Returning to the Bellau Wood, Kalija takes on a special assignment from her commander and finds that her aptitude with a starfighter brings with it problems of its own...

The Mighty Wind Arises, in what is probably the penultimate chapter! Cool! Kalija learns that some of her most trying challenges occur outside of the cockpit, and then we spend a bunch of time right back in the cockpit blowing things up. Thanks to :iconSpudz: for rigorous preflight checks, and special guest credit to :iconNachtfangen: for pointing out that I was missing a crucial scene and helping me figure out how it could go down.

Released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. Share, modify, and redistribute -- as long as it's attributed and noncommercial, anything goes.

The Mighty Wind Arises, by Rob Baird — Ch. 5, "When the stars begin to fall"

---

You will hear the trumpet sound
To wake the nations underground
Looking to my God's right hand
When the stars begin to fall

 My Lord, what a morning!
 My Lord, what a morning!
 My Lord, what a morning!
 When the stars begin to fall.

You will hear the sinner cry
To wake the nations underground
Looking to my God's right hand
When the stars begin to fall.

— American gospel song

Her coffee had gone cold. Facing her, Alamo was now on his fifth attempt at beating some particularly complicated round of Scythia, which described itself as a four-dimensional puzzle game. “Practice," he'd explained, and when she watched him play it — moving brightly colored squares through a flickering hologram — she had to agree that it looked a great deal like his targeting scope, most of the time.

At last, she decided that her need for caffeine had become overwhelming. As her paw touched the hatchway, though, it swung open of its own volition. Kalija blinked at the woman framed by the metal entryway, and straightened. “Ma'am."

Commander Putnam nodded. “As you were. Are you and Lieutenant Glenn ready?"

“Yes, ma'am. Five-One-Oh is sweet."

“Good. We're up."

“Yes, ma'am."

Barton Glenn cleared their table, and Putnam set her computer on it, summoning a holographic map that was by now far too familiar. Except that then she brought the focus in — not on the separatist-held north, but on gentle plains closer to the equator. Kalija raised her eyes, and saw that Glenn was just as nervous about the implications. Grace Putnam nodded to the pair: “Welcome to New Sydney."

CODA had directed them to strike a power plant to the north of the city. It was a solar array, brand new and one of Pike's signature accomplishments. According to their commander, destroying it served two simultaneous functions. Firstly, disabling it would significantly hamper the Territorial Guard's ability to power their increasingly substantial air-defense system. Secondly, it served to demonstrate to Governor Korablin that there was no such thing as a safe place.

Two Intruders only, to avoid attracting attention. A mixed strike package, acting as a diversion, would simultaneously support an armored advance on the far side of the country — but Putnam and Kalija would be on their own. It gave them, the elfin woman promised, the best chance of success.

Time was of the essence. Pike loyalists had been busily installing new defense batteries throughout the area. Already they had enough high-altitude point-defense cannons to degrade the effectiveness of any orbital bombardment; within a week, Fleet Intelligence predicted that New Sydney would have nearly a thousand separate batteries in interlocking rings protecting the governor's estate and Guard military bases.

“Mostly missiles; you know how the Sanganese love missiles. But unconfirmed reports suggest the impending installation of a twelve-component Type 2606 Summer Dragon battery with visibility over all of New Sydney and most of the province." A glowing, violet-fringed bubble marked the effective radius of the system.

Unlike what they'd faced before, the 2606 did not use projectiles. It was a beam weapon — impossible to evade. In good weather, with nothing to scatter the lasers, such a battery could entirely obliterate an entire squadron of Intruders in the blink of an eye from fifteen kilometers away. Reaching up to orbit, they would be more than enough to blind the fleet's sensors; any launches would have to take place on the far side of the planet, with all the added time and risk and fuel that entailed.

“But a beam weapon," Kalija realized, “would take quite a bit of power..."

“Right."

The attack plan called for them to drop in shadow, well below the horizon from the city itself. Then one long, low sprint over the ocean, as fast as their Intruders could manage; they would have just enough fuel to carry out the mission and return, and the smallest payload that Putnam judged sufficient.

Written out, it was quite simple.

“You see any trouble?" Kalija asked. Putnam had left to suit up and collect her bombardier, a boisterous Europan named Sam Hilton who, according to gossip, had picked up the call sign 'Achilles' because he 'went through so many Trojans.'

Glenn shrugged lightly. “Who knows?"

“Well, it's kind of your job..."

He gave her a hollow laugh. “Reckon it ain't so hard. Real problem's the intel."

They had no contacts in the south, and no reason for regular reconnaissance. All Fleet Intelligence had to go on was what they could glean from orbital imagery. There were, Alamo commented darkly, a lot of places to hide a few dozen SAM sites — and plenty of reasons for Governor Korablin to have done so.

“Should've stayed in Havana," the dog sighed. But neither of them really meant that — and, besides, it was too late for regrets. As soon as the ordnance crew had rearmed Wagon 510 they went through their next preflight just as dutifully as ever. Once again they were carrying Zeus missiles — but this time only two of them. Putnam would fly the riskier follow-up strike, with cluster bombs designed to smash the solar array's highly polished panels.

At least it was flying. The cat shot was as fun as ever — a quick rush to fling their ship out and into the stars where they belonged. Kalija took up her position behind their commander, and on the way down towards Pike reviewed the steps of the operation with Alamo over and over, until both were convinced it would all be second-nature.

It wouldn't be. There was always one unexpected thing or another. But at least it gave them the semblance of control and predictability. To make up for such a preposterous notion, the game was to figure out what the unexpected thing might be. “New SAMs on the egress vector," Kalija suggested.

“Too easy. Gripe."

The mutt turned to look over at him. “Not specific enough."

They hit the atmosphere with ten thousand kilometers separating their Intruder from the dawn. Plenty of night remained when Pinball declared the two Intruders 'in play' and they switched to the secured radio. Fifty kilometers of altitude dwindled to twenty, then ten.

Then they were only sixty meters over the choppy water; at full power in “combat" mode the Intruder raced along at four times the speed of sound, and the slightest error would kill them instantly. Kalija had to rely on her companion to ensure that the way ahead of them was clear. 

“That's it," he decided. “Twenty obols says the sensors go sour on the attack run."

“Oof. You think it's finally going to happen?"

“Good time for it."

“Not really." 

“It's okay, Elvis. You like a challenge too, right?"

“Oh, yeah." 

Two hundred kilometers from the coast, they started the turn towards their first overland waypoint. The route wasn't particularly complicated, though it kinked here and there to avoid more populated areas. All things considered, though... Kalija clicked her teeth, and decided the question was at least worth asking. “Pinball, this is Elvis."

“What's up, Elvis?"

“I was just thinking... these three waypoints. I get that we stay clear of the towns, but it adds almost ten minutes of flight time. And their coastal radar will be the first chance for them to pick us up — that's going to happen whether we like it or not."

“You're saying you'd go straight in, Elvis?"

“Yes, ma'am."

“Wait one." 

“If we do that," Alamo said, “we'll want to hit New Sydney coming in from almost due north. There are two clusters of probable batteries to the west and east of some suburb called Nasaw, but we can slot between them and then egress to the south-south-east." The suggestion accompanied a new series of waypoints, plotted on her holographic map. He'd already planned the whole thing out.

Achilles had, too, apparently. “Elvis, Pinball. We think it's not a bad idea, either. We'll have one pass, north to south, and then our escape vector is about one-sixty or so."

“Copy that, Pinball."

“So let's adjust course a bit." The new path that came in over the link between the two Intruders was almost identical to what Alamo had shown her.

“Not bad."

Her bombardier chuckled. “Don't want to spend any more time here than we have to."

“Me either. Feet dry in thirty seconds..."

Ordinarily they would've had their jamming on by the time they flashed past the surf, luminescent in the dead of night, and started the race inland. Electronic warfare was a tricky thing, though; the jamming might confuse a radar operator about their exact position, but it was also a surefire way of announcing their presence in the first place.

Six hundred kilometers to go. The more varied terrain necessitated a slight gain in altitude and a reduction in speed. They were still fast enough that — she hoped — there still wouldn't be time for any loyalists to take action. And they were more than fast enough for any flinching on her part to be immediately deadly. A radical lithobraking maneuver, as Zippo had put it.

At some point, and soon, it wouldn't matter because they'd reach populated territory. Traveling at several times the speed of sound, Wagon 510 could not simply be ignored: the Intruder's passing hammered shockwaves into the air that ensured there were no intact windows or slumbering people in her wake.

“Pinball. Five minutes to the IP." 

Pinball's lights were off; Kalija only knew where she was because the Intruder was highlighted in her visor. She took her cue to come directly abeam of her commander — the mutt would be in the lead for the attack run itself. “Alamo, you ready?"

“Sure."

Kalija switched their weapons safety off. “Master arm is on."

“Everything's sweet on the weapons panel."

“Four minutes," she said — for her own awareness as much as his. At their speed, they'd have to begin the climb to launch altitude much sooner than they had the last time they'd used the Thwomps — a more aggressive maneuver risked tearing them clean off her wings.

“Mud, twelve. IRON DRUM."

Pinball called it in just after Alamo did; a few seconds later half a dozen more radars came online. Ninety seconds out; ninety kilometers from the city. One more line of hills — New Sydney already gave the horizon a faint neon glare. “I'm going to start our climb just after Dorothy," she told her bombardier. The markpoint lay only fifty kilometers away.

“Copy. I'll let you know which way to egress as soon as I can get the threat picture. Either directly south or a little more east."

“Sure."

“Another IRON DRUM." She had to dim the warnings in her visor to keep the clutter to a minimum. New Sydney had a population of more than a million, all of them about to get one hell of a wakeup call. The shock wouldn't last: there had to be hundreds of possible threats. Inbound, none of them really scared her — the Intruder's speed alone guaranteed at least a kilometer per second of closure, and no time for a SAM to maneuver for the kill.

Running away, or on the climb... that was different. And a future problem. Fifteen seconds in the future. “Elvis. IP inbound."

Three words, and the world began to shift around her. It was a drug — a trip, a giddy fantasy. The path before her became compressed, and perfectly clear: every ridge, every tree, every building and road. The Intruder climbed not because her paws were on the controls but because she willed it to climb. They formed an inseparable trinity — the dog, the man and the machine.

