Captain Dinwiddie studied an instrument console, hand tense over the button that would bring them into realtime. He ran the navigation plot again. It was good; it should avoid any enemy likely to be out there. Twice he moved his finger to press the button and twice he paused, wondering if this elaborately indirect approach to Alpha Queen 9 might leave him too far from the Queen’s patrols. His stomach knotted. One last look at everything, and it was time. As one jumping into cold water he hit the button, aware his wife sensed his emotion.

"In twelve seconds," Rose said, voice flat and professional, "counting down. Hope Sgt. Stephen is on that gun."

"Uh-huh," he grunted, knowing her words were meant to soothe because her tone conveyed much more. Marine Gunnery Sergeant ‘Gunny’ Stephen was an old hand, too. Dinwiddie mentally ran through the X-freighter’s armament—all defensive. Though this was one of the newer class transport/freighters that could be configured for cargo or personnel, or both, as needed—hence the ‘X dash’ designator—it was still armed with that almost useless quad-mount laser cannon array. It did carry the new model chatterboxes: small, fast missiles that when launched, electronically mimicked a freighter and served to confuse the Kritsch. Usually.

As he watched the seconds tick down, he wondered if a sentient insect could be confused. Probably, he decided. Certainly their weapons aiming computers could be.

"Translation," the computer announced. He felt the subliminal lurch, and then the varicolored streaked grayness on the viewscreens bloomed into a star pattern.

"Bugs! Starboard, high!" Stephen’s voice cracked over the comm.

"Chatterboxes away," Rose advised calmly, pressing switches on her panel.

Captain Dinwiddie studied his tactical screen. "A swarm of the bastards," he muttered. "We caught them a bit out of position, though. Where in bloody hell are the Queen’s patrols?"

"Hailing," Rose responded, adding with humor. "You drive, I’ll talk."

"Yes, Dear," he muttered, trying for lightness and missing.

Three of the closest made a ragged pass; he felt the shudder of a solid hit. Several of the little chatterboxes blew. Dinwiddie’s mind filled with the problem of trying to position the clumsy X-freighter to make a concerted attack on it more difficult.

"Alpha Queen’s got two flights headed our way—"

"I see them, Rosie. Please do hush."

She continued, unperturbed. "As I was saying, that’s two flights of Heavies and one of Tin Coffins."

Captain Dinwiddie became immersed in evading, aware things were happening aft, and that Rose was taking care of the shop, as she always did.

* * * *

In the personnel quarters, the metallic-sounding comm blared: "Any person with a gunnery rating, report forward to Deck A, Post 10, immediately."

Sandy rolled off her bunk and dropped to the deck. She welcomed any escape from the close confinement in which the women lived. The guys had a different packing box. The gravity back in the holding quarters was adjusted light, so ten-tall bunks worked well. Beej, her Trilatran friend from training school, thumped heavily to the deck beside her.

"Ouch," Beej, a member of a much sturdier species than human, grunted as she landed too close to Sandy, staggering her

"Fall on me, why don’t you?" Sandy grumbled.

"I think it’s not so good, Sandy," Beej cautioned.

"Gotta go, I’m a gunner." Sandy shrugged and headed for the hatchway. Beej trailed along. "Be careful."

The usual bitch ensign guarded the exit. "Calm down." She radiated elaborate disdain for frightened, clueless newbies. "Might as well stay in your bunk."

"Out, lemme outta here." Seeing the other remained unimpressed, Sandy raised her voice and turned up the color in her eyes. "I’m a gunner!"

"Yes’m." The ensign unlocked the hatch, still aloof. "Go to your left, to the first lift, up to Deck A, report there. I’ll advise them you’re on your way."

Sandy was so glad to get out of the packed hold that she forgot the instructions and had to grab a tight-faced crewman who was hurrying forward. At last she emerged on Deck A and reported in.

"Take the top gun, Rie," a junior-grade lieutenant ordered, pointing vaguely upward. "Move it!"

Used to being herded, Sandy crossed the passageway and began to climb the indicated ladder. Three other people were working on a form lying on the deck, battle suit smoking and blackened.

She dropped back to the deck. "Hey, I need a battle suit!"

"There isn’t time! Get on that damned gun!"

"The hell there isn’t time! Nobody fights in coveralls!" That was a rule, well ground into her mind during Basic.

The lieutenant dithered. "Wait." He tore off down the passageway and reappeared in a moment with a light battle suit. He flung it at her. "Go! Go!"

Sandy ignored him. He was acting a bit melodramatic, she decided. Prob’ly some office pogue. Before they’d embarked two weeks ago, everyone was briefed on how safe and well-armored these new X-class freighters were. She slapped at the suit’s self-sealing fasteners, took the heavy VR helmet another crewman handed her, and climbed into the gun turret.

