Harry Turtledove - The Best military Science Fiction of 20th century

Cracklings. "They're leveling off." Bonetto again. "Hold your missiles till my order. And remember, those big babies can give you a nasty hotfoot."

Reynolds looked at the radarmap again. The Alfies were now flat out at about 100,000 feet. Figured. The LB-4s could go higher, but ten was about the upper limit for the fighter escorts. Rapiers. Reynolds remembered his briefing.

They wanted to stick together. That made sense. The Alfies would need their Rapiers. Ten wasn't the upper limit for Vampyres.

Reynolds squinted. He thought he saw something ahead, through the eyeslit. A flash of silver. Them? Or his imagination? Hard to tell. But he'd see them soon enough. The pursuit planes were gaining. Fast as they were, the big LB-4s were no match for the Vampyres. The Rapiers were; but they had to stay with the bombers.

So it was only a matter of time. They'd catch them long before Washington. And then?

Reynolds shifted uneasily. He didn't want to think about that. He'd never flown in combat before. He didn't like the idea.

His mouth was dry. He swallowed. Just this morning he and Anne had talked about how lucky he was, made plans for a vacation. And beyond. His term was almost up, and he was still safe in the States. So many friends dead in the South African War. But he'd been lucky.

And now this. And suddenly the possibility that tomorrow might not be bright. The possibility that tomorrow might not be. It scared him.

There was more, too. Even if he lived, he was still queasy. About the killing.

That shouldn't have bothered him. He knew it might happen when he enlisted. But it was different then. He thought he'd be flying against Russians, Chinese-enemies. The outbreak of the South African War and the U.S. intervention had disturbed him. But he could have fought there, for all that. The Pan-African Alliance was Communist-inspired, or so they said.

But Alfies weren't distant foreigners. Alfies were people, neighbors. His radical college roommate. The black kids he had grown up with back in New York. The teacher who lived down the block. He got along with Alfies well enough, when they weren't talking politics.

And sometimes even when they were. The Six Demands weren't all that bad. He'd heard a lot of nasty rumors about the Special Urban Units. And God knows what the U.S. was doing in South Africa and the Mid-East.

He grimaced behind the oxygen mask. Face it, Reynolds, he told himself. The skeleton in his closet. He had actually thought about voting A.L.F. in '84, although in the end he'd chickened out and pulled the lever for Bishop, the Old Democrat. No one on the base knew but Anne. They hadn't argued politics for a long time, with anyone. Most of his friends were Old Republicans, but a few had turned to the Liberty Alliance. And that scared him.

Bonetto's crackling command smashed his train of thought. "Look at that, men. The Alfies are going to fight. At 'em!"

Reynolds didn't need to look at his radarmap. He could see them now, above. Lights against the sky. Growing lights.

The Rapiers were diving on them.

OF ALL THE commentators who followed President Hartmann over the holo networks, Continental's Ted Warren seemed the least shell-shocked. Warren was a gritty old veteran with an incisive mind and razor tongue. He had tangled with Hartmann more than once, and was regularly denounced by the Liberty Alliance for his "Alfie bias."

"The President's speech leaves many questions still unanswered," Warren said in his post-mortem newscast. "He has promised to deal with the A.L.F. as traitors, but as yet, we are unsure exactly what steps will be taken. There is also some question, in my mind at any rate, as to the A.L.F.'s motivation for this alleged attack. Bob, any thoughts on that?"

A new face on camera; the reporter who covered A.L.F. activities for Continental had been hustled out of bed and rushed to the studio. He still looked a little rumpled.

"No, Ted," he replied. "As far as I know, the A.L.F. was not planning any action of this kind. Were it not for the fact that this attack was so well-planned, I might question whether the A.L.F. national leadership was involved at all. It might have been an unauthorized action by a group of local extremists. You'll recall that the assault on the Chicago Police Headquarters during the 1985 riots was of this nature. However, I think the planning that went into this attack, and the armament that was used, precludes this being a similar case."

Warren, at the Continental anchordesk, nodded sagely. "Bob, do you think there is any possibility that the paramilitary arm of the A.L.F. might have acted unilaterally, without the knowledge of the party's political leaders?"

The reporter paused and looked thoughtful. "Well, it's possible, Ted. But not likely. The kind of assault that the President described would require too much planning. I'd think that the whole party would have to be involved in an effort on that scale."

"What reasons would the A.L.F. have for an action like this?" Warren asked.

"From what the President said, a hope that a nuclear threat would bring immediate agreement to the A.L.F.'s Six Demands would seem to be the reason."

Warren was insistent. "Yes. But why should the A.L.F. resort to such an extreme tactic? The latest Gallup poll gave them the support of nearly 29% of the electorate, behind only the 38% of President Hartmann's Liberty Alliance. This is a sharp increase from the 13% of the vote the A.L.F. got in the presidential elections of 1984. With only a year to go before the new elections, it seems strange that the A.L.F. would risk everything on such a desperate ploy."

Now the reporter was nodding. "You have a point, Ted. However, we've been surprised by the A.L.F. before. They've never been the easiest party to predict, and I think-"

Warren cut him off. "Excuse me, Bob. Back to you later. Correspondent Mike Petersen is at the A.L.F.'s national headquarters in Washington, and he has Douglass Brown with him. Mike, can you hear me?"

The picture changed. Two men standing before a desk, one half slouched against it. Behind them, on the wall, the A.L.F. symbol; a clenched black fist superimposed over the peace sign. The reporter held a microphone. The man he was with was tall, black, youthful. And angry.

"Yes, Ted, we've got you," the reporter said. He turned to the black man. "Doug, you were the A.L.F. presidential candidate in 1984. How do you react to President Hartmann's charges?"

Brown laughed lightly. "Nothing that man does surprises me anymore. The charges are vicious lies. The American Liberation Front had nothing to do with this so-called attack. In fact, I doubt that this attack ever took place. Hartmann is a dangerous demagogue, and he's tried this sort of smear before."

"Then the A.L.F. claims that no attack took place?" Petersen asked.

Brown frowned. "Well, that's just a quick guess on my part, not an official A.L.F. position," he said quickly. "This has all been very sudden, and I don't really have the facts. But I'd say that was a possibility. As you know, Mike, the Liberty Alliance has made wild charges against us before."

"In his statement tonight, President Hartmann said he would deal with the A.L.F. as traitors. Would you care to comment on that?"

"Yeah," said Brown. "It's more cheap rhetoric. I say that Hartmann's the traitor. He's the one that has betrayed everything this country is supposed to stand for. His creation of the Special Suuies to keep the ghettoes in line, his intervention in the South African War, his censorship legislation; there's your treason for you."

The reporter smiled. "Thank you, Doug. And now back to Ted Warren."

Warren reappeared. "For those of you who have flicked on late, a brief recap. Earlier this evening, an American air base in California was attacked, and two bombers and seven fighter planes were seized. The bombers were equipped with nuclear weaponry, and the attackers have threatened to destroy Washington, D.C., unless certain demands are met within three hours. Only an hour-and-a-half now remain. Continental News will stay on the air until the conclusion of the crisis…"