'Aye, aye, sir,' Blair replied formally.
'Good. Let's cover the details . . .'
It took a good ten minutes to go over the specifics of the mission, establishing rendezvous coordinates and other details. When it was all over, Blair and Hobbes stood. 'We're ready, Captain,' Blair said. 'Come on, Hobbes, let's get saddled up.'
'A moment more, Colonel, if you please,' Eisen said, holding up a hand. He shot Ralgha a look. 'In private.'
'I will see you on the flight deck, Colonel,' Hobbes said. The Kilrathi seemed calm and imperturbable as ever, but Blair thought he could detect a note of concern in his friend's tone.
Blair sat back down as the Kilrathi left the room. 'What can I do for you, sir?'
'Colonel, I'd like to discuss your attitude,' Eisen said as soon as the door had closed behind Hobbes. He sounded angry. 'Seems to me you're under the impression that you're too good to mix with the rest of the pilots.'
'I'm not sure I understand, Captain,' Blair said slowly. 'I've been getting to know them . . .'
'But in three weeks aboard this tub, the only wingman you've flown with is Hobbes.' Eisen cut his attempted protest off. 'I know he's your friend, and I know there's still some bad feelings among some of the others about working with him, but it isn't helping morale by you refusing to pair with anybody else. I know Chang would fly with him, and probably one or two of the others as well, so you could at least trade off now and then.'
'Sir, with all due respect, that isn't your decision to make,' Blair told him quietly. 'You are CO of this ship, but the flight wing is my bailiwick. Mine alone. I run the wing my way. A pilot has to be able to trust his wingman, feeling complete total confidence in him, which is exactly the way I feel about Hobbes. I choose to fly with him.'
'Even though he let you down your first time out?'
'Sir?' Blair had been careful to keep the details of the first patrol ambiguous in his official report.
'Come on, Colonel, you know the networks. Even the CO hears some things, no matter how much everybody works to cover them. Hobbes hared off after an enemy fighter and left you in the lurch when they jumped you.
'I don't blame him, sir. The whole situation just sort of . . . developed.'
'Well, it's pretty difficult to see how you can continue to have confidence in Hobbes after that mess, no matter how much you close your eyes to it. And there's another point here, Blair. By saying how much you trust Hobbes, you're implying that you don't have any faith in the, others. I don't like that. It's bad for morale — not just in your precious flight wing, but involving the entire ship. I won't stand for anything that hampers the performance of Victory or her crew.' Eisen studied him for a few seconds. 'Do you have a problem with the rest of the wing?'
'Sir, I just don't know them well enough yet,' Blair said. 'The only one I do know is Marshall, and quite frankly I wouldn't fly with him if he was the only pilot on this ship. He's a menace who should have had his wings taken away a long time ago.'
Eisen looked thoughtful, but didn't speak.
'As for the others,' Blair went on. 'Lieutenant Buckley has a good record, but I'm not sure her head's screwed on straight. Chang seems like a nice guy, but undisciplined and unpredictable. The others . . . I'm still finding out about them. They are accustomed to each other, and they're already paired into some pretty good teams. I don't think it is wise to rock the boat until I've got a better handle on how they perform.'
'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
