by Nancy Holder
When the shaking stopped, he signaled to his team and they raised their eyes to the airfield, the night sky. There was nothing on their side of the airfield. Deeper reconnaissance was in order.
On Steve’s command, they rushed into the darkness.
* * *
When the shock wave hit, Dr. Maru was caught out in the open beside the new prototype Zeppelin-Staaken long-range bomber. The heavy aircraft’s tail lifted in the air and its nose dipped down, but its wheels did not come off the ground. She was thrown head over heels and as she rolled, she grabbed hold of the edge of the lower wing and hung on for dear life until the blast of pressure passed. She stood with shaking knees as the flight crew staggered out of the cockpit in a daze.
Her lab had not exploded, of that she was certain. They were under attack, probably from enemy aircraft flying above the cloud cover and using the thunder to conceal their engine noise.
There would be no scheduled flight check now. She had to get the bomber’s precious cargo out of harm’s way and in the air without a moment’s delay.
She gestured for the crew to go back into the cockpit and shouted a command to take off. “Go!” When they hesitated, she yelled, “Get this plane out of here!”
* * *
Dazed, Diana pushed up to a sitting position on the smoldering heap of metal, her cheeks and fingertips tingling from the initial blast of heat. Ordnance, vehicles, and debris littered the airfield from one end to the other.
Ares was nowhere in sight. For a moment she wondered if he’d been vaporized by the blast of energy. Then she looked up. High overhead, the being she once knew as Sir Patrick was slowly floating down to earth.
He has the gift of flight, she thought. Because he is a God.
“Oh, my dear,” he drawled as she jumped to her feet, cleared the fiery debris pile in a single bound, and charged at him. With the sheer force of will, he lifted the tower wreckage, molded it into a single blazing mass, and threw it into her path. “You still have so much to learn.”
Diana dodged the fragments falling all around her and threw her lasso at Ares—but he held up his hands and blasted it back. Whirling it overhead, she lassoed a massive chunk of debris and heaved it at him—but before it could hit him, he rose straight up in the air, out of its path. The chunk of rubble smashed into a fuel tank, and it exploded with a withering blast of heat and flash of orange light.
The battle was on. Adding to the challenge, the storm had peaked. A furious wind whipped over the airfield, buffeting Diana back and forth, making her hair stream behind her like an ebony pennant. In the wild fluctuations of air pressure, the lasso went taut, then loose. She pushed through the gale, advancing toward him as he hovered in mid-air, his hands raised like an orchestra conductor. At his command, enormous chunks of tarmac ripped up from the airfield. They flew at her like missiles. She avoided one huge piece, then smashed through another, sending fragments in all directions. Then a massive slab of earth broke free, and began to rise.
Diana leaped into the air, straining for maximum altitude, and when she reached the apex, she hurtled down, aiming for Ares.
* * *
Winding their way through the pandemonium, Steve and his team fought the wind and the explosion’s aftershocks that rippled through the ground underfoot. What with the fire, the wind, and the upheaval, it felt like the end of the world, something Steve was familiar with—he had fought at the Battle of Passchendaele, where six hundred and fifty thousand troops had lost their lives.
They hustled behind a hangar, removing their masks. Then they looked up, and Steve’s mouth fell open. Above the field, a man was suspended in the air, floating like a balloon as the wind screamed around him. Who’s that? Is he suspended on wires? But that’s impossible. There’s nothing to be suspended from. Above him there was only churning black sky.
However he had accomplished it, the man had broken the bonds of the Earth and Diana was battling him. The airfield was being torn up by invisible forces, great chunks of it simply flying up out of the ground and zooming at Diana. She dodged, them, leaping, crashing her fists into them. She was in tremendous danger, and yet, with her glowing lasso and shield, she was holding her own.
Then a massive section of earth rose into the air. It was enormous, bigger even than a football field. Simply rising, as if by magic.
