by Ralph Kern
“After your scramble and clear and radio frequency switch, you went dark,” Overlord spoke rapidly. “We thought you’d gone down. We have SAR up looking for you now.”
“Overlord, I’m tumbleweed here.” Pearson gave the call he had lost situational awareness. Or more accurately, he didn’t know what the hell was going on. “We’ve splashed your bandits.”
“Say again?” It was Overlord’s turn to ask what the hell was going on. “You’ve splashed bandits?”
“That’s a yes-yes. The two hijacked vessels you identified out of Nassau.”
“Cobra flight, Overlord. That wasn’t us.” Overlord sounded real worried. “We never ordered any targets destroyed. Cease, cease, cease.”
What the hell is going on? “Confirming cease and heading on in.”
Pearson felt a sickening feeling in his stomach as he glanced out the canopy, seeing his wing mate’s F-35 racing next to him back toward Navy Key West.
If they hadn’t been controlled by Overlord, who the hell had been running this intercept?
And just what had they done?
Chapter Thirty – The Present
“Laurie,” Donovan whispered, his voice weak and strained.
She scrambled over to him and knelt on the deck, ignoring the pain of debris pressing into her knees. It must be morning by now, but shaded by the foliage covering the helicopter, the cabin was still dark. She played the light of the flashlight she’d found among the detritus over his face. “Perry, you’re awake.”
His face was pale and his lips blue. She had packed around his wound as much as she could, but the bandages were soaked through with blood and nothing she could do seemed to staunch the flow.
“I’m... going.” His voice was a sigh. “I feel... myself... slipping away.”
“You just need to stay for a little longer, Perry,” Laurie implored. “Rescue must be on its way by now.”
“They’ll come,” Donovan whispered. “They’ll save you.”
“And you, too.”
Donovan’s head shook jerkily. Then he gave a gargling chuckle. Blood frothed from the corner of his mouth. Laurie dabbed it away with the cuff of her sleeve. “I built a spaceship. Always wanted to do that. It was on... my bucket list.”
“Yes, you did.” Laurie took his bloody hand. She could feel his crucifix and the scrunched-up picture in his palm. “And it saved us all. Without you, we might never have found land. We’d never have founded Anchorage and the farms.”
“No, suppose not. But no children though. Always tomorrow...” A tear leaked from Donovan’s eye, trickling down his dirty face. “Always tomorrow.”
Laurie felt around his chest with her free hand, trying to pack the wadding in tighter. Her hand came away painted with blood. “When we get back, maybe you and Tricia...”
“Tell Tricia... sorry.” Every word emerging from his lips was quieter, yet more strained than the one before. “Not Mack’s fault. Tell her that for me.”
“It wasn’t.” Laurie glanced over at the pilot, lying on her back, her chest slowly rising and falling.
“I’m going now.”
“No...” Laurie began. He was giving up. No, that was wrong and unfair. He had fought as hard as he could. Now he just couldn’t any more.
“It’s okay. I go back to him...” His lips twitched into a smile as his head lolled back and his eyes closed.
And then he stopped breathing.
Laurie settled back. She expected to cry. She should have cried at the loss of a good man. But no tears came.
A grinding throbbing resonated through her buttocks. The mountain was shifting again. Maybe it was ready to erupt. From outside, she heard the strange whoops of the creatures prowling around outside increase in frequency.
She shook her head, disregarding it. Yeah, she needed to stay focused on one problem at a time. And only the ones she could deal with.
***
Jack watched as the pink of dawn spread across the forest racing by at 160 knots below.
“Waypoint one in five minutes,” the pilot’s voice came clearly over the headset intercom.
“Understood,” Jack called back, turning to the man who sat quietly and composed across the cabin. Their eyes met briefly before Grayson returned his gaze to look outside. Jack couldn’t understand him. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. But if he was going to do what Slater wanted—at best, exile him. At worst, execute him—it was up to him to play the part of judge and jury. If only for the sake of his own conscience, he had to know.
