by Andy Lucas
‘Of course we’re getting out of here,’ Pace reassured her, nodding over to where the ever-present Sten sat purposefully on a table. ‘I won’t let anything happen to you, I promise.’
‘I think I believe you.’
‘I’m sorry you were dragged into this,’ he said. ‘Your life is in danger because of me. I wish you were a thousand miles from here.’
‘I don’t,’ she replied flatly. ‘It isn’t over yet and, besides, you just promised to get me out of here alive. I’m going to hold you to your word. To tell the truth, even if I was to die tomorrow, I’m still glad I came looking for you.’
‘We’ll both live through this, don’t worry.’ He hoped it sounded more believable than it felt. ‘I have to survive to get things sorted with David, and to make sure Amanda didn’t die in vain. There must be something I can do in her memory, perhaps at the school where she taught. A memorial garden, or a playground; something the kids will enjoy.’
‘What a wonderful idea,’ said Sarah, understanding that little bit more just what a good man he was.
‘I also need to decide how I’m going to spend my time. After I help sort out the disaster that this race has become, there will be a film to edit. But after that, I don’t know what I will do.’
‘You could always come and work with me,’ Sarah suddenly sat up straight, as though struck by a revelation. ‘My father will fall over himself to find a place for you in the firm, I know he will.’
‘I don’t think your husband would be too impressed,’ Pace argued, but not too strenuously because he was feeling too tired. If the McEntire Corporation was really the front for dastardly deeds, did he really want to get tied up with it?
‘I don’t care,’ she said. ‘We are divorcing, if he likes it or not, so it’s up to me who I spend my time with.’
‘Still no love lost there then?’ It was nice to hear his most dangerous love rival remained out in the cold.
‘No way,’ she breezed. ‘That part of my life is over. I’m looking to the future now.’ Settling back into the sofa, she shifted around to get more comfortable and yawned widely. Groaning, she rubbed her eyes with the backs of her hands. Within a minute she was fast asleep.
Pace left her to her slumber and wandered around the control room, trying to think of something to do. He was very tired himself but it didn’t feel the right time to rest. His mind was as active as ever and he knew that danger was still out there somewhere. At least the airship flew below radar height so the chance of being shot down by the airforce was slim.
He finally made his mind up to join Baker and Bailey downstairs, automatically slipping the Sten over his shoulder, and moving into the covered walkway, heading for the hatch. Just before he reached it he noted a small latch set into the tinted glass on his right. He tested it gently and it clicked, opening a small glass door leading out onto the open roof of the habitation disc.
Obviously some kind of maintenance hatch, Pace was through it in a moment and suddenly standing out in the warm night air.
Above him the clear sky in the centre of the donut-shaped envelope still twinkled with a thousand visible stars as he strolled slowly across the roof, stopping little more than a foot from the edge. With no guard-rail, a fall would ruin everything.
The thrusters were working well, not that there was much for them to do in the near windless conditions, and everything was perfectly stable, although their creeping progress was clear in the painfully slow passage of the treetops below. Pace started singing to himself; the famous song about being up on a roof, and settled down onto his back to watch the stars drift across the natural picture-window above him. Just in case he drifted off to sleep, he moved himself away from the edge by a good three feet.
He yawned and stretched like a cat, revelling in the delicious sensations that working his aching muscles brought. The roof was solid but felt very comfortable as fatigue inched his eyelids shut. A fly buzzed at his ear and he tried swatting it away.
His hand hit nothing but they were bloody fast those things, his addled brain reminded him, not caring if another insect made a meal of him. But the fly was a persistent devil, make no mistake, and it wouldn’t go away.
Pace waved his hands wildly, still not wanting to open his eyes or sit up again. Finally, his brain decided that something wasn’t quite right and grumpily forced his eyes open to hunt for the soon-to-be-squashed bug. Strangely, the air around him was clear and empty. He could still hear it clearly buzzing and it took a full second for his brain to snap itself into gear and send him a disturbing message.
