"Because Phule wants everybody to think he's really there," said Lola, sitting on the bed and watching the holo picture shimmer into visibility. As usual, the default setting when the set warmed up was an advertisement for the Fat Chance's various attractions, beginning with a closeup of Dee Dee Watkins impersonating a damsel in distress in a costume that managed to be revealing and vulnerable at the same time. Ernie let out a low whistle of appreciation, and Lola glowered at him. "Too bad you're not the one I'm trying to kidnap: Your hormones outvote the brain every time. I wish it was as easy to get Phule interested in a few square inches of skin."

"Hey, you can't change human nature," said Ernie, grinning. "Some guys are cold fish, like him. Other guys are natural lovers, like me. Which one would you rather have, babe?"

"Believe me, you really don't want to know the answer to that," said Lola, staring at Dee Dee's performance on the screen. The diminutive starlet was singing, "Where is my knight in shining armor?" Her dance routine had her pursued by several performers dressed as dragons, ogres, and trolls. The music changed, and onto the stage danced a heroic figure in holochrome armor, to rout the evil creatures and carry Dee Dee off in triumph, still singing and smiling brightly at the cameras. "Say, there's an idea," she said. "It just might work, too."

"What might work?" said Ernie.

She sat up and turned her gaze on Ernie. "Captain Phule's a sucker for a damsel in distress. If he thinks I'm in danger, we can lure him off somewhere and nab him. So we have to make it look as if I'm in trouble and set it up so he's the one who has to rescue me. And guess who gets to be the bad guy?"

Ernie frowned. "I ain't so sure I like this," he said.

"Like it?" Lola stretched like a cat waking up from a nap. "I don't know whether you'll like it, but I can guarantee you, you won't like what happens if we don't come up with some way to catch him before long. The guys that hired us don't like spending the kind of money it takes to house us in the Fat Chance without getting some pretty convincing results for their payout. So if you've got any better strategy for catching our little prince, now's the time to tell me."

Ernie frowned but said nothing. After a long moment, Lola nodded and said, "OK, then, here's my plan..."

After a few minutes of listening, even Ernie had to admit that it looked as if it might actually work.

Journal #502

General Blitzkrieg's animosity to my employer had become his driving passion. There were rumors that he had passed up several opportunities to take early retirement in hopes of finding a way to "pay off Jester once and for all, " as he had been heard to say. But when diplomatic circles began to bandy about the Zenobians' request for Omega Company as military advisors, the general had to acquiesce in what the other Legion commanders saw as the first significant improvement in the Legion's image in decades.

That did not prevent him from trying to find ways to sabotage the mission. As quickly became apparent, he had more than one ace up his sleeve.

The intercom buzzed. Warily, Major Sparrowhawk answered, "Yes, General Blitzkrieg?" The general already had his coffee, his news printouts, and the other routine items he wanted first thing every morning. That meant he'd come up with a brainstorm, and General Blitzkrieg's brainstorms meant trouble for Major Sparrowhawk. She might have to spend the next few hours carefully convincing him to change his mind.

"Major, I want a search of Legion personnel files," said the general. "I need a captain or a newly promoted major, somebody from an old-Legion, old-money background. Wouldn't hurt if his family were hereditary nobility somewhere. And he's got to be a stickler for regulations. Give me a dozen candidates, with full dossiers, hard copy, pronto."

"Yes, sir," said Sparrowhawk. She thought a beat, then said, "Male candidates only?"

Blitzkrieg grumbled, then said, "I'll consider a couple of females if they fit the other criteria, but I think this is a job for a man. Oh, yes, and the younger and richer, the better."

"Yes, sir," said Sparrowhawk. She waited a beat, and when the general cut the connection, she began entering the search parameters. Idly she wondered what the general was working up this time. The search parameters were just odd enough that he had to have something particular in mind. Well, she'd find out soon enough.

It was too bad she didn't fit the criteria. Despite the general's lip service to considering a female candidate, it was perfectly obvious that he wanted a male. So much for any dreams she might have had of engineering a transfer and getting out from under Blitzkrieg's thumb.

But she knew better by now than to hope for any such escape. Even in the unlikely case that Blitzkrieg approved the transfer, the other ranking Legion commanders would overrule it, knowing they'd have to ruin some other officer's career to replace her. Nobody wanted the "opportunity" to be Blitzkrieg's adjutant. Her chance to move on would have to await Blitzkrieg's retirement-and she knew all too well that she wasn't the only person in the Legion wishing for that particular event to come sooner rather than later.

She entered the final search parameters and checked to make sure she hadn't made any obvious errors. There was next to no chance that the general would notice any problems on his own, unless the whole project blew up in his face, at which point, she'd get the entire blame. That was an implicit function of her position, minimizing the extent to which the general could foul things up by sheer laziness and inattention to detail. The general would still foul up plenty of things on his own, of course, but where it could be prevented, she was expected to do so. In five years on the job, she'd managed to prevent more than one disaster. Of course, it would only take one that slipped past her to ruin her career. But thinking about that was likely to give her ulcers, and so she did her best not to.

At last, satisfied that she'd set up the program properly, she launched the search, then called up another window to take a look at her stock portfolio. Eventually, she'd be able to retire, and even if the general went down in flames and took her with him, she intended to have a safety net waiting when she did get out. She had a couple of stocks that had been sluggish of late; maybe it was time to sell them off and reinvest in something that moved faster. Her broker had mentioned a company marketing a mini antigrav unit that might be a good short-term investment. She studied the figures until the computer signaled that the general's search was done, then printed out the results (Blitzkrieg always wanted hard copy) and took them into the inner office.

Typically, once he had the information in front of him, General Blitzkrieg made his decision almost immediately. Sparrowhawk wondered if he thought that having the computer pick a list of candidates exempted him from having to put any real thought into making a selection among them. In any case, he flipped through the printouts, reading a few sentences here and there, and then pulled one candidate's dossier off the pile with an air of triumph. The entire process took perhaps five minutes.

"Major Botchup," purred the general. He handed the dossier to his adjutant and grinned wickedly. "Yes, this is precisely the man for the job."

"What position did you have in mind for him?" asked Major Sparrowhawk, fingering the personnel dossier. She was somewhat surprised at the general's enthusiasm. The officer in question fit all the search criteria, no question about that. But reading between the lines of his performance ratings-of course she'd already read the candidates' dossiers-he seemed consistently to rub his superiors the wrong way. While performing strictly in conformance with regulations and Legion tradition (in its way, more important than any regulation), he'd managed to establish himself as a pain in the arse. Not that that made him different from most male Legion officers...She looked back at the general.