by John Bowers
"However — this board hereby orders that Major Charles Dunn be relieved of command of Training Squadron 3173 and be placed in custody pending a hearing to determine if charges should be filed against him for gross dereliction of duty, criminal negligence …"
His composure slipped.
"… and any other goddamn thing I can think of!" He paused, drew a deep breath, and motioned to an officer of the court. "Take Major Dunn into custody and deliver him immediately to the Star Police for detention.
“This board is adjourned."
Chapter 9
Sunday, 26 July, 0240 (PCC) — Parking Orbit, Vega 3
Vega 3 was completely blockaded, ringed by orbiting Federation starships. Nothing had passed through that blockade for well over a year, and the combined armies of Vega and Sirius were completely stranded down on the planet. Most of the air-space opposition had been destroyed, but the fight was far from over.
The Fed armada was composed of hundreds of ships, including six carriers, two-dozen battlewagons, and myriad destroyers and support ships. Perhaps more important than the capital ships was the supply line, which was in constant flux. Heavily escorted convoys of merchant ships arrived and departed daily, ferrying weapons and supplies to both the Space Force and ground troops.
On 26 July a convoy dropped out of warp and took up orbit about the planet. As their orbit stabilized, they began making preparations for offloading supplies and troops. Included in the convoy were four transports carrying three divisions of Federation Infantry.
Onja Kvoorik sat wearily in her gun turret as Tommy Royal climbed out of the atmosphere. For over a week they'd been escorting shuttles down to the surface, but aside from ground fire, had encountered no opposition. It had been nearly a month since Onja had fired a shot in anger. As they returned to orbit, she carried a full load of munitions. It was her fourth and last mission of the day.
"Attent!" the AI blurted in her helmet. "Enemy fighters inbound from two seven zero, offset one seven eight."
Onja's heart pounded. Those coordinates were from outside Vegan orbital space! She quickly dialed them up on her target holos and felt her blood chill. At least fifty fighters were approaching the string of transports that had just parked. The transports, unarmed and helpless, were fully loaded with fresh troops; four destroyers guarded them, but fifty fighters could overcome those odds in a hurry.
"Tommy! Set intercept course! We've got to try to head them off!"
"Got it, Major."
"Triple One, Fighter Queen. Lock and load! We're going to intercept the Sirians. Squawk your transponders so the destroyers know you're friendly. The mission is to cover the transports, so don't go chasing off on individual combat! Remember 131!"
Next she contacted Bush and reported her intentions to Col. Hinds. Then she had no more time to think.
The destroyers were already engaging the strike force, their heavy lasers cutting through the Sirians' shields, but the enemy pilots were using some creative tactics to avoid the lasers. As Tommy Royal led the 111 into battle, half a dozen Sirians had already evaded the destroyer screen and were lining up the transports.
Onja picked them up on her optics and gave Tommy a new heading. The Sirians were more than five thousand miles out, but the range was closing fast. The problem was, the PulsarFighter was loaded with ground-support weapons. Grav bombs and cruise missiles were useless in this scenario. She did have four Baby-Lance ship killers, but they wouldn't penetrate shields, and autocannon was useless at this range. What she really needed was a full load of Yin-Yangs, which used electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) to kill an enemy's shields before finishing it off with a standard warhead — but she had none of those either.
All she had was her laser, a sharp eye, a steady hand …
… and a design flaw in Sirian fighter technology.
Even before the war started, the engineers at Lincoln Enterprises had developed a method to fire a laser through the shields, leaving the fighter protected even as it fired. The Sirians still hadn't figured that one out, and it gave Onja her only hope of stopping the six Sirians approaching the transports; they would have to drop their shields before they fired.
But it required exact timing.
"Help me, Sophia!" she whispered as she gazed unblinking at her target.
The only way to target the laser at such extreme range was visually; the Ladar sweep clearly showed the battle in progress, but Onja couldn't watch it and her optics at the same time. But she'd learned, from years of experience and scores of battles, that a shielded ship seemed to glimmer slightly; when the shields dropped the glimmer faded. The ships up ahead, bombarded by radiation from Vega prime, were glimmering.
