“Are Fuzzy and I going with you in the morning?” Helen asked.
“You are, if you want to come along. I’m not sure how Fuzzy would handle a plane. And he’s heavy. He’ll have to wait until we set up the teleport before he can explore the island.”
“Alright, see you here at 7:00am. I’m gonna go see about improving my gear.”
*****
Allistor woke early and spent some time with Amanda before heading down to meet the others. Half an hour early, he was the last to arrive. Kira was there having breakfast with her family, sharing a table with Helen, Andrea, and four of her guys from the Silo. These weren’t the usual security forces group that had accompanied Allistor to places like Matthew’s Stronghold. Bjurstrom had taken them all out to investigate a dungeon not far from the Wilderness Stronghold two days before. Allistor knew these men’s names, but not much about them. Fisher was one of the techs, and Allistor had heard rumors that he had a bit of a crush on Redd. Bagwell and Corvin had been among the group that helped him clear the Silo dungeon and claim it. The fourth was Monroe, about whom Allistor couldn’t recall any details at all.
“Morning, everyone.” he called out as he approached. The airmen all stood and were about to salute when he held up a hand. “Please, sit. None of that. Salute Andrea, she’s your boss. In fact, as Prince, I hereby declare you, Andrea, my Minister of Defense. I confess I don’t know how your Air Force ranks might mesh with that, but I’ll let you figure it out.” He grinned at her.
“Thank you, Allistor. I think.” She stood and gave a slight bow before sitting and digging into the stack of pancakes in front of her.
“I made Amanda the Minister of Health this morning as well. So far, all of my ministry are ladies. I think I need to spend a little more time with the guys.” he mumbled as he took a seat. There were plates in the center of the table with bacon, eggs, toast, pancakes, and fresh oranges. He helped himself to a little of each, pouring a liberal dose of maple syrup over everything but the orange.
Helen spoke around a mouthful of bacon. “You could make Chris your Minister of Finance. He’s a dude.”
“Good call! I’ll tell him as soon as we get back. Speaking of which, everybody up to date on what we’re doing?” He grabbed several slices of syrupy bacon and handed them over to Fuzzy. The bear took them, dropped them on the floor, and proceeded to carefully lick the syrup off before consuming the meat. A moment later, one of the kitchen staff brought him a platter stacked with roasted meat of some kind.
Kira answered for the others. “We fly to the island, land on the strip, and you throw up a Stronghold. Doesn’t seem all that complicated.”
Helen swallowed her bacon and said, “Might not be that easy. The park service books I read said there was a large number of feral pigs on the islands. The one we’re landing on, and two of the other four. They might be hostile. And the location of the landing strip might not be the best location for the Stronghold. The island is over twenty miles long, and we might have to do some hiking to find the best spot.”
Kira nodded. “We can take an aerial tour before we land, scope out the terrain and maybe pick the spot that way.”
Allistor interjected, “I have been reading about the island as well. There’s a cove with a bunch of sea caves on the north side of the island. I’m thinking that might be a good place to set up. The main point of this Stronghold is to set up a fishing fleet, and possibly a small navy. Having a protected dock or series of docks and a safe anchorage sounds good to me.”
All of them nodded, nobody having anything to add. They finished their breakfast, and Kira said goodbye to her family. Andrea gave orders to her men that Allistor was to be protected, no matter what. And they were off. Fuzzy stayed with Andrea, who was feeding him another slice of bacon as Allistor turned away.
The seven of them piled into the plane and Kira performed a quick pre-flight. When she was done, she fired up the engines and said, “Buckle up, guys! We’re gonna be cruising at about fifteen thousand feet until we clear the mountains. That’s just a few hundred feet above the tallest peak. Then we’ll drop down and hug the ground until we get to the coast.”
A few minutes later, they were in the air. Allistor thrilled at the feeling of the earth dropping away below him. He loved to fly, but had only been on planes twice in his life. When he’d left for college, and when he’d returned for a visit right before the apocalypse. He sat in the copilot’s chair, watching the city of Cheyenne drop away below them. He waved at the Citadel, though he knew no one could see him.
