by John Bowers
Marie stood still, no longer trying to comfort the hysterical blonde. Johnny holstered his weapon and started toward her, but Onja bared her teeth at him.
"Keep away, Johnny! Don't fucking touch me!"
He stopped, his eyes alarmed, and looked at the other women. His questions froze in his throat as he realized this was a family matter, that he was an outsider.
Onja stood heaving for breath, tears running down her cheeks, her head back against the wall, her eyes closed. A minute crawled past, two. Tonja went to her mother and they embraced. Marie stood alone, waiting.
Still sobbing, Onja slowly sank to the floor, her knees pulled up to her chest. It was worse than the nightmares she had once suffered, the rape memories. Those had gone away, but this never would. If Sirian blood flowed through her veins, it would continue to flow until the day she died. It was irreversible.
Her life played across her memory like a holovid, memories of fear and depravation on Vega, fear and stealth as she escaped, and a burning desire for revenge once she reached Terra. She remembered enlisting, the rigors of training, her duel with a sadistic drill instructor, and fighting Hinds for a chance to get into combat.
In her first action she'd killed eleven Sirians, four more in her next. She'd destroyed two troop transports loaded with ground troops, more than thirty-five thousand men, with a single torpedo spread. And in the years since, she'd killed or crippled hundreds more in battles that spanned the settled galaxy. All that killing because of one central fact…
She hated Sirians!
She swallowed and shook her head slowly.
"Tell me it's not true, Mother," she said quietly, her eyes still closed. "Tell me you were already pregnant."
"We had you tested when you were born," Marie said quietly, "just to make sure. Your DNA and Adam's were not linked. Honey, I'm sorry. Maybe I shouldn't have told you after all."
Onja sat silent, her head on her knees, and just shook her head. Johnny knelt beside her, his eyes dark with concern.
"Is there anything I can do?"
She shook her head again. Then she looked up at him, her lips pinched with bitterness.
"Yes," she said, "there is something."
"What? Tell me."
"Take off that uniform. Go back home to Colorado."
He frowned in confusion. "I can't do that, Aunt Onja! My enlistment isn't up for two more years."
"I don't care. Request a transfer out of combat. Request a discharge as sole surviving son — anything. Oliver can arrange it."
"But …"
"Our war is over, Johnny. Yours and mine. We're quitting, right now. I lost my father, I lost your father, and I'm not going to lose you!"
He shook his head in helpless confusion, staring at her as if she were mad.
She pointed at Tonja.
"And take that girl with you."
Chapter 29
Sunday, 5 February, 0243 (PCC) — Glenville, Texiana, Sirius 1
Johnny got clearance from the control tower and the PF rattled Glenville, Texiana as it began to move down the runway. It turned into a blurred streak and then jerked almost straight up and climbed. At forty thousand feet Johnny leveled out and banked left, in a southerly direction, still climbing. Below them to the west, and on across the horizon for another hundred miles, were the remaining armies of Sirius, weakened and desperate, but still fighting.
Onja stared at her target holo, her eyes glazed, lost in reverie. She'd slept little the night before; her mother's story had completely unnerved her. Onja Kvoorik, the Fighter Queen — who'd dedicated her life to the destruction of Sirius, who'd killed more Sirians than any other single combat soldier in any service — was half Sirian?
Goddess!
It didn't change a thing, of course. She regretted nothing, except that the job had taken so long to complete — but it was pretty goddamned ironic all the same … .
WHAAAAAAAM!!!
Onja screamed as something hit the PF like a bomb, flinging her sideways against her harness and slamming her into the side of the turret. She lay stunned for several seconds, and when her head cleared she realized the fighter was in a steep dive. The turret was thick with smoke, and every warning alarm was howling insanely.
"Johnny!" she cried over her intercom. "Johnny!"
"I can't hold it, Onja!" Johnny shouted, his voice reedy with pain. "The cockpit's on fire! I-I can't …" He screamed, and Onja's heart threatened to explode with fear.
"Input:" she yelled. "Fire suppression, cockpit! Execute!"
