the door, he was hoping for some solitude. He wanted to forget, just for a few minutes, that he had anything to do with Victory, or the flight wing . . . or the war.
But the impulse for solitude left him when he spotted Rachel Coriolis at a table near the bar, viewing a holocassette that seemed to be displaying schematics of a fighter Blair didn't immediately recognize. The Chief tech was one of the few people on board he felt comfortable around, and he was certain she would know more than what information appeared in his official files: real stories of some of his pilots and their backgrounds. After the incident with Cobra Buckley the week before, Blair was still in the dark about the woman's attitudes, and so far he hadn't been able to find any answers.
He stopped at the bar and ordered a glass of Tamayoan fire wine, then walked over to Rachel's table. She looked up as he approached, giving him a welcoming smile. 'Hello, Colonel, slumming with the troops today? Pull up a chair, if you don't mind being seen with one of us lowly techie types.'
'Thanks, Chief,' he said. He sat down across the table from her and studied the holographic schematics for a moment. 'Don't think I recognize that design.'
'One of the new Excaliburs,' she said, her voice tinged with excitement. 'Isn't she a beauty? Heavy fighter with more guns and armor than a Thunderbolt, but increased maneuverability to go with it. And I've heard a rumor they're going to be mounted with a sensor cloak, so the little darlings can sneak right past a Kilrathi defensive perimeter and nail the hairballs at close range!'
'Don't they classify that stuff any more?' Blair asked with a smile.
She gave an unladylike snort. 'Get real, skipper. Maybe you flyboys don't hear anything until it gets declassified, but the techs have a network that reaches damn near everywhere. We know what's coming off the line before the brass does . . . and usually have all the design flaws spotted up front, too.'
Blair chuckled. 'Well, I hope your techs don't decide to turn on the rest of us. I doubt we'd last long if you did. You like your job, don't you, Chief?'
She switched off the hologram. 'Yeah. I always liked working with machines and computers. An engine part either works or it doesn't. No gray areas. No double talk'
'Machines don't lie,' Blair said, nodding.
'Not the way people do. And even when something's wrong with a machine, you always know just where the problem is.'
Blair didn't say anything for a few minutes. Finally he looked her in the eye. 'I've got a people problem right now, Chief. I was wondering if you could help me with it.'
'It ain't what I'm paid for,' she told him, 'and my free advice is worth everything you spend for it. But I'll take a shot if you want.'
'Lieutenant Buckley. What can you tell me about her? The straight dope, not the official file.'
She looked down at the table. 'I heard about her little blowup with Hobbes last week. Can't say anybody was surprised, though. She's never made any big secret out of the way she feels about the Kilrathi.'
'What I want to know is why? I've been in the Navy for better than fifteen years, Chief I've been in all kinds of crews, seen all kinds of shipmates and their hangups. But I never met anybody so single-minded about the Kilrathi before. I mean, Maniac's got good reason to resent Hobbes personally . . . but with Cobra, we're talking blind hatred. She won't even give him a chance.'
'Yeah. Look, I don't know the whole story, so don't take this as gospel.' The tech leaned closer over the table and lowered her voice. 'Right after she came on board a buddy of mine from the old Hermes pointed her out to me. She served there a year before she transferred here . . . her first assignment.'
'I was curious about that in her file,' Blair commented. 'She seems older than that. I'd have put her at thirty or so . . .'
'That's about right,' Rachel told him. 'She got a late start. My friend told me that the story on Cobra was that she'd been a Kilrathi slave for ten years before the Marines rescued her from a labor camp. She spent some more time in reeducation, then joined up. She won top honors piloting, and just cut through everything with this single-minded determination. I think sometimes that the only thing holding Cobra's life together is the hate she has for the Kilrathi. And I can't really say I blame her.
Blair nodded slowly. 'Maybe I can't, either,' he said slowly. 'I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like to grow up a Kilrathi slave. She must have been taken as a kid, raised to think of her own race as animals . . .'
'So it's no wonder she can't stomach Hobbes,' the tech said bluntly. 'You and I know he's okay, but to her he just represents everything she grew up hating and fearing.' Rachel took a sip from her drink. 'So cut her some slack, Colonel. If you really want to fix the problem, that is.'
'I do,' he said quietly. 'But there are limits, you know. I sympathize with her, but sometimes you just can't bend things far enough in the Service to make all the square pegs fit.'
'That's why I'd rather work with machines,' she told him. 'Sooner or later, people just screw up the works.'
'Maybe you're being too hard on people,' he said. 'Some of us are okay when you get to know us.'
She looked him up and down with a slow smile. 'They need to pass inspection, same as anything else.' She stood up, collected the holocassette, then tucked it into a pocket of her baggy coveralls. 'I got certain hours for that kind of quality control work, of course.'
Blair returned her smile, warming to her. 'You keep that schedule posted somewhere, Chief?'
'Only for a select few, Colonel,' she told him. 'The ones with the best schematics.'
'I hope you're not expecting anything too exciting, Blair. This is probably just another milk run, from the looks of it. At least that's what we're hoping for.'
Blair studied Eisen's face, trying to locate a hint of sarcasm in his expression. Since Gold Squadron's triumph over the Kilrathi cruiser and its escort, enemy activity in the Orsini system had virtually disappeared, and Victory had jumped to the Tamayo system, where they had been carrying out a seemingly endless string of routine patrols. Blair and Hobbes took their turn on the duty schedule along with the rest of the wing, but so far there was no further combat. The only excitement since the first big clash came when a pair of interceptors from Blue Squadron tangled with four light Kilrathi fighters, sending them running in short order.
Eisen was right about the missions to date being milk runs, but was there something more behind his comment? Meaning that was all Blair could handle, perhaps? His impassive face gave away nothing as he called up a holographic mission plan for Blair and Ralgha to study.
'The cats —' Eisen broke off, shooting a look at Hobbes. 'The Kilrathi have been steering clear of the Victory, but they sent a couple of squadrons of raiders to work the edges of the system, near the jump point to Locanda. In the past week, they've picked off three transports outbound for the Locanda colony while we've come up empty.'
Blair frowned. 'I was posted in that system once, a few years back. There's not a hell of a lot there. I'm surprised we sent three transports that way in one week.'
The captain didn't reply right away. Finally he gave a I shrug. 'Some of our intelligence sources in the Empire received word that the enemy is planning a move against the Locanda System. Confed's been pumping resources that way to try to catch them unprepared. Apparently the main reason they are hanging around is to harass our supply lines.' He looked from Blair to Hobbes, then back to Blair again. 'Needless to say, that information stays in this room.
'Yes, sir,' Blair said. Ralgha nodded assent.
'Right, then. Another transport is set to make a run today, but this time we're sending an escort. We want to see if we can break this little blockade of their's once and for all, then open the pipeline into Locanda again. Your job is to provide the escort and be ready for trouble. Like I said, with luck, they will miss this one. But if the bad guys return, we want that transport covered. Understood?'
