since grown to include attacks on convoys, guerrilla raids on Confed bases, and direct attacks on isolated Confed military units. It's gotten serious enough to merit a Fleet reaction."
He looked at Blair and began ticking points off on his fingers. "Our mission is twofold. The first and most immediate mission is to protect Confederation lives and property by putting a stop to these activities. Our second task is to determine if these are random acts perpetrated by opportunists or if this is part of a larger campaign to undermine Confed authority."
Blair looked at him, his voice tinged with incredulity. "You called me back for this? A police mission? Don't you have any other pilots?"
Tolwyn clasped his hands behind his back again. "I'm sending the Lexington to patrol the sector adjacent to the Border Worlds and investigate the situation. I need your fame, your presence, to take some of the starch out of the raiders until we get organized. Hopefully, you'll help keep the situation under control until we can get it resolved."
"What if I decline?" Blair asked.
"I believe, Colonel," Tolwyn said without emotion, "that the Border Worlds are, at the least, turning a blind eye towards the raiders. They may actually be providing them aid and comfort, if not actively participating. I think your reputation, and by extension the implicit threat of what you did to Kilrah, will help scare them back into sanity."
He shrugged. "I won't stop you if you turn us down. You can go back to your farm and grub your rutabagas while we do the grand things. Or," he said simply, "you can join us—and maybe avert a war."
He abruptly pivoted and walked towards the door. Blair turned towards him. Tolwyn stopped at the door and looked back. "I've booked you in the Arrow simulator at 1900 hours—to get your certification up to date." He smiled thinly. "The raiders are using our equipment, so you'd better factor for that, too."
Blair turned back to the portal as Tolwyn left, studying the twin super carriers. They made him uncomfortable, though he couldn't say precisely why. He turned away from the twin ships. Tolwyn was his only route back into a cockpit, and the only life he'd ever really known. He hadn't realized how badly he'd missed it until Tolwyn had offered it to him. The decision, in the end, was easy.
He turned his back on the twin ships and started for the combat simulators. He could, if he hurried, book extra time. A tiny voice inside told him he was going to need it.
Blair felt the familiar thump as the Lexington's utility shuttle's gear hit the landing bay floor. He'd had to restrain himself from criticizing every aspect of the kid's flying ability. Face it, Chris, he said to himself, you're a lousy passenger. You'd rather fly the crates than be hauled around like freight.
The shuttle cleared the landing markers, more commonly known as the "bull's-eyes," and powered towards the embarkation area. Blair leaned forward in his spartan sling seat and watched the tell-tales over the side hatch. They flickered from red to green, indicating that the Lexington had restored artificial gravity and atmosphere to the landing bay.
The shuttle's internal PA, plugged into the Lexington's operations frequency, scratched out "All hands, secure from recovery operations. Flight deck pressure positive. Gravity positive. Landing bay secure for normal operations." Blair listened for the real instruction that everything was fine. He smiled as it came. "The smoking lamp is lit." He was back.
The shuttle hissed to a halt just inside the embark point. He stood and swept the technical manual for the Hellcat V into his flight bag, then went forward to collect his dunnage. He turned to the side portal, spun the manual lock and keyed the opening sequence. It lifted up, leaving him flabbergasted.
A dozen Marines in dress grays formed a double row leading from the base of the shuttle's ramp. The ship's captain, a black man of average height with a receding gray hairline, stood at the end of the human corridor. A small formation of officers came to attention behind the captain while a Marine corporal, carrying the ship's commissioning pennant, grounded the oak staff with enough force for the ferrule to strike sparks on the deck. An untidy knot of thirty or forty other crew members in work uniforms stood behind the official delegation, rubbernecking.
Blair walked down the shuttle's angled ramp, stepping carefully to avoid taking an embarrassing spill. The instant his feet touched the deck a bosun raised her hand to her lips and piped him aboard. He sighed, seeing no choice but to play out the charade. He dropped his bags, came to attention, and waited for the twittering to end. He then marched smartly between the double file of Marines and halted in front of the captain. "Permission to come aboard, sir?" he asked formally.