Sandy glanced outside. She felt her eyes bulge; her jaw went slack. She froze in the act of plugging the helmet into the gun panel as she tried to absorb the horrible damage. The wide, flat expanse of the X-’s back was seared, right to the edge of the bubble. About three feet of skin was gone. She stared at the twisted piping, sparking cabling and grayish mist leaking from inner-hull damage.

It took an act of conscious will to lock the plug into the panel. The ‘armed’ light blinked on, showing the guns were undamaged. She swung them around, hunting targets, and locked onto one coming straight in. She fired, getting hits all over the blunt nose of the Kritsch—and it didn’t even flinch. It let go a burst that vaporized more of the top hull forward, and right behind it a missile that streaked into the side far aft, exploding with a shock that nearly jarred her out of the turret. The attacker passed directly overhead and disappeared.

Sandy fought down rising panic. This was a quad-mount laser cannon array, said to be of the best type. She began to understand that not all accepted truths are so.

Afraid of making a mistake, she took precious seconds trying to analyze the fight, so as not to hit a friendly, awed at the 3-D quality of the Virtual Reality helmet’s display. Friendlies were yellow triangles, the Kritsch bugs were red circles with a flashing pip in the center. At close range, the actual appearance of the target was represented. A nearby star was a fat blue point, and the inverted triangle—that must be the Alpha Queen, circled with the blinking red beyond-range warning—showed green off to one edge.

She aimed the laser cannon, locking onto another incoming that had gotten past the Alliance Heavies. Maybe the unofficial rumors she’d mostly ignored were true. The old hands said the cannon was a joke. That few freighters ever survived a bug attack. Sandy began to worry.

She waited, watching the distance close, and fired. She had a sense of a blossom of energy on the bug’s engine pod, then it was past and the clumsy freighter was turning into the next one.

"I say, that’s awfully good shooting, Stephen." Captain Dinwiddie’s voice sounded in her helmet. "Nailed him right well, I’d imagine." There was a strain in his voice, though.

Sandy tried to swallow and found she couldn’t. The Queen was now only a few moments away but first, they had to survived this attack, which at the moment seemed impossible.

She shot and got hits all over the next one, but it came on anyway. She watched, dumb with horror. I’m twenty-two. I’m going to die.

* * * *

Ryan Matson flung his light fighter into a hull-groaning turn. Whoever the hell was on that freighter’s popgun was either very good, or very lucky. He fired, trying to make the bug flinch. It rolled away; he followed. "White flight, cover that freighter," he ordered.

The freighter’s gunner was not giving up. Pulsed blasts tracked the bug and again, hits blew all over it. Probably, he thought in a faraway corner of his mind, some old hand. He got the deflection shot he wanted and let fly with everything he had. The bug lost pieces and turned away.

Matson didn’t chase it. He bent back to the big X-freighter. This Tin Coffin wasn’t up to taking on a bug Heavy alone, but it beat hell out of that quad-mount laser cannon.

The freighter trundled for the Queen, which was at last showing on everyone’s screens. Matson understood the huge X-dash was edging for safety and went across the top, hoping that gunner didn’t flinch and let him have one up the thrust plates. It probably wouldn’t hurt, but it wouldn’t help, either.

* * * *

Sandy sensed, rather than saw, a ‘friendly’ flash over her bubble. The Virtual Reality helmet worked better than the ones in gunnery school. The fight swirled around the freighter at about 100,000 klicks. With the naked eye, she’d see only points of light from gun hits. With VR, it looked like what one might see in the theater. It couldn’t be so in realtime; the distances were too great and the velocities too high, thus the computers recast everything to fit human perceptions.

"To starboard, Stephen, I daresay." Dinwiddie’s voice yanked Sandy out of her fear-induced stupor. That Tin Coffin had made the last bug break off or she’d be dead, and that still clogged her mind. She swung the four puny cannons and put out a series of solid hits on the incoming bug that did nothing she could discern.

Her mind backed a step away from the swirling battle. The Tin Coffin that had saved her was an outmoded model, much lighter than either side’s Heavies, but still useful—and this freighter driver didn’t realize his gunner was dead.

"All you have is me," Sandy whispered, putting out another cluster of solid hits, with no discernable results. Maddening.

Again the freighter turned and took another hit, but half of Red flight nailed the attacking bug. It imploded and died.

While she tried to make sense of the darting mess in VR before her eyes, the freighter got hammered again.

"Damn it," the captain muttered. "Can’t very well have that now, can we?"

Sandy listened as he spoke calmly to the friendlies out there. "DST Dinwiddie speaking. I say fellows, we’re in a bit of trouble here."

A big, drawling voice answered, "We’ve got you covered now, X-ray Transport. The Tin Coffins are in position, and I’m sending some help."

"Roger that. Do hurry, please."

