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In an alternate, dieselpunk 1940s, coyote aviatrix Kalinda Garcia meets a new friend when her experimental plane is forced down in hostile territory.

Set in the same universe as "Reckless," from my e-anthology Bodies in Motion (go buy it :|) here's some smutty coyote adventures set in an alt-history dieselpunk universe that is totally not Crimson Skies. As always, thanks to Spudz for making sure this is FASA-approved :P And also, this is what the Garcia G26B-X looks like, 'cause why not? As far as picturing Kalinda, you're on your own~

Released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. Share, modify, and redistribute -- as long as it's attributed and noncommercial, anything goes.

"Straighten up and fly right," by Rob Baird

---

...but in these troubled times, what does it even mean to be alive? Brigham Young knew that--

Kalinda switched off the radio, and the preacher's voice vanished.

The coyote knew what it meant to be alive. Life meant five miles of sky below you, a hundred miles above, and fifty inches of mercury on the pressure gauge. She didn't need anyone's help for that, certainly not some LDS hustler. A bearing was all she actually wanted, and the radio station was precisely two hundred and ninety-one degrees from her current position.

She pulled out the notebook she'd tucked under her right leg and flipped it to the most recent page. Only one more row remained in the table to be filled out. Kalinda checked her gauges and dutifully wrote down what they said. Good stuff. Not that Wally Knight, the engine's designer, would be happy. Come to think of it, she'd never seen the grumpy bobcat crack a smile. Not in 'these troubled times.'

Kalinda switched to her main radio and powered up the long range transmitter. "Baker Two-Seven Victor calling Gold Mesa, I'm done out here. Anything else you want?" When nobody answered, she checked the frequency dial and tried again. "Baker Two-Seven Victor calling Gold Mesa, come in Gold Mesa."

Bet Ricky left the control tower, she thought with a growl. Ricardo was supposed to be the mission coordinator, despite a slight tendency for distraction. Being the son of her dad's friend got him second chance after second chance.

Just in case, though, Kalinda unfolded a map and did a quick bit of figuring. She should've been well in range of their home base. "Gold Mesa, is anybody listening?" Nothing. She turned on the secondary radio, and was greeted with silence there, too. No preacher to ramble about the meaning of life. Dead air.

Don't panic. Maybe it's just a simple electrical problem. Those happen. You've encountered those before. And they happened even more commonly in experimental aircraft. The odds were good that her plane's electrical wiring was still taped together, in places.

Officially it was called the G26B-X, the 'X' signifying that it was a prototype. The original G26 hadn't sold very well. José Garcia needed its successor to find_some_ buyer--though perhaps he wasn't very optimistic. Perhaps that's why he'd allowed her to take it on the test flight, rather than someone more experienced.

Pushing that thought from her mind, Kalinda turned the radiotelephone off and tried sending a message in Morse code instead. It wasn't quite as easy to use, but had the advantage of being slightly less finicky. Only slightly, though, and the coyote still heard no response.

Just my luck. "Do your job, huh?" she muttered to the necklace hanging from the cockpit in front of her. It had been her mother's, originally; before that, her grandmother's. The charm, depicting a roadrunner seen in profile, had been made with the first bit of silver ever mined by a Garcia, long before her father started the aircraft company.

At least she wouldn't be_lost_. Somewhere below her was the Colorado River; once she found that, getting back home was easy. The river lay off to the south. Could she trust her compass? It showed her on an eastern track, which seemed right: the afternoon sun was high, but slightly behind her.

She banked the G26B over in a slow right turn. As she did so, her eyes swept the horizon--and caught a glinting reflection at her own altitude, just ahead. No: two of them. Close, and getting closer. Her breath quickened, she tightened the turn.Maybe it's nothing. Maybe they're just--

They were turning, too, moving to intercept her. Then it occurred to the coyote that this made sense: she'd been asking for help on the radio, hadn't she? Just in case her receiver had decided to fix itself, she turned the radiotelephone back on and listened to the static.

By their silhouettes, both of the intercepting planes were Curtiss P-40s. That didn't narrow a damned thing down:everybody flew those. The Army Air Corps sold off thousands, and even after the state militias had their share there were plenty left over for the right private buyers. The paint scheme, gold with emerald tips and leading edges, wasn't in her reference manual. The two P-40s drew alongside, one off either wingtip.

She tore a piece of paper from her logbook, wrote the word RADIO, and crossed it out before holding it up to the canopy glass so the pilot off her left wing could see.

ARMED? they wrote back.

NO.

FOLLOW.

She shook her head, and then, to clarify, wrote another message. I'M OK NOW!

There was movement in her peripheral vision. The Warhawk on her right side drifted back, and a few seconds later tracer rounds arced in front of her. The pilot to her left held up the previous sign, now underlined and with an exclamation point added.FOLLOW!

When he turned the P-40 left, off to the north, she went along with it. The other plane lurked ominously behind her. According to her compass, they were flying to the northeast, every second taking her further away from her intended destination and closer to restricted territory.

She leafed through her reference book again.Almost everyone flew P-40s, but...

COLORADO AIR GUARD Paint scheme: Columbine blue, white band along vertical stabilizer Roundel: Red 'C' inscribing a gold circle, set in a white square Known equipment: Hughes M6, Durango T1C, Lockheed M22

No Warhawks. In fact, there weren't any aircraft listed from_any_ eastern manufacturer. The paint job didn't worry her too much; elite squadrons often had variant liveries. But something told her that the pair weren't officially Coloradan. Garcia Aerodyne flight-tested over Utah because it was far from prying eyes and Deseret proclaimed neutrality. She was expressly forbidden from entering Colorado; the penalties were severe.

But not, she had to guess, as severe as whatever the rogues had in mind. Kalinda shot her silver charm an irritated look and went over the options that were left to her. The official briefing for the test flight had been extremely simple.

Take the prototype up to altitude and record the engine performance in level flight in thousand-foot increments. As soon as you're done, come home. Do you understand? When she'd told her father 'yes,' she did understand, he narrowed his eyes. That's all you're going to do. It's an untested design--don't push it.

José would be unhappy if she didn't follow orders. Her headstrong attitude--"disobedience," in his phrasing--caused a lot of friction between them. On the other hand, hadn't she already disobeyed? Not by choice, no, but what was one more transgression?

Nothing good would come from following the Warhawks. At the very, very best they were just out to ransom her and the equipment, and Garcia Aerodyne could afford the expense of neither. At worst, she'd wind up in Colorado, and_that_ would be unthinkable. Tensions were too high between her Arizona home and the Colorado Free State to chance anything that might make them worse.

No, she'd have to escape.

The P-40 on her left began a slight rightward turn, and rather than turn with it she made her move. She pulled back on the stick, hard, bringing the plane's nose up--faster than the plane behind her could react. It made for a clean, if temporary, getaway. The lead Warhawk had already started to come about.

Kalinda knew she couldn't turn with them. They'd be trained pilots, unlike her, and her craft was no match for the agility of a P-40. Nor did she envy her chances of beating them in a dive. Climbing, though--climbing put the supercharged radial in its element. Even with her nose well above the horizon, pilot and plane on kept accelerating.

The pair of Warhawks were solidly in her rearview mirror. At twenty thousand feet, they were well behind. At twenty-five thousand, one of the two opened up with its guns again--she had plenty of time to see the rounds falling well short. They gave up immediately afterwards, turning away and leaving the sky to her.

That_did_, unfortunately, put them between her and Arizona. She circled, gaining a bit more altitude, and reassured herself by checking the fuel gauge. Plenty left; she could bide her time. José Garcia intended the G26 as a long-range aircraft, and she'd been testing its performance with a full fuel load. By her reckoning, she could circle for a few hours still.

The engine grunted, coughed, and died. "What the hell?" Kalinda was startled to hear her own outburst, without the big radial's din. Her propellers had stopped moving. She cycled the magneto switch, trying to reignite the engine, and got nothing in answer. It was as dead as the radio. "C'mon, I don't need this right now," the coyote muttered. "Play nice..."

Putting herself into a shallow glide, she tried coaxing any sign of life from the engine for another minute before giving up and feathering the propellers--letting them spin freely in the airstream, rather than acting like brakes. That would buy her a few more miles. A_few_, though. Not a chance in hell of gliding all the way back home.

In the excitement of escaping her pursuers, she'd also become ever so slightly lost. The mountains and valleys below looked neither familiar nor promising. And since José Garcia designed the G26B with speed in mind, its short wings limited the amount of time she could manage to keep the thing aloft without power.

Again, she tried the engine. Hughes described the Firebird as a faithful copy of the Wasp 4360, with a few of their own tweaks added. Slightly larger displacement added another hundred horsepower. An improved supercharger boosted high-altitude performance.

All in all, it was twenty-eight cylinders and two tons of useless weight.

She didn't know exactly where she was: somewhere in a two hundred mile radius of what had previously been the Four Corners. This wasn't good; Colorado controlled most of the area, and irrespective of who officially owned the rest it was far from Denver and effectively lawless. Kalinda decided that her best option would be to land quickly, figure out what was wrong with the engine, and get back aloft.

And if you can't figure it out? What then, huh? Then, she supposed, her best option would be to scuttle the plane and try to find neutral territory. But maybe whatever'd gone wrong in the engine would be easy to suss out; there were repair manuals in the rear cargo compartment, and a few spare parts and tools. That was one of the advantages of flying a prototype.

An obvious_disadvantage_, though, was her lack of complete faith in the craft's performance according to written specifications. Production aircraft would have thousands of hours of flight testing, more than enough for all the kinks to be worked out and the plane's behavior in every condition to be understood.

This wasn't that. She still had a few thousand feet of altitude when she spotted what looked to be an abandoned airfield. By the book, her glide ratio would let the coyote carry on, but she decided it was better to put down than continue flying--not like there were going to be any better options in the middle of nowhere anyway.

There weren't any planes on the apron, and the strip seemed to be gravel rather than concrete. A tall wooden structure towards northern side suggested what its purpose had once been: the tower was a beacon for the airmail service, a stopover point in the lonely middle country back when there had still been a postal service to deliver airmail.

Without that, there'd been no reason to maintain the strip. Colorado didn't have an international post service. Her father thought the G26 could be sold as a fast, long-range courier. That was a pipe dream. The old, weatherbeaten strip and its silent beacon suggested where such dreams ended.