"Granted," Captain William Eisen replied loudly, his eyes dancing with amusement. He stepped forward, his hand extended. Blair took it, exchanging a warm handshake.
Blair recalled that it had been Eisen who had met him upon his arrival on board the TCS Victory. "This seems like deja vu," he said, "except this ship is much nicer."
"Home, sweet home," Eisen replied. "Welcome aboard, Chris." He grinned again, a fierce warrior's grimace that showed Blair what Eisen's Zulu ancestors must have looked like while they were slaughtering Englishmen. "We sure as hell need you."
Blair gave him a concerned look. "Is it as bad as all that? Tolwyn gave me the impression we'd just be showing the flag."
Eisen made a noncommittal gesture. "We'll talk."
Blair glanced at the cluster of waiting officers and crew. Their stares were making him uncomfortable. "Why are you doing this to me?" he asked, sotto voce.
"It's more for them than you," Eisen said softly, clapping Blair on the shoulder with his free hand. "Most have never seen a real war hero before. Knowing that you're aboard'll be good for morale." He smiled. "So play along, Colonel. That's an order."
Blair surrendered. "Okay, sir. Now what?"
"Allow me to introduce you to my senior officers," Eisen said, speaking again in a normal tone. "I'm having you meet the wing officers later." Blair shot him a look. Eisen's face was unreadable.
Eisen steered him through the formation, meeting the ship's officers, the Marine detachment commander, and a select group of the Lexington's complement. He knew several officers and crew from shared tours of duty during the Kilrathi war. He was, as always, better with faces than names, but their grace in helping him remember the associations made the situation easier for everyone.
He endured the reception better than he'd expected, accepting the crew's good wishes with some aplomb, and murmuring platitudes about doing one's duty and leaving the rest up to fate and the news-vids. Eventually, they made it through the last of the handshakes and introductions. Eisen wasted no time in dismissing the crew, leaving him alone with a relieved Blair.
Eisen looked at him, his eyes glinting with mischief. "Do you remember our little bet, Colonel?"
"Which bet would that be?" Blair answered.
"The one I made you at your retirement dinner," Eisen said, grinning, "when I said you hadn't flown your last mission."
Blair rolled his eyes. "Oh, yeah, that bet. I was hoping you'd forgotten." He looked around the flight deck, noting the fresh paint and the new equipment. "The Lexington sure puts the old Victory to shame."
"Yeah," Eisen said, "you should have seen her after the Battle of Earth. The defenders kicked her out of lunar dry dock as a decoy. The Kilrathi savaged her, internal explosions gutted her, and the crew got wiped out. Normally, the hulk would have been left to drift or given an honorable end with scuttling charges, but the Fleet decided that a dead hull was better than no hull at all." He grinned. "It turned out that it would have been cheaper just to scrap what was left and start over."
He looked up at the overhead fondly, "She's the Lady Lex, the Grey Ghost, resurrected from the dead, the eleventh ship to bear the honorable name. Treat her right and she'll always bring you home."
"Speaking of treating you right," Blair said, "it looks like the Confed's been taking good care of you."
Eisen's expression went flat. "Yeah," he said, after a pause, "they've been taking good care of me." Eisen's non-answer piqued his curiosity.
Eisen smiled thinly. "Allow me to give you the Cook's tour of the ship. My orderly'll see your bags get to your quarters."
"All right, sir," Blair answered, still a little unsettled by Eisen's quick mood changes.
Eisen led Blair out of the embark area and towards the maintenance area. "How're your certifications?"
"I got about six hours in an Arrow simulator yesterday, enough for a provisional rating,'' Blair answered. "Everything else has lapsed."
Eisen chewed his lip a moment. "Well, our simulators here are on the fritz. Bad software. We'll get you checked out on our inventory tomorrow." He paused. "I want all your check-rides done as soon as possible."
