by Mina Carter
He couldn’t, though. He saw the fire in her eyes, saw it in the way she stroked the nose of the sleek fighter. The vitality and spirit that drew him was fueled by this. Fueled by looking into the abyss and seeing it stare back. If he took that away, she’d wither and die. Become a pale shadow of the woman he knew.
“You’d better. I want my shirt back.”
She gave him a cocky smile and slipped her hand behind his neck to pull him down for a kiss. Crushing her in his embrace, he kissed her back with everything inside him, but he couldn’t tell her yet. He felt her shifting in his arms and reluctantly released her.
“I’ve grown rather fond of this shirt. I’ll wrestle you for it when I get back.”
She pulled him down and pressed her forehead to his. He held still and watched her until she stepped back.
“I’ve gotta fly, Angel. I’ll see you soon.”
With that, she climbed into the small cockpit and pulled on the helmet. She gave Jei a wave before closing the canopy.
He backed up as the engines roared to life. She gave him a jaunty little salute and lifted off. He watched as the small, sleek fighter reached the doors. She hit the engines. All he saw was the flare of her exhaust vents as she went for light speed. Fleet pilot. Crazy as they came.
He turned to find Jei watching him with an odd expression.
“What?”
The other warrior looked toward the bay doors and back again. “That one…crazy as she is…is a keeper. Don’t screw this up, Angel.”
Chapter Seven
Eeeewweeeeeooooooo…eeeewweeeeeoooooo…eeeewweeeeeoooooo.
The sound of a ship-wide alarm woke Summer moments before she was thrown from her bed. She stumbled to her feet, clinging to the wall the second time the ship rocked violently. Something was seriously wrong.
Clad in her underwear and Roz’s Wildcat shirt, she grabbed her flight suit as the call for all fighters came over not just her comm clip, but also the ship’s main P.A. system.
“All Talon fighters scramble, scramble, scramble. Enemy craft inbound and causing heavy damage.”
Shimmying into the jumpsuit, she jammed her feet into her favorite pair of cowboy boots at the same time. They were easier to slip on compared to having to lace up her duty boots. By the time she hit the corridor at a full-out run to the lift, she had her suit zipped up, dodging crew members as they flooded out of their quarters.
“Make a hole, people,” she shouted as another blast rocked the ship. Adrenaline flooded her system, her body humming with readiness for the upcoming fight. The Tipton was not a small ship. For her to be bucking and rolling from enemy fire, it didn’t bode well.
A few short seconds in the lift got her to the flight deck. Pilots and mechanics ran between each other and the Talon slings as they scrambled the fighters. The next announcement over the P.A. made her blood run cold.
“This is Captain Forbes speaking. All hands to the escape shuttles and pods. Hull sections three, eight, eleven and twenty are breached. Shields are failing and our weapons are not responding. Talons will cover evacuation. Godspeed to you all. It’s been my honor to serve as your captain. Forbes out.”
Summer smacked into another pilot, Kevin Peters, so hard, as she grabbed her helmet, she dropped it. It skittered across the deck and under a bench. She didn’t have time to run after it, she’d have to fly without it.
“Hey, watch where you’re going, King,” he teased, the stark truth of the situation in his eyes. This could be the last time they flew together.
“You ran into me, Peters. Get your ass in that bird, pronto, mi amigo. We’ve got some pirates to kill,” she threw back as she turned for her fighter.
“Whatever you say, chica. Let’s show them they just dicked with the wrong bunch of Fleeties.”
Strapping herself into her bird, she replied, “Hell, yeah!”
She grabbed an auxiliary headset from the side of the instrument panel so she could communicate with the other fighters and the Tipton. The fast startup on the fighters had them all lifting off within seconds of the pilots climbing in. Looking at all of them, she felt both pride and sorrow at that moment. They were some of the best pilots she had ever served with, and she knew not all of them would survive this.
Switching her comms to voice-activated, she broke them up into two groups—those who would go with the escape shuttles and pods, and those who would stay to cover the evacuation. The last line of defense.
