by John Bowers
"Get down and give me twenty-five!" he roared.
She quickly dropped to the deck and began pumping with her arms. He moved on down the line, adjusting two or three other girls. Onja counted twenty-five and got back in line, her eyes smarting. Instantly he was back in her face.
"Did I give you permission to stop, Tits! No, I did not give you permission to stop! Get back down there!"
She dropped to the ground again and began pumping, her arms burning with pain. After three pushups his boot landed in the center of her back, slamming her against the ground. He quickly knelt beside her.
"Well-well-well," he said musingly. "I see the problem here. You can't do a decent pushup because your tits are in the way. Your tits are too big, Tits! Get back to attention!"
Quaking inside, Onja quickly obeyed. He stood staring at her chest for a minute, his face twisted into a sneer.
"You got to do something about those tits, Tits," he said in a quieter voice. "Let's see what we have here."
To Onja's horror, he lifted her fatigue shirt and grabbed her bare breasts with both hands. Instinctively, without a thought for the consequences, she slapped him, the sound of it like a pistol shot. Instantly she was back on the ground, Tkach's knee in her back, one arm twisted painfully behind her, his fist hammering her kidney. She tried to scream but couldn't get her breath. Her entire body convulsed in agony, and just when she thought she would pass out, he stopped hitting her. Instead, he twisted her head around, squeezing her cheeks until her lips bulged like a fish.
"Understand me, you Norway cunt!" he rasped so quietly that only she could hear, "I'll be watching you! You think you're immune because you have big tits? Fuck you! I'm going to make a soldier out of you or kill you in the attempt!" He shook her head painfully. "Do you understand me?"
"Y-Y- Yess …"
"Yes what!"
"Yes, s-sir!"
He released her and hopped to his feet. "On your feet, cow!"
She managed to get her elbows on the ground and pushed herself up. Her head hung in agony, and her stomach heaved.
"I said get up!" His combat boot slammed into her side, lifting her off the ground. "Get up, you fucking whore!"
Onja staggered to her feet, swayed, and almost fell before she managed to get back into line. She couldn't even attempt to stand at attention, but Tkach no longer seemed to notice. He gave one of her nipples a twist.
"Do something about those tits!" he ordered.
He moved on down the line, leaving Onja swaying in place. Muddy tears streaked her cheeks, but she no longer cared. Within her burned a white-hot rage, a hatred even greater than her hatred for Sirians. She focused her mind and tried to forget the pain. She was going to become a combat gunner; she was going to kill Sirians; she was going to free her mother and sister …
And Cpl. Tkach was a dead man.
Chapter 5
Monday, 14 August, 0220 (PCC) — Asteroid Base 131, Solar System
Major Robert Landon stood in an observation lounge and stared out at the panorama before him. As far as the eye could see stretched the darkness of space; the sun was dimly visible, about as bright as a Christmas tree bulb, and the foreground was littered with billions of cubic tons of rubble that swirled lazily like windblown leaves on the moon — if such a thing were possible. The asteroid where Landon stood was somewhere between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter — closer to Mars in relation to the sun, but quite a long distance from either planet. Landon had heard the asteroid's official designation once but no longer remembered it. As far as the Space Force was concerned, it was simply AB-131.
Landon was thirty-eight, a Space Force lifer. Only months away from finishing his twenty, with the option to go another five or ten years, until a week ago he'd been making up his mind whether to retire. Then the Sirians attacked and it became a moot point. All enlistments were extended until further notice, but even without that complication, Landon could hardly leave his post. AB-131 was now cut off from all direct communication with Terra and Luna, essentially stranded in the face of the enemy.
He turned from the observation lounge and headed through a maze of corridors toward the comm center. The war hadn't been unexpected, he reflected. The Space Force had gone to Defense Condition Two right after the Alpha invasion. But it had been a shock just the same. According to communications they had monitored, Terra had been hit hard on the North American continent; several bases on Luna had been pounded; and a number of capital ships were damaged or destroyed. Nobody was talking about casualty figures, but Landon suspected they were high. The enemy had also sustained losses, but again he had no data.
