A/N: I can't thank you enough for your comments. I really expected everyone to have already given up on the story, and on me, and to see you all come back... not gonna lie, it pulled at my heartstrings. I am so grateful. Thank you, thank you, thank you! You're the best!
Chapter 23, part 1.
The chilling wind was whipping her in the face as she stood at the top of the hill, looking through something that resembled a short spyglass, except it only had one lens and it was made of crystal.
"They're good," Alice said, letting her voice color with genuine awe for SG-10 as they fought back against an onslaught of hostiles. From where she was standing, even looking through the spyglass, they seemed like tiny ants producing even tinier flashes of light as they shot back at the attacking mercenaries, but they were holding their own.
"Yes," Rianna admitted. "But give us another hour and we'll have them." She put down her own spyglass and smiled at Alice. "Thanks to your invention, they won't be able to get away now."
The SGC had already made a show of trying to make contact and sending in the UAV. As was agreed, when Alice turned on her "frequency jammer", they cut off the radio signal and the little drone simply flew over the Alliance guards' heads and disappeared somewhere between the peaks of the nearby mountains.
"Uh oh," Rodriguez said, as if on cue, making both Rianna and Alice turn around to him. He was looking in the other direction and he now waved towards the tiny spots that appeared in the distance. "I think they just might."
"Damn it!" Rianna put the spyglass to her eye and cursed even more egregiously. "Those are Tau'ri fighters!"
"Funny design," Alice noted, also taking a closer look. "But if they're here…"
"Yeah, they must have a ship on the orbit." Rianna swore again and then whipped out a Goa'uld short-distance communication device. "All units, seek shelter, Tau'ri fighters are coming!" Then she addressed Alice, Rodriguez and Tray: "We have to get out of the open. Come along!"
She led them away from the open hilltop and into the forest that grew on its slopes. It took them only a few minutes to get to the clearing where they had left the Tel'tak. Fola was already waiting by the door and waved at them to hurry up inside.
They were in the air when Rianna relaxed a little.
"Now they can bite me," she said, quite happily. "We're cloaked."
"That's all fine and dandy, but why did they send fighters in the first place? Why didn't they just pick up their people—I thought they could do that from a distance?" Alice asked, pretending not to know. So far, everything was happening exactly how she'd predicted it would.
"Well, we've disrupted their precious UAV, they probably wanted to know who we were and how we did that," Rianna replied, shrugging. "I would in their place. Look, they're flying all over the clearing around the Gate, they're trying to find us."
The Tel'tak was hovering nearby, with a perfect view of the maneuvers. Alice couldn't help but admire the squadron's uniformity of movement.
"Rianna, the Tau'ri unit is gone," someone said over the communicator.
She rolled her eyes. "That's okay, keep to the shelter until the fighters are away," she responded and then turned to Alice, a satisfied smile on her face. "The good thing about this is that it tells us exactly where the last ship of theirs is—and it's quite a ways away from their planet."
Alice frowned, alarm bells ringing in her head immediately, but she affected pure curiosity in her voice. "And why does it matter?"
But Rianna didn't reply right away. Instead, she opened a long-distance—subspace—communication channel. "Carlo, this is Rianna. Tell Jayvee we've got the location on the last of Tau'ri big ships—it's by Kura'kan. She's got at least seven hours to make her move."
"Got it, thanks, Rianna," came the answer. "Tallis will be very pleased."
"It worked out well," she agreed and closed the channel. Only then she addressed Alice again: "The Tau'ri have six big ships. They are much more powerful than any Ha'tak we have, and they always have at least one protecting their planet—but they make exceptions. We've been waiting for one to happen for months, but finally their planet is defenseless." The smugness in her voice was unmistakable.
Alice felt her heart start racing in her chest, but she fought against it to keep her composure, at least outward.
"How do you know that?"
"Oh, we've got a good information network." Rianna grinned at her, thankfully too preoccupied with what she considered a triumph to notice Alice's pale cheeks. "Three of their ships are always either in, or on their way to Pegasus—did you know they have people in another galaxy? That's what they call it, Pegasus." She shook her head, as if this was a ridiculous notion. "One is often floating in and out of the edges of our own galaxy, nobody knows why, but it's currently away. That leaves two—they patrol their solar system and go out as needed to help in their missions." She rolled her eyes. "It would be best for all of us if they just stayed out of our business, but what can you do?"
Alice felt a bit of color returning to her face as she shook her head. "Well, weren't they instrumental in getting rid of the Goa'uld, the Replicators and the Ori?"