When they had leveled out and Kira had set them on a direct course for Santa Barbara, she chuckled a bit. Speaking into the microphone attached to her headset, she said, “Nice thing about flying these days is there’s no air traffic control system. You don’t have to zig and zag from one airport to another, and there aren’t any no-fly zones. We can just point Baby here in the direction we want, and go.”
Allistor looked at all of the controls in front of her. It looked incredibly complicated. “How long did it take you to learn to fly?” He was wearing a headset as well. The plane was a bit too loud for normal conversation.
“Not long. I learned as a kid, from my dad. Been teaching others for more than a decade now. Hey, you want to learn? We can start right now. We’re going about two hundred miles per hour, so the flight will take about five hours. Plenty of time.”
“Sure!” Allistor beamed at her. “I’d love to learn. How do I start?” He raised his hands and held them above the controls in front of him, waiting for instructions.
Kira shook her head. “Hands down, cowboy. First, we talk. This plane is a Cessna 414A Chancellor. It’s what you might call an antique, built nearly a century ago. One of the most reliable small planes ever built. There are newer, faster planes, but this baby holds my heart.”
For an hour she explained to him the basic specs of the plane and its workings. He learned that it had a max fuel capacity of 184 gallons, with its extended long-range tanks, giving it a range of about thirteen hundred miles. That it was manufactured in the late 1970’s, and that this particular plane had been in Kira’s family since it was purchased new by her great, great grandfather. He learned about aerodynamics and lift, and how changing the angles of the flaps or the tail rudder caused the plane to rise, fall, or turn. As she explained each action, she demonstrated, causing the plane to maneuver as she instructed. She taught him about thrust and friction, fuel pressure, hydraulic pressure, and air pressure. Finally, she let him take the controls and make a few tentative turns to the left and right. She had him point the nose down and go into a controlled dive, then pull up and climb back to fifteen thousand feet. At the end of the hour, he received a notification.
You have learned the skill: Aviator
By studying diligently under the direction of a Master Flight Instructor, you have sufficient understanding of the principles of atmospheric flight to pilot simple Level 1 aerial vehicles. Continue your studies and gain experience through more hours of piloting time to increase your skill level.
“Yesss!” Allistor held a fist out for Kira to bump. “I just got the Aviator skill. This is awesome! Thank you.”
“Least I can do after you adopted me and my family. Gene is so happy he kept me up half the night talking about advanced engines and new alien tech to learn. And my girls ate bacon this morning for the first time in a year.” She reached down to her left side and produced a thermos. “Hell, I’d have done it just for this coffee. God, I missed coffee.”
Allistor spent the next hour flying the plane. Kira nudged him on which instruments he should be monitoring, how to study the clouds ahead to watch for turbulence, and how to handle it when it happened. “And here’s the most important switch of all!” she said as she reached up and pointed to an overhead switch. “Autopilot!”
When they cleared the mountains, she took the controls back. “We’re going to do some skimming for a while. Low to the ground where there’s no room for error. Not tha
t I don’t trust you, boss.”
Allistor removed his hands and leaned back, suddenly aware that he’d been leaning forward and tightly gripping the wheel for hours. He flexed his fingers a bit as he relaxed. “My skill is up to level 3 now.”
“Good! If I understand this new system right, that means you can fly most prop planes, even the big cargo monsters that Andrea has. When we get back, we’ll take one of the private jets up and you can boost your skill a bit more.” as she spoke, she pushed the wheel forward and angled the plane so that it almost seemed to be sliding down the final mountain face. She leveled out at about a thousand feet, and the ground flashed by beneath them as she pushed their speed up to 250mph.
“Best to keep low and fast. Less likely to attract the attention of flying beasties.” she explained. Allistor continued to watch what she was doing, making note of the small adjustments she made, watching the altimeter and the gyroscope that showed their relationship to the horizon. He was amazed at how steady she kept the aircraft without any apparent effort. When he’d been in control his heart raced, and he’d been sweating like a pig.
