Analog SFF, October 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  With the assistance of Tasha, clearly the de facto leader of the rescued children, and her unofficial lieutenant, a smaller, even more intense child named Katia, stripping off the camo netting and getting the rest of the kids aboard was quickly accomplished.

  Preflighting the plane, including draining the fuel sumps, took a little longer. But during flight training, not departing with water in the fuel had been the subject of so much discussion, delivered with such frequency and intensity, that by now I could probably eat a bacon cheeseburger while scrubbing the temple floor bareheaded on the Sabbath with less personal distress than not verifying that the fuel was water-free before a flight.

  Thankfully, however, and unexpectedly considering how long the plane had sat there in the woods, the tanks contained no water at all, which speeded up the process.

  Afterward I joined Candy at the UAZ just in time to watch her swing the Barrett up to her shoulder and, in a single, continuous, fluid motion, level and fire it.

  Under my breath, I offered up a brief thank-you to YHWH for Candy's preexpedition foresight: She had even included those huge spotter's binoculars in her field shooting kit.

  (YHWH? Well, it's less awkward to pronounce, never mind spell, than Tetragrammaton. Okay, does Yahweh sound more familiar? By whatever Name, during my Mossad career, which prior to Armageddon had consisted primarily of killing bad people before they could kill good people [not to mention me], I've tended to prefer the ancient face of our people's Lord. Not to imply criticism of His more recent activities, but back then His assistance tended toward less ambiguous manifestations—floods, plagues, the occasional judiciously applied rain of fire and brimstone, flattening city walls with impoliticly loud music—and, of course, though they're not uppermost among my personal favorite anatomical targets during hand-to-hand combat, He seemed a lot bigger then on actively supporting us Chosen People in our smiting of the non-Chosen “...hip and thigh, with great slaughter.” I do like that in a deity.)

  The big binoculars were wonderful: If one could hold them steady enough, one could very nearly resolve pores on the Khraniteli's noses, as our now-stationary pursuers began milling around, scratching their heads over the UAZ's smoking engine.

  However, I barely had time to admire the strategic elements of the picture before Candy muttered something under her breath (the Khraniteli headset had gotten in the way while preflighting the plane, so I'd discarded it) and fired again, this time, I knew, for blood.

  As with the armor-piercing round which had disemboweled the UAZ's engine, the first of the human-targeted slugs was in transit for nearly three seconds. During that interim, Candy got off four additional shots, and I found myself tempted to worry that she might have allowed herself to get caught up in the frenzy of combat—the condition known to Viking raiders of old as going berserk: Her shots were so closely spaced that she seemed almost just to be spraying lead.

  However, even during that melée back in the woods, despite the odds and intensity, Candy had remained focused, and not a single shot had been wasted. Really, regardless of circumstances, I could not imagine her losing her head.

  On the other hand, neither could I quite believe that anyone, even someone burning calories at the rate she was at that point, could possibly hold, aim, and fire so huge a rifle, freehand, so very quickly: Never did appreciably more than half a second separate each shot from its predecessor.

  Still, this struck me as a poor time to kibitz, never mind kvetch, so I suppressed my mother's internal voice, held “her” tongue as well as my own breath, and waited. And waited. And...

  Almost concurrently with Candy's sixth shot, a scarlet bloom appeared in the center of Kazimirov's chest. Backward, end over end, the Khraniteli leader launched off the rear of the UAZ. As he rotated midair, it became apparent that, on exit, the fifty-caliber expanding slug had transformed his back into an outward-exploded, red-spraying ruin.

  Then, barely half a second later, even before Kazimirov could become fully airborne, Fedka, to his left, followed suit—and momentarily I indulged in an unworthy gloat: Another local Auschwitz chapter closed down for good; this latter-day Mengele-pretender would torture no more children.

  Half a second after that, the man to Kazimirov's right, down on the ground, was her target. He was followed, after the same eyeblink, by the one to the left of Fedka. Then two others on the ground, who had had the bad fortune to find themselves momentarily lined up from Candy's sightline, were struck down by a single bullet. Then the next went down. And the next, and...