He showed Blair through an open blast door and into the fighters' recovery area. There, they watched flight crews scrambling to attach and detach blue-painted dummy ordnance to Hellcats' weapons bays and underwing stores. Each crew vied with the others to finish a practice loadout while being observed by their crew chiefs. A master chief, his back to Eisen and Blair, timed the competitors and made notes on a clipboard.
Blair looked around the bay, again surprised at how clean and new it looked. "You keep a tidy ship."
Eisen glanced around, as though noticing the state of the bay for the first time. "We had a partial refit just after the armistice," he said. "We had our drives tuned and our air exchanged. The refit crews spruced the living quarters up a bit, too." He grinned, the pride in his ship shining through. "The rest is homegrown, a lot of hard work done by good people."
Eisen raised his voice. ''How's the drill going, Master Chief?"
"Good," the chief said simply, "but it could be better" He turned, his seamed face breaking into a broad smile as he saw Blair. "Well, I'll be damned."
Eisen gestured towards Chris. "You two know each other?"
Blair laughed. "You might say that. Thad and I go way back."
Blair smiled at Eisen's puzzled expression. "Chief Gunderson was my crew chief during my stint with the system defense forces after the Tiger's Claw incident. I'd been exonerated by the court-martial but my career seemed to be pretty much over. Thad held my hand and kept me from blowing my brains out until I could get back in the game."
The old master's mate took Blair's offered hand. "That would be Master Chief Thad to you, sir."
"Congrats," Blair said, pleased at his friend's success. "What's your billet?"
"I'm the wing's chief of maintenance," Thad replied. His expression turned slightly disapproving. "On this side of the ship, anyway. It'll be good to have someone of your caliber on board."
Blair stared at him a moment, uncertain how to respond. Eisen stepped into the growing silence. "Excuse us please, Chief," he said while steering Blair away.
"What was that all about?" Blair said. "What did he mean by 'on this side of the ship'?"
"This ship, like every other, has its divisions," Eisen said cryptically. "But we'll get into that in a bit."
He led Blair to the small service lift that lowered them down a level to the main fighter deck. Blair felt his spirits lift as he saw the ranks of Arrows, Hellcats, Thunderbolts, and in the distance, Longbow bombers. Flight crews swarmed over the warbirds as they performed the thousands of routine maintenance tasks necessary to keep the craft operational.
"What's the wing complement?" Blair asked.
"Four squadrons," Eisen answered. "One each of light, medium, and heavy fighters, and attack bombers. We're rigged out for scout, escort, point defense, and attack."
The numbers surprised Blair. "Four squadrons? That's it? The usual complement's nine or ten."
"That, my friend, was during the war," Eisen said, smiling. "And before one of Tolwyn's sleights of hand. The Assembly went on a budget-cutting spree. They mandated the Space Force cut a third of its squadrons."
Blair winced. "Ouch."
Eisen gave him a conspiratorial wink. "Not really. The wartime strength of most squadrons was ten birds. Tolwyn reverted to the old pre-war Table of Organization, which called for sixteen fighters per squadron. He cut one third of the squadrons, all right, by transferring their birds to other squadrons. He met the Assembly's goal without sacrificing end-strength." He laughed softly. "You have to hand it to the old bastard."
"I wonder what Taggart had to say about that?" Blair asked.
"Paladin?" Eisen said, "I don't know. I do know the Assembly's Readiness Committee wasn't amused that Tolwyn stole a march on them. They told him he could keep his wings, if he cut Fleet strength. He agreed. We sent the 40 series CVs to mothballs and another eleven thousand highly trained people to the breadlines."
He scratched his cheek. "What a Pyrrhic victory. I think the Assembly wanted to make him eat crow for making them look like fools. I don't think they expected him to give in." He paused and shook his head. "I sure as hell didn't."
Blair counted on his fingers. "Four squadrons times sixteen equals sixty-four birds. You're still thirty-odd short."
