Warp Resonance

by Cedar Sanderson

  "It's at Space Control." He assured her.

  Tama knew she’d been out of her head with worry, but that she’d lost track of her only possessions was… she shook her head and put it out of her mind. Other fish to fry, right now. Keeping busy was good. She wriggled into the pilot’s seat and started checking systems.

  Tama powered up the drive plant and Pat, who had draped himself over the wing with his head in the cockpit to watch what she was doing, looked a little startled at the vibration. Whistling softly to herself, she ran through the checklist, pausing at one point. When she came to the end of it she upended herself in the pilot's chair and looked under the panels. She came up swearing.

  "Bad news?"

  "Yes! The whole board is gone! How could those idiots..." she trailed off and made a face. "I guess piracy does not require brains."

  "So, no shield?" he hazarded.

  She shook her head. "No, and I can't even scavenge one from one of these junkheaps. It'd be way too old and big. I'll just have to fly careful."

  He looked at her seriously for a moment. "You're sure?"

  "Yes. But I'll make sure my passenger knows before he comes along."

  "Speaking of passengers... Why don't we go find Ben?"

  "Ok." She hopped off the wing and waited for him. He landed lightly, she noticed. He wasn't bulky like Ben, but he was still in good shape.

  Back at the building, they found it almost deserted. Ben was in the dining hall, lining up weapons on a table.

  "Hey, what happened to everyone?" Pat asked.

  "I sent them home again. There isn't anything they can do at this point, Tama and I are the only ones going up there, and you'll be manning the radio." He shrugged. "I figured the less distraction, the better. This evening, when the panel is finished, can you get it on?"

  Tama answered him, as the question was addressed to her. "Yes, it won't take too long if I can get some help, mainly to hold it up while I reseal joints. The whole shell is designed to be as lightweight as possible. The new polymers and alloys that made the fighters feasible also make them easy to maintain."

  "The problem is,” Pat interrupted. "That we won't be in a decent place to send you up until morning."

  "The fighter has limited legs, coming out of the gravity well like this," Tama explained to Ben. "We need to be as close to the colony ship as possible when we hit orbit, and one other thing."

  "Huh." he was looking down at the equipment. Tama knew he was frustrated, but she couldn't help that.

  "Look at me." He looked up, startled at her tone of voice. This wasn’t the little-lost-girl who had collapsed last night. She had her confidence back, and she needed his full attention. "The shield is gone. That means that anything we hit, or that hits us, is going to go right on through. I think the cockpit will be ok, it has backup shielding, but the rest..." She shrugged.

  He blinked in thought. "That means that it will... What?"

  "Who knows. If it hits hydraulics, we're in for a rough landing."

  He nodded. "We are still going up, right."

  "Yes," she replied serenely, and for some reason both men looked away and shuddered a little.

  Tama staggered out of the shower again that night. It had been a long and wearisome evening. Even with three men holding the lightweight panel in place, her arms and back ached from hauling the sealer from joint to joint. The only one available was obviously not meant to be used by petite women. She made her way down the hall, passing Pat with a foggy wave, finally falling into bed.

  She must have slept soundly for the better part of the night, but a nightmare jolted her awake in the wee hours and she rubbed her eyes, trying to erase the image of Marc leering at her and telling her that no-one would want her when he was done with her. She hiccuped, and then gave in, putting a pillow over her head to muffle the sound of her sobs.

  Tama was curled up on the bed with her head buried in the pillow when she heard the door open and footsteps coming toward her. She jerked upright, staring wildly at the intruder.

  "Hey, it's just me." Ben whispered.

  She nodded, dragging a hand across her eyes. "It's ok." She muttered hoarsely. She must have disturbed him with her crying.

  He shook his head. "No, it's not." He walked across the room and sat down next to her, pulling her close to him. She stifled a sob, and then curled into his lap and wept into his shoulder for the second time that day. He rocked her silently for a long moment, until she stopped shaking. She took a deep breath, and then without thinking began to thank him in the only way she knew. He had been turning his head to look at her but now he jerked and froze.