Their upward soaring brought the city, finally, into view. Firo had seemed subdued and gentle, at one with the night sky. New Sydney was different: it glittered invitingly; hundreds of thousands of lights proclaimed mankind's conquest of the darkness. Strips of garish neon outlined her highways and monorail lines like the diagram of some monstrous, massive circulatory system.

It was an arrogant, defiant act, not just against nature but against the rebellion and the Colonial Defense Authority. Governor Korablin had assumed New Sydney was untouchable; a complete sanctuary. As Pinball had said in the briefing, it was time to teach him a lesson.

“Got the plant," Alamo said. It appeared as a little blue dot — far below and growing farther as they climbed.

“Elvis. Tally."

“Cleared hot." Pinball's reply was immediate.

“Firing solution," the mutt suggested.

“Trying..." 

“Twenty seconds to release," she told him.

“I know. Getting an alignment error on the computer."

Kalija's lip curled. “Abort?"

“Need another run, yeah. Rebooting."

Well, fuck. “Elvis. Targeting scanner is sour; I'm off."

“Pinball. Copy."

The dog weighed her options. A left turn, away from the city, would put them in reach of fewer missiles. If she turned over the city, though, she hoped that they might hesitate to fire — lest they cause any collateral damage. Besides, it would make another run easier. “Hooking right, and we'll try again."

Another run. Disastrous. Everything would be harder the second time around — with countless eyes on her and no doubt guessing the Intruders' intentions. At least Pinball was still below the radar horizon. “We're spiked by at least twenty hostiles," Alamo let her know. “If they fire, don't bother notching. I'll try to burn them."

“And the target?" 

“Computer's back now. Don't rush me."

A yelp from the threat receiver did the job. “SAM launch. Make that two. Three." Kalija called them out by instinct — just as instinctually she was already slewing the Intruder back around; thumbing the countermeasures button to toss out decoys for the missiles. “Elvis. Defending Type 93s, bullseye, ninety." At least Pinball would know where the worst of it was.

“Trashed one. Two. Got a firing solution, Elvis. Trashed three."

Took long enough, she thought — though it couldn't have been more than fifteen or twenty seconds. “Elvis. In from the north. Again." There would be no third try, she'd already decided.

“SAM launch," Alamo warned. Four more followed — like falling stars with all the wrong ideas, trying to climb back and into the heavens. So much for hoping that the Guard would try to avoid putting civilians at risk. “Trigger's hot, Elvis."

She rested her thumb on it and nosed the Intruder a few degrees to starboard, watching the counter in her helmet. A matter of seconds separated the moment she needed to fire from the moment the incoming missiles would impact. But then, she was a good shepherd — was she not?

None better. 

Easy. Take it easy. Hold it... hold it... little more. The airframe kicked hard with the release. “Elvis. Bombs away. Off." And as soon as it was done she twisted into a break turn towards the closest missile, taking advantage of their newfound maneuverability and a quick burst of the throttle. 

The missile wobbled, trying to correct, and then self-destructed. The bright flash confused one of its companions just long enough for another sacrifice — and the Intruder was on rails, now, plunging towards the surface before they had a chance to follow.

She couldn't quite beat the AGM-459s, though it was close. They were still almost a kilometer up when the two Zeus rockets slammed into their targets. Alamo had chosen the accumulator — a sturdy tower at the center of a field of parabolic panels — and the largest of the big storage tanks. 

Neither Thwomp was impolite enough to miss. The first arrowed into the foundation of the accumulating tower, sending a rippling shudder up the structure before it vanished behind the debris kicked up by the missile's explosion. The second took the storage tank dead-center. Even so long after sundown its contents were still lethal — molten salt at five hundred degrees sprayed out in all directions, smashing into the reflecting panels.

“Splash," Kalija called out — needlessly, for the effects had been obvious.

“Pinball's in hot," her commander answered.

She didn't need two passes; one was more than enough to finish what Kalija and Barton Glenn had started. In a rippling wave, the little bursts of high explosive shattered the remaining mirrors and tore open the above-ground salt tanks; savaged the transmission lines and substations. Pinball's Intruder stood in brief silhouette above the carnage, and the winking lights of New Sydney.

It became clear that this was not a trick of the atmosphere or the evening — the lights were going out as the power failure rippled through the city. Whole sections of glowing highway flickered and fell dark; in the chaos, the tracking radars stopped as well. New Sydney fell away behind the horizon, and finally the mutt felt as though she could breathe again.

When she opened her muzzle, though, none of it seemed like something she could put into words. Kalija had to settle for routine, phrased in deceptive calm. “How's our fuel?"

“We'll cut it close," Alamo said. “But not that close." 

Kalija nodded. “Diff?"

“If they don't call that completely effective, CODA'd need the Second goddamn Coming to pay out a hundred-percent bonus." He tapped his computer and she saw an image of the power plant, with every single building the bright, angry red of absolute destruction. “We don't fuck around."

“No kidding."

“Computer does, though. Lookin' forward to those twenty obols, Elvis."

The bet, in the grand scheme of things only a few minutes old, seemed like ancient history. In school they'd talked about how time was relative; how the faster you went, the slower time passed. This she knew firsthand — knew, too, the way it came to frozen, icy clarity the nearer one came to the razor's edge of life. As a pilot, she lived more in those brief seconds of an attack run than civilians lived in months.

It made for jarring contrast, when they were back aboard the ship and Pinball was reviewing the mission in complete dispassion. Step by step, minute by minute — here they had done well; there they had turned too early, exposing the attack unnecessarily to the Guard's defenses.

“There's always going to be unexpected complications," the slight, quiet commander finished. “Like a computer failure. The best thing you can do is to have planned ahead. You clearly knew the best way to egress and re-engage. You two make a good team."

“Thank you, ma'am," Kalija said, dipping her head; Barton Glenn echoed her.

“I won't lie; there were plenty of reasons to be skeptical of both of you. Alamo, you aren't exactly the most popular man in the Fleet Air Arm. Elvis, well, I can't be the first commander to have thought Personnel was playing a joke. But since I didn't lie about that, I won't lie now: I was very glad when you volunteered to come back early." 

Kalija looked to her bombardier; he looked back. They said nothing.

Grace Putnam smiled, in her delicate way. “I picked you for a reason. Now let's get cleaned up... and something to eat. We've all earned it."

Breakfast was terrible, as usual; reconstituted bacon that was salty enough to curl her tongue and dense pucks of 'english muffin' that stood in defiant opposition to thirty millennia of baking history. But they had earned it, the mutt felt. Not in the sense of a reward, but in the strange way she felt she could appreciate the taste. The ritual of soaking the muffins in grease until they softened; the mere act of chewing had a haloed afterglow.

All the same she knew that she was, eventually, compelled back to the tedium of her non-flying work. The budgetary office was a long way from a cockpit, and the world of spreadsheets and graphs was a far cry from the instrument panel of an A-17E. She had decided, however, that both required the same degree of rigor. There was nothing to be gained from shirking her responsibilities.

Maintaining the squadron's budget had been Micro's responsibility, before the dog had unwillingly volunteered herself into the role. Like most aviators, he was most interested in flying, and everything else had taken a backseat. Every minute spent poring over the dense and largely irrelevant figures was a minute that couldn't be spent in a simulator, or reviewing the training manuals, or... 

Well, or anything. 

Kalija understood the impulse, which was why she had not told Commander Fuller the full extent of the problems with the budget. It would only have served to get Lieutenant Godinez into trouble. Barton Glenn listened to this explanation, several agonizingly non-flying days later, with a faint smirk. “And, what," he finally asked. “You're just too nice?"

Barton also had better things to do, no small fraction of them doubtless obscene, but he spent some of his downtime keeping her company in the office and she appreciated him for it. “I kind of look at it, like... I can get away with not counting on him here. But we need to be able to count on each other down there." She gestured towards the floor with her index finger, although as far as she knew Pike actually lay off their port side. 

“Hell?"

'Hell' was one of those curious institutions that she'd never really tried to understand terribly well. Nakath culture was relatively nihilistic, where the afterlife was concerned — the moreaus themselves tended also to an unsettlingly phlegmatic take on death itself that Kalija learned early to suppress less she be taken for suicidal.

In truth she, like most dogs, enjoyed life but had not elevated its cessation to the same neurosis that humans had. At some point she would die — probably, all things considered, in a cockpit — and what was the point of being hung up about it? The memorial service for their fallen pilots had proved an interesting opportunity to study human behavior, where this was concerned.

“If necessary, sure," she told Barton.

“You are too nice."

Even getting her head around the errors in Micro's tabulations had taken most of a week. Twenty percent of the line items were wrong in some way — the wrong price, the wrong amount; filed improperly or lost. Nearly nine hundred thousand obols in discrepancies, although underpayments were as common as overpayments and when everything was balanced out they were only six thousand obols short.

She was trying to make up the difference. 

Getting everything balanced out, however, required the better part of a month spending every minute of her office hours had at work. Too nice or no, confessing the degree of effort required had let her extract a few favors from Micro in exchange: for one, he'd offered to take care of the dog's budgetary memos and performance evaluations. Crafting those required political finesse that she lacked, and Godinez aspired to be a writer anyway.

So there was some give and take that she accepted as part of the job.

It was also a way to get to know the others in the squadron, who visited regularly for some request or another. It was no real surprise when the door opened. Everyone from Commander Putnam on down had stopped by. This time, it was Lieutenant Commander McCaffrey: Polo.

“Hey, you two. Interrupting something?"

“No, sir."

McCaffrey closed the hatch behind him. “So, I need to raise a requisition. PC says my..." He rolled his eyes, sighing. “My lovely puffin needs a new logic board for one of the SADIE modules. The counterthreat coprocessor, if you know what the heck that is."

“Not... exactly..."

He handed her a thin plastic card, and when she placed it on the desk the glass display transformed into a three-dimensional diagram of the offending object and every bit of associated information in CODA's database — product numbers, instruction manuals; installation guides. “I don't speak their language..."

The language he meant was 'bombardier.' “It's a bolt-in AI component," Barton explained to both of them. The Intruder's attack computer was designed for easy expandability. “Heuristics for detecting incoming fire and preplotting jamming or active defense. Against a Fang Flash, they reckon it's good for maybe forty percent drop in firing solution time."

