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  Ward’s disk tilted dangerously vertical. His fall was inevitable; nevertheless, the bot on the ground shot him in the ass with a stun round that gave him an intense electric jolt, signifying his failure and hastening his drop to the muddy pit below. Technically the instructors could only fire on recruits for moving too slowly or incorrectly navigating an obstacle; but the loose guidelines translated to open season, though the human instructors were more likely to fire just to harass or fail them. Or simply for the sheer fun of it.

  If he landed unscathed, Ward would be forced to reclimb the tower and try the disks again. Rizer negotiated the remaining disks and jumped onto another tower, where a DI from another platoon awaited. All six platoons in Fox Company ran different portions of the course simultaneously, their DIs stationed at various points along with the bot instructors permanently assigned to the course. Rizer pulled a pair of aluminum pegs with rough grips from the box at the edge of the tower. The gunnery sergeant, a tall, rail-thin senior drill instructor, shouted into his face, “Get off my tower, freak!”

  “Aye, sir!”

  A pegboard perpendicular to the tower descended to earth. Rizer stuck one peg into a hole and then the second. He began his descent. Recruits were forbidden to use their feet on the pegboard wall, an obstacle utilized strictly for upper-body conditioning. Ironically, Rizer found it easier to climb a pegboard than to descend, which required a higher degree of dexterity. As one of his arms dangled, he nearly panicked and raised a foot to the board, which he lowered a moment before contact. A stun round exploded with a resounding smack on the pegboard above his head. Sparks rained down on his face.

  “Next one’s in your ass, Rizer!” the bot on the ground warned him. “Now move it! Faster!”

  Rizer missed another hole about five meters from the bottom but quickly recovered without using his feet. He dropped the last couple of meters into mud that overflowed his boots. “Marine Corps!” he shouted, the words demanded at the end of each obstacle. He tossed his pegs into a pile at the edge of the pit before running to the next and final obstacle.

  The infamous slide for life was always negotiated in tandem with another recruit. Stubs awaited a partner at the edge of the mud pit beneath the cargo net they would climb to access the slide. I hate this fucking thing. He had no problem climbing the eight-story cargo net; the descent was an entirely different and terrifying matter. But he would worry about that when he reached the top.

  “You idiots know the drill,” said one of the two bots watching the cargo net. “Maintain three points of contact at all times. Move out!”

  “Aye, sir!”

  They slogged across the knee-deep mud pit, grabbed the net, and started to climb. Rizer directed their movements by shouting “Step!” before every move they took up the rungs of thick rope.

  Stubs grunted a shout when a stun round blasted him in the ass.

  “Move in tandem, Stubneski!” the bot said. “Don’t get ahead of Rizer!”

  Another bot instructor waited atop the wooden platform, along with SSgt Mack. No surprise there; Rizer hadn’t seen her at the previous stations and knew she preferred to work the slide for life, an obstacle he had yet to conquer.

  “Well, if it isn’t the double dingbats,” Mack said with a sneer. “How the hell did you two morons wind up together?”

  “Ma’am, some other recruits fell off obstacles and had to repeat,” Rizer said.

  “I hope they broke their fucking necks. Get on my ropes now!”

  “Aye, ma’am!”

  Two ropes, sagging slightly in the middle and pitched downward at a thirty-degree angle, connected the platform to the ground some thirty meters away. As its name implied, one did not hang beneath the rope while descending the slide for life. Rizer knew the proper technique and attacked the rope accordingly. He lay atop it, wrapping his right leg around it and leaving his left leg dangling straight down to maintain balance. The daunting obstacle had been frustrating Marine recruits for over two millennia, no wonder it came at the end of every confidence course.

  Rizer pulled himself along, gaze straight ahead as opposed to down, where a deep pool of black water far below awaited those who failed.

  “We got this, man!” Stubs called from the other rope.

  “Fuck yeah!”

  “Is that right?” Mack called. “So my obstacle’s easy now?”

  “No, ma’am!” they shouted.

  “Yeah, okay. You hard chargers need more of a challenge!”