  Supported by her invocation of hysterical strength to support the gun and hold it steady, Candy's hypnotically augmented concentration was doing exactly what it had been summoned for: Regardless how quickly one followed another, every shot was precisely aimed; each had a Khranitel's name on it.

  I spared a quick glance at her. The metabolic supercharge had been running for only a few seconds thus far, so apart from a sudden beading-up of perspiration on her face, and the suggestion of rivulets pooling up to trickle down her cheeks and neck (with temperatures barely into the fifties), no evidence of the calories hemorrhaging from her reserves was visible. I crossed my fingers and hoped the ultimate cost would not be higher than we could afford.

  Turning my attention back to the binoculars, once again I marveled that somehow human beings had managed to become the dominant species on this planet: Almost invariably, in the absence of clearly audible gunshots from somewhere near at hand (and sometimes even then), untrained civilians spend an incredibly long time standing frozen, staring in disbelief, watching people drop all around them, before even beginning to respond.

  And though soulless murderers all, single-mindedly dedicated to the extermination of every man, woman, and child of our species (not to mention those possessing H. sapiens DNA but not members of their own private club), the majority of Khraniteli were mere worker bees: engineers, clerks, machinists, physicists; carpenters, computer specialists, chemists; infrastructure maintenance personnel—from a military perspective, untrained civilians. And happily, unlike the squad who had tried to recapture the escaped children, apparently most of these were untrained civilians, for their responses proved no different from that of any other group of their peers.

  The distance-muffled sound of the shot that cleansed the Earth of the corruption represented by the very existence of Vladislav Kazimirov would not have arrived until about the seven-second mark (following twelve or thirteen more kills), and may not have been audible at all over the clanking idle of the gun trucks’ big, smoky diesels.

  But even after that, it took over five more seconds, and yet another nine or ten casualties, for even the first of those who remained unscathed to comprehend that the air suddenly had become filled with death; and another three or four seconds after that for the expressions of the rapidly shrinking pool of survivors to cycle through that slow progression from dawning realization to the sudden onset of mortal fear, and finally, for those who hadn't simply turned to stone, the beginnings of constructive reaction.

  By which time Candy had long-since emptied her first magazine, executed a flawless combat rapid-reload, burned through the second, and, by the time she had started on the third magazine, not even a handful, from the three dozen or so Khraniteli who had arrived in those vehicles, were still in condition even to try to scramble under cover.

  Of the forty-plus rounds she had expended thus far, I doubted if ten percent of her targets had managed to move out of the way while the bullets had been in transit, and those final few were among the well and truly panic-motivated.

  Briefly, concern flickered through my mind regarding the emotional consequences to my apprentice. More and more, Candy reminds me of me at that age; except that, even after having passed through a succession of trials, some darker and more stressful even than those that forged and tempered me—many even before she found us—she's remained an innocent. Somehow, her soul has remained fundamentally uncorrupted; yet she's stronger, tougher, and better bal
anced than I ever was back then.

  As a member of various regular military units, I've taken part in my share of all-out firefights, yet I remember very few of the killings that occurred under those circumstances. However, I think I've probably killed more people in individual assassinations than in battle—and of those, I remember every one. None was easy, at the time or afterward.

  Some of my peers among the Mossad tried to forget their assigned killings as soon afterward as they could, pretending to themselves that they had never happened, or just tried to suppress their reactions. Others made bad jokes. I found it impossible to do any of that.

  But never, not even as an adult (apart from manually detonating bombs), have I found myself in a position where I was required methodically to kill the majority of three platoons at a single sitting in the line of duty—never mind having had to do it when I was Candy's age.

  At best, if we live, the aftermath of this day will be difficult for her. She will need the support of every one of us, with hugs and encouragement, and perhaps even counseling. But ultimately, what she must endure and overcome will be her own self-scourging—which certainly will be more severe than anything anyone else could inflict upon her. However, the person who emerges should be even stronger and more resilient.

  I hope.

  Please, dear HaShem...