The rest of the flight was mostly uneventful, and they managed to avoid attracting any dragons. Allistor and Kira chatted about family, and life before the apocalypse. He outlined for her some of his plans for his people. When he mentioned that a yacht class spaceship would be delivered to him in a few days, she nearly crashed the plane. “You have GOT to let me fly that bad boy!” she shouted, forgetting her microphone. Allistor winced at the volume of the outburst in his ears, but smiled.
“Who else am I going to get to fly it? You’re the only pilot I’ve got. Though, if you’re able to fly it, I expect you to teach me, Helen, and maybe a few others. I intend to have more than one of them, eventually.”
“Deal!” Kira grinned at him. “Wait till I tell Gene! He’s going to be so jealous.” Her eyes grew wide. “And don’t you dare let him take that ship apart!”
Laughing, Allistor said, “He’s welcome to inspect it. Along with some of my other techs and engineers. I want everyone to learn how to service and build alien tech as quickly as possible. But no, I’ll purchase one of the smaller scout ships or fighter craft for them to actually take apart, so they don’t accidentally kill the yacht.”
“Damn right.” Kira murmured, already taking mental possession of the spaceship. “We’ll need to come up with a good name for her. Assuming she doesn’t already have one.”
A short time later they passed over Santa Barbara. It was clear the city had not fared well. Large sections of it were burned to the ground, or knocked down. Looking out one of the windows in the back, Fisher called out. “I’ve seen this kind of damage before, after an earthquake. Do you think that’s what happened here?”
Allistor shook his head. “Don’t know. My hometown looked a lot like this, and it was from a void titan stomping on everything. But this is a much bigger city.” He looked at a couple of crumbled mid-rise hotels. “I think you might be right.”
Kira took a moment to circle the airport when she spotted it. There were dozens of larger commercial passenger planes, a few cargo planes, and at least a hundred private planes parked off to one side. Many of them were damaged, but most still looked intact, at least from the air.
“Sorry, just doing a little window shopping.” Kira smiled at him. “Santa Barbara was full of rich people. Which means rich people toys. Like private jets.” She pointed down at the private hangers. “If we have time, I’d like to take a look on the way back.”
“You’d trade in your Baby?” Allistor gave her a mock shocked face.”
“Nope. But I could bring Gene back here. Or you, once you’ve done a few take-offs and landings. One of you can fly Baby home while I adopt one of those fancy private jets.”
A moment later, they were out over the water of the Pacific and approaching the Channel Islands. Santa Cruz island was easy to spot, being by far the largest of them. Kira expertly banked as they reached the eastern shoreline, and took them on a low circuit around the island. Allistor spotted the sea caves he was looking for on the north side. The cove, protected by high cliffs, looked deep and calm. There were several docks around the island, and, overall, he was pleased with all the options.
Kira then headed inland toward the western side. The airstrip was there, running along a high ridge. She circled it once, and nodded her head. “It looks a little rough. I think you guys were right about an earthquake. Not sure it’s safe to land us on that. I’m thinking we make a water landing, and we can come up here later to check the strip. Maybe make some repairs if necessary.”
Allistor shrugged. “You’re the expert. I’m leaving this in your hands.”
She banked the plane again, heading back toward the northern shore. “Water landings are always a little bit risky. But in this case-”
Allistor didn’t hear the rest of her words as they were drowned out by a roar that shook the plane. Kira banked the plane hard to the right, and, when the roar ended, he could hear her cursing. If he wasn’t so terrified, he might have been impressed.
“It’s a damned dragon! Came up from below us. Must have been in one of those caves!” she shouted. The engine screamed as she pushed it to the max and banked away. “We can’t fight it from up here. I’m going to try to land on that strip, and we can take cover.”
“What about damaging the plane?” Allistor shouted, gripping his seat tightly and looking around, frantically trying to spot the dragon.
“We land, or we die!” Kira shouted back, then gritted her teeth and turned the wheel. The plane shot across the island about fifty feet above the surface. Looking down, Allistor saw their shadow skimming across the ridges. Then. all of a sudden. there was a second, much larger shadow.
