by Chris Reher
He groaned. A piece of the window transparency had cut deep into his shoulder. “I think I hit my head.”
“Lie still. I’ll get some help.”
“I’ll be all right. You?”
“Not even a scratch.” She went outside to flag down a medic before returning to his side.
“You know, maybe we shouldn’t keep meeting like this,” he said through clenched teeth as he sat up. Blood poured from his wound and he twisted to try to get a look at it. “Do you ever have a quiet day or something?”
“All pilots to scramble,” they heard the Air Boss snap over the com unit at her wrist. “Roof deck is a go.”
“They didn’t get all of the decks,” she translated as she tapped her com unit. “Whiteside able.”
“They? You think that was an attack?”
“We always think that.” She stood aside when someone arrived with a med kit. “Shuttles don’t just blow up. We’ll talk later.”
She raced to a companionway at the end of the platform, dodging damaged equipment and harried personnel along the way. Two other pilots followed her to the upper deck, also not bothering to wait for the lift which might not even be operational. She stopped near the supply shed to pick up an appropriate helmet. It did not fit as well as her own, already waiting for her in the Shrill she was supposed to have used today, but the interface matched and that was all that mattered.
“Rally at Launch Three,” Dakad’s voice came from her com sleeve.
She changed direction and ran along a row of Kites to where he waited for his squad. Ground crew paced up and down, scanning for explosives. “Rolie!” she cried out with relief when she saw the young Lieutenant. His constant companion, Heiko Boker, was not in sight. She did not dare to ask.
Dakad also wasted no time with roll call to find out what was left of his squadron. The next explosion could well happen on this level. “Let’s get these planes in the air,” he snapped. “Section One: Whiteside lead for tether.” His eyes found Rolyn and moved on to another pilot to assign her wingman and then the rest of the unit. “I’ll lead the array defense. Rolie, you’re with me.”
They scrambled to their assigned Kites and, one by one, entered the chutes to launch into space.
From here protocol took over. Nova led her flight around the station and down to the tether where they took up defensive positions around the bottom of the ranch, its most vulnerable part. The cargo pods had stopped and each level had been sealed off from the next. She sent two Kites down to the halfway point.
“Nothing on sensors,” Sulean muttered needlessly. They all saw that. While an enemy fighter could conceivably slip past their eyes and make it to the station, nothing with the power they had witnessed would easily approach the skyranch without notice.
“Tower concurs,” Dakad said from his position above the solar arrays. “We’ll stay out until all decks are cleared.”
“What do you think—”
“I want no chatter, no speculation, no talk at all. Continue patrol pattern until all clear.”
They fell silent, sweeping the area with sensors and eyes, swinging wide when a swarm of service shuttles issued from the lower decks. The blast had been powerful enough for some pieces to escape the orbiter’s gravity and a scatter of debris slowly spread out from the site of the detonation. Suited-up ground grew searched the exterior for bodies and evidence. The pilots felt useless out here, doing little more than minding their expensive planes without an enemy in their sights.
How many had they lost? Nova thought about Sool, a quiet and polite Caspian who seemed to forever stumble over his outsized feet. He had three mates, as far as she knew, but no children yet. Where was Boker? Floating around out here in small pieces? Still on the station, now perhaps in the medical center? Or maybe in the small morgue where bodies and specimen were kept until someone claimed them. She thought about Rolie, now in Dakad’s firm grip, no doubt beside himself with worry about his friend.
And what about Djari? He had fought whatever demons had followed him from Shon Gat to reach out to her only to be quite literally knocked back down by the Union’s never-ending conflicts. She watched a med-evac plane speed away from the station; casualties too badly wounded to be treated up here. Djari’s injuries had not been severe but she worried, anyway.
Hours passed before two cruisers arrived from the planet, no doubt investigators from the base at Siolet. They hovered briefly and then slipped into the upper landing bays.