“Apparently there was an AD about boot order?" McCaffrey's question spoke of the airworthiness directive in a mixture of skepticism and chagrin.

Barton grinned knowingly. “Yeah. Y'have to watch the sequence. All AI modules with a USR neural net have to be loaded after the sensor integrator."

“Or else?" Kalija asked.

“Cascade failure on unaligned data. Completely corrupts the module. Don't happen in standard tests, because in standard mode y'load all the modules sequentially. Don't happen in stress tests, because then there's just enough delay on the AI bus that the integrator has a chance to load. 'S all in that nice in-between..."

“Since there..." Again, trailing off, he rolled his eyes. “Since there was an AD, breaking the module is kind of Twiggy's fault. I was kind of hoping that there might be enough in the squadron slush fund to cover a replacement without docking her."

These requests came in fairly often — Micro had always approved them, and nobody paid enough attention to the slush fund to demand a full accounting. Kalija wished to be more careful: “How much would it be?"

“PC said thirty-eight hundred."

The mutt's ears twitched while she thought briefly. “Yeah," she said. “Won't be a problem, sir. I can file this."

“Thanks." He left the card on her desk, and headed for the door. Halting, he looked at her. “You're on watch in... three?" 

“Yes, sir." 

“You want to be?" McCaffrey smiled at the droop to her fuzzy ears. “Thought so." He added another pause, for dramatic effect. “Check the schedule again when you're done here. I might be misremembering, but I'm almost certain that's actually Twiggy's watch. She has some spare time."

Both her ears pricked at the way the pilot winked, and to his credit Barton waited until the door was closed before snickering.

“Shut up." Kalija was smiling, too, and doing a bad job of hiding it. 

“Didn't say nothin'."

“You were thinking it." Still smiling, she slid the specification sheet aside where she could keep an eye on the details, and brought up CODA's parts catalog. “Let's see what we've got, here."

“ Such a good dog," Barton teased her. “Next time, he'll balance the request on your nose."

He didn't mean anything by it, of course. “What was I supposed to do? Make them pay it?"

“Well, that is the protocol. Course it ain't like you're gonna fuck over your comrades..."

“Exactly." Not if she could help it, at least. “Hey, here's a question for you..."

“Shoot."

“There's two models in the catalog here, when I plug in the model number. USR... EAH-CCP-490 and EAH-CCP-490... what?" An attack pilot's hawk-like eyes scanned the text again. “Oh. One is an 490 in ASQ variant, and one is an 490 in ASC variant. Alamo. Mixed signals. Sort it for me."

“Roger," he told her — flat, like they were both in a cockpit. Then he chuckled. “Difference in protocols. ASC is the most recent. Older-block computers like ours use ASQ."

That explained why, although they had several of the modules listed as spare parts, none had been used and all were marked for disposal — they were ASCs, too new to be compatible. Things were even more frustrating at the next step: “And I can't order the ASQ, because the CODA catalog has it listed as being replaced by the ASC, even though it's four hundred obols cheaper. I see."

“You can't order it anyway?"

“I can ask logistics to," she said. “But they'll need justification for ordering an obsolete part. I'll have to raise the req, then the PC signs it, then it gets forwarded to the XO for approval... or..."

“Or?"

As a pilot, she always tried to think several steps ahead. The dog brushed away the catalog she'd been reviewing, and switched part of the desktop into a communications channel. Ten seconds later she was looking at the harried face of a chief petty officer on the other side of the carrier. “Miss Ruiz. Do you have a moment?"

The image behind Karla Ruiz appeared to be VA-171's hangar bay, busy as always. She didn't look like she had a moment, but the two had spoken often. Often enough that each knew the other to be reliable: “Ah... yes, ma'am."

“I need a US Robots EAH-CCP-490 module in an ASQ variant. Do you have any?"

VA-171 was in the process of upgrading its Intruders. Nearly four-fifths were already on the newest, Block Eight standard of the A-17E. Kalija hoped that this meant they would still have some older parts, and Ruiz didn't disappoint. “Not that exact model, but I have six or seven 498s in ASQ."

“Nonstandard," Barton clarified for her. “Improved 490. Slightly faster AI. Better heat dissipation."

“Compatible?"

“Yeah."

Kalija tried to look appealing — a 'puppy dog' appearance, as the humans put it, even if Corinna Benjamin had said she couldn't pull one off. “I have a 490 in ASC. We can't really use that right now, but maybe..."

“I could. Yes, ma'am. We keep corrupting them, somehow. I swear pilots can't read ADs..."

“You'd be interested in trading?"

“Well — yes, ma'am. Of course. Are they... equal value? Well — equal sheet value, I mean?"

Nobody was exempt from or immune to the CODA bureaucracy. Kalija kept the puppy-dog expression going. “They're not. The catalog has the ASC version at four hundred obols more. But it's okay, I'll take care of it."

“'Take care of it'?" Barton asked, when she closed the channel.

The mutt shrugged, dropping her innocent look for the playful wink she'd been trying to perfect for several years. “We owe the Undertakers seven hundred obols for hangar space we rented some time back."

“So just like that, you've made a few hundred in 'profit.'" He used his fingers to quote the last word.

Negotiating in this fashion had allowed her to turn the squadron's budget gap into a slim surplus. This, also, she had not told Commander Fuller; the figures were available for him to review at any time, but there was no reason for a close examination and the surplus gave her some flexibility. “And," she clarified, putting the emphasis where it was due: “we got the part."

“See, now, Elvis..."

“Yeah?"

“It was cool an' all when you were fixing Micro's fuck-ups. But you're still putting everything into it," Barton said, and repeated an accusation he'd leveled before: “I think you do like this."

“It's just that it's important."

“Yeah?"

“It's like... family. You do the right thing by family."

“So, reckon we're, what — brother and sister? Might could be, I guess."

“Maybe." She finished up the transfer order to send their spare module over to Ruiz and settled back with a pleased grin. “You think? Brother and sister?" It was a very nakath notion. “Mom always did like you best."

Barton chuckled. “Right. So, sis. As long as you're helpin' family and all..." 

She looked up at him warily. “Yes?"

“Our attack computer is definitely fixin' to kill its damn self. You think you might scare up a replacement?"

She'd been trying for some time to do just that, but whole computers were rare — SADIE was a complicated system and tightly integrated with all its combined parts. The most likely source for a new part was another Intruder that was due to be scrapped, and those were a rarity.

Thus they still had no new computer a day and a half later, back above the surface of Pike and covering an espatier scouting mission. As usual, the brief claimed that opposition was expected to be 'light to nonexistent'; as usual neither pilot nor bombardier was anywhere near so gullible.

But they had to do it. Dr. Müller had explained why the task force remained, even after its changing mission. The Yucatan Alliance could make all sorts of promises to its member colonies and corporations, but promises were merely words — five million tons of orbiting metal was a lot harder to argue with. 

Similarly, the Bellau Wood's aircraft were pledged to support CODA's marines. Being on alert was, again, just a promise. The two Intruders on patrol above the mission area put teeth behind that promise. Rather sharp teeth, in Kalija's case, and rather gritted teeth in the case of her bombardier.

“I don't like this." 

“You don't like anything, Alamo."

He didn't bother to argue the point. “Terrain's no good west of Sorrel. If we need to counterfire it's... five or six seconds longer than I want to get a lock, bustin' through all that interference from the ground clutter."

“They'll see that. We're clear northwest, right? Into those trees. Cinnamon looks nice." 

“Yeah," her bombardier grumbled. “Clear line of sight from every damn flak battery in the sector. Who the hell came up with these names?"

There was no particular significance to them; the marines picked names that were easily distinguishable on the radio, and reused them as mission waypoints over and over. Their Joint Terminal Attack Controller, from the 35th Pathfinders, had picked 'sapphire,' 'cinnamon' and 'sorrel' well before the Trailblazers had arrived on the scene — they shared the same starting consonant, and none could be confused with the other. “Maybe he just likes spices."

“Right." 

“You're grouchy today."

“Don't like babysitting." Their wingman for the flight was one of the replacement pilots, a quiet Sangan immigrant whose callsign — 'Mittens' — was of obscure origin and didn't matter anyway. She would just be 'rook' or 'newbie' or 'nugget' until the other pilots had gotten tired of having someone new to kick around. The alternative, 'fucking new guy,' was not appreciably more humanizing. “Five obols says they've got SAMs on that northwestern egress, by the way."

“Yeah?" She looked at her map. From the markpoint labeled 'Cinnamon,' the terrain dropped away from an open plateau into dense, tall trees. Glenn was right; it had good coverage over most of the area of operations. “Too easy. Try again." 

“First round next time we're in port says they've got at least a Type 93." 

“Orbital intel didn't pick up anything." 

“So?"

Kalija flicked her ear and tried to decide how much a round was really worth. “Fine. You're on."

“Tracker, this is Royal Two-One. We have a support request. Type two in effect. Call when ready for nine-line."

The mutt put her Intruder into a steep left bank, so that she could stare down at the battlefield well below. “Royal, this is Tracker lead. Ready to copy." 

“Sapphire. Two-eight-zero, twelve kilometers. One-two-zero-zero meters. Target is a heavy weapons emplacement dug in behind protective barricades. Kilo kilo eight-niner-two, zero-four-four. Marked as uniform spot. Friendlies east, three kilometers. Egress west to Sorrel. Advise when ready for remarks."

“Sorrel. Fucking great," Alamo muttered.

“Ready to copy," Kalija said, and shot her bombardier a suitably reproving glare.

“Target is marked as UDL Delta-Zero-Bravo. Final attack heading two-seven-five. Expect limited resistance from man-portables and unguided light weapons."

She made a note of that — Alamo would be doing the same thing — and looked at the mission summary projected into her helmet. “One-two-zero-zero, kilo kilo eight-niner-two, zero-four-four. Final heading two-seven-five."

“Readback correct. Immediate time on target." 

The dog cocked her head, pondering, and pulled back on the stick gently to drift up and above the clouds. The valley was a soft, lush green beneath them — so pastoral that the tactical overlay showing the battle in progress was almost impossible to take seriously. “Simple enough, right, Alamo?"