“Talons two through eleven, you’re with me to run interference and defend the Tipton. Talons twelve through seventeen, your group will go with the escape shuttles. You make sure they make it out of here. The first group will give you cover fire as much as we can. Good luck, everyone.”
She glanced at her instrument panel. Weapons systems were armed and ready to go. She gave the order to move out just as another blast hit somewhere on the Tipton.
“Let’s take these fuckers out!”
A chorus of “Aye” answered her as they hit the shield barrier and exited the ship…straight into hell.
“Talons, on me. Group two, get to the shuttles,” she bellowed as they punched out into a blitzkrieg of enemy fighters. They were so thick, as if someone had kicked a hornet’s nest. There was no way they could stay in formation in this type of firefight.
The group she had assigned to the escape shuttles broke off. Her second-in-command, Lieutenant Kevin Peters, flew close, just off of her wingtip. He was in a Rogue class fighter while she flew the smaller Eagle class. The Tipton carried several different types of fighter craft, but each had its own strengths and weaknesses. Hers was perhaps one of the most maneuverable ones they had, and fast as all get out.
Peters took the first hit but his shields held. A glance around proved what she already knew. This was a gauntlet of death, a suicide run. There was no other choice, they had to run it.
“Talons, break formation. Fire at will, people. What do we want from these bandits?” she called out, whipping everyone into battle frenzy.
“Their blood!” came back at her over the radio from every one of her pilots.
The squadron scattered to engage the enemy, blasting the opposing fighters with both laser and mini-torpedoes. All around her, the battle raged. Blinding flashes of light from energy fire hitting shields, fighters streaking across the heavens locked in the deadliest game of tag, ever. Once tagged you weren’t “it,” you were dead.
She chased down bandits with a vengeance, dispatching them straight to the pit. The fires of hell surely were a friendlier sight for them compared to facing her fury. Calling on not only her training as a combat pilot, but falling back on her training with her family as a stunt pilot, she made an almost impossible, unpredictable target.
Over her headset, she heard her team calling out confirmed kills. Each one brought her a measure of relief until the status calls changed to hit reports to silence. Other pilots called in to report who was lost, if they had the chance; most were too busy to take their eyes off of their targets.
One by one, she lost not only pilots, her men…but her friends.
Suddenly, a large ball of red fire flew across her flight path, just missing the nose of her Eagle. The torpedo slammed into the hull of the Tipton, followed within seconds by several more, shredding her side as if she were made of paper instead of high-end ablative armored steel.
“No!” She watched in horror as the big ship broke apart.
Jerking hard on the controls, she sent her bird into a sharp dive to avoid the large sections breaking away from the main ship. Sweeping a glance over the starscape, she found the source of the torpedoes.
A medium-sized destroyer, a Cutlass class—heavily modified--hovered at the edge of an asteroid belt. Tucked out of sight, it blended in with the larger chunks of space rock. It had been an ambush from the start.
“This is King, Talons squawk to let me know who is still out there.” Holding her breath, she prayed both to her God and even the Lady, the Goddess the Sargosians worship
ped, that someone would answer her. She couldn’t be the last pilot left.
“Please, I can’t be the only one…” she whispered into the crackling silence.
Zeroing in on a bandit to her portside, she executed a barrel roll that shoved her into the side of the cockpit. Coming in on the pirate’s high-right side, she opened fire with her lasers, raking across the ship’s hull from stem to stern. It must have taken damage earlier from another fighter, because it had no shields left. Her shots sliced the hull with surgical precision in a diagonal line.
Ignoring the destruction she’d just wrought, and the life she’d just ended, she turned her burning eyes to look for her next target. Three more met similar ends as she worked her way toward the bigger ship.
“King? Good God, girl, you’re still alive?”
Peters’ voice broke through the red haze in her vision. He was still alive! Avoiding a line of laser fire aimed at her, she answered, “Peters? Of course I’m still alive, you jackass. Did you see the ship hiding in the rocks?”
