A Vow to Sophia

by John Bowers

  Onja's eyes misted as she leaned toward him, wrapped her arms around him, and pulled him against her. Her full breasts were warm against his bare chest.

  "Oh, Johnny!" she sighed. "Every day I find new reasons to love you more." She kissed him. "You do what you have to do. I'll support you all the way."

  Johnny felt a weight lift off his shoulders at her words. He lifted her chin and kissed her deeply again, lingering on her lips.

  "I love you, Fighter Queen," he murmured quietly.

  "And I love you, Master Johnny," she whispered back.

  They made love again.

  Tuesday, 16 April, 0222 (PCC) —Orbit of Mars, Solar System

  The enemy returned at 0400 the next morning, just a hundred fighters, popping out of warp fifteen thousand miles from where Sadat cruised with her entourage of heavy escorts. Klaxons shrieked all over the carrier and fighter crews hit the deck running.

  "ATTENTION ALL HANDS! INCOMING STRIKE! MAN YOUR BATTLE STATIONS!"

  Johnny and Onja clambered into their pressure suits and jumped into the antigrav lift, which carried them down to the hangar deck. Half the 213 were already there, looking sleepy but alert, blood up, eyes bright. They climbed into their fighters as technicians hastily powered them up. Hinds arrived moments later as elements of the 101 began to depart in pairs, riding the lift to the flight deck above them. Even as the second pair lifted, the hangar deck vibrated with the thunder of rocket engines from the flight deck.

  "Railsplitter! Fighter Queen!" They were already sealed into their fighter, but Hinds plugged his headset into the jack on the bottom of the QF. "You two sit tight! This isn't the strike we expected. They're coming after Sadat! We have to launch the 213 as defense, but you wait for the word. Don't launch until you hear from Colonel Nunez. You got that?"

  Johnny grimaced in frustration, but nodded.

  "Aye-aye, Major!"

  Even as they held that conversation, a string of twenty Sirian fighters streamed through the taskforce on a probing pass, dropping torpedoes to confuse Federation gunners, twisting away from batteries of laser fire from covering destroyers. Sadat shuddered minutely as topside laser batteries replied with blinding flashes of blue light, and on the flight deck above them, fighters from the 101 continued to launch in pairs, rocking the entire hangar bay with their rocket thrust.

  Moments later the fighters of 213, minus Washington and Lincoln, began lifting up to the flight deck for launch, and in less than five minutes the area around Johnny's QF was clear of everything except generators, plug cables, and computer consoles. Other squadrons a hundred yards away were mounting their fighters and in short order also began to lift to the flight deck. Within ten minutes the entire hangar deck looked like a huge empty warehouse.

  "I hate this!" Onja muttered in frustration. "The whole fucking plan is falling apart!"

  "I hear you," Johnny said.

  Johnny's muscles twitched as he waited, each minute an hour long. His fleet SpectraWav jabbered with rabid talk as pilots shouted and screamed and threatened and cursed. He recognized voices from the 213 and others, and hearing them in the midst of battle without him was almost more than he could bear. He glanced to his right, where Capt. Washington sat calm and immobile in his cockpit; he wondered what was going through the veteran's mind.

  "Jesus!" he whispered. "How long is this going to take?"

  Someone came running across the hangar deck toward his ship and plugged into the voice channel. Looking down, Johnny recognized Col. Nunez.

  "Railsplitter, do you read?"

  "Five by, Colonel." His voice quivered with adrenaline.

  "The enemy is starting to withdraw. I have the coordinates where they came out of warp; we think they may leave from about the same place. Ready to copy?"

  "Ready."

  Nunez uploaded the coordinates into the AI, then came back on voice.

  "Okay, get going. Try to get them before they can make the jump. Good luck, Lieutenant!"

  "Roger, Colonel! We'll do our best."

  As Nunez unplugged and stood back, Johnny powered his jets and began to roll toward the lift, Washington by his side. The lift deposited them beside the launch ramp on the flight deck above. The launch ramp looked like a tunnel, almost four hundred yards long, each end open to the blackness of space. Embedded in one side, high above the deck itself, was the control "tower", an internal extension of the bridge.