“Should be. You want to give it to the rook?"

Kalija's Intruder was mostly carrying Krait missiles; her partner had the element's load of unguided rockets, which were the most effective way to deal with a position like that. “Yeah. Tracker Two, this is Tracker Lead. Engage fixed position, UDL Delta-Zero-Bravo. You have the brief from the controller?"

“Lead, this is Two. Roger; Two's committing." 

Kalija let Mittens pull away from her, far enough that she could cover the other Intruder on its attack run. Everything was smooth, though — mechanical, even. Half a dozen high-explosive rockets left Tracker Two's wings like they were in a simulation. Perfect. Clean.

The savage burst of fire and debris from the heavy weapons nest was anything but; the dog put that well out of her mind. Royal was happy; air support had a way of improving their day. Besides, it was a shepherd's job to keep their charges safe from harm, no matter what that took.

“Royal Two-One, this is Tracker. Just a reminder, we're down to twenty minutes' playtime to catch the next orbit." Kalija glanced at the mission overview on her kneeboard computer. “Nazca says the relief should be on station, current time plus three-five minutes."

Fifteen minutes without the Intruders was not too long — but clearly more than the controller wanted. After asking them to wait while he conferred with the company commanders, he was back on the air. “Tracker, one last favor, then. Do you see the small pond four kilometers due north of point Sapphire?"

“Tagged," Alamo assured her, before she could even ask for it.

“Ah, yeah, affirmative, Royal. Tally your pond."

“Can we get a sensor sweep from that pond, northwest three-one-five or so for maybe ten or fifteen kilometers?" In other words, Kalija saw — and couldn't help a fatalistic smile — right over the point Royal had labeled 'Cinnamon.'

Clicking her muzzle, she banked their aircraft over to line up. “Copy that. We'll let you know if we see anything." She let off the mic, and looked over at her bombardier. “Ready?"

“Fuckin' jarheads."

“You don't mean that."

He sighed, and started fiddling with the controls of his computer. “No, I don't mean that."

“One pass, both of us. I'll put Mittens three kilometers off our starboard beam and trailing. You should be able to link in and get a PIE diff map, right?"

The Texan turned, and slowly lifted his visor so he could see the dry skepticism in his clear blue eyes. Then he went back to his work. “Been readin', huh?" Two or more Intruders with their sensors paired and appropriately positioned could run a 'parallax-incongruity exclusion,' a fairly basic arrow in their quiver.

“Well, you can, right?" Viewing the same object from different angles in search of inexplicable differences was a cheap and relatively effective way to defeat cloaking devices. Kalija only partially understood the physics involved; she definitely knew that talking about PIE diffs was a good way of needling her bombardier.

Unusually, he took the bait. “The only thing worse than a dumb lefty is a lefty who thinks she's smart," he grumbled. Unfortunately for him, they'd flown together long enough that she could read him like a book — read him nearly as completely as he read the terrain below them.

Nothing unexpected appeared on their sensors after the pass; she was circling up to higher altitude and getting ready to report back to Royal when Alamo's grumbling took on a coarse, growling tone. “You got something?"

“Yeah."

“What?"

“Vehicles. It's mostly on thermal. Might not be anything..." He clearly did not believe what he'd said, though: “But these patterns aren't natural."

“Royal, this is Tracker lead. We have possible indications of hostile activity in your designated area. Between uniform points Alpha-Bravo-Four and Alpha-Bravo-Five." Not bad, she thought. Only the fourth and fifth things we've had to tag this mission...

Again Royal vanished into conference. This time, when he returned, it was to explain that the marine scouts had similar 'beliefs' — no clarification was given as to whether it was substantiated or superstition.

“Royal, this is Tracker. What do you want us to do here?" 

The attack controller wouldn't be paying for any expended munitions; that would probably be billed to the marines, if they were employed against valid targets. With only a few minutes left until the Intruders would have to leave anyway, it was an easy choice. “Tracker, you're cleared to engage at will between your two points. Friendlies south, six kilometers, so keep your attack heading generally southeast to northwest." 

“Royal, Tracker copies."

“And nothing outside those points."

Yeah, yeah. “Roger that, Royal. We'll keep inside that fence."

They needed better information for a proper firing solution, though — vague ghosts on Barton's surface-attack computer were insufficient. SADIE was always seeing ghosts. Kalija brought her Intruder in for a low pass, hoping to startle anyone hiding into action. Nothing.

She ordered Mittens to do the same. Still nothing, she decided. Call it off? “Alamo?"

“I think... I think we have something. Just a peep — ah, AB6, call it. I think somebody powered on some system and got a bit leaky. Done shut it down now, though."

Kalija licked her muzzle. “How many vehicles do you have any signs of?"

“If I had a mind to be really paranoid, might could say... twelve?"

On her request, the other Intruder circled over them, ready to dive with rockets and the two tree-clearing bombs she carried on her inboard hardpoints. She gave Mittens permission to empty everything she had after the dog's attack run.

But the run would have to come first.

Anticipation tingled in the tips of the mutt's fingers. She flipped out the speedbrakes and settled into a shallow, smooth dive. “Ping your contacts with active sensors, like you're trying for a firing solution."

“Get 'em to wake up and take a shot?"

“Yep."

“Then immediately counterfire on the emitter?"

She set her visor into 'terminal attack' mode and switched the armament selector over to the AVM-20 missiles they used for guided attacks on lightly armored targets. “Been reading, huh?"

Alamo snorted. “Putting your Kraits into anti-radiation mode. I still need to green-light, so you gotta be fast, Elvis. Yeah?"

“Sure." 

“Ready?"

She lined up their nose just above the closest markpoint. “Ready."

Her bombardier leaned forward, losing himself in the computer readouts. “Going active... now. C'mon, SADIE. Don't be a bitch. Nothing... nothing..."

Twenty kilometers became fifteen, and then ten. She did not want to slow the Intruder any further, just in case. “Any time, Alamo." The mission counter was running, too; soon they would need to head back to catch the Bellau Wood.

“Nothing. Nothing — bingo!" He jolted, tensing: “Mud spike, left twelve. Standby — shoot! Two of 'em. Pickle twice."

“One, rifle." She squeezed the trigger again, and the next missile dove automatically for the other target. “Rifle."

“Mud sp — fuck, SAM launch. SAM launch."

She could already see the bright gleam of the rockets rising to meet them. But the longer they stayed on course, the easier it would be to aim the Kraits. “Give me targets..."

“Tally three — clean solutions — salvo, shoot!"

“Rifle, rifle, rifle." She heard herself calling it more than she was aware of saying it; more than she was really aware of her finger held down on the Intruder's firing switch.

“Last one — then fucking break. Now!"

As soon as the Krait was away she kicked the Intruder hard to the right and firewalled the throttle. At slow speeds, the Intruder turned with remarkable crispness — sharp enough that by the time they were at full power she was at right angles to the oncoming missiles.

Alamo didn't have time to jam them, but it didn't matter — without guidance from their launch vehicles they failed to cope with the maneuvering attack plane. Half a second later they self-destructed — missing by what Kalija considered a comfortable margin, though it was still near enough to feel.

“Two," she barked, climbing for altitude just in case there was anything left. “Hit that area with everything you've got left."

Mittens, who had watched the encounter, and her wingman's narrow escape, needed no encouragement. The other pilot's final pass sent rippling shockwaves from her rockets through the trees before the impact of the two final bombs ripped half of them clean out by the roots.

Kalija was still panting with the rush of it when she bid farewell to Royal, who promised to provide an assessment as soon as the marines had secured their objectives. “Told you it was too easy to say they'd have SAMs," she told Alamo.

“Awful close. I done had my fill of that shit."

“At least Cinnamon's clear."

He was on a roll, though, and surlier than usual. “Fuck cinnamon. Hate the stuff. Goddamn it. Fuckin' jarheads."

“You don't —"

“Reckon this time I do. Ugh. Fence out, by the way," Barton reminded her with a scowl; they were climbing out of hostile territory. “They had to know there were hostiles there. Oughta probably figure they knew what."

“What was it, anyway?"

“All Type 44s. Think just before Mittens' run I saw some rocket artillery, too, but it's hard to say. IFVs, basically, you know? Might coulda thought to warn us."

“You really think they knew?"

“Shit," he snapped. “Of course. If their C&S is worth a damn they coulda profiled for known threats. Probably just figured it wasn't important, like, if they'd said it, it woulda got us to bug out without at least trying..."

“Can I make it worse?"

“What?"

“If there were no Type 93s... I think you also owe us a round."

“Fuck rounds! Argh! Pilots," he swore, and spent the ascent muttering to his computer.

After they trapped she went to grab a bite to eat in advance of a watch that turned out to be — like nearly all of them — mostly unexciting. Watching the Kestrels land was interesting enough: they were so light and maneuverable that they didn't really have to plan their approach. At any point their maneuvering thrusters could correct them with absolute, immediate precision. They flew a clinically, mathematically perfect approach anyway, because like all pilots they took great pride in a well-executed landing, but the way the little spaceplanes floated to the deck was disconcertingly undramatic.

She could still feel some tension in her muscles and nerves from the operation, even four hours later. The deadly track of the approaching missiles was properly burned into her vision; she felt that she could've drawn a photographically perfect image with her eyes closed. This would fade with sleep, and time — at least, it always had so far — but she wasn't tired. At length, remembering that it was early evening back home, she settled on burning a few of her communication credits.

At least it would be a distraction. The image facing her on the hologram was a proper Border collie — purebred, like Taru Ikaja, although her father had come from a different foundry. Miller's muzzle had always been a pure, snowy white, and the black half of his face was still unmarred. It gave him a reliable agelessness. Her father had always been there for her; always would be there for her.

“Lieutenant!" he cried, grinning to see his daughter.

Frequently, they spoke in English; this was no exception. “Hi, dad. How are you? How's mom?"

“Ah..." They needed the holograms to communicate effectively; nakathja lost too much subtlety if their body language couldn't be seen. Now, for example, she saw in the way his folded ears drooped that he was having to consider the question. “Your mom is well. Fighting with Ikala again — your sister does not enjoy her place on the council."