"Input: call off target range continuous. Execute."
"Target range fifty-four hundred, fifty-two hundred, forty-nine hundred —"
Onja listened tautly, her eyes beginning to burn as she refused to blink. The range was falling steadily; she could see all six fighters in her field of view. Her target cursor was floating over the nearest one …
The third fighter ceased to glimmer. Onja nudged the cursor and fired, sending a blue streak of light across five thousand miles of space. The Sirian fighter flashed and faded, and she felt a rush of relief. But it was too soon to relax.
The nearest fighter dropped shields, and she fired again. Got him! She released a puff of breath to bleed off tension.
"Range forty-one hundred, thirty-nine hundred …"
Two fighters dropped shields at once, on opposite sides of her field of view. She quickly nailed the first one, but the second fired on a transport before she could get him. She felt a surge of despair, wondering how much damage he'd done to his target.
"They're changing course, Major!" Tommy shouted in her headset. "Two fighters inbound! Closure rate three thousand knots per minute!"
"Down their throats, Tommy! Don't deviate!"
She shifted in her seat, blood racing. This was much better! They'd given up on the transports. She could handle them face-to-face.
But her wingman opened fire, lighting up one of the Sirians with a spectacular display of laser against his shields. Two more Triple One fighters did the same to the other one, and the Sirians turned again, sliding off to her right at an oblique tangent, trying to escape the lasers that would wear down their shield generators if they continued to hit.
Onja sank back in her hydrocushion, panting with relief.
"Let 'em go, Tommy! Stick by the transports!"
Another squadron arrived and joined the fight, picking off some the destroyers had missed, but some thirty Sirian fighters survived the attack, pulled a slingshot maneuver against the Vegan atmosphere, and rebounded toward deep space. Moments later they disappeared into hyperspace.
"Where the hell did they come from?" Tommy asked.
"Looks like the Sirians have brought in a carrier," Onja suggested. "They're lying in wait a few light minutes from here. We can expect more attacks before long, unless someone can take them out."
They stuck by the transports for several minutes, but two more squadrons arrived, fresh off their carriers, and Bush ordered the Triple One home.
"Triple One, Fighter Queen. Good job, people. Return to base."
UFF Bush was several thousand miles behind them. It would take nearly an hour to circle the planet and catch up to her, or they could reverse course and be there in twenty minutes. Onja opted for the latter. Tommy began the slow, difficult process of turning a fighter traveling at several thousand knots, the squadron following. He'd just completed the turn when …
"Attent! Enemy warheads inbound!"
The coordinates followed, and again they came from out in space. ETA was less than a minute; the targets were the transports. Onja's heart sank. There was no way to stop all the torpedoes in the time available. But they had to try.
"Triple One, Fighter Queen! Target inbound torps and give 'em all you've got! Fire at will!"
Targeting individual torpedoes was difficult at bes
t, even for the artificial intelligence; some torpedoes carried steering jets that enabled them to jink erratically, even as they pursued a direct course. But the seventeen fighters of ZF-111 poured a stream of laser and cannon fire into the path of the warheads, and eight or nine detonated. Only a handful remained, closing fast on the transports.
"Can we get in front of them, Tommy?" Onja demanded.
"We can try."
Tommy rotated and fired rockets to angle in the direction of the torpedoes, but before he could intercept, the first three weapons hit the transports with a brilliant nuclear light. Onja jerked in pain as her optics magnified the flash. As she clawed at her eyes, she heard radiation sensors shrilling, and realized at least one of the torpedoes had carried an EMP warhead. They were designed only to destroy the shields, not the ship.
"The transports are naked, Major!" Tommy reported. "Three of them have lost shields." The PulsarFighter, designed to convert EMP energy to shield energy, was still shielded.
"I can't see anything, Tommy! How many torps are still coming?"
"Only one."
"Get in front of it! We have to take it on our shields."
"Major? Are you serious?"
