by John Bowers
Ursula recovered before Travers did, and as he sat up, groggy, her right heel smashed into his face with all the energy she could muster. His nose exploded and blood squirted across his uniform as he collapsed backward. She bent over and retrieved his E‑key, then took his laser pistol as well.
The overhead lights went out, leaving the room in total darkness. Because of its bunker‑like characteristics, the barrack had no windows, and Ursula had to feel her way from rack to rack, releasing each woman in turn. They were all terrified, some were hysterical, and she had to shout to quiet them.
"All right, listen to me!" she cried. "We can't leave here right now, because the base is under attack. If we go outside we'll all die for sure. But when the attack is over we'll try to slip away. Everything will be in confusion, and there's a chance no one will notice us."
"If we stay here and the building is hit we'll all die!" one of the women, a Centauri slave, wept.
"We're going into the hallway," Ursula said, "and no farther. You hear me? The hallways are the safest place to be. So follow me, but stay close! No one will have a chance outside until the attack is over."
Ursula was the only military woman in the group, and they responded to the authority in her voice. When she opened the door and looked out, the hallway was lit by emergency lights. The others followed her, huddled like frightened children. It was late afternoon and the day staff had left; Ursula led them to the center of the hall where they all crouched on the floor, shaking with fear.
The sound of explosions was constant now. Mingled with the rush and roar of exploding ordnance was the indescribable scream of high-speed spacecraft, as if someone were ripping the air with a lasersaw, followed by the multi‑layered sonic crash as it closed again in their wake.
She sat quietly, shaking with adrenaline, as the attack continued for twenty minutes. The laser pistol in her hand was somehow comforting, though it was useless at the moment.
By accident or design, the barrack housing the Domestic Relief girls wasn't hit. When the attack finally ended, Ursula got carefully to her feet and explored the hallway, looking out into a larger room. Although nothing had penetrated the building, the blast and concussion had made a mess of furniture and equipment.
"What do we do now?" asked a black teenager named Lisa. She stood against the older woman with wide, frightened eyes, and Ursula felt a motherly pity for her. Lisa had been held here since she was fifteen.
"We have two choices," Ursula replied. "We can go back to our room and act like nothing has happened, or we can try to run for it."
"What are you going to do?" the girl pleaded.
"I think I killed Travers. I'm gonna run for it.” She looked at the rest of the women. "Anybody else want to go?"
"They'll kill us if they catch us!" another woman offered.
"They may kill us anyway," Ursula responded. "I don't know about you, but I'm tired of being fucked for free."
It was unanimous — they all elected to go. Outside, the sounds of the attack were over, but sirens wailed and they could hear the roar of raging fires. Ursula led her small group down several hallways. They found the exit to the building, but faced another obstacle — they were all dressed in lingerie. Raid or no raid, fourteen nearly naked women would be noticed.
For ten minutes they rummaged through offices, restrooms, and closets, finding enough miscellaneous garments to at least cover themselves, and enough full uniforms to make at least some of them look like soldiers…as long as no one looked too closely.
When they left the building the heat, dry and scorching, washed over them. Fires raged near and far, the sky boiled with acrid black smoke, making the day look like dusk. To the west, Sirius A hung low on the horizon, but Sirius B blazed hot overhead, both taking on a reddish cast in the haze of smoke. Air, ground, and hover traffic whipped by all around them, but no one was looking as they made their way in a calm, determined parade down the front steps of the building and around the corner.
To Ursula's amazement, sitting unattended ten yards away was a military hover vehicle, apparently undamaged by the attack — complete with a small-calibre machinegun perched on its hood. It was built for only six people, but they squeezed aboard and by doubling up managed to get everyone in. Ursula started the turbines, praying the thing would work.
"Any of you girls know how to handle this thing?" she asked as the turbines began winding up to speed.
"I can." Lisa slid under the controls as Ursula seated herself behind the machinegun, checked its loads, and grunted with satisfaction.
