Behind her the door chimed softly and then whispered open, and Callie turned to see Hal. “Can I get you anything, Miss Callista?”
Callie shook her head, and then fell to her knees and began to sob. Hal crossed the room and took her in his arms, holding her tightly, rocking her, stroking her hair with a white-gloved hand, whispering soft, meaningless words until she fell asleep.
* * *
Callie woke suddenly, in the middle of the night, disoriented. She was under a blanket on her bed, her long skirt tangled around her legs. The nightlights glowed softly, showing a silent figure sleeping in a chair by the side of her bed. She felt a surge of joy, and flung herself into his arms—but it was Hal.
He held her by the shoulders as he stretched his cramped back muscles. “Callie. Do you want a sedative?”
“No. “
“You should rest.”
“How can I sleep? I have to—” What?
He sighed, releasing her. “There isn’t anything you can do. Let me give you something to help you.”
She backed away from him, tripping on her damned skirts, an idea forming. “No; thank you, Hal. I need to check on Alexander, and then I’ll try to sleep, I promise.”
She tried to move past him to the door, but Hal stepped forward and blocked her way. He knew every nuance of expression that had crossed her face since she’d been a baby, and he knew that she was up to something now. But the grief in her eyes was too deep to penetrate without crossing the boundary they were not yet ready to break, so he simply nodded and stepped aside.
Callie stopped long enough to touch his cheek, then gathered her skirts and swept past him and out the door.
“Callista . . .”
She looked back over her shoulder and smiled softly, the moment imprinting on his heart. Callie: rippling golden hair, childish body, long legs, and slender bones like tiny wings; then she was gone.
* * *
Callie slipped into Alexander’s room and hesitated, her resolve weakening when she saw him. He was curled up on the bed, the covers pulled up over his ear, one corner of the comforter in his mouth, like he used to sleep as a baby. She kissed his forehead, and then gathered up the discarded uniform he’d laid out on his chair, militarily precise even in his grief.
They were about the same size, though Callie had longer legs, so the uniform fit well enough. She stuffed her dress into the cubbyhole beneath his bed.
The Swiss Army Knife, its design virtually unchanged for decades, was on his dresser. Unable to see in his darkened mirror, Callie did the best she could with the tiny scissors, dropping the long strands of silken gold into the waste bin beneath Alexander’s sink.
She kissed him again and then tiptoed down to the dock, pulling on her shipsuit and helmet before crawling through the tube and into the bay.
Callie had never been allowed to fly at night, but the little skimmer had so many fail-safes and backups that she wasn’t afraid. The methane-oxygen mix they used for fuel was in standard-sized canisters—even hampered as she was by the tight shipsuit, it was only a few minutes work to transfer a couple from Dale’s skimmer to hers, giving her a fun load. Her skimmer wasn’t meant for long distances, but she was familiar enough with orbital mechanics to know that Europa was as close as it was going to get, for now. By the time it swung around again, in about ten days, the family already would have grounded her.
Callie climbed into her skimmer and sealed the canopy, then engaged the engines, slowly filling the cabin with air. It wasn’t fuel she’d have to worry about, but oxygen. She simply wasn’t equipped for a long flight. Still, she was certain she could get to Europa. They wouldn’t dare turn down one of Colonel Nakashima’s sons wanting to enlist. By the time they figured out she wasn’t Alexander, she’d have avenged her brother’s death—many times over, she hoped.
* * *
Carlo swore as the tandem fighter’s starboard railgun burst into fleeting sparks, a large part of the fin spiraling away from the ship and into the dark, sending them into a roll. Behind him Perry screamed, a long, gurgling sound followed by a thump and the flash of the instrument panel short-circuiting. The tiny cockpit filled with smoke and the stench of burning hair. Carlo slammed on the autopilot—not that it would do much good the way they were rolling—and turned in his seat. He put out the small electrical fire caused by Perry’s sparking the com unit wires he was trying to repair. The shielding on the old tandem fighter panels had always been faulty—every U.N. pilot Carlo knew hated the damn ships, Carlo included.
He had just fired the aft thrusters, both top and bottom, and had switched them off just as the Fed boy had appeared and managed the lucky shot that had blasted away the railgun and sent Carlo and Perry into a roll. Once the fire was out and the autopilot off, it took all of Carlo’s skill to keep the tandem fighter from losing control.
The current situation simply fueled Carlo’s impatience with the tandem fighters, the U.N. Air Force, and the war. He hadn’t wanted to enlist, but draftees don’t get to be pilots, and his family desperately needed the money he’d bring in as a commissioned officer. If he survived he’d test-fly for real money, maybe keep his sisters and brothers from carrying on the dubious family traditions.
Carlos slipped into the rhythm of the roll and waited until the guns were realigned with his target, then blew the Fed boy back to hell. He reengaged the thrusters, but it was too late to straighten out the roll with the ones on starboard gone. The g-force pressed him back against the pilot couch, and he relaxed into it, not fighting it as so many rocket jocks did. Carlo’s greatest strength as a flyboy was his willingness to be a part of his ship, to work with it. He’d learned a long time ago that there are a lot of things that simply can’t be fought, some battles that can’t be won.
