Heart of the Tiger by William R. Forstchen & Andrew Keith

Author:William R. Forstchen & Andrew Keith [Forstchen, William R. & Keith, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780671876531
Amazon: 0671876538
Publisher: Baen
Published: 1995-04-02T05:00:00+00:00

Flight Deck, TCS Victory

Blackmane System

"Okay, skipper, this one checks out too. Looks like those no-talent bums at Blackmane Base actually sent us some real fighters, and not just junk off the scrap line."

Blair checked off the last of the new fighters on his portable computer pad and nodded. "I'll breathe a little easier now, Chief," he told Rachel Coriolis. "I was starting to think we'd never get the replacement fighters aboard."

Four days had passed since Kevin Tolwyn was whisked aboard his courier ship to report to his uncle, and in that time, Blair's life became nothing but a string of petty frustrations. The worst problem was expediting the requisitions Tolwyn issued to Blackmane Base in the midst of the chaos and confusion which reigned during the last days of the base's closing process. But after many shouting matches over the comm channel, Blair finally got results. Now he possessed a full contingent of fighters in Victory's hangar deck, storerooms bulging with spare parts and stores of all kinds, and three new pilots to assign to Mbuto's interceptor squadron. It was progress, of a sort. But it had been slow going for a time, and Blair was worn out with the constant strain of it all.

A tractor towed the fighter, a Longbow looking as if it had never been flown, toward a storage bay. The flight deck was bustling with activity, but for the moment Blair and Rachel were out of problems. It was a rare yet pleasant feeling.

"Uh . . . skipper?" Rachel spoke with none of her accustomed brashness. "Can we chat? Off the record . . . ?"

"Isn't that the way we usually do it?" Blair asked her.

"Yeah," the chief admitted. "That's one of the things I like about you." She hesitated. "And the fact that I do like you is why I want to say this . . ."

"Spit it out, Chief," he said as she paused again.

"You've got this . . . look in your eyes that I've seen before," she said slowly. "I had this guy, see? A pilot. One day he saw his wingman get fried, and he came in blaming himself for it. Didn't matter what I said, what anybody said, he was convinced he let old Shooter down."

"And?" Blair prompted.

"A few days later . . . he took an Arrow out and just kept on going. Hit a jump point just as the Kilrathi were coming through. There were a lot of fireworks . . ." She trailed off, her eyes focused on someplace far away. "They never found him . . . not even a debris field. He might still be out there, for all I know."

"I'm . . . sorry," Blair said quietly. "But . . . why tell me about it?"

"That look in your eye, it's like the one he had before he cracked, skipper." She paused again. "You want to talk? I may be a lowly techie, but I've got a sympathetic ear."

Blair didn't answer for a long time.

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