THE RIDE OF A LIFETIME

High above the South China Sea, two small Navy scramjets rode the high winds in a fuel saving glide. Onboard data links kept their air-to-air communications coded and confidential.

Flight leader Mandi Kae was agitated. "There it is again. Did you see it?"

Her wingman remained calm. "I got nothing, but I believe you."

Scott Crandle reset his dual-aperture radar for the third time. The millimeter-wave lidar didn't lie. Something was in the air following the southernmost coastline. Lidar wouldn't lock. That made him think there was at least one enemy fighter out there. The stealth configuration, combined with light diffusers, would be hard to track outside of eyeball range.

Mandi continued to rely on her eyes. "This is supposed to be an inactive sector. They could be testing something."

The tone in Scott's voice left no doubt that he was interested in the unknown contact. "I hear you. We're as close as we can get without violating the official flight plan."

Mandi made up her mind. "Scott, we should get in closer."

He checked his digital map. "I'm all for that, but, hey, we're on the edge now. Any closer and we trip their automatic defense group. I don't want to get shot down for no good reason. It's too hard to explain."

She knew what he was thinking. "All right. We're coming up on the outbound leg of our pattern. Let's see if it's still there when we come back. If it is, I'll call it in."

Banking into their turn, the two interceptors headed out to sea. Crandle checked in with the carrier, verifying its position with a quick GPS check. "Washington, this is Sentry One-One, outbound. We got some scatter from the coast but no joy. Can you verify this is an inactive sector?"

"Sentry, this is Washington. Combat verifies you are in a cold sector. The big boss says download your box and let's see what you got. Intell issued an Alert-Five. Hey, maybe you got lucky."

"Roger that. If there's trouble, we'll find it."

Lieutenants Crandle and Kae had a reputation for doing just that. Each had certified air-to-air kills from a series of unorthodox encounters. Kae's speedy hand-eye coordination and Crandle's instincts made the pair one of the most effective teams flying from modern Navy carriers in this conflict.

With the contents of the pilots' secured data recorders sent to the carrier, Sentry flight continued its patrol. Changing altitude as needed, they continued to surf the high jet stream winds, floating rather than flying. On their next pass of the hostile coast, they paid more attention to their instruments.

"See?" Mandi demanded, fifty meters off Crandle's right wing.

"Yeah, I do. Why doesn't it set off the gear?"

"Software. Somebody back home didn't think these kind of readings mattered."

"That's just great. We could get shot down because some tech school turkey missed a day of class. I don't know what's tickling our systems, but it's not on the ground. If there were more than one, we'd see that, too, wouldn't we? It has to be airborne. Am I right, or did I misread the owner's manual?"

Mandi watched her own instruments closely. "We're sending out pulses that are just below normal background range. The scatter doesn't even reach the ground. Whatever that is, it's following the coastline. It might even be following us."

"I hate fans who stalk. How do you want to play this?"

"Let's change course. Follow me." Checking her bearings, Mandi snap-rolled her aircraft, veering sharply back on their course.

Scotty followed while talking to the carrier. "Sentry flight is performing an instrument test." Moving against the prevailing winds, the pilots fed power to their engines.

Mandi became excited. "It is following us! See?"

Crandle wasn't so sure. "It's not a missile. It could be a shielded helicopter. We're not moving very fast. Check your sniffer. I've got no electronic or light emissions from the shore."

Mandi checked her instruments again. "Did you catch anything about an Alert-Five before we took off?"

He sighed. "I never pay attention to Navy Intelligence. You know that. When they're not busy being wrong, they're trying too hard to lie to us. Ten bucks'll get you twenty that that Alert-Five is about killer tuna with bad breath trying to spy on our commando subs, which everyone knows don't exist."

She couldn't ignore the urge to speculate. "If it's not an active weapons system, it's a test flight--something they plan on using after the bugs are worked out. Why else would we get a reading like this in a cold sector?"

"You're starting to convince me, but then, I'm an easy date. If you're gonna call it in, we need to show the boys in black that we're not wrong."

Mandi chewed her lower lip. "Let's move back on course. If somebody's playing with us, they'll match the move. Will that satisfy you?"

He lowered his helmet's sun visor. "I'll try anything once. Let's do it and find out."

Returning to their authorized course and speed, they changed altitude several times, just to be sure the ghost was still following.

"That's it." Mandi called in the report to the carrier, explaining her findings to an intelligence officer by way of a secured satellite channel.

"It's following us along the coastline. Don't know much else. Our altitude doesn't seem to matter. If the lidar weren't blipping, we wouldn't know it was there. Is there anyway you can send me a software update?"

The carrier's flight controller wasn't impressed. "Negative. We're checking out the software angle on our end. File your report with Fleet Intelligence after you land. If there's anything to this, we'll follow it up and figure it out."

Crandle voiced his opinion when the officer was off the air. "What makes him think that UFO is going to be anywhere in this hemisphere the next time somebody comes looking?"

Mandi shared his gripe. "That's what bothers me, Scotty. If it's a test flight and we leave, they give the thing a passing grade and maybe it gets used on us someday." She paused. "I have a bad feeling about this. It's like we're close to something that matters. I don't want the history books to say we were the ones who found it and then let it get away."

Crandle had flown with her long enough to know what she was thinking. "Next orbit?"

"Next orbit. We lose the drop tanks and kick in the boosters. The fluid assist in our G-suits will take up the slack as long as we preprogram the move. No point in getting a brain bubble. Let the computers fly the mission. We'll be in and out before we can say our names."

He laughed. "Just so we have it on the flight recorders for the court martial…you do know that if we find nothing we'll to lose our flight status, right?"

"Yeah, but this is the right thing to do. If we lose pilots to that thing, we'll feel bad."

He closed his electronic map. "Okay, then. Let's have a quick review. We're two hundred kilometers out from their coast. Do we have to go feet dry to spy on this bogey, or can we stay over the water? I'm much better at ditching in water. Getting shot down sucks, but I'd do it for you--you and all the poor suckers we might be saving from a fate worse than death."

Mandi's heart skipped a beat. "I don't know, Scotty."

"Don't scare me like that. I don't like the situation, but I know we've got to do this."

She didn't like his attitude. "Have you ever noticed how doing the right thing is a lot harder than it looks?"

"Everything is harder than it looks, Mandi. Life is funny that way."

She made up her mind. "Let's go feet dry, then. The gun cameras will pick up real-time ADA reflex. The intell guys love that sort of thing. It might buy us some slack at the court martial. You remember the Hong Kong SAM batteries?"

"Remember them? Shucks, I still have shrapnel in my--"

Mandi read from the profile she'd hastily typed in to her log. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll do the same thing here--come and go so fast the sonic boom will knock them off their feet. The planes fly the mission. The gun cameras get the prize-winning photos. Lidar solves the mystery. Radar maps the defense net, and FLIR finds all the bars and hookers. If that Y-band black box thing actually works, it can do whatever it does that we're not supposed to know about."

"This is why I fly with you, Mandi. You get me in and out of trouble with style."

She became serious. "As long as we agree, let's stylishly go through the autopilot check list. You stay on the horn with fleet. Don't miss any radio checks. I'll work out the settings for the nav computer. I know how much math makes you stutter."

On the completion of their next circuit of the patrol, Mandi was ready. Quoting the necessary instrument settings and navigation parameters, she waited for her longtime friend to crosscheck and verify things on his end.

Scott was satisfied. "That's the last of it. ECM is on standby, and I'm ready."

"One more radio check to go. After that, we're fifteen seconds out. Start your counter."

Crandle keyed his mike and tried to stay calm. "Washington, Sentry One-One. Request position check and remote systems ident."

"Roger, Sentry. Switch to one-two-four-point-nine and stand by for prefix."

Ignoring the order, both pilots slipped their arms into acceleration sleeves as their fighters keeled over and sprinted through the sound barrier. Built directly into the cockpit of modern air and space fighters, these devices prevented physical harm during sudden or prolonged periods of acceleration.

Releasing their drop tanks, the scramjets gulped air as both planes dropped to the deck. The nimble interceptors flashed across the rolling surface of the ocean, leaving high plumes of salt water in their wake.

Decentralized computers charged with monitoring offshore airspace signaled the automated coastal defenses to go live as they sent similar messages to their human overseers. Integrated fire control systems analyzed and classified the incoming threats.

Pre-existing programs executed approved commands. Missiles elevated, tracked, and launched as laser emitters remained on human-dependent standby. Gauss repeaters screamed to life while particle projectors continued to charge.

Suffering under the extreme gravity load, Crandle and Kae grunted with the effort of breathing while their onboard instruments flew the planes and probed for any sign of the mysterious intermittent lidar contact. Burning through local jamming, the sensors on the speeding jets found and recorded the unidentified flying object. Cruising at treetop level, the lean, flat saucer gleamed in the afternoon sun.