“The irrigation committee, right?" As a farming community, nearly everything in the Free Colony revolved around their crops. Like her sister, Kalija had done her share of rotations in the various support committees: maintaining the irrigation system, fixing the harvesters, cleaning the granaries... all of it necessary, all of it stultifying, and all of it a good two hundred kilometers lower in altitude than her soul demanded. “I know that one isn't so much fun..."

“No! But... well, your mother's right. It needs to be done. Mayor Iskoshunja says that this should be a bumper year for the orchards, though. We're happy about that." Again, his ears were a tell — particularly the way that they suddenly perked back up: “And you, Kara?"

“It has been... interesting." 

“Exciting?" He felt the same longing that she had; the same need for freedom.

“Yes," she answered, carefully. Hungry as he was for details, it wouldn't do to worry the older dog. “At times."

“I heard that there's been open fighting on Pike — the news has even reached here! I — well — I... I know you can't say anything. But you'll be... you'll..." Miller fumbled for his words; she couldn't see it in the hologram, but it was easy enough to imagine the agitated twitch of his tail slowing down. “You'll take care of yourself. I know you will. Janhaku... if anyone can, you can..."

Kalija smiled, and found herself wishing she could hug her father across the space of those thousand light years. “I will. I — oh! I met an old friend of yours. Corinna Benjamin — Major Benjamin, now."

“ Yassuja! The last time I saw her, she was up for the promotion, I know — I'm quite happy for her! Is she well?"

“Yes. She sends her greetings."

“I'll have to call Bester." Her father sighed, wistfully. “They've been talking about visiting the Oasis for years. Maybe I can get him out here from Hana Lanja. Oh, your mother would throw a fit. The house really does need some work. I've asked the council for some help, since you're not around, but..."

He left the ending unsaid, and so did she. Instead they talked more about the orchard, and the new power plant that Mayor Iskich had commissioned. Now that it was finished, the nakathja were even talking about putting a proper weather-control station in, so they would not be at the mercy of the planet's mercurial climate.

After the call, when she'd bid him farewell — I love you, which seemed so different from its Nakath-rukhat equivalent — she sat back, and frowned at the computer. It was so strangely banal. A power plant! 

Like the one I destroyed, you mean?

The dog fidgeted and went in search of Taru, who was at work and not available to talk. Barton was asleep. The duty officer was one of the fucking new guys, and she didn't feel like introducing herself to him. In the end she went to the library — Polo, the only other person there, raised his head briefly at her entry — and pulled out one of the thin computers that held the flight manuals.

They knew these by heart, in theory, but such knowledge was in any case maintained only by scrupulous study. Every detail of the A-17's operations was contained there, the placement of every computer chip and rivet and dial. They were updated on a regular basis, as new things were discovered.

The latest version, which they'd downloaded at Havana, contained for instance a new table that clarified the Intruder's rangefinder performance in other-than-standard atmospheres. In the worst case scenario, it would introduce well under five meters of error — but for Barton Glenn, that would be the difference between hitting the most vulnerable part of a hoverdyne and missing it completely.

Updated start-up reference to account for .2A drop in Blk7+ with JACKRABBIT pod installed.

Updated engine-failure checklist for glide times with new damage model

Removed obsolete note about entering password for GSIRB BIT in Blk2+

Most of them would never matter. Her claw traced over a diagram of the Intruder's performance with a full combat load — like they'd had on the operation to destroy the Guard's air force. At her command, a hologram appeared to show airframe stress in three dimensions.

As the virtual A-17E banked, and its wings flashed red, she could almost feel her paws grasping the joystick. Tightening her grip through the turn. Gravity, wrapping steely fingers around her bones and pulling her into the seat. The sound of the stress alarm, rising...

“Fuck!" she swore, louder than she'd meant to, and shoved the computer away.

“You okay over there?" Polo asked.

Her ears flattened. “Ah. Yes, sir."

John McCaffrey must've been bored, though; he got up, and made his way over to her carrel. Leaning forward, he tilted his head until he could read the computer screen. “New model, right?"

“Yes, sir. I mean — officially. It's not much different."

“They're being cautious." He trailed a finger through the hologram to spin the perspective around, so they were looking at the underside of the Intruder. “Wasn't worth an AD, but I heard from a squadron commander back on Havana, yeah? North American's warning that they're seeing stress buildup on the outer-wing hardpoints. Not much, like you said. What, it's like half a gee less that we're supposed to pull?"

Lieutenant Commander McCaffrey's half-ruffled hair and wiry build gave him the appearance of a college student talking about something he'd learned in a lecture — perhaps about ancient Roman architecture, or molecular biology, or the later works of Margaret Atwood. He didn't seem like the type who would have an exacting virtuoso's command of combat aviation. But she knew the truth: they were experts, all of them, as precisely trained as any surgeon.

“Not worth cursing over," he continued.

The dog sighed. “It wasn't... that. Exactly."

“Budget stuff? Thanks for the help, by the way." 

“No problem, sir." 

“Polo."

“Polo," she echoed. “It's no problem. I..."

The arch to his eyebrows kept her from deluding herself that he'd believed her. “What is it, then? I mean, I'm not, like, squadron morale officer, but come on..."

Kalija sighed again: shorter, exasperated at her inability to articulate. Finally she tried anyway: “How do you turn it off?"

At once his voice softened, enough so that she knew he at least understood what she was getting at. “The computer, you mean?" he asked, rhetorically. Prompting her.

“I was talking to my dad, earlier. He... they... he was talking about... shelves. They're building shelves. For the spare parts in a machine shop, in my hometown. Or — or this — I mean, these tables. Maintenance intervals!" she gestured sharply at the computer, where the Intruder still hung motionless, stress indicators bright red along her warped wings.

“Flying's getting to you, Elvis?"

“No. It's the opposite." She waited while McCaffrey dragged over a chair so that he could sit down. “On our last mission, we scared some Type 44s out of cover, and they opened fire. Just those light things they use, but they got off — must've been five or six, all on us. I could see them coming, you know? You know how, when they switch to the second stage, you can see the fins silhouetted against the fire from the rocket? I thought it was the sharpest thing I'd ever seen..."

“What do you mean?"

She bit her long, soft tongue, worrying it. “Like... time froze. Everything froze. Seeing those fins was so sharp, so clear — it was like I could see inside them. Just — and just the way things are, when you're evasive or — or when you're on an attack run and the ship moves before you think about it?"

And McCaffrey just nodded. Kalija felt that she was babbling, losing her mind — but his eyes said nothing of the sort. “There's nothing between you and your right-seater and the airframe? Everything's perfect. That's the word you're looking for. It's horrible. Stressful. Terrifying. But perfectly terrifying. It is everything, every emotion, but honed to quantum precision — that's what you mean. Right?"

Kalija paused; her muzzle opened. Closed, with an awkward pop. But that was it: that was what she meant. That it was only in the cockpit — filtered through the canopy glass and the visor and the gauges and that awful, crushing tension — that she could see clearly. “Yes."

“And if that's precision... if that's... life, sharpened to finest possible point, then what the hell is this? Something other-than-life. Less-than-life. Right?"

“Yes."

“The bad and the good. 'Cause..." He picked up her computer, and unfroze the animation; the Intruder swept up, and towards a deep blue sky. “It is one fucking hell of a rush. You're thinking, right now, what it would be like if you were back in the cockpit, facing those SAMs." 

The mutt watched the virtual Intruder begin its evasive maneuver again, using the distraction to gather her thoughts. “And I — I don't want to be... but actually... I kind of do."

“Sure. And in a way, it's worse for us."

She cocked her head. “What do you mean?"

“Well, fuck. The ground-mobile guys, the walkers? They're in there for the duration, most of those bastards. Us, well, it ain't the same. I mean, there's nothing like a cat shot. Or those CAS missions where you measure everything in microseconds. And then... we come back up here, and it's completely quiet. You're safer on a fleet carrier than you are in a goddamn hospital!"

“You understand, then."

McCaffrey laughed knowingly. “Yeah. Yeah, I do. Being down there, I know — it's life with the volume cranked up to like... not even eleven. Like... fifteen. Twenty. A million. Life with the volume cranked up to a million. Then they turn it down to like, heck, I don't know, five. And go: but it's still playing, just enjoy the music."

“And how do you turn it off? How do you... calm down?" How was she supposed to handle it when below the panic and the stress and the splinter-sharp dreams that woke her in the middle of the night was precisely that knowledge, that feeling that she was seeing the world through fine gauze that would only be ripped off the next time she was flying...

“Don't let it control you. It's different when you're on an op — then it's only natural. If you wind up facing down a Type 93 battery and don't feel a thing, that's when I'd start to worry. But when you're back here, try to keep a lid on it. Burn off steam, sure; you've got your hobbies or whatever else. But when you start to get that, uh... that craving, take a step back."

“And?"

“And don't try to look for a replacement. Don't try to make things into a replacement. Some of these guys, when they're not in the cockpit, they're always diving off cliffs or fighting bears or something and that's just... you can't keep it up. It isn't like finding another way to scratch that itch, Elvis, it's like... you gotta find a different itch, you know?"

“Yeah." At least, she understood what he was saying, in theory. “I'll... I'll try."

“You don't sound convinced, lieutenant." 

“There's something... else." Kalija fought to keep her ears upright, or as close to it as they'd go. Probably she should've been talking to Taru about it — or to Corinna — or to her father — but something kept her from giving up. “You know how if a wild animal attacks a person, they always kill it? Because they don't want it to learn that it can hunt people?"

“Sure. They do that with vicious dogs, too." 

The mutt couldn't help smiling at the irony. “Did you notice that the Confederacy never uses us as soldiers unless we volunteer? Back when they put the first 2130 unit together, fifteen years ago, things were pretty bad with that war. They really could've used the manpower, but they never just ordered a hundred thousand moreaus from AGMC or Trimurti or wherever else they can prepare a batch quickly."

“I hadn't thought about it. Too expensive?"

“That's the official explanation. Officially, yes, it would be too expensive to buy moreaus in bulk, and we're more valuable as data analysts and skilled machine operators and programmers. But it's more complicated. The real reason is because we're not supposed to. We're supposed to be completely nonaggressive. They breed it into us, and they make it part of all the propaganda, all the hypnotic training and everything."