  She had just, very softly, licked the tears off his neck. She took a shaky breath at his reaction and continued.

  She kissed softly up the column of his neck, while he sat very still, his pulse throbbing beneath her lips. She pulled back a little and looked at him with heavy eyes. He looked back and she could see his eyes dark and wide with fear.

  "Tam..." He choked out. "I can't..." he put her down and strode out of the room and leaned against the wall, closing his eyes and trying to control his breathing. She followed him out, feeling as though the bottom had dropped out of her stomach. He didn't want her.

  He realized she was next to him and he turned his head, tears in his eyes. Tama faced him in the doorway and saw the look of sorrow on his face. She was naked, and she saw his eyes travel up and down her body before he looked back at her face.

  "I understand." She whispered. "I'm spoiled goods. I am sorry." And she turned to go back in the room. He caught her before she had gone two steps. He picked her up and looked her in the eye, holding her by the waist. She stared back at him, nostrils flaring in a fear response. She wiggled a little, wanting down, but he held her tight.

  "Did you mean that? You aren't playing a game to get me in your bed?"

  She shook her head, speechless. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, his jaw working as though he were searching for words.

  "Oh, god." He finally managed. "Oh, god."

  He pulled her tight and kissed her fervently. She was stiff for just a moment, and then she wrapped her arms and legs around him. She returned his kisses with interest, joy blooming in her once again. He broke contact.

  "Tam. I can't..." He fumbled for words, frustrated. "I can't take advantage of you. You are walking wounded and you'll regret this in the morning."

  She shook her head, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks. He leaned his forehead against hers and whispered. "Let me do this right. I want to do it right for you, and that means waiting a little."

  "What if we die tomorrow?" She whispered back, her legs still locked around his waist.

  "Then you'll have this..." And he kissed her deeply, until her entire body was shuddering. "To have as your last memory of me."

  He set her down on the bed and she noted that he tried very hard not to look at her as he pulled the blanket back over her and tucked her in. He bent and kissed her forehead and whispered "Sweet dreams. Get some sleep."

  In the morning she felt much better. Marc was a hollow horror now, banished by a sweeter knowledge. She withstood the fitting of the flightsuit with equanimity. Once kitted out, Pat helped her outdoors and stood with her while they waited for the truck.

  "Are you ready for this?" He asked.

  "Yes. I need to finish it. I can't live under his shadow anymore." She smiled at him.

  He smiled back. "You must have had a good night's sleep. You look much more peaceful today."

  "I had a nightmare," she confessed, feeling like he was an older brother, not someone she barely knew. "But then Ben came in and we - I kissed him. It helped a lot."

  "Oh."

  "Marc told me often." she continued calmly, looking out over the green fields, "That no-one would want me after he was through with me. Ben showed me otherwise last night."

  "I see.”

  “No, you don’t. You’re thinking we did more than that, and we didn’t.” Tama didn’t look
at him. She’d taken a while to realize why Ben had done the right thing, but she didn’t want Pat to think less of either of them.

  Pat took a deep breath, and then let it out slowly. “I don’t think I understand that at all. You’re… You aren’t afraid of men, I’d already figured that out. But why?”

  “I thought it was what I was supposed to do. And he’s too much of a gentleman to hurt me.” Tama turned and looked at Pat now. She wasn’t surprised to find him looking at her, frowning a little. “It’s complicated.”

  “You’re complicated.” He told her, shaking his head a little. “I…” He stopped. Just

  Take care of my best friend up there, won't you?"

  "Yes, of course!" and she pulled his head down and kissed him on the cheek. "Keep in touch, ok?"

  He laughed. "See you soon, young lady!"

  He helped lift her into the truck. The flightsuits were not very flexible, so they would have to wiggle out of them themselves to go after Marc, but for now they had help. Ben was already in the back of the truck, and he hooked an arm around her waist to steady her as they rattled toward the fighter. Tama leaned on his shoulder with a quiet sigh.