"We have sixty active, actually," Eisen said, "plus spares. Our Longbow squadron is one flight short and we've detached our second Hellcat and Arrow squadrons."
Blair glanced at Eisen. "Why?"
The captain looked troubled. "We're operating all of our regular operations out of the portside bay. The starboard has been taken over by researchers, doing god-knows-what." He smiled at Blair's concerned look. "Actually, they're supposed to be evaluating pieces of Kilrathi technology for adaptation. They have fifteen or so Kilrathi fighters in various states of disassembly and a squadron or so of Thunderbolts and Hellcats that they use as test beds. It's all 'black budget' stuff. No one, not even me, is allowed over there."
Blair thought Eisen's misgivings about the situation were written all over his face. Eisen cut him off with a tiny shake of his head before he could ask any more questions. Blair shrugged, silently agreeing to let the subject drop.
He allowed Eisen to distract him by taking him over to the nearest Arrow. He liked the rakish, aggressive look of the little birds. They were nimble and responsive, fighters a pilot strapped on, rather than climbed into.
The fighter's crew chief stood and watched possessively as Blair ran his hands over the angular prow, feeling the armor's spongy surface. The ablative, conductive armor looked smooth and unpatched, an indicator the ship had never been in combat, at least not since its last refit. He inspected the twin ion cannon mounted in the Arrow's chin. Discoloration covered only the tips of the cannons' barrel shrouds, indicating that the weapons had been barely fired.
"Is the whole wing this new?"
"Yeah," Eisen replied, "pretty much. Most of our wartime birds were in pretty bad shape, so BuWeaps authorized batch replacements for all four squadrons."
"How's the wing organized?" Blair asked.
"Let's hold off a bit before we get into that," Eisen said.
Blair's internal warning sounded. He turned to face Eisen. "That's the second routine question you've brushed aside, Captain. There's something you're not telling me."
Eisen acknowledged the hit. "Let's go up to my day cabin. We need to talk."
Blair followed him towards the lift. He caught a glimpse of an odd-looking piece of equipment bolted to a portable test rack. He walked over to inspect it more closely. "Unless I miss my guess, this is a wing root from a Dralthi. What's it doing here?"
Eisen's eyes grew guarded again. He reached his hand out to pat the assembly mounted on a metal cradle. "This little jewel mounts a device that seems to channel energy directly from the main drives to the weapons. The people in the other bay have been using our diagnostic equipment on it, trying to nail down why it works."
Blair looked skeptical. Guns were generally too temperamental to handle spiking power flows that came from trying to draw directly from the engines. Capacitors acted as intermediaries on most fighters, smoothing out and delivering precisely controlled energy flows. They kept the weapons from eating a power surge that disabled them. Their major drawback was that they almost always ran out of power before the pilot ran out of targets. Blair knew the quest for a capacitor-smooth, direct-engine feed had long been a BuWeap priority.
"Do the eggheads think this gizmo is the Holy Grail, then?" he asked sarcastically.
"Well," Eisen replied uncertainly, "Tolwyn's trained monkeys seem to think so."
"Tolwyn's . . . ?" Blair asked. "The researchers aren't from BuWeaps or BuShips?"
"No," Eisen answered, "neither bureau is on board. This is one of Tolwyn's pet projects, it reports directly to him." Eisen's expression grew still. "But that's really not important."
They lapsed into silence as Eisen led him to his day cabin. He took a seat in one of Eisen's comfortable chairs, content to let Eisen guide the conversation. The captain, for his part, puttered around the wet bar.
"Do you take your whiskey neat or on the rocks?" Eisen said. He laughed at Blair's pained expression. "It's the real stuff," he said. "We pulled a shore leave at Gonwyn's Glory about three months back. The Glory is one of the largest distilleries in the Colonies. They had mountains of prime liquor stacked up and no way to move it off planet." He laughed. "The stuff was dirt cheap. I had ratings sneaking it on board in case lots." He poured a generous measure into two stone-cut glasses, then dropped a couple of ice cubes into each. "It got so bad," he continued, "that my division officers stopped doing locker inspections. They couldn't open a cupboard without finding a bottle in it."
