"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."
"Hows 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 fr,om 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, "Tolwyns trained monkeys seem to think so."
"Tolwyns… ?" 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 Blairs 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 commanders 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."
"Hows 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 Blairs 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. We're 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 whore 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 of the 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.
The Price of Freedom Page 7