Six Alliance Heavies broke from the swirling fight and settled into a defensive formation. One blew on the way across; two bugs imploded.

For the first time since Sandy had taken this station from the dead gunner, she decided they just might make it. That made her feel vastly better.

She rotated and shot, just to say she was alive and kicking, if scared spitless. And she got a hit. It had no effect, of course. That was the root of her horror: on her very first target, she’d gotten it dead center and kept hitting as it bore in and shot. Her guns had no effect. Her morale and enthusiasm puddled in her boots.

The bugs broke off the fight and fled. Green flight chased, to keep them honest.

"Captain Dinwiddie here, Stephen, you can secure your weapon."

"Uh, Sir," Sandy spoke. She had to try twice. "This is Warrant Officer Rie on the gun, securing."

"Very good performance. Please do secure your weapon. Our part’s done. Welcome to the Alpha Queen, we’ll be there in under a minute."

Alpha Queen Nine’s commander broke in. "DST X-ray, we have you inside our LDZ. Fine work, sir, who are you?"

"Captain Allen Dinwiddie, Deep Space Transport. I’m afraid I have casualties and heavy damage. Might you alert your medical?"

"Understood. AQ Niner out."

Sandy wanted to weep with relief. Inside the Local Defense Zone, at last. Safe. She unbuckled herself from the gunnery seat, hung the VR helmet on its hook and climbed down the rungs.

Beej handed her a cup of coffee. "Sandy, you are unwell."

"I’m scared, is what I am," Sandy said. "Don’t mind me." She blinked. "Hey, what’re you doing outside our packing crate?"

"There are casualties. I am a trained corpsman. You are unhurt." It was a statement; the Trilatran was mildly telepathic.

"Beej, you’re a lifesaver." Sandy slurped, both hands holding the cup to control her shaking hands. The temperature was just right, but then Beej would know that. She made a huge effort to collect herself; her friend would be distressed at all the roiling emotion. Trilatrans did not kill, save as a last resort, and quite often, not even then. They were dreamers and thinkers. "C’mon, let’s get ready. The Queen’s our next stop." She led away to their area. Together, they checked their big blue shipover bags one last time. The bags held all their life the military would permit.

Sandy clambered up and flopped on her bunk. What would a real combat post be like, instead of that useless pea-shooter up top? For the first time since she’d made the decision to enlist and apply for this post, she doubted herself. She was about to arrive at AQ-9. She wondered if the humiliation of a rejected Master’s thesis was worth the risk she’d just run. Yet … the review board had been less than forthcoming—in fact, seemed to be actually hiding something.

"Did I do the right thing coming here?" she appealed to Beej, seeking reassurance.

"Look on it as a great adventure, Sandy-none."

Beej clung with one hand to the framing next to her rack, dangling both their shipover bags from the other. Tri were strong, a member of the closest to human race they’d encountered. It was lucky the Humans found them before the Kritsch finished them off.

"Some adventure. Anyway, we’re alive, and about eight Kritsch bugs aren’t." That wasn’t a satisfactory answer, she sensed. Beej was still unhappy.

The Tri had beautiful ships, and fast. Their computer technology was beyond Human by two orders of magnitude. They even had weapons, very effective ones, but they seldom used them. Destroying a sentient life risked madness. A Tri would fight, but only as a last option and in self-defense, when all other means failed, including yielding entire star systems. They were a peaceful, happy race. But there were things out there not sentient, and lethal: amoebas and Crystals, for instance. And—things nobody had a name for, that were both sentient and deadly.

"I wish," Beej remarked, "I had a couple of men right now."

Sandy grinned. Trilatrans were … horny, perhaps because of their low reproduction rate.

"Don’t human females feel the need?" Beej was young, too, and curious.

Or she’s trying to cheer me up, Sandy thought. "Yeah. Oh yes, Beej, but it’s kinda different with us."

Sandy sighed. She would in fact enjoy male companionship very much, provided he was the right one. Ol’ Beej, there, would be with two males at the first opportunity. If she were so fortunate as to become pregnant, she would be sent back with many congratulations and gifts.

Sandy smiled, remembering the words—‘Sandy-none’—a Tri derogatory phrase for a female with no children. In this instance a ribald jab and nothing more. They’d gone through OCS together, and while it was grounds for washout, Beej, a robust being, often toted the heavy stuff on the long field problems. In return, Sandy allowed a tiny part of her mind to open to the other, so when the written tests came, they made it together. That was against the rules too.

The freighter’s klaxon bawled, "Docking at Alpha Queen Nine. All transient personnel will report to lock 12."

Sandy sighed again. "Gimme my bag."

Beej held onto both bags. "You are frail. Allow me." The Tri was just trying to help. The post-stress emotions were still not under control for either of them.

Sandy tried to take her bag. "It’ll look funny, and what if we get separated right away?"