There was no fly. It was the sound of an approaching helicopter! They were not expecting help to arrive so it had to be bad news. He was up and heading back towards the service hatch just as he spotted Baker come flying down the dimly lit glass passageway circling the habitat, snatching Sarah from the sofa and carrying her back into the passageway. Suddenly awake and groggy with sleep, her legs and arms flailed in panic and a couple of terrified punches bounced harmlessly off of Baker’s sturdy frame.
Three feet still separated Pace from the hatch when not one, but two helicopters hove into view across the skyline, making a beeline straight for the base. The peace of the night was shattered as the helicopters opened up on the airship with machine guns while still five hundred feet out. Bullets whizzed overhead before the gunners adjusted their aim and scored hits on the habitation disc itself, bullets easily tearing through soft metal and plastic.
One of the helicopters drew closer to the airship; they were both old Hueys with open side doors and a gunner on clear show. It dropped into a neat hover barely fifty feet away, with its rotor assembly chopping the air almost level with the roof of the disc. Smiling to himself at the ease of the kill, the gunner took careful aim and poured hundreds of heavy bullets into the defenceless structure.
Moving over to the lip of the open roof, Pace knelt down and slipped the trusty Sten from his shoulder. He worked the bolt smoothly and raised it to his shoulder, sighting the helicopter’s exposed rotor assembly. Squeezing the trigger sent a stream of bullets smashing into the delicate mechanics and the range was too close to miss, with the remainder of his last clip scoring vital hits immediately.
As an experienced helicopter pilot himself, Pace knew the machine would not survive the assault but what he didn’t expect was to see the rotor blades fly straight off. A lucky shot must have sheared a crucial retaining bolt because there was an almighty bang and suddenly all the blades were gone, whipping into the night sky too fast for the eye to see.
Grateful not to have been decapitated, he watched with satisfaction as the aircraft pitched forward and fell like a stone into the upper canopy. Being heavy, it fell right through the thin upper layer and he heard it crash, smash and grind its way down to the forest floor. He just began to wonder if the crew would survive the fall when a dull crump sounded from deep within the trees and a plume of dark smoke curled upwards to tickle the base’s underbelly. No, he thought, listening as the fuel tank erupted, that was their lot.
‘If you keep this up, I’m going to have to recruit you into my team of cut-throats,’ came a gruff voice from behind him. ‘Good job.’
Baker had joined him on the roof, having dumped Sarah inside the relative safety of the stainless steel kitchen. Spotting the glass service hatch on his return trip to the control room to look for Pace, he guessed where he’d gone and headed outside just in time to see the helicopter shot out of the night sky.
‘All things considered, I’d rather be at home.’
‘What, and miss all this fun? I don’t understand you,’ Baker grimaced.
From down below came the distant chatter of small arms fire as Baker’s men on the lower platform valiantly returned fire on the second helicopter, which now stood off over three hundred feet, no doubt trying to understand the loss of its companion. At such a safe distance, its heavy guns easily peppered the base and decimated the platform, the rapid muzzle flashes from its machine gun barrels jarri
ng to eyes adjusted to the darkness.
Muffled screams of agony sounded from the platform and then abruptly died, as did the men who owned them. Baker frowned into the darkness; he knew all of his men and had just lost a couple more very good ones.
More muzzle flashes split the night and bullets tore into the envelope. The gunner waited for it to shrivel theatrically and send the base plunging into the trees but nothing happened. Ten seconds of continuous fire later and the gunner was getting understandably annoyed.
The belt-fed gun was reloaded with a mix of standard rounds and tracer rounds, averaging one tracer to every three standard rounds, with the gunner obviously sure his sights were off and that his fire wasn’t hitting the envelope at all.
Satisfied with the change of belt he opened up with another brilliant burst, this time the multiple flashes from the barrel enhanced by red streaks marking the passage of every bullet. Even though he watched his tracer rounds hit their target, the balloon shrugged the hits off and remained fully inflated. He was furious.