"Okay, head for the main gate, nice and easy. Don't make it look like we're running away."
Multiple explosions a half-mile away battered them with concussion as a GAM battery cooked off, fresh roils of black smoke, rouged by orange flame, leaping into the sky. There should be enough excitement for a little while to keep the enemy occupied, Ursula hoped. If they could just get out that main gate …
Reina, Vega 3
They found the first address twenty minutes after leaving the spaceport. Ferrier stopped the hover vehicle and Onja stepped down. It took her a moment to orient herself, and she had to look both right and left to make certain. She looked again at the heap of rubble and knew she was in the right place. The rubble was cold and lifeless, weathered by wind and rain. A sagging, rusting fence surrounded the property.
It had happened several months ago, maybe longer.
NordTek was gone.
They found the second address ten minutes later. It had been so many years that Onja hardly recognized it. She told Ferrier to stop at the corner. She stepped down and walked to the center of the intersection, looking in all directions. The school was just a few blocks ahead, nestled against a small ridge, but her house was to the right, at the end of the block. She remembered the trees that lined both sides of the street, and was saddened to see the homes in such disrepair. The neighborhood had once been elite and expensive, but now it looked unkempt. A burned-out hovertank lay on its side in the front yard of one house. A few craters here and there offered mute testimony to the brief but fierce battle that had been fought here. Several dark stains on the sidewalk looked like dried blood.
Onja took a deep breath, trying to still her heart, as she stared at the house at the end of the cul-de-sac, the house where she'd lived the first twelve years of her life. Her scalp prickled as she stared at it. Her memories were still intact, but she feared they might be altered forever when she traversed the block and saw the current reality.
She began to walk, slowly at first, in no hurry. She'd waited twenty-seven years, she could take another couple of minutes. Behind her, Tommy leaped off the hover and trotted after her, catching up and keeping a couple of paces behind, his right hand on the laser pistol that rode his belt. Ferrier lifted the hover vehicle and also followed, keeping ten yards back. Lansing scanned the yards lining the street with a soldier's eyes, his laser rifle ready. Onja hardly noticed them, so intent was she on the house at the end of the street. Curtains parted behind some of the windows as those inside peered out.
Onja stopped at the end of the block, staring up the drive at the two-story house under the spreading Vegan oaks.
Her house.
She saw the giant tree with the vines around it where she'd spent endless hours playing with her dolls. The windows were dirty, some broken. Heavy drapes covered them from the inside, as if guarding the secret she'd come to uncover.
She glanced back down the street, then studied the wide driveway. The SE had dragged her mother and sister down that driveway to throw them into their slave wagon, still naked and bleeding. Onja stared at it dry‑eyed, her emotions bottled by her iron will.
But her heart raced.
Tommy stopped beside her, looking at the house.
"Is this it?" he asked.
She only nodded.
She walked forward, across the brittle lawn, and stopped at the front door. It needed paint. The ID recognition plate was hanging by its wires, t
he video pickup dark and powerless. She raised her right hand and knocked.
She stood there, forcing herself to be numb, emotionless. She waited, then knocked again. Tommy stood beside her, fingering his pistol. Ferrier sat at the controls of the hover out in the street, but Lansing had followed them and stood to the rear, his rifle pointed skyward, ready for use if the wrong person should answer the door.
"Who is it?" It was a girl's voice. Tremulous. Fearful.
"Open up!" Onja called. "Open the door!"
"Please! Who is it?" The voice sounded terrified.
"If you don't open the door, we'll burn it down!" Onja called. "Open up! Right now!"
A moment of silence followed. Onja stared patiently at the ground, holding herself ready for anything. The lock sounded and the door opened a crack. Someone peered out, but Onja could barely see whoever it was. Tommy pushed at the door and it slid aside, revealing the interior of the house. A young girl, about fifteen, shabbily dressed but distinctly Vegan, stared out at them. She gasped at the sight of Tommy's uniform, her face a mask of terror.
