No Man's Land Read online

  “Ten-alpha, Aye.”

  Her shoulder muscles tightened, and Jay had to force them to relax again. Something about this guy put her on edge. She didn’t trust him with her back…or at it. There was a general feeling of laxness about him. As if he saw nothing wrong with cutting corners. She knew all too well that attitude got pilots killed…and not always the one taking the shortcuts.

  Ten years ago she had been a raw cadet. Top of her class in flight school, the most recent in a long line of Ace pilots going back to her many-times-great Granddad…her head had been so far up her ass she’d have smelt dinner coming down if she hadn’t been so oblivious. Cadet Justin Calloway had been her wingman. For the final flight exercise before graduation she had been less than thorough in her preflight. At three thousand feet, executing a hard bank-and-roll maneuver, her right rudder locked up, sending her plane crashing into Justin’s. She’d been able to eject, suffering no more than a broken arm in the impact. Justin had lost his life in the resulting fireball. The accident had been attributed to mechanical failure and she had been allowed to graduate—with something less than high honors—but she knew the truth. Her friend had died because she’d been sloppy. His father, General Calloway, was just as certain and never let her forget it.

  Not that she ever could.

  “Scarlet Jay, please proceed to runway ten-alpha,” Deeley broke her reverie, reminding her she was holding up the flight schedule.

  “Going wheels up, flight control,” Jay spoke across the comm. “See you in two.”

  “Wind to your wings, lassie,” Deeley answered, as she took to the sky.

  Jay grinned at the sergeant’s informal hail. He was never less than regulation face to face, but over the comm he loosened up once in a while and that felt good, like a pale echo of her Granddad watching over her each time she flew.

  And then they were airborne, and that faint shiver of nerves returned as Panski took up position on her wing.

  Take-off had been uneventful.

  Patrol was downright dull. Jay decided it was time to assess Panski’s flight capability…not to mention give her nerves a rest, before she climbed right out of her skin. Toggling her comm, for the first time in half an hour, she spoke. “Panski, take lead for a bit.”

  Rather than simply pull ahead, the pilot executed the type of fancy, rolling dive rarely seen outside of an air show or combat and brought his NovaStream up in a sharp climb before leveling out in front of her. Jay didn’t comment, merely noting the way he handled the jet, which grudgingly she had to admit was with a fair amount of skill, and just as much flash.

  She watched the jet in front of her closely, noting a tendency to drift right, which Panski periodically corrected for. Hard to say if it was due to a heavy hand on the stick, or a bug in system. She made a mental note to have it checked out. Other than that, she didn’t find much to fault in his piloting. He showed promise once his attitude got knocked into shape.

  Jay shifted her focus to the dual-monitor set into her control panel. After all, they were out here to patrol. One monitor played a recorded feed from the previous day’s fly-over, the other was a real-time image fed to the screen by high-powered surveillance cameras mounted to the exterior of the fighter. Together they allowed those on patrol to note subtle alterations that might signify a move by Dominion forces.

  No Man’s Land was quiet today, not even a rabbit sticking out its pointy teeth. Their flight took them over mile after mile of low scrub and the occasional sapling that hadn’t been routed out yet. Other than the patrol road to their right, running along the edge where the border met the DMZ, there were no other defining features. The monotony left her with little to occupy her mind, which, left to its own, dredged up an old bone to worry at: Calloway and his efforts to basically ground her flight. His official position was that new pilots needed skilled veterans to acclimate them to the reality of combat on the line. Jay had it from trusted sources that his not-always-private stance was that women didn’t belong in the cockpits of fighter craft. That was her fault, based on that one ill-fated flight, but it colored his opinion of female pilots across the board. Never mind that their physiology made them better suited to pulling high-g’s, allowing them to execute maneuvers that caused their male counterparts to black out. Or that their fine motor control gave them the delicate touch modern aircraft demanded. And forget about the fact that their ability to multi-function and their utilization of both lobes of their brain aided their adaptability under high-stress situations. None of that mattered. Not in the shadow of his son’s memory.