Rianna waved her hand dismissively. "It was a long time ago—and personally I think their contributions are exaggerated. One of my sources said the Ori wouldn't even come here in the first place if not for the meddling of the Tau'ri."
Alice could not argue with that, but Nova shouldn't have that knowledge, so she pressed: "If that's true, why did they fight the Ori?"
"Who'll understand them?" Rianna shrugged. "Either way, earlier today we've got intel that they sent one of the two ships to Ulya, it's a planet far away from the Tau'ri—and from here. And now that we know the last one is here, it must mean that their own planet is defenseless and we can finally make our move."
"You're gonna attack them?" Alice asked, trying to sound doubtful and not scared.
"Yeah, what else could we do?" Rianna smirked. "You know most of their people think they're alone in the galaxy?"
"Really? How come?" Alice played dumb.
"Ra knows." Rianna steered the Tel'tak towards the ground. "I think the coast is clear—the fighters are gone, everyone come back to the Ring," she instructed through the short-distance communicator. "We only have five Ha'taks there, just beyond their patrol range, so they'll be over the planet within an hour," she continued as she was landing the ship. "That should be enough time to raise some mayhem over there. Our main goal will be to find their Ring and destroy it, of course, but we'll start with knocking out their communication relays, so they can't inform their ships to come back."
Alice wondered for a moment what she meant and then realized Rianna was talking about taking out all of the Earth's satellites. That was a good sign—it meant that the Alliance didn't know that, aside from subspace communication, each ship was also equipped with an Ancient long-distance communication device—or, rather, their own working replica of it.
"And the beauty of this plan is that even if they manage to fight back, we'll have shown their public that aliens exist, something our operatives there tell us would be quite disastrous for them," Rianna finished with satisfaction. Then she got up to her feet and waved at them to follow her out of the Tel'tak and into the clearing around the Gate.
Our operatives there, Alice repeated in her head, her blood chilled at the thought of the Lucian Alliance having infiltrated the Earth. She exchanged a quick glance with Rodriguez, and although his face was smooth and calm, she recognized the same urgency and fear in his eyes that she felt. Or maybe she was simply projecting—she certainly hoped none of it appeared in her own expression.
"This didn't go exactly as planned," Rianna announced when they joined a group of her people near the Gate. "It was lucky that they had a big ship around." She didn't specify if it was lucky for the SG-10 because it allowed them to escape, or lucky for the Alliance because it gave them a crucial piece of information for their plan of attack. "Well, Nova, Levi, it was pleasure as always. Your jammer worked out perfectly well—we'll continue to test and use it, but I think we'd like at least three more copies. As agreed, I'll let the others know to come to you instead of Ra'ul. I can't guarantee they will stay with you if you fuck up, but continue to excel and I'm sure your clientele will only grow." She grinned at Alice. "We can settle on a price for the copies after you've got them ready."
Alice nodded, telling herself to be patient. Her entire being was yearning to leave immediately, but that would certainly break her cover, and as much as she was anxious to warn Earth, she knew it was better prepared than the Alliance assumed. "Fantastic. Pleasure doing business with you, Rianna."
They shook hands, Rianna winked provocatively at Rodriguez and then stepped away, inviting Alice to dial the Gate. Alice had to put a lot of effort into doing it slowly enough not to raise suspicions.
"See you around," she told Rianna, nodded to Fola and Tray, and she and Rodriguez finally walked across the event horizon.
On the other side, they both let their faces show their true feelings.
"We can't wait for Watson and Morgan," Alice said hastily. "Dial the Alpha Site."
Rodriguez was already pushing symbols before she even ended the sentence. Before they went through, Alice opened her locket and radioed ahead, so as they stepped out, they were greeted by the colonel who ran the offworld base. The Security Forces around the Gate didn't lower their weapons, however, until both Alice and Rodriguez confirmed their identities by providing a previously agreed upon cipher.
"We need to get back to Earth immediately," Alice told the colonel urgently. "They're about to be under attack from the Lucian Alliance."
Two minutes later, they were stepping onto the familiar ramp under the Cheyenne Mountain, and thirty seconds after that they stood in the briefing room, waiting for Carter to come out of her office.
"You're early," she said and then took in their anxious expressions. "What's wrong?"
"Lucian Alliance is about to attack Earth," Alice breathed, and then continued so fast that she nearly stumbled over the words: "They have five Ha'taks just beyond our patrol range, they know we have no battlecruisers nearby right now and have already sent the go order. They'll be here within forty minutes or so."
