The sheer incongruity made her shake her head as the others laughed. Michelle retrieved her hair as best as she could, stuffing it down the back of her jacket for lack of time and place to braid it. In mock-snooty Empire accent, she replied, "I'm so terribly sorry, my good sir. Fluffy is quite the little escape artist today! She's usually so much better behaved!"
Twitch called from the front. "We could chop it all off. I have a knife!"
DelAlmeida, on her right, blew a raspberry. "A knife, Twitch? Just one? Who here thinks he's only got one knife on him?"
Luke bounced in his seat. "Ooh, ooh, is it a guess how many candies are in the jar type game? What do I win, if I guess right?"
Keenan laughed, low and wicked. "You win all the knives he has."
"Over my dead body! You'll be lucky if you win the kewpie doll!" They'd hit the main freeway to the airport, and she was astounded at how light traffic was. Or, as they passed a column of dust and smoke rising where another missile had made it through into the industrial areas, perhaps not.
Luke slung an arm around her shoulders, his good cheer impervious to missile strikes. "I win you? I didn't know you were named kewpie!"
Twitch looked back, with a smile, "You want to tell Miller she's yours? I want to see this."
"Ooooh." Luke hugged her close. "Hold me, lady, I'm scared."
She cracked up laughing; it was too much to keep a straight face. All the world had gone insane, and the team was no exception.
Keenan turned the radio on, and the speakers were full of hissing static scanning frequency after frequency. "They're definitely jamming the satellites."
DelAmeida laughed. "Or knocked 'em out. That's the first step in any invasion. Keep scanning and you'll find the propaganda channel."
The channel scan crackled, and then cut into full-bore stirring music and thrilling voice. "Together, we can defeat the rebellious council that holds your country's future captive! Together, we can restore the world as we know it! All citizens of the Federation, fight for peace, for prosperity, and for the common unity!"
Twitch slapped the scan onward. "Fuckin' Feds."
The next open channel was washed with the static of the edge of a low-powered transmitter's range. It was clearly a couple of locals engaged more in epithets than conversation, accents going from thick to nearly impenetrable in what appeared to be a whiskey-fueled rant. Twitch listened for about a minute, before saying, "Does anyone even understand a word they’re saying?"
"Common Allotment Fisheries Policy." Michelle replied.
"How…? I think I learned new curse words, but I'm pretty sure I didn't hear them say that." In the rear view mirror, she saw his frown.
"Tha' bloidy policy." She quoted. "It's the driving reason for independence here. It's Fed policy that lets bureaucrats back in Centralia to set quotas and allotments per country, up to and including harvesting the entire fishing stock without leaving enough to feed the country. Which they've done before."
"Oh, fuck that noise." Luke replied. "I thought it was only luxury stocks!"
"Read the fine print. Feds get to designate what's luxury… and they can argue that compared to some other point in the Federation, anything is a luxury. And who do you get to appeal to? The bureaucrats who made that call. Same thing as in aviation; there's effectively no appeal unless you have a lot of money and connections."
"Why we're here is suddenly clear." DelAlmeida said. As Twitch reached forward, he slapped over the seat at a shoulder. "No, no, don't change the channel! Unlike you, I haven't learned any new words yet!"
Luke reached behind Michelle to thump DelAlmeida. "Don't distract the driver!" As they tussled, she noted Twitch taking the turnoff to the cargo side of the airport.
"So, where are we going, and what are we doing when we get there?"
"Find our team lead, get a SitRep, and then do what he tells us." Twitch replied.
"Simple and easy." She couldn't keep the skepticism out of her voice.
Keenan, of all people, stirred from where he was watching dome rockets streak across the sky. "Simple's never the same as easy."
33
She got out of the car to a hissing roar as the dome unit vented fire and spat another pair of missiles skyward. They streaked up, curling and almost looping before exploding in a puff of white. The noise reached her a second later, just long enough the difference between sight and sound made her jump a second time. "C'mon. Have to report in."
