The Fighter Queen

by John Bowers

  "You two okay?"

  "We're okay," Onja told him. "Thanks to you, Corporal. You saved our lives."

  "Well, let's not congratulate ourselves just yet." Lansing glanced back at the street, where at least twenty Vegan civilians now milled about, staring at the carnage. "The street is full of Vegans, and until I hear otherwise from upstairs, they're still the enemy."

  "What about our pilot?" Tommy asked shakily.

  "Dead," Lansing said grimly. "They took him out with the first shot."

  He climbed across the tank and inspected the four dead men who lay on top. Onja joined him and they stared in dismay at the young faces before them. Little more than boys, their eyes glazed with horror at the moment of death.

  "Vegans!" Lansing spat. "Goddammit! Why don't they just quit! Fuck!"

  Onja shared his evaluation. The Sirians were practically beaten, Vega was virtually free, yet these boys continued to fight for the ideology that had enslaved their people. She was torn between anger, hatred, and pity.

  "Come on," Lansing said disgustedly. "Let's get out of here."

  Chapter 14

  Camp Hope, Missibama, Sirius 1

  Kevin Willis and twenty‑odd other men were in the fields when the strike hit Jefferson Fleet Base. Guarded only by Cpl. Bruno Turner and a new kid called Chester, the prisoners were bare to the waist, shirts tied around their waists, when they heard a distant thunder off to the northwest. Just minutes later they heard thin whines as high‑speed space fighters split the air, then the lasers at Jefferson opened up and the brilliant daylight became blinding as the sky turned bluish‑white with every shot.

  Willis stopped work and stood watching, saw the first GAMs streak upward, and moments later saw the flash of exploding warheads on the ground. Black smoke smudged the horizon, and as the minutes dragged by, all the men watched as the smoke clouds boiled higher and denser. Through it all the lasers continued to flash, and the high‑pitched shriek of spacecraft came and went like the buzz of angry hornets.

  Willis watched with bursting heart, thrilled at the sight of his own people taking on the enemy so close at hand. He couldn't hide the grin on his face and didn't try; all the prisoners were cheering and shouting comments. When one PulsarFighter streaked by, just a thousand feet up, they threw up their arms and waved.

  When it finally ended, the prisoners leaned on their shovels, laughing and speculating on how much longer the war might last. Bruno Turner circled them uneasily, a jackal guarding hyenas.

  "Okay, Feddies," he growled, "the show's over. Back to work. We still got an hour to go."

  Willis glanced at Bruno, saw the worry in his eyes, and laughed.

  "Hey, lighten up, Bruno!" he said. "You can't seriously expect us to work after what we just saw. Today's a holiday!"

  "I got my orders, Willis, and yew got yewrs. Back to work."

  "Fuck you, Bruno. The war's as good as over. Sirius is finished. In a few days you'll be the prisoner and we'll be the guards. I think you better start treating us nicer."

  Bruno's lips curved humorlessly.

  "Fine. I'll get you a Vegan girl. Meantime, back to work."

  Willis stuck his shovel in the ground, turned over a spade full of clods, and shook his head.

  "I don't want a Vegan girl, Bruno. I want your mother!"

  Bruno's eyes expanded in shock, then calcified in sudden fury. He rushed Willis with the butt of his machinegun poised to smash his skull. Out of the corner of his eye, Willis saw him coming; as Bruno swung the machinegun, he ducked the blow and whipped his shovel around like a sword, ripping Bruno's stomach open.

  Bruno staggered back, stared down at the cascade of intestines that spilled onto the ground, and dropped the machinegun. Eyes wide and face pale, he looked up at Willis accusingly, worked his mouth as if to say something, then collapsed heavily across a furrow. Willis stared helplessly at him, as stunned as Bruno, then turned as Chester, an inexperienced eighteen year‑old, ran toward the dying man.

  Chester knelt over Bruno and looked at him, but had no idea what to do. As Bruno's eyes glazed in death the kid took one look at his seeping guts and turned away, retching violently. Before he could recover, Kevin Willis leaned over and gently took his weapon. Sick and scared, the young guard turned and looked at his prisoner with puke dripping down his chin. All the men stood in a group, staring down at him.