Jack reached up and flicked a switch, isolating the intercom to the passenger cabin. “Why?”
“Why what?” Grayson asked, still looking out the window.
“Why come? Why volunteer?” Jack pressed. “Why do you care?”
“About your downed crew?” Grayson turned back to Jack and gave a shrug. “There ain’t that many people left in the world anymore. We have to look after them.”
“You didn’t think that before,” Jack said pointedly.
“I didn’t know that before,” Grayson replied. “Look, you want to know the real reason? Slater has it in for me. Kendricks has it in for me. Those two strike me as the type of people who get what they want. Unless I start showing some value, I’m a dead man walking and that doesn’t bode too well for me or my family.”
Jack leaned back in his seat. It didn’t ring true. The one thing he did know though, was that Grayson was an accomplished liar. How else could he have lasted so long on Atlantica without detection? “That’s not the real reason though, is it?”
“Whatever you want to believe,” Grayson said, turning away briefly again, before looking again at Jack. “Your leg. Where did you lose it? The Vortex?”
Jack felt the color rise to his cheeks in response to the sudden change of subject. Laurie had been good to him, helped him open up about what had happened to him, but still... “I prefer not to talk about it.”
Grayson held his hands up disarmingly. “I don’t mean to pry. Just curious.”
“You think I’m going to talk about private matters to a murderer, saboteur, and terrorist?” Jack snapped.
“Just asking is all.” Grayson shrugged again.
The silence stretched on for a few seconds. Screw him. He can have the gory details.
“Yeah. It was in the Vortex. Six months before we arrived here. Some asshole ISIL Remnant decided to ambush my unit just outside Damascus and blew it off with an RPG. Well, not completely off. It was hanging by a few meaty strands—”
“Six months ago, outside of Damascus you say?” Grayson interrupted, seeming completely unperturbed by the image.
“Yes, why?”
Grayson tilted his head back and gave a chuckle, shaking his head as if at some hidden joke.
“Do you find that funny?” Jack felt himself bristling and his fist clenching. “You find the thought amusing?”
“No, no.” Grayson held up a placating hand, the amusement dropping from his face. “Just a small world is all. I was there at the time, too. Man, it was a hell of a furball over there. The Russians, Allies, Syrians, ISIL Remnant, and everyone else and their dogs getting stuck in.”
“I didn’t think you were that recently in the army?” Jack leaned forward, curious despite himself about this strange man’s past.
“You’ll want to take a look at this,” the pilot broke in over the intercom as the helicopter began banking around. Jack reached up and flicked the panel so he could talk to the cockpit, filing away his questions for later.
“What have you got?” Jack asked, even as he saw what the pilot meant. Below, the glistening crucifix of a downed airliner lay embedded in the green landscape.
“This is the first waypoint,” the pilot replied. “From what you told me, they touched down here and had a look-see before pressing on to the mountain.”
“We know they lifted so we aren’t going to stop here,” Jack said, as much as he was curious about the plane below, they had bigger fish to fry. “Set a d
irect course for the mountain. Keep an eye out, though.”
“We’re going to be heading beyond communications range of the fleet shortly.”
“Anything you can do to keep it going for longer?” Jack called back.
“Negative, not really. We’re already on the upper limit here.”
“Fine, that’s the hand we’ve been dealt.”
The Airbus swept around, lowered its nose and began thumping toward the mass of the mountain looming that much closer.
***
“Seahawk 1-1. Seahawk 1-1. Are you receiving us? Over.”
Laurie looked around the cabin, trying to find the radio in the mounds of debris. She crawled into the front of the aircraft where she saw the source of the crackly voice.
The mountain vibrated with increasing regularity while outside, the chattering of the horrible beasts grew louder. It didn’t feel like they were trying to get in yet, but even the noise of the radio seemed to agitate them.