All the same, she circled slowly, carefully lowering her speed and observing the field for any sign of activity. There were no vehicles parked, no lights on; no smoke rising from any of the outbuildings. Everything about it suggested desolation. That was both good news and bad news.

Worse news came from the rock-strewn slopes that surrounded it. Kalinda knew that she'd have one chance to put the craft down safely. If she overran the runway, there was no doubt that the plane would suffer irreparable damage.

Fortunately the winds were calm, even in the mountain valley. The G26B settled gently onto the gravel runway, and the brakes worked when almost nothing else on the plane did. She had just enough speed left to coast to a halt in a large, very empty hangar. With the canopy open, she couldn't smell anything that seemed ominous, so she hopped down from the cockpit and found some chocks for the wheels.

A few of the hangar windows were broken; cobwebs and dust covered those that remained. By the look of it, nobody had used the facility for at least a few years. She gave the plane's nose a soft pat. "Thanks for not killing me, I suppose. Now... what's wrong with you, huh?"

She soon found her answer. The Bendix magnetos, responsible for firing the pistons in their proper sequence, were broken--the wiring melted and broken, damaged beyond repair even for someone who might've had the technical aptitude to fix them. Kalinda did not. The thick manuals stashed in her cargo compartment told her how to disassemble the engine, and how to install_new_ magnetos...

But there weren't any spares.

Kalinda paced back and forth in the hangar, casting occasional glances at the airplane. It could not be said to be inconspicuous--indeed it looked like nothing she'd ever seen before. Half of its forty-foot length seemed to be snout, with a dramatic flair for the cowling of the huge radial engine.

Other than that, though, it was a rather flawless cigar shape, which narrowed at the stern like the body of a fish, blending seamlessly into the tail. The wing roots ran to the very back, too, because the wings were swept sharply forward. It appeared to be flying the wrong way around.

Or, rather, it appeared not to be flying at all. And now, Kalinda's ears caught the sound of a motor off in the distance.Fuck. She didn't have a chance in hell of hiding the plane, and the hangar's main door was rusted open; all the coyote could do was to hope that whoever it was would drive on by. She carried a weapon, of course, a Colt Peacemaker--but the revolver wouldn't do much against proper military equipment.

All in all, coyote luck wasn't worth trusting in. The sound came closer and closer. She briefly saw a small scout truck, then ducked behind the hangar door to hide. Through one of the hinges, she watched a uniformed figure emerge from the open-topped vehicle--the only occupant.

He seemed to be a wolf, or near enough as made no difference, with a wolf's silvery fur and a wolf's keen ears and muzzle. "What do we have here? Hello--anybody home?" She stayed silent and hidden while he walked up to the plane. "Oh, uh... this is new, huh?" The wolf seemed to be talking to himself. He walked around it slowly, his head periodically tilting back and forth. "Garcia Aerodyne. 'Silver Bird.' Long way from home..."

When he started to pull himself up onto the step that led up into the open cockpit, she decided the opportunity wasn't likely to get better: he was a alone, and distracted, and she had the element of surprise. She drew the hammer back on her revolver and stepped out from behind the door. "That's enough!"

Startled, the wolf lost his footing when he dropped to the ground and tumbled awkwardly onto his back. "Hey!" At the sight of the gun, he raised his paws carefully. "Hey, don't--don't shoot me, please? We can talk about this, right?"

"Can we?" Kalinda kept her Peacemaker trained on the wolf.

At least he was wearing a uniform, and probably not any old scavenger or thief. He had a weapon, too, a submachine gun of some kind, but it was slung, and pinned beneath him out of reach. "Yes? I'm sure we can!"

"Who are you? You're with the army?"

He didn't look very old--late teens, she thought, more than a decade the coyote's junior--which explained a fair degree of the shaking in his quick nod. Obviously a wolf, with a certain boyish cuteness to him that accented his nervousness. "Yes, ma'am. Sergeant Davis, Charlie Company, 6th Battalion--"

"Fine. That's enough. Colorado army? I'm in Colorado?"

Again with that quick nod. "Yes. I'm from Redoubt Animas. Can you put the gun down?"

She uncocked it, at least, and motioned with the barrel that he should sit up. "I don't know where Redoubt Animas is. What are you doing here?"

Davis kept his paws out where she could see them. "I was sent to investigate rumors of a possible rogue aircraft. The Covey--uh. Um, I mean, Major Poole said they might've downed one, but it was so remote that they didn't take it seriously..."

"Only one person?"

"I'm alone, yes. They... don't take me seriously, either. Are you a raider? Are you going to kill me? I don't have anything valuable, just... just my equipment. You can have it, if you... if you want?"

Kalinda shook her head. "I don't. What's your first name, sergeant?"

"Dickson. Or Dixie. Folks call me Dixie."

"Okay. My name's Kalinda Garcia. I'm from Arizona, and I know I'm not supposed to be here. I was ambushed by some fighters that forced me to come this way, and after I evaded them my engine failed before I could return home. I don't want to hurt you. I don't want to do anything to you. But I need to escape. Cards on the table, you hear me?"

"I hear you. Your plane's broken?"

"Two of the magnetos are completely fried, yeah. I don't know more than that, yet; I was still working on it. I'm not an engine mechanic, just a pilot." Step by step, she moved closer to him, trying to defuse the situation.

It was working. "Pilot, got it." The wolf nodded, with his nerves obviously beginning to settle down. "Kalinda Garcia? From Garcia Aerodyne? That kind of Garcia?"

"Yes. I'm José's daughter. I was on a test flight when everything happened."

"This is military technology, then..."

She didn't like where he was going. "It's unarmed. A prototype."

"Crossing the DMZ with military tech could be--"

The coyote narrowed her eyes and dropped her voice to a hiss. "An act of war, yes. I know that. But it was unintentional. And if I can get out of here without anybody noticing..."

Dixie looked over his shoulder and up at her plane. He stared at it for far longer than she was comfortable with. "This is a scout, obviously. Probably fast... long-range reconnaissance..."

"Where are you going with this?"

"They've been saying the west wants to make a move. Saying the Southwest Compact wants to teach us a lesson. Sending a single scout observer to monitor the barrier line... under cover of pretending to be on a test mission from a neutral party..."

"I'm not a spy, sergeant."

The wolf kept going, though he turned to face her. "If I turned you in, there'd be a big reward. And a courtesy promotion--at least. I could get out of the 6th Battalion... maybe up to Denver, even..."

"If they push the issue," she added, "it could mean open conflict. Why are you doing this?"

Dixie got slowly to his feet. She went back to the Peacemaker, warily, and he raised both his paws reassuringly. "No, don't bother. I know what's wrong with your plane, and I can help you.But. If I help you, I'd be doing you a huge favor. I need something in return."

The coyote canted her head slightly, and lifted her ears. "I could pay you? You said there'd be a big reward--we could match it, I'm sure. I have no money on me, but I could have some sent through a third party. You'd have to trust me, but..."

"That's not what I mean. I don't want money."

"What do you want?"

"Kalinda... you are... I wasn't expecting to meet you, so..."

She scowled at him. "I'm not part of the deal, soldier."

Dixie's brow furrowed in confusion. "Huh? No. Sorry. Not like that. I mean... okay." The wolf swallowed, momentarily nervous once more. "Get me out of here. I'll help you, Kalinda, but you have to take me with you. Your plane has two seats, doesn't it?" He didn't wait for her to confirm it. "Then take me with you."

The coyote's ears flattened. If anything, the suggestion was even more obscene than the one she'd first assumed. "Not a chance. If I--I mean, crossing the DMZ with restricted technology is one thing. But if I did that_and_ helped somebody defect, and the government found out..." Every possible scenario in her head seemed worse than the previous. "No. No way."

"I'm not defecting. I'm deserting."

"Same difference. Sergeant, do you even understand what you're saying? Do you know how tense the situation has become? Denver's been trying to undo the armistice ever since it was signed--if they had a good reason..."

Dixie's eyes shut tightly and he appeared to try a different tack. "Your engine. It's broken, right? You can't get out of here."

"Don't change the subject!" The wolf was young, sure, but even youth couldn't excuse_that_ degree of naïveté. "I know it's bad--we don't need to make it worse!"

"It's not mechanical failure, it's a new weapon--they claim it's a defensive device, but really, it's a weapon. Dr. Covey invented it; I don't know how it works, but it overheats the wiring somehow... right now, they still have to tune it for a particular engine. I know where I can probably get you spares, and I know how you can get out of here without being detected again. Can you do that on your own?"

"No," the coyote admitted. "But learning that your government has a secret project to knock airplanes out of the sky doesn't exactly make me any more eager to cross them."

"Please, listen to me. I don't want any part of what they're doing. I'm just--I'm just a truck driver in a logistics company, Kalinda. I don't want to fight. I have family in the west, I'm sure they'd shelter me... I'd be willing to disappear completely. They'd know I went AWOL, but..."

What's his angle? The Colorado Free State wasn't officially at war with anyone, but their belligerence made anything that smelled of Colorado dangerous. Denver presented itself as a beacon of freedom in the darkness and, true, they'd made out better than nearly anybody else.

But they couldn't be trusted. They wanted the oil in Wyoming, and they had no faith in the neutrality of the states on their southwestern borders. They thought Texas-New Mexico was still too closely allied to Washington. They believed Arizonan autonomy was merely a cynical ploy to extend California's eastern influence.

Garcia Aerodyne had no dealings with Colorado. By treaty, no foreign aircraft with any sort of military utility were allowed into the state. Dixie seemed to know the leverage he had over her. He was scheming, she knew it. She'd just have to outplot the wolf. "What are you offering, then?"

"I'll get you your spare parts. I can be back this evening, and if you can fix this engine... you'll agree to take me with you. Can you fix the engine tonight? If I gave you what you needed?"

And if nothing else goes wrong? "Yes."

"I'll be able to keep them from getting suspicious until tomorrow morning, but if they discover missing stock they'll put the pieces together. You'll take me with you, and give me safe passage out of the state. When we land, I'll just disappear. Deal?"

Kalinda didn't think so, but she needed the parts. What else could she do? She couldn't very well shoot him; that solved nothing. Letting him go meant_either_ that he'd come back with reinforcements, or that he could be made useful. In the end he gave her some maps as a sign of good faith and left, promising to return in the evening.