“Yeah, sweet cheeks, I saw it. Please tell me you aren’t thinking what I think you’re thinking?” His voice sounded tired, as if he’d been to hell and back out here.
“Yeah, well you know me. If we stay behin—”
She didn’t get a chance to finish her sentence. Something slammed into her side. Hard. Her head rocked violently on her neck, smashing her temple into the canopy. Stars appeared in her vision, but she shook her head to clear it.
“Summer! Watch your four o’clock, chica,” Peters hollered through her earpiece.
Without seeing where she was going, she jerked back on the yoke and pushed forward on the thruster with all of her strength. Her insides rearranged themselves with the sheer force of the maneuver. While not as bad as it would have been if she had pulled the move in atmosphere, planet-side, it still hurt. A lot. She fought to stay conscious, the wound at her temple thudding as if a vicious gremlin pounded it with a mallet.
She completed the roll, her vision clearing as she rolled back level. Below her, right in her sights, was the bandit. She grinned, a feral expression. Pulling the trigger on a laser would have been fine if she had more room, but she didn’t. She didn’t have the distance. Stabbing her thumb down, she launched a mini-torpedo at close range and blew the thing to kingdom come. The backwash rocked her Eagle in its flight path. This close, there was nothing left of her enemy. Passing through the vapors, she looked up to thank Peters for the warning.
“Thanks, Peters. I owe you for that one, mi amigo.” She heard the relief in her voice.
He moved in next to her bird again, ready to join her in her crazy run at the Cutlass. “Yeah, yeah… I’ll add it to your tab,” came his smartass reply.
“Bite me, Peters. I have no tab with you.” She opened her mouth to make another comment, but she didn’t get the chance. As she watched, he simply disappeared in a flash of red light. The Cutlass had hit him with a full torpedo.
“Kevin!”
She automatically took evasive action, her body and instincts taking over as she screamed at the top of her lungs. She screamed so hard her throat burned and her voice cracked. Caution thrown to the wind, she hit the asteroid field at full speed, weaving between the giant space rocks as if they were merely a slalom course back home.
“You fucking bastards!”
Even though she knew they couldn’t hear her, she screamed at the enemy as she bore down on them. Tears streamed down her cheeks unchecked.
She came at the Cutlass like death from above, blasting their shield generators on each side of the bridge with deadly accuracy before peeling off again to disappear into the asteroid field. Hit and run. Fire and hide. Taking those out would remove the shield grid protecting the control center of the destroyer. Leaving a thick section of transparent aluminum between the captain and crew of the pirate ship and cold, hard space. She grinned, the expression humorless. She had two mini-torpedoes and a fully charged laser array. She could ride all the way in on a charge of fire and destruction.
They were all gone. There was no ship to defend. No friends to protect. Just her and the soul-stealing need for vengeance. Low on solid-state ammunition to fire, she’d use the fighter itself as the final deadly torpedo.
A final act, the least she could do to avenge them. There were too many pirates. She couldn’t win this. Not one against many. She would die like the rest. At least this way, she’d take the Cutlass and its senior crew out.
Lining up for her kamikaze run, she hit the thrusters and let out a battle cry that would have done a Valkyrie proud. Her heart seized in her chest. These were the last moments of her life. Pain filled her, stealing her breath.
She stared at the Cutlass in her sights, and a small voice in the back of her mind screamed at her. Screamed she hadn’t lost everything, that there was more in her life than her career. She gasped, Roz’s face foremost in her mind. It was said before one died their entire life flashed before their eyes. It didn’t. Instead, she saw a mix of memories and things that could be. Frozen, she saw Roz as he had been that last morning they’d been together. They lay on his bunk, skin against skin, just staring at each other. She’d memorized every single detail of his face and body. Looking into his eyes that morning, she had seen her future.