She could see flames on her cockpit monitor, saw Johnny beating at them with his hands. His suit was melting on his body, but even as she watched, clouds of CO2 flooded the cockpit and the flames died. Onja pulled herself upright, bracing against the dive, and flipped on her auxiliary flight control monitor. She quickly noted such details as airspeed, attitude, altitude, and rate of descent. They were screaming through twenty thousand feet at ten thousand feet per minute. In two minutes they would hit the ground.
The cockpit monitor showed Johnny slumped in his seat, either unconscious or dead.
Onja was on her own.
She tried to think back twenty‑three years to her training at Luna 1, the class on cockpit orientation and spacecraft handling. She hadn't used either in years, and the details had faded.
"Input:" she said breathlessly. "Engage autopilot, execute!"
"Autopilot engaged," the AI replied coolly.
"Input continuous, autoexecute: establish straight and level flight!"
"Ack."
The PF began to pull out of the dive, and as she watched with bated breath, the auxiliary monitor reported the rate of descent slowing, until they were flying level at twelve thousand feet. She turned on her external monitor and saw a streak of flame whipping past.
"What the hell hit us?"
"The fighter was hit by laser fire."
"Damage report."
The AI rattled off a list of injuries to the fighter, including fire in the starboard rocket fuel tank, damage to various control surfaces, and fractures in the starboard wing, which threatened to break off at any minute. Onja panted against her fear. It was obvious they'd never make orbit, not with a broken wing, and certainly not without rocket fuel.
"Eject port and starboard rocket fuel tanks!"
The fighter shuddered as the tanks fell away.
"Port and starboard fuel tanks ejected."
She tried to think rationally. "Report probability of continued flight."
"Probability of continued flight zero. Onboard damage is critical."
Goddess!
Onja took a sip of water from her suit tube, forced herself to remain calm.
"All right. Set course for following vector." She rattled off the coordinates of the Outback, which should be only a few hundred miles distant.
"Ack."
The PF turned gently left.
"Transmit coded mayday on all Federation bands, continuous transmission."
"Mayday transmitting continuous."
"Report status of Lieutenant Lincoln."
"Lieutenant Lincoln is unconscious, with third degree burns over face, hands, arms, and legs. Pulse one-fifty and thready; respiration thirty‑seven and shallow. Blood pressure ninety systolic over forty‑two diastolic."
Oh, god! Johnny!
Onja forced steel into her blood as she rode the bouncing fighter through the Sirian sky. This was all her fault. She shouldn't have let her mind drift. But what mattered at the moment was reaching the ground alive, and getting Johnny some medical aid as quickly as possible. Returning to Glenville was out of the question; the fighter would never hold together that long, and even if it did, she'd have to eject them and let the fighter go, to crash unguided into the ground and perhaps kill innocent people.
The minutes dragged by. Onja watched out the external viewer, consulted her auxiliary holos, and talked to the AI as if it were her best friend. Johnny's condition gradually declined; the AI had injecte
d him with a stabilizing drug, but it fell far short of what he needed. The starboard wing was gradually working itself loose, and could come apart at any time. When it did, the fighter would start to roll, and no power in the galaxy could stop it. Ejection would be difficult then, if not impossible.
Thank god it was a Lincoln fighter!
"Just a little longer, please!" she murmured.
"Attent:" the AI said. "Approaching target coordinates. ETA one minute."
Onja sucked oxygen deep into her lungs, sweat pouring into her collar.
"Cancel autoexecute. Stand by for cockpit ejection, stand by for turret ejection."
"Ack."
Onja watched her navigation grid and sweated until the numbers rolled around to match those she'd given the AI.
"Attent: target coordinates reached."
"Transmit ejection coordinates to the fleet in orbit. Eject cockpit, eject turret, ten-second interval." She took a deep breath, bracing herself against the explosion she knew was coming. "Execute!"
* * *
Kevin Willis saw it coming, barreling in from the north, maybe seven thousand feet up. It was coming fast, trailing thick smoke, looking like nothing so much as a fire arrow from an old Robin Hood vid. As it passed overhead he followed it with his eyes, speaking into a microphone on his collar.