She unfolded his map. Redoubt Animas was a little southwest of Durango, close to the official border of the Colorado Free State. Along it ran an unbroken line of listening posts and radar stations, and a few hand-drawn markers labeled "Cov.X". One of them was written above the redoubt.

Kalinda was surprised to learn that such a weapon existed, but not surprised to learn that Colorado would have it, or that they would've deployed it. The Free State's radio broadcasts, which reached all the way back to Arizona, constantly stressed their technological prowess.

We're interviewing Bill, a janitor at the University of Colorado. He may be the lowest-paid employee here, but like all Coloradans, he earns an honest wage for honest work. Like every Colorado home, his has electrical climate control and a pneumatic post service that brings fresh Colorado produce right to his kitchen--

Where Bill's wife, smile beaming through the radiowaves, would be using electrical appliances to prepare an electrical repast. Then they'd retire to watch their color television, or go for a ride in Bill's electrically convertible motor car, soaring through the neon lights of Denver.Gee, what's that? It's the Senate. We're driving past the Colorado Senate? Driving under, you mean: the Mile-High City is home to the world's first aerostatic capitol.

And in the end, the listener would be reminded that there still was an American dream, and it woke up every morning in Colorado.

Indeed, so far as Kalinda could tell, the only thing more Colorado than 'freedom' was the zealousness with which they guarded it. Obviously it worked--nobody challenged them, and they could afford to be picky with the immigrants they accepted. Why would Dr. Covey, whoever that was, want to settle anywhere else?

The plane wouldn't take off without new parts, so either way Kalinda removed the magnetos and set them aside. After thinking for another moment, she tossed them into the back of the cockpit. She didn't want to leave any evidence behind.

Dixie said he'd be back at ten in the evening. Half an hour before that, she left the hangar and made her way up the wooden scaffolding of the airmail beacon. She didn't know that the wolf could be trusted, and the stakes were too high to do so blindly.

They were, right? If he brought reinforcements, they'd still find the plane. That would be enough of a_causus belli_ for the government in Denver. They just wouldn't have her as a hostage, that was all. Was that good? Bad? The coyote frowned, uncertain. Without a working plane, she didn't have much chance of making it back across the border on foot.

Headlights caught her attention. Only one pair, belonging to a light, open-bed truck. Sergeant Davis killed the lights at the hangar, and she saw his silhouette emerge from the cab. He'd drawn his submachine gun; she heard his wary voice call out her name.

She slipped down from the beacon silently, and waited until she had at least the solid hangar wall between her and the wolf to answer. "Over here. I was hiding."

The gun was at his side by the time he came around the corner. "Thank God. You worried me--I didn't know if maybe you'd been found out, or worse, or..."

"No. Just being cautious."

Dixie nodded. "That was smart." She couldn't see him well, in the moonlight--not enough to judge his expression--but his voice sounded sincere.

"Did you find anything?"

He nodded again, and reached into the truck's cab. The box he handed her was heavy and still sealed; if she strained her eyes she could make out the Bendix logo. "Four of them. Can you do the repairs yourself?"

"Just a matter of following the directions," Kalinda said. "And maybe the right equipment. You don't have a torque wrench, do you?"

The cargo truck came with a full set of tools, which he brought over at once. Dixie told her that he figured as long as he was going to get out of the country, there wasn't any reason to skip picking up needed supplies. He'd also brought a lantern, which he handed over before leaving her to work, offering to stand watch.

Fortunately, the design department hadn't made any changes to the engine. More accurately, the coyote supposed, they hadn't had the time to do so. The gearbox alone was enough of a complication. Either way, the same repair manual that let her disassemble the magnetos guided her installation of their replacements.

That didn't mean it was_easy_. The driveshaft had plenty of inertia, what with a thousand pounds of propeller attached, and it took a fair amount of work to get it playing nice. By the time she'd finished--well into the early hours of the morning--her fur was stained with grease, dirt, and dried blood from a cut on her forearm where the exposed metal had taken its revenge.

She hoped, at least, it would work.

Hearing her emerge from the hangar, Dixie turned around. "How did it go?"

"I think it's done. I installed the new magnetos, and figured out where the radio antenna was shorting out... hopefully that'll work now, too."

"So then we just have to... wait?"

"Yes. We'll take off at first light. That won't be too long to wait." Not having the distraction of the engine to work on made it seem longer, though. It also magnified the cold. They were at well over six thousand feet above sea level.

"Are you alright, Kalinda? You're shivering."

"I wasn't planning on being out so late." The G26 had a heater, but even without it the bright sun did a good job of keeping its pilot comfortable--the canopy turned into a greenhouse, more or less. She was a warm-weather coyote.

"Would it help to get out of the wind?"

She let him lead the way to his truck, failing to see any real point in protesting the obvious. The truck's cab wasn't objectively comfortable, but with the windows up they were shielded from the worst of what the night had to offer. Kalinda leaned her head back and closed her eyes, sighing heavily.

"It'll be over soon, though, right?" the wolf prompted. "I don't know anything about flying. Is there anything else that could go wrong?"

"A lot." She kept her eyes shut for a few more seconds, but wasn't able to sustain the illusion that she had any interest in sleep despite her exhaustion. "But mostly it's out of my control. I'm trusting you can get us away from that engine-busting ray. And we need to not get picked up by a lucky combat air patrol."

"The Air Guard stays away from Durango. It's all restricted space, as far as I can tell... I haven't seen one of our planes for almost two months. Guess they didn't want the project to get out inadvertently."

"How long do you figure it'll be?" Dixie didn't answer; Kalinda looked over to see him with his head at a puzzled cock. "Until it gets out."

"Now? Won't you tell your company?"

Kalinda snorted. "I'll tell, but they won't talk. Do you have_any_ idea how things are in the double-a-zed?" The autonomy of Autonomous Arizona was so much dew, beading on the edge of a cactus spine--waiting for the blaze of sunrise, or to tumble the sand and vanish forever.

"It can't be easy... the food riots, and..."

Her head jerked. "Food riots?"

As a soldier, Dixie said, he got the news that the Colorado Free State decided he needed.Actual food riots were old news, back from when the fighting was still hot and trade to California had been cut off--there hadn't been riots in nearly four years.

But they were caught between six different powers. "The Indians and Greater Texas think we're not doing enough to police the border. Mexico thinks we're not making enough use of our autonomy to stand up to California. California--Sacramento's been pushing for full integration since the treaty! And_you_ guys..."

"Don't lump me in with them," Dixie said. "I don't want to be one."

"But you are, aren't you?" He didn't answer. "Aren't you?"

"Can we... talk about something else, maybe?"

"Like what?"

"You're still cold. You want my jacket or something?"

"Then_you'd_ be cold." Dixie shrugged. Then he lifted his arm, held it for a second, and rested it on her shoulder.

The truth of the matter made it harder to object. She_was_ cold, and there were worse ways of fixing that then appropriating some heat from an obliging wolf. Not a bad looking one, either. I mean, he's not as handsome as a Wasp Major, sure, but... Kalinda leaned against him. "It's a goddamned mess, though."

"That's why we shouldn't talk about it. Talk about, uh... how about the plane? What's it like to fly? I mean, it sure looks weird. I've never seen one like it before."

She nodded. "The forward sweep pulls the air in to the wing root, which gives you more lift for a smaller wing... and we have to make it small, anyway, to keep it stiff enough."

"Is that important?"

"Wings twist and bend as the plane moves, right?" She held her paw palm-up, flexing it to demonstrate. "If they move too much, they can snap completely, and if you think about it... with the wingtips forward, they bend_more_ 'cause they hit the air head on, you know? And as they bend, they catch even more air, until..." The coyote quickly brought her paw closed in a fist. "Bad news."

"I didn't think about that... is it safe?"

"Safe enough. Safer than staying here, for sure. I'm not a plane designer, either, I just fly them--I went to school for business, if you can believe it. I graduated the year everything happened... we were so naive back then."

Kalinda felt the wolf's head nodding, and his arm seemed to briefly go a bit tighter about her. "I didn't make it that far. My kid brother was going to be the first to get to a college... classes hadn't even started when there was the first border crisis, and..." That time, he'd_definitely_ hugged her closer.

"Kid brother? How old are you?"

"Twenty-eight."

She twisted around in the cab, straining her eyes to re-examine the wolf's features. "You're serious? I thought you were maybe eighteen. Do they make wolves differently in Colorado? Is it a new technology I didn't know about?"

"I'm not..." He sighed, and she saw the silhouette of his ears falter and lower. "I'm not purebred, though. My granddad was a coyote. On my dad's side. My brother looked even more like one than me... skinny, big ears..."

"Are you not from here?" Dixie shifted in his seat without answering. The coyote turned further, nudging him with her paw. "Hey. I don't_mind_, but I'm curious. I just want to get to know you."

"Grandparents met in Window Rock. I think grandpa might've gone back."

"You could settle in Bikeyeh, too, then, right?"

"Until they get overrun, you mean. Don't bother explaining how they're allies of yours, I know the story. The Indians are just a convenient distraction for California. You or Colorado will eventually get tired... and I don't want to go. It's fine."

Kalinda nodded gingerly, mindful of a subtle tone in the wolf's voice. "It is fine, sure. I am a little_more_ curious, though... I thought the regular army only allowed... well..."

"They don't know." His paw flexed next to her side, squeezing and relaxing in nervous tension. "Fine, I can tell you if you_really_ want to know. We lived in Kingman, but worked in California during the harvest. My father, he was smart, he knew what was coming... at the end of the season in '39 he said we weren't coming back. I was driving his truck. There were so many people... they had a checkpoint up, and it was... it was chaos..."

"In 1939," the coyote murmured. "Oh, my god. Sergeant..."

"When the shooting started, my father told me to drive, just--just drive. People started jumping on the truck. It attracted attention. I heard the glass of the windshield shatter. The truck... I think it went over. I don't remember. I_know_ there was an accident, but it's all a blur."

She rubbed his shoulder gently, trying to comfort him. "I'm sorry. You don't have to talk about it if it's... if you don't want to."

"I don't mind. I don't remember, like I said. I woke up in Saint George, with a truck headed east. New clothes. No ID. No money. It was a Mexican family--they said I'd been awake but incoherent for a few weeks. Six, all told. They were going to try going south, but I hitchhiked into Durango instead. A general store owner took me in."

"That's how you ended up here?"

