Wing Commander #07 False Color by William Forstchen (novels for students TXT) 📗

you and our two admirals as 'his' VIPs? He's very acquisitive, is our CO. A veritable interstellar pack-rat."

"You don't sound too happy with him," Bondarevsky commented as they started down the corridor together.

"Still a marvel of deduction, eh, Bear?" Tolwyn cracked a smile. "Let's just say that I'd like it if the skipper of this boat measured up to the standards of an earlier captain I might name. And I'm damned tired of being `his' Wing Commander. In theory we're supposed to be equals under the Battle Group CO, but he makes me feel like I'm one of his daddy's lackeys."

"Since he's here and not in the Flag Officer's suite, I take it Admiral Richards isn't commanding the Battle Group."

"No. Old Max decided to make the derelict the hub for a separate squadron if and when she goes operational, and Admiral Richards'll be in charge of that. Admiral Campanelli's in charge of the Independence battle group, but he doesn't show himself much. The man's the senior flag officer on the fleet list, over seventy but still refusing retirement. And because he's the biggest war hero next to Old Max that the Landreich's got, nobody even thinks about easing him aside to let a younger man take over. He's a pretty good man even yet, but he's been sick off and on ever since I signed aboard, and lets Galbraith do most of the work running the battle group." Tolwyn grinned. "Might almost be better if Old Max did take to space again."

"Don't bet on it," Bondarevsky told him. "Your admiral might be old and sick, but Kruger's just plain crazy. I still remember the stunt he pulled to get us into the Battle of Earth on time. Hit the last jump point at full speed. Half the fleet overshot the target jump point, and a couple of ships ended up with their bows twenty light-years from their sterns."

"It got you to Earth on time," Tolwyn pointed out.

"Yeah . . . but the man's still crazy. Doesn't care about the odds, or the possibilities. Just charges in with guns blazing, and be damned to anybody who gets in his way."

"Sounds to me like you approve of him, underneath it all," Tolwyn told him as they reached the lift that would take them up to the flight deck.

Emerging back onto the open area, they joined the two admirals at the fringe of the captain's welcoming party and watched the Presidential shuttle slipping gently through the force field to settle on the deck close by. Bondarevsky noted that the shuttle bore the name San Jacinto, after Kruger's old ship that he'd used to launch his mutiny and his subsequent career. He wondered what Richards thought of it. Vance Richards had been the young commander of Kruger's squadron when Old Max had committed his act of defiance. He sometimes claimed it was Kruger's act that had blotted his service record and earned him a transfer to Intelligence.

The shuttle door opened, and once again the bosun's whistle greeted the arrival of the VIP visitor. This time it was accompanied by a recorded band playing something stately and elegant, presumably some Baroque fanfare that was part of the normal greeting for Landreich's President.

Knowing how Kruger felt about ceremony of all kinds, Bondarevsky couldn't help but wonder what the Presidential reaction would be. Galbraith certainly knew that Old Max wasn't the kind to waste a lot of time on all the formal aspects of his office. Did he put on this display because he was helplessly wedded to the rigmarole? Or was he trying to remind Kruger that there were elements in the Landreich who regarded the presidency as something more than just a job?

Kruger stepped out of the shuttle hatch, looking around with a pugnacious but somehow wistful gleam in his eye. Young Tolwyn's comments about his intention of using the escort carrier as his own personal flagship struck a chord with other pieces of scuttlebutt Bondarevsky had heard over the last few days. Old Max wanted to lead this mission himself in the worst possible way, and he was bitter at having been thwarted in his plans.

Back in the crisis preceding the Battle of Earth Kruger had taken direct command of the Landreich fleet from the bridge of the destroyer Blitzkrieg. He'd also maintained a command post on Hellhole before the Kilrathi had bombed the settlement there. His flamboyant leadership style was best suited to leading from the front—preferably the forward element of the most advanced scout units of the fleet vanguard—and Kruger had played his role to the hilt.

But since that time, from what Bondarevsky had heard, Old Max was finding it harder to carry out his duties from the deck of a fighting ship. The worlds of the Landreich were a cantankerous bunch, peopled by stubborn, independent-minded folk who took a lot of governing. Having an absentee president tended to unsettle things in the capitol. That hadn't made much difference back when Kilrathi forces were running roughshod through Landreich space, but now that things were more settled Kruger's political advisors had turned up the pressure to keep him chained to his desk at the palace.

And this mission, as important as it was likely to be, was also sure to be a long and largely boring one. Surveying and salvaging a derelict ship was not the kind of life-or-death mission Kruger could point to as needing his personal touch, not when there were political problems to deal with at home.

Even so, it had taken Richards reminding Kruger that he was the only one who could keep Clark Williams and the rest of the Confederation embassy under control while the crisis continued to unfold to convince Old Max of the need to stay at his post like a good soldier instead of running around in deep space where he longed to be. So that wistful look was genuine. Bondarevsky felt sorry for the man, whatever his personal eccentricities.

Kruger was very much a man of action,