"What did you do about the booze?" Blair asked.
Eisen shrugged, "I ignored it. Fleet regs stipulate that all ships remain dry, except during designated celebrations, or, at the captain's discretion, the lounges. I put the word out that I'd let the stashes slide as long as the crew kept the liquor discreet and all readiness reports came back double A. One failed report and I swore I'd tear the ship down from top to bottom and space every bottle on board. It's worked out pretty well."
Blair took the glass Eisen offered him, uncertain as to how to refuse. He was thoroughly sick of the petroleum waste that most people tried to pass off as scotch. Eisen raised his glass. "To the fossils who keep the Fleet running." Blair lifted his own glass, returning the toast. "And to the fossils who keep running the Fleet." Eisen laughed as he sipped his drink.
Blair sniffed the amber liquid. He received no immediate indicator the stuff was lethal. He risked a cautious sip. The whiskey flowed across his tongue like warm, liquid velvet, then washed down his throat to warm his gut. "That's good!"
"Yeah," Eisen said. He seemed to be having trouble framing his words. Blair leaned forward and took another sip while Eisen organized his thoughts.
When he spoke, it was without preamble or warning. "Chris, I want you to take over the wing."
"What!?" Blair blurted. The whiskey went down the wrong pipe, sending him into a coughing spasm. He used the respite to cover his surprise and confusion. "Tolwyn didn't say anything about that," he said finally, once he'd gotten himself under control.
"What did he say?" Eisen said, his expression unreadable.
"Precious little," Blair replied between coughs. "I was under the impression I'd be a supernumerary of sorts. I thought he wanted me for my looks. You know, fly a mission, show off my medals, scare the locals into behaving, and stay out of trouble. That sort of thing." He looked up at Eisen. The captain appeared unimpressed. "You want me to command your wing?" he said at last.
"Is that a problem?" Eisen asked coolly.
Blair took another sip of his whiskey. "No, not at all." He paused, uncertain as to how to proceed. "But don't you have a wing commander?"
Eisen topped off his own drink, then held the square bottle out to Blair, who consented to another generous measure. "Do you know Jesse Dunlevy?"
Blair leaned back in his seat. "Short woman. Red hair?" He waited for Eisen's nod before he continued. "We did Hellcat transition training together. She graduated first in the class."
Eisen nodded. "Well, she had a 'good' war. She ended up in cruisers—commanding a half-squadron on the Bainbridge as a major. Eighteen confirmed Kilrathi kills and several commendations. She made lieutenant colonel just before the Great Hate ended." He took a deep slug from his glass. "Chris, she got her second pass-over for colonel."
Blair closed his eyes, sensing what was coming next and hating it. "So, she's out?"
"Yeah," Eisen replied, "they're sending her out to traffic control on Luna on the same shuttle that brought you in." He paused and looked into his glass. "She's one of the best, Chris. I'm going to be sorry to lose her."
"So," Blair asked, "how do I fit in?"
Eisen rolled his glass in his hands. "Tolywn's reorganization resulted in the wing commander's slot being re-rated for a full colonel." He laughed sourly at Blair's look of disbelief. "Seriously. It was easy to consolidate the junior officers. We just cut up the affected squadrons and transferred the pilots. No one on this ship even had to trade bunks. It wasn't so easy for the command grades. I went to bed with thirty-four major and light colonel billets and woke up with sixteen. It was the worst casualty rate I'd seen since the Regnard disaster."
He shrugged as he took another drink. "Chris, a lot of majors and colonels ended up without chairs when the music stopped." He picked up a folder that had been out of Blair's sight and handed it to him. "See for yourself. I've got lieutenant colonels commanding squadrons and majors commanding flights. When I found out you were joining us, I held the wing slot open."
Blair took the folder and set it on the table, unopened. "How did Jesse react to the news I'd be her replacement?"
