A Vow to Sophia

by John Bowers

  "So you're the kid who blew away five Sirians?" he asked, almost making it a challenge.

  "Yes, sir."

  Walters grunted. "Ready to go up for a check flight?"

  "Yes, sir!" Johnny grinned in spite of himself.

  "Let's get you a flight suit. Locker room's this way."

  Twenty minutes later both men were in their cockpits. Johnny would have preferred a QF, but the older GF felt heavenly at the moment, like a familiar old shoe. Walters handled the radio traffic as they taxied, and as they turned side-by-side onto the runway, Walters began to accelerate. Johnny followed suit, but was fifty yards behind when he lifted off. The city lights sprawled below him as he gained altitude, the evening sky a deep indigo; Walters's strobe lights beckoned and he poured on throttle to catch up. A moment later he was riding a hundred feet off Walters's starboard wing.

  "Little slow on the launch there," Walters advised in his headset.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Close it up, Lincoln. Tuck it in."

  Johnny edged closer, but held back fifty feet from the other fighter. Seeing another spacecraft that close made his stomach churn.

  "I said tuck it in, Lincoln! What's the problem?"

  "How close do you want me to get, Captain?"

  "Standard pair formation, what do you think?"

  Johnny felt sweat break out under his collar. This was completely unfamiliar — he was used to flying alone.

  "Sir — I've never flown any kind of formation before."

  Walters was silent for a moment. "How much training have you had?" he asked finally.

  "Zero, sir. This is the first time I've been in a cockpit since August 9."

  Walters muttered something that didn't survive the scrambler.

  "Okay, Lincoln, you take the lead. I'll fly your wing instead."

  Johnny hesitated, but that had sounded like an order. With a verbal "Roger", he eased ahead of Walters and held a steady course. A moment later Walters appeared on his right, and a glance back almost gave Johnny a heart attack — Walters was less than ten feet from his wing! Instinctively, Johnny banked left a little to open the gap, but Walters banked with him, maintaining exact distance.

  "Captain," Johnny transmitted, "if you're going to fly that close —"

  "This is how you do it, Lincoln. Don't get excited. If you want to turn, then turn. I'll turn with you."

  "Sir, no disrespect, but with you that close…"

  "Not a problem," Walters said. "If you want to turn, then do it. I'll show you."

  Johnny rolled left and turned ninety degrees, then leveled off to find Walters still in place, as if attached by a wire.

  "Now a right turn," Walters told him. "Any time you're ready."

  "Okay, on the count of —"

  "Don't tell me when. Just whenever you feel like it."

  Johnny glanced back at him, his heart pounding. If he rolled to the right he would run right into Walters's GF. One or both would go down in flames, and that would be the end of his Space Force career, even if he survived the crash.

  "Any time at all, Lincoln."

  Johnny closed his eyes, swallowed, and took a deep breath. Steeling himself against the inevitable, he rolled hard right, bracing for the crash. It didn't come. He made his turn and leveled out, glanced back to his right, and found Walters exactly where he'd been.

  How the hell did he do that?

  "Take us up to thirty, Lincoln. Let's stretch our legs a bit."

  Johnny sighed in resignation. He shoved throttles forward and hauled back on the yoke, climbing at a steady forty degrees. Walters climbed with him, still ten feet away. At thirty thousand Johnny evened out, then Walters suddenly fell back.

  "Show me what you can do. Play in the sand a little."

  That was an order he was happy to hear. With Walters safely behind him, Johnny worked through a few simple aerobatics, looping and rolling, diving and stalling. After ten minutes Walters closed up on him again.

  "Take us home. We need to talk."

  Fairfield, CA, Terra — Travis Space Force Base

  The quarters Onja shared with Maria Santana were smaller than her bedroom at home, but contained few personal effects and precious little furniture. Onja had the bottom rack and Maria the top; they shared a tiny closet and wardrobe, and each had a desk that was too small to spread out their homework. But it was standard issue and all gunner trainees lived the same way.