"The mayday just passed over my position," he said calmly, "heading due south, maybe eight thousand feet, traveling at Mach 3 or better …" He staggered as the sound wave hit him, an explosion of thunder that swirled the dust around his feet and left his ears ringing. He lifted his glasses and picked up the black arrowhead as it bucked and rolled through the sky.
"They've ejected!" he said, voice rising. "They're out — I've got parachutes now. They're about forty miles south. I'm heading after them. I'll set up a beacon as soon as I find them."
The speaker on his radio crackled.
"Roger, Corporal. Watch your six. Landon out."
The Outback, Sirius 1
The parachutes braked the ejection modules and stabilized them, but it was the retro jets that brought them down under controlled descent. It was the wildest ride Onja had taken since Alpha Centauri; it all happened automatically and she had no control of anything. When the turret capsule hit the desert floor it jarred every bone in her body, causing her to bite her tongue painfully, but after everything stopped moving and she had a moment to take inventory, nothing seemed broken.
She popped the explosive bolts on the turret hatch and crawled out, laser pistol in hand, stepping gingerly down onto the hard ground. She looked in every direction, half expecting to see a formation of Sirian tanks ringing her, but there was nothing. Just sand, rock, scrub brush, low ridges, and dry washes as far as the eye could see. At first she didn't see Johnny's module and fear gripped her; then, in the distance, she spied something amber waving in the harsh sunlight.
She set out running.
Johnny's cockpit was lying on its side, the canopy cracked, but otherwise intact. Onja was almost out of breath when she reached it, and she walked around the module, wondering how to get it open. Johnny had to come out of there. He might be dead already, but if he wasn't, he needed her. She searched until she found the panel marked MANUAL EMERG ACCESS, and opening it, found the red lever.
She pulled the lever and nothing happened. She cursed, pulled it harder, and was rocked off her feet by small explosions that popped the hatch open. Picking herself up, she twisted the locking ring on her helmet and jerked it free, throwing it to the ground.
"Johnny!" she gasped. "Johnny, can you hear me!"
She crawled into the square hole and leaned over her injured pilot, taking in the molten holes in his suit. It had to be an extremely hot fire to do that — these suits were built to retard flame up to three thousand degrees. His faceplate had melted, his skin was blackened and charred, red showing through the blisters like a grilled hotdog. Onja got too close and gagged as the stench of roasted meat filled her nostrils.
"Johnny!" she cried. "Oh, god!"
Holding her breath, she worked at his restraining harness, got it free, and tried to pull him out. He sat motionless, eyes swollen shut, and she couldn't tell if he was alive or dead.
"Oh, god! Somebody help me! Please!"
She suddenly became aware of the sound of a high‑speed hovercraft, and scrambled backward out of the cockpit, pulling her laser pistol free. She ducked for cover as the approaching vehicle began to slow, then lurched to a halt twenty yards away. She remained out of sight, pistol ready, until she saw the hover pilot leap down and run toward the capsule. He appeared to be alone.
"Freeze!" she shouted, stepping into view when he was ten feet away.
The man almost broke his neck sliding to a halt, hands in the air, his blue eyes wide with surprise. Her pistol was pointed straight at his heart.
"ID yourself!" she ordered.
"Kevin Willis, Corporal, 33rd Star Marines!" he panted. "I'm on your side, lady! I came to help."
"Show me a datatag."
He carefully removed it from the string around his neck and tossed it to her. She glanced at it, then tossed it back.
"My pilot's been badly burned," she said. "I can't tell if he's alive or not. Do you have medical training?"
"No," he admitted, moving forward again, "but we've dealt with burns before."
"Who's 'we'?"
"The Southern Command," he said as he crawled into the cockpit. "We've been rescuing downed fighter crews for about two years now."
Onja kept the pistol pointed at the ground as Kevin Willis checked over Johnny's injuries. After a moment he crawled out again.
"He's pretty bad," he told her. "We'd best leave him where he is for now. There's an ambuhover on the way, should be here in a few minutes."
