A Vow to Sophia

by John Bowers

  He shook his head. "Never in my presence."

  Ursula walked halfway around his fighter, inspecting it.

  "This fighter should go into a museum some day," she said. "The QF that won the war."

  "We haven't won it yet."

  "Don't you think we will?"

  "Do you?"

  She shrugged. "I hope so. But most people don't really understand what we're up against. People hate the Sirians because they attacked us, but not many know how bad they really are."

  "I think I do."

  She strolled back toward him, unconsciously seductive, like Onja. She was taller than Onja, sinewy and long-legged, her blonde hair straight and stiff down to her collar.

  "You do, because your gunner is Vegan."

  "That's right."

  "Vegans know about Sirians."

  "That's right."

  "Did your gunner tell you that I'm also Vegan?"

  "No. But I figured it out."

  "Really?" She almost smiled. "How did you know?"

  "'There's no such thing as an ugly Vegan'. You and Onja are the two most stunning women I've ever seen. And you have similar accents."

  "Very astute, Lincoln. Hardly anyone around here realizes that. Most people think the old saying is just a myth, and not very many people have ever seen a Vegan. At least not since the Sirian occupation."

  "Tell me something, Captain."

  "Call me Ursula."

  "Okay, Ursula. Are all Vegans as volatile and moody as the two of you? I've never met two more intense, pissed-off women in my life."

  She looked as if she wasn't sure whether to take offense at that, then shrugged.

  "I guess when people have been fucked their whole lives it has that effect. There's something about being raped by soldiers when you're still a kid."

  "You, too?"

  She looked surprised. "Yes, me, too. You mean Kvoorik…"

  He nodded.

  Ursula was silent for a long moment.

  "I didn't know that. I thought she got away."

  "She left Vega when she was twelve, but she was raped at ten."

  Ursula shuddered. "Sophia!"

  "What are you doing down here, Captain?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "You didn't come down here just to be by yourself, did you?"

  "Of course I did. Didn't you?"

  He only stared at her, his eyes calling her a liar. She ducked her head.

  "I saw you heading this way, so I followed." She stepped in front of him and placed her hands on his shoulders. "You aren't offended that I find you attractive, are you?"

  "You're the major's gunner," he said.

  "The major is an asshole."

  "You said that, I didn't."

  "I've met nicer Sirians."

  "I wouldn't know."

  She kissed him. He didn't move, though he couldn't deny that she affected him. His pulse increased, partly because of her kiss, but also because something was terribly wrong about this.

  "I don't have any friends on this ship, Lincoln. I could use a friend."

  "I'll be your friend. But that's all."

  "Come on. You said yourself I'm the second most beautiful woman you ever met. You're already screwing one, wouldn't you like to try the other?"

  "What I would like to do isn't the issue," he said, pushing her hands off his shoulders. "I'm in love with my gunner, and I'll be faithful to her."

  "She won't even know, Johnny," she whispered. "One time couldn't hurt. No strings, no emotional attachments."

  "You don't have to buy my friendship with sex, Ursula. If you really want a friend, just be friendly."

  "There isn't a man alive that doesn't require sex from a woman if she wants to be his friend. What makes you different?"

  "If you believe that, it's no wonder you don't have friends."

  Her dark eyes hardened and her lip twisted into a sneer.

  "Fuck you, Lincoln! Don't get righteous with me!"

  He shook his head. "You told me you could use a friend. I'm simply giving you my terms. Sex is not required."

  "Wouldn't you like to know what I can do for you?" The sneer was gone, but the eyes were like ebony chips. Yet there was a plaintive quality to her voice, almost a pleading.

  "I might enjoy finding out, but that wouldn't make it right. I have a commitment to Onja. I don't break commitments."

  The sneer returned.

  "You don't think she sleeps alone when you're not around, do you?"

  "Yes, I do. Loyalty is very important to her."

  "You might be surprised," Ursula said.

  "Not in a million years," he replied with confidence.

