“I can’t forget,” Tolwyn said coldly.
The two old comrades looked at each other for a moment.
“Damn it, just get back to your ship. You know I didn’t mean what I just said. I just wanted to let you know what some people who aren’t all that friendly to you are saying about your desire to rescue Tarawa.”
Tolwyn nodded and started to turn away.
“Geof?”
Tolwyn looked back.
“Damn it, Geof,” Banbridge said softly. “We’ve been friends a long time. It’s been twenty-five years since you showed up in my class at the Academy and first came to my quarters for that party where you met Elizabeth. I want our friendship to keep, no matter what.”
Tolwyn nodded and finally extended his hand.
“Good luck Wayne, God knows we’re going to need it.”
“Scared?”
“No,” and she sighed, snuggling in closer to his side. He realized yet again that the military didn’t have to signal its rather puritanical values any more directly than in the way they made bunks. Two people in one was uncomfortable if not outright impossible. There was a standard joke about how once you made admiral you got an oversized bed in your suite to make room for all the people you slept with on the way up.
“I’m just so sorry it’s over.”
“We knew there wasn’t much time to start with,” Jason whispered.
“There never was, lover. Not back in school, not out here.”
He felt his stomach knotting up again. Never had he faced the beginning of a mission with such a grim certainty that he would not be around at the end of the day. It was a strange feeling. To know that the universe would go on without him. That friends would still be here, would hear the words spoken, shake their heads and mumble a few lines about “poor Jason.” There’d be a couple of sad but laugh-filled stories of remembrance, maybe one or two tears shed in private, and then they would go on with their living, their fighting, and their own dying.
And he so desperately wanted Svetlana to live. That was the hardest part. She would go down as well this day. There wouldn’t even be that to leave behind. At most, a short note in the home news bulletin, and another blue star for his mother, and hers, to hang in their windows.
He felt cheated. So many others had their moment, to fall in love, marry, raise a family, leave something behind. Not him, and not Svetlana.
He felt something damp on his chest, and knew that she was crying. She did it so quietly; there was no shaking, not even a muffled sob. Just silent tears.
He held her closer, not saying anything, feeling the beat of her heart. The ship was all so quiet, the occasional voices in the corridor muffled, as if everyone aboard was holding a silent service for himself.
“Svetlana?”
The voice was soft, metallic.
She sighed, reaching over the side of the bed to pick up her fatigue blouse which was on the floor. She held the collar up and pressed her insignia button.
“Here, sir.”
“It’s time, kid.”
“OK, sir.”
She dropped the blouse and snuggled back in against Jason’s chest for a moment.
“Merritt?”
“Hum-uh. He told me to spend what time we had left with you; he’d call me when it was time to start suiting up.”
Jason put his arms around her and held her tightly.
She returned the embrace and then ever so slowly pulled away. In the shadows he watched her dress and neither spoke. She sat back down on the bunk to lace her boots and then leaned over to kiss him one last time.
“I’ll see you at the end of the day,” she whispered.
“Yeah, the end of the day. Take care, love. Tell Merritt he’s all right, and we’ll be there to cover you.”
“Don’t take any chances.”
Jason tried to laugh, but couldn’t.
“I love you,” he whispered.
“I’ve always loved you, I always will,” and then she was gone, leaving Jason alone, to sit in silence, waiting for the signal that the final jump through into the heart of the Kilrathi Empire was about to begin.
CHAPTER VIII
“All pilots, man your planes.”
Jason looked over at the communications screen in the ready room. The young flight control officer was obviously agitated and on edge. The feeling in the ship was like a hot electric current. There was an almost hysterical aura of excitement over the fact that they were attacking the home world system of the Kilrathi Empire, mixed in with a sense of dread of what was coming.
“All right people, good luck, good hunting, now move it!”
The pilots came out of their seats, and started for the door.
“Battle stations, all hands to battle stations!”
The alarm klaxon echoed through the ship, the red emergency battle lights coming on in the dimmed corridors as Tarawa’s combat control system started to suck every available bit of energy for the shielding and guns.
Jason looked back at the screen.
“Scout report?” he shouted.
“Starlight’s reporting twenty plus Kilrathi fighters and three corvette-class ships on intercept approach.”
“All right, going to my fighter now, I’ll hook back in with you there.”
He joined the rush down the corridor. They’d been on full alert when the jump into the Kilrathi system was pulled, but to his incredulous surprise only half a dozen fighters and one light corvette were covering the approach. The battle was over before he had even launched. He had then ordered his people to stand down, to conserve their ships, and their own stamina, until they were within attack range.
Now it looked like the Kilrathi were coming out to block the way in.
He reached the flight deck. The marine assault troops were loaded into their landing craft and the deck suddenly seemed almost spacious. Merritt, dressed in full battle gear, with a standard issue laser gun slung over his shoulder, stood next to his landing craft, which was squeezed into the slot where one of the lost Sabres had been parked. Seeing Jason, he snapped off a formal salute and then a thumbs-up. Svetlana was by his side. He almost wished that in a melodramatic scene she would rush up to stand by his fighter as he took off, but discipline held.
She raised her hand in a wave that seemed almost childlike and sad. He waved back and then forced himself to turn away.
He hit the ladder and scrambled into his cockpit.
“Kick some fur butt, sir!” Sparks shouted as she pulled the ladder away and signaled for the tractor to pull him up to the flight line.
“Tarawa combat control, what’s the situation?”
“One of our recon craft already lost. Starlight reports many, repeat many bogeys on sortie from the second moon, three corvettes approaching as well. Captain O’Brian has ordered our escorts to move forward and engage.”
That was standard procedure at least, but it bothered him that Grierson was not behind the Tarawa to sort of nudge O’Brian along.
“Deck flight officer!”
“Here, sir,” and her image appeared on his comm-link display.
“Push Doomsday up ahead of me on launch; I want at least one ship with torpedoes out there as quickly as possible.”
“Aye, sir,” and she turned away to shout the orders.
Jason switched back to the combat information center on the bridge to keep an eye on developments. His tractor pulled him up towards the flight fine and then came to a stop as Doomsday’s Sabre cut in ahead of him, the squeeze so tight that for a moment he thought that their wings would hit.
The crew was improving. He’d never have pulled a change in launch sequencing only a week or two before. But now that the heat was on they seemed to be moving like clockwork. The hot launch fighters went out the airlock, Mongol, followed by Round Top and Lone Wolf, and then Doomsday was moved up to the catapult. The Sabre snapped out and then Jason was moved into position.