  "I didn't mean to do that, Chester," Willis said quietly. "But he was trying to kill me. You saw it — it was him or me."

  "But yew started it," Chester gasped, shaking. "If yew hadn't said what yew did …"

  "Grow up, kid! He caused his own death. The only question now is, what are you gonna do about it?"

  Willis's eyes were hard. He was in a jam and didn't want Chester to realize just how serious it was. He needed to keep the kid off balance until he could figure what to do.

  "So now what?" Chester asked, looking at the two machineguns Willis was holding. "Yew gonna kill me, too?"

  Willis didn't reply, but Rocky Yamaguchi did.

  "We're not gonna kill you, Chester," he said with a humorless grin. "We're gonna chop off your pee-pee with our shovels and make you eat it!"

  Chester gulped in terror, unconsciously crawling a few feet away as he cowered under the malicious gaze of his prisoners.

  "Naw, we ain't gonna kill you," Willis said. "At least not yet. But we can't very well go back to camp now, either. The war's almost over, and I didn't live this long just to get hung for wasting Bruno."

  "Yew can't escape. Where will yew go?"

  "South. Into the Outback."

  "Yew can't survive down there!"

  "We're Federation Star Marines. You have no idea what we can do."

  "And what about me?"

  "I guess we got two choices. We can take you with us or leave you here. But if we leave you, you'll have to die first."

  The boy closed his eyes in terror.

  "Please don't do that! I've never been bad to yew guys."

  "Then I guess you come with us."

  "They'll catch us," Chester pleaded. "They'll kill all of yew, and they'll shoot me as a deserter."

  Willis stared at him a long moment.

  "You have another suggestion, then?"

  "Yeah. We go back to camp; I'll tell Major Krieger it was an accident. I'll swear to it."

  "Give me a break, Chester! What kind of accident would this be? No one will buy that story."

  The kid gulped and grasped frantically for an alternative.

  "Okay, we say we were strafed by the Fed fighters. Bruno got hit by a cannon shell."

  Willis's eyebrows lifted. That might work. A 29mm cannon shell could certainly disembowel a man this way; even a fragment could do the job. As long as there was no autopsy.

  "No way!" Yamaguchi snarled. "It won't wash, Kevin. We give Chester his gun back, he's gonna tell them exactly what happened. He's a coward above everything else. I say we waste the fucker and make a break for it."

  Several other men voiced their agreement. Willis frowned and looked at the horizon. It was flat country, not a tree in any direction. Camp Hope was visible above the southern horizon, about three miles, and to the north the sky was thick with smoke where Jefferson burned. Sirius A was almost down in the west, but Sirius B was directly overhead. Making a run of any kind on foot wasn't going to get them far, even with two light machineguns. The Outback was another fifteen hundred miles to the south.

  Grimly, he resigned himself to reality.

  "Well," he said finally, "I think we're fucked. There's really only one way to solve this." He looked around at the group meaningfully. "I'm the one got us into it, so I'll just have to go back and tell them what happened. The rest of you will be off the hook. The colonel will stick up for me."

  Yamaguchi shook his head.

  "You remember Easton's plan? Well, I was against it, too, but now we don't have a choice. We have to make a run for it. The fighter strike at Jefferson should keep the Confederates busy for a w
hile, and the invasion can't be too far away. All we have to do is hold out for a few more weeks."

  "Christ, Rocky, it's fifteen hundred miles! How far do you think we'll get? We only have two weapons!"

  Yamaguchi frowned, but didn't reply at once.

  "If there were enough of us, heavily armed," Willis said, "we might have a chance." He stared south again, at the horizon. "Now if we could liberate Camp Hope …"

  Yamaguchi's eyes lit up.

  "There you go! There are only about thirty guards there. With these two weapons, we could walk in and take them. They'd never expect it, and we could wipe most of them out before they knew what hit 'em!"

  Willis looked thoughtful.

  "It might work," he said. "But then we'd have weapons only for about a hundred men. How would we arm the rest?"