  She craned her neck around and nodded toward the sentry on duty fifty yards away.

  "See that Star Marine over there?" she said. "If I went up to him and made the same offer I just made you, he'd get down on his knees and thank his deity for the gift. You're turning me down cold."

  Johnny cocked his head.

  "What's the point of all this?" he asked. "You didn't come here looking for a friend. You're trying your damnedest to get me into bed. Why?"

  "What …"

  "Did someone put you up to this?"

  Her features darkened with a scowl. He expected her to go into a rage, but she contained herself with an effort.

  "I'm not used to being rejected," she said. "I think you're sexy, and I don't see why Kvoorik should get all of you."

  "How come you don't like her?" he asked. "With your common background, I'd think you two would be friends."

  "I'm not going to get into that."

  An awkward silence followed for the space of a minute. Ursula avoided his eyes, pacing around his ship, then back.

  "If you ever change your mind," she said finally, "or if anything ever happens to Kvoorik, I'd like to fly back seat for you."

  "Can you shoot?"

  "I'm not 'perfect' like she is, but, yeah, I can shoot. If I had a pilot … Forget I said that."

  "Forgotten."

  "Anyway, if I had a pilot like you I could be a better gunner. That's all I meant."

  "Understood."

  "Keep me in mind. If you don't mind flying with the Bitch of Luna 9."

  She grinned humorlessly when she said it, but he detected pain in her voice.

  "I don't intend to lose my gunner," he said. "But it's going to be a long war. I'd be willing to consider you if it ever came to that."

  She stared into his eyes for long seconds, measuring his sincerity, then almost smiled again. The bitterness had gone from her eyes.

  "I guess I'd better get back. Early patrol tomorrow."

  "Hey." He extended his right hand. She looked at it in surprise, glanced into his eyes, then slowly took his hand. "Friend," he said, shaking her hand gently.

  She blinked rapidly, then released his hand. Without another word she headed back toward the lift that led out of the hangar deck. Johnny watched her go, puzzled and uncertain. She was obviously a complex person, and he hoped the simple gesture had helped, if only a little.

  With a sigh, and a last look at his fighter, he also turned and headed back to quarters.

  * * *

  Ursula Negus stepped into the cabin she shared with Major Hinds and let the door seal behind her. Hinds sat at a small desk peering at a data monitor. He looked up, his harsh green eyes piercing.

  "Where were you?"

  Negus lifted her chin as she gazed at him.

  "The hangar deck."

  "Doing what?"

  "Taking a walk." She stepped toward the entrance to their sleeping quarters, but didn't quite make it.

  "Who'd you see?"

  Negus stopped, irritated.

  "Christ, Jack! I was taking a fucking walk!"

  "Lincoln there?"

  She blinked twice, then nodded. Hinds waited, but she didn't elaborate.

  "Well?" he demanded.

  "Nothing," she told him. "He didn't bite."

  "Why not?"

 
; Her eyes flared wide. "How the hell should I know? Maybe he thinks I'm ugly!"

  Hinds snorted. "Yeah, right!"

  "Jack, I told you this was a shit idea, okay? I'm no good at seduction, never had any experience at it. The men in my life just take what they want."

  Hinds returned his attention to the terminal without comment, but Ursula noted the flush that crept slowly up from his collar. She closed her eyes and lowered her head for a moment, trying to understand what she was feeling. When she looked up, Hinds was still staring at his terminal.

  "You coming to bed?" she dared ask.

  He shook his head. Ursula stepped into the sleeping cube and dropped onto her rack, grinding her teeth and fighting the urge to scream.

  What the hell was Johnny Lincoln trying to pull, anyway? All that talk about friendship.

  Bullshit!

  Saturday, 13 April, 0222 (PCC) — the Orbit of Mars, Solar System

  UFF Sadat arrived off Mars on 13 April, 0222. Four months had passed since the invasion force had been blunted, but combat strikes against the Red Planet hadn't relented. Polygon officials still feared an attempt at invasion, and the Federation's first carrier would be risked to meet the threat.