Diana made for her adversary, but he appeared to unleash some kind of tremendous power from his hands. It blasted her back and positioned her under the hovering plate of earth. He motioned like a magician, sending the enormous object crashing to the ground. In a blur, just before it hit, she zipped out from under it and slammed into Sir Patrick, sending him flying. Steve was dry-mouthed, speechless, scarcely able to believe what he was seeing.
“Oh, my God, what do we do?” Charlie asked.
“There’s not much we can do if that’s who I think it is,” Steve said slowly. He was stunned almost to speechlessness. Was she actually battling Ares, the God of War?
As they gaped at Diana, the truck that towed the enormous black bomber began to strain forward. Steve tore his attention from Diana’s battle in the sky and focused on the plane, crammed to the gills with poison gas bombs. Maybe they couldn’t stop a God. But they were still in the game, and they had to do whatever it took to make sure the good guys won.
“We can stop that plane,” Steve said, and from the expressions on their faces, the others had had the identical thought.
“What if we radio ahead?” Charlie said. His face had turned so red he looked apoplectic. “They could shoot it down.”
Steve shook his head. “It crashes, it wipes out everyone around. We have to ground it.”
Sammy grimaced. “If we ground it here, same thing. It’ll kill everyone for fifty square miles.”
He’s right, Steve thought dismally. They were at an impasse. We can’t let them fly it over England, and we can’t leave it on the ground here either. But we have to do something.
An idea formed.
“It is flammable, Chief?” Steve asked. Among them, the Chief was the technician. Charlie was the sharpshooter, Sammy was the smooth-talking persuader, and the Chief made explosives—witness the tomahawk special he had used in Veld against the Germans.
“Yeah, she said it’s hydrogen,” the Chief replied, meaning Diana. “It’s flammable.”
Steve had part of the answer, then. He was pretty sure his plan would work. And if it worked, then— He felt a fillip of fear, tamped it down.
That’s all that matters. That it works.
“I need you guys to clear me a path to that plane.”
It took a moment, and then like a fuse igniting three separate targets, they grasped what he was about to do. “No! Steve!” They protested in a chorus.
But their voices were distant as he put all his focus on the mission. The winds blew as he stared at the plane.
* * *
How long can this go on? Diana asked herself.
The Titans and the Olympians had fought without respite for ten years. Time had once had no meaning to the Gods. Thousands of years drifted by as if in a dream. But now her warrior’s reflexes were being sorely tested. One instant of poor timing or slow recovery and she could be dead.
She was running out of projectiles to throw at Ares. Darting to the side, she grabbed a massive wooden crate and hurled it at her foe. He raised a hand—and the crate appeared to hit an invisible wall. It burst apart, revealing hundreds of small dark objects inside. She recognized them at once—bombs. So many, too many—she could not let them hurt the mortals on the ground below.
The bombs hovered, jostling each other, for a split second—then Ares sent them down toward Diana. From the litter of ordnance on the ground she picked up a standard-issue bomb and threw it hard. It detonated, exploding all the bombs at once in a deafening thunderclap, sending Ares and her flying backwards towards different ends of the airfield.
* * *
Steve saw Diana hit the airfield on her back, then bou
nce, then roll, bounce, then roll, covering hundreds of feet before sliding to a stop. He left the team and raced to her side. She was lying on her back, dazed, but apparently not seriously harmed.
He closed his eyes and gave heartfelt thanks, to whom or what he was not sure, but it seemed the right thing to do. When he opened his eyes he saw the bomber was still being towed by the truck, slowly dragged in the direction of a clear stretch of runway. German soldiers surrounded it, and Steve’s team fought back, outnumbered and outgunned, but his brave men stayed in the game.
Steve helped Diana to her feet.
* * *
He’s still alive. He’s all right.
Steve held Diana, was speaking to her. Her ears were ringing from the force of the explosion. His lips were moving, but she couldn’t hear a word he said. But he was here, and he was alive.
“What?” Her voice sounded strange, as if it was a million miles away.
