by Mich Moore
raging orange ball of vengeful fury as Van de Veer began firing all of her weapons at once. The two ICVs that had been flanking her instantly fell away so as not to get fired upon themselves. Helen shouted at Howell to do the same. She watched with grim satisfaction as Van de Veer's main gun blew apart the lobby and two floors of a bank. The Timberwolves were no longer running hard with their tails between their legs. They were fighting back!
And then all was lost inside of the incredibly loud, screeching roars that were descending from high above them at rapid speed.
"Timberwolves, this is Mission Control. Assistance has arrived. Over and out."
The ICVs' cameras caught shiny metallic objects flitting by and then the astounding scene of the skyscrapers of death taking direct missile hits. Soon the roar of fighter jets was replaced by the dull, rapid-fire booms and shrieks of a hundred buildings being slaughtered. Helen's vehicle shot out of the steel valley just as its sides began collapsing into each other.
And just like the first few moments after the first attack, silence enveloped them.
Howell pointed to the GPS navigation screen. "We've reached the onramp to the bridge, ma'am."
Helen was too frazzled at this point to react to the news. "Proceed, please."
Howell gunned the engine, and they charged up onto the bridge. Helen was dripping with sweat from every pore in her body. She wiped her face with her sleeve before walking to the back of the ICV. She didn't know what she might find back there. Up until then she had suppressed any thoughts about the fates of Pete and the other soldiers for fear that it would distract her from her duties. And now, with safety finally within reach, she could finally face what may have befallen them during the last half hour.
"Hi, Mama." Pete's comm screen was shining brightly in the darkness.
She ran to him and threw her arms around his shoulders.
A Patriot got up from her chair and handed her a soiled handkerchief. "You're crying, ma'am."
"Am I?" Helen was very surprised to hear that. She rarely cried. "Is anyone hurt? Or dead?"
"No, ma'am," the same soldier replied softly. "We're all still here."
Helen's knees buckled and she cried out, "Oh, thank God! Thank God!" Even as the words were leaving her mouth, she knew that they were the wrong ones and that she had lost control. Embarrassment swept through her like a cleansing plague. She tried to laugh it off. "I'm sorry. Just give me a moment."
There was awkward silence as she fought to right herself. Incredibly, her mind began to meander. Just a little while longer and they would be home free. She would be free.
Free? A tiny voice in her head asked, clearly incredulous. Hardly. Free to step back into her kitchen shackles, where she could resume listening to her brain rust as she washed an endless line of dirty dishes and dirty clothes and dirty floors. Free to be a latter-day Danaid. Free to play second fiddle to a paranoid drunk who had never once told her that he liked her or appreciated her work. Back to playing the eternal mother to something such a screwed-up world as this one had no business creating for a war that the AS had no business starting. Free? The voice asked. You'll never be free. That stung her to her core. The utter futility that this last thought engendered was enough to either defeat her or galvanize her. She chose option two. In an act of sheer rebellion against this specter of hopelessness, her mind and body locked firmly back into place. Her soul snarled. "Honey, I was born free!"
She got back on her feet only to go crashing forward and then back down again as the ICV suddenly came to a shockingly full stop. Peter was upended and crashed after her into her chest. She heard rather than felt a couple of her ribs pop loose.
For a couple of tense seconds no one said a word.
Helen got to her feet, her breath now coming in short, hot stitches. "Everyone stay calm." She walked back up front. Howell was staring at her scope screens. She looked confused.
"We've hit something," she said.
"What?"
"I can't tell. Two of my periscopes are out of alignment. I can't get a picture from the third one."
Helen ground her teeth in anger. "Can't we go around it?"
"I ... no. I think we've snagged it somehow."
Helen could no longer hide her frustration, and her tone of voice was cutting. "Well, that makes no sense. Does that make sense to you, lieutenant?" She checked her video screens. The aft cameras showed an empty bridge. The fore cameras showed nothing but uneven gray. Something was blocking the lenses. Again, she would have to go topside again and take a look.
Howell made a half-hearted offer to go up in her place, but Helen was already reaching for the hatch. "You're in charge until I get back."