Finding an overhead panel in the cockpit which looked promising, she traced the wire to Mack’s discarded helmet. The radio must be integrated into it. She pulled it out of the foot well and slid it onto her head. “Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?”
“Seahawk 1-1. Let us know if you’re receiving us.”
“Damnit,” Laurie muttered, they weren’t hearing her. She pulled herself onto the cockpit seat proper and looked for a transmit button.
“Press the red stud. On the cyclic, the steering wheel type thing and you can talk,” Mack whispered drowsily from the cabin.
“Hello?” Laurie tried again. “Hello. Can you hear me?”
“Sierra Hotel 1-1. Yes, we can hear you.” Laurie pumped her fist in thanks. “What is your status? Over.”
“We’ve crashed, we’re on the side of the mountain. I’m not sure where.” Laurie glanced through the window, trying to see past the foliage blocking the view. “Please don’t come to close. There’s things in the forest. That’s what caused us to go down when we got near.”
“Laurie?” The voice on the radio had changed.
“Jack!” The relief she felt on hearing his voice washed through her.
“Laurie. Are you okay? Are you injured?”
“No. I mean I’ve got some cuts and bruises but Perry...” Her voice caught. “Perry and Doctor Tsang. They’re dead.”
The silence must only have been a few seconds long, but it seemed to stretch to infinity before Jack finally spoke again. “That’s understood. And Mack? How is she?”
“She’s hurt. Badly. But I think she’ll make it.” From the distance, she could hear the dull thump of rotor blades. “Stop. Don’t get too close. This mountain is infested with some kind of flying creature. We were caught in a cloud of them as they swarmed.”
“Okay, we got it. We’re going to have to find your position, though. And then we need to get to you. Any advice from what you’ve encountered so far?”
“I don’t think those things are that aggressive. Or at least they haven’t tried to get inside to us yet.” Laurie replied, eying the undulating foliage through the shattered window. “But I don’t know whether we can get away on foot with Mack’s injuries.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Jack said in a reassuring tone. “We’ll come get you, sweetheart. But we still need your location. Have you got a flare gun there?”
Laurie looked around the cockpit before looking back at Mack. The pilot had slipped into unconsciousness again. On her flight suit, Laurie saw a pouch and reached back to open it, revealing an orange handle. She pulled the flare gun out. “What do I do with this?”
“It’s easy—”
“No, don’t worry. I’ve got it.” Laurie had noticed a tag hanging from the base of the handle, giving a step-by-step guide. The flare was preloaded, all she needed to do was cock, aim and fire.
“Okay. This is the tough bit. I need you to go outside and shoot that flare gun into the air.”
She looked back at the cabin door. It was buckled, a brutal dent smashed into it. There was nothing for it, she’d have to try going through the smashed cockpit window.
Sweeping the jagged edges away as much as possible, she laid her dirt and bloodstained jacket on the knobby glass teeth before gently prizing branches apart.
Something rustled, then a black chitinous maw pushed through the foliage. Laurie recoiled back, fumbling for Mack’s gun.
Two pincer-like mandibles clicked together and a low eerie whistle emanated from the between them. It was the first time she had seen one of the things as more than the briefest flash of movement, and it was even worse than she could have imagined. The head was the size of a basketball; God only knew how big the body was behind.
She raised her trembling hand, the gun in it as the thing whistled again. It cocked its head to direct one set of compound eyes at her. It started, apparently seeing her properly and recoiled back, whooping as it did. Then, in a flurry of leaves, it was gone.
Letting out a sobbing sigh, she lowered the gun. It took her a moment to process what she’d seen. A deluge of thoughts sped through her mind, then focused on how ugly the creature was before settling on something else.
It hadn’t been aggressive. The way it had looked at her was inquisitive rather than malevolent. And it had left her alone.
That still didn’t mean she wanted to go out there with that thing and its friends. From the sounds of it, there were hundreds surrounding her.
But Mack... she was counting on her.
