Callisto Deception

by John Read

  “Earlier this week, I made the decision to have a child in honor of those we lost. I went to the clinic, and they well, they did their thing.” Marie paused to give a sincere smile. “Last night, I took the test, and it’s confirmed, I’m pregnant.

  “If he’s a boy, I’ll name him John, for my husband, and if she’s a girl, I’ll name her Lise, for my best friend.”

  Marie looked at James and Charles, a tear dripping down her face. Though they were smiling, she could tell this was emotional for them, too.

  “So, here’s my request of you. Please talk to your families, spouses, significant others. Talk to your ship’s doctor and talk to your friends. Let’s rebuild humanity together.

  “Do your part in creating Generation Hope.”

  The feed ended and Marie got up from her chair, walked over to a window, and cried.

  The next day, Marie received a text from Doctor O’Brian. “You’re going to want to see this,” her watch said.

  Marie tore off her headset and flew to the core. The nurse met her at the door with a look of optimism that had been rare among the survivors. “Marie, we’ve had a line out the door all day. You did it. It looks like Generation Hope will be a huge success.”

  16

  After losing the battle of Pearl Harbor four times in twelve hours, Commander Tayler granted us five hours of sleep. I rolled around the cabin’s cot, wishing he’d let us out of VR so we could rest in the blackness of our sphere. My body ached with the abuse of dying. The electrical and temperature stimulation was far worse than the kinetic impacts, and I was sure there’d be scarring. The first morning light trickled in and I moaned as I realized it was time to do it all over again.

  We stumbled onto the beach like slugs. Avro looked as if he were still asleep. Tayler began another one of his speeches, one of those speeches that was supposed get us all pumped up. It didn’t work. He talked, but I didn’t even hear the words.

  I sucked back the last two inches of coffee in a brown mug, and chucked it into the surf. The mug would materialize again after we were dead. Kevin, Nash, and Singer hucked their mugs as well, letting them smash against a wet rock poking out of the water twenty feet from shore.

  My heart began to pump faster, as the hum of approaching Nakajima bombers grew.

  “Are you sure these resistor suits can’t kill us?” Luke Singer asked, rubbing his ribs.

  “They won’t cause any permanent damage,” Tayler said.

  “Tell that to my spleen,” Kevin said. “I swear, I’m peeing blood.”

  “We’re outnumbered, fifty to one,” Avro said. “How many times do we need to do this?”

  “I really don’t see how we can beat these odds,” I said.

  “We have an advantage,” Tayler said. “We’ve experienced the battle before. We’re beginning to anticipate their every move. I’ve seen each of you act on instinct. During the last run we took out a fifth of the Japanese air force.”

  “Yeah, then I got kamikazed by two planes at once,” Kevin said, giving himself a fist pump explosion.

  Tayler ignored Kevin’s remark. “What we’re learning goes beyond instinct. You’re learning to be creative and you’re learning to function as a cohesive team. Creativity and teamwork, ladies and gentlemen, wins battles when you are outnumbered fifty to one.”

  The commander was right on one point, we were getting better. The enemy attacked in a similar fashion each time. They still reacted to our every move, but became more predictable.

  “Avro, you’re leading this round,” Tayler said.

  Avro nodded and turned to face us. “Anyone have any ideas before those Zeros blitz the beach?”

  “What if we radioed the ships,” Amelia said. “We have them shoot up flack in advance of the attack.”

  “KP, can you handle that, boss?”

  Kevin scowled, arms crossed. “Sure, boss, they’ll definitely listen to me,” he said, in his strongest South Asian accent.

  “We could jerry rig the bombs to explode at high altitude,” Luke Singer said. “We’ll fly a B-17 to thirty thousand and drop timed fuses over the incoming squadrons.”

  “Can you rig the fuses?” Avro asked. Singer nodded.

  Kevin uncrossed his arms, revealing a t-shirt that showed a race between a trio of magneto-cycles.

  “Kevin,” I whispered. “Where did you get that shirt? There wasn’t anything like that in my closet.”

  “Ever hear of SpaceNet?” Kevin said.

  “You found a way to access the internet from purgatory?” I said.