‘The balloon is designed to be self-sealing,’ explained Baker, prepping his own automatic rifle as he talked. ‘These stations are designed to be strong and the envelope has always been the weak point. It wouldn’t do for a pointed branch, or an angry local with a rifle, to be able to bring the whole, multi-million pound station crashing down. It isn’t bullet proof as such, but bullets will go in and travel out the other side without deflating the envelope. The skin will keep sealing itself as long as there aren’t too many holes put in it at once.’
‘How long can it take this sort of punishment?’ Pace asked.
‘I don’t know,’ he conceded. ‘Not much longer, that’s for sure. It just isn’t designed to take a heavy assault.’
The helicopter was a dark spot in the deep blue of a starry night, clearly highlighted by the streaming tracer bullets that the gunner still poured out of his gun. It was out of effective range of their own weapons, so all they could do was aim a dozen feet above it and hope their fire would reach. Pace grinned as Baker handed him a box of ammunition, which he quickly thumbed into the clip before re-inserting it and snapping back the bolt.
Their automatic weapons spat angrily towards the helicopter but they knew they’d need a great deal of luck to do any damage to it. The second they fired, their own muzzle flashes gave away their position to the helicopter crew, who suddenly clicked as to why their friends had fallen out of the sky. Luck deserted the defenders as the gunner switched targets.
‘Scatter!’ yelled Baker, pushing Pace away from him and heading out across the flat roof at a mad dash. Scrambling to his feet, Pace bolted the other way, trying to weave as he moved, hoping to throw off the gunner’s aim. The helicopter’s heavy machine gun sounded again but Baker was too busy running to give any thought to who the bullets were hunting.
Pace ran for his life, hunching low and twisting for all he was worth. Bullets peppered all around him in the darkness and, for a moment, he ran too close to the edge of the habitat roof. He started to change direction when a massive concussion suddenly rolled across the roof like a tidal wave.
Shrapnel and debris crested the heated blast of air that scoured its way over the dome and lifted him bodily into its talons. Pain stabbed across his exposed face and hands as he instinctively flung them up to protect his eyes.
Dazed, he found himself hanging several feet away from solid ground as the blast wave washed him over the edge.
Not being a superhero, his body succumbed to the force of gravity and he plummeted downwards, a cry of surprise breaking from his lips.
20
Pace’s flailing arm struck one of the hanging anchor ropes that dangled beneath the habitation disc and his fingers instinctively grasped it, yanking his shoulder agonisingly as all his weight was brought to a sudden stop. His hands slid down the rope a few feet, burning his skin red raw, but he held on.
Ignoring the pain, he swung his other arm around and gripped it tightly with both hands, quickly slipping the snaking rope between his legs and trapping it with his feet, military style. Safe now, he shook his head to clear his senses and allowed himself to steal a look upwards.
The sight that met his gaze filled him with renewed dread. More helicopters had appeared and were pouring a withering fire into the habitation disc and the gas envelope, which had passed its damage threshold and was beginning to deflate, tipping the disc down at a thirty degree angle. A crash was inevitable.
Within a minute, his feet were being dragged into the uppermost fronds of the canopy as the airship lost height rapidly. He held on for as long as he could but soon he found himself dragged deeply into the treetops and the rope was wrenched from his numb, bloodied fingers.
His fall to the ground was broken by several small tree limbs and he luckily ended up landing in a deep, muddy puddle. Winded, bruised and scratched all over, he staggered to his feet and checked himself over. Nothing broken, not even a sprain.
A mile away, the stricken airship settled onto the treetops with a wounded sigh, like a great whale beached and ready to die. The habitation disc dropped through the thinner branches until it came to rest about thirty feet off of the ground, tilted up at nearly ninety degrees. Smashed beyond recognition, it resembled the wreckage of a doomed airliner.
Pace heard the crash and clocked the direction. Without a machete, he did his best to get there fast but the section of forest he was in was fairly lightly covered with tall trees, allowing smaller trees, ferns and bushes to choke the normally barren forest floor. The going was tough, and very slow. Above him, the loud thump of multiple rotors woke all wildlife for twenty miles around, vibrating the ground and forcing tree trunks to shiver.