Polo had his head tilted, ever so slightly, rather like a dog himself. He was starting to figure out where she was going. “For the same reason as any other animal, huh? You guys are supposed to be smart as all heck. Probably gave your body some tweaks, too. So they figure if you got a taste for blood..."

She nodded her head slightly. “Pacifism is part of nakath culture, too. Just in case. Because they say..." 

There she stopped. How best to explain it? The Commonwealth of the Enlightened wanted to celebrate the rebellion that had secured their independence. At the same time, they constantly inveighed against more of the same. They wanted to honor the nakathja who had served in the armed services; at the same time, there were as many cautionary tales as heroic ones. They wanted to believe that they were strong, and capable of anything — at the same time as they feared it might very well be true.

“They tell stories about the dogs who... I don't know how to explain it, exactly, but the equivalent in English is going feral. They say that once you give in to those impulses, they completely take over. Supposedly, we're so nonviolent that if we ever were to become so, it's completely uncontrollable. Jekyll and Hyde." She gave a rueful laugh, to think of it: “They don't like that you call us moreaus, after that one old book — but 'Hyde,' that's the word we use for those dogs."

“And," Polo concluded aloud, “you're worried that if you admit to getting a rush out of flying in combat, it might be because you're turning into a bloodthirsty monster."

“Yeah."

“I have bad news for you," the lieutenant commander said. “Because I haven't seen many dogs, but I've seen a lot of attack pilots."

“I'm normal, aren't I?"

“Yes. Unfortunately."

She tried to keep this in mind, the next time it mattered, but as soon as she was in the zone the adrenaline came right back. By the time she remembered her muscles were already tense. She gave up: cracked her knuckles, and tightened her grip. Her eyes narrowed, and she felt herself sinking into that slow-motion, tunnel-visioned flow when all her senses came to focus on one point in space and time.

Justin snapped his wrist, sending the ball in a low arc. All the equations of its movement reduced in her mind to the clear knowledge of trajectory and speed and reflexive, easy response — at the last moment her arm jerked, and she caught it square on the paddle, knocking it back over the table. 

Hobo was ready. Flicked it back in her direction — off-angle this time, forcing her to recompute. No challenge she couldn't handle, though; soon it was a blur, a white line whose path both pilots knew well before they took the actions needed to redirect it. It was like an energetic game of chess — strategy, applied to frenetic momentum.

He had lined up a return when the 1MC clanged to life. “General quarters, general quarters! All hands, man your battle stations. Set condition one for flight operations. This is not a drill. Up and forward to starboard, down and aft to port. Repeat, this is not a drill."

They were both running, joined by the other aviators, before the clatter of the tossed paddles registered. A minute later they were in the squadron ready room, and thirty seconds after that so was everyone else — a few, roused from their bunks, with the sleep utterly banished in a rush of nerves.

“Anybody know what's happening?" Zippo was one of the ones who had clearly been sleeping, and none of the pilots got enough sleep as it was — the dark fire in her expression couldn't hide the bags under her eyes.

“Not a fucking clue," Woody said, and this appeared to be the general sentiment from everyone. There were not many reasons to be called to battle stations in orbit, unless the fleet was threatened in some way. A surface-to-space missile launch seemed like a possibility, but not if they were also being told to scramble.

At the front of the room, Commanders Putnam and Fuller were in hushed conference around the lectern, staring at a computer and presumably discussing its contents. Presently Fuller stepped back, leaving the squadron commander to work. “Alright, listen up!" The room dropped to immediate silence. “We have a critical situation developing. They're scrambling the alert five from the Deviltails and the Jaguars. We're on standby." 

“Starfighters?" McCaffrey asked. Kalija didn't talk to the pilots from the two space-superiority squadrons. In general, CODA used its aircraft for support and strike missions. The A-17E, as Kalija well knew, was more or less defenseless against dedicated fighters; consequently, they tended to be employed when CODA already had control of the skies. VF-1086 and VF-631, the Bellau Wood's two fighter squadrons, were largely for show.

Except, of course, when they were not. “We may have inbound on the fleet."

“Oh, shit," somebody murmured.

“Müller," Putnam demanded abruptly. “Emi Yoshimura? Who's that?"

“ Ach, scheiße." In the same mood as everyone else, Lieutenant Commander Müller got up and made his way to the front, where he joined Putnam in looking at the briefing computer. A moment later he raised his head, addressing the squadron to explain his curt reaction. “Admiral Yoshimura is a senior enforcer in the Dai Shi Tori syndicate. They're a second level player in the Kingdom's politics, but a rising star. Syndicate zaibatsus are heavily invested in farming equipment and genetic engineering, for the most part — but they've been expanding aggressively, in recent years."

“How 'aggressively' are we talking about?" Commander Fuller asked.

“Last year, after one of their subjects on Yarayama failed to pay protection money, they glassed the whole prefecture. Thirteen hundred dead. Three quarters of a million hectares of cultivated land. Aggressive enough?" He turned and, seeing that Grace Putnam was still lost in the computer, explained further. “The word from Fleet Intel is that the Dai Shi Toris have been the driving force in Kingdom investment on Pike. They would stand to benefit greatly from taking control of the southern continent; having an uncontested home base would also free them up from having to defend against other families."

Kalija's knowledge of the Sanganese Kingdom was somewhat scanty. They were the largest single polity in the galaxy but, like the Yucatan Alliance, they seemed to be less of a unified whole than a messy confederation. In their case, it was zaibatsus and powerful families instead of corporations and colonies, but the principle was the same. Down to the internal squabbling, even — since most of CODA's job lay in mediating the intercolonial bickering that frequently erupted.

Putnam finally straightened up. “They've gone rogue. It seems Admiral Yoshimura did not take kindly to our intervention. Their fleet has shifted inclination and they're moving to intercept us. We're looking at a battlecruiser, three missile destroyers and about a dozen gunboats, with initial contact in under two hours."

“Are we engaging?" 

“Not yet. We're waiting for approval."

“From?" Hobo raised his hand curiously. “Nazca?"

“The Board. Legal and finance." The incredulous looks shared around the room were telling; even the unflappable Grace Putnam was having to keep the frustration from her voice. “We're in negotiation with the Kingdom. If we fire on their fleet, it could start an actual war — we don't want that."

“But you said Yoshimura's gone rogue," Dr. Müller seemed to be just as confused as everyone else. “If that's true..."

“They could still take it as causus belli. Legal and finance are... apparently... drawing up terms to pay compensation and to acknowledge that this is not an attack on the Kingdom itself. Just this one element. If they don't, we're considering our other options — including a jump."

In the meantime Admiral Lane, their fleet's commander, was already redirecting their own screen to put it between the oncoming threat and the vulnerable landing ships and freighters. The beam cruisers Spirit of Orc and Orion Majestic could provide a credible first line of defense against a missile barrage — it was hoped. 

“Our concern is the cruiser Ashigara. Unlike most Kingdom ships, her primary armament is not missiles. She was designed for orbital bombardment." Putnam fiddled with her computer until an image of the cruiser appeared on the holographic display — a long, flat spike with a ring of angular thrusters about her midsection. “Four axial linear accelerators, each designed to fire a tungsten slug at about a tenth of a percent of the speed of light."

At that speed, their commander explained, Admiral Lane did not trust that any of his ships could evade in time, and he did not trust that the beam cruisers would be able to deflect or destroy the incoming shells. As soon as the Ashigara had a clear firing solution, in other words, any ship in the fleet was vulnerable. Before that point, the Fleet needed to be ready — or gone.

“Flash update," the squadron commander noted calmly, and glanced to her computer to see what it was. “Alright. Trailblazers, looks like today's our day. We're going to take it out." 

Fifteen minutes later, her suit hastily pulled on, Kalija was listening to Barton Glenn repeat that suggestion over and over. “Crazy," he added. “Fuckin' crazy."

“We can do it," the dog said, though she had her doubts.

Space combat was so rare that most of them had only seen it in simulations; none of them were truly prepared. It was notoriously disorienting, with no reference points, no atmospheric friction, and no gravity to keep a pilot steady. Firing their rockets would push them off course, as would every maneuver.

SADIE, the Intruder's attack computer, was also less helpful — 'Surface Attack' was built right into its name. And there would be no attempt at camouflage or stealth; against the emptiness of space they would stand out regardless of what they tried. “We've got the whole wing looking out for us. So at least we're, uh... one target among many."

“Oh, yeah. And they've got the Cans up. Poor bastards," Barton sighed, speaking of the big jamming starships from OQ-30, the Tin Cans. Fat, loud, and unmaneuverable: practically the size of corvettes rather than starfighters, they would be plum targets in spite of their sophisticated electronic countermeasure — ECM — arrays. 

The hangar bay was a messy, chaotic scene — utter bedlam. Everywhere she looked men were running back and forth, trying to get the Intruders loaded, fueled, and prepped. The swarm of frenetic activity gave the impression of a disturbed hornet's nest, which wasn't that far off. But there was a method to the madness; they arrived at Wagon 510 to find it already half-armed, with the basic startup tests already underway.

Hasty as their walkaround was, they didn't skip anything on the checklist — neither of them were dumb enough to commit that particular sin no matter how stressed they became. She handed the completed form to Spaceman English, who paused only long enough to take it from her outstretched paw and was already racing off to find the ordnance crew for the remaining missiles.

Eight Tridents, that was what the plan called for. Every Intruder would be carrying a full load of the antiship weapons, though the mission would likely deplete the fleet's entire reserve supply. “Salvo from the outside in?" she asked Barton. Having the two-ton missiles on the outboard pylons, far away from the center of gravity, changed the Intruder's maneuvering characteristics substantially. In the atmosphere, it made less difference. In space...

“Yeah. If they find the last four."

Her bombardier hauled himself into the cockpit, and Kalija followed, going through the steps to finish powering up the fighter. “Computer's good. Maneuvering looks good..."

“All peachy. Might could say it's a hell of a day for an op..."

The sarcastic edge was hard to miss; she added her own. “At least we're trying something new." 

“'Take it out,' fucking hell." He cursed darkly. “Well, it's getting on programmed. I need another ninety seconds to get a full profile set."

