Peter Telep - Pilgrim stars

"I wonder if Lieutenant Marshall thought about that before abandoning his position?" She leered at Maniac, who flushed and sprang to his feet.

"I was thinking about all those little kids out playing in their yards. They would look up, see a bright light, then burst into flames. Lots of little bodies running around, turning into crispy critters. I know all about regs and duty, ma'am. And if you want to dismiss me for being insubordinate and put me on report, I'll understand. But when it comes down to it, our job is to save lives. And for one goddamned time I'd like to do that without getting my ass chewed out."

To Blair's surprise, the rest of squadron broke into spontaneous applause. Cheddarboy and Gangsta actually stood, inspiring Bishop and Sinatra to join them. Hunter, no friend of Maniac's, remained seated, as did Blair and Zarya, though Blair expected Zarya to stand. He guessed that she didn't want to thrust her affection for Maniac into Angel's face.

"All right, sit down," Angel ordered. "That's a very moving little rap you got there, Maniac. I can't ignore the fact that you stopped the torpedo and did save lives. And I can't ignore the fact that you disobeyed orders to do so. Which is why I'm confining you to quarters until we reach the Blytheheart jump point. No visitors other than your bunkmate. You'll be allowed out for sim work and briefings. That's it. I think you need the time to consider your future as a Confederation aviator. Any questions?"

"Just one," Maniac said.

Here it comes, Blair thought.

"Have you ever disobeyed a direct order so that you could do what you knew was right?"

"Yes, Lieutenant. More than once. And each time I paid the price. As will you."

"This is bullshit," Maniac mumbled.

"What was that?" Angel asked.

Manic shook his head disgustedly and waved off her question.

After the meeting, Blair remained in his seat while the others filed out. Angel gathered up her files and data disks, then noticed him. "You have a question, Lieutenant?"

"Yes, ma'am. How are you?"

"Haven't we been here before?"

He got to his feet and homed in on her. "You seem tired. Angry, even. Anything I can do?"

She gazed longingly at the exit hatch. "Unless you have something regarding the assessment, Lieutenant, you'll have to cut me loose."

"I'm afraid I can't do that, ma'am. I think something's bothering you, and you're taking it out on me and Maniac." Blair didn't believe that, but he suspected he would get a rise out of her.

And the deep lines of incredulity that mapped out her face confirmed his suspicions. "The only thing bothering me right now is Maniac's attitude. And yours. You seem to think that only end results count, that the chain of command doesn't matter, that protocol doesn't matter. You should've become mercenaries instead of military pilots. I finally got around to reading your flight school evals. They're pretty good, which surprises me given your recent behavior. You might've had them fooled, but you can't fool me. You told me that you had a reputation for being a by-the-book flyer. What happened out there?"'

"Maniac's a major pain in the ass, but I still kind of like him. If I had a sister, I wouldn't let him near her, but when it comes to the Kilrathi, he's a pit bull on my wing. Yeah, he's unpredictable and unreliable. But he racks up the kills. And maybe when it comes down to it, surviving is the only thing that counts."

"If he doesn't square himself away, he won't survive. Start preparing for that now."

He narrowed his gaze. "Is that what you're doing with me?"

"Are we finished, Lieutenant?" Angel checked her watch-phone. "I have a stack of fire-to-kill ratio reports waiting for me."

"Why do you keep shutting me out?"

"Good day, Lieutenant."

Blair noticed a definite slump to her shoulders as she took off. He thought back to the time he had gone to her quarters and she had told him how she had gotten close to Lieutenant Commander Vince "Bossman" Chen. They hadn't been lovers but the best of friends. Then Bossman had died, and she had lost faith in relationships and distrusted getting close to anyone. She had instituted an unwritten policy that said those who died in combat never existed. If you asked after a fallen comrade, the response would be "Who?" Blair had taken exception to the policy, and when Rosie Forbes had died, he believed that he had penetrated Angel's shield and had made her feel the pain of Forbes's loss. You couldn't just bury your grief. You had to deal with it and use it to make you stronger. No complex psychiatry involved there.

But maybe he hadn't changed Angel at all. Maybe she wouldn't get close because she still feared having to deal with that loss. He understood her response, but he couldn't let her push him away when he believed that behind her mental bulwark lay untapped feelings for him. He wasn't being immodest. He had seen the look in her eyes when they had revived her after she had ejected in her pod. He had moved in for the kiss, and she had been willing to accept it. Then a medic had come between them. Now her own fear created an equally powerful barrier.

"And she escapes once more," Merlin said, sitting a meter away on a recliner of air, his boots propped up on an invisible footrest. "I've quite enjoyed sitting here, watching you stumble around her like an adolescent. Call me an armchair Romeo, but I think you're going about this all wrong. I could fill you in on my observations of Commander Deveraux, but you refuse to take any more advice. So here we are, you with the long face, me with the new pastime."

"All right. You think you've got a clue about women? Tell me." Blair folded his arms over his chest.

The hologram wearily pushed himself up from his recliner, groaning as he massaged the small of his back, then stood. "Begin, well, at the beginning. Jeanette Deveraux became an orphan during the Pilgrim war. She doesn't know what side her parents were on or who killed them. Maybe it's a bit presumptuous of me, but I hacked into the worldcom database before we left for Mylon. I performed a search of the interplanetary genealogy database."

Blair felt a tightness in his gut. "You did?"

"I thought maybe I could gather some information for you. That way you could use it as an excuse to meet with her."

"She told me she had already searched for records of her parents' deaths. Those files were destroyed during the war."

"Ah, according to some sources they were. But I used military access codes programmed by your father to track down travel records for one Pierre Christian Deveraux, her father. He and his wife Marie Sousex Deveraux left Belgium and traveled to Dewey Station Five near Pluto, which subsequently fell under Pilgrim attack. The rest is a bit disturbing, but I think you should know. I think she should know." He paused to gather breath, one of the more subtle but interesting features of his program which made him seem all the more human. "The station's south wing succumbed to accidental fire from a strike-carrier trying to target a Pilgrim slo-ship. Fourteen hundred civilians were killed, including Angel's parents. Angel herself had been there. Her name appears on a survivor list. Her father's will gave instructions for her to be shipped back to Belgium and placed in the care of the Agnus Eve Orphanage."

"I think she was four or five years old when that happened," Blair said. "I guess she doesn't remember it or she blocked it out. Why didn't her parents have her turned over to relatives?"

"I don't know. Her father has a brother living on Mars. And her mother has two sisters. Couldn't find anything else on them yet. Still checking."

"Stop. This is like digging through her private stuff. She finds out and… Just stop."

"Okay. But you should know that Confederation Naval Command Authority classified and buried the records of her parents' deaths. As in any war, incidents of friendly fire will occur, and responsible parties will often do everything they can to create plausible deniability."