by John Bowers
"Well, I love Oliver, too," Onja said, "but he should have checked with me first."
"Please. Don't reassign me."
"I won't. If I request your transfer it looks bad on your service record. So I'm stuck with you for now. But you're still grounded."
"Why did you do that?" he complained. "I didn't screw up that badly."
"Yes, you did. I expect the Wing Commander to come looking for you. You broke a cardinal rule out there. You could get a star-court if you caused an accident pulling that stunt. By grounding you I think I can keep Michelini out of it, since I've already taken action. So you'll spend a few days in your quarters screwing your gunner. But when you get back in the cockpit, you better shape up. I'm not kidding."
He nodded sheepishly.
"I understand. I'm sorry."
She nodded acceptance.
"Good. Just remember, when you were little I was your Aunt Onja and anything you did was okay. This is different. I'm your CO now, and they don't call me the Iron Lady for fun. I'm one tough bitch when I have to be."
She let her face relax.
"But I can also be a hell of a nice girl."
Johnny stared at her a second, then laughed. She allowed him a smile, then kissed him on the cheek.
"I love you, Johnny. So be a good boy. Your dad was a true hero, and you've got his name to uphold. Don't do anything to tarnish it."
"Aye-aye, Major."
UFF Margaret Thatcher, Parking Orbit, Sirius 1
From his office on board UFF Margaret Thatcher, General Jack Hinds could see the planet below as it rotated past his observation port. Sirius 1 was sixty thousand miles away, just minutes in a fighter ship, a little longer in an evac shuttle. He paid little attention to the view these days; he was now the man responsible for coordinating the flow of men and materiél to the war being waged below.
Hinds studied the supply transport schedule for the next few days. Every army on the ground was screaming for more of this or less of that, and it was a juggling act to make sure the right stuff got to the right people. He took the job seriously.
The next couple of days looked good. The Sirian commander defending northern Asiana, unwilling to see his men face any further bloodbath, had surrendered his army this morning. Supply to that sector was no longer critical, which freed an entire wing of supply shuttles for use elsewhere. Hinds had ordered thirty ships down for servicing and granted forty others a couple of days off.
He was just putting the schedule away when his aide, Ensign Carol Watamura, stepped through the hatch.
"General," she said, "a Captain Negus to see you. She says you're expecting her?"
Hinds didn't change expression.
"Send her in."
Ursula Negus stepped through the hatch and stood facing him, head cocked slightly to the side. She didn't look all that happy to see him, but he forced a grin anyway and stood up.
"Ursula. It's been a long time."
She stared at him accusingly, lips pursed. It was then he noticed a laser rifle slung over her shoulder, and she was dirty. God, she was filthy! Her uniform, if you could call it that, was non-reg, pieced together from several different services, and none of the pieces matched. Her hair was fairly short, matted with dirt and sweat; her face was streaked with grime, she wore no makeup. She looked terrible.
And yet …
An underlying beauty still came through. These damned Vegan women! he thought admiringly. No wonder the Sirians made slaves of them. They looked good even when they looked bad.
"Jack," she said conversationally, "did I ever tell you what a son of a bitch you really are?"
His grin faded and he shook his head slowly.
"No. I don't think you did."
"Jack, you really are a son of a bitch."
"All right. Anything else to report?"
"You're also a liar. You told me you were gonna take me with you when you got promoted."
"I explained all that …"
"You lied through your fucking teeth!" she snarled, stepping forward and unslinging the rifle. For one awful second Hinds thought she was going to shoot him, but she merely leaned the rifle against his desk and took a seat facing him. "You never intended to take me with you. I've been a prisoner for almost four years! It wasn't bad enough I got fucked by you, the whole Sirian army got a piece of me, too!"
Hinds was shocked at her impertinence, but somehow it didn't seem a good idea to bring that up right now.
"Well," he said, "at least you're safe now."
"I'm sure that will make you sleep a whole lot better!" She heaved a deep sigh. "My grievance against you can keep. But we will get back to it, I promise."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
She waved a hand wearily.