  Col. Nunez, the Space Group Commander (SGC), stood in front of the 213 in their ready room, using a holographic display of nearby space to illustrate his lecture. He was a short, dark man with a thick mustache who looked very much like a villain from an Ancient Western vid. He never smiled or showed any humor as he spoke, but given his subject matter, didn't have a great deal to smile about.

  "The Martian squadrons have been taking heavy losses for the past couple of months," he told them candidly. "A couple have been all but wiped out, and most are barely above fifty percent.

  "But we have pretty good intel from the last couple of strikes. Long-range Ladar has confirmed that the Sirians are dropping out of hyperspace, which we've suspected for months. What we don't know is where they originated, or returned to. We have to find out where they sleep and eliminate it."

  He grimaced.

  "So the next time they show up, we're going to try to follow them back."

  "Colonel?" Capt. Washington had his hand up, and Nunez nodded to him. "How can we do that? You can't follow another ship through hyperspace, or maneuver there. You sure as hell can't fight there."

  "That's right. Which is what makes this task tricky. But we have a plan. It's going to be dangerous, but we think it may work."

  He grimaced again.

  "Although you can't see another ship in hyperspace, you can talk to it. And you can receive subspace signals. Interstellar liners do it all the time. What we propose is to place a homing beacon on an enemy fighter — more than one, if possible — and then follow the signal when they warp back home after a strike."

  Eyebrows shot up all over the room, and the expressions ranged from cynical to downright disbelieving.

  "I know what you're thinking," Nunez said. "How in god's name are we supposed to plant a homing beacon on an enemy fighter. Well, that's the problem, isn't it? How to do it."

  He thumbed a switch on his holo-projector. The hologram changed from a map of Martian space to a very realistic picture of a Sirian fighter.

  "This is the culprit," Nunez said. "We've been able to recover the wrecks of a few of these fighters, and we have a pretty good idea of the technology. We know, for instance, where the Ladar and video pickups are located, and other sensors.

  "In order to make this work, we have to plant a homing device on a part of the fuselage where it won't be detected. Like us, the Sirians have protected their ships with surface scanning to detect any foreign objects attached to the hull, because they don't want any mines or other trinkets sticking to them. But there is one place the scanning doesn't reach, as far as we can tell. That's right here."

  The picture rotated to present the fighter's tail to them, so that they were looking into the star drives. Nunez pointed to a small area just above the star drive exhaust ducts, not more than two feet wide and three feet long.

  "This area is not reached by magnetic scans, probably because of the radiation output from these engines. Anything explosive that was attached there would likely malfunction anyway, so it's an unlikely point of vulnerability. That, ladies and gentlemen, is where we have to place our homing device."

  A general buzz of conversation met this explanation, and puzzlement was still the order of the day. Onja glanced at Johnny; he arched his eyebrows.

  Nunez changed the picture again, and they saw a small object that looked like a cannon shell.

  "This is a 29mm projectile," he told them, "just like you use in your autocannon. But this is a hollow nosed projectile, with no explosive head. If it's fired into the side of a Sirian fighter it will embed itself and just sit there, like a dud. Inside that dud, however, is the homing transmitter."

  He changed the picture again and they saw a tiny electronic chip like a micro-transistor.

  "The transmitter is shielded against radiation and can withstand an explosion. So when fired into an enemy ship it will, ninety percent of the time, continue to transmit after impact. In fact, the impact is what triggers it."

  He turned to face them squarely.

  "What we want to do is fire as many of these as possible into the tails of as many fighters as possible, let the fighters escape, and then track them through hyperspace to see where they go. Once we have that information, we have a chance of taking the war to the enemy."

  "Colonel," Marcos spoke up, "that's calling for one hell of an ass shot. When you consider that we do most of our fighting at a thousand miles or more, I don't see how we can ever hope to plant even one of these things, unless we get damned lucky."