The creature had left a gap, a small irregular square allowing in a shaft of daylight. Gritting her teeth, she climbed forward, finding herself on the nose of the helicopter. Panels had been ripped off the gray nose cone, exposing the intricate machinery beneath.
She could see the slope of the peak and gave a start when she realized just how precariously the aircraft was balanced on the mountain’s steep gradient. She could also see why Jack was struggling to spot them. The forest was deep here; unless they were at just the right angle, they wouldn’t be able to see the downed helicopter.
“Okay.” She lay prone on the nose, the flare gun held in a double grip pointed straight out from the mountain. “I think I’m ready to fire the flare.”
“Good. We just need to ensure we’re on the right side to spot you. Look straight out away from the mountain. Where is the sun in relation to your position?”
“Err. Just to my right,” Laurie said. “Two o’clock, as I look straight out from the mountainside.”
“Standby a few seconds.”
From the distance, she heard the drone of rotor and then she saw them, a small black speck creeping across the sky. Relief washed through her. They were so close. He was so close. “I can see you. I can see you, Jack.”
“Okay, good. We’re overlooking your aspect. Let it rip, honey.”
Chapter Thirty-One – The Past
The days and nights blurred past. How many, Grayson wasn’t sure anymore. It felt as if he had spent an eternity rising and falling on the gentle swell of the sea. Sometimes he dozed to conserve his energy, sometimes he watched for a sign, any sign of help.
There had been no response on his radio. No ships crossing the horizon, no aircraft in the skies. No other survivors from the Bahamas, Nassau, or the RIBs. Even the fighters hadn’t come back to admire their handiwork.
He lifted the carefully husbanded water bottle to his mouth. The last couple of drops trickled onto his salt-encrusted tongue—more a tease than sustenance. With a resigned sigh, he released the bottle, letting it float away from him. The temptation to take a sip of seawater was nearly irresistible. A little voice in his head whispered for him to just do it. Surely it couldn’t be that bad to just wet his dry mouth? To just take a mouthful and swill it around.
No. To do that was death. Or a quicker death, at least.
The sun beat down unrelentingly. His face felt the prickly heat of an angry sunburn. His stomach felt sickeningly empty. The last energy bar had been eaten ages ago.
Looking at his wrist, he shook his head in dismay. He saw even the GPS built into his watch had given up the ghost. The small screen showed an icon of a satellite struck through with a line, claiming it couldn’t get a satellite lock.
He wanted to just give up. To close his eyes and let himself drift off to sleep. Maybe he should. Maybe this was how this ended for him. Not like he’d always vaguely thought it would, in the deserts of the Vortex, but here in the sea a mere stone’s throw from his home country.
He felt his lids begin to creep shut.
Maybe when he woke up, there would be no more pain and conflict and war.
He started and shook his head.
No, he couldn’t give up.
He had a promise to keep and an account to settle.
“Mayday, mayday, mayday,” he croaked into his radio.
***
Another night passed and when the sun broke over the horizon, it cast a shimmering red dawn over the sea. Conserving what little energy he had left, he had let his head loll around as he scanned the horizon for salvation.
A shimmering collection of dark blobs moved across the dull pink semicircle of the sun. He squinted, trying to discern what it was. A sunspot artefact as his eyes looked into the light? Maybe it was just a hallucination, plain and simple. A mirage from which there would be no aid or succor.
No, they moved with smooth purpose, and when he looked away, the blobs didn’t stay in his field of vision.
He lifted the radio and keyed the button. He tried to speak, his voice coming out as a thin dry rasp. Giving up, he weakly reached for the flare gun in his preserver’s survival holster and, with a shaking arm, pointed it into the sky.
With a trembling thumb, he pulled back on the hammer.
Please let this be rescue.
He squeezed on the trigger.
With a “whoosh”, the flare scribed an arc of hissing phosphorous.
A small parachute erupted from the top of the projectile and it slowly began bobbing back down toward the surface.
He reached into the pouch for another flare.