The other two were standing next to the door. He tried it, and it was locked - the look from Luke indicated they'd just tried that. She pushed him gently aside, and entered the employee code; it hadn't changed overnight. "How much longer are they going to do this?"
"Hopefully for days." He held her back until the others had entered, then gently pushed her in, bringing up the rear and securing the door.
"Days?" Inside the cargo building, they headed not for the pilot lounge as she expected, but the more spacious passenger lounge. It was crowded with bodies now, with most every employee not out on remote site crowded around the holo, and lots of men in Imperial fatigues she didn't know at all. They were looking at her, and it wasn't friendly.
"As long as they're shelling us, they're not invading. They won't shell their own troops. So, yeah, days." Twitch guided her around, and she finally recognized Blondie among all the other uniforms.
"Won't we run out of interceptors if that happens?" The holo was showing a city under far heavier fire than here, sky crowded with explosions like they were the finale for Landing Day fireworks. She recognized Anueterriza more by the caption than the skyline.
"If it comes to that, you'll be flying resupply." Blondie smiled, and greeted her with a formal kiss on each cheek.
"Dodging missiles? Fuck that noise." Nik spoke up from the crowd, voice carrying clearly through conversations, and she laughed.
"If they're not aimed at me, I'm okay with that. It's the ones with my name on it I object to!" She wondered, as she took her place at Blondie’s side, just what exactly had been in the cargo hold on her flight last night.
"Who the hell is she?" An older, graying gent in unmarked fatigues glared at her, then at the boys she'd come in with. "Why'd you let a civvie in here?"
Blondie drew breath to reply, but he was cut off by a deep, angry rumble. "Her name is 'None of Your Sodding Business.' But she'll answer to 'Piss Off.' If she wants to." Rock moved through the crowd, parting men like they weren't there to walk up to her.
The gray-haired man took two large steps back from the angry incoming mountain. Michelle turned, and stopped Rock's angry beeline with a tackling hug. "Rock."
"Good to see you back on your feet, girl." Rock hugged her back, prosthetic hand tangling in her hair. Dropping to a conversation tone, he said "Miller, you and I are going to have a reckoning about how you're feeding her combat stims."
"I learned my lesson. Stack 'em twice as high as with a grunt." Blondie replied quietly. "Scared the hell out of me."
"Fool boy. You also have to step it down on the tail, because she crashes just as hard as she burns through 'em. If you kill her, I will kill you." He said it so mildly she knew he was serious. She turned in Rock's embrace to look at them both.
Blondie was just as serious. "Thank you. We'll talk." After a moment, he looked down at her, and back up at Rock. "Ma'am, would you care to introduce us?"
"You've both already been here." She cocked her head, and raised an eyebrow at him.
"We have. But there's a profound etiquette distinction between knowing of each other and being introduced." Blondie smiled at her, and she felt Rock relax against her, tension flowing out of him.
"Empire silliness. Rock, this is Blondie… um, Alex Miller. He's kept me alive through more people shooting at me than I want to think about. Blondie, this is Rocky." She remembered him saying a different name the night before, but couldn't think what it was. "I'm his copilot. And he's teaching me how to shoot."
"Ah! So it's your Kandros she’s c
arrying!" Blondie said, as if a great mystery had been solved. "Thank you, very much, for watching out for her when I couldn't. I'm Chief Warrant Alex Miller, 5th Recon."
Rocky nodded, and stuck out his prosthetic. Blondie didn't even hesitate, and shook hand. As he did, Rock said, "Rocky Valdez. 45th."
Blondie's eyes went wide, and the gray-haired man braced hard at attention. Blondie opened his mouth, shut it, and then said softly, "Sir."
"So, you've been taking care of my girl?" Rock ruffled her hair, and she groaned, remembering it was a wild mess in front of everyone.
"Yes, sir. Speaking of…" Blondie dug in his jacket pocket and handed the contents to her without taking his eyes from Rocky.
She made a happy little noise at the energy bar; it was the same as she'd stashed on the ballistic. They both looked at her as she tore it open. "You remembered!"
"Of course. You know how damn hard those are to find?"