  Both pilots switched to STC frequency.

  "Sadat control, Railsplitter. Request permission to position for launch, with my wingman."

  "Railsplitter, that's a roger. Taxi into position."

  Johnny sucked oxygen to still his nerves as he and Washington moved out into the center of the broad flight deck, turned their noses toward the carrier's portside, and set their brakes. A man in an orange spacesuit stood to one side with a lighted wand and knelt down to look underneath each fighter, checking that all cords and cables were clear, that nothing was hanging down that shouldn't be. Satisfied, he raised the wand above his head and waved it in a circle, then dropped into a spider-hole in the deck. A metal plate slid into place above him.

  "Railsplitter, Sadat control. You are cleared for launch. Watch the Christmas tree, launch on green."

  "Roger, flight control. Thank you."

  "Good hunting, Railsplitter."

  To the right of the flight deck, a fluttering hologram of the Federation flag suddenly appeared; both Johnny and Washington saluted it. Johnny lit his rockets and held his brakes, Washington did the same. The Christmas tree, a hologram of lights projecting down from the overhead, shimmered into view. It began to flash colors, two seconds apart, starting with red — then blue, amber, and green. On green, both pilots released their brakes, punched their rockets, and with a thunder and a whoosh shot out the end of the tunnel like bullets from a rifle.

  "Input: Gear up!" Johnny snapped, and the wheels slammed into the bottom of the QF. Johnny and Washington streaked forward at twenty miles per second as they set course for the coordinates Nunez had given them. Somewhere off to the left a laser battery was firing, the blue light like lightning against the blackness of space, and hundreds of miles to the right more blue flashes pinpointed a battle in progress.

  "You ready back there?" Johnny asked Onja.

  "I'm always ready," she told him. "Just find me a Sirian so I can shoot him in the ass."

  Johnny laughed in spite of his tension, felt his nerves settle a little.

  It took thirteen minutes to reach the point from which Nunez believed the Sirians would depart, but all they found was empty space. Washington was a hundred yards off his right wing, slightly behind, to cover him until he could complete his mission. Johnny killed thrust and drifted, Washington matching, waiting for something to appear. For several minutes there was nothing, though Onja's holos blazed with targets all over the sector.

  "Looks like Nunez screwed up!" Johnny muttered.

  "Maybe not!" Onja responded. "I've got nine Sirians inbound. They're all alone. Either they're going to warp out or they want our blood." She transferred the image to his HH and he saw them, closing at high speed, coming in their general direction, but all strung out, not in a clean formation.

  "If they try to attack us, we're not gonna have much luck planting devices on their tails," Johnny mused.

  "Looks like it could be an attack run," Onja agreed.

  "Okay. Let's try this."

  Johnny manipulated a few controls. The fighter began to roll and tumble, looking for all the galaxy as if it had already been hit. It was another long shot, but if the enemy picked him up on visual it might fool them. Without being told to do so, Washington performed a similar maneuver, even firing a couple of retros to send his ship away from the other so they wouldn't appear to be tumbling in formation. As the stars swirled sickeningly in all directions, Johnny and Onja waited with bated breath, Johnny's hands tense on the controls in case he had to recover from the tumble and accelerate in a hurry.

  But afte
r thirty seconds the Sirians turned away, heading toward empty space a few hundred miles ahead. Johnny released his breath slowly, gently fired retros to stop his tumble, and rotated his ship until it faced the retreating enemy fighters.

  "How do they look, Onja?" he asked as he fired rockets to close the range.

  "They're good candidates, but we've got to get closer. They're at four hundred miles and pulling away."

  Johnny killed his rockets and switched to nuclear, thrusting cleanly after them, hoping they wouldn't notice. The range began to close, slowly at first, then more rapidly as he poured on the isotopes.

  "Okay," she murmured behind him, "I've got a fix. Range two hundred miles. Get me closer. And don't take too long — damn! One of them has disappeared! There goes another one! Jesus! Hurry, Johnny! Hurry!"