  Onja's eyes burned as she sweated over the day's lesson, which had to do with targets and trajectories. They would start on simulators in a couple of days, but first came the math test, and she had to pass it to reach the next phase. Maria sat on her bunk staring at the holovid, her own lessons completed. Both girls were exhausted and barely able to stay awake.

  The Federation Anthem issued from the holo and Onja looked up. She'd seen the ad before, and it was pretty corny, but for some reason she felt compelled to watch every time it came on. She watched the combat footage, heard the announcer's pitch, and watched as that test pilot walked toward her in the holo. What was his name?

  Johnny Lincoln.

  He wasn't all that bad looking, she decided. Not exactly handsome, but not ugly. Not that it mattered, of course — if he'd really done what they were claiming, then he was definitely a hero.

  If he'd really done it.

  "On August 9," he said, "I did what I had to do. Now you have a decision to make." And he pointed straight at her. "I want to fly with you!"

  Onja watched until the picture faded, then returned to her lesson. She had to get this done before lights out.

  Dayton, OH, Terra — Patterson Space Force Base

  They stood alone in the locker room where Johnny had gotten his flight suit. Walters looked grim as he settled onto a wooden bench and gazed at the young pilot before him.

  "Lincoln, I've been in the service for twelve years, flying fighters most of that time, and one thing I do well is follow orders. I've been ordered to escort you on your tour, and I'll do that, but I want to clear the air before we start. To be blunt, I don't like this assignment. I just got my captain's bars two days ago and I had orders to report to Luna 9 as XO of a front-line combat squadron. Then you show up and I get bumped sideways. Nothing against you, but I'm not happy about it."

  Johnny clenched his teeth but said nothing. He could understand the captain's frustration.

  "Now, on top of that, I find out you aren't even trained. You're wearing an officer's uniform, but underneath it you're still a civilian. That makes me your babysitter.

  "The good news is, you do know how to fly. So that's one point in your favor."

  "Yes, sir."

  Walters spread his hands.

  "I guess what I'm saying is, knowing how to fly isn't good enough. I understand you were a test pilot, so you obviously know your shit in the cockpit, but you don't know the military protocols, you can't fly formation, and god help us if we get jumped by Sirians while we're on tour. You see where I'm coming from?"

  "Sort of, sir. Not completely."

  "This tour of yours is a fucking publicity stunt! Do you have any idea how ungodly lucky you were on August 9?"

  "Oh, yes, sir!" Johnny said fervently. "I've never had any illusions about that."

  "So whose great idea was it for you to fly around the country in a fighter? With a war in progress and a chance the enemy might show up in the middle of it?"

  "Actually it was Major Dershowicz. I just asked him if maybe I could get some stick time somewhere, and he thought up the rest."

  Walters shook his head grimly. "They shouldn't let lawyers in the service," he said.

  "Captain, I'm sorry you got stuck with this detail. I sure as hell didn't ask for an escort, and truthfully I'd rather fly alone. At least until I can get some training under my belt."

  Walters's eyes narrowed. "Well, I can't fault your attitude. You don't seem to be the prima donna I thought you were at first."

  "I hope not, sir."

  "Okay." Walters st
ood up and stuck out his hand. "Let's make the best of it, then. Just one thing — when we're up there, I am in absolute command. I expect my orders to be obeyed instantly and without question. You up to that?"

  "Sir, I wouldn't have it any other way."

  "Good. Since you're the star of this tour, you'll fly lead and I'll fly your wing. But if we should run into trouble — and God help us if we do — I'll take the lead and you try not to run over me."

  "Yes, sir. Will we be armed?"

  "Goddamned straight we'll be armed. I'm not going anywhere in a combat zone without a gun in my hand."