They’d been poor all of Carlo’s life; his father was hooked on crystals and his mother didn’t believe in birth control. Some of the rich-kid pilots had trouble adjusting to barracks life, but six children in a three-room rent-unit had stripped Carlo of any need for privacy. The other pilots sensed Carlo’s quiet, open assurance, and he’d made a lot of friends. Everybody’s big brother, and that was fine with him.
The field looked clear, so Carlo tried to head back for Europa—and found that his fuel and oxygen were dangerously low. There must be a leak somewhere, but his board showed green except for the gone railgun.
“Hawk leader, this is Falcon two, come in. Hawk leader, do you read, come in?” All of Carlo’s wing was named for Terran birds, since some general’s wife had decided that colors and simple numbers weren’t “inspirational” enough. The Air Force, goddamn.
Apparently Perry hadn’t been able to fix the comlink before biting it. Carlo could hear the static-ridden calls of other pilots from far away, but a few more tries and it was obvious that no one could hear him. Well, they’d find him soon enough; his beacon was still working. And there was a full repair kit in the back-if he could straighten out the roll and find a place to set down, he could patch up the railgun fin and get back to base.
Too bad he couldn’t patch up Perry.
They’d only been assigned to each other for a few weeks before this run, so Carlo wasn’t all that attached to his partner. He imagined that there was probably a mother and father, maybe a wife and some kids who would grieve, but that was war. You shoot at people, they tend to shoot back. It’s a job.
Checking navigation, Carlo saw that he was actually closer to Ganymede than anywhere else. It would be night where he was, handy if one had to set down behind enemy lines. A quick scan as he dropped closer to the surface a while later showed him a deserted area full of wrecked fighters, both U.N. and Southern. A good place to hide until he could limp home. Shifting in his seat, the skinsuit binding uncomfortably, Carlo set course for the middle of the Zone.
* * *
Callie set course for the Zone, getting used to night flying before she tr
ied to get to Europa. Still unable to stop crying, the inside of her helmet was fogging up as she struggled to calm herself. Aware of her limited oxygen, she took deep, slow breaths, letting her anger take over.
Taylor was dead.
No way around it; she couldn’t talk him back to life, crying wouldn’t soften Death’s heart, all of her allowance for a year wouldn’t buy him back.
Callie had never felt so helpless, so not-in-control, so young. She hated the U.N. forces more than she thought it was possible for one person to hate anything.
And why Taylor, when she gladly would have gone in his place? He’d never wanted to go to war, hadn’t wanted to be a pilot, but as Colonel Nakashima’s first son Taylor had never had a choice.
He had never had a chance.
Well, Callie would see that he was avenged. She’d studied the war with an intensity that had impressed her brothers, worried Sarah, embarrassed the Colonel, and made her a good target for the other girls’ teasing. She knew how dogfights worked, regardless of what the videodiscs showed, and was a damn good pilot. She wasn’t afraid. A few more deep breaths and Callie was calm, letting her anger balance her grief.
Skimming low over the Zone, she had almost zero visibility, so she switched on the little skimmer’s headlamps . . . and almost crashed as a big, bright something blurred across her path, headlamps nearly blinding her. She caught a glimpse of retros firing and the bristle of railguns and then it was gone. Heart pounding, Callie reached up and activated her doppler scan. She hadn’t expected to find anyone out here; other kids took joyrides in the Zone, but not at night.
So who was it?
Callie fired the port rockets aft and turned, craning in the cockpit to find where the strange ship had gone.
Nothing.
* * *
Carlo swore as he registered the near-collision with the unidentified craft. He switched off his headlamps and tried to steady the fighter, which was still rolling. He managed to get one of the larger wrecks between himself and whoever-it-was, hoping to confound their dopscan while he switched on his own, but since he couldn’t hover there he had only a few seconds before being picked up again. In a desperate bid to straighten out the ship so he could think Carlo fired the port thrusters straight downward, and sent off a burst from the top railguns. It was wobbly, but it worked. The rolling stopped, and Carlo fired both aft thrusters and the port sides so that he could make his way back to where he’d last seen the little craft.
Who probably knew he was coming.
* * *
Callie felt a burst of fear lift the newly shortened hair at the back of her neck as her doppler scan registered the kinetic-kill projectiles bursting out from behind the wrecked troop-carrier to her left. Aware that too much maneuvering would deplete her fuel enough to keep her from getting to Europa, she put the skimmer into a turn and headed straight for the wreck.
* * *
Carl Halliburton sat in the center of the small observation dome that Colonel Nakashima had built for Sarah on their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, the portable comlink on a lacquered table in front of him. The rest of the family was asleep; except for the panicky sound of his heartbeat, the silence was absolute. He scanned the dark horizon, trying desperately to see with more than his eyes.