  Johnny gave it all he had, keeping it smooth as the range closed to a hundred miles. Another fighter jumped into hyperspace, leaving only six, and they were in two clusters, several miles apart. If they were all going to leap from the same point in space, they could be gone at any moment …

  "Range fifty-five!" Onja reported. "Wish me luck!"

  Johnny felt the turret shudder as the autocannon opened fire. The turret rotated minutely and fired again, again, and again, six times in all, then back again as the range closed and she sprayed all six again, praying that she'd be able to hit the tiny target area that was required to get the job done.

  "I've got a signal!" Johnny yelled. "You did it, Onja! Look!"

  On the special monitor installed for that purpose, a flashing signal appeared, and a sharp little beep could be heard. Tiny blinking numerals showed the coordinates of the homing signal, recorded by the AI. Then another appeared, and a third. As Johnny and Onja shouted in glee, two more appeared, which meant she'd hit five of her six targets.

  Then the Sirians disappeared, suddenly vanishing out of normal space as they leapt to their unknown destination.

  But, although the enemy fighters were no longer visible visually or by Ladar, the beeps continued, and the signals from the homing devices appeared on the monitor.

  "Thank god!" Johnny breathed. "I didn't know if we could do it. You're the greatest, Onja!"

  Onja was silent for the space of ten seconds; then,

  "Johnny?"

  "Yeah?"

  "We gotta go after them."

  Chapter 30

  Orbit of Mars, Solar System

  "The squadrons that were supposed to follow up have all been launched," Onja said. "They've been in battle already. They'll have to recover and rearm before they can make the jump. That'll take at least an hour. The Sirians on the other side could be gone by then."

  "God, Onja! Do you know what you're saying?"

  "I do, Johnny. There's probably a carrier over there, maybe two or three. If they leave that area, we'll lose them. But if we can plant some of these homing signals in their hulls, the Federation will be able to track them wherever they go, at least for a while. Long enough to send a strike after them." She paused for that to sink in. "We have to do it, Johnny."

  Ice water flowed through his veins as he realized she was right. It would be a shame to waste this maneuver, and they might never get another chance. The idea of following the Sirians terrified him, and yet …

  It wouldn't be the first time he'd faced superior odds alone; it probably wouldn't be the last.

  "Hinds will have a shit fit."

  "Fuck him. He can hand us a star court later, but right now our duty is to the Federation."

  "God almighty!"

  Johnny swallowed hard, wished he could wipe his face, but couldn't because of his helmet faceplate. He looked out to his right where Washington was holding position two miles off his starboard wing.

  "God almighty!"

  "Johnny, I don't want to die any more than you do, but —"

  We've got to beat them, John. We've got to!

  "I know, I know. You're right." He opened the inter-ship channel. "Cherry Tree, Railsplitter. Are you getting the same signals we are?"

  "That's affirm, Railsplitter. Excellent shooting over there! Congratulate the Fighter Queen."

  "Ack. Listen, Captain, our mission is complete, but we're going to follow them. Advise you return to the ship and report our success."

  "Don't do that, Johnny!" It was Denise, her voice slightly shrill in his headset. "That's suicide over there! You don't have command permission to do that!"

  "We've got to, Denise! There's no one ready to follow them. Someone has to see what's on the other side. We're going. Thanks for your backup, but you're on your own now."

  "That's a negat." Washington's deep baritone was calmly professional. "We're flying your wing. We go where you go."

  "Leroy, I'm not asking you …"

  "We'll double your firepower, Johnny. If you're going, we're going with you."

  Johnny felt a rush of humility at the loyalty of the crew by his side. For just a moment he almost felt like crying.

  "Roger. Lock in your present coordinates so you can get back." To his AI, "Input: lock in present position for hyperspace return."

  "Present position recorded and locked."

  "We're ready, Railsplitter," Washington reported.

  "Affirm. Lock in the homing signal as your jump target." He did the same on his AI. His heart raced as he prepared to take on the totally unknown.

  "Done," Washington told him.

  "On my execute."

  "Ready."

  "You ready, Onja?"

  "Ready."