Dakad’s voice rasped into her earpiece. “All clear. Section One, return to base. Proceed to ready room and wait for Section Two.”
They obeyed silently, filing into their berths and then took their seats in the pilots’ lounge. Nova had peeled out her flight suit down to her tights and body shirt and huddled in her chair with her legs drawn tight to her body. There was nothing to say. Nothing to do but wait.
Dakad arrived with his section and another officer. He was still checking communications on his data sleeve. Everyone’s eyes were on the door to see which of their comrades were going to join them. Nova shifted over to sit with Lieutenant Rolyn.
“Men,” Dakad said with an apologetic nod to Nova. “We have some info but they’ll be sifting the hangar for a while. Initial reports say that the target was the general’s cruiser. I regret to inform you that General Ausan and most of her crew were lost. No explosives found so far but they have not ruled out sabotage. The shuttle got in the way of the blast. We’ve got eleven ground crew injured, two dead. Among the pilots, in the vicinity were Tashti, Khateka and Whiteside. Tashti is down in the med station.” He tugged on his nose before continuing. “All hands aboard the shuttle were lost to explosive decompression due to a large rupture of the starboard side of the ship. Shuttle pilot Anina, three Caga squad pilots.” He glanced at Rolyn. “The other four were ours: Drayson, Ash Ngava, Sool, and Boker. Their bodies were recovered.”
Dakad droned on about damage to the station, which was confined to the hangar and central platform, expectations of replacements for the lost pilots, adjusted schedules. Nova had grasped Rolyn’s hand in both of hers but whether that was for her comfort or his was a moot point.
She had lost fellow pilots in battle and some of them had been friends. She remembered Chidi Lux, her roommate on her first assignment and a decidedly free spirit, taken down by an enemy fighter over Tannaday. There had been a training accident on Magra that had cost two cadets. She had been in a few major engagements with heavy casualties on both sides. But never this many of what Dakad had called ‘ours’, all at once. Never people with whom she had just finished breakfast. Never this pointlessly. And why Boker? she thought and then looked over the somber, disheartened faces of her squad mates. And why Reko?
Apparently Dakad had finished. Nova looked up when Sulean bent over her seat. “You guys all right?” he said.
Rolyn frowned as if his words were spoken in some other language. At length he shrugged. Then nodded. Someone came to take him away, possibly to get very drunk.
“You coming, too, Nova?” Sulean asked.
She blinked. “Huh? Oh. I’m going down to the hospital.” She hurried from the flight deck and down to the support level of the station. The clinic there was very new; today’s victims were the first casualties of anything more worrisome than construction crew injuries and stomach upsets. She stopped a service staff member to ask about Djari.
“He’s been released,” she was told rather curtly.
“Can you tell me where I can find him?”
The clerk consulted his data pad with an air of great impatience. Nova looked around. The hospital level was designed to service a full complement of five hundred souls once the station was fully operational. Surely today’s half dozen casualties did not tax their systems. She bit back a reprimand, unsure of how one even dealt with civilians here.
“He is quartered on Level Two, cabin Six.”
“How is Lieutenant Tashti?”
The clerk’s eyes swept over Nova to
find the insignia band around her bare upper arm, perhaps wondering how much authority that carried with it. Finally, he called up the pilot’s profile. “She is sleeping. Come back later.”
Nova left the hospital and made her way back up to the second residential level. She found Djari’s room and knocked urgently, not even sure why she needed to see him so badly.
“Nova!” he exclaimed when he saw her. He wore only a short kilt favored by Bellac natives and a thin plaster over his injured shoulder.
She rushed into his room and when she reached for him he could do little more in his surprise than hold her close. She felt his strong arms wrap around her and buried her face in the curve of his neck, just wanting to stay there for a long time. It felt like it had in Shon Gat and she let his presence soothe her as it had before.
“Are you all right?” he said softly. His hands stroked her back.