He kept speaking. Very earnestly. He was telling her something important. Perhaps that Ares was dead…
Were those tears in his eyes?
* * *
From his vantage point, Charlie yelled at Steve through cupped hands, “Steve! Now!”
Gunfire crackled. And powerful engines roared to life.
Steve tore his gaze from Diana and looked at Charlie, who was frantically motioning at the plane—all four of its propellers were madly whirring. While a group of soldiers fired at the team to keep them pinned down, another group had unhooked the shot-to-hell tow truck, and the bomber was rolling forward under its own steam. He had to leave her.
He had to go.
* * *
“…Wish we had more time,” Steve said to Diana. Her face was a blank. He wanted to tell her a thousand things: to thank her for getting back into the battle; to ask her if it was Ares she was fighting; and he wanted to tell her that he believed in her.
* * *
The howling wind, her buffeted eardrums. Diana couldn’t hear everything Steve was saying. “…Wish… had… time.”
She knew that something was happening. The mission was still in progress. It was important and it was crucial that she hear him and she couldn’t.
“No. What are you saying?” she pleaded.
“… it’s okay… Save today… You can save the world…”
When Steve looked over his shoulder, Diana followed his line of sight. The demonic black plane was turning onto the runway. He took his watch out of his pocket and pressed it into her hand. She glanced down at it; then, he turned and ran towards the slowly moving plane.
Then across the airfield, in the midst of the fiery debris, a shape moved.
Ares.
Debris from the field stuck together and clanked around him as he rose from the flames. He stood clad in full armor—helmet to greaves—and he was stronger, bigger, younger, as she had seen him in the vision of the last battle. Saw her, came for her. She raced to meet him head on.
When she was done here, she and Steve would have all the time in the world.
Her hearing restored, she heard the ticking of his watch.
20
Steve ran up to the team, and the four of them shared a look. They had been through a lot together—missions, brawls, firefights, and dogfights. So much. And now…
Now it was time to do this.
Without another word, they crouched behind boxes and crates to lay down more covering fire as Steve ran toward the plane. Enemy soldiers converged on them, firing as they advanced.
Better at us than at Steve, Charlie thought, as he got off a shot that made its mark. The bullets rained down on the trio. Charlie kept his eyes sharp and his powder dry.
Back in the game, just in the nick.
* * *
Steve caught up to the lumbering plane. Prop wash blasting his face, he grabbed one of the bi-wing’s guy wires and pulled himself onto the lower wing. He opened the door, to find a German on the other side of it, throwing him an astonished look. Steve grabbed the man by the collar and threw him onto the runway.
* * *
As Diana ran faster and faster, Ares raced toward her. They were two unstoppable forces about to collide. From the fire, Ares manifested two swords and held them in his fists.
The real battle began, a demi-God against a God. They flew at each other over the churning chaos below, through the howling wind.
Something had to break. Someone had to die.
* * *
The plane was moving, creeping forward to its takeoff point. The vibration of the engines and the wheels on the tarmac made everything around Steve shake. He moved down the cramped, low-ceilinged central aisle to where the pilot and co-pilot were seated. Spotting him, the co-pilot got up and pulled his gun from his holster, aiming it at him.
The pilot shook his head urgently and pointed at the gas bombs. He said in German, “You hit that we all go up.”
The crewman nodded and put his gun away. Then he ripped a fire hatchet from its brackets on the wall and charged at Steve swinging it. Unable to use his gun as well, Steve dodged the hatchet, then slammed his fist into the co-pilot’s midsection, doubling him over and sending him crashing back against the rows of bombs. Steve followed up, wrestled the hatchet away, and hit him again, and this time the man collapsed on the bomber’s deck. The pilot picked up a heavy wrench from the tools strewn about and rushed him. Steve spun away. The pilot tried to backswing into Steve’s exposed neck, but he twisted and blocked the blow. The tools clanked together. For a moment they were locked, teeth gritted, muscles straining. Steve could smell liquor on the man’s breath. Then the plane hit a pothole on the runway deep enough to rattle the bombs in their racks.