  As they were helping him into the fighter, with her running through the checklists, she got her first good look at him.

  "Ben, is that..." she exclaimed.

  "Unpowered armor? Yes, indeedy." He patted his torso with a grin. "It'll be a pain to fly in, but it might come in handy."

  "Why exactly..."

  He interrupted her again, his natural exuberance showing now that he was on his way to do something. "Space Marines training on Earth, of course. What do you think the military did around here?"

  She switched on the intercom and gestured for the canopy to be closed and the craft cleared. With the whine of the drive powering up beneath them, she shouted back "Pretty much what most planets do... Play a lot of games!"

  "Nope. We are much in demand for quite a radius in the warp to fight pirates and train people to do it." She could hear the pride in his voice.

  She powered up to full and they began to move. She heard him gasp as the vibration increased. She chuckled deep in her throat, and called over the intercom, "nothing like that fission rocket between your legs, is there, marine?"

  She engaged flight controls and caroled back to him. "Hold onto your balls, lover, here - we - go!"

  By the end of her sentence they had leapt to a thousand feet above the field and were climbing like a cat up a tree with a dog on her tail. Tama whooped with joy at the almost forgotten sensations.

  Ben yelled, "Do you know what you are doing!?"

  "Two minutes to black sky!" She almost screamed over the roar of the rocket.

  The colony ship was actually visible to the naked eye when they broke free of the atmosphere. It was a tiny gleam of silver, almost like a floating drop of mercury. Tama switched smoothly to vacuum controls and swooped toward it, using all the power she could spare.

  "You know," she asked Ben when she had time to think again, "it only now occurs to me to wonder why you didn't use this ship to get everyone off-planet."

  "The drive is inoperable. They barely made it through warp. Scared Mawmaw to death. She never would leave planetside again. It was slated for deconstruction in another five years or so." He sounded a little out of breath, but otherwise unruffled. Tama grinned, unseen by him. He went on, "We seem to be in an awful hurry."

  "Yes, we are. I want to get there quick in case he's actually watching his screens, and also, the less time we spend out here where all the little rocks are flying around, the better!"

  She could see the boat bays now, as the massive ship loomed in front of them, and she slid through the nothingness of space with an expert touch on the thrusters.

  "I have missed this." she whispered. She didn't know if Ben heard, but he didn't reply. She lined them up with the bay where the lifeboat was docked, and perched the tiny fighter next to it. Fumbling with her helmet, she checked in with her passenger.

  "Ready?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "Popping canopy." She had trained for this, but never done it, as most of her racing had been done to shielded boat bays with an atmosphere inside the shield. There was a hiss, but fortunately not from the helmet.

  She started to pull herself out, careful in the lack of gravity not to become entangled with her controls, and felt Ben's hands under her arms, assisting. They did not talk, maintaining radio silence in case Marc had seen them come in.

  There was no movement by the airlocks. Ben carried the satchel with weapons in it as they propelled themselves toward the nearest one. Peering in, they saw that the lights were on. She touched her helmet to his.

  "He has power, then. I'll check engineering and life support."

  "And I'll take the bridge and cabins."

  She shed her flightsuit as soon as the pressure in the lock equalized, and gravely accepted the plasma lance he handed her. It was a bit big for her to use, but it would do the trick without puncturing anything vital like the outer skin of the ship.

  "Right." he said absently, his eyes already scanning the corridors. She nodded back and began to run soundlessly in her skinsuit and bare feet. The light atmosphere of the ship beat at her ears, and she felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature.

  He wasn't in the Engineering compartment. She crept cautiously through it for several minutes, growing tenser and tenser with every place she checked. The ship was almost silent. At least that meant Ben hadn't found him yet, either.