"About like you'd expect," Eisen said. "She took it like a pro. In a way, it was better that it was you who replaced her rather than someone else."
"How's that?" Blair asked.
"She got bumped by the 'Heart of the Tiger' himself," Eisen said bluntly. "Nobody in the Confederation can compare resumes with you. She won't lose face by being relieved by the preeminent hero of the Confederation. No one else could be expected to do better. Understand?"
Blair looked away, uncomfortable with Eisen's conclusions. He tried hard not to think about the woman whose career he might have accidentally ended by turning up. Eisen unknowingly twisted the knife.
"She killed the rumors about the transition before they could start," he said. "She passed the word to the pilots at a formal briefing. She made the whole thing sound like it was her idea." He tipped his glass in silent salute. Blair joined him, still uneasy about the situation. "You should have a smooth road." Eisen said, "thanks to her. The wing is trained, they have excellent morale, and they're combat ready."
He suddenly seemed to notice Blair's discomfiture.
"Chris," he said bluntly, "she was passed over twice. She was history—Standard Operating Procedure. Two strikes and you're out." Blair looked up, startled by the harshness in Eisen's voice.
He felt the alcohol seeping into his system. "Okay. When do I meet the wing?"
The captain looked at his watch. "In about ten minutes. You'd better drink up."
Blair felt overwhelmed. The whiskey in his system didn't help. "You don't screw around, do you, Captain?"
"No," Eisen replied. His voice grew a touch warmer, "And when we're here, just us fossils, you can call me Bill."
"All right," Blair answered, then after a heavy pause, "Bill."
"You'd better run along to the pilots' lounge, Chris."
Blair stood and handed his glass back to Eisen. "Aren't you going to join me . . . us?"
"No," Eisen said, "this is a wing show. I'm Fleet. I'd be out of place. This is your first chance to meet your people, and you don't need me underfoot."
"Yessir, umm, Bill," Blair replied. It occurred to him as he navigated to the door that the whiskey had gone down far too smoothly. Not an auspicious way of starting your tour, Chris, he said to himself.
The door opened on command, sparing him the embarrassment of fumbling for the manual control.
"Colonel," Eisen said from over his shoulder, "don't stay out too late. Were jumping out for the Hellespont system as soon as the task force is assembled. The operations briefing'll be at 0600 hours. I'll expect you to be there with your recommendations and any changes you want made to the flight roster."
Blair turned in the open doorway. "Will there be anything else?"
"Yes, you'll need to recalibrate your watch for our eighteen-hour ship's day." Eisen dropped the glasses into the bartop's automatic 'fresher. "I'll expect all my department heads to remain on the Alpha shift until further notice."
Blair dipped his head in acknowledgement.
Eisen met his eye. "You'd better hit the gym, Chris, the first chance you get." His expression warmed. "We like our heroes trim on the Lexington."
"Yes, sir," Blair said. He kept his voice light, the better to hide his embarrassment. Drunk and fat, he thought, what a stellar beginning.
The Lexington was the same class as the TCS Concordia, allowing him to find his way to the pilots' lounge without difficulty. He entered and was gratified to see that only a handful of the wing's sixty-odd fliers were present, rather than the whole wing at once. He glanced quickly around the room. Everyone present was junior, either a captain or lieutenant, except for Maniac Marshall. The major stood, a glass in one hand, holding forth to a small group of young pilots.
Marshall's voice rose above the crowd. "I'm not sure I agree with that, Lieutenant. The Holy Writ says that it's Border Worlds radicals who're causin' all this trouble. You ain't gonna challenge the Holy Writ, now are ya?"
Blair stood back against the door, watching the tableau. A fresh-faced young officer, glass in hand, shook his head. "No, sir," he replied, "my older sis served with the Border Worlds during the war, over in the Landreich sector. She used to tell me stories about how scratch-built their fighters were. The stuff we've been hitting is brand new—top of the line. It doesn't sound like the same troops."