  "Let me have one of those guns," Yamaguchi said, holding out a hand. Willis gave him a machinegun. Yamaguchi checked it briefly, cocked it, then turned in a half circle and fired a burst into Chester's face. The young Sirian died without a sound, flopping over to lie in a heap next to Bruno.

  "What the fuck did you do that for!" Willis shouted.

  "He heard everything we said," Yamaguchi replied evenly. "No matter what we do now, he knew what we had on our minds..”

  "God damn it, Rocky! Now we don't have any choice at all!"

  "We didn't anyway. We were committed the minute you gutted Bruno. So what are we gonna do?"

  Willis took a deep breath.

  "Shit! Let's start walking. See where we end up."

  UFF Anwar Sadat, Parking Orbit, Vega 3

  Col. Jack Hinds knocked once and entered the shipboard office. The shuttle across from Bush had taken a half-hour. General Osato looked up from behind his desk.

  "You sent for me, General?"

  "Yes. Sit down, Jack. How are you?"

  "I've been worse, sir." Hinds managed an uncharacteristic smile. "Losses are down, ground support is going well."

  Osato nodded, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands. He let twenty seconds tick by.

  "I think it's time we had a talk, Jack," he said softly.

  Hinds remained expressionless, but felt a sudden chill.

  "What's on your mind, sir?"

  "I have a serious decision to make. It concerns your future."

  Now Hinds felt an unfamiliar stab of fear. He chose not to reply.

  "Major Kvoorik told me that she requested planetfall and you turned her down."

  "That's right."

  "I suppose you had a good reason for that?"

  "In my judgment, sir, it was poor timing. We have very tight ground support schedules, and her squadron is my best unit. It didn't seem appropriate to let her go running around on personal errands."

  Osato's narrow gaze didn't waver. "She explained the circumstances to you?"

  "Yes, sir. I told her that after the campaign she could have all the time she wanted. I didn't feel it was a good idea to take her out of action while the battle was still on."

  Osato waited patiently, then asked, "Was there anything else?"

  "No, sir."

  "You didn't pressure her sexually?"

  Hinds managed to look shocked.

  "I would never do that, General. I've known Onja for twenty years. We go away back."

  "Yes, I know."

  "What kind of story is she telling you?"

  Instead of answering, Osato leaned forward meaningfully.

  "If we weren't just about to invade Sirius, I would hand you a star-court, let everything go into the record. But I don't have time for that now, and I don't want to undermine morale in any way whatsoever. But you're finished, Jack. You're out of fighters forever."

  Hinds flushed angrily.

  "You're taking her word over mine? I can't believe that!"

  "The Fighter Queen has never lied to me," Osato said. "Why would she start now?"

  "Maybe so you would hand me a star-court. Ever think about that?"

  Osato shook his head.

  "She didn't even want me to mention this to you," he said. "She only told me so she could go look for her father. I gave her the time off. If you had done the same, you wouldn't be sitting here now."

  Hinds controlled his anger with an effort.

  "With all due respect, sir, it's her word against mine. My service record is unblemished."

  "And so is hers. So it's a no-win situation, isn't it?"

  "But you're still busting me."

  "I'm doing no such thing. I'm not bringing charges against you, I'm not busting you in rank, I'm not reducing your pay or your service benefits. In fact, I'm promoting you to Brigadier General. That way there will be no shadow cast across your record." Osato didn't smile. "But you'll never advance any higher."

  Hinds took a deep, shaky breath. He'd known he was taking a risk when he and Onja had talked, but hadn't expected her to report him — she never had in the past. His anger toward her burned hotter than ever.

  "I suppose the promotion includes a transfer?" he ventured.

  "Yes. You're going into supply and transport. The Sirian invasion is coming up and I'll need the best man possible to handle that assignment. Effective immediately, you will proceed to Sirius and get your command in order. I want it operational before the landings begin."

  Hinds said nothing as Osato paused. But the old general had one final statement to make.

  "The minute the war is over, Jack, I expect your resignation. If I don't get it, you'd better have a very good lawyer."