Carter's face scrunched into a frown and she pivoted around and nearly ran to the staircase that led down to the Control Room. Alice didn't hesitate to follow her, with Rodriguez on her heels.
"Walter, I need Major Griffin from Space Control right now," Carter barked the order and a moment later the videolink was established and a thirty-something blonde man appeared on the screen. He looked a little puzzled to have been called so suddenly but smiled pleasantly at the general.
"Major, we've just received intel that we may be a target of an attack from space in the next forty minutes, have you noted any anomalies recently?"
"Nothing since the thing last week, ma'am," the major replied, the smile fading on his lips. "I'll get all our satellites looking, but do we know what we're looking for?"
"Five Ha'taks, but they must be traveling in hyperspace, so be on a lookout for a window distortions. Let me know as soon as you have something."
"Yes, ma'am!" He replied dutifully and the screen faded to black.
"I have Homeworld Command on the line," Walter put in immediately, the picture of helpfulness that he was.
"Put them through." Carter nodded and a second later O'Neill's head appeared on the screen where Griffin's was only a moment before.
"Jack, there are five Ha'taks on their way to attack us," she informed him. "They're Lucian Alliance and will be here within forty minutes."
He didn't miss a beat. "How credible is this info?"
Carter nodded at Alice.
"Very, sir. I got it directly from the Alliance," she replied anxiously. "They've been waiting for an opportunity to get to us while all our battlecruisers are away for months, according to Rianna. The attack is coordinated by Jayvee, she's one of Tallis's top people."
"Tallis the Second?" He clarified.
"Yes, sir, we believe he's Varrel's right-hand man," Alice supplied. "The Ha'taks have orders to find and destroy the Gate, but they'll start with our satellites. They believe it's our only way to contact our battlecruisers."
"Well, they're wrong," O'Neill noted. "I'll get someone here to recall one of the ships—which one's closest?"
"That'll be the Apollo, sir," Walter supplied. "Seven hours away—five if they push the engines."
"Let's mobilize both 302 squadrons," O'Neill continued, a bit grimly. "Do we have someone covering the Chair?"
"Yeah, but if there's time, I would really like Major Boyd to get there," Carter nodded towards Alice. "Besides you, she's the only one who's ever sat in it before."
He nodded. "Good, you fly a Jumper—"
But Carter was shaking her head. "The Jumper's at the Area 51 for inspection. It was planned to have it back by now, but there's been a delay because of the thing with Doctor Simeon."
"Damn him. Fine, then she can grab a ride from Peterson to the IOA HQ. You remember how to fly a Viper, Major?"
Despite the circumstances, Alice felt a bit of a thrill at the thought of getting behind the stick of an F-16 again. "Yes, sir!"
"Good, then get going. By the time you get to the airfield it'll be ready for you."
"Yes, sir, ma'am." Alice nodded to them both. "Lieutenant Rodriguez will stay to give you any details, he's witnessed it all," she added, throwing him a look. His expression was preoccupied and anxious, but he seemed more determined than scared.
"Good luck, Alice," Carter told her and, with that, Alice left.
She ran to the locker room to change into a flight suit and then hurried to the surface and her car. She drove a little recklessly—thankfully she met no cops that could have stopped her on the way—and made it to the airfield in twenty minutes. As promised by O'Neill, the machine she was supposed to use was already getting readied by the ground crew on the tarmac. She wondered in passing why an F-16 was even there—it wasn't a standard aircraft based at this installation—but more urgent thoughts quickly pushed it to the recesses of her mind. As she grabbed her gear and climbed into the cockpit, she counted how much time had already passed: twenty minutes to get to Earth from the moment Rianna sent her communiqué, five minutes talking to Carter and O'Neill, five minutes to change and get to the surface, twenty to get to Peterson… That left only ten minutes from the original timeline of an hour. Of course, it couldn't be accurate to the minute—it was possible the Ha'taks were already on the orbit… or that they wouldn't appear for another half an hour. Which was about what it would take to get to the IOA Headquarters facility in Nevada where the Ancient Chair was located. It was a real pity that the Jumper was unavailable—that same distance would take five minutes in the little Ancient ship.
All these anxious thoughts seemed to disappear the moment the Viper lifted into the air. She had forgotten how exhilarating it was to fly in an honest-to-god fighter. As she went higher and faster, she allowed herself to think back to the last time she flew an F-16—eight years and four months ago, the day then-Lieutenant Colonel Carter came to her base to observe her sortie and invite her to the Stargate Program. So much had changed in that time—and Alice most of all. That young, eager, ambitious girl did not exist anymore and for a moment, she felt sad about that fact. Second Lieutenant Boyd had believed that her future would be bright. Major Boyd knew better.