Mandi shouted when she saw the flying disc. Scott's reply was lost in a sudden burst of interference. Reaching the turnaround point, the fighters obeyed their programming and vaulted into a spine-cracking turn that set off stall warning alarms as forward momentum was suddenly lost and then found.

The momentary loss of speed was enough to confuse the program that ran the area gauss batteries. Missiles tasked with striking targets far out at sea or above two thousand meters waited their turn as the intruders fled. With the go-ahead from their human masters, the hardwired brains of the particle projectors had no trouble tracking and shooting.

Mandi never saw the explosion that killed Scotty. The superheated plasma that consumed him and his fast-moving plane lit up the sky as she streaked back to the carrier. The shockwave nearly rolled her plane as she realized the loss of her wingman. Tiny flecks of red-hot metal struck her canopy and stuck. The effect was unsettling.

Removing her arms from the G-force protectors, she placed her unsteady fingers on the control surfaces. Taking a deep breath, she forced Scotty's loss out of her mind. Checking the recorders to be sure the data storage was intact, she gaped at a still shot of the saucer on her overhead display. Fifty minutes later, she was back on the carrier.

A week later, Lieutenant Kae was sent to the Navy barracks at Norfolk. Three weeks after that, she stood in front of a board of inquiry in Alexandria. Her heart sank as the situation was described.

The Navy's lead investigator was unsympathetic. "The facts of this case speak for themselves. Lieutenants Kae and Crandle really did think they were doing the right thing. This war has gone on for some time. Frankly, nobody can see the end in sight. Still, that's no excuse for breaking orders to go off on a wild goose chase. Kae and Crandle were assigned to patrol that day. That's all they should've done. It's commendable that they spotted the sensor anomaly. Once she reported it, she should've let it go. Instead, she became impatient.

"The unidentified flying object, as recorded by both pilots, is a known quantity. This board has seen classified material proving substantively that the military was aware of both it and its potential. Data supplied by Lieutenant Kae's onboard flight recorder makes it crystal clear that she instigated the plan to infiltrate enemy airspace so they could identify the source of her sensor anomaly. Voice recordings make it further obvious that Lieutenant Crandle had reservations about her plan. He went along with it because the two had a long time association. He wasn't going to let his best friend go into harm's way alone.

"As the board now knows, the object that cost Lieutenant Crandle his life is nothing more than an experimental lifting body. I wouldn't be surprised if our own people were working on something similar. Lieutenant Kae has four confirmed kills to her credit. One more and she'd be an ace. Her best friend had three kills, but he was eager. There's no telling what he might have achieved if he had lived. Government property losses aside, this case boils down to a lack of propriety and disobedience."

The court martial was mercifully swift. The defending attorney assigned to her by the Navy's Judge Advocate pled her case with all the finesse the law would allow. Behind closed doors, she was brutally honest with her client.

"We've got one thing going for us. The test bed your gun cameras ID-ed is classified. The Navy and the government would prefer to keep it that way. That means we can bargain for your silence. It's not pretty, or even dignified, but it will get you an honorable discharge on the condition that you sign a nondisclosure agreement."

As predicted, that deal was offered. Mandi accepted it. Counseling sessions before, during, and after the court martial let her keep things in perspective, but they didn't help at all when it came to dealing with Scotty's ghost.

His reckless nature and aggressive outlook had made him a natural combat pilot, despite his weak math skills. He had always been ready with a snappy comeback that could tickle, wound, or kill as needed. He made it look easy.

The official record was sealed. Mandi got her discharge. Friends and professional acquaintances stopped calling. The phone in her Annapolis apartment sat quietly as the e-mail traffic from her friends still at sea dried up. The shunning was professional, polite, and very complete. She accepted this as the price for her mistake.

"What are you going to do now?" Mandi's mom asked during a late-night phone call.

Mandi kept the video link off. "I'm not going to curl up and die, if that's what you mean. I've got some things I need to get out of my system. After that, sky's the limit."

"That sounds like something Scott would have said."

"Yeah, I know. We rubbed off on each other. The counselor helped me realize that. I never could understand how he broke the rules and got away with it. The thing is, he didn't break all the rules, all the time. Even he had his limits. I don't know why I didn't pay attention to that. All I ever saw was--"

"Stop that. Beating yourself up now isn't going to help anyone."

"That sounds funny coming from you. The way you and Dad used to push me--"

"We only did it because we loved you. We still do. Scotty was like a member of our family. Why do you think we let you bring him home for Christmas so many times? Your father loved that goofball--the son he never had, and all that. Honey, we all thought the war would be over by now. Even your father said the two of you had a bright future, with lots to look forward to when the shooting stops."

"Us? Oh, God, Mom."

"That's just your father talking, honey. He's proud of his fighter pilot daughter. As much as he liked Scotty, even he knows the two of you would never get together long enough to make babies. Your father's a dreamer. It's one of the reasons why I married him."

"He would have done it, you know. If he'd been up there all by himself, he still would have."

"So would you."

"I'm not so sure. If he hadn't been there, I might have been a little more conservative."

"When you were fifteen, you ambushed the neighborhood bully. Remember? You beat that big, strapping young man with his own baseball bat until he ran away. You come from a long line of women who won't stand for other people being in danger when they don't have to be."

The recollection made Mandi giggle. "It's not quite the same thing, but I get your point."

"Your father just handed me the newspaper. There's a career fair out here--aerospace stuff. You should come. We'd like to see you. Who knows? You might get lucky. Your cousin Theodore works on one of those new space stations."

"Theo's got a Ph.D., Mom. He's also got a brain the size of your house."

"Sleep on it and call me in a day or so. If you don't want to shop your résumé around just yet, that's okay. Please, just come and see us."

Following her mother's prescription, Mandi did sleep on it. In her dreams, the facts morphed into people or things that flew around her semi-naked body in all directions. There was only one way to go, and that was forward.

A knock on the door during breakfast startled her. Dressed in old workout sweats, she answered the door with a cereal bowl in hand. The last thing she expected to see was a lawyer.

"Lieutenant Kae? I'm Cole Fitzwater. I'm here to give you some of Scott's things. I'm sorry I couldn't get here sooner, but you know how probate is."

Mandi remembered the legal details following the death of her grandmother. "I never got a letter."

"I'm really sorry about that. I'm my own boss and I can't quite afford a paralegal. Have I come at a bad time?"

Mandi showed him in and closed the door. Sitting at opposite ends of her couch, the young man in the off-the-rack suit opened his brief case. "I've never met a poor attorney."

"Have you done this before?"

"Yes." Mandi put her cereal bowl on the coffee table.

"Great. Less to explain. If you'll sign here, here, and here, I'll be on my way."

Mandi signed the offered page and gave it back. Feeding the legal form into an optical reader built into his briefcase, the man sighed as the autodial chirped. The page scrolled through the device to lay flat in the bottom of the case as the modem disconnected.

"Great. You'll be getting an e-mail from the courthouse in the next few days to confirm this transaction. I'm glad we can wrap this up. I'm running behind on my appointments." Handing Mandi a pair of identical keys, he got to his feet and closed his briefcase.

"Scotty's bike?"

"It's downstairs. I hope you don't mind. I hired some repo guys to bring it over. It's parked behind your car. There's not a scratch on it. Sweet ride, if you ask me. Just be aware that it's a petro burner. You can transfer the registration on-line, but they're gonna gig you for a permit to use gasoline."

Mandi nodded silently as she showed the anxious man to the door. After he was gone, she eyed the shiny pieces of metal in her hand. "Real keys. What do you know?"

Tossing and catching them, she went back for the last of her cereal. The serrated metal of the keys brought back good memories. The warmth of the bronze alloy felt good. Scotty's bike was a hand-built ten-year commitment that just happened to be a motorcycle with an actual piston-driven engine.

Placing the used dishes in the sink, she put on socks and shoes. She took the elevator down to the underground parking level, walking past three rows of parked cars to her own spot.

Leaning rakishly on its chromed kickstand, Scott's bike looked like it was waiting for her with mischief on its mind. The low-slung, stretched frame had all the marks of a long-distance cruiser that could race, if the prey was willing. Variable-density tires sat like patient claws on the cold concrete. The total effect of the black steel and polished chrome dwarfed her sensible little car into mute passivity.

Scotty had learned each skill necessary to build this beast at night, while on leave, or through VR correspondence. What he couldn't fabricate, he had spared no expense in buying or having custom made.

She'd seen this machine a hundred times, but never ridden it. Each time she and Scott went riding, they used rented bikes. Glancing at the retro-style odometer, she snickered at the low numbers.

"That's gonna change."

Buff leather saddlebags wrapped around the rear end caught her attention. She hadn't seen them before. The urge to investigate was overpowering, much like the bike itself. Under the harsh fluorescent glare, she opened them and started going through them. Pulling out handmade riding leathers from one of the bags, she found boots, helmet, gloves, and a notebook in the others. The journal, with its flashy skin and Velcro strap, intrigued her.

"What have we got here?"

