End Run

by William R. Forstchen

  My Dear Mrs. Rodriquez … I had the honor of serving with your gallant son as his commanding officer …

  He paused. Did I kill her boy, he wondered? God help me, did I kill her boy? What could I have done better? He felt a flicker of doubt, a feeling that he knew could be fatal if allowed to take permanent hold. God, my first command and am I screwing it up?

  He looked down at the paper, a painful memory rushing back to the day when his mother had opened a similar letter that told her about her now dead husband. It was a week after that day when he had forged a birth certificate form that he stole from the town clerk's office, went down to the recruiter, and signed up at the age of sixteen. Four years later his mother received another letter, this time for his brother, killed in the defense of Khosan. He could imagine Rodriquez's mother standing in the doorway of her home, hands shaking, reading what he was now attempting to write, the gold star hanging in her window now replaced by a blue star. "God damn this war," Jason sighed.

  CHAPTER III

  Doomsday came into Jason's office, carrying three cups of syrupy coffee and he placed one down on Jason's desk and then passed the other to Janice.

  "I think they're showing some improvement," Doomsday said. "Noragami scored twenty out of twenty-one today on the simulated missile strike, the best score yet."

  "Same here," Janice interjected, "I'm marking three of my people down as still unsatisfactory, but that's better than all fourteen of them on the list three weeks ago."

  Jason nodded, leaning back in his chair, aware that the back of his neck was still stiff from putting in nearly ten hours of flight time in the last twenty-four.

  There were three weeks into their run, another week to go till the nine marine transport ships they were escorting docked at Khartoum Station and then deployed for the ground assault exercises. Moving some of the best marine regiments of the fleet to a quiet sector for this training run just didn't seem right, and Jason couldn't shake the feeling that the so-called "exercises" were a cover for something else. It was stretching the number of assault regiments up on the front far too thin to suddenly turn around and pull a reinforced division off the line. The run itself was uneventful, except for the fact that their last two jumps seemed to be curving them fairly close up to where the action was. But their ultimate destination, whatever it was, didn't concern Jason at the moment. Whether it was cover for a combat operation or not, the training time this milk run had allowed him had become his sole focus, that and the running feud with O'Brian.

  "Still a long way to go before they're combat ready," Jason said, as he picked up the coffee mug and took another long sip, glad that the caffeine was kicking in.

  "Or for that matter this entire ship," Doomsday replied. "Morale is lower than a snake's ass in a mud hole."

  "I wish someone would space that damned jerk up on the bridge," Janice snapped.

  "All right people, enough," Jason snarled.

  It was hard to be in command; only weeks before he would have gladly joined in their gripe session about the captain. The man showed a maddening inconsistency, one minute almost too friendly with his subordinates, the next minute climbing up on a high horse to lecture and shout. It was obvious he knew nothing about the running of flight operations, and on one occasion even attempted to usurp the launch and recovery officer's job in the middle of a highspeed combat recovery simulating a full bomber return, refit, and relaunch. The launch officer demanded that the captain leave the launch control room, an action which was within his right, and now the man was up on court-martial charges. There was the other dark rumor as well, that on several occasions O'Brian appeared on the bridge smelling a little too strongly of his precious claret. Fleet policies about alcohol were strict and demanding. The only drinking allowed aboard ship was in the observation lounge.

  Personnel had to be off duty, the ship in a code green stand down situation. Liquor was allowed into private quarters only if it was prescribed by the medical officer as a "bracer" after a particularly rough go of things, or at the captain's table for a formal meal. It had yet to interfere with O'Brian's performance but Jason worried about it. Drinking had been one of the symptoms of trouble with his Gettysburg commander as well. Briefly he wondered what he had done in a past life to get saddled with two such in a row.

  He was also a nightmare for paperwork, demanding lengthily written reports to be fed into his command computer every twelve hours, returning the reports with sarcastic notations about grammatical errors. For Jason, English, the language of the fleet, was not his native tongue. Though his mother was Australian, his father was Russian and he had been raised in a Russian colony on Alpha Centauri. Jason found himself reduced to dictating his reports while out on maneuvers and it was slowly driving him mad, something he knew O'Brian took delight in. Worse, however, was O'Brian's open playing up to Kevin Tolwyn, inviting him to the wardroom for dinner, currying favor, and also pumping him for information.

  Janice finished her coffee, went to the side table, and poured herself another cup.

  "Oh, by the way, I heard the Marine First Commando battalion, the old Cat Killers, are in this little convoy," Janice announced casually, and as she spoke she looked over at Jason from the corner of her eye.

  "So what," Doomsday interjected, "those planet jumpers are all crazy; they live even shorter lives than pilots. At least we get clean sheets to sleep on and when we die a decent body bag if they can find our pieces; they're buried in a hundred thousand unmarked graves on a hundred planets whose names we barely even remember."

  "Cheerful advantage," Janice replied. "I never looked at it that way before."

  "So why the interest in First Commando?" Doomsday asked.

  "Oh, just an old friend is with them, that's all," Janice replied.

  Doomsday, seeing that Janice was looking at Jason, turned around and saw the look on Jason's face.