  Kevin winked.

  The moan of the first approaching Zero returned to destroy the beach house and we instinctually turned to run for the airfield.

  Kevin grabbed my arm, holding me back. “Remember the Schrodinger rule,” he said as the pieces of the house rained down around us. It wasn’t a question.

  I shrugged. “What the hell, Kevin?” I said.

  “This is virtual reality. If you can’t see it, it doesn’t exist.”

  The next two Zeroes came in for their strafing pass and I turned to run. It sucked to get shot and I wanted to delay the pain. Kevin stood on the beach with his hands in the air, waving at the Zeroes.

  “What the heck, Kevin!” I yelled.

  “Schrödinger!” Kevin cried in my direction as bullets puckered the sand at his feet. Four rounds ripped into Kevin’s chest and his virtual body exploded in a shower of blood and guts.

  “Idiot!” I yelled.

  “Shut up and run,” Amelia said. “The sooner we’re in the air, the sooner we can strategize.”

  We sprinted to the airfield, and everything appeared as it was the day before. What was Kevin talking about? I thought, but then thought of something else. “Take cover!” I yelled. “Incoming!”

  The six of us dove into a machine gun bunker; when I was sure everyone was in with their heads down, I yelled, “Clear!”

  We jumped from the bunker to continue running toward the aircraft. Whatever Kevin was planning, had worked.

  Suddenly, the technicians weren’t running back and forth like before. Instead they stood holding their tools and ammo boxes, looking confused. One of the Turings simply dropped their ammo box and stared in awe.

  On the tarmac rested row upon row of F-35 fighter jets and B3 bombers. The fighters were gray, and sat ready with canopies open and additional air to air missiles hanging from their wings. Their tails were proudly decorated with the blue and white crest of the United States Air Force Materiel Command, 412th squadron. There were more modern fighter aircraft, but this was the last generation that actually required a pilot.

  Stairs led up to the B3 bomber’s modern cockpits, cockpits flanked by twin hypersonic intakes for the four wave-rider engines. There was no need for a tail gunner on the B3; the aircraft could effectively outrun bullets.

  “Ah, guys,” I said, “I don’t remember the Americans having jets in World War Two.”

  “They didn’t,” Amelia said. “Frickin’ Kevin.”

  “Same plan as yesterday,” Avro said, ignoring the fact that we were obviously cheating. “John, you’re my wingman. Amelia, you’re with Tayler.” He tapped Serene on the shoulder. “Johnson, you okay piloting a bomber by yourself?”

  She nodded. “I wish you assholes would stop asking me that.”

  “Nash, Singer, cover them.”

  Avro and I sprinted up the ladder into the F-35s. The cockpits were simple, with wrap around touch screens containing almost everything the pilot needed. I placed the augmented reality helmet over my head, briefly acknowledging the irony that I was using AR in VR. I hit a switch marked “canopy.” The hydraulic dome came down over my head and digital information appeared on the visor, as well as a camera feed from around the aircraft, allowing me to see through the plane. The plane came to life with the depression of a red button. The single Pratt and Whitney engine roared to life, and I eased the throttle forward, taxiing away from the other aircraft on the tarmac.

  “Forg
et the runway,” Avro said in the radio. “See that lever above the throttle? That’s the hover control.”

  I pushed the lever forward. Hatches on the bottom and top of the F-35 opened to reveal the plane’s primary lift fan, while the tail nozzle tilted downward.

  Easing the throttle brought the F-35 gracefully into the sky. Avro was more confident. He slammed his throttle forward, shooting skyward and reaching 500 feet ASL in seconds.

  “Follow me!” he yelled, taking his plane out of hover, and engaging the afterburners.

  Oahu Island sank below me as shadows from the approaching squadrons drew flickering patterns on the hillsides. I pulled back on the hover control and the aircraft shot forward.

  The first squadron of Nakajima Torpedo bombers banked toward battleship row. They’d never make it.

  “Keep up, John,” Avro said. “You don’t want to miss the show.” He soared toward the squadron of Nakajima torpedo bombers and highlighted the leading aircraft using a touch gesture on his forward display. The internal weapons’ bays opened to reveal six air to air missiles. He released all six in sequence. The weapons streaked toward the advancing squadrons, plowing inside the attacking bombers and detonating inside the core.