Somewhere out in all that darkness was Callie, alone.
* * *
Callie fired the front thrusters, a chill wave of excitement washing through her. The doppler scan showed a blip right straight ahead of her, moving on a wobbly course. She killed the headlamps, hoping to sneak up on whoever it was. If it was a Southern fighter, she’d claim to be Alexander and ask for an escort.
And if it wasn’t . . .
* * *
Carlo smacked the dopscan readout, more in frustration than because it would help any. It must have been damaged, or maybe something had wiggled loose during the roll. He switched on the headlamps and stared at the tiny craft approaching him, its own headlamps off, which was good—he’d have been blinded otherwise. With the computer-enhanced vidsense, Carlo could just make out Southern insignia on the nose, along with some numbers. The craft was smaller and lighter than any of the Southern fighters he’d either fought or studied. And it had no visible weapons.
A chill crawled up Carlo’s spine as he realized what it must be.
A SkyBaby.
The Southern AF’s newest prototype, little more than a rumor back at base. They were supposedly faster and more maneuverable than any fighter yet built. Basically a big fuel tank with state-of-the-art reaction-control systems, once one got on your tail you couldn’t shake it, outrun it, or be certain of hitting it with kinetic-kill stuff. They were supposed to bring in-space dogfights practically up to the level of what you saw on the old vid-discs. Bloody hell forever—he didn’t know they were using them yet!
Well, this one wasn’t on his tail, it was coming straight at him.
Carlo lined up the forward railguns and fired.
* * *
Just as Callie registered the fact that she was actually facing a U.N. fighter, her com beeped. Startled, she reached for it but the oncoming headlamps blinded her and she hit the aft port retros, sending the ship into a sudden sideways dive. Frantically trying not to crash, Callie wrestled the joystick, straightening out barely in time. Something exploded behind her, kicking her little skimmer forward. Her head snapped back and then forward, her nose impacting against her face-plate, breaking, sending blood down her throat and in rivulets into her mouth. The side of the skimmer caved in but held, keeping Callie safe from the unforgiving vacuum she flew in. Something inside of her broke, and blood bubbled up from her lungs, merging with the tears she could not shed, although it hurt; it hurt so much . . .
* * *
Carlo watched in disbelief as the SkyBaby swerved at the exact moment he fired the railguns. What the holy hell kind of sensors did they have?
He fired the forward thrusters, but not fast enough. Debris from the kinetic-kill projectiles striking a derelict flew straight at him, taking out what was left of the starboard weaponry and smashing the headlamps. His board sparked and sputtered, and when the smoke cleared Carlo found that he was without dopscan as well.
What the hell was he up against?
* * *
“. . . Nakashima Seven, come in. Do you read? Nakashima Seven, come in . . .“
Callie shook her head, wishing she could reach her throbbing nose. She turned on the headlamps with a shaking hand. It hurt to breathe and every time she exhaled, blood spattered across the inside of her faceplate. The bastard had fired on her! A civilian! She finally registered the fact that Hal was calling her, but ignored him. If the U.N. asshole wanted to play rough, she’d show him how. Heedless of the fuel expenditure she turned the skimmer, fired the aft rockets, and switched off the headlamps.
* * *
Carlo watched in disbelief as the crippled SkyBaby turned and began chasing him. The smaller, lighter ship overtook him quickly, but passed him without firing. Without his headlamps and dopscan, the second the little fighter had passed him it was simply gone.
* * *
“. . . Nakashima Seven, please. Callie!” Hal let his head fall into his hands, defeated—and then he heard her.
* * *
“Nakashima Base, this is Seven. I am engaging the enemy at sector four-two-six-six, one on one. Tell Taylor I’m on my way.”
Callie turned the ship again and started her run.
Her father’s people had a lot of traditions.
* * *
Carlo’s head jerked up at the voice coming in over his comlink—it was a boy, a child! He searched the landscape ahead of him but could see nothing, not even the derelicts he knew were there.
And then Jupiter crested the horizon. With no atmosphere to diffuse the light, the huge red planet was simply, suddenly there, throwing red a
nd orange fire over the twisted wreckage, outlining the small shape hurtling straight for him.
“Callie, no! You little bitch, I love you, no!”
Carlo stared at the comlink. Oh dear god, a girl—not a boy, a young girl, like his sisters! He fired the port retros but it was too late.
By the time he saw her, a spark of silver light, flash of faceplate, blur of speed—it was too late.
* * *
Carl Halliburton could not hear the explosion through the open comlink, never heard her cry out Taylor’s name. Standing in the center of the observation dome, he saw the flash of orange sparks, dying from the lack of air, but he did not feel the impact as the ships came together, then fell away, he did not feel the ground shake when they crashed.
But he could still feel her fingers on his cheek, could still hear her sobs and all the years of her laughter. Staring into the glowing dark, he could still see her as she turned and smiled—rippling golden hair, childish body, long legs, and slender bones like tiny wings; flightless.
The Jupiter War Page 7