  Nunez nodded. "Good point, Lieutenant. That is our biggest problem. But we think it can be done. The best time to plant the device is within thirty seconds of the enemy's jump to hyperspace, just after they drop their shields but before they jump. Which means we have to get someone in position at that time. Someone who knows how to get in close enough, fast enough, and can shoot straight enough to do the job. All that before the bastard can make the jump."

  He made another face.

  "At the present time we only know of one fighter crew who has a prayer of pulling it off."

  Glances were exchanged, and before Nunez could finish, people were already looking at them.

  "Railsplitter and the Fighter Queen."

  * * *

  Captains Washington and Jordan were assigned to fly escort for the special mission. Over the next two days, they covered the possible scenarios until they could recite them in their sleep. Finally, they could do nothing more but wait for the next enemy strike. Their 29mm magazines were loaded with the special ammunition, and until the mission was flown there would be no combat patrols or other action for the two crews.

  What would happen after the mission succeeded was equally critical. Knowing where the Sirians came from would be worthless unless a strike could be mounted quickly. If the mission were to have any value at all, a strike force had to be dispatched immediately afterward. Based on that assumption, Sadat would hold five squadrons in reserve to make a hyperspace strike against whatever was on the other side of that jump. That left only three squadrons to handle any combat leading up to the planting of the transmitters, plus whatever squadrons came up from Mars.

  What they had to do now was wait for the enemy to return and execute everything perfectly when he did. To Johnny Lincoln, it looked like a very, very long shot.

  Monday, 15 April, 0222 (PCC) — the Orbit of Mars, Solar System

  "Are you scared, Johnny?"

  Onja lay beside him in their quarters after two days of intensive study and preparation, listening to the hum of star drives that vibrated through the bulkheads of their cabin.

  "I'm always scared," he admitted quietly. "We're in a war."

  "I'm scared, too. But I wouldn't miss this for anything."

  "Not even to marry me? Settle down an
d make babies?"

  She smiled. "Except that."

  He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her against him. They'd already made love and now lay naked, side-by-side. He luxuriated in the feel of her body against him. He kissed her deeply, then sighed.

  "There's something I have to tell you," he said quietly.

  "You have another woman." Onja's blue eyes teased him.

  Johnny almost recoiled at her words, his expression suddenly stricken.

  "Johnny?" Onja levered herself up onto an elbow, the gaiety gone from her eyes. "What's wrong? You don't really …"

  "No! No, god no! There is no woman in the galaxy but you, Onja. You know that."

  She stared at him for an eternal five seconds. "Then what is it?"

  He took a deep breath and sat up, putting distance between them.

  "You remember Angela Martinez?"

  "The girl at the dance who was in love with you."

  Johnny nodded. He swallowed hard, frowning, and took Onja's hand.

  "Remember when I was wounded at Travis, the first time I saw you? When I got out of the hospital they gave me a twenty-four hour pass to go home, and I took Angela out to dinner. Afterward …" He paused, biting his lip.

  "You took her to bed."

  He nodded. "It was the only time we ever did that."

  "Johnny, what you did before we met has no bearing on our relationship."

  "I know. But when we were home this time my brother told me that Angela has a baby."

  Onja blinked in surprise, then sat straight up, squeezing his hand.

  "Is it yours?"

  "I think so. It almost has to be."

  "Goddess! What are you going to do?"

  He shook his head helplessly.

  "I don't know. First I have to find out if it's true. Angela never said a word about it, and neither did anyone else. And Brad isn't the most reliable source in the universe."

  Then he told her about the clues that had been bothering him, and his conclusions as to their meaning.

  "If I do have a kid," he said, "I have to be a part of its life. I never knew my real dad, and that isn't going to happen to any kid of mine."

  Onja watched him thoughtfully for a moment.

  "Would you want to marry her?" she finally asked in a quiet voice.

  "Angela? No. I'm not in love with her. But I do have a responsibility." He met her eyes again. "And I don't want this to come between us. I love you, and only you. I'll never love anybody else. Please don't ever question that."