"I told him I'd been in the army and deserted after Donner Pass. The independence movement was already strong here, and nobody really argued--you know, they say... they make a big deal about Carr getting shot for treason--did they teach you that?"

"Yeah. Well, our version," she amended, in deference to the realization that things were probably different in Colorado. "They said Carr denounced Roosevelt's air campaign, and him getting summarily executed by some hasty general was why Stapleton ordered the police to barricade the gates at Lowry."

"That's about the same as our version. I guess 'cause it's Washington, and there's that saying about 'the enemy of my enemy'? Well, they make a big deal about Stapleton and Carr, but the mining towns were some of the first to really get angry. Just like the oilmen in Alaska. When I said I'd deserted, nobody asked questions. I was practically a hero, and they let me enlist in the Colorado Guard the day it opened."

"Do you think your family is still in California?"

"I've only heard rumors. I know..." He caught himself, coughing to try to cover up something darker. "I know my brother didn't make it out of Donner Pass. Mom and dad, my sisters... everything I hear is old by the time it gets back to me, and I can't ask too many questions, because... it might get out. It's only a matter of time before it does anyway."

The coyote gave his shoulder another pat, and then thought better of it, putting both arms around the wolf for a proper hug. "I guess that explains why you want out of paradise."

"It's not paradise, either. Like you said, Kalinda, they don't let compromised people serve in the army, and they'll find me eventually. Besides, they already blood test for marriages, so if I wanted kids I pretty much have to get out."

It explained the lack of a ring, and perhaps his willingness to be so physically close to the coyote. She was more curious about something else, though, for the moment. "How come... why did you tell me you had family that would shelter you in the west if you didn't know where they were? Why didn't you tell the truth?"

"I didn't know you. I was gambling."

"With a coyote?"

Dixie let out a quiet chuckle. "I'm a quarter myself, remember? I thought if I told you I had family in California that..."

"That I'd think you had somewhere to go? You wouldn't be a burden to me?"

"Hm-mm. That when you found out about the weapon, you'd think I was planning on telling Sacramento. And I'd be a... a valuable asset, when the truth is that I don't care about California any more than I care about Colorado. I don't care about flags anymore. I just want to find my family."

"But that's fine. I understand," she reassured him. "There are more important things than flags."

She found, against her earlier prejudice and probably against her better judgment, that she liked the wolf. She'd taken him for a bit of a coward, with his quick willingness to cut a deal with her. It wasn't fair, though--would_she_ have been any braver with a revolver pointed at her head?

Perhaps not. He was just trying to get by, she could respect that. "How about another question? Where'd you get the name?"

The pair had fallen into silence, and his fingers had started, subconsciously, to smooth the fur of the coyote's arm. He stopped abruptly at the sound of her voice. "My name? You mean Dixie?"

"Yeah."

"Dad. My grandpa's parents were rounded up by Kit Carson back in the '60s, like a bunch of others. Difference was they lived. But when the feds got around to asking 'em for a name, they said 'Davis.' Like Jefferson Davis, kind of as a... a way of getting back at Carson and the other bastards."

"So it is really Dixie?"

The wolf shrugged; his fingers were toying with her fur again, rather like he was fidgeting. "Dr. Dickson was the guy who delivered me. Dad said me and mom would've both died, so... so that was me. They started calling me Dixie at boot camp, 'cause it was ironic, 'cause I was in the army. Then in Colorado it... it wasn't so ironic. Now I guess it's ironic again."

"You're a rebel, sergeant?"

Another shrug. "I don't want to be. Grandpa still held a grudge, so did dad, so did my brother... but you get to this point where... where you look where all the grudges have gotten us. I just--oh! Sorry." He'd finally noticed his fingers.

"It's fine." She patted his paw, and shifted closer to the wolf. It might even have been better than fine: he was warmer than the air in the cab, and it took her mind off the cold. "What do you want me to call you? Dixie? Dix?"

"It doesn't matter. Whatever you like--what about you? Kalinda?"

"Or Kali. Or coyote." She pronounced it with two syllables. "Just not 'Linda'--my sister's the only one who does that. It's weird."

"But Kali is a goddess of destruction. That's weird, too."

Not many were bold enough to bring that up so soon after meeting her. She looked up at him and grinned. "That's why 'coyote' works, too."

"Is that what_really_ happened to your engine?"

"Maybe. Maybe I made the whole thing up, and here you've just spilled the beans on all this important military technology... given me a map... your codebook..."

"You don't have my codebook." He wasn't taking her seriously, which was a bit of a relief. "I mean--I don't have a codebook."

Kalinda laughed. "You're lucky I'm_not_ a spy."

Her ears perked and her tail wagged, of its own accord, at the sound of his chuckling. It was unforced; he trusted her, and she found she no longer had any doubts about trusting him. "You're lucky you're not a spy," he countered. "You crashed your plane twelve hours ago and you're already fraternizing with the enemy."

"I could be a double agent. Using my wiles to... get you to reveal your loyalties."

"Is this what wiles are? They didn't train us to resist this."

The coyote grinned, and tried to think of a reply. She was still looking up at him--but now he was looking down. Their noses had wound up perilously close together.

In the same second, both of them realized it. Kalinda's ear twitched. She opened her mouth but failed to pick a suitable answer. And then Dixie chuckled again, more carefully, and turned to look out the window. "We should start getting ready, I guess."

She took the opportunity to nod and pretend it hadn't happened. He wasn't wrong, anyway: if she squinted and practiced her wishful thinking, Kalinda began to discern a bit of light on the eastern horizon. It was as good a time as any to get started.

If anything, the night had become colder--it couldn't have been_that_ much over freezing. She looked forward to getting back aloft, in the cockpit with the heater running and the sun well above her.

Dixie followed her as she walked around the G26 in a circle, inspecting it for anything else that might go wrong at an inopportune time. "Everything_looks_ good," she told the wolf. "But we're probably only going to get one chance at this."

"Oh?"

"I only have enough charges to start the engine twice, yeah. But if it doesn't work the first time, it's probably 'cause something else is wrong, and I bet you don't have spare parts for that. Don't worry, Dixie, I'm sure we'll get lucky."

"I don't like trusting in luck," the Coloradan told her. "It hasn't treated me very well."

"Fair point." She leaned against the plane's canard wings, tilting them to make sure they moved smoothly. That, too,looked good. "Well, then we'll trust in the book instead."

"The Bible?"

"The operating manual. The control surfaces are in good shape, the electrical system was working last night, we have enough fuel and oil..." She kicked the tire of the nosewheel. "It'll be fine. So here's how it's gonna go, Dix."

He stopped, tilting his head to pay attention. "Yeah?"

"You'll help me push the plane out of the hangar, then we'll rechock it. I'll do one more preflight check and you'll look to make sure the runway's clear of anything that might get in our way. I'll start the engine. Wait for my sign."

"To?"

"To clear the chocks from the wheels and jump out of the way. It won't move fast to start with. It'll be easy for you to hop in, and then I'll open 'er up. Given the altitude, the temperature, and the fuel load, it shouldn't take us more than about a third of the runway to take off."

Dixie crossed his arms. "Can't you start it with me already in the cockpit?"

"Worried I'll leave without you?"

The forced laugh he gave her made his attempt to play it off somewhat less than believable. "I wouldn't put it past you."

"Because I'm a devious foreigner?"

"Coyote," he countered.

Kalinda laughed too, and the tone of it brought them back to the mood they'd shared in the truck. He was back at ease. "Well, do you think you want to start up the engine? We could trade places if you feel like flying."

The wolf took the lantern from her and climbed up the ladder to look into the cockpit. "Nice necklace. Is that where the name 'Silver Bird' comes from?"

"Yeah. Our family started in silver mining, back in the early 19th century. It's been passed down seven generations."

"Neat." His gaze wandered over the rest of the panel. "Okay, coyote. I could probably manage, with a little help..."

"Just a little?"

"For starters, where's the steering wheel?"

"What did I tell you? Get back down here," she ordered, and took the light back from him with a teasingly heavy sigh. "You're just going to hurt yourself. Here's the problem, Dix." Kalinda cast the lantern on the plane's twin propellers. "It ain't like turning the key in your deuce and a half. Those things put out somethin' north of ten thousand pounds of thrust, and the brakes were kind of an afterthought.That's why I want the plane chocked."

"And I have to get rid of them." He bent over and tested the weight of the blocks that currently held the G26B in position.

"Yeah. Then just hop in and away we go. Simple," she reassured him, and went back to inspecting the open engine bay. "It's not like I'm asking you to dance or anything."

"You could. It might be easier."

Kalinda looked at him over her shoulder; the lantern didn't cast enough light for her to be able to read the wolf's expression clearly. "Yeah? You can dance?"

"Yeah."

She didn't push the question until they were done with the walkaround. He stayed close to her, not out of any concern that she might betray him so much as, the coyote thought, genuine interest in the airplane. Or her company, or both.

Since she shared an interest in scout plane and sergeant alike she obliged. A partner helped steady her nerves--but as the morning drew nearer those nerves reasserted themselves and, when he asked if they were ready the rest of a challenge was out of her muzzle before she could stop herself. "Yeah. Except that dance thing. I trusted you, Dix."

"I can!"

"I'll have to call your bluff--back in the double-a zed."

"You don't believe me? You don't!" Sounding more wounded than the coyote believed he truly was, Dixie walked over and set the radio on her workbench. He flicked it on to static. "Ye of little faith..."

"Callin' your bluff now, too, Dixie. It's, what, five in the morning?" She finished closing up the engine bay, where they'd ended their work, and turned to face him. "Find a signal?"

"There's a station in Durango always broadcasting on the Voice of America frequencies to jam them here," he explained. And, true to his word, the sound of brass filled the hangar with the closing notes of 'Caravan.'

"That was luck! That was just luck!"

"Do you believe me or not?"

They were joking about it again--about trust; about faith. The fact that they could was enough to steady her nerves. "Fine. Fine, yeah, I believe ya, Dix. Get your stuff together, okay? I_will_ ask ya again in Phoenix."

When he left, she took a moment to compose herself.I mean, what were you expecting_, Kalinda? Just a bit of swing here on the hangar floor?_ Although this, of course, was deflection. Dixie's ability to dance, whether he had it or not, wasn't the problem. What she meant was not: now isn't the time to be going all romantic. You're a grown woman, coyote. Don't be immature.

