The alarm blasted just as Del finally managed to start his lift. The weights crashed back to the rack and Del scrambled across the room, his mind whirling. He charged into the hall, colliding with a crewman. His panic changed to embarrassment when he saw the cooler of beer.

“Carry on,” Del said, waving his hand impatiently, as if he had known all along.

“Look at those legs!” came a voice from behind, that of Ray Corbin, the Unicorn’s second in command.

“Ray,” Del replied, watching the easy saunter of his approaching friend, the one man Mitchell had personally requested for the crew.

The irony of that fact was never lost on Del, for Mitchell and Corbin were far from alike. Intensity, Mitchell’s trademark, was certainly not a prominent trait of Ray Corbin-the crew had even tagged the man with the nickname of Lay-back Ray. Still, everyone on the crew understood Mitchell’s choice. A quiet, unassuming first officer virtually guaranteed the dominating captain uncontested control.

Or did it? Del often wondered. Truly Ray Corbin would not openly oppose Mitchell; dogfighting wasn’t a part of his makeup. But Corbin was an officer sympathetic to the needs of the people around him, and he realized the pressures that a tyrant like Mitchell could exert on a crew. Del thought of him as the Unicorn’s Mr. Roberts, playing around the hard edges of Jimmy Cagney. And Del’s role in this movie script? He knew it all too well, knew why Ray Corbin had pulled quite a few strings to get him into the project. Corbin needed a foil for Mitchell’s dominance, a release valve for the inevitable tension, and he found it in a man recommended by an old skipper of his. Corbin’s secret weapon was Jeff DelGiudice, the Ensign Pulver to Corbin’s Mr. Roberts.