She shook her head still pressed against his skin. “No, I’m not. Seven of them gone. My friends. And half the damn ground crew. General Ausan! All dead.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said.
She finally lifted her face. “I’d be gone, too, if it weren’t for you. I was supposed to be on that ship.”
He brushed a few loose strands of hair from her cheek. “And you probably saved my neck with that tackle.”
“We keep thinking this can’t happen to us, but it does. I feel so bad! I wish there were something I could do.”
He wrapped his arms around her again. “So do I. I wish I could make this all go away for you.”
She looked up into his eyes. “You can.”
“Nova,” he began, trying to look away and failing. His eyes shifted to her lips. She felt his chest expand with a hitching breath. “This isn’t right,” he whispered.
“It is.”
Djari shook his head, the gesture slow and unfinished. He gripped her arms as if to pull them away but then he did not. “You’re upset,” he said thickly. “Just cry.”
She pressed more tightly against his bare chest. “I don’t need to cry. I need you. Make it better.”
Some unclear, wordless sound escaped him before he bent to kiss her. It was not a gentle kiss nor was she looking for that. His hands and lips were demanding and perhaps he needed her just as much as she craved his touch. They staggered on their feet and he pushed her against the wall. When he gripped her thighs to lift her up she felt his growing excitement not just by his hungry kiss but through the thin fabric that separated their bodies.
She froze when a cold stab of fear intruded upon the moment.
He eased back as if sensing the shift and turned to carry her to his cot. She looked up at him as he placed her there, moving more gently as he joined her in carefully removing her clothes. Their hands and lips continued their exploration and it did not take long before she reached for him, assured once more that nothing he did could ever hurt her. She received him joyfully, moving with him in a rising fervor of passion that, once peaked in a blinding burst of ecstasy, left them gasping for air and utterly spent.
He shifted her to sprawl across his chest, making the most of his narrow bed. “You know,” he said when he was able to speak again. “I think now I know why they call you Nova.”
She looked up. “Hey, my daddy named me that!”
“It was a good choice.” His thumb stroked across her cheek for a thoughtful moment. “Your smile is back, Sunshine.”
She lowered her head again and sighed deeply. “Because of you.”
“I’ve thought about you since… since Shon Gat. You’ve been on my mind. I’ve never known someone like you. But you’re so far away.”
“I’m right here,” she said, quite aware of what he meant. “And not going anywhere soon. Well, unless your roommate decides to come home.”
“Don’t have one. The crew is so small right now. We’re still experimenting and balancing the systems. The workers won’t arrive for a while yet.”
“Is that why you have room for all this stuff here?” She pointed at stacks of flat, unlabeled boxes piled on the other bed in the room. A collection of analysis tools cluttered a narrow shelf along with small bottles of some colored substances. “Bringing your work home with you?”
“I guess,” he said. “Some pilfering going on in the rings. I kept losing trays of our nutrient experiments, so I just packed them up. The stuff is expensive.”
“Hey, maybe by the time the rest of the crew gets here you’ll have your own suite. Something tells me you’re not just a worker.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You don’t strike me as someone who’s happy counting seedlings.”
“True. I’d like to continue work on hybridizing some of Bellac’s produce. Longer daylight hours can make all the difference. Lots of good ideas coming from the other ranches.”
She brushed her lips over his smooth chest. “Well, as long as you get your own room. It’s hard to sneak into the pilot quarters if you don’t belong there.”
A small, vertical line appeared between his brows. “Is that what you have in mind? A secret lover among the ground pounders?”
She pursed her lips. “Well, yes.”
“So it’s: I like you, you like me, let’s sleep together?”
She shifted her eyes away from his watchful scrutiny and leaned over the edge of the bed to fish for her discarded shirt. “Should there be more?”
He watched her pull her shirt over her head and then attempt to untangle her tousled hair. “You don’t have to run from me, Nova. This is not a day for promises. Take what you want; I won’t ask for anything more.”