"I don’t think that will happen. I won’t let it. Anyway, it weighs almost as much as you do."

"It does not!" Sandy gave it up. Wrestling with Beej would be futile.

The transport eased into one of the Queen’s hangars and settled.

* * * *

Ryan Matson landed and tossed his helmet down to the crew chief.

"Everything okay, Sir?"

"Yeah," Matson said, using the ladder. "They didn’t have their little black hearts in it today. That freighter driver is either lucky or good, or both."

"Why do they grab you scouts for local defense?" the chief asked.

"If you ever figure that one out, I’ll buy you a case of Spillarian whiskey."

Matson headed for Debrief. As flight leader, that was his last job, then he could pick up where he’d left off—resting.

He slogged off the flight deck, ignoring the holed freighter, except to notice the newbies getting off in their fresh new OD’s and carrying those awkward shipover bags. A female Tri was carrying two, for some reason. Oh, the newbie next to her was empty-handed. Probably one of those school friendships that wouldn’t last. He smiled. To be young again. At twenty-eight, the stats said he’d already exceeded his life expectancy by a year and a half. Scouts simply didn’t last long.

They all arrived at the lift together. Upon seeing his worn flight suit, the newbies hung back.

Matson smiled and indicated they should enter first. Yeah, a Tri. They made loyal friends. The other was a nifty blonde, short hair. She had a washed-out look about her eyes and mouth he recognized. Post-battle shock. You never really got over it; you just got used to it. The red marks on her forehead and chin indicated a heavy VR helmet. He stared.

"Excuse me, Ma’am. Were you the gunner on that freighter?"

She gave him a measuring look. "Why?"

Matson paused to collect his thoughts. "Well, I was out there. That was some damned fine shooting." What, does she imagine I’m trying to pick her up? Well, yes she does, you dummy.

He realized they were waiting for him to get on the lift. The Tri was grinning at both of them.

"I can catch the next one, it might be a little crowded."

"No, get in. We don’t care," the blonde said.

Matson read the nametag—ST RIE—over her left breast, a nice one, too. The girls really put a lot of tailoring into those one-piece OD coveralls. He saw the Tri was enjoying this. Her tag just read BEEJ, and the three symbols of her families.

"Saint Rie," he tried. "Different."

She gave him a Look. "What deck did you want?"

He gave it up. The heavy pressure he bore had gone away for an instant. Now it was back. "Twelve Deck. Debrief."

"Oh. You must have been a flight leader."

"Something like that." He pulled the shell back around himself.

Rie smiled at him. "Well, thanks for your help. It was kind of scary."

"Yes, it was," he said.

"But I suppose to an old hand like you, it wasn’t much, right?"

Matson sensed she was trying to be nice. "It’s always bad, Warrant Officer Rie. Some are worse than others, that’s all." The lift opened at Twelve and he fled. He heard them both giggle as the door shut.

After debrief, he began to shake inside and hurried to the officer’s club for a few beers and a suitable measure of Spillarian whiskey. The combination worked well when his nerves were growing too ragged to endure.

It hadn’t been that intense, either. The bugs were outnumbered. Just a patrol trying for easy meat. Too bad they didn’t know this was the quarterly run with mail, crew replacements and goodies from home for the men and women of Alpha Queen.

It was one thing to bushwhack a supply transport, but trying for that particular one hacked everyone off. He smiled. I bet Green flight is still chasing ’em.

That darned blonde had a neat giggle. Pretty blue eyes, too, though clouded by that post-battle, half-stunned look.

Two of his White flight settled at the bar, just down. Of course they’d ignore him: he was a scout, not a ‘real’ fighter pilot.

"They got the cargo hold with all the personal stuff from home," one mourned. "My holoplayer is probably screwed. Three thousand credits. I’m so lucky."

Matson smiled into his drink. You are lucky, guy. You’re here to bitch and moan.

"All the replacement pilots are okay, though," his friend said. "Somebody said a newbie warrant officer took over that stupid little cannon after the regular guy got hit. Why don’t they take those things off and save the space?"

"Supposed to upgrade ’em."

"Right. Supposed to upgrade those Tin Coffins too, and what were we flying today?"

Nerves tight now but under control, Matson signed for the drinks, got a bottle and left.

He ignored the four empty beds in his quarters. Two scouts were officially overdue. The third was out on a mission. Something deep in his gut told him the overdue ones would be on what was euphemistically called Permanent Patrol. That they were dead.

He lay on his bed and tried to sleep. The image of that huge, helpless freighter came to mind. Whoever flew it was damned good. He smiled. And that silly little cannon. Well, that gunner had nothing to be ashamed of. Even if those little splats didn’t hurt the bug, they did tend to cloud up its view of the outside world.

Rie. I wonder what her first name is?

Matson slept.