When Steve felt the pilot’s balance shift, he waited for the man to overcompensate on the recovery. It was only a fraction of a second, but Steve used it to utmost advantage, pulling instead of pushing, turning aside as he slammed the pilot face-first into the steel deck. The wrench bounced away from the man’s hand and he lay still.
Steve tossed away the wrench and rolled all three Germans out of the bomb bay doors. They landed on the tarmac. Then he hurried back to the cockpit. He climbed into the pilot seat, located what he thought had to be the throttle control, and pushed forward on the lever. He wasn’t sure what takeoff speed was required, especially with the heavy cargo. He tried to breathe deeply, waiting and waiting, watching as the Belgian landscape blurred and the aircraft shimmied and rattled around him.
When it was do or die, the end of the runway in sight, he pulled back on the yoke, and the black aircraft’s wheels slowly lifted off the pavement. Higher and higher the plane climbed, heading straight for the forested hills.
The plane was his.
* * *
Realizing that they must abandon the airfield forever, Dr. Maru frantically gathered up her notebooks and papers and fed them to the flames. Ludendorff had gone missing in the hellstorm that had swallowed the compound. She had last seen him on the control tower balcony. If he had been up there when the whole thing blew apart, she had to presume that he was dead. The vials of energizer that she had given him were no defense from that kind of explosion.
The hangar rocked from another blast outside. Boiling flasks and other glassware toppled from shelves and shattered, sending fragments skittering across the concrete floor.
Who is attacking us?
And how?
She still had no answers, but it seemed every inch of the secret base was being destroyed. The flames rose higher as they fed on her records. She reminded herself that the Fatherland had the plane and the bombs. They were what mattered now.
The flames rose ever higher.
* * *
While Sammy and Charlie returned fire, the Chief lay down dynamite all over the interior of the hanger. Germany would never build another bomb here. He allowed a brief thought about the Alamo to skirt through his mind, smiled wryly to himself, then continued seeding the structure with more than enough explosives to blow it sky-high. He overturned vat
s of chemicals for good measure so that they wouldn’t blow up from the pressure.
Once done, he set the fuses and ran like hell, dashing to rejoin Sammy and Charlie. The three ducked and covered their ears.
The lab blew apart spectacularly in an enormous ball of fire. The shock wave rolled over them, and then timbers and girders—the heaviest chunks first. They were still falling when bullets began whizzing past their heads. Dozens of German soldiers had surrounded them. Charlie brought his rifle up and fired back. Soldiers toppled. But there were so many of them…
Shooting from the hip, they knew they had to make their shots count, and they did. They were pinned down, and there was no getting away.
21
Gathering speed from the powerful tailwind, Steve pulled back on the yoke, putting the plane into a steep climb. He reached out and tapped the fuel tank gauges with a fingernail. The needles read full. How far from civilization could he get? Could he make it out over the Atlantic? Or would the heavy payload drain the fuel so quickly that he’d crash land on the coast of France? He couldn’t come up short, not with so many lives on the line.
The wind ripped at the plane as it continued to climb, buffeting it so violently that the wings flexed and rippled.
An idea popped into his head. If he could climb high enough into the storm, reach the maximum wind stream, if the gas was released then, it would disperse over hundreds, maybe thousands of miles. It would be so diluted that it would be rendered harmless. Pushing the throttles forward to full power, he tried to look out the window but there was no way to see anything. How was Diana doing?
He climbed.
* * *
As the wind tore at Diana, she tore at Ares, landing blow after blow to his head and chest, making him retreat. Behind her, Maru’s lab exploded with a rocking boom. Ares fought back and the process reversed—she absorbed the hits while backing up. Then she summoned her strength and countered, sending both of them spinning. He drew back; she deflected an onslaught of debris with her lasso.