by Noah Mann
“Miles,” I said, referencing the night vision binoculars within. “It really depends on how small our target is.”
“If it’s too small we may never find it,” Chris said.
That was a possibility. There were no guarantees that this would be a successful mission. It could turn out to be just a waste of gas and time.
* * *
The hour passed slowly, with our attention focused on the dark waters ahead of us, both of us scanning the distance with the naked eye. Searching for lights. A shape. Something. The clouds had cleared, the glow from the moon highlighting lines of waves stretched across the ocean surface more than half a mile below.
Except in one spot just ahead. One very large spot.
“You see that?” I asked.
He nodded, checking his instruments and the folded map strapped to his thigh.
“We’re just about on target,” he reported.
This had to be it, what we were seeing. Or not seeing, to be more precise. Something big down there was blocking the constant movement of waves, in one spot, as if erasing them from the surface of the Pacific.
“We’re going down for a look,” Chris said.
I took the night vision binoculars from their case and brought them up as we descended. Before I even had the chance to look through them, the necessity of doing so became moot.
“Do you see that, Fletch?” Chris asked as he leveled out just a few hundred feet above the ocean. “Tell me you see that.”
“I see it, Chris.”
The light of the half moon washed over the massive ship, painting it with ashen hues, giving it definition as Chris put us into a low orbit around it.
“That’s an aircraft carrier, Fletch.”
He was right. It was. Huge and modern. Dark and lifeless. A ghost ship at anchor more than a hundred miles off shore.
“What’s that?” Chris asked, pointing through the windshield as he passed low over the ship. “On the flight deck.”
Now I brought the night vision binoculars up and activated them, the world beyond the lenses brightened with a grey-green luminescence. Through the optics I could make out the superstructure, antennas and radar dishes still upon it. And the wide, long flight deck, devoid of any aircraft. But not empty, as Chris had noticed.
A large square object sat on it, a perfect cube placed equidistant from each edge of the ship, and each end. Thick cables ran from it, four in total, and disappeared below decks after snaking down through the opening created by a lowered aircraft elevator.
“This is crazy, Fletch,” Chris said.
It was. And more. The unknown we’d hoped to explain had just become another unknown, and even more inexplicable.
“What do we do?” Chris asked me.
I lowered the binoculars and thought for a moment.
“I think we should get the hell out of here,” I told him.
He nodded and did one more low orbit around the aircraft carrier, then turned northeast, putting us on a course for home.
“That box, Fletch...”
“I know.”
“It’s as big as a house.”
“Yeah.”
Chris, the fine pilot that he was, kept his attention forward, focused on flying the plane. But at least a portion of his thoughts, like mine, were fixed on the aircraft carrier we’d just discovered.
“Chris...”
“What, Fletch?”
“Could you land on that?”
For an instant, the man turned to me and considered what I’d asked as if the question had been posed by a madman.
“Could you?” I repeated.
“That box is blocking a lot of the flight deck, but...it’s possible.”
“Good,” I said. “Let’s go home.”
The time would come, I knew, sooner rather than later, that there would be a return visit to the carrier. There had to be.
This was one unknown, one mystery, that we would have to confront.
Thank You
I hope you enjoyed Hellfire.
You can learn about my books, release dates, and my occasional newsletter by visiting my website:
www.noahmann.com
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Book 1: Bugging Out
Book 2: Eagle One
Book 3: Wasteland
Book 4: The Pit
Book 5: Ranger
Book 6: Avenger
Book 7: Hellfire
About The Author
Noah Mann lives in the West and has been involved in personal survival and disaster preparedness for more than two decades. He has extensive training in firearms, as well as urban and wilderness Search & Rescue operations, including tracking and the application of technology in victim searches.