  From that point on, Calloway wasn’t just old-school…he was ancient-school.

  And there wasn’t a thing she or the Morrigans could do about it. Not without damaging their careers. Nothing pissed her off more than having no viable recourse. What was more, she had to remember it wasn’t the greenies’ fault. It was so easy to let the situation color her responses to Panski and the new pilots in general. Not a good habit to get into.

  “Variation in terrain,” the computer called a sudden disparity in the camera images to Jay’s attention, distracting her from her thoughts. She glanced at the screen. It was difficult to make out what was there; she would have to make another pass.

  “Hey…Flash,”—it suited him much better than Panski—“I’m circling back to investigate an anomaly.”

  A moment of dead air, then he responded, “Acknowledged, Scarlet Jay.”

  She banked left into a turn that brought her skimming over the terrain they’d just covered, using the digital zoom to capture the landscape below to document her report. The anomaly appeared to be a camouflaged perimeter sensor that had come partially uncovered. The sensors were used to alert of aerial movement over an area. She didn’t recognize the design, which pretty much meant it was Dominion. The question was: how many were there besides this one, and had their patrol already been tagged?

  With the intel secured, she guided the Hawk back into wing position, only to discover the patrol road was to the wrong side of them. They weren’t just drifting slightly; they were half a klick into the DMZ.

  “Pilot, we are off course,” Jay spoke across the comm. “Correct your heading and return to Allied airspace.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Panski responded. “Heading confirmed as 03-niner…ma’am.”

  Being informal was one thing, but he clearly forgot he addressed a superior. She let it go. They had bigger issues at the moment. “Radar engaged,” the computer announced. She glanced at the screen; there was the faintest ghost on the very edge of her radar, not even strong enough to consider a blip, but also clearly not stationary. Probably nothing, she told herself with one eye still on the radar. That uneasy feeling returned.

  “Forget about your instruments for a moment,” she instructed him. “Calculate your heading by the sun.” She glanced down at her chronograph. “It is precisely 0730.”

  Jay waited, gave him a moment. She could see him taking visual. Across her comm came the sound of rather inventive swearing.

  Before she could respond, a more strident warning sounded in her cockpit.

  “Radar engaged. Radar engaged. Radar engaged. Radar engaged.” Like an antique record album skipping, the flight computer repeated itself, only this was no malfunction. A quick glance down at her radar showed multiple ghosts on the display; so faint she would have discounted them as noise if they weren’t advancing so steadily.

  She scanned the horizon for confirmation. Whatever was headed their way was too far off to be seen. Her nerves stilled and a warm current of adrenaline flowed through her until each muscle was taut and her mind sharp focused in combat-readiness. They needed to get back to friendly territory.

  “Veer off!” she ordered Panski. “We have bogies.”

  A hard bank left took her back toward their designated airspace. After a moment, though, she realized Panski hadn’t followed suit. “Flash, veer off now, we are not authorized to engage in full air-to-air.”

&nbs
p; “I’m trying, damnit!” Jay could hear a thread of panic in his voice. “I have a systems malfunction.” Glancing back, she watched as the NovaStream dipped and bobbed erratically on the currents as if the flight control profile no longer correctly registered the parameters of the aircraft.

  This was much more than a simple case of drift.

  “Pilot Panski, I take it you blew off the eyes-on preflight?”

  There was a long moment of dead air. “Ma’am, yes, ma’am,” he answered quietly, as any pilot scared shitless would.

  Swearing, she banked again, reversing her trajectory.

  No doubt the ghosts on the radar were Dominion aircraft, which pretty much confirmed they’d seeded the DMZ with perimeter sensors. There was no way this was in response to the one she’d spotted; the enemy couldn’t have gotten airborne this quickly if that were the case. And with the NovaStream going buggy there was no way they were going to outfly the incoming fighters. She mentally assessed their resources: the Hawk had 20mm Valkyrie internal cannons and starburst missiles mounted beneath each wing, four to a side. The NovaStream didn’t have cannons, but it had eight each of heat-seekers and starbursts. Not nearly as much firepower as she would like. Maybe that would last ten minutes in full engagement. Setting her comm to command frequency, Jay called in for air support and was promptly acknowledged by Deeley. She prayed the forces arrived in time. A glance down at her radar showed the ghosts getting closer, the pattern denser. It looked like they had two flights closing in. With an efficiency garnered on the frontlines of more battles than she could count, Jay powered up her weapons systems and focused her thoughts on figuring a way out of this mess.

