The Key

by Pauline Baird Jones

  “Secret?”

  “Yeah, not a lot of our people even know we’re out here. Most of our world thinks manned, deep space flight isn’t possible yet. Pretty crazy, isn’t it? We had to be, well, without strong family ties to be able to come. I guess if we disappear, they don’t want anyone asking too many questions.” It wasn’t a happy thought, but at least it was an upside to being an orphan. “It’s kind of funny really. I joined partly just to get away, to go somewhere new. See the world.”

  That wasn’t completely true, but she found some people didn’t understand why she felt compelled to fight. It made her proud to be a part of something larger than herself, to strike back against bad guys. To defend freedom.

  “Never thought I’d make it to another galaxy. I’d have been happy to go to Europe.”

  She turned her head until she could look at Fyn. He was so close, she could see the different shades of green in his eyes. Luckily his mouth was well out of reach. He smelled different than he had on the planet, but still very good. Excellent really. Even military issue soap couldn’t wipe out the essential him.

  “That’s a different…continent on our world.” As she looked into his eyes…music began to play inside her head. Soft, sultry…

  “So, what’s your story? How did you end up out here all alone?”

  His eyes shadowed. “The Dusan.”

  “I wondered…” She hesitated. “Did you have…family…?”

  He nodded slowly. “I had a bond mate. Fiona.”

  Fiona. It was a pretty name.

  “I tried to get her to come with me that last time before…but she had work to do and wouldn’t leave. Our leaders told us there was nothing to fear. It was over before I could get back.”

  “So, she’s just…gone.” Sara sighed silently. Staying safely at home hadn’t saved her. “How long…?”

  “Many seasons have passed.” He was quiet for a few minutes. “At first I tried to find out, or find a way in, but...”

  “What did she…look like?”

  “Small, dark, blue eyes—” His voice changed, got…softer.

  “—beautiful…” Sara finished for him. He’d had beauty, so why was he here with her?

  He nodded.

  She wanted to ask him, but she didn’t know how.

  “What’s your world like?” Fyn asked.

  “My world…” She was still getting used to thinking of it as a world and not a country.

  “It used to seem big, until I saw how big the universe is,” Sara said slowly. “It’s beautiful, great really. I’ll have to show you some pictures. I have some on my computer. And there will be books in the ship library.”

  He could probably read, but she didn’t know how to ask.

  She’d seen the map he’d helped to create of the galaxy. The area controlled by the Dusan reminded her of the former Soviet Union. The planets hidden behind an iron curtain, the way the Eastern block countries used to be cut off. Didn’t matter where you went, it seemed, there was always someone happy to oppress others.

  “Its kind of sad, isn’t it?” She sighed.

  “What?”

  “The Dusan and Gadi, fighting all these years, people dying, and none of them probably even remember why or who started it. At least when we fight, we know why.”

  She was quiet for a few minutes, thinking about her world and his.

  “What was your world like…before?”

  He was quiet for a moment. “It was also beautiful, though I didn’t think about that then. It was only after it was…we spent so much time preparing to fight, everything we did was for defense.” He looked around. “This ship is for fighting…but it doesn’t…feel…like my world did. It’s very different.”

  Sara thought she understood what he meant. She’d felt like that in foster care. As if there was no time for anything but surviving, as if she couldn’t live until she pulled free of its undertow.

  A lot of people would consider the military another kind of…cage, but not Sara. If she had a world, then the Air Force was that world. It had given her wings…

  Fyn sat up, his legs dangling over the edge of the catwalk and looked down at Sara. She couldn’t read his expression this time. She sat up, too, pulling her legs up to her chest.

  “Are you all right?”

  He nodded.

  She wished she hadn’t reminded him of his lost wife, his lost world. And there had to be other…things that troubled him. It was clear his life hadn’t been…kind up to now, even before he got stranded on Kikk. It was instinct to retreat inside herself.

  “Why do you do that?”