Maniac shrugged. "Has it occurred to you, Lieutenant, that maybe they've upgraded their inventory? It sure ain't pirates carrying around that kind of firepower."
"Sir," the pilot pressed, "if it is the Border Worlds, then why take on the Confederation? We'll wipe the floor with 'em."
"I flew with them," Maniac said. "They're gutsy—sometimes suicidal."
"But why?" the lieutenant asked.
"Maybe they just want to go their own way," a third officer offered.
Blair watched the conversation with growing alarm. Talk amongst seniors and veterans was one thing, but Maniac was doing the rookies no favors in letting them wag their tongues.
Marshall seemed to realize the same thing. "That'll be enough of that," he said. "Just obey your orders and you'll be fine. Leave policy to the politicos." He looked up, as though seeing Blair in the room for the first time. "Speaking of the devil . . ." he said.
The younger pilots turned and came to attention.
"At ease," Blair said.
He was about to walk over to the small group when he saw another familiar face in the crowd. A young lieutenant rose as he approached, a huge smile plastered over his oriental features. "Vagabond!" Blair said. "Damn, it's good to see you."
Winston Chang came around the table to shake hands with him. "Look what the solar winds blew in," Vagabond said, smiling broadly. "It'll be good to serve with you again, sir."
Blair saw the inevitable deck of cards on the table. "Still trying to clean out the universe, Lieutenant?"
Chang grinned sheepishly. "I'm working on it, sir." He paused to pick up his deck of cards. "Wanna cut cards? Loser buys the winner a drink."
Blair looked up from the cards and noted that most of the pilots who'd surrounded Maniac had gravitated towards the table. Maniac, for his part, looked irritated. Blair watched him angle towards a drink caddy and slam pieces of ice into his glass. He made a mental note to have what Tolwyn called a "come to Jesus" meeting with the major.
He put aside his concerns with Todd Marshall as Vagabond did host's duty, introducing Blair to the wing. Chang revelled in the notoriety of having flown with one of the few Confed pilots to earn a Kilrathi Hero Name. He played it up, much to Blair's amusement. Kid-vids ofthe war had portrayed Blair as young and lantern-jawed, diving onto Kilrah with a steely look and an urbane witticism. Chang played to that image. The younger pilots ate it up.
Blair saw a mixture of awe and reverence on their faces that made him distinctly uncomfortable. He made pleasant conversation with each in turn as Chang introduced them, exchanging bits about his past and learning their faces. The names would come later. He felt himself slipping back into comfortable old roles, evaluating strengths and weaknesses and making estimations of pilots' capabilities based on personality traits he observed. The pilots trickled in and out of the reception, some in duty uniforms, others in flight suits and utility coveralls. It was a casual mix, the sort Blair usually preferred.
He eventually broke free from the main group and angled for the bar. The barkeep, one of the pilots on relief duty, poured him a generous libation. He glanced around, feeling very much out of place. He was a fighter jock and over forty, an old man playing a young man's game. It didn't help his mood that most of the pilots were half his age, many among the first post-war classes to finish the academy and flight school.
He was pleased to see, however, that the pilots were a tight-knit group. Colonel Dunlevy had taken them well in hand, helping them cement the crucial bonds that welded them into a team. He knew he was lucky that she'd left him with so few problems. He also knew, however, that it was her team, one he would only command. He would never be a part of it. He felt a jolt of sadness, a quick recollection of the easy camaraderie and the feeling of truly belonging to the wing.
He realized that the situation would have been different if he'd been able to build his own wing, trained it his way. Then he'd have felt less alien, less a spectator, and more a participant.
Angel Devereaux's face floated in his memory. "You can never go back," she whispered in his mind. He winced. She'd said that to him as he'd grown maudlin over the vagaries of the Fleet that had first brought them together, then separated them. Angel had been his lover, his friend, and his salvation on the old Concordia, back when Tolwyn had wanted his head on a stake. The memories of her—her smile, the warmth in her eyes, the way she looked in certain lights—hit him hard.