  Chapter 9

  Fairfield, CA, Terra — Travis Space Force Base

  The turret simulators seemed terribly small. Onja quickly understood why the average-sized man could never fit into one. At five feet four and fifty kilos she barely had room to change her mind. The electronics were intimidating at first — laser controls, cannon controls, missile/torpedo switches, targeting equipment, radar and Ladar screens, communication gear, life support controls, and a backup console to control the fighter if the pilot should be disabled or killed.

  It was tight.

  And it would get worse, she realized, when she put on a flight suit. For training purposes, she wore only her standard fatigues and combat boots.

  Onja sat on a hydrocushion, her body enmeshed in a kind of harness, the whole designed to soak up inertial forces. It felt something like a bicycle — her feet hooked under directional controls that rotated the turret right or left; knee pressure could spin the turret longitudinally. She quickly learned that it was a lot to keep track of when things began to happen.

  Visibility was nil — the turret had no windows or portholes. The only way to see out was via the target screens, which could see several thousand miles at highest magnification; even so, at deep-space battle speeds, the time available to target and fire would be astonishingly small.

  The first few training sessions were fairly simple. Targets appeared in predictable patterns, moved slowly, and weren't too difficult to hit. The emphasis at that point was on learning to handle the equipment. By the fourth day things began to happen more quickly; targets appeared at random, from any or all directions, and moved swiftly across the field of view. Shots had to be taken quickly and accurately. Some girls began to struggle, barely hitting fifty percent of their targets. Nakamichi and two instructors monitored the girls' progress and made suggestions. Computers recorded their scores for later evaluation.

  From the first time she crawled into one, the simulator seemed logical to Onja. She'd waited for this day since August 9, and devoted her entire being to mastering the weapon. She took only hours to master the turret controls, and from that point it was only a question of learning to shoot.

  At the end of the first week the girls were given a test that encapsulated everything they'd been taught to date. The test ran fourteen minutes and threw exactly one hundred targets at the trainee. As the test progressed, Capt. Nakamichi strolled among the simulators and watched the progress of the girls inside on external monitors that summarized their scores.

  "Captain?"

  Nakamichi looked up to see one of the instructors, Lt. Leone, motioning to him. He walked over and looked as she pointed to a monitor. His eyes narrowed for a moment, then he exchanged glances with Leone.

  "Who is it?" he asked.

  "Ka-vorik."

  Nakamichi looked at the monitor again. The summary was broken down into targets presented, hits, misses, killed, and damaged. The test was still in progress, but the summary was remarkable:

  TARGETS PRESENTED-69

  TARGETS HIT-68

  TARGETS MISSED-1

  TARGETS DESTROYED-65

  TARGETS DAMAGED-3

  As he watched, two more targets were presented, and both went into the hit/destroyed row. Nakamichi shook his head slowly. Leone sat watching in utter disbelief.

  "Is the equipment functioning correctly?" he asked.

  "Yes, sir. I ran a diag just to make sure. She missed the first one, but she's hit everything since."

  Over the next minute, six more targets were added to the killed column, and Nakamichi stood transfixed, unwilling to miss the rest.

  "She has twenty-three targets to go," he said. "Speed it up."

  Leone made an adjustment, and target presentation increased from seven to twelve per minute. The simulator whined and quivered as the rotation inside the shell changed rapidly. The artificial sounds of missiles and autocannon intensified, and the target counters spun continuously.

  It was over in ninety seconds; the final score was ninety-nine hits and ninety-five kills — of one hundred possible.

  Nakamichi took a deep, quiet breath as the hatch opened and the trainee crawled out. Onja Kvoorik seemed surprised to see him there, and quickly stood at attention.

  "You missed one, Space!" he said severely.

  "Yes, sir. I'm sorry, Captain — my heel caught at the very beginning and I couldn't rotate properly. It won't happen again, sir." Embarrassed red spots appeared on the blonde's cheeks.

  "Very well. Fall in."

  She moved to join the rest of her class, who were just crawling out of their simulators. One of the instructors ordered them back to the classroom, and Nakamichi turned to Leone again. They both shook their heads in amazement.

  "She has a fucking gift!" Leone breathed.