  “Do what?” she said, even though she knew what he meant.

  He arched his brows.

  He was so dang cute, what on earth was he doing here with her? There was at least one former beauty queen on board and she would have been happy to be “that” kind of girl for Fyn. Sara had seen her ask him to dance.

  She felt his hand on her chin. He tipped her face up.

  “Hide from them if you must, but don’t hide from me.”

  He bent his head and found her mouth. The kiss was sweet, only lightly laced with passion. They did need to be careful, after all. It was a long drop off the catwalk.

  Sara touched the side of his face, feeling the contrast between skin and beard, learning the curve of his jaw as his mouth teased her out of hiding.

  He could root her out, but her uncertainty was not so easily routed. He could hurt her and she didn’t like that. It was easier to risk her life in her Dauntless than her heart, which was kind of sad, but a truth she couldn’t avoid. She was what her life had made her—and what she’d chosen for herself. Evie always said it didn’t matter what happened to you, only what you thought about it, and then what you did about it. She was rigorously anti-victim mentality. Since she’d grown up black, in the South, she had the right.

  Sara could see another question forming in his eyes, but before he could voice it, her watch buzzed.

  “I have to go. I’m on duty soon.”

  She leaned in for a last kiss. Did he notice her lips were new to this? For her part, it seemed to up the…shiver factor…that it was all new.

  Another thing for Evie to be right about. She’d been an old-fashioned girl to her toenails and proud of it.

  But as Sara made her way down, she had a feeling he’d just put the question of why she hid on the back burner, not trashed it. At least it gave her time to try to come up with an answer.

  If that was possible.

  * * * *

  With Sara’s Dauntless back on operational status, and having been approved as a back-up pilot, the tenor of Fyn’s days changed. The wing consisted of six squadrons. Four of the squadrons were made of ships like Sara’s.

  The others flew something called a Hellfighter—which he learned had been named for craft from a previous war, just like the Dauntless. Fyn did sims on those, too. They were bigger and less maneuverable than the Dauntless, but they had more firepower and they could drop bombs. Fyn liked dropping bombs, even if they were sims.

  The different squadrons rotated through a schedule of alerts. Each squadron did a twelve-hour shift, then had twenty-four hours down—unless there was an escalation, in which all squadrons would deploy as needed. It was a brutal schedule, but he never heard anyone complain.

  The Doolittle was efficiently crafted, in Fyn’s opinion. Fyn hadn’t been allowed on the bridge, but Carey told him the bridge was at the “pointy end.”

  There were two fighter bays, one on each side at the rear. There was also a shuttle bay, which housed the SAR craft, like the one that had rescued them from Kikk and transport shuttles. The ship also had a variety of weapons positions on the craft itself. When they’d approached it the first time, he’d seen an exterior that was sleek and it looked like it was elongated, like the smaller craft in design, but inside it had everything. It was basically a huge, armored, flying city.

  His tour didn’t include any sensitive areas of the sh
ip and when he’d asked about propulsion, Sara had frowned and said it was an ion drive, but all she knew about ions was that it made them go fast.

  “Fighter pukes love fast,” she’d added with a grin. “And we need fast for inter-galactic travel. Otherwise, when we returned to Earth, everyone we used to know would be old or dead.”

  The showers were communal, but separated by gender. They relieved themselves in the “head.” There was a commissary for necessities, though it was, according to Sara, getting a bit thin on stock. After months on Kikk, it looked pretty good to Fyn. There were places to wash your clothes, places to eat, places to play, places to work, and places to “work out.”

  He hadn’t been there long, but it seemed Sara’s people worked hard and played harder. They were a curious mix of easy going and totally committed. At first he’d wondered how they’d make it out here. They’d accepted him so readily, almost carelessly, but he’d quickly realized the Old Man—what they called Colonel Halliwell, though not to his face—could size a man up with a glance. Fyn couldn’t figure out what the colonel saw when he looked at Fyn, but he knew he didn’t want to disappoint him. It was easy to slip into this life and forget he had another one, that he’d sworn an oath to the Ojemba.