“I know,” she said softly. “You make me feel safe here.” Then she grinned mischievously. “Of course, we might fall madly in love and then I’d have to become a farmer or you join the ranks of neglected pilot spouses.”
“They’re neglected?”
“Yeah, you don’t get to take one with you until you rank higher. It’s expensive.”
“Doesn’t sound like much fun.” He pushed her shirt out of the way again and then pulled her down to nuzzle her tenderly.
“I should go,” she said and closed her eyes.
“Yes,” he agreed. “In a while.”
Chapter Eight
Her quarters were empty when she returned there. Her roommate, a somewhat bland and overly organized Centauri pilot, had left word that members of all three squads of their wing were gathered in one of the lounges.
Nova felt a twinge of guilt, mostly because the memory of Djari’s skillful hands on her body still lingered in her memory. She dropped her clothes to the floor and stepped into the tiny decon chamber, letting it rinse away the pain and the pleasure that this day had brought. The thought of joining her dispirited team mates filled her with dread but she worried about Rolyn. Drayson was as well-liked as Boker and no doubt those who belonged to the other squad had left a hole in their friends’ lives as well.
She wished Djari was here to join them. His gift for putting others at ease would be welcomed. But even as the thought passed through her musings, she realized that it would not be so. The distance between civilians and Air Command pilots was more than rank. And certainly more than a matter of organizing spouses and lovers into home bases and camp followers. She had been right to quip about falling in love and he had responded in kind. They were worlds apart, in the distance her next assignment may bring, in ambition, and in temperament.
Nova dried her hair and caught it up in a loose knot before slipping into a sleeveless blouse and knee-length tights to join her squad. She didn’t want to feel like a soldier tonight. She had missed dinner while in Djari’s much more sustaining embrace but she doubted the others had eaten, either.
When she arrived in the lounge she found them all as depressed as she had expected them to be. Talk around the tables was subdued; the staff kept the music somber and muted, drinks were dispensed in large quantities. Nova slid into a bench where Rolyn stared into his glass while some of her squad mates sat i
n awkward silence.
She gave his shoulders a quick squeeze.
“You checked out all right?” he said, barely looking up.
“Huh?”
“At the hospital.”
“Yes, I didn’t get hit. I went to check on the others. Tashti was sedated.”
“I saw her earlier,” Lieutenant Cierol said. “She’s got some internal damage and a broken leg. They transferred her to Siolet.”
“Do we know what happened?” Nova looked up to signal for a drink.
“They’re still combing through things,” Sulean, across from her, said. “It’s pretty clear that the general was the target. We’re lucky that Thedris was still topside.”
“Their timing was damn excellent,” Nova said.
He nodded. “Whoever planned this must have known that there’d be pilots on that shuttle. Worthwhile target, besides making Deck Two totally useless for a while.”
“Could be a warning of more to come,” she said. “Did Shri-Lan claim this business?”
“No idea. I’d expect so.”
“I wish someone would just wipe that whole bloody faction out,” Rolyn exclaimed forcefully. There were dark rings under his bloodshot eyes. “We know where they are half the time. Let’s just finish this already!”
Nova moved to cover his hand with hers but he pulled it away. “We wait till they hit us and then we slap them around a bit. That’s it. Where’s the offence? The pre-emptive?”
“We do hit them, Rolie,” Nova said. “You were there when we took that Rhuwac nest out. And the transport going to Siolet before that.”
“Those fucking Rhuwacs are nothing! I’m talking about taking out the damn rebel hideouts. They’re not even rebels! Rebels have at least some goddamn ideology, like the Arawaj faction does. The Shri-Lan are nothing but thieves and smugglers. Let’s just get this over with.”
“They’re tucked in with the locals,” Nora reminded him.
“So what! If someone’s hiding rebels let them pay for that. We’ve got twenty-something fighters hanging around up here doing nothing. Fifty on the ground just around the Rim. What are we waiting for?”