After ten minutes, Pace broke out onto the banks of a narrow stream, snaking a path through the foliage to the east and west. He needed to head north but he realised it was impossible, especially in the dark. He’d nearly lost an eye to several unseen thorns and vines, and to go on would have been suicidal.
He knelt down and splashed some cool water onto his face, feeling better immediately. As he stood up, though, a cold metal sensation pressed against the side of his temple. He hadn’t heard the soldiers rappel down over the roar of the low flying helicopters but, as he slowly turned, he knew the game was up. Three purposeful looking figures now stood next to him. He raised his hands. Getting shot was pointless. Maybe he could find a way to escape later.
Back at the crash site, a group of Cathera’s soldiers were surrounding the wrecked habitation disc and pouring small arms fire upwards, spraying everything and anything that moved.
Inside, Baker and the remaining survivors huddled behind whatever metal fittings they could. A couple of his men had died in the crash. There were only a few of them left breathing. Sarah had managed to avoid any injury, and now clung to the refrigerator door for dear life.
Under normal circumstances, Baker and his team would have fought to the death but he was in charge of civilians and that changed the rules. Although it went against every instinct, he shouted down that they were prepared to surrender. Demands that they toss out their weapons were complied with.
Five minutes later, what was left of their little party stood battered and exhausted on the ground.
Locating a small clearing nearby, Cathera’s helicopter had landed and the man himself now put in an appearance, looking like a demented peacock in full military dress uniform, overly stitched with gold braiding and sporting a dozen fake medals on colourful, striped ribbons. Like a faithful guard dog, Wolf stood at his shoulder.
At that moment, Pace was shoved into sight through the surrounding jungle, jostled roughly by his three minders. Sarah made to go to him but a warning look from Baker stopped her in her tracks.
Wolf eyed his approach and a broad, twisted smile of satisfaction spread over his lips, pressed thinly together as he anticipated the infliction of pain to come. ‘Ah, there is a face that I recognise,’ he sneered.
‘I should have killed y
ou when I had the chance,’ Pace shot back sarcastically. ‘It would have saved a lot of lives.’
‘That will teach you to be a bit more ruthless in future,’ Wolf laughed. ‘Not that you will have very much time to learn that particular skill.’
‘I wondered how long the threats would take to come.’
A sudden blow came from the side and slightly behind, not particularly hard but with enough force to stagger Pace. Wheeling around as he recovered his feet, he found himself facing Cathera; the smaller man’s fists were balled and a gleam of excitement danced in his eyes.
‘I hope you don’t mind, but I plan to kill you very shortly,’ he stated pompously. There was no beating about the bush now.
‘Attacks from behind and at a distance seem to be your speciality,’ Pace spat.
Blood rose in Cathera’s face at the insult and he stepped forward again, pulling his fist back to land a second blow. Pace stepped in to meet the attack and easily warded off the blow. He started to move his other arm up to send his own punch winging through the damp air when Wolf jammed the muzzle of a Sig Sauer automatic pistol into his throat.
‘If he wants to hit you, you’d better just take it,’ he hissed evilly. ‘Lower your hands.’
Pace slowly dropped his arms and sucked in a breath as Cathera laid into him with several further punches. None particularly hurt but the feeling of helplessness fuelled the fire in his heart as he forced himself to endure the insult.
‘I could have you killed right now and there would be nobody to ever tell the tale,’ Cathera said, as he stepped back, his ego now satisfied by the red marks on Pace’s cheeks and the light trickle of blood coming from his nose. ‘I would rather wait until I am ready but if you give me any excuse, I will forgo my planned pleasures of inflicting a slow, lingering death and have your throat slit.’
‘Kind of dramatic for a man who can’t even manage to fight fairly, isn’t it?’ Pace pushed. ‘I am surprised that you have the balls to kill me yourself, quickly or slowly. You are used to paying your lackeys to do your dirty work for you.’