“Flash update." Kalija tapped the key to download the news to their mission computer, and looked over it with the increasingly ill-tempered Barton Glenn. The update proved to include something like an actual attack plan — though very rough, and from the misspellings and sloppy orbital lines clearly very hasty as well. Every Intruder was being scrambled. VA-171 and the two Kestrel squadrons were to distract the missile destroyers. VA-226, with the combined escort of every superiority fighter in the air wing, was heading straight for the Ashigara.

In both cases, 'every Intruder' meant whatever could be launched in five minutes, and the clock was already ticking. A head poked into their cockpit from the boarding ladder outside. “Ma'am, you ready?"

“Pretty much. We need another minute for the computer, but..."

“You don't have it. We can put you in the next slot, or you don't launch."

Fuck. “Okay. Uh. We're ready, then."

The spaceman saluted, and dropped from her sight. She heard the ladder being retracted — and her bombardier on the intercom, while the canopy dropped. “Are you fucking kidding?"

“We need to get aloft," she told him, and engaged the magnetic couplers so that the Intruder could be pulled over to a free catapult. “You heard him. We launch now, or we don't launch."

“I've got no profile. Scrub it." 

The computer's mission profile was a complex map of all the information they could possibly get their hands on — every object, every scrap of electromagnetic radiation, every centimeter of terrain. It abstracted their environment so that Barton could plan attack runs and firing solutions down to the microsecond. And she knew that: “Calculate it on the approach."

“Without a hard link to the mainframe in ops? It'll take forever."

“Alamo. We need to launch."

He stared at her, and reflected in his lifted visor she could see the flashing lights and bustle of the hangar giving way. The darkness of the catapult swept over them. Despite what she'd said, and despite what she'd told the spaceman, it was not her decision to make alone — one switch and Barton could abort the shot. Either of them could veto the other's commitment.

She was asking him for a sacrifice. The uncertainty of launching without the safety net of the Bellau Wood's computers providing the mission profile. Trusting that he would be able to do it on his own, even as they charged into battle. Alamo reached out for the button to recall their authorization to launch.

His finger rested there for a second. Then he pulled his hand back, and used it to drop his visor. “God damn it. If it wasn't you, Elvis..."

Thirty seconds later they were out and amongst the stars, the sixth of what proved to be eight Trailblazers to make it before the window closed. Putnam split them into two groups, and Kalija took up a trailing position in the one led by 'Bucky' Fuller. “Sooner Lead," Fuller called out. “Fence in and check your IFF link. Our cover's going to be very busy."

“All units, this is Nazca. Hostile battlegroup is continuing to move inbound, mother's vector romeo three-two-zero by negative four zero. Red line, ETA, five-five minutes. All attack elements are cleared hot." Kalija took the opportunity to flip the 'master arm' switch active. “Flash update follows. Alpha package, at red line minus three zero zero seconds, you will abort your attack. If your target remains a threat, Blueridge is authorized to engage, with case zulu. Set NARA switches as appropriate and egress at maximum speed. Update ends."

“Lovely." Barton gritted his teeth; she could practically see him willing the targeting computer to work faster. Blueridge, the missile cruiser Shenandoah, carried a thermonuclear payload whose employment was permitted only as a last resort — 'Case Zulu,' in CODA's parlance.

“Sooner Lead. Just to be all friendly about it, our survivability is listed in this scenario as being 'extremely low.' So let's be quick about getting our job done, shall we? First contact in ten."

“And we coulda been back on the carrier," her bombardier said. “Profile's ready. I guess. You want the good news first?" Kalija clicked the microphone to acknowledge him. “Okay. With any luck, the second package will have the screen busy. I don't expect much incoming fire until we're past the destroyers." 

“With a clear line of sight on their cruiser?"

“Yeah, now... might could say that beast's a bit trickier."

“How much 'trickier'?"

“According to the threat card, the Ashigara has point defense railguns and cluster missiles. The railguns we can dodge until we're fairly close. They'll be using them to channel us towards the missiles, though. So that'll be fun. Get ready to spend a lot of time evasive."

“Looking forward to it," she said, and double-checked to make sure she'd made herself as ready as she possibly could. There was nothing particularly complicated about the attack plan; there was no way to hide from anyone in space. The Intruders would get close and salvo their Tridents at the Ashigara, trusting in the missiles' built-in evasive and countermeasure abilities to guide them home.

She took deep breaths. The easiest attack pattern would've been one straight in, at maximum speed — with their thrusters at full power they could've crossed the Ashigara's track traveling hundreds of kilometers a second relative to the cruiser. But in that case, if they missed there would be no possible way to re-engage; the maneuvers were a careful balance of speed and flexibility.

Before that, they would have to get past the flagship's escorts — three missile destroyers and a number of lighter, more maneuverable gunships that could turn with deceptive agility despite their bulk. VA-171, the Undertakers, met them head-on and her entire display flashed into a bright whirlwind of lights and signals. “Alamo." 

“Yeah?"

“Snowblind. Switching into terminal mode." 

“Sure, Elvis," he said. He understood — she couldn't allow herself to be distracted by the unrelated battle. Her SA — situational awareness — was hopelessly undermined by its complexity. No matter what his earlier misgivings had been, her bombardier was back to his measured, laconic self. “Don't you worry."

In terminal attack mode the signals vanished immediately. She saw only their target — or rather, its icon; the Ashigara was still below the horizon — and a few, scattered points of light here and there from targeting systems briefly illuminating her Intruder. Tunnel vision; she could completely ignore the melee now more than a thousand kilometers away from the Trailblazers.

“Tracker Lead, tally." Putnam's Intruders, some distance ahead of the trailing group, now had sight of the Kingdom's flagship. “Engaging."

“Getting some noise, Elvis." He waited for her to acknowledge with another click of the mic. “Also, bravo package is merged and I can't quite tell what's going on, but I think two gunboats have disengaged and are heading for us. Nothing on the first run, but they'll intercept us if we have to come around." 

“Understood. I've got more signals, dead ahead. Guidance radars?"

“Tracker's getting lit up," he confirmed. “A few salvos. Nothing serious."

The first two Intruders in Putnam's group fired all eight Tridents at once and then broke into hard evasive turns. Kalija fidgeted with her own trigger, watching. The enemy battlecruiser was so distant that everything seemed dreamlike and unreal — just little points of light and color, drifting closer. Sedate, even, though they were traveling at thousands of kilometers an hour.

The Ashigara's defensive rockets fired wildly, spiralling out and into the endless void in tracks that seemed almost random. The Trident missiles, with their own maneuvering AI, avoided these easily until they ran out of fuel to track the incoming warheads. “Twenty seconds," Alamo said. “Ten."

Five seconds out, the Ashigara's image on the hologram brightened sharply and briefly flickered into an unexpected shade of green. “Yassuja — Alamo?" 

“Wait one, wait one — trashed. Missiles are trashed. Close-range point defense. I think?"

“The cannons?"

“Yeah. But this is... odd."

“Odd?" The second pair of Intruders fired as well, but before they could observe the results they found themselves in range of the Ashigara's defensive batteries and had to start evading. Not that it made a difference — it had no more luck than the first barrage. Kalija's own group had only a minute of quiet left until they, too, would be in range. “If the Tridents don't work, then we're just wasting our time..."

“They've got some smart cloaking running on that damn cruiser." 

“Yeah?" Multispectral cloaking was generally the domain of much smaller craft.

“Yeah. They must know that in space the Tridents are relyin' on their AI. She ain't hiding, just masking itself as one of us. Confuses the missiles and they wind up aborting. I don't think we can keep a stable lock. Not without reprogramming, and..." 

Not only did they not have the time, they did not have the ability — not in combat. Bucky ordered them to hold fire as the Ashigara swelled ever larger in her vision. She had no choice but to be impressed. Five kilometers of metal and composite, long and geometrically straight. Imposing — hanging, looming as it did before them, like the sword of Damocles. In fifteen minutes, the Shenandoah would fire. And they —

“Missile launch!" 

Kalija kicked the Intruder into a turn, but of course with no atmosphere they carried on the same course as before. It took firewalling the throttle to make a difference. “Four, defensive." Here, deep space worked to their advantage: without the instability of atmospheric movement or any air to diffuse the laser, it was far easier for Alamo to disable the incoming missile's tracking system with their defensive pods.

But at best, that meant a stalemate. They were running out of time — Bucky ordered his wingman to salvo all eight Tridents from close range, and again the Ashigara's masquerade was enough to throw them completely off course. Kalija and the others could keep maneuvering, keep evading — but the clock was ticking fast, and now the two gunboats were entering range. “Missile launch. Multiple incoming. I make it... Christ," Alamo checked himself. “Twenty-seven?"

This was the job of their escorts to take care of. Fast and agile, dedicated starfighters with no surface-attack ability whatsoever, they could pick off the missiles almost as soon as they left the rails. An F-230's cannon would barely dent the armor of a gunboat — let alone the Ashigara — but against another starfighter, or an antiship missile? They were enough to keep the Intruders safe while they lined up for another run.

Bucky was trying to decide if it was even worth it. The fighter squadrons had already lost three ships, and more were running out of ammunition. None of it mattered anyway: “Nazca, Sooner Lead. My flight is defensive and unable to break through the target's missile defenses. Can you give us anything else over here?"

“Sooner, this is Nazca. Negative, there are no assets available to support you. Charon has two ships down and we are heavily engaged. Confirm, you are saying you —"

“Elvis, check six."

She swung the Intruder over reflexively, at the sound of Polo's voice. One of the gunboats was heading straight for them. “Music," she told Alamo. “Four, tally one, heavy." They had, it struck her, been given permission to fire at will. She flipped her armament switch to activate the Tridents. “Engaging."

“Four, visual. Press," Polo immediately answered.

“I have a firing solution. Sort of."

'Sort of' would have to count. Everything was a blur, anyway — Pike, a soft glowing ball under them, and the stars whirling with her quick turns, and the pale menacing blade of the Ashigara only fifty kilometers away. Fortunately with the gunboats so close the big cruiser dared not fire her point-defense guns. “I'll take it. Salvo two, the outer rails. Ready?" 

“I —  fuck — Elvis! Break, now! Break right fucking now." 