Rather, it was:how could you have thought about leaving him behind? You know people have to stick together in these... these troubled times. How could you have thought that was maturity instead of selfishness? And she couldn't quite keep pretending the issue was whether or not Dixie was actually interested in her.

At least she was making the right decision_now_: that was how she finally justified it, and pulled open the repair manual to search for anything she might have skipped in her haste. Anyway, he won't have to know. He'll go his own way when you get home, and that's it. It's over. But you have to get out of here first.

"Ah, Kalinda, are you ready to leave?"

"In an emergency, yes. Is it an emergency?" Though the sun had yet to rise, the sky was light enough to see the ground comfortably.

"I heard them talking on the radio. Somebody called in a report of my truck being out here and they're headed this way. I'd give it ten or twenty minutes, if we're lucky..."

They'd already been plenty lucky, Dixie said he didn't trust luck, and Kalinda didn't want to use the rest of her own up if she could help it. "We can go now. Can you help me here?" She pointed to the far side of the plane, and between them they pushed it out of the hangar and close enough to the runway that she'd be able to turn them when they could move under their own power.

In the small cargo compartment, with the manuals and everything else, were two spare cartridges for the engine starter. She took them both, hoping it wouldn't be necessary, and opened the access hatch just behind the big radial engine. Dixie called out from the other side of his truck that he could hear the sound of approaching vehicles.

"Don't rush me," she called back, closing the breech to the ignition system and locking the hatch as quickly as she could. She pulled herself up and into the cockpit, landing hard in the seat. "Can you see anybody yet?"

"Not...yet, no."

"And the runway's clear of debris?"

"Yeah?"

Not the most committal answer. At least everything before her was simple, as it needed to be. Kalinda turned the battery on and held in the switch that primed the fuel system for a few seconds. "Get ready," she shouted to Dixie, and pressed the starter. The cartridge fired, and the big propellers started to turn, slowly at first, then picking up speed.

Then they stopped, and the engine whirred to an unhappy halt. Dixie's grey head appeared over the edge of the canopy. "Is it working?"

"Does it look like it?"

"It's not the new parts, is it?"

Her answer was a frustrated growl. "I don't know! I don't think so."

"There's at least four trucks coming up the road. And a half-track. So we... should hurry, or start running."

"Dixie," she snapped. "I fucking know that."

"I'm sorry! But..."

She put her head in her paws and tried to think. "Okay... go... go turn the propellers, can you? Just spin them around." His head dropped out of sight, and she bought herself a couple of seconds by starting from scratch on the checklist.Ignition switch off. Mixture lever at cut-off.

Watching the propellers turning, the coyote first considered and immediately discarded a problem with the magnetos. Not that it was impossible that she'd made a mistake, but it wasn't one they could fix on the spot anyway. Why bother?Does the battery have enough power? Or...

She was used to starting the plane later in the day, when it was warmed up. Spending the night at a high-altitude hangar must've left the engine cold--it'd need more fuel, and more coaxing. "Dixie." She summoned him back, and handed him the last starter cartridge. "The access hatch is on the right side, behind the engine. Turn the lever and open it. The breech handle is pretty obvious. Just be careful, it's--"

"Fuck!"

"Hot," she finished pointlessly, when the wolf's yelp had died away, and moved the fuel mixture lever back to its starting position. "Close the breech. We're gonna try again."Last chance, but there wasn't any point in adding that. "Get clear."

"Clear. And the convoy's behind the last curve, so... a minute. Tops."

This time she held the priming switch on longer, dumping more fuel into the engine, and she kept it on while she tried the ignition. The engine coughed its way into a shuddering, unsteady growl--and finally a proper snarl, and the two props whirled into a healthy blur. She waited until the RPM gauge climbed into the mid-hundreds to let out her breath, but they_were_ climbing, and that meant she was in the clear. "Chocks," she shouted, hoping her voice carried over the purring radial.

The G26B began to move, its nose swinging clear of the hangar to point out towards the open runway. Dixie scrambled up the side, threw his heavy radio into the cockpit, then followed its course, tumbling awkwardly onto the seat. The coyote didn't wait for him to secure his harness--that would have to come later. She opened up the throttle and the plane lurched eagerly forward, picking up speed while she guided them to the airstrip.

As soon as they hit it she slid the throttle all the way forward, as quick as she dared. The airplane's answer was a bellowing roar, angry and wild. They hit fifty knots, then sixty. Kalinda could see the first of the convoy Dixie'd spotted, led by a cargo truck like the one now parked well behind them. Seventy knots.

The roar seemed a lot more appropriate, now, for the truck began to swerve onto the runway, blocking their path--and immediately thought better of it. The driver threw the wheel hard over rather than face down a charge backed by thirty-six hundred horsepower. Even that didn't seem to be enough--she watched the door fling itself open, and the driver threw himself to the ground to take cover.

An armed half-track bringing up the convoy's rear didn't feel nearly as threatened. On the other hand, its gunner was trying to track a close-range target moving at two hundred feet per second. They didn't get a shot off before she pulled back on the stick and the plane jumped free of the earth like gravity was an unsolicited opinion instead of a law of nature.

Once the landing gear were stowed and they had a more comfortable margin of altitude, her first order of business was to look behind her. Dixie had gotten himself strapped in, but although he gave her a hopeful thumbs-up his expression hadn't lost a good degree of wild-eyed panic. She reached over him, grabbed the canopy handle, and pulled it forward until she could lock it into place and the wind noise dropped to a subtler howl. "Y'alright?"

"I guess..."

Kalinda checked forward quickly to make sure they weren't going to hit anything, then twisted around again and pointed next to the wolf, where a soft cloth headpiece had been strapped to the canopy's side. It wasn't a proper helmet, and it hadn't been properly fitted, but it would have to do.

Not that properly fitted ones were_that_ much better. The design still required threading the pilot's ears through holes in the fabric, which kept them fixed in position against two speakers that pinned them firmly, muffling the din of the engine and the air whipping past. "Hello?"

They also made everything sound as if it was being heard underwater, and maybe from the next lake over at that. "Got it working?"

"I think. This isn't very pleasant."

"Neither is going deaf." And at least they were mutually intelligible again. "We're in good shape, and we've got enough fuel, but I need a course, Dixie. Where are we going?"

"It should be simple. Head west towards Mancos. There's a station about halfway there, but it's shut down for maintenance right now. You'll be able to get through."

Kalinda didn't like having the sun right behind her, making it impossible to check for anybody on the aircraft's tail, but nothing could be done about it. She adjusted their course and kept an eye on the rocky valleys below them. "Beautiful country, though, don't you think?"

"Yeah. But dangerous, too. Remember I said the southwest corner was one of the first to call for independence? They still do. Even as free as Colorado is, they aren't happy that we have a regular army and police. Figure it should all be local militias... that's why the brigands like it out here so much. They can find a sympathetic ear."

Of course, the coyote knew that this wasn't merely a conceit of the Colorado Free State. Autonomous Arizona was prohibited from maintaining its own guard, but that didn't keep the governor from keeping a few mercenary outfits on retainer. Garcia Aerodyne supplied parts and planes for the Piasa Legion in Tucson and the Double-Barrel Brigade out of Phoenix. Sometimes she had it in her mind to try her luck with one of them, although if her father didn't like her acting as a test pilot he definitely wasn't about to turn a sympathetic ear to_that_ kind of talk.

"Coming up on the turn in a few minutes, I think. I don't know this from the air so much, but that must've been Burning Camp off to our right. It's a new mining claim." Kalinda didn't have a better way of fixing her position on short notice. The radio, possibly; she turned it on and listened, flipping through a few different channels.

--clear of Firewatch Center until further notice. Protocol Able is now in effect.

"Kalinda--hold on." Dixie sounded alarmed.

That, considering his inside knowledge, meant_she_ was alarmed. "What's up?"

"Fort Firewatch is on the Mancos. That's the Covey outpost I was talking about."

"The one you said was down for maintenance?" Kalinda pushed the nose of the G26B forward, dropping altitude and bringing the horizon a few miles closer in. "What do we do now?"

"The next empty link in the chain is by Grand Junction."

Kalinda knew enough Colorado geography to understand where that was--out on the border with Deseret. Deseret's scrupulous neutrality made them good for flight tests, but very bad for anything that might look like picking a side. "Can't make it out there and back. We'd have to land and refuel, and I don't want to risk that. What else?"

"There's no_else_. They..."

"How long does it take the system to start up?"

"Half an hour? But it's probably active now if they have the Able Protocol in effect."

Kalinda scanned the terrain beneath her, picked the closest river, and turned the plane north and into a rising valley. "What about minimum altitude? How quickly can it be aimed?"

She didn't get an immediate answer and glanced over her shoulder to find Dixie staring with wide eyes at the valley walls racing past. "Uh--um. Sorry. It's--please turn around and watch where we're going?"

"What's its weakness, Dix?"

"It needs to be aimed. It has a narrow beam, it can't point directly at the ground, and it has a maximum range of only thirty miles."

Those weren't very reassuring weaknesses. Kalinda pulled back on the throttle to slow down and buy them time. "And you said it needs to be tuned to a particular engine?"

"They want it to be that way. I don't understand_all_ the details, Kalinda, but I think it's because it takes less power to concentrate on one frequency."

"How long does it take to adjust the weapon?"

"To change the tubes? A few minutes, from the rumors I've heard. It's something they're still ironing out."

The coyote stared, and scowled, at her map, testing out possible courses in her mind. "Here's what I'm going to do, then. The first part is I'm gonna come south on the... La Plata River, I guess, and floor it. If we stay low, they'll have a hard time seeing us."

"Hard time, but not impossible."

"That's the second part. You said this area's bandit territory, right?"

"Uh huh?"

"Is the radio you brought still working?"

"Yeah."

"Then switch to a hundred and sixty megacycles and get ready to play along."

"Play along?"

"Yeah. We're gonna rob the bank in Cortez." Kalinda turned her radio dial and put on the thickest drawl she could manage. "Alright, y'all in position?" Dixie didn't answer. "Hey. Moonlight, this is Silver. Are ya on this channel or not? Can't idle all day."

"What?" His voice was loud and clear to her, although she knew that was only because his transmitter was close.

"There ya go. I'm waitin' for yer signal, Moonlight. Can be on the ground in ten once they get into the safe, so you don't keep me hangin', alright?"