Leaning up against the trunk of her car, she leafed through the pages. One page contained hand-drawn specs for the bike. Another was filled with columns of numbers that she understood to be carburetor settings and other engine performance calculations.

"I thought you were bad at math, Scotty."

Frustrated scribbles in the margins told her how hard he'd tried to get it right. In the back of the pad, behind several blank pages, she found a flyer an aerospace company she'd never heard of.

"Guardian Aerospace. Interesting."

The members of the company’s Board of Directors were listed on the ad, with one name near the top circled in red ink. Seeing the name made her whistle.

"Dexter Crandle. So, this is the dad you don't like to talk about."

Inheriting the motorcycle turned out to be the high point of Mandi's week. Life outside the cockpit was dull. Making the transition to civilian life was harder than she thought. It was impossible to bridge the gaps in her formerly brisk social life with bad eating habits or sleeping late.

With her résumé posted on the net, she had no trouble getting interviews. Major airlines and small charter services wanted her. A prominent space station management firm expressed tentative interest, pending a background check. The pay would be good and the hours would be steady--a recipe for guaranteed boredom.

Unwilling to commit to any of the offers, Mandi cashed out her apartment lease and put her personal effects in storage.

"Are you sure this is what you want?" her mother asked during her last night in the apartment.

Mandi was prepared to justify her actions. "I've got enough money to start over. As long as I land on my feet in the next few months, my flight credits will still be good."

"This isn't at all like you, dear. You've always been so...so..."

"You can say it."

"Boy, you've really thought this through. Is it really that bad?"

Mandi confessed. "Yeah, Mom, it is. Look, I can't stand the idea of being anywhere near things I won't be able to fly. I have no regrets about what I did. I'd do it again. If Scott was here, he'd be riding me about getting on with the rest of my life."

"That's what your father would say if I let him have the phone. He'd also tell you that starting over at thirty isn't as bad as it sounds."

"What do you say?" Mandi asked.

"I say we'll have your room ready for you when you get here. You're cutting it kind of close. The career fair starts in three days. Will you be able to make the drive in time? The highways are awfully busy this time of year. Virginia to Nevada won't be fun."

"I'll be fine, and yes, it will be fun."

With a copy of her service record on disk, Mandi wheeled her bike out bright and early the next day. Cinching the protective gear to a close fit, she had to reset the shoulder tabs twice before the expensive leather felt right. Straddling the dormant machine, she took one last look around. The red brick exterior of the colonial-style apartment block showed no signs of life. Dark windows made her feel like she wouldn't be missed.

Checking her switches, she tapped the starter and put the gloomy thought out of her mind. Plugs fired, pistons moved, and cylinders rumbled as the big bike roared to life. Hot exhaust spewed from dual manifolds, as if the machine were rudely clearing its throat. The motor settled into an anxious rumble as the gauges centered or leveled out. Adjusting the projection mirrors, she keyed the license and ident transponder and nudged the throttle. The sudden vah-room was enough to make local pigeons take flight. Two bedroom lights came on in response to the sudden noise.

Mandi put on her helmet and motored slowly into the street without looking back. An hour later, she was on the Interstate doing twelve KPH over the speed limit and loving it. Using the modem in her helmet, she plotted her course with real-time traffic updates from two different web sites.

Engine RPMs, tire temperature, fuel consumption, and other data scrolled through her visual field. The helmet's visor reminded her of the heads-up displays from her days as a fighter pilot. The kilometers flew by faster than raindrops in the wind.

Mandi's parents lived just outside of Las Vegas. Her father was the assistant manager for a well-known casino. Her mother was a civil engineer who worked out of the family home. The house she rode toward held many fond memories. The split-level building lay in the takeoff pattern for a nearby Air Force Base. Her favorite childhood memory involved waking up to the sound of the fast jets as they spooled up first thing in the morning.

The hot southwest sun hung low in the afternoon sky as Mandi pulled into a dusty northern Nevada truck stop for gas. Two days on the road had left her arms and butt sore. Even with it's modern steering and handling characteristics, the big bike had taken its toll on her upper body. Coated in red-brown dust, she looked forward to a rest as she brought the bike to a stop in the shade. Dropping the kickstand with, she pulled the ignition key and set the alarm.

Removing her helmet, she spied a lone waitress sizing her up from behind dingy glass. Shaking her hair free, Mandi tucked the helmet under her arm and put on a pair of sunglasses. This truck stop was like all the other watering holes she'd stopped at, with two pumps for hydro, one for petro. All three were automated. A pay phone hid in the shade between the two hydro pumps. A huge aluminum wing that creaked on sand-scarred struts shaded the concrete fuelling platform.

She went into the diner for a late lunch. Afterward, she left a generous tip. Ambling back in to the dry heat, she rolled the bike over to the gas pump. A swipe of her credit card started the machinery, which took her money as it dispensed the fuel.

Rolling the refueled motorcycle out of the shade, she ignored the pain in her hips as she swung aboard. She had just put her helmet on when it came into view. Preceded by a coarse wind, the unmistakable shape of a gleaming saucer flew just a hundred meters over the flat-roofed truck stop.

Her jaw dropped. "You have got to be kidding."

Seeing the disc in flight was a terrible blow. The memories it brought back were charged with the bitterness of loss and the anger of unwanted defeat. The tears that welled up in the corners of her eyes were as much for Scotty as they were for her career. Rising anger devoured her despair. She swore vividly as the saucer left her field of vision.

She started the bike and burned rubber in hot pursuit. The instinct to chase the saucer drove her to run through the gears until the speedometer hit triple digits. Doing an easy slalom to pass the few cars on the road, she divided her attention between the asphalt and the sky.

Ahead, at two hundred meters in the air, she saw the disc bank and climb.

Mandi activated her helmet modem to examine the local road net in real time. The saucer appeared to be following the track of the highway. According to the map inset, much of the surrounding desert was private land. Satisfied, she closed down all but the most necessary readouts in her visor and prepared to attack.

With the toe of her left boot, she dropped the bike's torsion swivel into place. The device would help her make high-gravity turns. The machine leveled out as tire density changed. Instrument pads showed green lights. It was ready to sprint.

"Way to go, Scotty!"

Mandi's heart rose into her mouth as the long distance cruiser seemed to leap off the pavement. With a single tire-smoking bounce, she was off. The throttle was temperamental, which she found both scary and exciting. Leaning into the turns, she blew past the legal traffic and closed the distance to the saucer. The tailgate estimator in her helmet speculated maniacally about the speed of the fleeing saucer--at least two hundred kilometers per hour.

The autofilter in her helmet changed the visor tint to compensate for the afternoon shadows and failing sun. Reckless driver warnings flashed as she cleared her mind of the initial shock. Years of training and well-defined reflex took over as she drove past a state trooper parked out in the open.

Even running flat out, she was unable to close the distance on the flying saucer. Her fighter pilot's experience told her that she was being played with. Thinking fast, she considered her options. A police pursuit icon flashed within her field of view as she downshifted to get better control.

"Afterburners, Scotty. You put everything else on this thing except the 'burners."

Laughing through dry lips, she scanned the real-time map overlay for a place to pull off and lose the cop. Somebody wanted her to see that saucer, and she knew it. There was no other explanation.

Darting into a sprawling subdivision, Mandi had no trouble eluding the trooper. Unwilling to drive fast through high-density population, the peace officer called it in and gave up. Coming down off her adrenaline surge, she drove the rest of the way to her family's home at very legal speeds. All the while, her mind raced with the possibilities.

Gliding into the driveway a few minutes after dark, she saw her father, who appeared to be taking out the trash.

"Well, look at you. Fighter pilot and now biker."

"Dad, I've been riding for years. Knock it off."

"Don't mind me. Say, let me put this in the can and we'll go inside and see your mother." Plopping the full trash bag into the waiting crumpler, he stepped back to have a better look at his daughter.

"Made it with a day to spare." She hopped off the bike and rolled it into the carport.

"I know that walk. You must be dog-tired. Here, let me give you a hand with that."

She let him take the handlebars and park the bike out of the way. Tossing him the helmet, she stripped off the dusty leathers and handed them over, too.

"What is it with you and dirt?" her father razzed as he stowed the riding gear on the bike.

"Everyone needs a hobby," she laughed while smoothing the wrinkles out of her sweaty clothes. Crickets chirped as they walked into the house.

The reunion with her parents went late into the night. Over large stoneware mugs of hot tea and cold cut sandwiches on pita bread, she told them frankly about her court martial and the events that had caused it. Even when the tears came, she didn't hold anything back.

"I'm sorry. I haven't had the chance to tell this story to very many people."

Her father understood. "Don't sweat it, kiddo. You're a pro. You'll get through this. If I was on that jury, I would have given you a medal. You were looking out for your buddies. You take care of your friends and your real friends will take care of you. The Navy screwed up. That doesn't make it right, but there it is."

"They don't give medals at courts martial, Dad, they take them."

"Screw 'em." Her father tossed up his hands and left the room.

