by Jacob Gowans
Thomas seemed swallowed up in the memories he was reliving.
“I’ve been part of all this for a long time now. In fact, I’ve sort of taken over things since most other leaders either died or fled. But I’ve never had a chance to make a real difference. The powerful play goes on, and I want to contribute my verse, Sammy!” He gestured all around them. “The resistance has been too scared to do more than gather information or get together and talk about how much they hate the CAG. When you showed up, Sammy, things changed. We’re doing something. That’s a big deal.”
Sammy nodded in the silence. He heard Lara and Toad’s voices floating over on the wind. He looked up to see them returning down the same path. Thomas leaned in close to Sammy.
“Listen, Lara will skin me if she knows I’ve given you this, but take it and give it to Walter, okay?”
Sammy glanced down and saw a small envelope with the commander’s name on it. He took it and slipped it into his pocket. Lara and Toad walked up moments later. Toad was much more relaxed. Lara wiped something from her eye and rubbed his hair in a friendly way. Toad smirked.
“How are you?” Thomas asked Toad.
Toad gave a thumbs up.
“It’s pretty dark, Thomas,” Lara said.
She was right. The last of the sun’s violent orange rays were long gone. Now returning were Stewart and Dr. Vogt, deep in conversation. They cleaned up all traces of the picnic and stowed them away in the van. Everyone but Lara grabbed a shoulder pack. Thomas took a moment to tenderly kiss his wife and tell her goodbye. Before she let him go, she told him in a voice so low that Sammy almost couldn’t hear it: “‘Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide. Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit to his full height. On, on, you noblest.’”
Thomas hugged her once more. “How pure, how dear. I love you, Lara.”
Lara also gave grandmotherly goodbye hugs to Sammy and Toad. More tears came as she let go of Toad. Toad was emotional as well.
“I’ll be waiting in the car, ready if you need me,” she reminded Thomas.
From the way Sammy understood it, each car would take different indirect routes home, some routes lasting as long as two full days. As Thomas explained, if everything went as planned “our trails should be harder to follow than a good politician’s speech.”
Under the cover of darkness, the men of the resistance took off their top layers of clothing, wearing black shirts and pants underneath.
Two security walls, four meters high and spaced four meters apart, surrounded the entire base. Both walls were topped with razor wire. In silence, the five rebels hiked to the point of the wall nearest the hangars. Somewhere off in the distance, just outside the base, an explosion sounded loudly. Noisy fireworks burst up high, illuminating the sky in red, green, and blue.
“‘And yet the menace of the years finds and shall find me unafraid’,” Thomas commented. His stoic expression lit up in colors of green and gold made him appear majestic. “The distraction is in place, gentlemen. Let’s move.”
With a good blast, Sammy launched himself to the top of the wall, delicately balancing on the edge. From inside his pack, he withdrew a small set of clippers and worked on the razor wire. After two minutes of snipping, he removed a meter-wide portion of the wire and threw it away from his team. Next, Thomas tossed him a length of rope, which he caught and took down with him to the other side. Bracing his feet against the wall, he used his own weight as a balance against the weight of the first man, Dr. Vogt, climbing the wall. When Dr. Vogt reached the top, Sammy released his end and dismantled the wire on the second wall. Meanwhile, the doctor became the anchor for the rest of the team climbing over the first wall. Twenty minutes later, all five were over the second wall, moving like foxes toward the henhouse.
Crossing the eleven square kilometers of the base without raising suspicion was a formidable task. Streets, buildings, and other obstacles had to be negotiated along the way to the hangar. Halfway there, Sammy could see several figures approaching them on the left. Thomas stopped the group in their tracks and let a long low whistle leave his lips. It was returned twice. Then, from the right, two more whistles responded.
“Looks like we’re all ready,” Thomas whispered, pointing straight ahead.
The building looked like a typical air hangar with its high, semicircular roof on top of a long low rectangular base. Gigantic metal doors lined the back and front of the building.
They came to a side door. Stewart took care of the lock using a small tube with a hollow spout. He jammed the spout into the lock and squirted copious amounts of blue goo into it. Then he waited about three minutes before turning the knob.
CRACK!
The door was unlocked. They were in.
Two or three football fields could have fit comfortably inside the hangar. Over a dozen cruisers and planes formed a neat row down the length of the cavernous room. Those currently under repair or reconstruction were gathered together in one section.
The team split up to fulfill their assignments. Sammy and Toad were responsible for removing the wheel stops. Once they had, they pushed the cruiser from behind with Stewart in the cockpit steering.
Thomas gave the nod, and Dr. Vogt raised the nearest hangar door. A green light above the door blinked on.
“Folks, they officially know we’re here!” Thomas announced.
When the cruiser had cleared the hangar by several meters, Stewart fired up the cruiser’s circuits, checking equipment and running diagnostics.