"If it's EMP it won't hurt us. If it's a standard warhead, we can survive it. Get in front of it!"
Onja's vision slowly cleared, though spots still danced across her retina. Her breath came in heavy gasps as Tommy poured on rocket power, and her weight multiplied under the extra G's. She grabbed the overhead bar and held on, praying they could save whichever transport the torpedo had targeted — and praying she hadn't overestimated their chances of survival.
The impact slammed her cruelly against the side of the turret, although her harness spared her its full violence. Her ears rang, and for a moment she was unable to catch a breath. Her headset exploded with voices, SpectraWav transmissions from her squadron, but she was unable to reply.
"Major? Major! You okay back there?" Tommy's voice sounded guttural, as if he were strangling on his own spit.
"I'm okay, Tommy!" she gasped. "Report!"
"Threat board is clear. Nothing else inbound. Shields are down to fifteen percent, but we're still under power."
Onja pulled herself back onto her hydrocushion, adjusted her harness, and sat breathing hard for a moment.
"What about the transports?"
"No damage. Looks like they all survived."
She closed her eyes and offered a silent prayer of thanks.
"Take us home, Tommy."
UFF George Bush, Parking Orbit, Vega 3
Col. Jack Hinds sat in on the debrief and watched the blonde with narrowed eyes as the story unfolded. She said little except in response to direct questions, but Lt. Royal and the other pilots of Triple One said plenty. Hinds had already received a report from the transport’s captain, which served to verify the story, and knew one thing for certain — this action, which occurred on a very routine day of the war and would otherwise have received little attention, was destined for the history chips. Onja Kvoorik was already a hero, but now she would become a legend.
As the fighter crews filed out after the debrief, Hinds caught up with her.
"Major, I'd like to have dinner with you this evening. My quarters in two hours."
She stared back at him with wide, skeptical blue eyes.
"What's the occasion, Colonel?"
"Just a quiet dinner. I was planning to ask you anyway, and after today — we have a lot to talk about."
She hesitated a heartbeat longer than necessary, then nodded briefly.
"Very well, sir."
* * *
The meal was the same shipboard food served in the officer's mess, and quite good. Hinds had procured a bottle of wine and his steward had set up a small table with a pair of candles and a linen cloth covering. With the lights turned down it was quite intimate.
A little too intimate for Onja's comfort.
"Is this a date?" she asked when she arrived, dropping all pretense of rank and subservience to authority.
"You can call it anything you like," Hinds replied. "But put your fears to rest. I have no ulterior motives."
"I wasn't born in a test tube, Jack."
They ate in virtual silence. The wine was excellent, a lightly chilled Pinot Grigiot, slightly fruity. Onja felt a warm glow spread through her bloodstream after her first glass.
"So what do we need to talk about?" she asked after the steward had removed the table and dishes.
Hinds led her to a sofa and they took seats at opposite ends. He poured the last of the wine and raised his glass in a toast.
"To the Fighter Queen," he said. "May you die of old age."
Onja sipped the wine, eyeing him closely, waiting for him to tip his hand.
"I'm putting you in for the Medal, Onja," he said quietly. "What you did today was big. You saved ten or twenty thousand lives."
"I already have the Medal," she said.
"So? You'll become the first person in history to win it twice. And Lieutenant Royal gets the Fighter Cross."
"That one I'll approve," she told him. "He didn't hesitate." The Cross was the second highest award for Fighter Service personnel.
"But you gave the order."
She lowered her eyes modestly. "What did you really want to talk about, Jack? It wasn't the Medal, was it?"
He managed a grin. "You can see right through me, can't you?"
"I had a lot of practice."
"First of all, trust me when I say you're my best squadron commander. Kills have been up and losses down since you took command."
She made no reply. Hinds dipped his head.
"Okay, I admit I asked you over for other reasons. One is that I just like being in the same room with you. You're the most stunning woman I've ever met."
"Ursula wasn't exactly a cow," she reminded him. Ursula Negus had been his gunner at one time.