"Do they know where we are?"
He nodded. "They're following your transponder beacon, plus I've got one on my hover. They're not far behind."
"What about the Sirians?" Onja wasn't quite ready to trust him with their lives.
"Not many left around here, and those that are have other things to think about." He looked back the way he'd come, but as yet there was no sign of anyone following. He turned to Onja. "What's your name?"
"Onja Kvoorik," she said, feeling suddenly drained. "Major, Fighter Squadron One Eleven."
Kevin's eyes narrowed as he studied her.
"The Triple‑One?" he asked.
"Yeah. You know it?"
"I've heard of it. You must be the Fighter Queen.”
She just nodded.
"Ah, here they come," he said as the sound of another hover reached them. Onja looked up and spotted the dust trail as it approached.
"Do they have the right equipment for this kind of operation?" Onja asked.
"Oh, sure. We've got a couple of pretty good medical people on our staff. We get most of our equipment from the task force in orbit."
The ambuhover slid to a halt nearby and four people leaped off, running toward the ejection module. Onja watched numbly as they went to work, and ten minutes later, as they loaded Johnny onto the ambuhover, she climbed into Willis's vehicle and they set off for … wherever.
Monday, 6 February, 0243 (PCC) — The Outback, Sirius 1
Deep inside a well-hidden sandstone cave, Onja sat in a chair near Johnny's medrack, staring at his burned and battered body, now swathed in dressings. She was numb with fatigue; she'd just about reached the end of her endurance.
Onja Kvoorik, the Fighter Queen. The Iron Lady. How many other labels had been hung on her over the years? She didn't know and didn't care. What she did know, at this moment, was that she simply could not bear to lose another pilot. Especially this one. Not Johnny Lincoln's kid.
"Don't die, Johnny," she whispered. "For god's sake, please don't die!"
"Major?"
She jumped, startled. The infirmary was located in a small cavern off the main tunnel, and despite its small size, was surprisingly well equipped. The pharmacist's mate nodded
to her gently.
"You really should get some sleep, Major," he said quietly. "The Lieutenant is resting as well as possible right now. There's nothing you can do for him."
Onja compressed her lips bitterly.
"Thank you," she said. "I appreciate what you did for him. But I'll stay. He's my pilot, and I've never yet run out on my pilot."
The pharmacist's mate nodded.
"Is he going to make it?" Onja asked.
"Too soon to tell. He's had quite a bit of trauma. Burns generate heavy shock. We'll keep the IVs going, but he really needs to be in a sick bay."
"Then we need to get him up to orbit," Onja said. "Can we send a signal to the fleet?"
"That's already been done. General Hinds promised to send a shuttle immediately."
"Hinds!" Onja gasped.
"Yes, Ma'am. We route all our evac requests through him personally. He and the Colonel are good friends."
* * *
The hours crawled agonizingly by. Onja sat in a heap of exhaustion at Johnny's side, too tired to sleep, too drained to cry. She watched his labored breathing, mentally holding her own breath each time he exhaled and didn't inhale. He was on oxygen, but even so each breath seemed it might be his last. Where was that evac shuttle? God damn that Hinds!
Johnny's helmet had protected most of his head from the fire, so he still had his hair and ears. But his face was badly charred, his nose burned away. His suit had melted across his chest and arms, turning his upper body into a barbecue. The stench had been unbearable at first, but now Onja hardly noticed it. All she knew was that this pilot must not die. Please, Sophia! Not Johnny's boy!
It was her fault! How could she have been so negligent, to forget to monitor her holos? The war wasn't over. She'd told Johnny that the day he reported aboard Bush. How could she forget it herself, even for a moment?
"Onja?"
She looked up, blinked in surprise. Another woman had entered the infirmary, a blonde woman in fatigues, a familiar face from the past.
"Onja! My goddess! I can't believe it's you!"
Onja stood slowly, her face betraying her shock.
"Ursula?"
"Yes!" Ursula Negus laughed once, but it sounded almost like a sob; they stared at each other a moment, then embraced frantically.