She cracked the door a little. Saw nothing. Pushed it up a little more. And then a little more. And then almost screamed. There lay before them an ICV, burnt and crushed almost beyond recognition. It had been flipped onto its back like an insect; its once proud gun now curled back against itself in a loop. The tip stuck out like a hook, and it had indeed managed to jam itself beneath their own ICV's front bumper.
Helen realized that they would not be able to pry it loose or shake it loose. They would have to walk the rest of the way.
Her brain began quickly filling in the gaps to the rest of the story. She looked around, watching her breath make fog in the chilling air. Apart from the dead ICV tangled at their feet, theirs was the only vehicle on the Poplar Bridge. Her hand flew to her mouth to keep it from betraying her again. They were alone. Utterly alone! Bitter bile churned its way up from her gut and forced itself out through her jaws. Vomit spewed out and landed on the ICV's hood. Faint voices floated up towards her from below: "What's going on? What do you see? Are you all right, Major Avery?"
She wiped the mess from her lips and chin. The others must have already crossed over the border into Illinois. But why hadn't anyone let her know? What was Brainerd thinking?
Her mind attempted to sneak out into the indifferent night, but she caught it just in time. Just stay focused, she told herself. Everything will turn out all right.
She rejoined the others below.
Howell was staring with unapologetic fear. "What is it?"
"Um, nothing really," she lied. "It looks like maybe a trailer came off a truck or something. It's pretty big. I don't think we can move it by ourselves."
The others started filing up from the rear to hear what she had to say.
"So we walk the rest of the way?" one of them asked.
"Um, well, that's an option," Helen said. She turned away from them and busied herself with the radio. "I'd like to contact Mission Control first. See if they have any input for us."
One of the Patriots turned to Lieutenant Howell. "Well, just how far is the state line? If it's just a matter of a hundred meters or so, then I say we hoof it."
Howell, who was barely in control of herself, managed to stammer out, "That's up to Major Avery."
Pete pushed his way through and sat down beside Helen. Her mind was racing so fast that she hardly noticed him there.
The Patriots fell back and began to murmur amongst themselves. There was some nervous tittering.
Helen forced herself to remain calm but could not squash every suspicious thought. They aren't regular conscripts. They can leave any time. And worse. I hope they aren't thinking mutiny.
Something heavy struck the top of the ICV and stayed there. Almost immediately every instrument in the cockpit went dead. With the exception of Pete's forehead, they were now in total darkness.
"Good grief," someone mumbled in despair. "Can this get any worse?"
"Don't ask that," someone hissed. "Because you know it can."
"Everybody pipe down," Helen ordered. She reached out in the darkness for Pete. "We can run a power cord from Pete to the engine's battery and at least get the radios running." She worked feverishly, guided only by the light coming from the AI's comm screen.
"What do you think that was?" Howell asked.
Helen did not even want to hazard
a guess but said, "Maybe a bird strike. A lot of geese flying around this time of year ..."
"Why don't we just get out of here?" another Patriot asked. "We're just sitting ducks."
"Okay!" Avery flipped a couple of switches, and an overhead pin light came on. The misery index fell by half almost immediately. "We've got the GPS back and the cameras. I'm turning on the generator, and I'll have the radios back on line in a moment," she chirped confidently. "But first..." She played with the camera controls a bit. " ... I want to get another look out the rearview mirror before we leave ... "
The cameras were working fine and as before, showed a clean and bare concrete road. Her relief was palpable. From what she could tell, they were only about two hundred meters from the state line. Running, they could cover that distance in a couple of minutes. Again, she was grateful for the miraculous lack of serious injuries to her crew.
Something fluttered down into view. Was that a bird? Or a piece of paper? She angled the cameras upwards. Light was coming from somewhere. The cameras panned up the slender suspension wires, delicately braided steel ... higher ... into a swirling fog bank ... until they revealed a phalanx of skids ... and above that a veritable flotilla of police helicopters suspended in mid-air.
The blaring police lights washed out the rest of the awful picture.
"Oh, hell!" She whirled around in her seat. "Code purple! EVERYBODY GET TO THEIR STATIONS!""
The cockpit was now aglow with the fluorescent red light from the generator. Helen was