  "What's with this First Commando unit, Jason?"

  Jason felt as if he had been kicked in the gut and was tempted to haul off and chew Janice out, even as she stood before him with a smug expression.

  "I really needed to hear that Janice, thanks a lot."

  "Oh, no problem at all boss."

  She settled back into her chair and looked at him, just waiting, not saying a word.

  "I'm missing something here," Doomsday said.

  "Just an old friend from when Jason and I were in flight school."

  "I take it a female friend from that 'punched-between-the-eyes look,'" Doomsday said, looking back at Jason.

  Jason only nodded, still saying nothing.

  "Do you think she knows I'm with the convoy?" Jason finally asked.

  "How should I know?" Janice replied innocently.

  "Some woman you're trying to steer clear of?" Doomsday asked.

  Jason felt his face go red. It was over, it'd been over ever since she flunked a lousy ground school exam and run off in a fit of hurt pride to join the Marines. She had refused to pull an assignment on board Gettysburg with him, where they could have been together, perhaps even gotten married. Damn it, it was over, and even as he tried to argue that point with himself he could still feel the hurt.

  Doomsday chuckled softly.

  "Remember that girl I told you about that I met on my last R&R? Gloria, that was her name. Gloria with the glorious…"

  "Shut the hell up," Jason snapped, "it wasn't like that at all."

  "You know you could drop over for a friendly chat. You need an afternoon off," Janice said coyly. "Her unit's on the Bangor. Doomsday and I will stand watch. Take one of the Ferrets."

  "She'd most likely break my arm, or something else for that matter."

  "I doubt it," Janice said with a smile.

  "Bear, you are cleared for external dock."

  "Thank you Bangor, initiating clamp-down now." Hovering above the top side docking bay, Jason gave a nudge to his down thruster and felt his Ferret scrape up on the deck of the transport ship. There was a quick groaning snap as the Bang
or's external docking locks clamped around the landing skids of his ship.

  Shutting down his ship, he bled off the cabin air until it was vacuum, and then popped the canopy hatch. Slowly standing up he looked out across the open vista of space. A glorious binary was off to port, a red giant with a tiny white dwarf above it, a trail of incandescent fire spiraling up from the red giant's surface into the glowing white dwarf. The Milky Way spanned the heavens with a hundred million jewels of light and he paused for a moment to admire the view. It was hard to imagine that there was really a war on. The silence of space was all encompassing, an eternity to be explored, and he again felt that wonder of it all, and the sense of irony about the fact that even out here, humankind could not escape the bitterness of war.

  He realized as well that he was stalling. Cautiously taking hold of the side of the canopy he pulled himself out of his cockpit, turning a somersault while still holding on to his ship. If he didn't lock to the deck of the Bangor, and should let go now, it'd be most embarrassing to call for a rescue party to come out and reel him back in. He always hated external dockings for that reason. Bangor, as did all marine landing transports, had a launch bay, but they were just large enough to hold the assault landing craft, without an inch to spare for anything else.

  His feet hit the hull of the Bangor and he felt the magnetic lock snap his shoes down. Moving slowly he walked across the deck and reached the airlock door, punching it open and then stepping inside. The door shut, and he felt the ship's gravity take hold, slapping him from weightlessness to one standard gravity as a flood of air washed around him. Seconds later the interior door opened, and a marine corporal in dress blues was before him, standing at rigid attention.

  "Permission to come aboard," Jason said.

  The guard saluted him, Jason returned the salute and then saluted the ship's colors painted on the far side of the corridor wall.

  He stepped into the corridor and instantly felt a difference between this ship and the one he had just left. Marine transport vessels were a compromise between minimal comfort and the ability to haul as many marines and their equipment as possible. The corridor was narrow, painted standard fleet green, and lined down its entire length with crates of supplies.

  "Looking for headquarters company, First Commando battalion," Jason said.

  The corporal gave directions and Jason set off, weaving his way down corridors, ducking low through emergency airlocks. There was a slightly gamey smell to the ship and it made him realize just how luxurious a pilot's life was with three cooked meals a day rather than ship standard rations, and the luxury of luxuries, a hot shower as often as you wanted one, rather than the one allowed per week aboard military transports.

  He lost his way more than once, stumbling into an exercise room, where a company of a hundred marines were working out in hand-to-hand combat drill. It struck him as an anachronism, the thought of killing an opponent by hand. It was rare that he even thought of his opponent in the other ship; rather it was a machine that was trying to kill him and he had to destroy it first.

  The marines were tough, far beyond what he was used to seeing. They seemed to possess a cat-like grace, their bodies lean, hardened, more than one scarred by laser rifle burns. He asked directions, most of the group stopping to look at him, until a sergeant barked out a few choice words and the drill continued. He realized that he must be a rare curiosity, still wearing his combat survival suit, his helmet tucked under his arm.

  He reached the ship's lower deck and above an airlock he saw the insignia of the First Commando, crossed knives above a Kilrathi skull, "Cat Killers," emblazoned in Gothic letters beneath it.

  He went through the open lock. The corridor was packed with gear, marines sitting about, talking, laughing, playing cards, arguing, cleaning and checking their weapons, one of them looking up with a cold grin while continuing to sharpen a durasteel knife.