She craned her head back to meet an_are-you-crazy?_ look from Dixie with a grin. "Uh..." he said.

"I mean it's just damn metal, right? Some of it more valuable'n the rest." She stared at the wolf expectantly, mouthing:play along.

"Don't--you're transmitting in the clear, you know?"

Better. Kalinda settled back down and turned her attention to the twisting valley in front of them. "Sorry, Moonlight. Send me yer signal when 'breakfast is ready,' is that better?" She had her other radio tuned to the Colorado Army's frequency, and her fingers crossed.

Easy Two, Easy Two, this is Zorro. Advise possible code four activity, radio contacts north of King Eight.

Zorro, this is Easy Two. Roger, wait out.

"Ya still think ya can have breakfast ready by nine, Moonlight?"

"That's the plan, right?"

'Easy Two' came back on the radio, asking for further instructions and saying they were_standing by to move out_. Kalinda tried to figure out the best way to give them a nudge. "Got enough fuel fer that, but if it's really as much... ugh, really as much bacon as you claim, I'll need the whole damn runway. Might have to leave some of it behind. Leftovers."

"You... wanted to get paid, right? We're not leaving any bacon behind," Dixie said. He was getting into it more. More sure of himself. "I don't care if you_do_ need the whole runway."

"That's what I got three engines for, kid," Kalinda told him. "I like bacon as much as anybody. Just don't run me outta gas."Easy Two, probable target is Cortez or Durango. Lock the runway down and wait for orders. We'll signal Firewatch control to be on the lookout.

"Do your job and stop complaining, Silver. Moonlight_out_." She heard rustling in her ears; Dixie was putting his headpiece microphone back on. "What were you doing?"

"Hopefully," the coyote said, pulling the G26B into a steep, banking circle to face south again. "We're providing a distraction. Hopefully they might think they're looking for a Ford Trimotor instead of me."

"They'll have the signal localized already, though. They'll know we were in the same place."

"They'll know we were in the same_valley_. Maybe. The way the radio waves bounce off everything, they won't be able to position us that accurately." That was an optimistic gamble, to be sure, because if the army knew they were also looking for a Garcia Aerodyne prototype that would obviously be the priority. But what were the odds?

She pointed her nose right down the La Plata, took them as low as she dared, and opened the throttle to its normal high-power setting. The Colorado Army continued to discuss the bank robbery in progress. Dixie must've been listening, too. "They'll figure it out."

"Yes," she agreed. "They will. In ten or fifteen minutes."

And by then, with any luck, it would be too late. The nice thing about treetop level flying in Colorado was that it still didn't_really_ count as 'low altitude.' High enough to cut down on some of the atmospheric drag, but definitely low enough that the superchargers could keep the manifold pressure nice and steady.

Three hundred and fifty knots ate up the distance at a respectable clip. Asphalt, a proper, well-serviced road, flashed beneath them and they were into the gentler plains south of Hesperus, Colorado.

Safe. Or safe enough.

Firewatch actual calling Charlie Niner, mustang, airborne, last reference King Eight. The voice on the radio didn't sound happy. Come in, Charlie Niner!

Firewatch, closest units are--stand by. The voice dropped out, and her radio indicated morse code signals were being sent instead. Some kind of code. "Firewatch is sending AVVM FGEM. It's marked urgent. Charlie Niner sends back AQRL NRMP SENZ."

"Wait one," the wolf said. He kept brushing the microphone; she heard rustling. "Uh, okay. The first is a precoded message saying that the Covey station is ineffective against a specified target--that's gotta be us. 'Mustang' is the guard's term for an escaped person or vehicle."

They must've tried to use the weapon on her and been unhappy with the result. Too bad for them. "What's the response?"

"Working on it. Charlie is the sector commander for the southern border patrol. They're saying they don't have available units to respond. Closest aerial units are at least one hour away. When they're testing the weapon, they generally ground the air patrol."

"Their loss. We'll be long gone by then."

"Home free?"

"I think."

Kalinda relaxed enough to back off on the throttle; the engine was hungry at full power, and inefficient at their medium-low altitude. Even with the dogleg route she'd planned, it wouldn't take more than an hour and a half to make their way back to her airfield.

And there shouldn't have been any further obstacles. They were crossing over foreign airspace, true, but Bikeyeh was an Arizonan ally; they carried out training flights over Black Mesa all the time. Still, she kept the plane low to the ground. Its desert-colored paint scheme would make them hard to see from the air, and from beneath she hoped they'd be moving fast enough to make a positive identification difficult.

But it only took twenty minutes before she heard her radio go off. "Blanca Kate Alfa Alfa calling unidentified aircraft south of Shiprock, tracking west, if you're monitoring this channel, please respond."

"That's not Colorado, right?" her passenger asked. "We're out of their territory."

"Well outside, yeah. It's not Colorado." BK-AA was the radio callsign for the controller of Bikeyeh's northern sector. Kalinda kept her transmitter off for the moment. "But it could be a complication. Depending on what they want..."

"Blanca Kate Alfa Alfa calling unidentified aircraft, we're moving to intercept. If you don't respond, we'll open fire."

The coyote took a deep breath. "This is Baker Two-Seven Victor, an unregistered Garcia Aerodyne prototype on a testing mission. I got lost. I'm requesting safe passage under Section Seven."

"Baker Two-Seven Victor, negative. Turn back to Shiprock and land immediately."

Here she faced a new gamble.Odds are they can't catch you, coyote. A fast-moving object, at low altitude, would be tricky for anybody. But they know who you are, too. "Blanca Kate Alfa Alfa, send an aircraft to intercept me. We should be due west on three seven degrees twenty-one minutes. I'm slowing to one hundred sixty knots, and I'm climbing to eight thousand feet."

Bikeyeh only had a small air force, with older planes: ten minutes later she'd been joined by three Mitsubishi A5Ms, donated by the Japanese Empire just after Window Rock declared independence. The A5M was inferior in every way to her own, but the lead pilot showed no signs of concern about that little fact. "Major Birch to Baker Two-Seven Victor, turn right and follow me."

Technical inferiority didn't matter, naturally. The point wasn't whether or not she could win in a fight, it was whether or not she could do so without causing a diplomatic incident. Rather than obeying, she put her nose down, heading back for the scrubland. Time to hope Colorado wasn't capable of picking up signals as far out as they were. "Major Birch, I need safe passage under Section Seven of the Mutual Understanding Agreement."

"Baker Two-Seven Victor, negative. You need to follow us back. Section Seven doesn't apply."

"I'm Kalinda Garcia, with Garcia Aerodyne. I'm a civilian, and this is an unarmed, civilian prototype. I was on a test flight for the company."

"Colorado border patrol informed us of a fugitive, Miss Garcia, probably escaping by plane. The legal enforcement exemption to the safe passage agreement applies. You need to come with us now."

Damn it. So they already knew--and, worse, they could see into her cockpit. Even if they couldn't make out any details about her passenger, she obviously had one. "Major, I'm sorry, I can't do that." She could see the other pilot's head drop as he resigned himself to settling the matter by force. "Listen. What you heard from Colorado is correct--sort of."

"What?"

"Everything I'm about to say is the God's-honest truth, major. I was forced down by Colorado, and I believe they wanted this aircraft to provoke an international incident. While there, I was rescued by a defector, a soldier in the Colorado Guard. He has information about a secret weapon under development. He'll provide testimony to the Southwest Compact at the earliest opportunity."

The Navajo A5M nudged a few meters closer to her port wing, and she saw the pilot's nose up against the glass as he stared at her. Searching. "He can testify in Window Rock just as easily."

"You know that's not true, major. Colorado would take that as an opportunity to roll into Bikeyeh. You can't stop them. You'd be on your own, and the Compact wouldn't come to your aid. They can't invade Arizona, though, without crossing the DMZ or your territory, and that_would_ provoke a response from Sacramento and the rest of the Compact."

"We can hold our own, Garcia," the other pilot said.

"No. You can't. The AAZ can't either. But we need to get this information to people who can."

"I have a job to do, Garcia. I'm sorry, but I'm on direct orders from Window Rock."

"You can't shoot me down, major. You know if I wanted to run, I could get away from you before you could do anything. If you want to try it, I guess we can... but major, if we don't have the opportunity to prepare ourselves for the storm that's coming, we don't stand a chance in hell of weathering it. Denver asked you to intervene because they're playing to your sovereignty--they_want_ us at each other's throats--and if we let them have that... let them divide us... well, there's been a lot of dividing already, Major Birch. I'm asking you: please, consider what might happen."

The major kept peering at her through the canopy glass of his tiny, fragile craft. Ten seconds passed; then the A5M's nose tilted back, and it started climbing. Hesitantly, she followed along. Birch spoke on the same channel, without addressing her. "Zia, this is Major Birch. Is Sunray there?"

"This is Sunray. Go ahead, major."

"I've intercepted the foreign aircraft. It is a Garcia company experimental ship, on a test flight of some kind. No plan filed, but it's obviously unarmed. Arizona won't be happy if we try to impound it."

"Orders are to bring 'em in, major."

"Understood, Sunray. But... I can see the ship clearly. She's obviously on her own, and it's too small to be hiding anybody else. Sunray, I think this might be the new fighter we were in talks with them to buy. If I force it down with Garcia's kid in it, that could be... ugly."

"Orders are..." Kalinda could hear the uncertainty in his commander's voice. "Major, you're_sure_ they're not hiding anybody? Colorado was pretty clear on that."

"She called for a Section Seven waiver, Sunray. She wouldn't have done that if she was trying to hide something."

After a lengthy pause, the other voice on the radio came back, uncertainty replaced by pragmatism. "Major Birch, escort the Arizona ship directly back to the border--no course deviations. And let them know we'll be filing a formal complaint for trespassing without a valid flight plan."

"Understood, sir." Major Birch stayed level with her, turning one final time to look at the coyote. He nodded, solemnly:this better have been worth it. She hoped so, too. Birch and the other two A5Ms stayed close; she was obliged to slow down so they could keep up with her.

"'God's honest truth,' huh?" Dixie asked. She craned her neck to look at him, and caught a quirked eyebrow that accented the bitter edge to his words.

"It was."

"Was it? You said Colorado brought you down."

"I think they might've. You told me that a lot of the southwest corner is pretty lawless, but they have to know_something_ about what all the brigands are doing. Right? Somehow my radio antenna shorted out, they knew where I was gonna be, they probably told the border guards what sort of engine to look for..."