  Or smaller mouths. The ropes lifted in whipping waves that threatened to bounce them off. Rizer made the mistake of glancing back. Mack pushed up and down on Stubs’ rope, while another recruit shook his own. You scheming little bitch!

  “Come on, Belzer, put some ass into it!” Mack shouted, barely stifling a laugh. “You better not let Rizer make it across!”

  “Aye aye, ma’am!”

  “Fuck off, Belzer!” Rizer yelled. That he would pay for his outburst later didn’t concern him one bit. He hugged the rope to keep from falling.

  “Move your ass, Rizer, or I’ll have this bot give you the shock treatment!”

  Fully aware that he was fucked, Rizer tried to slide on. As Mack continued to taunt him, he slipped off the bobbing rope and found himself dangling by two hands. Stubs fell with a shout in the next instant, landing on his ass, and throwing a tremendous geyser of muddy water into the air. Meanwhile, Rizer attempted to continue hand over hand toward solid ground, still a long way off.

  “Improper technique, Rizer! Drop off my rope now!”

  No. He continued, blocking out further shrieked orders from Mack to let go. A stun round struck him square in the spine, sending electrical jolts throughout his torso, yet he fought onward. Another pellet found his buttock, and his corresponding hand slipped from the rope. Belzer’s shaking did the rest.

  Rizer plummeted twelve meters into the dark pool. He would have cursed had he not been under water. What the holy fuck? He’d tried his damnedest to please Mack, only to have her sabotage his efforts when he reached the cusp of success. He kicked to the surface.

  Mack leaned over the platform. “That stunk, Rizer, another piss-poor effort! Get up here and do it over!”

  “Aye, ma’am.”

  “Yeah, sound off like a sullen little bitch too!”

  Rizer swam to the edge of the pool to do it all over again. Three trips and three sabotaged fails later, he found himself underwater again. None of it made sense. He could have made the slide easily on any of his attempts. He had what it took to be a Marine. Why is she doing this? He wondered again if joining the Corps had been the biggest mistake of his life.

  CHAPTER 4

  Boot pilots were easy meat: cocky, overzealous cowboys with something to prove. So far they’d only proven that they could die in short order. It had taken Lieutenant Commander Sandra Borland, call sign Vixen, less than two minutes to shoot them down. Borland, her two students, and another instructor pilot practiced space combat maneuvers at the edge of a small asteroid field ringing planet Volare.

  Now the students flew on the edge of her dogfight and watched the action. Borland tended to get overzealous herself, perhaps her only fault as a fighter pilot, even after twelve years of flying and eight confirmed kills. The lieutenant instructor presently pursuing her, Walker, was new to the squadron yet an ace in his own right. He’d let Borland have her way with the newbies, playing it cagey and remaining on the periphery when the battle opened, no doubt to gauge her moves.

  As she waited for Walker to make a move, she split her gaze between the multifunction display scopes on her instrument panel and the field of stars around her. She paid particular attention to the passive infrared detection on the electronic countermeasures display. With its renowned stealth capabilities, their F-330 Ravens were difficult for sensors to identify at longer ranges. Walker would press this advantage.

  But he won’t catch me napping.

  She didn’t actually see t
he stars but rather a high-resolution view of her surroundings displayed on her helmet visor, a sharper image than she would have seen with naked eyes through the plexi-armored canopy. The visor’s heads-up display included prompts for infrared, night vision, thermal, magnification, and a dozen other filters. Other prompts activated the rear, side, and bottom-view cameras. The overall display and cockpit design made her feel as if she were an extension of the aircraft, riding a throne perched in the starry sky. She never tired of the exhilarating sensation.

  A high-pitched bleep sounded in her helmet, warning her of an incoming training missile. Shit! Two red dots registered on the three-dimensional threat display screen, glowing brighter as the hypersonic missiles gained on her. She shoved the throttles forward; the Raven surged ahead on the awesome power of the massive twin-ion engines. The acceleration bought her a few seconds, but the red dots continued to close rapidly on the lower right quadrant of her display.