  The fourth generation AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles were designed for much larger enemies, and the Nakajimas disintegrated as our weapons erupted. The resulting explosion could level a neighborhood. Surviving bombers disappeared into giant balls of flame. Most made it through without exploding, but all were mangled, and some were on fire.

  Pilots and bombardiers jumped from burning aircraft without parachutes, their bodies freefalling towards the ocean.

  Behind the initial explosions, trailing bombers pulled up, banking left and right to avoid the carnage. I unleashed two of my external AIM-9s. The weapons curved through the air as they approached their targets and exploded, eradicating the remaining bombers.

  Squadrons of Zeros changed course to assist the bombers. They approached from all directions, forming a hive around us. The Zeroes fired and bullets trailed behind our fighters.

  “You’d think we just we’d kicked a beehive,” I said.

  We pulled up, rising out of the soup, then Avro yelled, “Hover,” into his radio.

  “Are you kidding me? No!” I yelled back.

  “Trust me. I have an idea.”

  I cut the throttle and pulled back on the stick, vectoring the F-35’s rear exhaust nozzle towards the hills below. Avro did the same, his gun strategically picking targets out of the sky. We had the high ground, and we were safe from diving kamikazes, but the Zeros were coming around, ready to strike.

  With both F-35s in a hover, Avro kicked his rudder, rotating his F-35 180 degrees. My jet faced north, his faced south. We sat at 6000 feet, wing tip to wing tip.

  Avro’s face was hidden by the mask, but he gave a sarcastic salute and said, “Clockwise rotation, decrease throttle fifty percent, on my mark.” He paused, looking for a break in the maw. “Mark!”

  I stomped on the rudder and the hovering jet began to turn. Avro held formation off my port, adding forward movement to his rotation. I held in the trigger, awakening the plane’s 25mm equalizer canon. The five-barrel Gatling gun roared to life; my targeting computer allocated two 25mm guided rounds per bogey.

  It was a sphere of pure chaos, as fragmented Mitsubishi Fighters and Nakajima Torpedo bombers fell from the sky. Flaming chunks of mutilated wings, bent spars, and warped steal rained down on the hills below.

  I continued to hold the trigger. The firing computer chose its targets carefully, and every bullet found a home. Ordinance from the Nakajima torpedo bays rumbled like thunder as the bombs detonated in midair, or exploded in mushroom clouds as the planes careened into the hillside.

  Soon, the skies over Oahu were clear. I banked away from Avro’s F-35, and transitioned back into horizontal flight.

  “Nice work, Johnny boy,” Avro said as I came around. “Call up the Naval Air Station, frequency one hundred and thirty-two point six.”

  I tapped the radio controls on the touch screen, dialing into Pearl Harbor’s primary military channel, and listened.

  “Naval Air Station,” Avro said. “This is Captain Garcia, we’re coming in from Area 51, a top-secret military base, on the, ah, Big Island, inside a volcano. Permission to fly over battle ship row and clean up, over.”

  “This is NAS tower, who the hell are you???”

  I hit the transmit button. “We’re the ones who just shot down two hundred Nakajima Torpedo bombers from a Japanese strike force. Give us permission to enter Battleship row, or do you want a squadron of Zeroes flying into the USS Arizona? Over.”

  “I’ll need to talk to my …”

  “Thank you.” Avro clicked off the mike as we switched to our private channel.

  “You just love messing with Turings, don’t you?”

  On the deck of the Nevada, a marching band banged mallets on their glockenspiels; the morning’s events apparently did not impact their practice schedule. Most of the sailors had no idea they were even under attack, and if they thought something was up, they probably thought it was just a drill.

  I unleashed my remaining Sidewinder missiles, finishing off the remaining targets. Sailors lined the decks of the ships to watch, musicians dropping their instruments as fiery remains of the Japanese aircraft dropped into the bay. We flew the F-35s between the rows of ships including the USS Arizona and USS Oklahoma, two battleships the Japanese had sunk during the actual battle. The sailors cheered as they observed the US flags on the tails of our jets.