  Her gaze tracked on the thin ribbon of road below and to her left, pretty much the demarcation between the Allied border and the DMZ. It was used by their ground patrols. Right now, none were in sight. Too bad, they were equipped with mobile SAMs and maw deuce 50-caliber machine guns; that would have come in handy as ground support. Well, looked like for now they were on their own.

  “Hey, Flash, I need to know if you have enough control to maneuver...” She waited for him to acknowledge.

  “I think so.” His voice didn’t shake but the words were tight and short.

  She grimaced. Not good enough. “You need to confirm. Test her out now before they’re on our tail.”

  She breathed out a silent sigh as he wrestled the NovaStream’s nose down and into a left bank, the stick fighting him the whole way. The jet wobbled as it pulled to the right against his guidance, but he was able to correct. He then reversed the maneuver with much more control.

  “Okay, here’s what I need you to do…see the patrol road?” He made a vague sound she took as assent. “We are going to reverse course and head full throttle back toward base and intercept with our reinforcements. That road is your marker…it stays to your left wing at all times. Understood?”

  “Loud and clear, Captain.”

  She had to respect his fortitude. No matter how he came across before this, under fire, so to speak, he was holding up better than some veteran pilots she’d flown with. In theory, once they were over Allied territory they were safe. Jay wasn’t holding her breath on that. The Dominion wasn’t known for playing by the rules.

  “I’ve reported our situation. Our job now is to hold our own until our backup arrives. Get your weapons systems armed.” As she spoke, she flipped the master switch for her own cannons and armed her missiles.

  Panski’s muttered “Acknowledged” spoke volumes through gritted teeth. She could hear the strain in his voice. Her own gut was in more knots than a fishing net as she watched over the limping NovaStream. Flashbacks from a decade past sent a shudder through her. Blood pulsed like a drum in her ears, for the moment louder than the engine roaring at her back as she held her breath, her full attention locked on Panski. The NovaStream bucked hard as it sliced through a thermal. Jay gasped and the same sound echoed from the other cockpit. There was a sour taste in the back of her throat.

  “Pull up!” Jay called out. “Keep that bird in the air!”

  “All respect, ma’am,” the pilot snarled, “I’m fuckin’ trying!”

  Scarlet Jay held her peace after that, sending up Hail Marys and shadowing the craft from two hundred feet above his flying altitude. He got the NovaStream pointed the right direction and both of them put on some speed.

  “Hey, Deeley,” she hailed flight command once more. “I don’t particularly want to be the only girl on the dance floor. You have an ETA for me?”

  “Air support is wheels up and on the way, full burn. They should reach you in T-minus-fifteen minutes…but between me and you, Calloway ain’t happy, says....”

  The sergeant’s words cut off abruptly and there was the sound of a sudden commotion coming over the comm, followed by a familiar voice. “Corvidae! No screwups this time.”

  Scarlet Jay clenched her jaw on what she wanted to say to the old bastard. “Duly noted, sir.”

  “I mean it!” Calloway snapped. Rage burned through the words whereas he had always been cold and abrupt with her before. “You better bring that pilot back alive with all his bits still where they belong or you’re through, acknowledged?”

  Hostility came across the line in scorching waves. That was when she was forced to admit to herself, somewhat shamefully, that outside of receiving orders, she had never spoken to him, never approached him as Justin’s father. For the past two months she’d taken everything he’d heaped upon her but she had never said what needed to be said. And this might be her one and only chance. The comm wasn’t exactly private, but it would have to do.