"Never mind. I understand you're the guy in charge of transport."
"That's right."
"Well, I've got some people that need transporting. Nearly a thousand."
"Wounded?"
"Prisoners, mostly. Escaped prisoners. And some downed fighter crews."
"Where are they?"
"Southern continent, place called the Outback."
"Why did you come to see me?" Hinds asked. "You could have handled that through my staff. They make up the schedules, I only approve them."
Ursula smiled cynically.
"I wanted to see you," she said. "To tell you how much I've missed you."
"I think you made that pretty clear."
She lost the smile.
"There was another reason." She reached into a pocket and took out a datatag. "An old friend of yours wanted me to say hello."
"Yeah? Who?"
Ursula flipped the tag across the desk and he caught it, straightened it out with his fingers and looked at it. His face paled slightly, his eyes jerked up to meet hers.
"Is this for real?"
She nodded soberly. Hinds looked at the datatag again.
"God almighty!" he whispered.
Chapter 20
Friday, 3 September, 0241 (PCC) — UFF George Bush, Parking Orbit, Sirius 1
Johnny Lincoln II fretted while his new squadron flew thirteen missions without him. He'd waited all his life to be assigned to the same squadron as Onja, and now he was forbidden to fly.
On the morning of the seventh day after they reported aboard, Johnny and Joanne sat in on the morning mission briefing as usual. The first strike of the day was going to be a hot one; the 333rd Star Armor Regiment had overextended in the mountains of eastern Tennetucky and was in danger of being cut off. The Sirians were trying to encircle them and the tankers were taking a pounding. The short-term objective was to keep the enemy from completing the encirclement, which meant hammering a thirty-mile corridor to keep the supply line open.
To make matters worse, thunderstorms were drenching the region, and cloud cover was dense up to forty thousand feet. Although radar was used on ground-support missions, pilots enjoyed a certain margin of safety when they could actually see where they were going. That margin would be missing on this mission.
After the briefing by the S-2 (intelligence officer), Onja stood in front of her squadron and took questions.
"All right," she said finally. "Launch at 0715. Because of the weather, we'll fly pair formation. Keep a fifty-mile interval between pairs. I don't want any collisions.
"Tiger Shark, you and Hobo fly high cover in case we get hit by planes again. Everyone else, leave the airplanes to them. Our first priority is the ground targets. Timberwolf!" She looked directly at Johnny. "You'll fly my wing." Her blue eyes returned to the squadron at large. "Be careful out there, people. And good hunting."
They stared back at her and she nodded grimly.
"Remember 131!" she said. "Dismissed."
Johnny scrambled to his feet with a pounding heart. He hadn't dreamed his grounding would be lifted so soon, and wasn't dressed for space. He and Joanne dashed back to quarters and climbed into their flight gear. When they reached the hangar deck their fighter was arme
d and ready, the jets already turning. With glittering eyes they climbed onto the wing and prepared to climb aboard.
"Are you ready for this?" Johnny asked over the conversation channel.
"Yes!" Joanne breathed. "At last!" She turned to face him and gave him a quick hug. "Let's do it right, okay?"
"That's the only way to do it."
Ten minutes later, enclosed in the PF's womblike cockpit, Johnny Lincoln II sat with his blood racing and his heart singing as his fighter rolled onto the elevator that would lift him to the flight deck. Thirty feet to his left sat another PulsarFighter, piloted by Lt. Tommy Royal — with Onja Kvoorik in the gun turret. It wasn't exactly as he'd dreamed it, but it was close — he was flying her wing.
The lift rose swiftly and the flight deck appeared, long and dark and empty. Tommy Royal handled the tower conversation; Johnny just listened and followed instructions. When they received clearance to position for launch, he rolled forward and took the right-hand lane on the flight deck, neck-and-neck with the other fighter. He lit his rockets and held down the brakes, feeling the PF tremble under him like a powerful animal, its muscles coiled. Johnny's eyes instinctively roamed his dials and gauges, and he spoke to the AI in low tones, filing its responses in his brain. In the back, Joanne turned on her combat holos and charged her lasers, but kept the firing switches locked down. The moment she had trained for was at hand.