It was well after 2 a.m. when Mandi's mother herded her off to bed. As promised, her childhood bedroom was ready. After a fast shower, she flopped down on the bed that had gotten her through high school. She had no trouble sleeping after two non-stop days on the road. The last thing she saw before nodding off was the long shelf over her desk that displayed her academic achievements. Ribbons, framed certificates, trophies...

Waking with a cottonmouth, she raised a hand to ward off the midday sun that winked at her through partially open curtains. On the chair next to a small, neat desk, her riding clothes sat, laundered and folded. Standing at attention next to the chair, her riding boots were clean and polished.

She forced stiff joints to roll her sore body off the soft bed. The cartoon character alarm clock on the nightstand showed high noon. Shuffling to the bathroom, Mandi's ears probed the house for any sound of her parents. Nothing.

The shower woke her up and banished the aches. After dressing, she went to the kitchen, where she saw a pair of messages waiting on the videophone panel. Opening the refrigerator, she saw two wrapped plates. One had scrambled eggs and sausage with grits. The other barely held a casino-grade club sandwich. Putting the sandwich on the counter, she poured a glass of orange juice and keyed the messages.

Her mother's face popped up on the screen with an 8 a.m. time stamp. "Hi, hon. Hope you slept well. Sorry we couldn't stick around, but you looked like you needed the sleep. Breakfast is in the 'fridge. I might not be home until late. God, but I hate negotiating new contracts. Call me if you need anything."

Sitting at the breakfast bar, Mandi ate as the message from her father played. The time stamp said he had called at 10:50 a.m. "Hey, kiddo. You're sawing logs but I brought you a sandwich. I hosed off your bike this morning, too. Don't worry; I wiped it down. Your leathers are at the casino cleaners, on my tab. Pick 'em up there, or I can bring them home tonight. If you're still asleep when I come home for dinner, I'll make you cook."

Once she finished eating, she placed her used dishes in the sink and went to the living room. Using a net connection through the television, she looked up the career fair and registered. Scrolling through a long list of corporate participants, she stopped when the logo for Guardian Aerospace came up. Biting her lip, she hesitated with her hand over the radial mouse.

Would Scott's father be willing to see her? She'd never met him, and Scott had never talked about him. The subject had always been off limits. Suppose the two had been on bad terms. Would he blame her for the loss of his son?

Searching for the disk copy of her résumé gave her time to think. In the end, she sent her credentials ten firms, including Guardian.

In front of the bathroom mirror, she straightened up while giving herself a pep talk. "You're not ashamed of what you did. Why run from it? Dad's right. Screw 'em. You made a good call, so don't assume everyone hates you for it. It's a career fair. They can't fire you. And if they don't want to hire you, it's their loss."

Borrowing a windbreaker from the family coat closet, she rode downtown to the Expo Center. Riding the thoroughbred bike at sedate city speeds was pleasant in the warm midday sun.

Finding a place to park turned out to be a challenge. By 3 p.m., she was inside the Expo Center and checked in. Keeping the cheap stick-on nametag in her pocket, she wandered the exhibits. Visiting with company reps who had seen her résumé within the past hour, she chatted noncommittally about potential prospects and hypothetical job offers.

The idea of being a slow-moving commercial pilot no longer scared her. One of the company reps talked about a possible slot in their orbiter training program after five years of good service. The idea of going into space seemed almost too good to be true.

She stopped for dinner at the nearest buffet and steeled herself for the encounter with Guardian Aerospace. Making it her last stop of the night, she approached the booth with an outward show of confidence that she didn't feel. The fresh-faced rep behind the counter quickly made eye contact.

"Lieutenant Kae? I was hoping you'd stop by."

Clenching the nametag in her pocket, she smiled benignly. "Really? I didn't send a picture with my res. How did you know who I am?"

"Smith is the name, John Smith. When I'm not repping at career fairs, I surf the net and read way too much VR news. That, and my boss told me to be on the lookout for you."

"Who's your boss?"

"Dexter Crandle. He owns the company. When I'm not doing this, I'm one of his management trainees. I haven't met him in person, but I do talk to him by vidphone every day. He showed me your picture during our last conference."

Smith seemed nice enough. Thinking back to her last encounter with the saucer, Mandi wondered if he knew anything about it, then decided he probably didn't.

"Well, then. Does your company have any openings for a person like me?"

Smith remained all business. "Mr. Crandle would like to see you tomorrow morning, for an interview. I have instructions to phone in if you're up for it."

"Sure. When and where?"

He checked his watch. "We'll send a car for you at 6 a.m."

"I see. Anything else you can tell me?"

"No, I'm afraid not. Mr. Crandle has his reasons." Folding his hands on the countertop, Smith made it clear that he had nothing more to say.

"I'll bet he does," Mandi mumbled and walked away. She didn't like the way Smith had treated her. All the way home, she tried to divine the meaning behind his words.

"You want me to make some calls?" her father offered as he turned the steaks on the backyard barbecue.

"No. I don't know him, and he doesn't know me. I don't want to give the wrong impression."

"You sure Scotty never said anything about his father? Not once? Hand me that sauce."

Mandi handed over the bowl of homemade marinade. "The subject was always off limits. He was good about it, too. You know what I mean? He brushed it off like it was really no big deal."

Basting the meat as he talked, Mandi's father told what he knew. "Your mother and I each have things we can't talk about. You'd be surprised what kinds of secrets you have to keep in the casino biz. Maybe it was like that for him. If his dad runs an aerospace company, he's probably loaded. Things like that have a way of embarrassing the kid who's trying to get out of his father's shadow. It's a guy thing. Here, take this."

Mandi put the empty bowl on the picnic table and watched her father turn the meat. "I've thought about that. Scotty was never stingy with his money, and his bike has things on it that I wouldn't know where to get. Navy lieutenants may drive flashy rides, but they usually pay for them on the installment plan. No, the thing I'm really afraid of is telling him about Scotty. I'm wondering what he thinks about me, and if he holds a grudge. You know?"

Her father laughed. "Hey, this is Las Vegas. Half the people in this town have grudges. The rest are still shopping for just the right thing to be mad about. Trust me on this, kiddo. Don't let it eat you up. If he's got a beef with you, let him say it. If not, stick to the script. It's an interview. Chances are he might not even know who you are. Ever think of that?"

"No. I mean--"

He handed her a plate with a sizzling steak on it. "I know what you mean. How could Scott, who never said a word about his dad, fail to mention you to him? Right? The famous Mandi Kae, slayer of dragons and flyer of fast airplanes. Scotty was a smart guy. He knew enough to keep the two halves of his life separate. I wish I had known how to do that at his age. It might have done me some good."

She sat and reached for a knife and fork. "I never thought of it like that. I've always had just one life. How do you and Mom do it? Keep things separate and still together?"

Sitting down across from her, the elder Kae dished up some coleslaw. "When we were your age, we didn't have enough of anything between us to make even one life. When you came along, that changed. Being there for you is what helped us make the transition--balancing your life and ours on the same stack of chips. Speaking of, pass me the bag, will you?"

Mandi passed him the bag of potato chips. "I can hear Granny saying I should've been married by now."

The elder Kae plucked at his own thinning hair. "Granny's dead. Don't listen to her. You're playing the hand you've been dealt. We tried for a lot of years, but your mom and I couldn't come up with a second child. Your mother was an only, so she knew better than I did what that meant for you. For you, it's like a trapeze act, working without a net. I have brothers and sisters. I can call them for help, advice, or sympathy any time I want."

"I still have you and Mom."

"Yeah, but it's not the same. Scotty's the closest thing you're ever going to have to a brother. Think about it. You and he were thick as thieves for a long time. You watched his back, and he watched yours--without looking at your ass."

The point struck home. "I have been kinda feeling sorry for myself. Doing the right thing turns out to be a whole lot harder than it looks. I suppose I shouldn't be so quick to assume that Mr. Crandle has it in for me."

"You're off the beaten path. Trust me. I've been there. I know what it looks like. I know what it feels like, too. You're gonna find your way. It may not be the path you want, but it will still get you where you're supposed to go."

They spent the rest of the evening indoors. Mrs. Kae came home just after midnight to find her husband and daughter asleep on the couch, the late movie droning from the television. Turning it off, she gently got them up and off to bed.

The cartoon character alarm clock quacked to life at 5:30. Mandi swore when she realized she didn't remember setting it. Stumbling out of bed, she showered and dressed professionally.

At 6:02, the luxury edition of a military vehicle materialized at the end of the driveway. A stylized "G" on the door proclaimed it to be the property of Guardian Aerospace.

Contrary to her expectations, the driver didn't get out to open a door for her. The brisk morning air felt cold in her lungs as she walked down the driveway and got in. The vehicle's interior was lavishly appointed. A small bar offered juice and soft drinks. Radio, TV, and VR were all within arm's reach. Alone in a passenger compartment built for six, she didn't speak during the sixty-minute drive to a remote airstrip. A midsize executive jet took her to a hidden facility tucked into a dry lakebed.