"We've got contact," a voice said in her headphones. "Hyperspace window detected, five ships came through—yes, we're confirming, five hostiles over Northern Pacific."
"Boyd, what's your ETA?" She recognized O'Neill's voice.
"Five minutes to landing, sir," she replied, checking her instruments. "Then at least another five for taxi and to get underground to where the Chair is. I'd advise to use the backup in the meantime."
There was a moment of silence, and then Carter spoke up: "We've mobilized all our 302s, they're gonna engage to buy you a few minutes, but get there as fast as humanly possible, will you, Major?"
"Yes, ma'am," Alice replied, wondering why they didn't want to let someone else try and use the drones. She put it out of her mind, however, and concentrated on the landing. The airstrip behind the IOA's main facility was rather shorter than most runways on military bases, but it was enough for the F-16, though she had to break rather harder than she normally would. Taxiing in, she noted a single F-302 sitting by the far wall, looking rather forlorn in the otherwise empty hangar. Why was it there was a question to be asked another time.
The reason for Carter's hesitation became apparent a few minutes later as Alice got to the Chair Room: a very young airman was sitting in the Chair and sweating bullets while a couple junior officers and a civilian stood around with disapproving looks on their faces.
"Oh, thank God!" The airman breathed, catapulting himself out of the Chair to make room for Alice.
Alice didn't ask why he was the only person with the gene that they had manning this station; she pushed it out of her head and simply dropped onto the Chair, closing her eyes and instantly feeling the neural link connecting her brain to the incredible machine that it was. Beneath her eyelids, she saw the bright pulsating lights of the ships on the orbit, and smaller flashes of fighters. It was difficult at first to identify what was going on, but before the question even formed in her mind, the tiny brilliant ants flared in two different colors—blue attacking the red ones from below, which clearly meant that the Ha'taks must have deployed Gliders of their own. The big ships were sliding away from the battlespace unmolested, now that the 302s were tied in a dogfight; they must have felt pretty good about themselves. Here's a surprise for you, Alice thought viciously, launching the drones, feeling them like a strike of glowing warmth, leaving the underground storage through an open ceiling door, flying up and up… until they found their marks. Alice could not exactly see the Ha'taks get hit, break into halves and explode—but she could feel them, the drones cutting and igniting them, seeming like an extension of her own brain… She shivered, let go of the neural link and allowed the Chair to right itself.
"It's done," she told the people watching her with their eyes wide open. "You've got a channel to the Command?"
"We can hear you, Major," Carter's voice came from a speaker in the ceiling. Alice wondered idly if there was a camera there, too. "We've got confirmation—all five Ha'taks are destroyed. Great job."
"What about the Gliders?" She asked anxiously, remembering that there seemed to be more red flashes than blue ones. "I can pick them out, but only if the friendlies manage to get away, otherwise we risk that I might hit a 302 by accident," she added.
"They'll just have to get rid of them the usual way," O'Neill interjected. "We've got conventional fighters mobilized as backup. You can stand down now, Boyd."
"Sir, perhaps we can open a channel and try to convince them to surrender," Alice suggested. "They must have seen their Ha'taks getting destroyed, they know there's no coming back."
"That's a good idea," Carter praised. It was bizarre, talking to a speaker Alice couldn't even see, with the officers, the poor young airman, and the civilian all still looking at her with odd expressions on their faces. "We'll try that."
Alice nodded, feeling the adrenaline slowly ebb away, leaving behind the usual fatigue. Still sitting on the Chair—though now inactive—she checked her watch. An hour and a half had passed since she'd heard Rianna send the go-ahead for the attack—of which the whole defense, or Alice's part in it anyway, had taken maybe two minutes, from the moment she'd sat down to when they got confirmation of the success. Two minutes to kill how many people? She wondered with a chill passing up her spine. Did Jayvee have a full crew on this mission? Were there ground troops transported alongside? Alice didn't know, but the implications were already weighing on her conscience.
She shook her head. It was not a good time to contemplate the enemies' loss of life when their own people were still in danger. That thought gave her an idea.
"General," she said vaguely; it could mean either O'Neill or Carter. "I can't help via the Chair anymore, but I saw a 302 in the hangar here on this base as I taxied in—permission to take it up and join the fight?"
There was a moment of silence—which probably meant that both generals were debating the question on a private channel—and then Carter replied simply: "Permission granted."