He recalled his last sight of her—writhing in agony in a growing pool of her own blood on the floor after being disemboweled in a public Kilrathi execution. His eyes clouded. Her death reminded him of the deaths of dozens of others—all his comrades and peers who had been killed.
Eventually, the reception ended. The senior officers waited until their juniors were done before they made their presence known. The juniors in turn knew when to make themselves scarce. The wing's leaders, the lieutenant colonels and majors who'd make or break his command, filtered in, tanked up at the bar, and joined the informal circle.
Blair learned from the command group that Colonel Dunlevy had arranged the pilots' work schedules so that they'd arrive in a trickle to the reception, rather than en masse. She'd also made it plain that she didn't want the troops' seniors around, thereby stealing Blair's thunder. It didn't surprise him the least little bit that Marshall had disregarded that instruction.
The wing's officers struck Blair as cool and competent. Most seemed young for their ranks, until he recalled his own time in grade. He made small talk with them, letting them feel him out. He made it quite plain that while he had definite ideas about how the wing should be run, he had no plans to make arbitrary changes just to show he was in charge.
That assertion stood him in good stead, with only a few of the squadron officers looking skeptical. Most took him at his word and began to thaw a bit, once they were confident that he wasn't going to make extra work for them.
The talks, chats, and cross-chatter began to unnerve him after a while. The command group had been together since the Lexington had begun her current cruise. They'd suffered through the post-war reduction in forces, then the wings reorganization. They were a tightly-knit group, and very fond of Colonel Dunlevy. They accepted the rules of the game, the same rules that forced her out and brought him off the bench to command them, but they didn't have to like it.
Blair realized he would have to work hard to earn their trust, harder than he would with the younger pilots. The senior officers had been in the war themselves, and so weren't overawed by his awards. They'd also been in the peace and had been carrying a lot of water for the Confederation while he'd been farming and drinking.
He found himself recharging his glass quite often as he listened to their war stories, their loose laughter. Most of the tales dealt with events that had happened after the war. Blair noted with alarm that the jargon had changed, even in the short time since he'd retired. Pilots, like all military people, evolved their own cryptic lingo—a mishmash of flight terms, service acronyms, and communications chatter. Blair was able to follow most of the new terms, but it was another reminder that he was out of touch.
He eventually made good his escape, claiming the need to prepare the next morning's brief. He snagged a bottle of Gonwyn's Glory on his way out, then navigated the half-familiar halls to his cabin.
The wing commander's quarters were enough like Jeannette Devereaux's on the Concordia to make him halt in the doorway in confusion. Of course, he chided himself, the Concordia and the Lexington were the same class, built from the same plans.
Nonetheless, the similarities haunted him. He collapsed in a chair very much like one Angel had in her quarters, broke the seal on the bottle, and took a deep pull. Alone, in the semi-dark, in her room, the ghosts came swarming back. Old faces drifted across his sight as he recalled things they'd said. Most of the faces belonged to the dead, many of the rest had been RIF'ed. He drank directly from the bottle, letting the whiskey wash over him like a tide.
Later, quite drunk, he raised his calloused hand and stared at it. It appeared to be steady. He wondered if he still had what it took to survive in combat. Or had the years away from the flight line conspired with his age and the hooch to rob him of the edge he'd always had? Was he a ghost with a service record, surviving on past glories?
He'd always counted on his reflexes being a touch faster, his instincts a little better than his opponents. He'd never met anyone faster . . . until the icy-eyed man had jacked him up against the wall. He had been too slow, for the first time in his life.
The man would have killed him if Maniac hadn't intervened. He'd never doubted his abilities before, and the realization he could be beaten hit him hard. He sat, worrying that he would fail and wind up dead. Or, worse yet, that he'd get other pilots killed because he couldn't handle the situation.
He sat long into the night, brooding. He knew his worries were a cancer that sapped his confidence and made him vulnerable. Was he becoming afraid?
His sleep, when he finally collapsed into his bed, gave him no rest.