The Christmas tree beamed down from the top of the flight deck until it was clearly visible to both pilots. To their right the standard holo of the Federation flag appeared, rippling as it seemed to wave in some terrestrial breeze. Both pilots saluted, and the holo continued to flutter as the Christmas tree began to flash. Johnny felt a clutch in his throat, then had no more time to think.
The tree flashed green and Johnny released the brakes, shoving the rocket throttles forward. He was a hair late; Tommy was already moving, but they left the tunnel under full thrust with Johnny only twenty yards behind, which was good enough. Still under three G's, they angled down into an orbital approach and killed thrust to give the following flights a chance to catch up. It took about seven minutes for all twenty-two fighters to launch, and another four to form up. By then they were only half an orbit from the penetration point.
It felt good. The fighter no longer trembled, it flowed, and Johnny had never been happier in his twenty years than he was right now. Below him was the planet, behind him the fleet, and just to his left was Onja.
Life was right.
They punched into the stratosphere without opposition, and shortly were streaking through the Sirian stratosphere toward the target. The sky was clear around them, though the light was poor. Radar showed no threats. The pair formations began to spread out until they achieved their fifty mile intervals
They covered two thousand miles in thirty minutes, then began to angle lower into the atmosphere. So far they'd been flying over captured territory, but now they approached enemy country, and any danger they faced would lie just ahead. Radar told them when enemy ground to air missile sites began tracking them, but they were still too high for the GAMs to have much chance of success.
"Contact!" Joanne said breathlessly in his headset. "Enemy aircraft at seven o'clock, fifty thousand feet."
Johnny felt his pulse quicken as he looked at the display and confirmed her reading. It didn't frighten him, but it was nevertheless sobering.
The war is not over, goddammit! The pilot you're replacing was shot down by a fucking airplane!
The Sirian jet was sixty miles away, straining to keep up, but wasn't closing. It appeared to be shadowing them; perhaps it would attack later, or maybe it was planning to pick off cripples after their ground strike. Either way, Johnny wasn't happy about its presence.
"Royal Flush, Timberwolf," Johnny said over the radio. "We have an enemy contact …"
"We see it, Timberwolf," Tommy said casually, sounding almost bored. "Keep an eye on it, but do not engage unless it comes our way."
"Roger," Johnny replied, wondering if he was coming across as a cherry. He hoped not.
The plane stayed with them, but came no closer. They began to encounter weather, and after a few minutes were flying through heavy cloud as they continued to descend. Tommy's fighter disappeared in the soup and Johnny kept formation strictly by instruments, glad that Onja had decreed a fifty mile separation zone. The ride became rougher the lower they went. As they neared their target area, lightning stabbed through the clouds around them. The air was suddenly a lot rougher, and Johnny was glad he had so many years of flight experience. In the back, Joanne wasn't doing so well, and he hoped she didn't puke all over the inside of her turret.
Two hundred miles from the target Tommy gave the order and they rolled into a shallow dive, lit rockets, and screamed toward the ground. Because of the weather they kept it down to Mach 2; they broke out under the clouds at four thousand feet, into a driving rainstorm that obliterated forward vision as effectively as the clouds had done.
Johnny flew by radar and AI, matching Tommy's moves turn for turn, his innate skill taking over. Signals from ground batteries were louder now, seeming to come from all directions. There was no way to know when the batteries would fire, but it was almost certain they would. Johnny put that out of his mind and warned Joanne to arm systems. In spite of her nausea, she'd already done so.
"Timberwolf, Royal Flush. Ninety seconds to target."
Over Tennetucky, Sirius 1
They dropped cruise missiles at the same time, sending eight of them toward preselected targets. Then Johnny dropped back two miles behind Tommy and they started their strafing run, screaming down to three hundred feet under rocket power, deafening the troops on the ground as they passed overhead.