"Tell the ground crew to start getting it ready," Alice ordered one of the officers in the room—they were both of lower rank than she was—and then left without another word.
By the time she made it into the hangar, people were already swarming the F-302. Alice threw one look at the trusty Viper that had gotten her here—but it wouldn't be sufficient in a fight against a Glider, even if it wasn't in the orbit. She hurried past it and climbed into the cockpit of the 302 as it was still being armed; one look at the instruments told her that, luckily, the aircraft was already fueled. Again the question of what it was doing there in the first place ran through her head, but she dismissed it for the moment.
Five minutes later, the ground crew leader waved at her and then ordered his people to step back. The engine came to life with a roar and Alice closed the canopy as the jet began rolling towards the hangar's huge open door.
As always, taking off was a rush; no matter how sentimental she had felt about the good old Viper, it could not compare to a 302. The spacecraft launched itself into the air in third of the distance the F-16 needed, and then sped off up and away, swallowing miles and quickly breaking the sound barrier. Alice saw the airspeed indicator tick off the Machs: 2, 3, 4. The ground beneath her was a blur as she executed a tight turn in the direction of the Pacific—and the fight above it.
Afterburners, aerospikes, rocket booster—and suddenly she was in the low Earth orbit, with the battlespace directly ahead of her. She flicked on the comms.
"This is Tinkerbell in a 302 out of IOA HQ," she said. "I'm joining the fight, who's in the lead and where you need me?"
"Tinkerbell, this is Blue Leader, we could use cover on our left flank," a familiar voice said; for a moment she couldn't place him, and then remembered: Colonel Matthew Clarke, her erstwhile teacher at the Officer Training School and the leader of the Groom Lake 302 squadron. He disliked her with a passion and she mused for a second if he recognized her voice or callsign, but then she let that go and concentrated on the mission.
She noted that the number of hostiles had decreased significantly: from close to thirty she'd seen as tiny red dots under her eyes as she had sat in the Chair, it came down to eighteen. They still had the advantage over the 302s: there were now only fifteen of them. Alice wondered briefly if that meant that one was already down, or if she was driving the one; there were two squadrons on Earth, one based in McMurdo and the other in the Area 51, each usually had eight spacecrafts. It was possible that one of them had traveled to the IOA HQ—affectionately known in the Program as "Area 53", since 51 was Groom Lake and 52 was the SGC, though it wasn't an official designation—from either of these bases; but it could have been also that it was an extra fighter kept there for whatever weird reason the IOA would have.
Alice came up from behind the Gliders and scored a hit before they even noticed the danger; but that had alerted them to Alice's presence and two hostiles broke away from the fight to pursue her. Whoever was driving them, she had to give it to them: they knew what they were doing. Alice's 302 danced this way and that in tight maneuvers that would have her squashed into a human puree if not for the inertial dampeners; but, even so, bit by bit she gained on them and after another barrel roll followed by an inverted loop, she found herself on their tails; they immediately broke in two directions, but not before Alice sent an AIM 120A after each. Gliders, not being equipped with any electronic countermeasures, could only rely on their super-maneuverability to avoid a radar-guided missile, and that meant they had to employ all their significant skills. Despite that, one of them exploded in a shower of sparks, while the other one flew down and away, capering wildly; but then, either by happy accident or on purpose, the Goa'uld fighter entered mesosphere, the middle layer of Earth's atmosphere. There were enough gases there to cause friction and create heat, and while it had little effect on the well-adjusted Glider, the missile was not designed for atmospheric reentry and first began to lag behind and then exploded harmlessly a good ways away. But the Glider, instead of turning back towards the battlespace, continued its downwards trajectory.
Alice swore under hear breath. "Blue leader, one of them got through and is heading to Earth," she said through the external intercom. "I'm in pursuit."
She pushed the stick to follow the Glider and threw an eye on the HUD to see how the overall fight was going. There were still ten hostiles, now surrounded by the fifteen 302s, but as she looked, she saw two of them break away—and come in her direction. Before Alice had a chance to warn the squadrons, a friendly veered off-course and trailed them, so now there were five jets hurtling towards the Earth at an impossible speed.
It all happened so quickly that describing it with words would take more time. Worrying that a missile would again simply burn up, Alice engaged her railguns—and her aim was true. The Goa'uld fighter was swallowed up in a fireball—by this time, they were in the stratosphere and it was much more spectacular than out on the orbit where there was no oxygen. But, at the same time, the two Gliders on her tail began shooting, and she had to turn violently to avoid a hit. They whizzed past her, with the one 302 still following, and she corrected her course and continued after, quickly breaking through a layer of dark clouds.