He sounded so startled that the dog yelped, herself, and obeyed immediately. A ninety degree turn revealed what had happened. One of the other gunboats — had there been only two? Were there more? — had snuck in behind them, staying cloaked — 

Then reappeared, unleashing every missile it had at once. Her threat receiver flashed an ominous 'ERR' in trying to count them all. “Two hundred, at least, fifty kilometers and closing."

“Active guidance?"

“ Of fucking course!"

She had been on an attack run. Her greatest velocity vector was heading directly towards the Ashigara; accelerating faster towards it seemed like a bad idea, but any evasive action would only serve to slow her down. “Music," she called out; she could hear her heartbeat, in time to the throbbing warble of the threat indicator's agitated shouting. “Snapping right — can you burn them?"

“Maybe ten or fifteen. Closing through forty, Elvis."

“Get a firing solution," she suggested. “With a Trident. Proximity — should — should be able to disrupt some of them with the blastwave, right?" Although even as she said it, she realized the answer.

So did Barton. “We're in space. Thirty klicks."

“Hold the fuck on." The probable trajectories and estimated delta-v budget remaining of the missiles lit up arcing lines in her visor. She picked the safest path — still completely fatal — and shoved the throttle in hard. “Where are the fighters?"

“Distracted. Twenty. Get ready to punch out, Elvis."

Ejection was the same death sentence as a missile impact, though — prolonged by only a few minutes, at most. “So we can get vaporized when they nuke the..." The mutt blinked. The Shenandoah. Her first ever flight with Alamo. “Alamo. Alamo, give me every jammer we have."

“It's not going to matter. They're homing on it. Fifteen."

“ Do it."

Barton growled and she watched the lights for their jamming systems come on. “No effect. Ten klicks. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Elvis, stand by to eject. Four. Three." 

The dog whipped their Intruder around as fast as she could, chopped the throttle — then flipped the main power switch, and the cockpit went immediately dark.

“ Hey!"

Small as they were, fast as they were, her keen eyes still picked up the missiles streaking towards them. Barton had managed to disable a few — a dozen, at most, which left far too many racing onward unmolested. Looking for the bright, inviting prey they'd been tracking, which had suddenly vanished.

They went for the next best thing.

As soon as they were past the Intruder, Kalija brought the power back on and pushed the throttle forward as far as she could, clawing for deceleration. Wagon 510 was hurtling towards the Ashigara, whose mimicry of a Confederate starship had suddenly made it the most interesting target for two hundred very confused missiles.

The first of them impacted a scant few seconds later. The cruiser took two dozen missiles against the belt of her sturdy armor before it started to crack and buckle. Kalija glanced over her shoulder and magnified the hologram to watch. Five kilometers of starship was more than massive enough to endure the barrage of missiles that had been designed against fighters.

But it didn't matter. Seeing his opportunity, Polo fired everything they had and, in the confusion, the Ashigara's defensive grid was simply overwhelmed. All eight of the big antiship missiles hit. She could not see the damage, exactly, but a three hundred kilogram shaped charge was nothing if not unsubtle. The Ashigara's lights flickered and went completely dead.

Several of the gunships were still active — one of them was heading towards her — but there were no radar signals. Ten seconds later Nazca gave a hasty order to cease fire, and Kalija let her breath out in a gasping sigh. She'd been holding it in since — since when? Evading the missiles? Was it only...

Thirty seconds; not much more, if any. “Elvis, this is Polo. You okay over there?"

The mutt forced as much of the air from her lungs as she could, took a deep breath, exhaled slowly. “Hey, Polo. Yeah, we're fine." She switched to the intercom. “We're fine?" 

“Computer's dead. Won't come back up. Think you finally did it."

“Polo, strike my last. SADIE's sour. Need to RTB."

She heard the tail end of McCaffrey's ragged laugh. “Sure. Form up." She did, and focused on getting her breathing back to normal. Distracting herself with the cockpit switches helped. Next to her, silent, Alamo was trying to get the computer restarted — just in case. 

Chaos had room to hide in the vast emptiness — the “high, untrespassed sanctity" — of space. The savagery of the battle was all at odds with the sudden quiet, and the loveless glitter of the stars. If she looked with naked eyes there was nothing to suggest that anything had happened at all. But the augmented vision in her helmet picked up a strange signal; she magnified the image to reveal the twisting, deep-jade hulk of a Sanganese missile destroyer.

Its sharp, fierce lines were blunted and scored, and the dark tomb of her hull flickered intermittently with pulses of random fire from rupturing fuel lines and abandoned weapons. Twenty thousand tons of priceless military hardware and hapless crew: drifting carrion for the salvagers that would soon be swarming her, cutting up what remained.

The shattered pieces of the fleet were everywhere, taking up the ghostly, eternal patrol of drifting debris. Seven gunships, two destroyers — plus nearly a dozen fighters from the Bellau Wood's air wing. VFA-171 and their escorting Kestrels had been successful in providing a distraction for the Trailblazers' attack — but only at great cost.

How easy it might've been to become one of those spinning wrecks — a flash of heat and light, and then nothing. Hushed, chilled, sightless in an unremarked track through the heavens that slowly decayed towards the planet below. 

Millennia in the future, when their empires were but empty trivia to be forgotten by bored schoolchildren, the last traces of pilot and plane would immolate as a shooting star, and like as not there would be no one even to see their passing...

“Bishop control, Wagon Five-Oh-Two, inbound three hundred, two-seven, green."

McCaffrey's voice had startled her; it took half a second to remember that it was their turn next. “Bishop control, Wagon Five-One-Oh, inbound three hundred, four-two, yellow."

“Five-One-Oh, control. Copy. What's up?"

“Bishop, Five-One-Oh. We have a computer failure. Flight controls look good. All other systems nominal."

The controller took a brief pause before answering. “Five-One-Oh, acknowledge. Mother's state green, reference yankee plus zero. Foxtrot oscar, class two, mother's three five zero up twenty, two hundred klicks. Advise on contact, nominal recovery. Your signal charlie." Ordinarily the signal would've had a time attached to it — telling her how long to wait. With a damaged bird, though, they were being cleared to land without delay.

Kalija thought that this was probably overreacting, but it was always better to be safe than sorry. Who knew whether the computer failure might have other repercussions? Might have been caused by something more complex? She adjusted the Intruder's course to line them up on the approach pattern.

The controller had reported orbital debris — not that this was surprising — ahead of the carrier by two hundred kilometers, and though they said it was small she felt no need to take further risks. Avoiding it only added a few minutes to their path, which they followed in silence.

“Approach, Wagon Five-One-Oh, inbound for nominal recovery with a bent computer."

“Five-One-Oh, cleared for recovery, deck four."

She rotated the Intruder to line up, and looked at her readouts. “Dirtying up." Alamo stayed quiet. “Gear down and locked. Arrestors powered. ACS in active mode one. Throttle in maneuver..." The checklist was rote, anyway. “You're good?"

“Fine."

“Wagon Five-One-Oh, approaching slope, five kilometers. Call your needles?"

Kalija checked for the indicator — right where she expected it, centered on the landing guidance cue in her helmet. “Five-One-Oh, centered."

“Disregard. You're on slope, but slightly left and fast." The dog pulsed her thrusters reflexively. “Good..."

“'Cause of the computer?" she asked her bombardier.

“Maybe."

“Five-One-Oh, on slope. Two kilometers. Call the ball."

“Intruder ball. Four-two. Manual." 

“Roger ball, four-two." They hadn't fired any of their missiles — the Intruder had more mass than she'd ever had to land with before. But so what? So what. She was in her element, adjusting for every twitch and drifting flutter of the starship gliding silently back to its nest. “Doing good. Good. Good." 

There was no fourth 'good' before the Intruder thumped into the Bellau Wood's deck and though she fired the thrusters on full power there was nothing capable of overpowering their sharp deceleration. At last, she relaxed and pulled everything back to 'idle.' 'OK-2,' a note crawled across her helmet, followed by a more detailed review of the landing. 

Nothing remarkable. Ordinary, even. Barton Glenn gave up on the computer, leaving the screens blank. He said nothing while they drifted over to the elevator, and then down onto the hangar deck. Nothing when the environmental indicators went green, and one of the attendants popped the canopy open, filling it with the grease-heavy air of the deck. When he pulled off his helmet, she caught a glimpse of his clear eyes, burning.

She clambered down to the deck and waited for him to join her. Barton landed with a heavy thump, spreading his hand out with trembling fingers. “Alamo?"

“I told you," he said, “to never do that again."

“We..." Kalija checked herself: the way his clenched jaw quivered bordered on feral.

“God damn it, Elvis."

The dog's ears flattened. “I didn't see that we —"

“I hate you," he hissed — and leapt for her. She heard the clatter of his helmet hitting the hard metal floor the same second as she felt the iron grip of his arms around her. Was he — laughing? She couldn't tell. It was a strange sound: laughter, sobbing; growled anger. “I. Hate. You."

They were drawing a crowd, and Kalija waved them off awkwardly. The hug was all but crushing the air from the dog's lungs. “I can't breathe. Alamo."

“You are a bitch of a pilot and I hate you. Do you understand that? I hate you. Don't you ever find another job. You are flying with me until we are both dead —"

“I can't breathe," she gasped to him again, in the hopes that a reminder might help.

“— and even then I will follow you to hell to keep flying with you, is that clear?"

“I can't —" He let her go. The deck crew around them looked completely bemused; Kalija could sympathize. Her chest hurt. “I... ah... we've had an interesting day," she told them.

In the corridor, and relative quiet, Barton sucked in his breath and groaned. “That was a mess." 

“It was," she said. “I wasn't trying to... I don't know... I don't know," she finished. It had happened so quickly — there had been so little time for anything.

“It was good thinking. Good reflexes. Might've appreciated some warning..."

“I know."

“But, hell..." He stopped in mid-stride, turning to look at the dog. He searched her, eyes keen, and with the feeling of being judged came an acute awareness of her fairly unimposing stature.

“Alamo?" she finally prompted.

“It worked, so..."

“That's what you get for trusting a pilot."

Barton laughed, once, and started walking again. Towards the debrief, towards their quarters; the mess hall. Safety. Table tennis. Towards being normal. "Well. We're alive, ain't we?"

She kept pace at his side, and when he cast a glance over she shared his wry, stoic grin. “Could be worse."