brass were actually starting to believe their own propaganda mills, and that was a very bad sign indeed.
Admiral Tolwyn, for instance . . . there was a man who badly needed a reality check.
It was Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn who had given Blair his new assignment. A vigorous man in his sixties who spoke in a clipped British accent and radiated the very essence of spit-and-polish military precision in everything he said and did, Tolwyn had earned quite a reputation over the years as the mastermind behind a pair of great Confederation victories, the raid on Kilrah and the Battle of Terra. But Blair had served under the man before, and he knew that a lot of the legend was little more than luck and PR hype.
Still, Tolwyn had been brimming with confidence and determination when Blair reported to his office. 'Things are looking up, Colonel,' he had said with a smile. 'The Confederation has been making some very positive strides. The Kilrathi are on the run at Gardel and Morpheus . . .'
True enough, except that the Terrans had lost three systems to new Kilrathi offensives at the same time, and in much more strategically vital sectors. And, of course, there was the loss of the Concordia.
Blair fought back a shudder. He'd been wing commander aboard the Concordia for three years, until the Battle of Earth. If he hadn't taken that Kilrathi missile which left him grounded for six long months, Blair would have been on board when Concordia fought the rearguard action over Vespus: fought and died. Blair had been part of the survey crew that had discovered the carrier's broken hull lying half-submerged in the waters off the Mistral Coast.
Concordia was gone, and so were the men and women who had served with Blair for so long, through so many battles. More casualties of the war. Statistics tallied up in news reports or concealed in the falsehoods of a Confed press release. But those people were more than mere statistics to Christopher Blair They had been more than comrades, more than friends . . . a family, united by the strongest possible bonds of shared dangers and difficult service far from home and loved ones.
Blair closed his eyes, summoning up familiar faces. Iceman . . . Spirit . . Knight . . . Bossman . . . the list kept growing, year after year. Shipmates went to the firing line and died, and a fresh crop of kids from the Academy came in to replace them . . . to die in their turn. Sometimes it seemed as if the war had lost all point or purpose. Now it was nothing more than good people giving their lives fighting for some chunk of rock that wouldn't have deserved a second look before the war.
Christopher Blair was tired: of fighting, of death, and of this endless war
Fate had spared him while so many others died. Now Blair, certified to be ready to return to full active duty, had received his new assignment from Admiral Tolwyn's own hands. Wing commander once again . . . but wing commander aboard the Victory.
As if reacting to his bitter thoughts, the monitor finally lit up with an external view from the shuttle's nose camera. Victory rode in free fall less than half a chick ahead. She was everything Blair expected (which wasn't much).
She was a light carrier left over from a bygone era, designed nearly half a century before the beginning of the Kilrathi War. With most of the newest carriers in the Confederation fleet either lost in action or held in the Terran Defense Fleet, ships like the old Victory were becoming more common on the front lines. Perhaps, Blair reflected, that was why the Kilrathi seemed to have the edge these days.
Even over this distance, it was plain she had seen better days. There were burn marks down one side of her hull, and deeper scars in her superstructure where battle damage had been crudely patched.
One thing was certain . . . she was no Concordia.
The monitor flickered off again. This shuttle was part of Victory's complement of small craft, and it was clear that non-essential systems were getting short shrift when maintenance schedules were being drawn up. The interior of the vessel was distinctly shabby, with faded paint, fraying flight couches, and missing access plates which revealed jury-rigged repair work. It suggested the low standards in play aboard Victory, but Blair planned to see things change once he took charge of the flight wing. Perhaps the crew of the battered old carrier did not care enough to do more than go through the motions, but if Blair had his way, that attitude would soon change.
'Preparing for final docking approach,' the computer voice announced quietly.
An outdated ship and a crew that apparently didn't give a damn any more. If Concordia hadn't been able to stand against the Kilrathi, how could Victory be expected to even put up a fight?
Blair had to ask himself, as the shuttle slowly maneuvered in toward the carriers flight deck, what this assignment really meant. Did Tolwyn expect him to knock the ship and crew into some kind of battle-ready shape? Or did the High Command consider that Blair and Victory deserved each other, two old warhorses who had outlived their usefulness put out to pasture?
The boarding ramp made a grinding noise as it swung down to touch the deck. Blair winced at the sound. His first view of the interior of his new home made him wince again. It was even shabbier than he had imagined. There was a distinct smell in the air; an odor of sweat, lubricants, burned insulation, and other unidentified unpleasant scents. Apparently, the air circulation systems were not capable of keeping the atmosphere fresh and clean.
He slung his flight bag over his shoulder and started slowly down the ramp. Crewmen were drawn up in ranks in the huge open hangar area, most of them dressed in utility fatigues which had seen better days, Blair glanced at the end of the hangar where open space was visible beyond the faint glow of the force fields which kept the deck pressurized. He found himself hoping that they, at least, were maintained better than the rest of the ship. He pushed the thought away, trying to keep his feelings hidden from the crew.
A knot of senior officers awaited him at the foot of the ramp, dominated by a broad-shouldered black man with graying hair and the four stripes of a Line Captain prominently displayed on his sleeve. He didn't give Blair time to study his surroundings further, but stepped forward to meet him.
'Colonel Blair?' he said, smiling. 'I'm William Eisen. Welcome aboard the Victory.'
Blair snapped off a quick salute which Eisen returned gravely. Theoretically, they were of equal rank — a Colonel in the Confederation Space Force and a Captain of the Line — but aboard any ship in space, the commanding officer, regardless of rank, was always the senior officer (even if he was a mere lieutenant entertaining a visitor of higher rank).
The captain ended the salute by extending his hand. He had a firm grip that matched his proud bearing and an aura of quiet authority. 'Allow me to present some of my senior officers, Colonel. This is Commander Ralgha nar Hhallas —'
'Hobbes!' Blair exclaimed, as Eisen moved aside to give Blair a clear view of the officers. Ralgha nar Hhallas would have stood out in any human crowd, for he was a Kilrathi nobleman. Tall and bulky, he was humanoid in form but distinctly alien in feature, with a head too large and flat for a man. His body and face were covered with thick fur, and his eyes, ears, and fangs gave him a distinctly cat-like appearance. The Kilrathi were not cats, of course, but they had sprung from carnivore hunter stock with many feline traits, and their ways of thinking were even more alien to humankind than those of Earthly cats.
Blair could hardly believe that more than ten years had passed since Lord Ralgha, a ship captain of the Imperial Kilrathi fleet, defected to the Terran Confederation. TCS Tiger's Claw was in the squadron which helped him carry out his defection, and Blair (a junior lieutenant) had worn polish still fresh on his flight wings. Ralgha moved from supplying information to Terran Intelligence to serving in the Space Force, and he had remained in Blair's squadron for a time before new assignments took them down separate paths.
Many officers were reluctant to fly with a Kilrathi wingman, but Blair always found Ralgha cheerful, competent, and capable: a fine pilot and an excellent comrade. He was the one to bestow the nickname 'Hobbes' on the renegade Kilrathi after encountering the name in an ancient piece of Terran folk art in a fellow pilots collection.
'You know the Commander, then?' Eisen asked, raising an eyebrow.
'Not with that rank,' Blair said 'Hobbes here is one of the best pilots who ever flew with the Flight Corps.
