The Ishtar Investigation
Copyright© 2010 by Allan Joyal
Chapter 12: Is it a Break?
It was a quiet walk as both Linda and I were concentrating on the various pieces we had of a very incomplete picture. We were both so deeply lost in thought that neither of us heard the man shouting at us until he ran up and put his arm on my shoulder.
"What the fuck are you guys doing?" he screamed at me as he spun me around.
I was tempted to throw a punch at the irate officer, but kept calm and found myself looking at Commodore Pruitt. He was about to scream again when I raised my right hand. He paused while looking at my hand.
"You need to get it straight, Ensign," I growled dangerously. "Trying to intimidate me puts one of a very short career path. Now unless you want to keep the rank I gave you permanently, you better start explaining yourself."
The man deflated. "You come here and start investigating and everything is going crazy. My friends on the ship barely talk to me now, and I'm sure that once the news of your arrival hits the training stations the officers there won't want to talk to me either. And I've done nothing to deserve that."
"That explains nothing," I said.
"Yeah," Linda added. "I mean we aren't here to punish someone who is trying their best, but you have to help us. Now what caused you to grab the Commander."
Commodore Pruitt looked down and blushed. "Sorry. I'm just overwhelmed. I know I'm struggling quite a bit in my post. When you arrived and no one knew why I was sure it was for something I had done, but you never approached me directly."
"You have a guilty conscience then?" I asked.
The man blushed. "No, but I definitely am feeling like I'm in the wrong post. I enjoy working on the training schedules and such, but right now all of the complaints from the training centers route through me, and..."
Linda put a gentle hand on the man's arm. "Are you that sensitive to the complaints of the training base commanders?"
To my surprise the man sank down to the ground. "God yes! I was barely an acquaintance to the commanders when there was a pickup in the bar they drank in. Honestly, I'm puzzled by how quickly I gained rank. Most of them were majors and colonels on Earth and have basically the same rank. I was just starting out in my career and I'm equal to many of them in rank now."
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