  Between the hills, we saw the two V’s of the B3 bombers, flanked by the two other F-35s piloted by Singer and Nash. The fighter battle was over so quickly that Serene and Tayler has just gotten into the air.

  Serene’s voice crackled over the radio. “Mighty fine show, boys, but I think it’s time to let the ladies have a little fun.”

  “If you insist,” Avro said. “Head north, and you’ll find the fleet. We’ll cover you.”

  I pulled up and away from the harbor, hitting the afterburners and letting the jet-wash create a tidal wave that washed up and over a boardwalk, soaking a platoon of camouflage clad soldiers. Avro joined me in formation over the valley, hitting the afterburners over Wheeler Air Force Base where several P-40 Warhawks rolled down the runway, ready to clean up any Zeros we may have missed.

  Traveling at nearly twice the speed of sound, we met up with Tayler, Johnson, Singer and Nash five miles south of the Japanese Fleet. Amelia sat beside Commander Tayler in the cockpit of their B3 and waved as we entered formation.

  “Shephard, Johnson, the battle is yours,” Commander Tayler said. “Recommend you arm missiles.”

  The Japanese naval fleet consisted of six aircraft carriers, eleven destroyers and two battleships. Stripped naked of their defensive grid of planes, they were sitting ducks. The F-35s patrolled the surrounding area, keeping an eye out for any stray Japanese aircraft that might think to take a pot shot at our bombers.

  Amelia armed the B3’s extensive compliment of Harpoon anti-ship missiles. We did one pass over the Japanese carrier group, close enough to see the terrified looks on the faces of the Japanese sailors on the decks of the Hiryu and Zuikaku. Men scrambled over the deck, preparing to launch the remaining aircraft.

  Tayler banked his bomber around. “Light’em up,” he said.

  “Pilot to bombardier,” Amelia said, quoting Bugs Bunny. “Pilot to bombardier, bombs away!”

  “You’re not the pilot,” Tayler said.

  “Oh, shut up, didn’t you ever watch cartoons?”

  Amelia and Serene selected their targets from the displays and released the Harpoon missiles. The weapons cruised towards the enemy fleet, a ribbon of white smoke trailing behind them.

  The Japanese ships were struck in sequence, destroyers and battleships ripped in half, bows and sterns shooting off, skipping across the water like cans kicked down the road. It was as if they’d been hit by a dozen speedin
g freight trains.

  The Hiryu carrier’s deck buckled upwards, forming a giant sphere of burning light like a mini nuclear blast. Debris fell from the sky, cannonballing into the water. With hulls breached, the ships slipped beneath the waves in a matter of seconds. By the time Serene and Tayler lined up for a final attack run, the fires were out, extinguished by the rising swells.

  All was quiet on the radio until Tayler announced, “All right, kids. Let’s go home.”

  We formed up behind Avro’s F-35 like geese returning in spring. Back on the island, several forest fires burned, and firefighting soldiers rushed into the bush to put out the flames.

  Smoke rose from all around Pearl Harbor, not from the American ships, but from the fractured remains of hundreds of Japanese aircraft.

  We landed back at the Naval Air Station. A crowd of airmen and mechanics met us as we hovered and landed in front of the hangars. They cheered as our canopies lifted, and kept cheering as we climbed down.

  Avro walked over to me, extending a fist pump and slapping me on the back.

  “Most fun I’ve had in years, Johnny,” he said.

  “I’d have to say, Kevin did well,” I said.

  Serene climbed down from her B3 and removed her helmet, a perplexed, yet impressed, look on her face. “I’m not sure what the commander is going to think of this little stunt, but it was unconventional. Sometimes he likes that.”

  The crowd parted as Tayler taxied to a halt. The whine from its engines dwindled as the aircraft shut down.

  Commander Chris Tayler jogged down the steps, followed by Amelia.

  “Walk with me,” Tayler said, turning towards the beach. We jogged to catch up.

  “Well,” Avro said. “Did we pass?”

  Tayler stopped, turning towards Avro. “I’ve been doing this simulation for years. And every one of my teams has passed,” he paused, and then said, “Eventually.”