"Mmmph." She had to chew and swallow before answering. "I do! And if you had to search that hard, you know why I get them."
Luke had come up behind them, and broke the tension. "Well, of course he's got to feed you those. I'm not always around to grill. Besides, you too skinny! How you ever going to find a husband? Eat, eat, eat!"
She choked on the mouthful she'd been swallowing, and hit him as she coughed. Blondie helpfully thumped her on the back while the others laughed, Rock hardest of all. When she caught her breath, Blondie squeezed her shoulder, and pointed across the room. "Coffee's over there. If you haven't had any, please, do us both a favor and get some."
"How much time do I have to drink it?" She tried to give him a glare, but it failed entirely at his smile. He looked bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but the light from an overhead betrayed the amount of fine white and blonde stubble on his cheeks, and the high collar of his jacket didn't quite hide the new stim patch.
"Depends on them." He nodded at the holo. "There's always a lot of hurry up and wait in the military. You'll get used to it."
She grumbled, but made her way over to the coffee pot, fixing cups for Blondie and Twitch as well while she was at it, and one for Rock. As she did, she could tell by body language alone that the conversation had promptly diverged to things they didn't want to discuss in front of her. She might have felt offended, if the sky weren't still exploding overhead and on the holo. There were a lot of things going on she wasn't part of, including the great mass of uniforms in the room.
Movement at her left made her look up, and saw Russ unscrewing his coffee thermos with far more attention than the top deserved. "Sir." He looked at her, and she noted he had a stim patch on, too. She'd missed a lot in the last few blissful hours of unconsciousness. She held out the coffee carafe, and he tipped his thermos to accept the contents.
"You don't have to give it all to me."
"I can always make more. You look like you need it now." She smiled and topped him off with the very last dregs. It was easy enough to toss the old filter and put in a fresh one and grounds, starting a new pot.
Russ shifted, and took a deep breath, letting it out. "About last night…"
"I'm sorry." She turned to face him, lowering her voice so it didn't carry much further than him, half-masked by the pouring coffee. He opened his mouth, and she held out a hand, asking for a moment to speak. "I am very sorry that I didn't keep my temper in check. You weren't meaning to yank my chain any more than the rest of them do each other, were you?" She jerked her head at the rest of the crowd around them.
He was silent for a moment, and said, "We've all got our sore spots, that make us overreact." At her careful nod, he said, "And I forgot… I didn't think about you not being used to that sort of Opsec and teasing."
"Not as such, no. Bl… Miller does it to me, but usually when he does, there's either shooting going on, or the bleeding out afterward." She looked down, and fiddled with the cups, lining them up in a precisely spaced row next to the carafe. "If he's not going to explain, he at least indicates there's a tactical reason why."
"I'll keep that in mind." After a long moment, he looked up at her, and said, "I was a little surprised to see you here today."
"Twitch didn't exactly give me a choice. Something about voluntold." She shrugged, and watched him shake his head. "What's that mean, anyway? Please, explain to the woman who's had six hours of sleep and no coffee."
"It means you have a choice. You can tell him you work for a war essential service and belong to me, and he's not allowed to steal one of mine…" He stopped at her instinctive recoil, then continued, "or you don't, in which case you've just been drafted into Imperial Forces for the duration. Legally tricky, as you're neither subject nor citizen, but there's precedent."
"Ah." She found a wry smile. "So you're saying, no matter how much you've intended to run me out from the beginning, I've picked the absolute worst time to finally give up and quit?"
He found a smile to match. "Yes. Just when I was starting to regard you as one of the crew, and treat you like one… Ah, well. Feel free to use me for a reference, under any name."
"Thank you." She said, and found she really meant it. She still wouldn't trust him alone in a cockpit, or between her and a door without the team around… but with the explosions overhead as reminders that someone was trying to kill them both, it was an excellent time to bury the hatchet. "For everything." She put out a hand, and he smiled, and shook it.
"You're welcome. Now get some coffee in you, girl, before the damn Feds change tactics and we're scrambling."