  Next, Life Support. A warren of scrubbers and fans. She let her breath puff out in a soundless sigh. Onward. Her mind was working overtime, wondering if he had seen them coming and was setting an ambush. Would he have armed himself? She forced herself back into concentration on the task at hand.

  She found him there, in the main room, bent over the console typing commands into it. He'd never even known they were coming, she realized. There was a problem with something, and he had hyper focused on fixing it. Tama stood still, scanning the compartment for the girl, but she must be elsewhere. She swung the lance up and cleared her throat.

  He jumped violently, almost falling in the light gravity. As he spun around to face her, she was gratified to see the look of fear on his face at the sight of her. Or at least, her and the large bore of the weapon she had pointed at him.

  "Hey, Tama! What are you doing here and what is that thing?"

  "Back up." Tama hardly recognized her own voice. It came out harsh and grating to her ears. She was afraid to listen to him. So many, many times he had persuaded her to keep on doing just what he wanted, until she felt like an extension of him, her own self washed away in the flood of his personality. He paled still further.

  "Hey, Tama! I came back for you, honey." He fluttered his hands at his sides.

  "No." She continued towards him, one slow step at a time, and he continued to back up. He hit the wall, and pressed himself flat against it. She wondered why he wasn't talking more.

  "What are you going to do?" He asked.

  "Take you down with us to the planet. There are some people down there who'd like to talk to you." her voice still sounded rusty to her ears.

  "Ok, you know the girl wasn't my idea. I was coming for you, baby. She just wanted to come home..." he shrugged, and Tama stared at him, open mouthed. He thought he could talk his way out of it, she realized. One of the things she’d discovered was that if she listened to him long enough, she started to wonder if she was crazy. Was she imagining things? She shivered. The worst part was when you stopped trusting yourself.

  "Have you always liked them young?" she asked conversationally. Her voice sounded normal again, she noted.

  He blinked in surprise at her, then sneered. "You're the one to talk, obsessed with older men. You couldn't lay your dad, so you picked me up."

  Tama felt like vomiting. She hadn't been the one who had held her down... She shut off the train of thought, vowing she wouldn't remember that, p
anting slightly. She wasn't going to let him walk away from this, she realized. She gestured to one side with the lance and told him to move. He crabwalked along the wall, alternating between terror and sneers. She stopped him when he had his back to the airlock.

  He glanced over his shoulder at it, and then at her. “You won’t shoot me. And you’re not going to space me.” Marc snapped forward, off the wall, coming at her faster than she could anticipate.

  He almost got her. Even a hand on the barrel of the lance would have been enough. But Tama, who had spent years crawling under machines and into tight spaces, had learned how to take a tumble. She threw herself to one side, tucking the lance close while she rolled on her shoulders and bounced back to her feet, firing as she came up.

  She wasn’t aiming, and it didn’t come close to him. But the eye-searing blast convinced him she wasn’t playing a game. He leapt back, losing the ground he’d gained in his rush at her.

  "In." she commanded. It was a strain to hold the big lance one-handed while she slammed her palm against the airlock's emergency button, but she managed.

  Babbling wordlessly now, no more sneers, he balked at first, but as she took a step toward him he backed all the way in.

  "It's cold in here!" he called in a high, whining voice. She had never heard that tone from him before. He seemed to deflate before her eyes, and she realized she should have backed him down long ago, before he could destroy her honor, her soul.

  She smiled for the first time. "Not as cold as it will be." As she spoke she dropped the muzzle and hit the button again.

  The doors slid shut on his scream, but she could hear the thuds of his fists on the door for a moment, until the lock cycled.

  Tama dropped to her knees, shaking, leaning on the lance. Ben cleared his throat behind her and she startled. Turning, she saw the gentle smile on his lips, and the sleeping girl cradled in his arms.

  "How is she?" Tama whispered.

  "Fine. He hadn't touched her, just frightened her. She fell asleep as soon as I started to carry her to the boat bay, and then I heard you in here."

  She nodded. Her shakes seemed to be stopping. She cleared her throat.