"Ursula was a looker, but she also had an attitude."
"And I don't?" She almost smiled. "Since when?"
"You had an attitude, too, but that was pretty much my fault. I gave you some headaches in the beginning."
Onja nodded. In her first combat posting, Hinds had stood in the way of her getting into action, going so far as to accuse her of being an enemy agent because of her Vegan birth
"I'm older now, Onja," he said quietly. "I'm no angel, but I've matured a little since then."
"Are you telling me you've mellowed, Jack?"
"No. I probably haven't mellowed at all. But I think I've gained a little wisdom in the last twenty years."
"As we all have. What are you getting at?"
"I'd like to have a relationship with you. It doesn't have to be intimate, but I'd like to at least be friends. Later, if you decide I'm not still the son of a bitch you remember, we might move on to something more. But if not, at least we wouldn't still be enemies."
Maybe it was the wine, or maybe it was her brush with death only hours earlier. Onja gazed into his green eyes and, for perhaps the first time ever, decided he was truly sincere. The ice around her heart melted just a fraction.
"It would be nice," she said, "not to have to watch my back every time you're around."
He nodded, his lips curling slightly. "There you go," he said. "It's a start, isn't it?"
"But," she added, "I still sleep with my pilot."
"Royal's a nice kid. Are you in love with him?"
"No. I've only been in love with two men in my life."
"Landon and Lincoln."
"That's right."
"I'm sorry about them. I really am. Landon was the best CO I ever had, and Lincoln was the best fighter pilot who ever lived."
"Yes, he was." Without warning, she yawned. Then, setting her wine glass down, she stood. "I'm beat, Jack. It's been a really long day."
"Get some rest. I'm taking your squadron offline tomorrow. You'll stay aboard in reserve. Tell your crews to sleep in."
"Thank you, Colonel. They'll appreciate i
t."
He walked her to the door, then laid a hand on her shoulder before she stepped through.
"I'm glad we had this conversation," he said gently. "I have a lot to make up to you."
He was standing next to her, looming over her, which at other times and places would have made her angry. But now, lulled by the wine and her own fatigue, she felt vaguely comforted by his presence.
"Good night, Major," he said. And his head tilted as his lips closed over hers.
She didn't resist.
Chapter 10
Saturday, 1 August, 0240 (PCC) — Camp Hope, Missibama, Sirius 1
Four of the barracks at Camp Hope, situated in the center of the compound for easy access by male prisoners, were reserved for women only. Most of the slave women lived in these four buildings, although a scattered few lived with individual prisoners. Men congregated here for both social and sexual intercourse, or to while away the otherwise boring hours of Sirian Summer.
Sirian Summer was in full phase, and very little moved in the compound until it was over. During Sirian Summer, one of the suns was always in the sky, and any time one of them disappeared over the horizon, the resulting low pressure caused near-cyclonic winds to spring up for several hours each day.
Col. Robert Landon ducked his head against the blistering wind and stepped into the cool interior of Barrack 3W, took a deep breath, and brushed the dust off himself. He heard laughter and music from a common room at the other end of the building, but this end was subdivided into quarters. He strode down the corridor until he found the door he wanted, and knocked.
"It's open."
Landon stepped inside and softly closed the door. Two women looked up from the loveseat against the wall and one smiled.
"Colonel Landon! What a surprise. You’ve never been here before."
"Hello, Lana. How's it going?"
"It could be worse. Sirius could be winning the war."
Landon grinned and straddled a narrow wooden chair.
"I'll bet you didn't come here for sex, did you?" Lana asked.
"No. I was hoping to talk to you."
"Alone?"
"Not necessarily. How are you, Julia?"
The second woman nodded briefly and returned to a paper magazine in her lap. Both women were close to fifty, the oldest slaves in the camp. They'd begun life as Sirian citizens, but had been born into a religion that was later outlawed. As teenagers they'd been stripped of citizenship and forced into slavery. Neither had ever married, and both had every right to be bitter about their plight. Lana had dealt with her fate better than Julia.