"Go away!" she cried. "Please, go away!"
Tommy stepped inside, a hand on his sidearm, and the girl backed away, staring at him in horror, insanity in her eyes. He reached out to calm her, but she threw up her hands in panic.
"Nooo!" she screamed. "Go away! Leave me alone!”
Tommy stepped back, shaken.
"What’s wrong with her?" he whispered to Onja.
"She’s terrified of you," Onja said sadly. "You're an enemy soldier."
Tommy backed through the doorway, his face ashen. Onja took a step forward.
"He isn’t going to hurt you," she said gently.
The girl stared at her without understanding.
"We’re not going to hurt you," Onja repeated. "It's all right."
A long moment of confused silence followed, broken only by the girl's ragged breathing.
"You're Vegan," she said at last. "What are you doing with them?"
"I'm with the Federation Space Force," Onja replied gently. "Federation soldiers don't attack girls. What’s your name?”
"Carla."
"What's your last name?"
"Lundgren."
"How long have you lived here?"
"I was born here."
Onja frowned. She'd been gone twenty‑seven years; this girl was no more than fifteen; so …
"Where are your parents?"
"I don't know. I haven't seen them for weeks. They went to the market, and never came back." She bit her lip.
"Okay. Listen, do you know anything about the people who lived here before your family moved in? Their name was Pedersen."
The girl shook her head, swallowing hard to control her tears.
"No. That was before I was born."
"Your parents never told you anything about them?"
"No."
Onja looked at Tommy and sighed. The girl stared at both of them, still frightened.
"Have you seen any soldiers around here lately?"
"Yes."
"Sirians?"
"Vegans."
"Did they hurt you?"
The girl didn't answer, but her lip began to tremble. Onja laid a hand on her shoulder.
"Do you have enough food here? Will you be all right?"
The girl only shrugged.
"Listen, I'm going to leave now, but I'll send someone back. You shouldn't be here alone."
"I have to stay here. What if my parents come home?"
"Leave a note for them. Tell them you've been taken to a civilian refugee center."
"I can't leave."
"You can't stay. It isn't safe yet. Don't open the door unless you see Federation uniforms. You understand?"
Carla Lundgren nodded.
"Someone will be back. I promise."
* * *
"God, I hate to leave her there like that," Tommy said when they reached the street. "I've never seen anyone so devastated."
"Now you know why we're fighting this war," Onja told him. "She's just one girl. This whole planet is like that. Twenty‑seven years ago that was me."
"Shit!"
"Major, they can't all be like that," Cpl. Lansing said. "We're fighting the Vegans as well as the Sirians."
Onja's blue eyes flashed as she turned on him.
"Did she look like the enemy to you?"
"No, Ma'am!" he said quickly.
"The Vegans in uniform are Sirians at heart. But they don't represent the true Vegan people. That girl back there is symbolic of the Vegan people after the Sirian invasion of 0195. Never forget that, Corporal."
"Yes, Ma'am."
Onja began knocking on doors, hoping to find someone who still remembered the Pedersens. She couldn't tell for sure how many homes were occupied, but only a handful answered her knock, and none gave her any information. Her quest had come to a sudden and irretrievable dead end.
* * *
It was late afternoon as the hover vehicle started back toward the spaceport. Vega was low in the sky, its bluish rays slanting across the city, throwing shadows toward the west. The air had cooled further and Onja breathed deeply, picking out a pungency from the river that transported her instantly back to childhood. The Queen River had its very own smell, unlike any other she'd ever known.
Ferrier took a different route on the way back, past the university grounds and through a narrow complex of streets known as Market Annex. Civilians were still on the streets, hurrying along the sidewalks to get home before the military curfew went into effect at dusk. Both hover and ground traffic slowed and snarled in the confusing complex of Market Annex streets.
"Damn! I should've gone another route," Ferrier muttered as he was forced to stop while the tangle of vehicles, both civilian and military, threaded their way around the hulk of a wrecked Sirian tank that blocked one narrow lane.
