She let him lead her into the corridor. When the door closed and the party sounds were no longer heard, they faced each other for a long moment in silence.

"Want to tell me what that little outburst was all about, Lieutenant?" Blair asked.

Buckley fixed him with an angry stare. "Ain't much to say, Colonel," she said, managing to make the rank sound more like a swear word. "You insisted on flying with it, and even after it let you down you'll probably still take its part. Doesn't leave much scope for conversation, does it?"

"Lieutenant Colonel Ralgha nar Hhallas is a superior officer, Lieutenant," Blair said sharply. "You will refer to him with respect. I will not have one of my officers treating another member of the wing with such blatant bigotry and hatred. Some day you might have to fly on his wing, and when that happens . . ."

"That won't happen, Colonel," she said stiffly. "I can't fly with . . . him, and if you order it, I will resign my commission on the spot. That's all there is to it."

"I should take you up on that resignation right now, Lieutenant," Blair said. "But you're a good pilot, and we need all the good pilots we can get. I'd rather work this thing out. If you'd just give Hobbes a chance —"

"You don't want me flying with him, sir," she said. "Because I won't defend him in a fight. Better we go our separate ways . . . one way or another."

"Why? What's he ever done to you?"

"He's Kilrathi," she said harshly. "That's enough. And there's nothing you can do to change the way I feel."

"I . . . see." Blair studied her face. It was a bad idea to let something like this simmer inside the wing, but he wasn't willing to force a confrontation. Not yet, at least. "I'll try to keep the two of you apart for the moment, Lieutenant, but I expect you to behave like a Confed officer and not a spoiled brat. Do you understand me?"

"I wasn't asking for special favors, sir," she said, shrugging. "Just thought you should know how things stand."

"Just so you know where you stand, Lieutenant," he said softly. "If I have to pick between the two of you, I'll pick Hobbes every time. I'd trust him with my life."

She gave him a chilly smile. "That, Colonel, is your mistake to make."

The rec room was much quieter tonight than the night of the party and considerably less crowded. Blair finished another long shift of poring over reports and requisitions. He decided that a quick drink and a few moments of simply sitting alone, perhaps watching the stars through the compartment's viewport, would help him get over the feeling of confinement and constriction which plagued him more and more lately. As he walked briskly through 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."