  In any event, at that point I glanced back at her and noted with alarm that, where her skin wasn't covered by camouflage paint, she had acquired a positively grayish cast, and she was sluicing perspiration from head to foot.

  Quickly I reached a decision: Seizing the Barrett's forestock with one hand, I attempted to take the gun from her. However, I might as well have been yanking on a bedrock outcropping: Nothing budged; I don't think she noticed—and even with me pulling on the rifle, she got off two more shots.

  “Candy,” I said then, shaking her gently with the other hand, “enough with the elim already—let's dial down the superpowers. You've won.”

  At my touch, Candy started, almost as if I'd wakened her suddenly. The eyes she turned on me glowed with the feral hyperalertness and absolute concentration that mortal combat can bring out in those of us with an aptitude for it.

  “Wait,” she replied, almost preternaturally calm; “two more.” Moving with near-mechanical rapidity and precision, she ejected the magazine, slipped in two more armor-piercing rounds, slapped it back in, and recharged the chamber.

  Swinging the gun back up to her shoulder, she aimed, and fired twice, the shots even more closely spaced than before. Three seconds later, peering through the binoculars, I watched both Gatling cannons’ compressed-air-driven rotor motors shatter as the Teflon-coated, steel-jacketed, solid rounds lanced through them.

  Momentarily, I enjoyed a flash of pride at my apprentice's quick thinking—overlaid with a private flush of embarrassment at the failure of my own oversight: Destroying the Gatlings was brilliant—but basic, and I hadn't thought of it.

  Regardless, now, no matter how many Khraniteli remained able to shoot, they would be limited to hand weapons; those frightful, long-range scythes could not be used against us as we took off.

  “Wonderful,” I said with probably overdone heartiness; “excellent, you've done so well. But that's enough now.” With an effort, I wrenched the huge gun from her grasp, and continued, “The handful who are left, I can keep them pinned down with my own rifle through the belly doors as we pass over.”

  Candy blinked slowly at me. Then, as abruptly as if a candle wick had been pinched, the flame went out. “Hooo-kay," she murmured dreamily, with a dazed smile. Her knees buckled; she would have fallen except for my arm around her.

  “Wow...” she added, her eyes apparently tracking random dust motes in the air; “lookit all the spots...”

  * * * *

  Volume XIV

  Weight, Drag, Lift

  Candy's Journal:

  For thousand-plus generations, Posterity, Danya's ancestors have studied Applied Guilt: as art form and hard-science discipline, as well as social-engineering tool. In this case, Momma Spook unleashed diabolical powers not only to deny Apprentice Assassin Girl well-earned bout of catatonia following most recent massacre, but clearly intended even to cheat her out of comfy wallow in short-term remorse.

  First, of course, even before had resumed full situational awareness, Danni plied me with Gatorade, supplemented with complex-carbohydrate-based quick-energy bars. (Doubtless having to suppress her own self-inflicted guilt over having failed to include chicken soup in backpack!)

  Thereafter, before tummy had opportunity to realize now at least partially restocked, capable, if still in mood, of messy reverse peristalsis in reaction to killings, mentor shamelessly dispatched little Katia to come sit with me, hold hand.

  For long moments, child regarded me with those huge, Precious Moments eyes, worried expression; then said earnestly, “Candy, until boomness, only timings being now 20 minutes.”

  Girl paused. Then, with furtive glance over shoulder at BC (currently starfished flat on back, all four legs sprawled limply, tongue lolling, tail sweeping deck in languorous slow-motion, being snuggled, scritched by at least ten kids simultaneously), continued in conspiratorial whisper, “Thinking am, scared being Maggie.”

  Hah! Did your Humble Historiographer imply subtle laying of guilt? Golly gee whillikers, Posterity; if “scared being Maggie," because thermonuclear detonation only 20 minutes off, clearly time for Plucky Girl Flying Ace to knock off goldbricking, get on with job. Hey, bad enough to disappoint Katia, Tasha, other kids, even Danni—not to mention being converted to energy myself—but letting Maggie down would be just wrong....

  Suppressed smile at Danni's blatant chicanery. Gave head exploratory shake. Noted eyes focused mostly where, on what wanted them to.