  "Maybe," Nakamichi said. "It might be a fluke. Next test, make sure her targets come in at double-time."

  "Yes, sir."

  "And keep me posted."

  He turned and strode away.

  Asteroid Base 131, Solar System

  The Ladar tank in the comm center looked like a star map, a three-dimensional display of asteroid space for a million-mile radius. Robert Landon studied it daily, noting the red markers where passive Ladar sensors had detected unidentified spacecraft. The markers had been in place for years and were useful for tracking civilian ships that ventured near the Belt. More than once they'd been used to determine the last known position of ships that had gone silent, aiding searchers in locating them and, sometimes, rescuing their crews. For several years the incidence of lost or missing ships had increased, leading many to suspect foul play or even piracy among the asteroids.

  But now the sensors served another purpose. Lying dormant and undetectable on the surface of small asteroids, they picked up radiation signatures and low-power radio beams from passing vessels. Using their own directional transmitters, they would wait several hours after a contact had passed and then send an encrypted burst transmission toward the nearest asteroid base, in this case, AB-131. The data was processed by software that identified and filtered out Federation ships, displaying the unknowns in the Ladar tank.

  Landon was looking at an awful lot of red markers.

  "What do you make of it, Major?" Capt. Hinds asked, standing at his elbow.

  "Well, the obvious answer is that contacts are up about four hundred percent in the last week," Landon replied. "But why?"

  "Maybe they're beefing up their patrols? Clearly they want to find us and neutralize the base."

  "Yes, but where the hell are they coming from? Could they have set up their own base nearby?"

  "Not unless they started it before the war," Hinds said. "Takes a couple of years to carve a base out of one of these rocks."

  Landon nodded.

  "I think they have a carrier out there somewhere," he said.

  "No way. We'd have picked it up long before it got anywhere close."

  "I'm not talking about the Belt," Landon said. "Outside the system, but maybe just a short light-jump away. Say a couple of hours at warp speed. And maybe not just one carrier — the last intel I saw said they had at least three, and that was more than a year ago."

  Hinds shrugged. "I think we knew that," he said. "Those squadrons we've been fighting had to come from somewhere, and none of them have the juice to fly in here from Alpha Centauri."

  "Right. All those strikes a
t Luna, too. They had to come from carriers. But why all the sudden activity out here? We've tangled with them a few times, but we haven't hurt them that bad. We've been trading losses at a deficit."

  Hinds shook his head. "I dunno, but I'd like to know if other bases are picking up similar activity."

  "Can't ask them. Can't even report what we're seeing."

  "Maybe we ought to break the rules, Major." Hinds was looking directly at him. "Sometimes the risk might be worth bending the orders."

  Landon considered that for a heartbeat, then shook his head.

  "Not yet, Jack. Odds are, the only threat is against us. If we reveal ourselves by breaking silence, we may be playing right into their hands."

  "What if the threat's against Terra?"

  "I know. But we won't do Terra any good by getting ourselves wiped out."

  Hinds looked back at the tank.

  "One thing I'd like to know," he said, "is why those passive sensors can pick up the enemy and our fighters can't? That doesn't make any fucking sense at all."

  Landon nodded. He'd been wondering the same thing.

  Wednesday, 6 December, 0220 (PCC) — North America, Terra

  For the rest of the tour, Johnny Lincoln flew his own GalaxyFighter, usually landing at a Space Force base, occasionally at a civilian spaceport. Crowds invariably waved as he did a low-level flyby, with Walters flying wing. Johnny felt good for the first time, accepting his fate as long as he had a cockpit wrapped around him.

  They crisscrossed the continent, from Miami to Montreal, Toronto to New Orleans, Kansas City to Winnipeg, hitting a dozen major cities on each leg. At each stop the turnouts continued, amazing Johnny more than a little, and enlistments continued to rise. It was tiring; to some extent it was boring; but if it truly helped the war effort, he wouldn't complain too much. Especially since he was getting some stick time.