He reached the comm center, returned several salutes, and stood staring at the Ladar tank, which displayed a three-dimensional representation of the Asteroid Belt for a million-mile radius. Bright blue dots indicated ZF-99 on patrol, eleven ships under Major Crawford, scattered a few hundred miles apart, lying motionless near the top of the Belt where they could maneuver quickly should they detect the enemy. Two days ago, ZF-57 had encountered the enemy a few thousand miles from here. Two Fed ships had been lost and another damaged, with only one Sirian accounted for.
He turned to the duty officer.
"Any contact, Ensign?"
"All quiet, sir. ZF-57 is briefing for its patrol, ZF-99 will be heading back in thirty-seven minutes."
Landon nodded. "Carry on."
He headed for his office on the level below. Asteroid duty could be damned boring, and the war hadn't changed that. No one knew where the enemy was or when he would strike next, so there was nothing to do but patrol and wait. Because of its vulnerability, the base couldn't transmit for fear of detection, yet its purpose was to act as a combat outpost, one of thirty-six such outposts strung around the sun, all hidden inside the Belt. Thirty-six was a pitiful number, he realized, but getting congressional approval for even that many had been like pulling teeth. The man responsible was Senator Henry Wells, a name well known to the pilots and personnel of the Space Force.
But thirty-six was better than nothing. The concept was simple enough — provide a picket line around the Inner Worlds, a line the Sirians couldn't completely ignore, like a minefield that could erupt at any time. They were in no position to prevent strikes at Terra and Luna, but any sustained military operation inside the Solar System would have to deal with the asteroid bases, sooner or later.
Landon reached his office and stopped before his clerk's desk. Her name was Sgt. Hammond, and she handed him several items that needed his attention. He stepped inside his office, which was only slightly larger than a coffin, and closed the door. He dropped into his chair and scanned the items Hammond had given him; then he dropped them on his desk and stared at the wall, his eyes losing focus.
His official position was squadron leader of ZF-111, but just before the war started, the wing commander had rotated home for a family emergency. Landon had been asked to fill in until the replacement arrived, but then the war started and no ships had arrived since. Landon seriously wondered if they would ever see another supply ship — four had been destroyed by the Sirians en route to other bases — and if that should prove to be the case, this would be a very short war indeed. The base could survive indefinitely without food supplies or water — hydroponics and recycling handled those needs — but munitions were something else entirely. Even a single large battle would seriously deplete the available stores of torpedoes, not to mention spare parts for damaged fighters. Destroyed fighters couldn't be replaced, nor lost pilots and gunners. All three squadrons were short of personnel even before the war started, and several fighters had been down-checked for repairs.
As an amateur war historian, Landon was reminded of Wake Island several hundred years earlier; that pretty much summed up his own situation — hold the enemy as long as you can, then god bless you and your people.
Landon
sighed. He'd spent his whole career training for war, and when he was just about to hang up his jets, war had finally come.
What irony.
Hannover, Germany, Terra
Onja sat on her bunk staring into a mirror, frowning at what she saw. Cosmetics were forbidden during boot camp, and she'd never looked so plain in her life. For a girl of Vegan heritage, her appearance was totally unacceptable, but at the moment she could do nothing about it.
It was Saturday night in the barracks, five days after she'd arrived. They would get a few hours off Sunday morning, to allow anyone who wished to attend religious services. Onja planned to sleep — her body was still sore from the unrelenting physical training. At some point it was supposed to get better, but so far every day had been an exercise in agony.