"Good point."

"And they had spare parts. Colorado doesn't have anything that uses these kind of engines."

Dixie sighed, without keying his microphone, and slumped in his chair. "Fine. You also said I was going to testify."

"You are. But we'll talk on the ground. I don't want you to think I'm blackmailing you."

Their escort turned away half an hour later, and with her throttle back at a respectable setting it wasn't long before they were approaching Phoenix. It would be time to face the music soon enough.

"Baker Two-Seven Victor calling Gold Mesa, come in, Gold Mesa."

"Gold Mesa here. God, it's good to hear your voice." Ricky sounded like he meant it. "You're cleared to land immediately. Winds from the west, steady, ten knots."

Kalinda turned the scout plane towards the runway. She could see vehicles parked at the end of the runway--more than usual. One of them was obviously her father's truck. The coyote touched down lightly and hit the brakes, bringing the G26B to a crawl halfway down the runway and letting the engine idle.

She pulled her helmet off and turned around in the cockpit, motioning for Dixie to do the same. "Hey. Dix. You need to talk to them, okay?"

"I said I wasn't going to. You knew that."

"I did. But listen. Listen, I know you don't care about California, or Colorado, or any of this. I don't blame you... I don't_exactly_ care about it either... but we don't have a choice. This is bigger than us. Just like I told Major Birch."

"It doesn't have to be."

"Sometimes we don't get to decide that. Dixie... I wasn't gonna take you, at first. It would've been easy to knock ya out or... or anything. Just get away on my own, not deal with any of this. Not... care."

"When?"

"What?"

"When were you not going to take me?"

Kalinda lowered her ears a few inches. "When you left for the supplies, I thought about how complicated it would make things." She glanced through the forward windscreen to see how much time they had left before the end of the runway. "I didn't want to get into trouble with Colorado. But, you know..."

To her surprise, the wolf cracked a faint smile. "Thanks for being honest."

"For a coyote," she said gently. "Now--"

He'd held up his hand to stop her. "No. I mean about telling me when. I guessed. I thought I would have to force you. Maybe. What changed your mind? My... my sob story about Donner Pass?"

"No. Realizing that you cared about your family. I care about mine, too, Dix, but I got to thinking that I can only really care about them if I know they have a fighting chance. I trusted you. I trusted that you'd... you'd do the right thing."

"Like I'd know what it was..."

She cut the engine, tapped the brakes a final time, and let the plane shudder to a halt. When the coyote opened the canopy, warm late-morning air poured in--and her father's voice, shouting up at her before he could even see her face.

Kalinda didn't wait for the ladder; the drop wasn't far. José scowled, wagging his finger at her. "What did I tell you,Kalita?"

"It wasn't my fault. I was ambushed."

"Ambushed!" The grey-muzzled coyote spat the word like a curse.¡Emboscada! "In friendly territory, you were ambushed?"

Ricardo did what he could to come to her aid. "Who can say what friendly territory is today, Dr. Garcia? At least she's safe."

Her father shook his head. "Yes... yes. But do you know what I have here,Kalita? Guess."

Kalinda didn't have time for that; she took the folded paper right from his paw. It was a telegram from the Bikeyeh government in Window Rock, marked as being of the highest priority and all of ten minutes old. She gestured to the plane behind her, where Dixie was rising unsteadily from the cockpit and trying to make his way to the ladder.

"That's him?" José asked. "That's who causes all this trouble?"

"Yes, father. He knows a little more about what's going on. You should talk to him--first, before the California ambassador gets here."

José grumbled, but he'd learned enough from the telegram to know that, whoever Sergeant Davis was, the wolf was important. The rest of the staff, Ricardo included, attended to the G26B, and Kalinda retired to her room in a converted maintenance shack on the far end of the flightline to relax.

She wondered why she wasn't tired. It must've been adrenaline, for the most part. All the same, stripping out of her grease-stained jeans and exchanging them for lighter attire, she flopped onto her bunk and made a futile attempt at sleep. She'd asked her sister Elena to come rouse her if her father or the engineers wanted to talk.

It wasn't more than half an hour before she'd pulled out her notebook and started reviewing her records of the flight. Even if José didn't like the results, his engineering team would have to be pleased at the performance. That much was hard to argue.

A few minor changes and this would be ready to sell. If there's still a Garcia Aerodyne by then. If there's still an Arizona by then. Or maybe all this will be good for business, and we'll finally have a good warplane just in time for...

For? The coyote couldn't bring herself to finish the thought. Her father wouldn't either. It took two weeks to wear José down to the point he would even consider the G26B a scout craft. In his head, her father still thought of it as a courier plane meant for delivering express parcels. He wouldn't even think of arming it.

The other engineers did, and Kalinda knew that its payload would be a selling point. An outside observer could see no attachment points for bombs visible on its raked, menacing wings--but all the control mechanisms were there, hidden under wing panels. José probably knew, but wouldn't admit it.

You shouldn't disparage el Paiño_, Kalita_, he'd remind her over and over. The G8 "Paiño" was Garcia's bread and butter: a docile, twin-engined cargo plane with enough range to cross the empty spaces that sprawled between civilization. The day a Californian airline ordered a dozen of them, converted for passenger service, was one of the few she remembered seeing her father happy with his work. It was a sign of normalcy.

As far as Kalinda was concerned, nothing kept her from respecting the airliner_and_ pragmatically admitting the need for something more tailored to the growing sense of international unease. She still hoped that nothing would come of the Colorado incident. But just in case...

Someone knocked at the door. "Come in." Kalinda didn't bother closing the notebook; her sister wasn't quite as technically inclined as Kalinda herself, but she was sympathetic to mechanical proclivities. "What's up, Elena?"

"I--don't know what you said." The voice was not Elena's. It was also not Spanish.

Kalinda rolled over, wrapping herself in the bed sheet in the interests of additional modesty and sitting up. "Sorry, Dixie. I thought you were my sister."

"Should I come back?"

She shook her head and pointed to the door behind him. When he closed it, she next indicated the wooden chair next to her writing desk. "You were talking to my father?"

Dixie pulled the chair over so that it faced her, and sat down. "Yes. And then, the ambassador. Then, by telephone, the California minister of defense, and the one from Bikeyeh."

The wolf looked pretty beat. His uniform jacket was gone; all he had left was a tan-colored tunic. With his khaki pants, he had the appearance of a prisoner fresh from a day splitting rocks.

"I don't know what's going to happen," he went on. "They weren't happy."

"With you?"

"Yes." He sighed wearily and closed his eyes. "No. It's more complicated."

"I'm sorry," she said. When that seemed too hollow, the coyote reached out and took his paw. "That it... you know, I put you in this position."

Her touch appeared to wake him up a bit, because the wolf's eyes opened and his voice became stronger. "No, I'm just tired, I think. You were right about it being necessary, though. Even if I don't like it, you were right. You don't have anything to apologize for."

"Alright." She squeezed his paw. "Friends?"

He nodded. "Friends. Or a bit more."

"Oh?"

"You did save my life. I saved yours, too."

Kalinda lifted an eyebrow, giving him a quirky smile. "Oh, you meant some kinda... life debt thing.That kind of more-than-friends?"

"Right, I thought we could go off and have adventures. Like the Lone Ranger."

She kept the eyebrow raised. "Everything we went through, and you think of the goddamn Lone Ranger? Do_you_ want to ask General Mills to sponsor it?"

His ears went back. "Sorry. I didn't mean to..."

"It's fine, wolf, I was kidding. You'd be Tonto, right?"

"Because... my granddad is Navajo?"

"Because I have the plane, Dix. And its name starts with 'Silver,' like the horse."

"Oh. Oh, yeah... That makes sense. Sorry, I guess I'm not thinking straight. Distracted."

"Yeah. After all this, I could use a distraction, myself."

Reassured that he hadn't offended her, and she wasn't chiding him, the wolf relaxed. "Is that so? You want to take me up on that dance?"

"Maybe. What about you?"

"Don't have a radio, and I need the beat."

She grinned. "Something other than dancing, then? There was something I... was_sort_ of curious about settling. But it would've been a bit impulsive, since we'd just met, and..."

Dixie's head tilted, on the verge of coming to unseemly conclusions. "I gather you're hinting at something...past a bit of Glenn Miller."

"You learn quick."

"Yeah. And fortunately I_am_ a quarter coyote... so I don't always make good decisions."

"Do you need that to be an excuse?"

She could watch the gears turning in the wolf's soft, mahogany eyes. It didn't leave much suspense when, at last, he stretched himself from the chair and brought his muzzle to hers. Their lips met softly, briefly, and he shrugged his shoulders. "No. Did that settle it?"

"No."

So he did it again--then he pulled away, too quickly, but even as she started to ask why he leaned forward and into her, kissing her over and over. Each new contact sapped a little more of her strength, forced her to retreat another inch into the bed until at last the wolf was over her, and his eyes had started to lose their softness.

Kalinda kicked the sheet away to free her legs. No better judgment kept the coyote from pressing her foot against the wolf's thigh, guiding him onto the mattress with her. His head canted in a moment of quizzical hesitation. "We could go a bit further," she allowed. "We've earned it."

"Sure," Dixie said, without asking what_a bit_ meant. Certainly it stretched as far as the wolf's muzzle, locked to hers in a fierce, hard kiss. She wrapped an arm behind his neck, holding him close--squeezing, when he started to break away, and drawing their mouths back together.

His wide, warm tongue sought her lips and slid between them, working past her sharp canine teeth to explore the coyote's smaller muzzle. She teased him with her own tongue; felt him tense, and the hot gasp of his breathing as it caught.

"We should... stop, right?" the wolf muttered.

"We will." But she thought she was probably lying. The warm weight of his body atop hers by itself felt so good that she had no intention of letting him go. Her foot stroked the back of his calf, keeping the wolf secure. "In a... a minute. This is fine."

Kalinda bartered with herself, fully aware of the futility.Our clothes are still on, so... So she could savor his touch, and the raw enthusiasm with which he kissed her. Then his paw was at her breast, the pressure of his squeezing fingers soft and electric-hot; she used her free hand to guide him beneath her negligee. But that's just logical, and... and it wasn't doing much anyway... and he still has his khakis...