Flanked by corporate security, she was escorted to an administrative building. There, she waited for almost half an hour. The secretary, a stuffy little man with a New England accent, then showed her into Crandle's office.

Dexter Crandle was a serious man whose serious features magnified his intensity. His very large office was decorated in a style that was far from modern. He stood in front of huge polymer windows, looking out over various hangars and runways. Nothing appeared to be flying in the early morning sky.

Mandi sat without being asked. "Thanks for the interview."

Crandle kept his back to her as he surveyed his domain. Raising an index finger to push his old-style glasses back up his onto the bridge of his nose, he cleared his throat. "Tell me about my son."

"Sir?" Ice formed in Mandi's stomach as she struggled to find the right words.

"My people have reviewed your qualifications and evaluations. They assure me you are the right person for the job I have in mind. This morning, I read your service file. As of this moment, I know more about you than I do about Scott." He paused. "If it helps, think of it as an unorthodox interview. Tell me about my son."

"I don't know where to start."

Crandle turned and sat behind his desk in one fluid motion. He steepled his fingers. The pose reminded her of the admiral who had chewed her out after she landed on the carrier for the last time.

"Start from the beginning, then. This is an interview. Be precise."

Mandi talked at length about her first encounters with Scott. His poor grasp of math had been offset by his phenomenal intuition and superior grasp of aviation fundamentals. The two had helped each other get through the grueling Academy testing. It had appeared as if Scott had never studied, but she knew better. Their assignment to the same carrier group after advanced flight training had been a stroke of luck.

"Every time I asked him about you, he put me off. Never in a bad way, but, it was like you didn't exist. I never knew what he thought about you, one way or the other."

Crandle's stark white hair seemed to move as he thought about what he'd heard. "Pardon a father's curiosity, but I have to ask. Why was there never anything between you two? You seem ideally suited to him."

The question and observation were both unsettling. "There was something between us, all right. Scott was my best friend. As wild as he was, I never knew him to make a bad call."

Crandle's large blue eyes lit up. "Trust, then?"

She nodded. "Sure, trust. Half our squadron had been replaced since the war started. It's hard to see people you went to school with not come back. We looked out for the new guys as best we could, but the new training schedules are shorter. There's a lot they don't know. When the incident happened, we both knew what we were doing. I know what it cost me, but I'd do it again."

Crandle didn't speak for several nerve-wracking minutes. Mandi refused to be cowed. She preferred to think of the behavior as an eccentricity. She waited.

"Did you kill my son?" he asked pointedly.

The question was like a punch to the face. "No, I didn't, but I am responsible. Enemy fire took him out. He wasn't a fan of instrument flying. He never would have seen the detector readings that I did. If I'd kept it to myself, or just filed the report and let it go, as ordered, he'd still be here."

Crandle's unusually long eyebrows rose. "If you had, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

She sat up straight. "That's true, but here we are."

The administrator tried to relax. "When Scott was six years old, he started asking questions about his family's heritage. He didn't much like the answers, but he learned to live with them. It sounds like you've made a similar journey. You've already said you'd make the same decision again. Why?"

She felt pinched. "There's classified material involved, so I can't say."

"I have security clearances you've never heard of. I know all about the court martial, Lieutenant. Please, go on."

"Unless you bring an active duty military lawyer into this room right now, I'm not saying another word about that."

Crandle nodded to concede the point. "Commendable."

She gave voice to her growing anger. "Look, I'm not here to bare my soul to you or to take your flak. I'm sorry about Scotty. At least once a week for the rest of my life, I'm going to wish it had been me. Every time I catch something that nobody else sees, I'm going to think twice before speaking up. What I won't do is give up, or stop doing the best I know how. I'm not a quitter. If you have a place for somebody like me on your team, talk to me. Otherwise, let me go home."

Crandle smiled as if pleased by what he heard. "Hmm. Yes. An interesting choice of words. As it turns out, I do have a place on my team for somebody just like you."

"I'm listening."

He hesitated. "It's just that we didn't anticipate your presence in Las Vegas for at least another week. That damned career fair. We should have known better. Honestly, I didn't get to bed last night. We've been that busy. Still, I shouldn't complain. You're just what we need."

"I see," Mandi replied noncommittally.

Crandle rose, paced to the end of his desk, and stopped. "We have a rather unorthodox project going on that needs a skilled pilot. The war is gobbling up all the truly qualified talent, which makes you a real find. How do you feel about experimental aerospace platforms?"

Mandi's heart pumped as her imagination soared. "That depends on what you mean by aerospace, and how experimental it is."

"Very unconventional. Out of this world, you might say," Crandle stated cryptically.

Her forehead wrinkled in consideration. "I've been flying scramjets in combat. If I can do that, I can handle your test bed. What's it take to qualify on this beast?"

"Five minutes."

Mandi blinked. "Come again? Five minutes? What are you getting at?"

"It would take some explaining. Perhaps it would be best if I showed it to you."

"Sure. What do I have to sign?"

As a front line fighter pilot who was almost an ace, Mandi didn't hold test pilots in very high regard. According to the creed of her former peers, test pilots were either too crazy for regular duty or not good enough for it. Faced with the prospect, she had to admit that it didn't sound so bad. Five minutes to qualify? This she had to see.

He pressed a buzzer, causing the stuffy secretary to bring in the necessary forms. Mandi signed the proffered secrecy agreement, clipped on a visitor's pass, and followed him out into the lobby.

Crandle signed off on the paperwork and gave it back to the secretary. "Tell them to start packing. Don't neutralize the guards until you hear from me."

The secretary avoided eye contact with Mandi as he left.

"What's that all about?"

"Nothing that concerns you, yet. This way, please."

A security detail assumed a quiet and unobtrusive orbit around the pair as they entered the elevator. Mandi observed that they carried no offensive weapons.

"Are you familiar with the Roswell crash?"

Mandi had to think about that as the elevator descended. "That was back in 1947. Some kind of alien spaceship hoax, if I remember it right."

"That's the one." Crandle seemed hurt by her classification of the event.

"That was a hundred years ago. What, are you trying to tell me something like that really happened?"

"The event itself was real. Only the outcomes are fictional."

Mandi was unsure of his meaning, so she stayed quiet.

The elevator let them out ten levels underground. An electric tram took them to an enclosed elevator-assisted hangar bay. Without any explanation, Crandle barged through a large armored door that seemed to move aside on its own.

"My God," Mandi gasped in shock when she saw the gleaming saucer in the center of the elevator cradle. Bright lights from all around the ten-story bay glittered off the polished surface of the vehicle. For the first time since she had seen it in flight, she had an approximation of its size.

"I really must apologize for the incident in China. You didn't kill Scotty. We did. We were testing the vehicle's passive ECM against the Chinese defenses. Our lead engineer and the government's test pilot were aboard. They decided to take advantage of your presence to see whether your planes' detection systems would perform any better than those of the Chinese had. They followed the movement of your patrol and mimicked your flight paths as best they could, as part of the test, and, well… you know the rest. I, for one, had no idea--"

Turning on her heel, she slapped Crandle with enough force to knock him down. The revulsion that propelled her hand also caused her to scream.

"You bastard!"

The security detail pounced.

Sidestepping one guard to punch another, she snap-kicked a third one to his knees as the rest closed in to mob her. They brought her down using knuckle-mounted stunners and restrained her with nylon cuffs.

Crandle stood and called off his bodyguards. He shook off his disorientation and checked the damage to his teeth. A large, unnaturally vivid, blue-toned bruise began to rise on his left cheek.

Mandi got to her knees and glared at him.

He produced a handkerchief and dabbed at the vermilion blood showing at the corner of his mouth. "If there is any truth to the philosophy of karmic justice, I deserve much more."

When she didn't respond, he paused to give his guards a few reassuring words.

He stepped in to her field of view. "Our spacecraft was shot down by a piston-engine fighter. Can you believe that? We had traveled farther than you can imagine, thinking we were so smart, and we were brought down by ten pieces of copper-jacketed lead the size of your thumb. I was just a little boy then, but I remember it like it was yesterday."

Mandi turned so she could see the saucer. It had to be a hundred and sixty meters wide. It rested flat on the bay floor. She estimated its height at ten meters. Looking back at Crandle, she waited for him to continue.

"It's real, all right. I'm told you tried to drag race with it yesterday. That's how we knew you were in the area. I can't begin to tell you how pleased we were."

"Why me?"

"We would've hired just about anyone who walked through the door, as long as they were familiar with hypersonic flight systems. Still, I'm glad it's you instead of just any-old-body."

"Great. Aliens with taste."

Crandle touched the bruise on his face and got down on one knee, careful to stay out of arm's reach. He wiped a tear from one eye. "Your species and mine have a lot in common. For one thing, we don't kill our children if we can help it. I'm like you. I'll never be the same again. In my native tongue, 'Scott' translates into something like 'good purpose' or 'good reason.' My son died for no good reason and I can never do anything that will come close to atonement."