Thirty girls shared the barrack, most of them under twenty. They came from across northern Europe — Onja from Norway, Inga from Sweden, Gretchen and Helga from Germany, Monique from France, Olga from the Ukraine, Marina and Oksana from Russia — and others Onja hadn't met. Some were peasant girls, others from the cities; most were attractive, a few were not. They all looked slightly ridiculous with their bald heads, skull bones showing in stark relief. Even without hair, Onja was clearly the best looker in the barrack, but hardly considered that an advantage. That bastard Tkach had a hard-on for her, and she didn't need that kind of attention.
"Hey, look at this!" Oksana, across the aisle, was peering at a compact computer. Heads turned at the excitement in her voice.
"What?" someone asked.
"Look at this beautiful boy! He shot down five Sirians the day the war started! And he is only a civilian test pilot."
"How old is he?"
"Twenty-two, I think."
Two or three girls crowded around to look at the picture on the screen.
"He's cute," one of them reported, "but I wouldn't say beautiful."
"I think he is gorgeous!" Oksana said. "Fighter pilots are sexy."
"Bah! He's North American!" Helga said.
"So what? Most North Americans are descendents of Europe. What do you think, Onja?"
She spun the screen around so Onja could see. Onja stared for a moment, then shrugged. "He isn't so beautiful."
"He shot down five Sirians!"
"So what? He's a civilian. The only pilots I'm interested in are pilots I can actually fly with."
"But don't you think he's cute?"
"If you say so."
Onja inspected her nails, letting the others ramble on about the pilot. The nails were short now, and the artwork was chipping. She wouldn't have a chance to repair them until after boot camp, three months away. She scowled at the inconvenience; it was always the little things that got to you.
"How long do you think the war will last?" someone asked. "I didn't sign up to fight. If I had known there would be a war —"
"Why did you sign up?" Onja asked, pinning her with a blue stare. "Why join the military if you think there may never be a war?"
"To get money for college," the girl said defensively. "Work for two years, get out, go to school."
Onja turned away with a sneer.
"Oh, you bitch!" the other girl shouted. "Miss High and Mighty. I suppose you signed up to fight?"
"Of course," Onja said simply, "why else would I sign up? To let Corporal Tkach try to fuck me?"
"I suppose you want to be a gunner, then?"
"Yes."
"Not me," Inga said from the rack above Onja. "I want to be a nurse. And I want to go into space."
"I want to meet men," Helga smiled boldly. "I'm going to join the Pink Ladies. I just like to fuck."
Onja glanced at her appraisingly, but said nothing. Helga weighed nearly eighty kilos — she didn't have a prayer of being accepted by the Pink Ladies.
"Do you ever think about being killed?" Marina asked quietly.
"Every day on the parade ground," Inga said, and they all laughed.
"What kind of name is 'Tkach'?" Monique asked.
"'Tkach' is Russian," Marina replied. "It means 'rectum'."
"What's this war about, anyway?" Oksana asked. "Why are the Sirians mad at us?"
"You mean you don't know?" Onja asked.
"No. Do you?"
"The Sirians are trying to take over the galaxy."
"Why would they do that? What did we ever do to them?"
Onja sighed and sat up, crossing her legs on her rack. The others gazed at her as if they also didn't really know.
"Fifty years ago, Sirius invaded Beta Centauri. Twenty-five years later they invaded Vega. In both cases, they took over the planets completely and carried away millions of women as slaves —"
"Nooo!" several girls shouted at once.
"Nobody holds slaves any more!" Helga said.
Onja stilled them with a glare.
"They take slaves," she told them. "Not only that, they rape any women they want, and they indoctrinate the children to think like Sirians. In a single generation, they now have an ally. We will not only be fighting Sirius, but Beta Centauri and Vega, too."
"But why are they attacking us? Why not Alpha Centauri, or Altair?"
"They already took Alpha Centauri," Inga said. "Two months ago. Right, Onja?"
"Yes. They are also fighting on Altair, which is having a civil war. The Sirians are helping one side against the other, and when it's over they will probably control the planet."
She turned back to Oksana.