  As the missiles neared the center of the screen, she rolled the Raven ninety degrees and pulled back on the stick. Her pressure suit tightened around her thighs and torso as she pulled the aircraft into a high-g turn. The cockpit gravity dampeners could not compensate completely during the evasive maneuver, allowing g-forces to push down on her like a giant hand. Her pressure suit constricted tighter to keep blood flowing upward to her brain.

  Using the thought control interface in her helmet, she launched a set of decoy flares to lead the missiles astray as she completed the acute turn. The heat-seeking missiles rocketed beneath her fighter toward the flares’ intense heat.

  Borland pulled her eyes from the sensors and scanned the heavens as she leveled out from the turn. Walker was too experienced to try a head-on pass, but he would press his advantage. Her Raven’s infrared sensors finally detected his presence, already old news to her. He slid in behind her from above, his skills on display as he tailed her, keeping up with her every move. She shook her fighter, turning and twisting to avoid simulated shots from the four particle beam cannons on his Raven. Her rear deflector shield took a simulated hit; one more would disable the rear shield.

  Hits taken in training mode registered simulated damage that would affect her fighter’s performance. For safety reasons, hits couldn’t reduce critical life support systems.

  Let’s see how good he really is.

  Borland pitched the fighter upward to evade another cannon shot, then rolled hard left and dove for the asteroid field. The chunky iron mass of a medium-sized asteroid rushed toward her, while the helmet alarm alerted her of another missile launch. Again she launched flares to divert the inbound missile. Too soon! The missile stayed on course, forcing her to launch the last of her countermeasures an instant before it would have struck and disabled her fighter.

  She throttled back as she approached the asteroid letting her inertial energy bleed off and peeled away moments before she would have collided, then wrenched the stick back for a high-g turn in close orbit. The asteroid’s gray surface filled her vision, then grew indistinct when her sight reddened as she nearly blacked out. Her cone of vision narrowed as blood flooded her lower body. The g-suit squeezed her uncomfortably. She gritted her teeth and grunted from the strain. The Raven’s gravity dampeners struggled to reduce g-forces to a minimum, but this turn had pushed the airframe past the designers’ theoretical limits toward the reality of possible destruction. The fighter shook violently, threatening to disintegrate as her consciousness faded.

  Walker’s fighter disappeared from behind her. Yeah, that’s what I thought.

  She continued her turn; the g-forces decreased as her fighter bled off energy. Her head cleared almost immediately, the quick recovery a benefit of regularly pushing herself and her fighter to the limit. She came full circle around the asteroid and espied in the distance the sleek, gunmetal glint of Walker’s fighter as he completed his turn and closed on her. She pulled the throttles back past the detent into reverse thrust to bleed off more forward inertia, then pulled back hard on the stick, sending the fighter into a steep accent while simultaneously rolling to the right.

  Walker fired cannons but couldn’t achieve the proper angle. He overshot as his fighter slid beneath her.

  Not fast enough, pal. She continued the tight loop, activating the twin engines again. Her powerful vector thrust brought the fighter’s nose around. As he tried to break away, she fell in behind him, got an infrared lock, and fired two missiles.

  Walker knew his evasive actions; unfortunately for him, Borland had seen enough of his flying to know his next move. He dipped a wing to the left and discharged counter measures before breaking sharply right and down, just as she anticipated. She ignored the blinking red proximity warning on her targeting scope as she out-turned him, leading him, getting her guns out in front. Her next burst of sim fire raked the top of his fuselage and powered down his fighter.

  Borland peeled away, victorious. “Confirmed,” she said, satisfaction in her voice. She lived for these moments, even when only simulated.

  “Nice shootin’, ma’am,” Walker replied. “That Kulbit was one radical maneuver. I’ve never seen it pulled off like that in a dog fight.”

  “Whatever it takes. Train like you fight. Maybe we taught those young bucks a thing or two.”

  He laughed. “Well, you did anyway.”

  “I don’t know how you survived that turn, ma’am,” said Ensign Cauley, who was due for promotion soon.