  Johnny breathed deeply, trying to still the jitters that inexplicably assailed him, now of all times. After three or four seconds he nodded to himself. Keeping the channel open so Washington could hear, he spoke the final order.

  "Input: hyperspace, execute!"

  An electric sensation rippled across his skin and lightning seemed to flash outside as the ship jumped into hyperspace, then the sky around them turned gray as everything that had been visible disappeared.

  Johnny closed his eyes for a minute, realizing this could take several hours, depending on where the enemy's base was located. It could be light years away, or just light hours. They could be in hyperspace for days …

  It took only three minutes.

  "Attent: target signal has dropped out of hyperspace. Return to normal space in forty seconds."

  "You copy, Onja! Forty seconds!"

  "I'm ready, Johnny. Listen, if there are any big ships around, let's go get 'em. They'll probably have shields down. Don't hesitate, let's get in close."

  "You got it, sweetheart. That's what I do best."

  "Attent: return to normal space in fifteen seconds."

  Johnny braced himself. Anything could be waiting for them over there, but their advantage was that no one was expecting them. They should arrive like a bloodhound at a possum picnic.

  Johnny counted down the seconds, then the ripple came again, lightning flashed, and they were suddenly back into normal space. Washington appeared almost beside them, two miles away.

  "Input: shields up!"

  For just a second Johnny blinked, and then looked at his Heads-Up Holo.

  "Holy shit!" Onja breathed. "Will you look at that!"

  He saw it. Only a hundred miles away, but it looked like a hundred yards. It was the biggest warship he'd ever seen in his life, and it was definitely a carrier, but four times the size of Sadat. A ship like that could carry fifty squadrons, and probably did. Swarming around it, not visible except on their holos, were at least thirty enemy fighters, flying combat patrol, unconcerned at the moment about attack. The nine fighters they'd followed back were queuing up for recovery.

  Also visible on the holos, a few thousand miles farther away, were at least two other ships of similar size, and no fewer than fifteen capital ships that could be cruisers or battlewagons. It was the biggest armada he'd ever seen, and made the taskforce they'd attacked during the Battle of the Belt look like toys.

  "Let's go, Johnny! Let's go
, let's go, let's go! Before they see us and raise shields!"

  Onja was frantic, desperate for a shot at this target. Johnny was already under power and Washington was running neck-and-neck with him, streaking for the carrier under full thrust. Shields up, tubes loaded, blood pounding. Johnny knew full well they could do little against a ship that size except knock a few holes that could be repaired, kill a few crewmen … and plant more homing transmitters that would allow the Federation to track its movements. They were too close to use EMP without frying their own shield generators, which would leave them unable to warp back home.

  His nerves settled into steel as he made his run. The ship sat there like a big fat duck, cruising slowly as it recovered its strike fighters; if it was aware of his presence, he saw no indication.

  Until Onja opened up with her autocannon, firing a long burst that stitched the port side of the giant carrier with several hundred homing devices. Then, belatedly, a laser battery opened fire, sending a streak of blue light just behind them. Johnny jinked to avoid the next shot, which followed quickly, and then he was deep in it. Onja fired a spread of torpedoes that streaked straight in and opened up a half-dozen holes along the ship's belly as Johnny corkscrewed underneath and around to the starboard side. Denise followed with another spread, then the carrier's shields went up and there was no further chance to damage it.

  But the laser shots continued, and as the QuasarFighters raced for their lives up the starboard side —

  WHAAAAAAM!

  The shields held, but dropped to twenty percent, and the QF staggered drunkenly, slamming Johnny against the side of his cockpit hard enough to stun him.

  "Johnny!" Onja screamed. "Are you all right?"

  He shook his head dazedly, unable to answer, but somehow his right hand continued to work the yoke. He threw the QF into an angle that crushed them under heavy G's, sending the fighter on a ten-degree tangent that queered the Sirian gunners' aim for a few seconds; the blue bolts continued to reach for them, missing by a matter of yards each time.

  "Attent!" the AI chattered. "Critical onboard damage! Hyperspace drive is offline —"