"Funny how things work out." Mandi turned her own tear-streaked face back to the saucer.

The older being tried to be compassionate. "If there is any one thing I'd like to take home with me, it's the human concept of humor. But no, there is nothing funny about this. A part of me is gone, and I'll never be whole again."

She thought about the ad in the back of the notebook.

"You put that flyer in with Scott's things."

He bowed his head. "Yes. Based on our understanding of the human mind, we thought you'd come looking for a job. With a sealed court martial on your permanent record, you won't be flying anything faster than a commuter plane. If you do get picked up by one of the space-based firms, you'll be flying a desk that has a very good view of the Earth, and little else to recommend it."

"Okay, I'll bite. Why the desperate need for a completely human pilot?"

Crandle dabbed at his lip. "The U.S. government swept up the wreck of our ship and brought it here. None of the adults survived the crash, and the bureaucrats didn't know what to do with all the kids. We've been kept under lock and key, as it were, ever since we can remember."

Mandi gestured at the parked saucer. "It looks like you've been staying busy."

"When we first arrived, the engineers at this facility tapped into what little we knew about how the saucer's technology worked. Our limited understanding was enough to get us started. As we got older, they put us to work and we built on what they gave us access to. Some of us are responsible for some of the technology you take for granted."

"Such as?"

"The taser that stunned you. The cuffs that bind you. Both were used on us long before they found their way into the civilian world."

"Doesn't sound like much of a life."

He shrugged. "We have our own malls, movie theaters, schools, libraries… even a full university. The one thing we don't have is our freedom. In the course of rebuilding our ship, most of its technologies have been turned against us."

"How so?" she demanded.

"Every control system that matters is DNA-coded. The ship works for humans, but it won't work for us. Your official government has no idea that we exist, but your shadow government is more than willing to act on its fears."

"So, I guess that means the goon squad is…"

Crandle glanced at his guardians. "Yes. The people who oversee this place do let us breed."

"Which is how Scotty came along. Look, can you cut me loose? It's not as if I'm going anywhere. I certainly can't help you if my hands fall off."

Crandle scowled. "I need your word that you won't do anything rash. This is a classified installation. Nobody will ever know you were here if it becomes necessary to have you killed."

Mandi sniffed and got to her feet. "Even if you let me walk out the front door, nobody would believe me. Besides, now that I've seen it, you have got to let me fly it." Turning to face the saucer, she waited for someone to cut her bonds.

"Do it," Crandle told the nearest guard.

"How much of this facility do you control?"

He motioned her to follow as he started walking. "Ninety percent, actually. The bureaucrats who watch us have gotten lazy. None of us has tried to escape in almost forty years."

"How many of 'us' are there?"

"Fifty-three."

"How did Scott get out?"

Crandle was embarrassed. "Ah, yes, that. Well, some of the base personnel are sympathetic to us. Scott's mother is human. Don't look at me like that. I love her with all my heart. You may not have found your soul mate yet, but I have. After he was born, we discovered his DNA is a near-perfect match to human. Good enough to fool the sensors on the ship."

"I get it. You guys are your own doctors, so you hid the truth."

Mandi grinned when she saw that the saucer was bigger than she'd suspected.

He fidgeted. "We kept it from him for as long as we could. My wife made up a story about being pregnant by another man. I pretended to be outraged. The administrators here ate it up. Scott was allowed to have what you might call a normal life, as long as he kept secrets."

"I would've never guessed. Not in a million years. He did get around with the ladies. And hey, now that I think about it, he could drink like a fish. Almost, but not quite, human."

The admission came slowly. "Scott hated what he was. He resented me for having to hide it. As long as we don't let doctors draw blood, we can pass for human."

Mandi spat to clear her mouth. "I don't understand. You can't hide a fart from the Navy doctors. How'd he do it?"

Mandi's crude behavior surprised Crandle. "Tsk, tsk. You can hide anything with the right drugs in your system. The pharmaceutical industries on this continent alone have been producing everything we needed for the last seventy years. Two pills taken once a week kept Scott fully camouflaged."

The idea was hard to take. Still, the facts did not lie. She was on her knees, at the mercy of a man from another world, next to a flying saucer that came from parts unknown. The thought of alien parts made her take a closer look at the vehicle.

"How long did it take you to put it back together?"

Crandle spoke with fatherly pride. "Fifty-nine years, give or a take a few months. Working with the base engineers, we bridged a lot of gaps. Made the tools to make the tools, if you know what I mean."

"That takes a lot of resources."

Crandle tapped his watch. "Despite the incarceration, we have a surprising amount of authority that extends well beyond the gates of this facility. Guardian Aerospace has several legitimate government contracts. All of us have retirement plans, stock portfolios, and bank accounts. I'm sure you'd like to hear the rest but time is a factor. Would you like to see the cockpit?"

"What's the hurry? Why can't I have both?" Mandi asked as she fell into step.

Crandle gave hand signals to his guards as he shuffled. "Follow the curve of the hull. Keep going until you see the ramp. We originally planned for Scott to come back to us after the war or, when his military enlistment was up. We would've put him to work as a test pilot, and he'd fly us out of here when the time was right."

Mandi faltered. "I'm sorry."

He glanced at her meaningfully. "Scott severed his ties with us shortly after he met you. Instead of coming back here for Christmas, he spent that time with you and your family. Some of the people you're going to meet in the next few minutes will hold that against you. I won't."

"What about your wife?"

Crandle answered slowly. "Her son is dead. She's entitled to her bitterness. She and I have a lot to work through. She may not think well of you, but she won't be rude if she can help it."

Mandi touched frigid metal. "Cold."

"Photothermic." Crandle beamed. "The ultimate battery. We developed operational physics from the same principles used to study the sun. The cold you feel is a byproduct of things going on at the atomic level. When the ship flies, the skin gets colder."

Mandi withdrew her hand and looked at it. "Icing?"

"Not on this cake. Scramjets top out at about twelve thousand kilometers per hour. Icing is inhibited through a classified process that occurs when the ship deflects nitrogen gas."

Mandi caressed the cold skin one more time. "I can't believe Scott passed on this."

Crandle was pragmatic. "When you meet his mother, you'll figure it out real fast. She has a stubborn streak that I may never get used to."

Rounding the saucer, Mandi saw the sleek ramp curving down to the ground. A trio of gray-suited workers was hauling large plastic crates into the ship. Behind them, three robotrucks waited to be unloaded.

She ignored the workers as she ducked inside the cavernous hull. "How big is it?"

Crandle paused to speak to one of his guards before following. "Two hundred and ten meters in diameter and twelve meters high. Roughly fifteen hundred metric tons."

Mandi whistled when she saw the empty interior. Thrusting both hands into her windbreaker, she surveyed the exposed support members. Conduits and electronic nodes appeared to be temporary. A rough platform near the open hatch showcased an elaborate workstation that reminded her of the combat bridge on an aircraft carrier.

"There's enough room in here for two decks," she observed.

Crandle stopped behind her with a sigh. "There was only one deck, Lieutenant. The interior spaces were not restored because we are not trusted. Our masters let us build a mockup so we could test our engineering, but..."

"What was in here?"

"Quarters and facilities for a hundred; engineering spaces and flight deck; cargo. Based on the architecture we were able to recreate, we think this was a mass-produced vehicle, the equivalent of a family car. Mini-van, possibly."

Mandi looked around. "Engines?"

He steered her to the flight deck. "Not in the way you mean. It doesn't push. It doesn't pull. It 'falls' in whatever direction you want it to go. When powered, it changes mass on the quantum level. There is a projected field involved, but we haven't cracked its potential yet."

"Sounds like you have a long way to go."

Near the center of the brightly lit flight deck, offset to one side, a gyro-stabilized chair with kinetic restraints rested on a sliding gimbal. Chairs with similar straps folded into three workstations arrayed behind the flight position. Monitors, readouts, and displays ringed the entire deck.

"If we stayed, we might never finish. That's why we need you. Here, have a seat."

Mandi watched as Crandle gestured to the flight couch while studiously avoiding close proximity to any instrument or workstation.

She plopped in the seat, gesturing at the control column that swung into place. "You can't touch this?"

"No. Go ahead, try it out."

Cracking her knuckles for show, Mandi grasped the control column and watched with amazement as the ship's instruments came to life. The sudden startup was enough to startle the workers.

"It's all right. Keep working," Crandle told them loudly.

Mandi noticed two men rolling Scott's motorcycle into the cargo area. "Excuse me? I love that bike as much as anything else, but--"

Crandle shrugged. "Weight and space are not a factor. My son built that with his own hands. It's the only part of him that can make this trip. You wouldn't deprive me of that, would you?"

When Mandi didn't speak, he prodded gently, "Please, tell me if anything looks familiar."

Surveying the readouts, Mandi used the chair's motor swivel to turn and face Crandle. "I see a lot of automatics. Flight characteristic mods, navigation, and a whole bunch of other stuff."