  "I'm looking for Captain Svetlana Ivanova."

  "You'll find the Talker down the end of the corridor, third door to your right."

  He continued on, trying not to feel uncomfortable with the realization that all conversation in the corridor had come to a dead stop.

  He reached the door, and had the sudden desire to forget about it and get the hell off the ship as quickly as possible. He started to turn around and then realized that every marine in the hall was watching him.

  He knocked on the door.

  "Come."

  He pushed the open button and stepped in.

  "Be with you in a moment."

  Her back was turned and she was leaning over a holo screen, studying a map, tracing out what Jason realized were air strike runs on a ground target.

  Even from the back he instantly recognized her. Her hair was cropped short to marine regulation, still golden with a slight streaking of strawberry to it. The neck was thin, tanned, and the rest of her—though well conditioned, the female side of Svetlana was still very much in evidence.

  "What do you want?"

  "Hello, Svetlana."

  Her back stiffened and there was a long silence. She turned slowly and looked up at him.

  "Jason?"

  He smiled nervously and felt his heart skip over. Her blue eyes were wide with wonder. Her lips parted slightly in shock. She had aged; seven years of war did that. There were the beginnings of crinkled lines around the edge of her eyes, and a thin scar creasing back from her temple to behind her right ear. But she still looked much the same, and all he could see for a moment was the Svetlana of so many years ago—the Svetlana from back home, two years older than himself, who had gone off to join the fleet.

  For years he had suffered with an insane crush on her, believing her off limits since she was, after all, "an older woman." His older brother Joshua had tried for her, but her nickname of Ice Princess came from the hard experience of more than one starry-eyed boy whom she had shot down. And then by wonderful chance they had met again at the officer's candidate flight school, he had been eighteen, and she, twenty. It had simply gone from there; both were first drawn to each other as friends from home, but the relationship had quickly blossomed into far more.

  "It is you," she whispered.

  "It's me."

  She nodded, and for a moment he thought she was going to fill up, her eyes suddenly sparkling. She lowered her head then looked back up.

  "You damned son of a bitch, so what brings you back now?"

  "Svetlana."

  "Don't Svetlana me you rotten bum. I haven't seen you, heard from you in years, then you show up like a piece of bad luck and expect that damn smile of yours and little boy charm will get you right back in to my heart again, is that it?"

  As she spoke she stood up and came towards him like a tiger ready to pounce. She came up close, pointing a finger into his face.

  "Now wait a minute, damn it," Jason snapped. "I couldn't help it that you flunked that test. It sure as hell wasn't my fault. I'm not the one that gets my stupid butt transferred to the marines and then goes disappearing. So don't blame it all on me!"

  "Blame it on me then, is that it?" she shouted. "Why don't you get assigned to the fleet, maybe we'll get married someday once the war's over you said. Bull. This war will never be over. If I couldn't fly, I wanted to be where the action was, and not go following you around as your bat boy, your second fiddle, stuck on the ground while you grab all the glory."

  She turned away and he felt a brief instant of relief, half fearing that she was actually building up to hauling off and decking him. He half suspected that with the condition she was in, and the training of a commando, she could kill him with her bare hands and not even work up a sweat doing it.

  "Fleet policy would have allowed us to get married and assigned to the same ship," Jason said quietly.

  "But not as pilots," she said, her back still turned to him, her voice thick with emotion. "You just never got it. I wanted to fly more than anything. Your dad was a pilot, so was mine. There was no way I was going home after that, t
o sit in the kitchen and wait for a letter to come in from your commander telling me how bravely you died."

  Her voice started to crack and she looked away for a moment.

  "You were the one who ran amok with your pride," Jason shouted in reply. "You were the one who transferred to the marines and said 'stay in touch baby,' I'd be damned if I was going to wait around for you to finish your first five-year tour of duty."

  She looked back at him.

  "I wanted a piece of the action, too," she replied. "You're not the only one this damned war has screwed, at least your mother and brother didn't buy it the way half my family did."

  "Joshua died defending Khosan," Jason said quietly.

  "Oh God, Jason, I'm sorry," she whispered and the anger dropped away, and she stepped closer, putting a hand on his arm.

  "You didn't know," he sighed. "It's all right."

  "And your mom, how is she?"

  "All right I guess, I thought I'd see her on leave but I got pulled to take over as wing commander for the Tarawa"

  "You're on the Tarawa?"

  "That's how I got here. Janice is with me too, by the way, she's one of my squadron commanders."

  "You're a wing commander?"

  Jason nodded, almost afraid to admit it since she might interpret it as boasting. He remembered her in school, before she had run afoul of the dreaded advanced spaceflight and jump point physics course. Before that course everyone thought she'd be another hotshot ace once she got up to the front. He knew the desire to prove something came from what happened to her father. That was a tragedy Jason never had the courage to ask her about, for his own father had told him how Svetlana's dad had panicked in one of the early engagements of the war, killing himself and causing the loss of his carrier. He often wondered if Svetlana really knew the truth, which had been covered up for reasons of public morale.