“It’s right above us!” he shouted, pointing at the dual shadows that were quickly merging into one. It was midday, and the sun was nearly directly overhead and slightly behind them.
“Shit!” Kira banked hard to the left, then immediately back to the right. There was a squeal of metal, and the aircraft shuddered. From behind them, Helen shouted, “It just ripped some pieces off the left wing!”
Alarms were buzzing in the cockpit, and Kira was scanning the various gauges as she leveled out the plane. The dragon’s shadow was gone, but somehow that didn’t make Allistor feel any better.
“We’re still okay, I think. Baby took some damage, but I still have hydraulics. So we can land. I just need about one more minute…”
The roar sounded again, clearly behind them this time. Bagwell was shouting, “Can we open the door and shoot this thing?”
“No!” Kira screamed. “You open that door right now and we’re all dead. At this speed, this close to the ground, the change in pressure and dynamics might drive us into the ground. And would definitely slow us down enough for that thing to catch us! Buckle up, this landing is gonna suck!”
Allistor could now see the landing strip in the distance. It was actually slightly above them as they skimmed a lower ridge line. He could hear Kira mumbling to herself over the headset, and saw that she had a white-knuckle grip on the wheel.
“Get ready to bail as soon as we land! Don’t wait until we’re stopped!” she shouted toward the back.
“Roger that!” Corvin answered.
“Twenty seconds!” Kira called out. Allistor spotted the dragon for the first time. It was coming up from their five o’clock and gaining quickly. The monster was easily three or four times the size of the plane, and its hide was a deep bluish-green that gleamed in the sunlight.
Water Drake
Level 15
Health: 19,500/19,500
“Ten seconds!” Kira practically screamed. Allistor glanced forward to see the plane was rising just high enough to clear the ridge and reach the landing strip. He turned back to see the dragon even closer. Its left wing was nearly touching their right wing. Its head was already forward of the plane’s nose, and it gazed at Allistor with a deep, aquamarine shaded eye
.
In a panic, Allistor cast Mind Spike at the monster. Its eye rolled up and it roared in pain, its wings folding inward. The left wingtip scratched a line in the surface of the plane’s wing, causing it to tilt downward and Kira to start cursing again.
She fought to level the plane even as the nose crossed the threshold of the landing strip. Allistor barely noticed the dragon faltering, its head and body impacting the ground and rolling. It had been going even faster than the plane, and moving just a dozen or so feet above the ground. So, when the spell struck its brain, there was no room for error.
Allistor bit his tongue as the plane’s landing gear struck the ground hard, and the plane bounced. His head hit the panel above him despite being strapped in. Blood began to run down over his eyes as the plane struck ground again, staying down this time. Kira slammed on the brakes, but, a few seconds later, one of the wheels hit a rough spot created by the earthquake. The landing gear was sheared off, and the plane spun to the right while tilting downward. The wing hitting the ground kept the plane from rolling over, but the force snapped off the end of the wing.
The plane slid across the uneven strip, metal screeching and pieces being knocked off as it impacted more rough spots. Kira was screaming as if in pain, but Allistor couldn’t see well enough to know whether she was injured.
Finally, the plane came to a halt, the broken wing digging into something and stopping them abruptly. Allistor heard the folks in the back open the door as Bagwell began calling the roll to see if anyone was hurt. He fumbled with the clasp on his harness, pausing to wipe the blood from his eyes when he didn’t immediately manage to unlock it. Finally, it snapped open, and he looked over to see Kira already out of her seat and reaching for him. She practically yanked him out of his seat and dragged him out of the cockpit.
The two of them were the last to exit the plane. Allistor used his shirt to clear more of the blood away and began scanning the sky. When he didn’t see the dragon, he lowered his eyes to check behind them. He saw a cloud of dust back near the end of the runway, and, a moment later, the dragon emerged. His people raised weapons, all five of them holding plasma rifles. The dragon was much too far away for them to be useful, at least a thousand feet down the runway, but moving closer.
Shadow Sun Expansion Page 41