  Camp Hope, Missibama, Sirius 1

  They'd covered only a half-mile, twenty-eight men in shabby garb with shovels riding their shoulders, when they heard a high‑speed hover approaching from the north. They looked around in desperation, but there was nowhere to run, no place to hide. The fields flanking the narrow farm road were growing small plants, no cover at all.

  "Listen up!" Willis said tersely, "everyone act natural. We're just prisoners headed back to camp after a day's work. Maybe they won't notice we don't have guards. Keep the guns out of sight."

  Willis moved to the back of the group, one machinegun slung under his shirt, his heart racing. Most likely it was just a civilian vehicle, but this close to Hope and Jefferson it could just as easily be military. He kept his face forward, walking wearily at the end of the column, and heard the hover slow as it approached them from behind. He dared a glance over his shoulder, and was astonished to see a vehicle crowded with women. A hood-mounted machinegun was pointed forward, though not directly at the group.

  The vehicle slowed still further and moved over to go around them. Willis's eyes narrowed as he took in the unlikely sight; the vehicle carried more than twice its normal seating capacity. Something was strangely wrong with this holo.

  As the hover went past, for one brief second Willis looked into the eyes of the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. She was blonde, middle forties, and absolutely stunning. Her eyes were hard and her face grim, and she was in Confederate uniform. The vehicle moved on past and Willis realized further that it was piloted by a black girl, also in Confederate uniform.

  A black girl in a Confederate uniform? Sirians treated black people worse than animals. They would never let a black woman into the army.

  The hover jerked to a halt twenty yards ahead and sat rocking on its lift jets.

  "Rocky!" Willis called in a voice just loud enough for Yamaguchi to hear. "Keep your weapon out of sight. I don't think they're Confeds."

  The women were looking back, and the blonde stepped down, a laser pistol in her hand. She stared for a moment at the collection of dusty prisoners, then walked slowly toward them. The men stopped and stared at her; she moved to their left, in the middle of the road, her hard eyes searching them for signs of danger. She reached the middle of the group and stopped, sweeping them all with the muzzle of her pistol.

  "Who's in charge here?" she demanded in an iron voice.

  Willis stepped forward and moved cautiously toward her, stop
ping ten feet away.

  "I am," he said. "Who are you?"

  She stared at him a moment, ignoring the question.

  "You're wearing a Federation uniform," she said.

  "That's right. Kevin Willis, Corporal, 33rd Star Marines."

  "Are you all prisoners?" The woman's eyes had gone wide with wonder.

  "Yes, Ma'am."

  "Where are your guards?"

  Willis glanced at Yamaguchi. "That's kind of a long story," he said. "Who are you?"

  "Ursula Negus, Captain, Fighter Service. Jesus Christ! How did you all get here?"

  Willis almost sagged with relief.

  "We're from Camp Hope, about two miles up the road. We had a sort of…disagreement…with our guards." He uncovered his machinegun. "What about you?"

  Ursula was smiling.

  "We're from Jefferson. We managed to get out after the bombing. You're the first people we've seen."

  "You were prisoners?"

  "Slaves. I'm the only POW, the rest are women they were holding captive."

  "How many weapons do you have?"

  "This pistol and the gun on the hover. You?"

  "We have two of these." He hefted the machinegun. "What are your plans?"

  "We're just making tracks. As far as that hover will take us."

  "Would you like some company?"

  "God, yes! If we could just get some weapons …"

  "There are eight hundred Fed prisoners at Camp Hope," Willis told her. "And enough arms for a hundred or so."

  "How big is the garrison?"

  "About thirty. Security is pretty lax; with a little planning, we can take the place without too much trouble. If we let the whole camp population loose, the Sirians will be so busy trying to round them up that a lot of us can get away."

  "But where can we go?"

  "A few hundred miles south of here is a desert. I've heard it's pretty much uninhabited, some real badlands."

  Ursula's eyes lit up. "Do you think we can pull it off?"

  Willis shrugged. "Hell, I dunno. But it seems to be a little late for second thoughts."

  Ursula agreed. "If we take any kind of force into that country, we'll need someone who can lead them. I'm an officer, but I've never had a command. I'm not sure they'd follow me. What about you?"