It worked until he'd pulled off his tunic, too--we're just... warm, that's all, Arizona gets awfully hot--and for a minute or so after that, while her fingers caressed the wolf's pelt. It was thick at his sides, coarse and long. Closer to his neck it shortened: the white fur at his cheeks was silky and fine. She framed his broad muzzle with both paws, holding him still for a deep kiss that left them panting raggedly.

Her inner thighs were also downy, also white... surely that was why Dixie's paw was between them, stroking her gently. Turnabout--even if it_was_ increasingly against the grain, moving upwards rather than down. The coyote's legs parted, though only to make it easier for her thick, brushy tail to wag and twitch against the bed.

Dix ran out of fur. He cupped her mound, putting his fingers right up against her slit, sliding them between her soft lips. There was no resistance--as soon as he touched her the pads were already slick and wet, less unavoidable consequence than wanton invitation.

Somehow when she went for his belt it was already open. The coyote's desire was one step ahead of anticipation itself. Like in the cockpit--how when a crosswind hit her foot was on the rudder pedal applying correction before she even knew it. How when the nose came up, and the wings shuddered at the edge of a stall, her nerves worked on instinct to tame the craft back to normal flight. By the time she knew she wanted the wolf's khakis off they were gone.

Not that she wanted them off,per se. Just so that he knew the gravity of the situation. That he knew if he didn't stop teasing her--didn't stop dragging those quiet, rough-edged moans from the coyote with every firm nudge of his fingers--there would be consequences. This has gone too far already and we've just met and we're both too respectable to go any further and--

She'd wound up with her fingers curled around the wolf's stiff, rather prominent erection, and an inadvertent squeeze brought a growl to his lips. His eyes went a little hazy, and for the purposes of experimentation... just as a test, she squeezed him again, and adjusted her hips carefully.

His paw disappeared from between her legs, replaced immediately by something warm and hard and quite a bit more provocative. She shifted about, aligning and steeling herself at once but as she wriggled it happened much more suddenly--with a shock anticipation gave way to the stretching, yielding pressure of being filled almost all at once.

Dixie's eyes darkened. It was the last thing she saw before the wolf thrust, firmly, and the rest of his cock pushed into her. Her eyes slid shut and she managed a pleading, ecstatic whimper at the sensation. He managed words where she could not: "Kalinda... oh, god, 'yote..."

Yet despite that coherence, and though he was above her, pinning the smaller canine, she was acutely aware of her power over him. He lifted up, pulling away and sliding back into her in a smooth, continuous rhythm. As graceful as she might have imagined him to be dancing--in time she planned to find out--Kalinda thought instead of an engine: energy, brilliant and explosive, harnessed at clockwork precision. The coyote grasped his sides, and he went faster, but even as he sped up the wolf didn't miss a beat.

A tension was starting to build already--she felt the urge to cry out, to lose control of herself beneath him. He kept himself measured and restrained and for the briefest moment she wondered how she might summon that same wildness from the wolf, that same shouting chaos that tightened her claws in his fur and choked the fevered gasps from her cream-furred throat.

But it was hard to_wonder_ about anything for long--no sooner had a thought formed than he was pressing back inside her and the impressive, filling heat blotted out anything but the raw pleasure of being taken. She whined with the effort of holding back; then the whine turned into a keening moan, and then an outright, yelping howl.

And still he was rocking against her, pumping away evenly between her clasping, quivering thighs. The warm friction of his shaft sliding against her folds sent little ripples through her, throbbing into the coyote's taxed nerves, overwhelming them like a radio turned up past its limits. The static buzzed in her head and hummed insistently. She was twitching, bucking unsteadily up to meet the wolf--not that it mattered; his strong thrusts overwhelmed her efforts easily.

His only concession to her fading control was a heavier panting. Then at last his head dropped, his big muzzle nosing down close to her shoulder, letting the bed catch his baritone growl. Kalinda snapped at his ear without being able to help herself, biting down. For the first time his pace misfired: his hips jerked and he tensed all over.

She nipped again, and as a fresh lunge hammered her down and into the bed she felt herself clawing at the wolf pleadingly. To her great, unconscious relief he took the hint. Though he tried to stay calm his next few strokes were shuddering and erratic, and then the rhythm went altogether. Dixie groaned, pushing hard and deep, trading swing dance for the rough-hewn urgency of mating.

Pleasure surged into the coyote, driven into her by the wolf's swift pounding--but she was so full of him it had nowhere to go and it spilled from her in warm, velvet ribbons, tearing free from her muzzle in an exulting wail. Beyond her control. She was a witness to her own peak, aware of every wave of ecstasy that rolled through her and helpless to do anything but endure it.

She shivered, her muscles slow to obey her. And as her senses reasserted themselves, floating down from those fuzzy, blissful heights, she felt fresh twinges of delight steadily jolting her body. Dixie had kept thrusting, kept burying himself into her. Not quite all the way. The wolf's thick knot was a teasing, lewd pressure, squelching against her lips. He was still too restrained--thinking about pulling out, she realized. And she realized she needed him to let go, needed him as frenzied as she was, as close to his own redline.

The next time he pushed forward she locked her legs around him. She bit his ear, her voice more of a hiss than she'd thought it would be, more desperate. "No--inside." Dixie grunted questioningly, though his body betrayed him with a sharper thrust, strong enough to seat his thick knot half inside. "Tie me!"

Dixie growled and bucked, forcing his cock all the way into her. He pulled back, and the swollen bulb at the base of his shaft tugged free, but as their hips clashed again and he hilted in her she knew there'd be no further hesitation. There was nothing in his rapid, crashing pace but the need to finish in the coyote.

It grew as his knot thickened--he stopped even trying to pull out and then it wouldn't have mattered, he had her fixed in place about him, their bodies solidly locked. She rode his frantic rutting eagerly, her arms tightening around the wolf's sturdy chest and her panting, begging cries filling his ears.

The pressure was back, rising quickly, what little control she had slipping away. Her lover was tensing up unmistakably. His movements changed: they were short, ramming jerks and finally he was just pushing at her hips, his heated erection grinding into her folds.I'm not in heat at least, Kalinda thought. Then: it wouldn't have mattered and last: God, I wish I was, I wish--

"Kalinda!" His voice swept the thought from her. All thoughts. Everything but the hot girth of his cock, pulsing deep down where he had her stuffed so impossibly full. He shoved in hard, his cock throbbed heavily, when he groaned her name again she felt his seed at last erupt into her. "Oh,God, Kalinda! Oh, fuck!" Release forced the muzzle-clenched oaths from him in time with the powerful, long spurts.

The coyote yelped in answer, encouragement or blasphemy or perhaps nothing at all. It was unintelligible and as she gasped her breath to try a second time her body surrendered. She quaked beneath him, hugging him desperately, passionately close. Climaxed rolled through her, rocking her helpless body.

She squeezed and spasmed on his cock, wordlessly begging him to claim her. Dixie gasped, snarling with the added tightness. His hips humped in slowing, hitching thrusts while he pumped his cum deep into the coyote's pussy, the spreading heat of it overtaking her until the pressure of her own orgasm faded and all that remained was the comforting weight of the spent wolf collapsed on her chest, and a sating, filling warmth.

"Dixie," she whispered. "Dixie Davis, you are one... one_hell_ of a lucky find..."

He raised his head up, stole a sloppy kiss from the coyote, and smiled. "That's my line, 'yote. I'm the one who found you."

"Well I'm damned glad you did. That was... oh, that was something else..."

"Mm-hmm..."

"I'd say I... I'd say that I hope I wasn't too loud, but it was for a good reason..."

"Mm-hmm," the wolf repeated. "And you know, your father said you stayed out by the flight line because you liked being close to the airplanes."

"It's not_wrong_," she said, and kissed the bridge of his muzzle gently. Dixie was appreciably worn out. "But don't mind the privacy, either, how's that?"

He nodded, his nose rubbing into the fur of her chest. "It's better than having to be quiet. You make cute noises, coyote."

"Well..."

"In the moment, at least." He straightened himself out so that they could share a more proper kiss. "I'm not complaining, for sure."

Nor was she. His affectionate, tender lassitude was almost as blissful as the raw energy of their coupling had been; she hugged him, and in response he licked her nose softly, and smoothed the fur of the coyote's ears until she thought she might melt.

"So are you... acceptably distracted?" he asked, at last.

Kalinda's laugh was less of a knowing chuckle than she intended; more impish. "Yes. I... I don't get a lot of opportunity out here."

"Same here." Dixie shifted in place, turning carefully onto his side and folding his arms about her when she snuggled into him. "But I live in a barracks... and nobody wants to court a guy without papers and blood tests."

"Their loss."

"Maybe. But you, I kind of thought... I mean..."

"Most people here work for my father. It would complicate things too much." That, and considering the way things had been going the coyote wasn't interested in settling down. Autonomous Arizona wasn't a good place to raise pups. Not_in these troubled times_.

A bit of sport with a fetching wolf, though; where was the harm in that? She would've liked Dixie even without his... physical talents. He picked up on it, or seemed to; after another minute of affectionate caressing he kissed her between the ears. "What, ah... happens from here?"

"You leave, I guess. Right?"

"Yeah?"

She closed her eyes and nuzzled his chest. "I was gonna offer to take you to California. You could use an escort."

"Probably," he agreed.

"And there's... some people out there I want to talk to, too. Captain Wright, Carter Johnson, Ryan Harney, Debbie Patton..."

"Mercenaries?"

Yes, but not just that. "Old loyalists. They remember how things used to be. They're good people, and we'll need their help eventually. And even if we don't... it's time somebody did something, you know, Dix? I can't just stay cooped up here. If you want, I'll take you to California, do what I can to help you find your folks, and then..."

"I'd appreciate it." The wolf's tongue drew her ear between his teeth, and he nibbled softly. For some time he stayed quiet, collecting his thoughts. "I can't say that I don't respect you, Kalinda. I do. I'm just not sure I'm ready to fight. I'm not sure I have anything to fight_for_."

"I wasn't either."

The way she'd said it caught Dixie's attention. "Yeah? But you are now? You found something?" He scooted away from her a couple of inches, and slid his paw beneath her muzzle to lift it, so that their eyes met.

She didn't shy away from them. "Trust. We're better together than we are apart."

"People? You and I?"

"People," she said. "Though to be honest..."

`"The God's-honest truth?"

"You know it." She kissed his nose. "You and I are a pretty good start."