  Stood carefully, headed forward, still unsteady on feet, but really not in bad shape overall. Pretty sure would have no difficulty functioning adequately sitting down.

  Eyed Danni as tottered past. Seated cross-legged on deck by belly doors, mayhem mentor setting out Israeli sniper rifle's magazines for quick access.

  Resisted momentary suicidal impulse to cuff her gently up back of head; instead, leaned close, whispered, “That was just mean....”

  Danni flashed brilliant smile. “You're welcome.”

  Regarded Maggie, surrounded by new lifelong Best Friends. Pretty sure BC too smart accidentally to fall and/or jump out belly doors once open, but just to be on safe side, mind-invited her to accompany big sister forward.

  Tasha already strapped into copilot's seat, covetously studying instruments, controls, so put Superpup in lap. Girl grinned; enveloped dog in arms. BC rewarded her with big kiss.

  Plucky Girl Flying Ace settled tush into pilot's seat. Quickly ran through power-up checklist; everything came up green. Then mentally kicked self for wasting time: As if green mattered—had to go now!

  Switches on, hit starter, and—

  Ignition ... ! Sighed with relief: Engine-start after multiple days’ inactivity single go/no-go, live/die threshold event upon which escape absolutely contingent—elephant in living room about which everyone carefully had not been talking.

  As turbine spooled up to takeoff rpms, strapped in, trimmed for liftoff.

  Unfortunately, not counting Tasha, me, only two other kids had actual seats with restraints; six others had managed to squeeze into those seats, sitting in their laps, arms, legs interlaced about one another. Rest sat on deck in rear, backs against hull.

  If things went south at any point during flight, would just have to hold on—for all the good that would do (see any battle/attack scene from randomly selected Star Trek episode—multiply by factor of 100).

  Called out anyway: “Hold tight, everybody.” Then added, “Danni, are you ready? I'll release the belly doors just as soon as we lift off.”

  “Ready,” came reply. Heard her cycle rifle's action to charge chamber. In passenger-observation mirror mounted above windshield between sunshades,
could see dainty Grim Reaper Personified now lay prone, most of torso just behind belly doors’ rear edges; head, shoulders overhung crack.

  Noted Momma Spook had roped self to cargo tie-downs at rear. Plus on either side, two older boys had death grip on belt with one hand, equally firm hold of plane's exposed aluminum ribs with other. Kids’ expressions promised arms would come off long before would let new companion/co-rescuer/(most gorgeous woman had ever seen) fall.

  Firewalled throttle; released brakes. Stallion moved forward, but only slowly—in fact, downright lethargically...

  Belatedly, performed quick weights review in head: Big ship tips scales at 3,100 pounds empty; certified maximum gross, 6,100.

  Okay, add two dozen starving kids, most around Tasha's size, only a few very small ones: average, maybe 80 pounds each. Plus Danni, Maggie, me. Bit over a ton total. Subtract probably 200 pounds for missing seats.

  Jet-A weighs just under seven pounds per gallon. And, thanks to Yours Truly's too-clever cold-fueling trick, tanks virtually full: 360 gallons ... not quite 2,500 pounds.

  So carry the one, and...

  Oh, goody—Plucky Girl Aviatrix & Friends taking off at least 600 pounds overgross! Which, according to Lennel, other experienced aviators among AAs’ ranks, qualifies as nothing less than recipe for disaster.

  Well, too late to do anything about it now. Fortunately, takeoff run all downhill, over smooth, if softer than strictly preferred, turf. Trying to build speed downhill, gravity would be our friend; fact that it pressed tires into soft footing made it less so.

  In fact, with turbine wailing at max, almost a third of clearing lay behind us before managed to coax tailwheel off ground—with hedgerow delineating field's lower margin growing rapidly in windshield.

  By then, of course, Dauntless Girl Flying Ace had begun feverish review of everything had ever heard about aviation physics, as well as every flying tall tale Lennel, Scott, Kenny, and others had repeated in presence, trying to remember tips for getting recalcitrant aircraft off ground prior to running out of room.