The great blue expanse of the ocean stretched beneath them; if they didn't start slowing down soon, they would crash into the water. Instead of that, at the altitude lower than an average airliner would cruise, the two Gliders flattened out and sped eastwards—towards America's West Coast. They were faster than the man-made 302s, so Alice couldn't quite get into range—but the jet ahead of her finally managed to get a lock and sent a missile out. The hostiles broke in two different directions.
"I'll take the one on the left!" She shouted into the intercom but only heard the acknowledgement a second after she made her turn. The maneuver let her cut a lot of distance and put her once again on the Glider's tail. She felt more than heard an explosion behind her and knew that the second one was done in; she didn't even spare the time to confirm on her HUD, though, too preoccupied with the pursuit. She got a lock and sent another missile out—
—and then she felt a jolt, a red light started flashing on her controls as a mechanical voice began saying, over and over: Warning, engine fire! Warning, engine fire! Warning, engine fire! and she felt herself lose control of the craft.
Panic shot through her and for a second she didn't know what to do, before training finally kicked in: she pushed the throttle to turn off the engines, then flicked a switch to cut the fuel and pulled at the stick to lift the spacecraft's nose. This made her lose speed very quickly, but it also stifled out the blaze. Focused on the procedure as she was, she noticed another fireball to her right: her own AMRAAM had found its mark. At the same time, though, a Glider blew past her and she finally understood what had happened: the 302 hadn't gotten a shot, the Glider had—and then it had turned onto her!
With a sudden rise of rage mixed with the adrenaline, she dismissed the next step on the fire checklist; instead, she turned a knob to isolate engine one to ensure no fuel would go to it, and turned engine two back on, lowering the nose and picking up speed to follow the hostile. She could feel the plane responding sluggishly, but she ignored it and engaged the afterburners. The Glider was close-by, gaining on her with every second, so she had no time to lose: she was out of AMRAAMs, but she still had the railguns and she began shooting a little haphazardly, without a lock. This, in turn, made the Glider change course and start maneuvering wildly to avoid the rain of bullets. Alice's 302 couldn't match it anymore, but she did not stop, her focus entirely on getting the alien fighter. It seemed like an eternity had passed while they played their odd game of cat and mouse, dancing around the sky above the deep blue ocean. And then, finally, one of her bullets grazed the Glider's wing, driving it into an unsteady half-spin; it leveled out only for more projectiles to find their marks and a heartbeat later, the alien craft was going up in fire and smoke. The force of the explosion, due to its proximity, rocked Alice's 302, and the already damaged fighter took another hit. More angry red lights flashed in her face, but this time she managed to keep her cool: her hands twirled around the dashboard, and, with effort, she managed to stabilize her flight. Only then did she realize that there was a voice in her headphones.
"Tinkerbell, respond!" It was saying urgently. "What's your status? Tinkerbell, over!"
She had to wet her lips and clear her throat first. "Command, this it Tinkerbell," she replied, a little unsteadily. "The three hostiles that were heading to Earth are splashed, but so is one of our 302s and I am in real trouble here. Engine one is out, engine two is still working but I have no afterburners nor boosters anymore and I'm leaking fuel like crazy. Controls are barely responsive. I can't make it to shore."
"Tinkerbell, roger that. Go into the envelope and eject when ready—we'll get the Navy to send a helo to pick you up."
Alice grimaced. She knew there was no other way—ejecting was the only thing that could save her life; she didn't need to go down with the plane. And yet the idea of abandoning the jet and parachuting into the ocean did not seem especially appealing to her. Still, unless she was ready—really ready—to die… she pushed the stick and the throttle to reduce speed and altitude, and put her hands on the ejection handles.
"Ready to eject," she confirmed, her voice trembling audibly now. "Ejecting… now."
She pulled at the handles with all her strength, her eyes closed—but nothing happened. She opened her eyes, looked at the left handle, a little wildly, and tried again on both—to no avail.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck… ready or not, here I come, she thought, suddenly realizing that no, she did not want to die. Yes, her life had been awful these past few months, but she still had enough hope somewhere in the deep recesses of her mind to want to see if it could get better—to want to continue fighting. Never back down from a challenge.
"Command, my seat will not, I repeat, will not eject," she said. "Suspect the cartridge is a dud, or otherwise has been compromised when I was hit." She paused, knowing there was nothing else she could do. "I'm going in."