Wing Commander #07 False Color by William Forstchen (best books to read in life .txt) 📕

anyway. During wartime a maverick can come up to officer's country through the cargo hatch the way I did, but nobody wants you around in peacetime unless you're an officer and a gentleman . . . or lady, as the case may be. I figured you needed the help."

He studied her for a long moment. Sparks had served with him for a long time now, ever since the days of the Tarawa's deep penetration raid on Kilrah back before the Battle of Earth. The relationship between a fighter pilot and his crew chief was almost always incredibly close, because the pilot put his life in the crew chief's hands every time he took his craft out of the hangar. The two had hovered on the edge of a romance for a time following the death of Bondarevsky's first love in Tarawa's raid, but he'd pulled back from anything serious. Not only was it a bad idea for a ship's captain to have a dalliance with one of his officers while on active service, but Bondarevsky hadn't been willing to risk losing another Svetlana. Since that one brief kiss a few years back, he and Sparks had been friends unwilling to risk anything more.

But one way or another Bondarevsky had always placed absolute trust in Sparks, a trust that had carried over after she'd earner her commission and moved on to other duties. Somehow, though, he'd never really considered what drove her. Fact was, Sparks could have stayed in the service without any trouble at all. After the devastating battles of the decades-long Kilrathi war, technical officers with her talents were much in demand even with the Fleet's downsizing program. But she had elected to follow him into retirement in the seaside home he'd purchased in Odessa . . . and now into what amounted to a self-imposed exile.

An announcement over the PA system cut short his reverie before he could say anything further. "Attention, attention, Landreich Shuttlecraft Themistocles Alpha now docking at Shuttle Port Three."

"That's us," he said quietly. "Got your gear?"

Sparks nodded as Bondarevsky hitched his kitbag over his shoulder and turned toward the lift that would take him into the reception area below. She followed him along the empty catwalk, and somehow the fact that she was there made it easier for Bondarevsky to make the short but monumental trek

He'd put one era behind him. Today it was time to start a new one.

The security doors leading into the shuttle bay still hadn't been opened when the two officers reached them. Bondarevsky couldn't tell if that was because the work crews were short-handed, or because of some perverse desire on the part of those in authority to make the new arrivals wait before they could gain admission. Landreich was still regarded as a haven for outlaws and criminals, even though the frontiersmen there had made the difference between victory and defeat when the Kilrathi attacked Earth itself and a Landreich squadron had turned the tide when everything seemed to be coming apart.

The news was full of continuing problems between the Confederation and Landreich these days. The colonials refused to accept Terran authority; the Confederation accused Landreich of deliberately provoking trouble with their neighbors on the frontier, including the newly peace-loving Kilrathi. Knowing President Kruger as Bondarevsky did, it was a sure bet that Landreich would never back down, right or wrong.

Maybe that was why he'd accepted Landreich's offer of employment. They could be an exasperating bunch, but one and all they were the kind of people he could relate to, fighters who never backed down from a challenge, and threw out the rule book and winged it when they were in a furball.

A marine sergeant behind the desk at the security door cocked his head and raised one white-gloved hand to his earpiece receiver. Then he touched a stud on the console in front of him and stood up, drawing himself to attention. With his crisp dress uniform and his precise motions, he might have been an android responding to a carefully-composed protocol program

The officer who stepped through the opening doors was a contrast to the wooden-featured sergeant in every possible way. He was young—probably not yet twenty standard years—and he was anything but stiff and solemn as he stared around the shuttle port with wide eyes and a broad, easygoing grin on his open but weather-beaten features. His shock of ginger hair was longer than Confederation regulations would have permitted, and there was a cheerful spark in his eyes. As for his uniform . . . well, the less said about that the better, Bondarevsky decided. Landreich had never had the money, time, or inclination to organize their military forces into anything as rigid as the Confederation's, and they generally relied on what they could steal, scavenge, salvage, or buy on the cheap when it came to uniforms and equipment. Bondarevsky recognized elements of the young officer's uniform as coming from Confed supplies, probably salvaged from Bannockburn or one of the other Terran ships that had operated in Landreich space back in the old days. But the man's jacket was decidedly non-regulation, looking like something out of a holo-vid Western—leather, with plenty of pockets and old-fashioned buttons running down the front. The youngster wore a pistol on one hip, and the holster and the protruding butt of the weapon itself had the look of frequent use. Had they been like that when they'd come to this young man? Bondarevsky had a feeling that was something he shouldn't take for granted. Young he might be, but growing up in the Landreich with the constant threat of Kilrathi attack only one of many dangers a colonial faced had a way of making a kid grow up fast . . . and dangerous.

The Marine saluted him stiffly, and the newcomer returned it with a casual, offhand flourish. "At ease, man, at ease," he said, the lilt in his voice fitting his appearance. They tell me there's a pile of forms