"It's okay, Private," Onja told him. "I'm in no hurry."
The hover vehicle began to move again, slowly.
"Major, are all Vegans like this? I've never seen such gorgeous women in my life!"
Onja smiled. "Haven't you heard the old phrase?"
"What? No such thing as an ugly Vegan? Sure, but I never believed it."
"So what do you think now?"
"Get down!"
Lansing was on his feet in the back, his laser rifle spitting blue light a foot above Onja's head. At the same instant, Ferrier lurched sideways in his seat, blood gouting from his mouth. Onja grabbed a support bar and ducked as the windshield melted inches to her left. As Ferrier slumped, the vehicle tilted to port and plunged to the street, crashing heavily against the cobbled surface. Onja felt herself catapulted through the air. She hit the ground twenty feet away, rolling several times as she lost skin from her arms and legs. Before she could recover, she heard the hover explode, felt a blistering heat wash over her, then was up and running for the nearest cover, laser pistol in hand.
She could hear the firing now, throbbing bursts of blue laser that turned the dusky evening into a brilliant light show. Lansing was in the street, crouched on one knee, still blazing away at the tank, and now she saw three bodies sprawled from the open turret. Two more were returning Lansing's fire.
From behind a parked ground car, Onja had a clear shot at one of them. She steadied her pistol across the top of the car and squeezed the trigger. The man's face distorted as the intense blue light struck home, and he slumped over backward.
The second man ducked and readjusted his aim, firing at Onja, and the roof of the car bubbled into molten metal as she skittered sideways and flattened out on the cobblestone. Behind her, machinegun bullets began exploding as the hover burned like a torch; she heard running feet behind her, but as she spun around to cover her six she saw Lansing diving to the sidewalk, panting like a thirsty dog.
"Where's Lieutenant Royal?" she gasped.
"I dunno!"
Spaaaang!
Laser light chipped masonry from the building next to
them, and Onja smelled ozone. Peering under the car beside her, she could see the shattered track of the broken tank on the other side, but the gunman wasn't visible. She rolled under the car, hoping the enemy didn't ignite its fuel tanks, and looked out. Behind her she heard Lansing firing again, then running boots as he raced for a better vantage point.
Onja fired blindly to cover him, knowing she had no target, hoping to at least keep the other gunman honest. She crawled farther under the car, trying to see the top of the tank, but all she saw were the bodies.
She saw the blue light again, from the other side, streaking toward Lansing. People screamed from inside a ground car in the middle of the street — the traffic jam had stopped cold when the shooting started. She couldn't see Lansing now, but the gunman was shooting in his direction, so she rolled out from under the car, leaped to her feet and ran toward the tank, heart racing.
She crawled around the end of the tank, carefully watching for the shooter, and tried to move in under his fire. Lansing covered her with another blue bolt over her head, then she was in position. She still couldn't see anyone, but Lansing's last shot had been inches above her, so all she had to do was stand up and fire.
She leaped to her feet and jammed her pistol forward …
The gunman stood straight up and screamed, his shirt in flames. He sprawled headfirst into the street, his rifle clattering away, and lay convulsing helplessly, gasping away his last breaths of air. Finally he was silent, though his body still quivered. Onja turned and looked over the top of the tank. Tommy Royal stood there, his laser pistol glowing, his uniform ripped and bloody. He was trembling as he stared at her with haunted eyes.
"Major!" he gasped. "Are you okay?"
She nodded, holstered her pistol, and crawled onto the tank. She grabbed Tommy and steadied him before he collapsed, setting him down on the armored surface.
"Tommy, you're hurt!"
"I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm …"
"Quiet! Sit still!"
"I'm okay. God, I thought you were dead! Oh, Jesus!"
Onja checked him for injuries, but aside from a jagged cut in his face and a laser scorch on his left leg, he was healthy. He sat trembling with adrenaline as Cpl. Lansing clambered onto the tank and checked his Space Force charges.
