by John Bowers
"What was his name?"
"Rico Martinez. He was in Delta Company."
Willis nodded slowly. "I didn't know him, Ma'am, but I've heard the name. Wasn't he one of those who stayed behind to cover the evacuation?"
"Yes, he was." Her eyes softened. "But I'm glad you got out okay."
He smiled sadly and shook his head. "No, Ma'am, I didn't. I got cut off downtown in all those skytowers. My squad was cut up pretty bad, and when we ran out of ammunition we were captured. I've been a prisoner since '32."
"Oh! I'm so sorry."
"It's okay, Ma'am. It's over now. I'm still alive, and all I want is some place to settle down. Some place peaceful."
Angela gazed into his sad eyes and smiled.
"Call me Angela."
Oliver Lincoln III looked around at the little party and got everyone's attention.
"Well, are we all going to just stand here, or are we going to go get some of you married off? That damned chaplain is charging us by the hour!"
"And we don't want the cake to melt," Angela added with a smile.
About the Author
John Bowers began his first “novel” at age 13. It took him nine months and was only 30,000 words, but he finished it. Before he graduated high school, he wrote four more. His teachers were convinced he was the next Hemingway, but it wasn’t to be.
Bowers was raised in a religious cult. Cults suppress creativity, demanding obedience and conformity. Though he wrote several more novels for fun, he never published them, and by the age of 30 he gave up writing entirely.
At age 44 he broke out of the cult, rediscovered his dream, and began writing again. He wrote a juvenile adventure for his children, and then began a science fiction novel. That novel became A Vow to Sophia, the first book of The Fighter Queen saga.
Bowers is married and lives in California with his wife and three adult children. He is a computer programmer by profession, but a Born Novelist by birth.
The exciting prequel to A Vow to Sophia
The Fighter King
Just before dusk on 29 April, the barrage stopped. Heads came up, eye contact was made, and Oliver's helmet radio sprang to life.
"Take your positions! Confederate infantry approaching!"
"Let's go!" Oliver shouted. "Into the trench! Let's go! Let's go! Pedersen! You're with me"
They boiled out of the bunker, spreading down the trench and taking up firing positions. The squad to their right was setting up a machine gun.
The trench was a wreck; entire sections had caved in, and what was still intact was littered with debris from the bombardment. As Oliver and Pedersen peered down the slope from the nearest firing post, bullets began to whiz past them. Oliver saw flashes of gunfire on the hillside opposite, and wondered how the Sirians had fared with the minefields.
"Keep your head down," he told Pedersen. "Don't give them a silhouette."
But he had to expose himself to get a look down the hillside, and saw a line of infantry moving upward, perhaps three hundred yards away. It was a skirmish line, ragged but unbroken. Too many to count, but it looked like at least a battalion. He put glasses to his eyes and muttered a curse.
"What?" Pedersen demanded, her dark eyes wide with fear. "What is it?"
"Serf troops," he told her.
"What's a serf troop?"
"Black, brown, oriental men. The Sirians use them in the front lines to soak up our fire. On Sirius they aren't even allowed to hold citizenship. They're treated worse than slaves. But out here they have to die for Sirius, to save the white troops."
"Why do they do it?"
"My guess is they don't have any choice. Probably their families are being held hostage."
Pedersen looked troubled. "So what do we do?"
Oliver lowered the glasses and pulled the arming lever on his Stockholm 12mm.
"We kill them."
* * *
Fire from the opposite hillside intensified. Oliver ordered his men to keep down until the last possible moment, then chinned his helmet radio.
"Lieutenant, this is Lincoln. Can you get some artillery on that slope across from us? We're taking small arms fire, and when that skirmish line gets here it's gonna get hot."
"Stay on the line, Lincoln. I'll see what I can do." Lundgren was gone for twenty seconds, then came back into Oliver's headset. "On the way. Let me know if you need it adjusted."
Before Oliver could reply, he heard a sound like the rustle of dry leaves rattle through the sky above him; the first salvo hit the hillside. It was a little short.
"Raise it fifty yards," he reported. "I mean, fifty meters."
Thirty seconds later, the second salvo landed.
"Drop ten meters and let 'em have it!" Oliver shouted.
The third salvo was right on target, and as shells began pouring into the hillside, the small arms fire died away.
"Now," Oliver said, "can you put something on that skirmish line?"
"We're monitoring that," Lundgren told him. "Don't worry about it."
Oliver looked down the slope again. The grade was steep, but climbable. Vegetation had been cleared to deny cover to the enemy, but there were depressions and occasional boulders. Even so, the Sirians making their way upward looked terribly exposed. They were only two hundred yards out now, still climbing. At the base of the gorge, Oliver saw another battalion getting ready. They would soon follow.
"When we open fire," he told Pedersen, "take your time and aim your shots. No need for full auto until they get closer. Got that? This is just like a rifle range."
"Except the targets can shoot back," she reminded him.
He grinned at her. "You'll do okay. Just remember your training."
