So she simply drifted. There was nothing else to do. She drifted for a long time. Eventually, she stopped looking at her helmet chrono. Periodically, she took sips of the nutrient concentrate the suit's life support system dispensed, with no great enthusiasm-the stuff would keep you alive, but it tasted like puke. Mostly, she let her mind wander listlessly through the landscape of memories.
Then, after some fraction of eternity, she spotted another vacsuit.
Somebody from the shuttle, maybe? she wondered. If so, he's probably dead already.
But if he isn't . . . That's a standard vacsuit, but from this close, I ought to be able to pick up even its dip-shit transponder code. Assuming it was transmitting. So it must not be. And with no transponder, he's got no chance.
Without further thought, she maneuvered herself into the right alignment and activated her thruster pack.
The gas was nearly gone when Irma was still about fifty meters short of the other suited figure. She cut the thrusters and let herself coast onward. She managed to snag the other suit en passant, and they tumbled on together in a clumsy embrace for a few seconds before she was able to use the last of the gas to halt the sickening motion.
Well, that's just dandy! No more thruster.
Irma brought her helmet into contact with the other's for direct voice communication with a certain resentful emphasis. She gazed through the helmet visor, but whatever this poor bozo had been through, his suit hadn't gotten off unscathed. It was so badly scorched she couldn't even make out the rank insignia, much less the name which had once been stenciled across the right breast, and there were spatters of what had to be blood daubed across it. The enviro pack didn't look any too good, either, although at least the external tell-tales were still flashing yellow, not burning the steady red of someone who would no longer need life support at all. Even the visor's tough, almost indestructible armorplast was heat-darkened. She could barely see into it at all, but she caught the impression of open eyes, looking back at her, so at least the guy was alive and conscious.
"You all right?" she demanded.
"Yes, more or less." The answering voice was badly distorted by the transmitting medium of their helmets, but it sounded a little old for regular space crew. Not weak, or shaky. Just . . . like it ought to be accompanied by gray hair.
"Thank you-I think," it went on. "You must be a fighter pilot, from the looks of your suit."
"Yeah-Lieutenant Commander Irma Sanchez, commanding VF-94. If," she added bitterly, "there's any VF-94 left to command."
"So you have a chance of being found, by someone tracking your transponder. And now I have that chance, too. Yes, I definitely thank you, Commander. By the way, I'm-"
"Can the thanks, Pops," Irma cut him off rudely. "I just pissed away my ability to maneuver-not that it was doing me much good. And before that, I'd gotten my fighter blasted out from under my ass to save that shuttle you were on. So don't thank me, all right? I wasn't doing you a favor. I was just being stupid-as usual!"
The old-timer didn't seem to take offense. Instead, the poorly transmitted voice only sounded thoughtful.
"VF-94 . . . yes, I seem to recall. On Hephaestus, right? And aren't you the last of the human squadrons to have non-human pilots?"
"We were. We had an Ophiuchi pilot-a damned good one. But he's dead now."
For no particular reason, the reminder of Eilonwwa knocked open a petcock which had been holding back a reservoir of hurt, and now it poured out in a gush of rage.
"He got killed just like everybody gets killed who deserves to live! Like my lover-we were in the Golan System, when the Bugs came, do you know that? He stayed. So did the parents of a little girl I took with me in the evacuation. And now they're Bug shit! Do you understand that? And now I'm in the goddamned fucking military so I can kill Bugs. I've killed them and killed them and killed them, and there's just no fucking end to them, and I'm fucking sick to death of it!"
She jarred to a sudden halt and sucked in a deep, shuddering breath as she realized she'd been screaming into this inoffensive middle-aged guy's helmet.
"Sorry, Pops," she said uncomfortably. "Didn't mean to blast your eardrums."
"Oh, that's all right. And yes, I think I do understand. I've lost friends myself. I just lost a lot of them, when Riva y Silva went. And before that . . . I lost my brother."
"Shit. I shouldn't have dumped that load on you."
"That's all right," the man repeated. "But tell me: what about that little girl? What happened to her?"
"I adopted her. It was all I could do, especially after . . . after losing the child I was carrying."
"I'm sorry."
"Anyway," Irma went on, "she's going to be twelve in a few days. I haven't been able to see all that much of her, just whenever I can get leave. And every time I do, it's been so long that . . . well, it's as if . . . Hell, there I go again. Why am I telling you all this?"
"Possibly because I'm the only other human being available," the man said, and she could have sworn she heard something almost like a smile in the distorted voice. "Anyway, I'm glad you have. It reminds me of why we're doing what we're doing."
"Huh?"
"You see, you're wrong about one thing. There is an end to the Bugs. It's right here, in this system."
"So? It's not like it'll make any difference to you and me. Face it: transponder or no transponder, the odds are about a million to one against our being rescued. Nobody's going to come looking for survivors out here in the middle of all these cubic light-minutes of nothing."
"It's possible that you're being too pessimistic," the old-timer suggested in an odd tone, almost as if he were chuckling over some private joke. Which was just a bit much out of somebody in a suit that was about to crap out in the middle-literally-of nowhere at all.
Something scornful was halfway out of Irma's mouth when her communicator suddenly pinged with a deafening attention signal.
The shuttle's crew was made up of Tabbies, but there was a human lieutenant aboard. He was already speaking to the middle-aged man as they cycled Irma through the inner hatch of the lock. Her fellow castaway had his helmet off and his back to her as the lieutenant finished what he was saying.
"-and he's waiting for you now, Sir."
Hmmm . . . Irma reflected. That "Sir" sounded awfully respectful. Pops must outrank me. Maybe I shouldn't have lipped off quite so much.
"Thank you," the man said to the lieutenant and bent over the cabin com screen, which displayed the image of an Orion. Incredibly, he began speaking in what sounded awfully like the howls and snarls the Tabbies called a language.
I always thought humans couldn't do that, she thought.
"What's been happening?" she demanded of the lieutenant. "I've been out here a long time."
"The kamikazes hurt us, Sir," the youngster said, "but not enough to even the odds when the Bug deep space force arrived. That was what they must've hoped for, but they crapped out. Our battle-line was still fast enough to hold the range open, and we blasted them out of space without ever closing to energy range."
"But what about their suicide-riders?"
"Yeah, they had the speed to close with us. And we took some losses from them. But only a few of them managed to break through without fire support from their capital ships." He shrugged. "Like I say, we got hurt-but every single one of their ships is either dead, or so much drifting junk nobody's ever going to have to worry about it again."