  “General Calloway,” she said quietly and with absolute sincerity. “I deeply regret the loss of your son, I was careless…stupidly so, and I cannot tell you how sorry I am that I was not the only one to pay for those mistakes.” She purged ten years of guilt, but she didn’t lie down and offer him her throat. Her tone took on a bit of steel as she continued, “I know that can never be enough, but as my flight record will attest, I am no longer that cadet, I have learned from my mistakes and I have paid for them more than you can ever know.”

  He sputtered in response...likely preparing to yell; she didn’t give him a chance.

  “All due respect, sir, I have to go so I can concentrate on not making new ones.”

  She flicked the comm to short-range only and put the General from her thoughts. She likewise switched off the Hawk’s verbal address system. Things were about to get hairy. She couldn’t afford the distraction.

  “Um…Jay…” Panski’s voice cut in.

  “Go ahead, Flash.”

  “Either my radar is acting up too, or we have trouble coming in at ten o’clock.”

  Jay glanced at her radar for confirmation. “Damn! They’ve circled around to cut us off!” She considered their options: cut deeper into Allied air space and pray they didn’t follow, stay on course to the base and try and outrun them, or opt to engage and try and buy some time for backup to arrive. “How’s the Nova responding?”

  “She’s fighting me,” he responded. “I can strong-arm the stick, but I can’t throttle above 400 knots or she shimmies like crazy.”

  That left them only one real choice, to face the enemy. “Okay…work it the best you can. Go for evasive maneuvers, and only take the sure shot. Keep your heading toward base as much as possible; I’ll run interference and do what I can to take them out.”

  “Acknowledged.” He saluted her from his cockpit and she had to grin as she returned it, then, firewalling the throttle, she took it to the enemy.

  It had been months since she’d seen close-in aerial combat. Her chin dropped and her fangs were out as she rushed to engage the lead element. She clawed for altitude as she closed the distance. The ghosts on the radar blossomed into full blips, sending warning lights flashing through the cockpit; her eyes narrowed in response, but she kept her gaze focused on the sky outside her canopy and at her six. Below her, just above the cirrus deck, she could just make out
the needle-like profile of four Dominion Hyperwings, advanced remote drones that had evolved considerably from the old Predator technology.

  “Come on, Gomer…bring it,” she muttered under her breath, unconsciously falling back on the slang learned at her Granddad’s knee.

  No doubt these were just the advanced scouts. Somewhere in the atmo were fighters headed this way. They had to take the Hyperwings out before the enemy reinforcements arrived, or she and Panski were done for. Two of them broke off and headed for the NovaStream. The other two came at her from split vectors.

  “Flash, deuce bogies headed your way!” Jay had just enough time to call the warning to Panski and then she had no more attention to spare. A hail of lethal artillery came spraying toward her, lit up by the flare of tracer rounds.

  She swore with enough heat to blister even her Granddad’s ears as she jinked to the right, then dipped her wing to the left and rolled the Hawk, diving for the deck. Working the stick, she pulled up into a steep climb, scissoring across the nearest drone’s flight path, trying to come in behind it. Every time she tried to get a lead on one of them, the drones reversed, spoiling her aim.

  “Come on, already! I wasn’t serious about dancing!”

  Scarlet Jay came down in a screaming dive and broke off sharply as she worked the Valkyrie’s radar controls, furiously trying to get lock. And then she had it; the drone off her right wing lit up as she came around in a tight turn. Jay depressed the trigger on her cannons and crowed as incendiary ammunition devastated the rear half of the craft.

  The Hawk soared through the flack as the debris rained down on the DMZ.

  “Boola-Boola!” Jay yelled in triumph, though the comm would not carry the “kill” to command.

  From off to her right, strafing fire dimpled her canopy and Jay reflexively ducked in her harness. “Shit!” A quick glance through the canopy showed a bit of smoke trailing from her right wingtip, but she saw no sign of fire.

  Before it could fire again, Panski buzzed the attacking drone close enough that the wake from his slipstream sent the craft into a dip, ruining the targeting lock. He then executed a hard bank and roll to evade before arcing away. The drone veered off to follow.