Crandle stepped back from the pilot into a clear space. "Think of it like a desktop flight simulator. Simple instrument flying."

She ran her fingers over the contours of the control column. "If that's true, why do you need a qualified pilot?"

"They won't voluntarily let us leave, Lieutenant. The ship is not now, nor has it ever been, armed. As homesick as we are, none of us is stupid. We need a skilled pilot to handle whatever comes up that might be...difficult."

She surrendered. "I get it. It's just all happening so fast. If I agree to do this, when will we leave? Do I get to come back to Earth when the dust settles?"

Mandi watched as the workers kept piling crates on the floor of the ship. The flight deck had a good vibe. The gyro chair felt right. The chance to fly again seemed too good to be true.

Crandle's demeanor softened. "I keep calling you by your rank, and I'm sorry for that. It must remind you of what you lost."

When she didn't reply, he pushed on. "Look, Mandi. We want to leave right now. It's the last thing our overseers will expect--the element of surprise and all that. That's what all this is for." Casting a nod over his shoulder, he indicated the teamsters.

"You've got to be kidding." Mandi couldn't help the snort that came out. She wiped away a line of sweat and smiled awkwardly.

"I'm not, Mandi. I never kid. Think about what you've seen. Think about what you will see if you make this happen for us. What more incentive do you need?"

"Touch one of these controls." Mandi changed the angle of her swivel, pushing the command column in Crandle's direction.

Licking his lips, he stared at the contoured grip for a long moment. "I'm not sure you know what you're asking. This could kill me."

"Yeah, well, that's the thing. Everything I see here can be faked, somehow. I'm not calling you a liar. I'm just being a good skeptic. You're asking me to take a ride that I might not come back from. Touch the stick, Mr. Crandle. Convince me."

He walked back to the open hatch and called all the workers out of the ship. Giving them a quick pep talk, he followed with detailed instructions. As the trio fled the scene, he slowly made his way back into the saucer.

"You should know that we're making preparations to leave within the hour."

She was unmoved. "If what you say is true, this crate doesn't move until I'm satisfied that there really is a DNA lockout. You seem to be the big boss. That makes you the ideal candidate to convince me."

Stopping within arm's reach of the pilot's chair, he took off his glasses and put them away. "I want your word that you'll do it, no matter how this turns out. Take my people home."

"How do you guys know where home is?"

"We don't. We think the ship has an autopilot function that will get the job done once you've cleared the planet's atmosphere."

Mandi was shocked. "You think? You don't know?"

Crandle shook his head in fear and frustration. "We've tried. We really have. We've devoted our lives to this chore. We have a first-grader's understanding of our native tongue. The same is true of the math. As much as we've been able to piece together, there's a whole lifetime of things we just don't know. We can't know what to do when we don't know where to start. As far as our overseers are concerned, we haven't cracked the stellar navigation programs. We're going on best guess, and hoping for the best."

"The last time I did that, somebody died."

"I know."

Crandle shut his eyes and reached for the flight control.

Touching it and pulling away, he shrieked as a bolt of unshielded lightning arced from the roof, through his body, and into the bowels of the saucer. The residual heat flash and static discharge curled Mandi's hair. She let out a scream when he fell. Ozone mingled with the smell of burnt hair. Greasy smoke wreathed Crandle's body as he shuddered and went still.

Flight deck lighting went from white to red as a whole host of alarms sounded. An artificial voice bleated about unauthorized access and went silent. Ten seconds later, the red lighting changed back to white.

Mandi got out of the chair and went to him. She bent over to check for a pulse. Crandle's pale skin quivered at her touch. Alarms wailed across the cavernous hangar bay.

"Please don't be dead."

Mandi's heart raced as her fingers probed his flaccid skin. Cupping his chin in her hand, she turned his head slowly. Crandle's eyes remained rolled back despite her best efforts to shake him back to life. Laying him flat, she started CPR.

An ambulance screeched to a halt at the bottom of the ramp. A trio of paramedics burst in as she was going through her second set of chest compressions. Moving out of their way, a wiry little man dressed as an Air Force officer pulled her aside.

"We're in the soup now. You'd better sit back down and start your pre-flight."

"I didn't think it would be--"

The officer touched her shoulder. "Stop it. Look at me. Pay attention. We don't have time for you to melt down. Dexter's a good man. We'll miss him if he dies. He picked you, and that's good enough for me. Sit down, shut up, and fly the damned ship."

"It's not that simple. Somebody needs to show me--"

"Somebody higher up the food chain must have thought we'd try something. Tripping the DNA sensor isn't supposed to put the whole base on alert. Sit. I'll be right back. If you leave the safety of this ship, you'll probably be shot."

Mandi watched the little man run from the saucer. Behind her, the paramedics were charging a defibrillator. She looked down at Crandle. The chatter of automatic weapons fire drowned out the sound of arguing voices. Gauss repeaters pinged and blasters split the air with supercharged particles.

Stumbling back to the pilot's chair, she quickly searched the workstation readouts for anything that resembled a checklist. A ragged cough from Crandle's parched throat announced that he was still among the living. She scrolled through a series of promising menus, cheering when she found what she was looking for.

"I don't know what half this stuff means, but this part seems pretty clear. Here goes nothing." Sitting in the gyro chair, she swiveled between workstations, following the numbered and lettered instructions on the screen.

He sat up and blinked. An oxygen line dangled from his nose. Looking around, he smiled at the paramedics. "What's going on outside?"

One of the EMTs talked while packing his gear. "The DNA sensor alerted the base. You know the MIBs. They live for this stuff."

Crandle tried to clear his head. "Where are the engineers? She needs guidance."

"I'm sure they're coming, sir."

"Stop fussing over me, and get out there. Help the others."

Crandle held the oxygen bottle in one hand while steadying himself with the other. As he watched the medics leave, he considered his options.

"Hey!" Mandi shouted, trying to get his attention. "Talk to me. I'm up to my eyeballs in power settings. I don't see anything about fuel."

Crandle rubbed his eyes before putting his glasses on. "Don't get hung up on the little things. The engines and fuel cells are encased in the outer ring of the saucer. Even if I understood it, we don't have time to take you to school. This ship is fueled at all times. That's all I know."

Mandi swore when she got another red indicator. "What's the cruise range? How far can we go?"

"I don't know," Crandle sighed.

She stopped typing.

He swore. "Don't start with me, Mandi. I handle the administrative details. The engineers were supposed to be here to walk you through this. As you can see, our plan has flaws."

Waving a scarred hand at the open hatch, he perked up as a dozen people carrying suitcases and assorted shoulder bags scrambled aboard.

Mandi frowned. "Flaws? Crandle, these people have no place to sit. I don't know what I'm doing, and you're not helping. We're way beyond flawed. I'm stuck. I need help or we're not going anywhere."

He was about to speak when one of the new arrivals grabbed him by the arm. "It's me--Dix. Maybe I can help."

Crandle smiled at his red-haired brother. "Where are the others?"

"Dead or detained. It's a mess out there, Dex. They were ready for us."

"Did you bring it?"

Dix held up a brushed metal attaché case. "I wouldn't be much of a brother if I didn't."

Crandle patted his younger brother confidently. "Get to work."

Dix looked at Mandi, then around at the rest of the interior. "Where's Dottie?"

Crandle cast a frantic look around. "She'll be here. I'll go outside. Get busy."

"Come on, Dex. Let me get somebody else to do it. You're no good to us dead."

Dix went back to the milling crowd and spoke quickly. A man in civilian clothes rushed back out into the hangar.

Mandi stopped what she was doing to watch another group hurry in. Like Crandle, most appeared to be older. She guessed they were mainly in their fifties and sixties.

Dix Crandle approached her, holding the attaché case up for her to take. "Hi. Take this. Do you know what a DCM module is?"

Mandi opened the case. "Yeah, sure. Plug it into the flight computer and it downloads a coded navigation plan. They use 'em in the Navy all the time. Kept us from knowing where we were going until after we took off."

"It works the same way for us. Plug into the number three work station."

Scrambling up on to the flight deck, Dix checked his position relative to all the equipment and stood his ground as more stragglers arrived.

Mandi fit the module to a wireless interface and pressed it into the socket. All the red indicator lights she'd triggered turned green. Images on monitors and displays changed.

"This is the second key that's changed my life," she joked.

"Come again?" Dix asked, not understanding the reference.

"Never mind. Ah, looky here. Start up. Pre-flight. Pre-programmed maneuvers." Mandi used her right hand on the command column to toggle through the menus as she looked at the overhead control panels. Looking at Dix, she smiled.

"I've seen these menus on a couple different planes. Piece of cake."

Dix checked his tie and nodded. "It's a variant on the Tomcat configuration. Please, don't let me slow you down. I programmed the interface, but I'm not a flight engineer."

Swiveling back to the number one workstation, Mandi flipped a pair of switches indicated by one of the overhead monitors. Outside, the gunfire sounded like it was getting closer.