Like then, it now played out in her mind in incredible detail. She saw how her life could and should have been. Waking up next to him every morning for the rest of her life. Kissing him goodnight after they’d fulfilled their passions. Cooking for him. Building a home together from scratch. Introducing him to her family and them welcoming him in typical King fashion. Boy, that would have been interesting, for them to find out he could easily best all of them without breaking a sweat.
Perhaps some of the sweetest things she saw came from imagining how Roz would look the day she would tell him she carried his child. She could imagine the tender look on his face as she finally presented him with a daughter or son. With her luck, she’d probably have twins, since they ran in her family. She didn’t care, she wanted to give him everything.
Three days with him and she’d seen her future. She’d seen it when she looked in his eyes that morning, and she saw it now. It all flashed before her again, crushing her with the intensity of what she felt for him.
She slammed back to full awareness and the present with a gut-wrenching jolt. She could almost feel his arms around her and smell his warm skin. She remembered the way he’d plunge his fingers into her hair to kiss her.
This time, she noticed the tears streaming down her face. She sobbed uncontrollably. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t go through with a suicide run. She couldn’t take the risk of never seeing him again. She loved him too much to give up her life like this.
Laser fire and torpedoes came at her so fast they were blurring. Of course, it could have been her tears, but she doubted it.
Spinning away, she aimed for clear space. She didn’t care where she ended up, just as long as she got out of this hellhole. She entered coordinates into her flight computer and hit the button. She did a blind jump, and left all the death and destruction behind her.
* * *
In the foothills of a planet in the ass-end of beyond, the name of which none of the Wildcats knew or really cared about, Roz looked around his men.
“Everyone got that?” he asked, swiping his hand over the dirt at his feet. He’d constructed a crude map of the terrain they were about to traverse. Looking about the small group, he received grim-faced looks in return.
Geared up for war, it hardly seemed possible that these lethal-looking warriors were the same ones he’d seen less than a week ago, falling over themselves to please a tiny human woman. Naked to the waist, they wore tactical rigs over camo-covered skin. The dark tattoos across their arms were artistically smudged with green and black, as were their faces. Each carried enough weaponry to arm a small Fleet marine squad.
They weren’t anything as nice as Fleet marines. They were Wildcats, and they were pa
id to kick ass.
“No questions, good.”
Straightening, he checked his rifle. He had a full charge and three other power packs in reserve. His backup weapon wasn’t energy but projectile. A nasty piece of kit from back home.
“Right, when we make contact, I expect nothing less than gratuitous violence from the lot of you. Just because we're on the Fleet’s payroll doesn't mean we need to give them the warm and fuzzies. Keep your fire groups tight, get in and kick their fucking teeth out in close quarters. Or you’ll be facing me tomorrow in the practice ring, understand?”
The response was immediate, if quiet.
“Yes, Lead!”
“Good, move out in two.”
He turned, trusting them all to cut the crap and do their weapons check before he signaled for them to clear out. As he did, Jei frowned, touching his earpiece. The section radio op, he was the only one in contact with their ship, hidden above them in orbit.
Roz paused. He knew Jei, and that look on his face didn’t bode well. Slinging his rifle, he checked his secondary weapon and shoved it back in its holster.
“Okay. Let me have it,” he ordered, looking directly at his unusually quiet second-in-command.
* * *
Dead. Jei’s words echoed in his head and slammed through his body like a hammer against an anvil. Pain was his world. It roared through him, starting at the empty place in the middle of his chest where his heart used to be and radiating outward.
She was gone. Summer was dead.
Her ship had been destroyed half a day ago. She’d been gone a whole twelve hours and he hadn’t known. He’d slept as the woman he loved…the only woman he’d ever loved, or would love…had been killed. Slaughtered by pirates as they attacked her ship. The Tipton was lost with all hands, including the fighter squadron.
He sucked in a breath as a fresh wave of pain washed through him. Tears coursed unheeded down his cheeks. Why was he even still alive? Why did his pathetic heart still beat? There wasn’t any point. Not anymore.