"When they invaded Alpha Centauri, the Federation protested immediately, and suspended all trade with the Confederacy. That was all the excuse they needed to hit us next. They were planning to do it anyway."
"How do you know that?"
"Because you don't go to war against the Federation without years of planning. They didn't have time to set it up in just two months. They were coming here anyway; they just occupied Alpha to keep us from using it as a base. Also, they can supply their armies from there a lot easier than from Sirius."
The girls stood silent for a moment.
"I've never heard anything about slaves," Helga said. "Are you sure about that?"
"Yes."
"How do you know?"
"I just know."
"I don't believe you."
"Fine. I hope you never have to find out for yourself."
Inga sighed from the rack above. "I just hope I can get through boot camp," she said. "This is hard!"
"You can make it," Onja told her.
"How do you do it, Onja? That corporal beats you every day!"
Onja shrugged and stared at her hands. "Every time he hits me, I just remind myself that before I leave here, I'm going to kill him."
Several girls exchanged shocked glances. Inga dared ask the question.
"Onja, you are kidding. Aren't you?"
Onja fixed her with a wide gaze and shook her head.
"No," she said. "I am not kidding."
Friday, 18 August, 0220 (PCC) — Denver, CO, Terra
Oliver Lincoln III sighed as he settled down onto a patio chair after dinner, a scotch in his hand. It had been a long day, but most of them were these days. His wife looked up from a flower catalog she'd been reading.
"Anything new today?" she asked. Rosemary, at forty-eight, was regal and lovely, her hair the color of roasted coffee beans. Her only concessions to middle age were half a dozen extra pounds and a few character lines around the eyes.
"Nothing much," Oliver admitted. "The military is going to install some laser batteries around the plant, but they won't be here for another week." He shook his head grimly. "Bastards. They put a hook in me for failing to shut down my VORs, but they drag their ass when I need ASC cover. I swear, bureaucrats are the same here as they are on Sirius."
LincEnt had been fined fifty thousand terros for refusing the NASTC order to shut down on August 9.
Rosemary nodded, dropping her gaze back to the catalog. Oliver cleared his throat.
"Did you, uh —" He glanced in her direction, and she looked up again. "Did you ever mention to John that I'm not his biological father?"
Rosemary shook her head, surpri
se in her eyes.
"No, why would I do that? We agreed never to mention it."
Oliver looked away, staring at the rose garden without seeing it.
"Why do you ask?" she said.
"He knows. The night before he left, he came to my office and threw it in my face. He said some pretty harsh things."
Rosemary looked concerned. "What kind of things?"
"What a shitty father I am, things like that. Said he had a long laundry-list of complaints."
Rosemary sat silent for a moment, thinking.
"Well, you weren't very easy to live with for the first few years," she said.
"I know. I was a complete dick most of the time. I was working through a lot of baggage back then."
She nodded quietly. "It was a hard time for you."
Oliver's marriage to Rosemary had come hard on the heels of his participation in the defense of Vega, an event that left him more traumatized than he would have liked. Sleepless nights and heart-pounding nightmares had plagued him for years, making everyone miserable.
"I guess that didn't make it any easier on the boys," he said. "I wish I could do those years over, and do them differently."
Rosemary said nothing to that.
"Did I make a difference between the boys?" he asked after a moment.
"Don't you think you did?"
"I never meant to."
"But you did, Oliver," she said quietly. "You favored Brad over Johnny and it showed. I think you were disappointed in Brad, because he wasn't what you wanted him to be. At the same time —" She stopped, gazing directly at him. "Do you want to hear this? We've never spoken of it before."
He met her gaze squarely, and nodded.
"If I'm guilty, I want to know about it."
"I can't believe you didn't see what you were doing."
He blinked. It was the first time she'd spoken with such passion about the boys. Clearly she had some pent-up emotions as well.
"Keep talking."
"All right. I think you felt sorry for Brad because of — of how he came into the universe. But you were disappointed in him, too, and you took that out on Johnny."