  “You’re about to find out. Let’s take it back to the ship for debriefing.”

  ***

  “The maneuver around this asteroid, even though it bled off precious energy, put me in a more advantageous position to engage the bogey.” Borland pointed to the crude yellow drawings she’d made with a stylus on the three-dimensional display screen. Her artwork left much to be desired and didn’t appear to be getting her point across to anyone but Walker, who nodded.

  “But you still pulled twenty-seven g’s, ma’am,” said Lieutenant JG Johnston, a fresh-faced young blond man. “The Raven’s limit is twenty-five, which feels like ten with the grav dampeners. We weren’t allowed to pull more than twenty with the Raven in flight school.”

  “School’s out, Johnston. You’re a naval aviator now. Do you think an enemy pilot will stop chasing you because you’ve reached a g-force limit?”

  “Not likely,” Walker said, wearing a knowing smile.

  Nice looker. Borland decided she liked him, and not only for his superior flying skills. Only that morning she met the tall, dark-haired, green-eyed pilot. He had a lean and seasoned look that led her to believe he might be as good in bed as he was in a cockpit. No ring on his finger either. And what does that matter to you?

  “Here’s the thing, you two.” She wagged a finger between Johnston and Cauley. “Dogfighting is like knife fighting in a closet. You can’t hold back and expect to win. You’ll never learn your fighter’s limits—or your own—without pushing them. And your first real dogfight isn’t the time to find out. I’m not telling you to get reckless by pulling a move like I did on your first time out, but you need to start experimenting. Learn your limitations and then expand them. The airframe envelope specified by the manufacturer isn’t chiseled in stone. Now, let’s go over what you did wrong—”

  The door slid open, interrupting her. The three seated pilots stood at the arrival of their XO, Commander Hagen.

  “Afternoon, sir,” Borland said.

  The skinny, gangly Hagen more resembled an awkward supply clerk than a fighter pilot, yet he proved one of the Navy’s best. “Good afternoon, Borland, men.” He stepped inside, clad in his gray alphas, the uniform of the day. “The CO would like to talk to you,” he informed her.

  “Do I have time to change, sir?” Borland asked. All of the pilots still wore flight suits.

  “You may go as you are.”

  Good. Though she was within naval weight standards for her height, Borland loathed the sight of herself in the gray service uniform, felt
like a cow every time she put them on. Despite regular workouts, her body had never quite recovered its youthful figure after birthing two children. On top of that, she was a bit top heavy. Between her numerous campaign medals and her bust line, the entire squadron couldn’t make eye contact with her.

  “Aye, sir,” Borland said. “Continue the debriefing, Lieutenant Walker. I’m sure you made some pertinent observations out there.”

  “Aye, ma’am.”

  Hagen departed to attend to other business.

  Borland wondered what the old man wanted. Captain Crawford tended to be brassbound, and though she didn’t fear him as the junior pilots did, the order put her on edge. A summons to his office normally portended either a commendation or an ass chewing, usually the latter. Fuck, did he look over the flight data from the sim dogfight? If so her turn around the asteroid would get her reamed out good and proper.

  She made the short walk down the hallway to her boss’s office, found the door open, and entered.

  The flying commendations on the walls and several model aircraft, dating from ancient times to the present, left no doubt as to Crawford’s profession, though he rarely flew these days due to his advanced age and command position. He typed at his holo computer, his mouth a grim line set beneath a nose that had been broken and poorly set, possibly more than once. Brush-cut gray hair bristled from his skull. Two silver eagles gleamed upon the collar of his immaculately tailored and pressed gray uniform.

  Borland marched forth and came to attention before his desk. “Sir, Lieutenant Commander—”

  “Yes, I’m aware of that. Sit down.” He pointed absently to a green leather chair before the desk as he continued typing. He jabbed the enter key and sighed with relief—his hatred of admin work well known—then turned to face her. “How did your sim fight go today?”

  Oh shit… “Pretty well, sir. Johnston and Cauley still have a lot to learn, but I’ll get them up to speed.”