  The Colonel had hand picked the crew and they worked together as smoothly as their ship moved through space. The only odd note in the whole was the scientists—Sara called them the geek squad. They moved around in small groups, and seemed to have a language of their own.

  From what Fyn had been able to pick up, the Doolittle was actually part of a string of intergalactic spacecraft that had been deployed across several galaxies. Each craft was just within subspace contact with the next craft in the chain, with the last craft just outside of their home galaxy. The Doolittle was the furthest out and the most vulnerable.

  In the next few weeks, they would be resupplied, recalled, or replaced by another ship. He also knew that if the Doolittle moved deeper into the galaxy, they’d lose contact with the Boyington, the next closest ship, and earth. Until the Dusan attack, the plan had been to make short, exploratory hops deeper into the galaxy, then return and report. Exploration was their primary mission, after all.

  The Boyington could reach them in an emergency, but it would take time, even traveling at their top speed—and if it moved, it would sever both ships’ contact with Earth.

  The Colonel was in a tough spot. He could withdraw, but they’d won the first round. And if they withdrew, it was possible it would embolden the Dusan. If they had the firepower, it would be better to win another battle.

  But, the Doolittle hadn’t felt the full force of a Dusan attack. As Sara had noted, they might not be as good at tactics, but they did have numbers. If the earth ship lost, there’d be no one to take the story back to their galaxy.

  While the Colonel pondered his options and waited to send his report back through the relay, they’d been doing some sensor sweeps of the ocean on Kikk, trying to locate Sara’s island city, so far with no luck. The data from Sara’s computer showed a spike, but the Colonel refused to let anyone go down to the planet. If they had to withdraw—and could—he wanted his people within quick recall of the ship.

  Fyn almost hoped they wouldn’t find it. The lost outpost would also be of great interest to Kalian. He seemed to have eyes and ears in places no one would expect. As Fyn knew, any one of the small moons could be an Ojemba watching post.

  And then there was Sara. Something he’d said was bothering her, he could tell. He didn’t know what it was, though he had a feeling it had to do with Fiona. He thought about asking Briggs how it worked with their people, but what if he didn’t like Sara getting involved with, well, an alien. From what he could tell, they were built the same, but that didn’t mean Sara’s people weren’t territorial.

  He shouldn’t get any more involved with her, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. The more he told himself he should stay away, the more he found himself seeking her out. He felt…whole when he was with her, as if some part of himself had been missing, but wasn’t anymore.

  There were…prettier women on the ship and women more than willing to experience mating with an alien, he was learning, but all he wanted was Sara. She had something more than pretty, though if he had to describe it, he’d be at a loss. Whatever it was, it seemed to be exactly what he needed.

  As the only back up pilot, Fyn could be called on to fill in on any ship in the wing. With Sara’s squadron back at full strength, they were back on the rotation, which left Fyn at loose ends. He usually ended up heading down to the repair hanger with Briggs, since Carey was also on active in the main fighter bay.

  “Chewie?” It was Carey on the radio he’d been issued.

  “Yes?”

  “I’ve got a man down. Can you come finish the shift?”

  It didn’t take him long, since the repair bay was over the Dauntless hanger bay. Fyn felt his tension rise as he entered, catching some of it from the two crews on duty. Warriors had an instinct for when something was about to happen. The air in the bay was thick with it.

  Sara leaned against her ship, her expression cool and closed, her fingers tapping against the wing of her bird. Now that he’d seen her play, he knew she was hearing music in her head and playing it. She did pause to look at him as he walked past, a flicker of a smile passing over her face.

  Carey showed him to his ship, bravo2. It was inevitable that his call sign became Chewie, though he still wasn’t sure what the joke was. He wasn’t as hairy as the Chewie in the movie. And he didn’t howl.