"Tomcat? Why'd you use something so old?" She pointed to a menu item. "What does this mean?"

Dix looked before replying, "Engine settings. Ignore them. It's okay. You're dong just fine." He paused before answering her other question. "Some of us worked on the Tomcat back in the early 1970s. The overseers liked our work so much, they let us in on the stealth fighter prototype."

Without warning, a trio of armed men burst into the saucer. Mandi recognized them as part of Dexter Crandle's security team.

"We have to go now!" their leader barked.

"Mandi..." Crandle prodded from where he sat.

"I'm working on it."

With more help from Dix, she finished the startup and preflight checklists. The instrument readings changed, as did the images on the monitors and displays.

She was blown away when she saw the new setup. Looking first at Dexter, then at Dix, she said, "Wow. Now this I understand. It really does look like a flight simulator."

Crandle looked at his brother with pride. "Dix, show the lady where the hangar controls are. If I had known your work was this good, I wouldn't have given you such a hard time."

Dix pointed to a workstation and talked Mandi through working the controls.

"Nobody else is coming. Close the hatch," Crandle's lead protector commanded after sagging against a stack of crates. Mandi looked to Dexter for confirmation.

"Do it," he said gravely.

"Second cycle on your number two mouse," Dix offered quietly.

She couldn't tell who was winning the fierce firefight outside the ship. Turning in her seat, she looked at the two-dozen survivors huddled among the crates. Desperate eyes looked back at her. Toggling the control, she closed the hatch. The flexible metal of the ramp folded silently into place. The sudden lack of external noise worried her.

"You're gambling that they won't shoot us down?"

Crandle smiled. "Mandi, we'll be gone before they get that kind of authorization."

She activated the hangar's elevator. "I hope so."

Dix pointed to a monitor directly over his head. "See this? Click on it. The password is one-one-seven. The VR images you see in the second tier of displays represent three-sixty video. You stay in the chair and turn to see what you want to look at. Fly it like it's your Navy jet. When you see the surface doors open, go to half power and get us out of this bay."

As the elevator deck began to rise, Mandi wondered why she didn't feel it in the pit of her stomach. Looking around the interior of the ship, only her vision indicated that the ship was in motion.

"The doors." Dix moved to stand under another display. "Watch the surface doors. This elevator will take sixty seconds to bring us up. Those doors can close in half that time. If you see them start to move, gun it."

Looking down at her hand, Mandi checked to make sure her fingers were on the correct studs and switches. She watched and waited. Above them, the sky was bright. Autofilters began to adjust the light levels as the elevator near the surface.

Stepping clear of her chair's swivel radius, Dix unfurled his tie and tossed it away. "When we break the surface, we'll be fired on by weapons you've never heard of. Energy leeches. Things they developed as a spin-off of the saucer project. Ignore the bells and buzzers. Some of the screens might go blank. Fly easily, and do whatever it is you do to avoid being hit by hostile fire."

She rolled the throttle to the half setting.

The images on the VR display were her only indications that they'd shot out of the underground bay and soared into the hot morning sky. Rolling over, she put the saucer into an upside-down sprint. Hugging the ground, she guided the ship between a pair of ten-meter tall gun towers. Seeing what she thought was the perimeter fence, she reversed the nimble ship's course as a dozen missiles launched from their hidden positions.

Whipping through a corkscrew turn, she righted the ship and was surprised to see that her sudden movements had stirred up a local tornado. She glanced sidelong at an airspeed indicator. The reading caused her to do a double take.

"Seven thousand KPH," she squealed through tight lips as her reflexes kicked in to move the ship around a rising helicopter gunship. The black VTOL wallowed in the backwash, then fell out of the sky to explode on the ground fifty meters below.

Comfortable in the self-stabilizing environment, Dix stood under another screen. "Steer this course for ten seconds, then climb until we're in space."

Mandi complied, losing two precious seconds finding the right display. Wiping sweat away with her free hand, she flinched when the ship passed through a barrage of exploding flak.

"I thought we were easy to shoot down." Glancing at Dix, she kept her main attention focused on the cloud layer they were passing through.

Dexter coughed. "At speeds over five thousand kilometers per hour, the hull changes density. A little something we failed to mention to our former masters."

Dix suppressed a smile. "They would have figured it out eventually."

Watching the instruments and display, Mandi was speechless when they transitioned into the vacuum of space.

"I can't believe I'm here," she muttered after a reverent moment.

Changing VR magnification, she zoomed in on the closest space station.

"It's a little late for doubts," Dexter replied as he forced himself to stand. Leaning on a crate, he limped to the edge of the raised flight deck.

"Go back to the navigation station and change modes," Dix ordered. "See? Horizontal and vertical data points, all based on a floating point variable."

Mandi gaped at the indecipherable screen. "Which means?"

"It's the equivalent of interstellar lats and longs," Dexter interjected. "The overseers didn't let us work on it, so we did it in secret. It's based on our native math--what you'd call versilimetric geometry."

"How does it work?"

"We don't know," Crandle replied, slowly shaking his head.

Dix cleared his nervous throat. "Don't scare the woman, Dex. Here, let me show you the big secret," Dix said, overcoming his trepidation enough to take a step closer to the number two workstation.

"I see." Mandi followed Dix's directions, then paused. "No, I don't."

He smiled. "It's okay. The ship knows where to go. That reminds me, you'd better check your course. We don't want to hit the moon."

"So, how do we tell it to go home?" she asked as she made minor course corrections.

Dix pointed to a flashing prompt. "Run this program... we think."

"I see that you guys brought a sack lunch, but how long will this take? If we don't know where we're going, we sure can't know how long it will take to get there, can we?"

Crandle looked at his brother. "Start the program, and let's find out."

Swiveling in close, Mandi eyeballed the menu and raised a finger over the touch-sensitive screen. "I just want to say, for the record, that doing the right thing is harder than it looks."

Crandle thought he understood. "We're in your debt, Mandi. I'm sorry things turned out this way. If they don't work out now, it's still important that you know how much we all appreciate your being here. If we get home, I'll spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you."

Mandi thought about the administrator's family. Then she thought about her parents. "I don't really have anything to complain about. Compared to you, I've had it easy. I've never had anything to hide. I've always just tried to do the right thing, no matter what situation I'm in." Touching her finger to the screen, she activated the program. The bright lights on the flight deck winked out, one by one, leaving the interior of the saucer darker than it had been.

"Dix?"

"I have no idea, Dex. Must be due to the power draw."

Mandi cringed when half the instruments failed. A feeling of weightlessness came over her and she could hear the survivors worrying among themselves. "VR's out. Could we be on our way?"

Dix rubbed his chin. "I don't think so. It's all theoretical, but--"

"Give it a minute," Crandle urged.

"Dex is right. The saucer is actually not our best work. We've been making this up as we go along."

With a loud pop, the flight deck lights came back on. Instruments lit and the VR cycled back to full operation. Mandi said nothing as the automatic systems enhanced a far-off star field. According to what she saw, they were now in deep space. With the return of normal gravity, she began to feel sick.

Dix stood well within arm's reach of the number one workstation. "Mandi, have a look."

She coasted over to read the screen for herself. "Estimated time of arrival is sixty-four hours, fifty-eight minutes. Wow."

Dix was thrilled. "We're doing it! We're going home. I wish the others could have seen this."

He jumped down to stand next to his brother. The other survivors cheered.

"It's a great day." Dexter sat down and took off the oxygen hose.

"I'm going to go see what supplies we've got," Dix said, gesturing at the crates. He went to mingle with the others.

"Hey."

Dexter looked up to see Mandi staring down at him from the edge of the flight deck.

"I don't think this thing needs me for a while. Can we talk?"

"Sure. Come on down," Crandle replied, gesturing at the floor.

Hopping down in one long stride, Mandi accepted a pair of full coffee cups from one of the survivors. Sitting down, she offered one to Crandle.

"We have coffee. We can't be totally screwed. Until it's time to land, that is."

Dexter took a sip. "It's not hot."

Mandi raised her cup in salute. "Yeah, but your pilot is. It's like Scott used to say--into and out of trouble with style."

"He really said that?"

She nodded. "He did. I'm really sorry he missed this. It's the ride of a lifetime."

"Tell me more about my son."

"Tell me about your wife first."

"I'm not sure I'm ready for that."

"Okay." Mandi knew she was coming down off the adrenaline rush of still being alive.

"Your parents must be quite proud of your ability to see things through."

Mandi's expression changed. "We don't know where we're going. We don't know if we can land. For all we know, this could be a one-way trip. Oh, yeah, my parents are very proud of their daughter, who doesn't hesitate to do what's right."

"I didn't mean to be insulting. Scott and his mother were like you. That's all I meant."

She made a zooming motion with her cup. "Are we talking about the same Scotty Crandle? The guy who always flew by the seat of his pants?"

Dexter thought about that. "We have time. Let's compare notes."