Pedersen gazed down the slope at the oncoming Sirians and Oliver sensed her tension. He remembered his first real combat, and sympathized.
"Right now," he said, "it's best to keep your head down. Wait until they get closer."
"How much closer?"
"A hundred yards or less."
She heaved a deep sigh and settled down into the shelter of the firing post. Artillery still blossomed on the hillside opposite, and there was conversation over the helmet net, but otherwise the situation felt almost normal.
Oliver checked the rest of the squad. They were all veterans by now, and waited patiently, unhurried. Oliver quietly gave them instructions and they nodded.
The Sirians hit the first minefield; artillery had destroyed some of the mines, but most were still active. The skirmish line wavered as dozens of men died in fiery agony. Oliver peered through his glasses, saw their hesitation.
"Giordino! Four AP rounds into that line. Hit 'em where they're bunched up!"
Within seconds, Giordino placed four anti-personnel rockets into the Sirian line with deadly accuracy. The explosions further disrupted the Sirians, causing many to seek cover. Officers yelled and cursed to get them moving again. Oliver had noticed the officers earlier — they were all white. He wondered what infractions they had committed to get themselves assigned to a serf unit.
Now he laid his Stockholm on the edge and took careful aim. Without a scope it was a difficult shot, but not impossible. Just as the first cluster of serf troops began to struggle up the hillside again, Oliver took out the nearest officer, blowing off the top of his head. As the body landed heavily and skidded downhill, half the serf soldiers dived for cover again. They began firing up the slope, and bullets kicked along the edge of the trench.
Oliver ducked and waited. When the fire slacked off, he took another look and saw another officer kicking the frightened serfs to their feet. Before he finished the job, Oliver put a round through his heart. A few yards to the right a third officer was leading a platoon up the slope, and Oliver nailed him in the leg, felling him as the femur shattered and his thigh folded.
The Sirian advance stopped cold. At least a hundred men tried to go back, only to run into the minefield again. Trapped, they seemed uncertain what to do. Then the parabola guns b
egan to hit, dropping thirty rounds a minute along the length of their line. Screams filled the gathering dusk, and Oliver truly felt sorry for the men on the slope. When the P-guns finally stopped, most were dead or dying, the rest scattered prone across the hillside, too demoralized to move.
But two hundred yards down the slope, another battalion was already moving upward.
* * *
"Incoming!"
Oliver dragged Pedersen down with him as the first salvo of rockets slammed into the hillside. Heavy concussion and hot fragments hammered the Guardsmen in the bottom of the trench; Oliver tried to breathe through his mouth, and as wave after wave of rockets hammered the hillside, he became aware that Pedersen was screaming. He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her tight, struggling for air as each nearby explosion seemed to constrict his lungs.
Someone was shouting in his helmet radio, but he couldn't make out the words. Only when the rockets suddenly stopped and he looked up did he realize what was happening.
"… sleds!" Lt Lundgren was shouting. "Infantry sleds! Fire at will!"
Oliver stumbled to his feet, bringing his rifle to bear. His ears still rang, but now the Sirian strategy was clear. As he shouted his squad to its feet, he saw at least twenty sleds hovering just yards below the trench; the rockets had been covering fire to allow them in close, and now Sirian infantry were leaping out and converging on the trench. Tripod lasers on the sleds were pouring condensed light into his men.
He heard someone scream.
Switching to full automatic, Oliver poured a stream of fire into the bottom of the nearest sled, only to see his bullets ricochet off its armored hull. Then the sleds skimmed away into the dusk, leaving behind dozens of enemy troops.
"First Squad! Open fire!"
The enemy clusters were only ten yards away, chugging up the slope like Olympians. Pedersen was already firing, pouring lethal streams of steel into the onrushing Sirians. Oliver joined her, switching magazines every few seconds. To his right and left the chatter of automatic weapons was deafening.
Just yards in front of the trench, men were falling in heaps, but more still struggled upward. Even so, it was clear the Vegans were winning. Just a few more to kill …
Something landed in front of Oliver with a thud, and then exploded. He felt himself flung backward as if by a giant fist, and crashed against the far side of the trench. Light flashed before his eyes, his head pounded, and for a moment he thought he was dead.
Just before his world went black, he could hear Pedersen still firing …
… and screaming.
Endlessly.
The Fighter Queen Saga
The Fighter King
The Sword of Sophia
A Vow to Sophia
Star Marine
The Fighter Queen
Other Great Science Fiction and Fantasy
Future Man
Blanktown
That Which is Human
The Complete Alpha Dreamer
BrownBird’s Luck
Glowgems for Profit
Available from
AKW Books
and other fine outlets
Table of Contents
INTERSERVICE MEMO
Acknowledgements
Prolog
Book One: Command
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Book Two: Captivity
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Book Three: Conquest
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Book Four: Consolidation
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Epilog
About the Author
prequel
The Fighter Queen Saga
Other Great Science Fiction and Fantasy