  Inevitably, he found himself watching Sara. Kitted out in her flight suit, she looked a lot like the first time he saw her, only without the blood. Her lashes were almost closed, as she half swayed to music only she could hear.

  Suddenly her eyes widened and she reached for her helmet. The general alarm sounded a full heartbeat after that. He didn’t have time to think about what he’d seen. He was Carey’s wingman. When the order came, he followed Carey out. His tracking came up, something called a heads up display or HUD for short, and it was lit up.

  “Looks like we got another furball, playmates,” Carey said. “Fangs out and form up on me. Let’s teach these gomers their second lesson in intergalactic etiquette. Stay on my six, bravo2.”

  Carey’s ship angled, turning sharply and then headed straight for the line of incoming Dusan fighters. Right on his six, Fyn followed him in, fanning his wings to avoid incoming fire. He was more than happy to make some Dusan go away.

  * * * *

  Sara wondered if she’d choke or hesitate, but she didn’t have time to think about anything as she dove into the dogfight. It was almost easy. There were so many enemy ships, it was like shooting fish in a barrel—well, probably like it, since she’d never shot fish in a barrel. Or out of one for that matter.

  Her bird responded like a trooper, at times it seemed all she had to do was think and it danced out of the way of incoming fire. She cut a swathe through a section of ships, then did a bat turn and made some more of them go away.

  No question who had the faster ships or best fighter pukes. The gomers attacked in groups of five ships, close flying, which made it easy to take out more than one ship with each shot.

  The formation of Dusan craft broke up and tried to reform. One of them took out one of his own guys. A ship tried to play chicken with her and lost. As she dodged, rolled, spun and fired, her SA, “situational awareness” was so high, she knew where every friendly was and how they were doing. It was odd, but she was used to odd.

  More squadrons poured out the fighter bay of the Doolittle and the enemy began to fall back. Like dogs after sheep, they wanted to follow, but the Old Man whistled them home to mother.

  Sara reluctantly turned her nose toward the ship. She was lined up in the hawk circle, waiting her turn to go in, when the autopilot abruptly engaged and her ship pulled out of formation.

  “Where you going, bravo5?” Carey asked.

  “I’m ha
ving a problem with my auto pilot.” Sara tried to regain control of her craft. She could sense the program that had taken control, but couldn’t seem to disable it. That was a first. As her mind did battle with the computer program, she pulled up the heading. It was taking her back to Kikk—to the middle of the sea where she’d seen the island.

  “Are you declaring an emergency?”

  “Affirmative. I seem to be heading back to Kilo Papa.”

  She heard Carey call the Doolittle. “Bravo2 you’re with me. We’re going to follow her in, sir. The rest of squadron, return to the ship.”

  “Negative,” Halliwell’s voice cut in. “Our friends might be monitoring activity. If they think they splashed three craft, they might come back. We’ll send help as soon as we know they’ve withdrawn.”

  The Old Man had a point. “I’ll be fine, sir.”

  Sara watched Carey and Fyn break and turn back to the ship. She entered the atmosphere at a better speed this time. No bat turns or quick prayers. She waited, half knowing what she’d see and when.

  Her ship slowed more and then she saw it. A city on an island. This time it didn’t disappear. The horizon quivered for a moment, then sharpened. It felt like she passed through something.

  FM—freaking magic.

  “Bravo5?” Carey’s voice was sharp. “We’ve lost you on radar.”

  “I’m still here, sir.” Sara looked at her tracking. She could still see the Doolittle. “I can see you on my screen. Are you reading me?”

  “Roger that.” Carey sounded relieved. “Report when you’re stable one.”

  “Affirmative.”

  Sara pulled up her life signs tracking, but got an empty screen.

  Sara was just a passenger as her Dauntless made a slow, sweeping approach, then settled, like a broody hen, in an open space between tall buildings. Her top retracted with a hiss. She had a feeling she’d have been ejected if the program could have managed it.