"Yes, sir." She nodded, and pulled the carafe to fill all four cups. As she came back to Rock and Blondie, Twitch hurried over to take a cup from her, and the others took theirs with the sort of thanks that covered a change in topics.
Blondie looked at the chief pilot, now in conversation with the chief mechanic at the back of the room. "All good?"
"It is. It really is." She took a drink, savoring the first sip of coffee, hot and sweet and bitter across her tongue. "We apologized to each other."
"Is he still trying to steal you back from me?" Blondie's eyes were laughing, even if his voice was still mild. "I understand, Rocky's twice the man I ever will be, but I can be more handy…"
"Stuff it, shorty." Rock replied, and the men laughed. Whatever they'd discussed, they were at ease now.
Their mirth was cut short by a cry of "Transports inbound!"
Sure enough, the wall now showed a shaky holo-capture of black planes coming in a staggered line, low over the water. Someone in the crowd spoke up. "Nightbirds? They're up past their bedtime!"
"They weren't expecting an operational Dome. Even so, someone screwed the Ops Plan." Rock replied.
At her confused noise, Blondie said softly, "Those belong to a night operations unit. Either they didn't have anything else handy, or their timeline got seriously sideways to be flying mid-afternoon."
"Oh, like long-haul cargo pilots up and about at this time of day?" There were several of those present, looking even more ragged than she felt. "Why are we all here now, anyway? Shouldn't we sleeping or flying? Twitch rousted us here in such a hurry…" Michelle smothered a yawn with the back of her hand.
"Not just yet. When it’s time to go, it'll be a short notice scramble, so it's better if you're right here and ready."
The transports were coming far slower than she'd expected, which meant they were probably bigger than she was expecting, and the crawl was an optical illusion. The Dome hurled rockets at them, but the transports shed bright flares, diverting the defenses down and away as they neared land. "Why don't they shoot the dome?"
"That is a very, very good question." Blondie responded, studying the shaky holo like it was a feral dog growling at him. "They're all transports."
"Feet dry." Rock said, as they came over the fishing harbor.
She was about to ask what they were going to do to fight back, when the view changed to a steady holo-camera off a…. it was either a drone, or somebody with a very good lens, zoomed in. The f
aint sound of gunshots started, scattered at first. The planes came on, and then the world opened up a hail of gunfire. The sound was like a wave of sheer noise; her inskin wanted to process it as static or airflow, but it didn't match either. They were firing tracers in red, yellow, and green, turning the sky into a rag rug of interwoven multicolor threads, wrapping the planes in sheer volume of bullets.
She cursed in sheer awe, unable to look away from the sight, and she wasn't the only one. "They're even shooting down from the hills above the capitol,” someone said in an awed tone, to scattered, grim laughs. “Guess the locals really don't want the Feds to save them from themselves."
The airplanes seemed to stagger in midair, bobble and weave. "They're hit!" Twitch said.
"No shit they're hit. But that's not engine response; that's stressed-out pilot overcontrol." She said, and then clamped her lips together, regretting the sharp response.
Rock grunted. "Yep. They've never taken massed small arms fire, and it shows." When she looked at him, he grimaced. "Not that I ever want to see that again, either."
When she looked back, the lead plane was turning, the second one in line following it, and as it did, it started to slide. "Oh, shit…" She recognized the stall, the way the shot-up engines belching smoke and flame weren't producing lift. The slide accelerated, and it fell, tumbling as the stall became a spin, and the ground far too close for recovery. The men cheered, even as she flinched.
Even as the thick black smoke of burning fuel rose, another plane fell. Blondie put a hand on her shoulder, and said softly, "Every one of those is fewer people we have to fight."
Michelle nodded, understanding the bloodthirsty logic. "What happens to the surviving planes and their troops?”
"Some will drop their troops, and that'll be house to house fighting. Ugly, slow, wastes a lot of good lives. The rest depends on who gets dropped and where." He tapped his temple, and she waited while his eyes were unfocused, checking data and comms on a net she wasn't part of. No matter how much faster or finely tuned her inskin, she was as in the dark as an unaugmented kid in the streets for information off the combat net.
Going Ballistic Page 18