In the lead, Tommy held his ship steady while Onja opened up with the bottom turret, hammering at known GAM sites with missiles and autocannon. Their attack pass lasted perhaps thirty seconds. When they reached the area where the 333rd was trapped, Onja ceased fire and Tommy began to climb. Behind him, Johnny made the same run, with Joanne firing her first shots in actual combat.
As Tommy climbed out above the mountains north of the armored regiment, his PulsarFighter jerked briefly. A stray ASC shell had punched through the portside rocket engine and out the other side, exploding on exit. Fragments cut through the fuel pumps and stopped the fuel flow to the rocket engine. Tommy frowned in alarm as the fighter skewed to the left — the starboard rocket was still firing, and without equal thrust the fighter was crabbing to port.
"We got trouble, Onja!" Tommy reported over his intercom. "Port rocket is out. I have to shut down the other one."
"You're the pilot."
"You okay back there? No fragment hits?"
"I'm okay. Can we make orbit?"
"I dunno. If I can get enough altitude, I might be able to punch out with the starboard rocket, but we'll have to wait and see."
Onja left it to him; she was watching Johnny on her holos, far more worried than she cared to admit. This was his baptism of fire, and she prayed he would handle it as instinctively as his father had.
Tommy killed the starboard rocket, shut off all fuel to the left side, and goosed his jets for maximum thrust. He was still too close to the ground for comfort. He wouldn't feel safe until he had at least fifty thousand feet of air under him.
Johnny Lincoln II pulled out of his strafing run with full rocket thrust and a swelling heart. He'd done it! He'd just made his first strike, and it had been a piece of cake. Nothing like the sort of combat his dad had seen, but not bad for a rookie. Damn! What a feeling!
"How you doing, Joanne?" he asked with a big grin that she couldn't see.
"I'm having a blast!" she exulted. "I can't believe we just ran thirty miles of missile sites and they didn't fire on us! I was sure they … shit!"
Johnny glanced at his heads-up holo (HH) in alarm.
"What?"
"Three GAM sites have us locked in! We're triangulated! Oh, Jesus! Here they come! Get
us out of here, Johnny!" Her light‑hearted gaiety had vanished; her voice was now shrill with panic.
Johnny saw them, too, and shared her terror. His gut wrenched as he saw the three blips streak toward him. He swallowed hard. Screw formation flying! Screw low altitude Mach limitations! Screw everything! He kicked the rockets as hard as he could.
The PulsarFighter was already at twenty-one thousand and now it leaped upward like a bullet, climbing at seventy degrees, but the missiles were closing on him from three directions. He was in deep trouble and knew it; a good pilot might evade one missile, an exceptional pilot might evade two, but triangulation was the last thing you wanted; three were nearly impossible to evade.
His mouth was dry, his heart hammered in his throat as he added the last ounce of thrust available.
The GAMs kept closing.
In spite of her terror, Joanne retained enough presence of mind to release countermeasures, but they didn't help.
At fifty-six thousand, Johnny knew he wasn't going to get away. He was going to die on his very first combat mission. The missiles were twelve seconds back and still closing. There wasn't even time to eject safely. He felt suddenly angry. And disappointed. What would his mother think when she got the news that he died his first time out? And that bastard Dunn — another Lincoln killed in action. This would make his fucking day.
Then Johnny's instincts took over and he forgot his fear. He killed his rockets, rolled inverted, and fired them again, diving headfirst toward the ground at mach 4, right back into the sights of more Sirian gunners. Joanne let loose a strangled scream, but the G forces prevented her from doing more.
The PulsarFighter dove right out from under two of the missiles before they could track. The third was coming at a flatter angle, and Johnny did a corkscrew as he leveled out. He began to twist and spiral, changing direction constantly at high G. The missile tried to match, but Johnny continued to evade, turning faster than the missile could adjust.
After forty seconds he climbed again, at a forty-degree angle. The two missiles he'd left up high were diving back down, searching for him.
He kept it up for over a minute, until all three missiles were miles behind and finally lost their fix. They eventually fell back into the mountains where they exploded on Sirian territory.