“No signs of base security yet,” Dr. Vogt called out from behind binoculars. “Our boys with fireworks must be doing a good job keeping them busy.
“Give it time!” Thomas shouted. “They’ll come.”
Toad and Sammy entered the cruiser next. Sammy helped get the ship ready to fly while Toad strapped himself in.
As Sammy waited for more circuits to report back their status, he began strapping on his own belts. The power lights clicked on, and systems reported no malfunctions. Sammy flipped the switch on the engines. Dr. Vogt and Thomas were now in the cruiser, too.
“Everything looks good from what I can see,” Dr. Vogt reported from over Sammy’s shoulder.
“Yep,” Stewart agreed. “Power is good. Engines are perfect. Energy cells are well charged. The only problem you’re going to have is finding an NWG channel to communicate on when you fly into their airspace. Make sure you dump your weapons over the ocean so they know you’re unarmed.”
“No problem,” Sammy told them.
“You’re sure you can fly this thing, right?” Thomas asked.
Sammy smiled at him. “Yeah, I did some simulators and stuff at headquarters.”
“Don’t fly over anything important, like the Eiffel Tower,” Dr. Vogt added with a pat on the back.
Sammy pointed to the dash. “Is the GPS—”
“Took care of it already,” Stewart said, holding up a small chip. “Unplugged and offline. Remember, no auto-nav, no communication until you’re well out of CAG territory.”
“Can’t you just disconnect all the stuff?” Toad asked.
“No time. This is the safest you’ll be.”
A long shrill alarm sounded through PA system.
“Security’s on its way,” Thomas said. “How much more time do we need?”
“Just a couple more minutes,” Stewart said, tapping the console impatiently. “We’ll be fine. The other two teams should be able to hold them off until then.”
For an instant, a small burst of flame appeared in the night sky, far overhead and way in front of the cruiser. It quickly disappeared, but not before Sammy glimpsed it. He almost disregarded it as another firework until he remembered the fireworks were to the south of the base, not to the north where the small flame was seen.
“Did anyone else see that?” he asked, keeping his eyes fixed on the sky.
An instant later, with his binoculars, Dr. Vogt pieced it together. “GET OUT!” he screamed. “Missile! Get out!”
“Get out now!” Thomas urged them.
Sammy released his strap, and jumped out of the cockpit, running for the hangar.
By the time Thomas yelled his last word, he and Stewart were also outside the ship, hot on Sammy’s trail. Remembering Toad, Sammy turned back to see Dr. Vogt still in the ship struggling to help Toad out of his seat. As he ran back to the ship to help, he saw the small missile streaking toward the cruiser, only seconds away from impact. At that point, everything slowed down.
Dr. Vogt wrenched the straps off Toad, grabbed him roughly by the shirt, and threw him bodily out the door. Sammy pulled Toad up and yanked him away from the cruiser. Seeing the missile approaching, Sammy rolled himself and Toad to the ground, kicked off his shoes, and shielded, using both hands and bare feet.
The missile slammed into the cruiser with a thunderous sound that seemed to rip the night into pieces. Dr. Vogt hadn’t cleared the door of the cruiser, and was hurled through the air by the concussion. Sammy’s shields held strong but he was shoved back several centimeters along the runway, tearing his flannel shirt and scraping his backside.
Stewart and Thomas ran to Dr. Vogt, but Sammy already knew the doctor hadn’t made it.
He stared at the burning wreckage of their ride home.
“How did—how did . . . ?” Thomas asked, gasping for breath. He and Stewart stared at the charred, broken remains of Dr. Vogt.
“Thirteens,” Sammy responded heavily as the weight of his doctor’s death began to settle in. His eyes seemed locked on the smoldering form of the man who had done so much to save him. Why Dr. Vogt? Why the man who fixed me? He felt the demon stirring deep inside. “They’re coming—they knew.”
From his pack, Thomas produced a flare gun, which he raised high over his head and fired. The tiny red flame shot heavenward and erupted, sending a message to the other teams to either come for aid if they were near, or leave if they were too far away to help. Sammy tried not to think what panic would go through Lara’s mind when she saw the beacon.
“What now?” Stewart asked, clutching his ribs. His palms looked like tenderized steaks, and his face was scraped and bleeding, too.
“The game's afoot,” Thomas said grimly.
Toad shrugged off Sammy’s help and hobbled quickly to the front of the hangar. Sammy turned back to see Dr. Vogt one more time, then looked to the sky and saw a cruiser swooping down, preparing to land.
Stewart swore angrily. “We don’t happen to have anything that could shoot that bird out of the sky, do we?” he asked Thomas. He wanted to see everyone in that aircraft burn and die.
“Didn’t bring any explosives on this fishing trip,” came Thomas’ response. “Can you take Toad behind one of those cruisers and do a patch up on both of you?”
Stewart replied in the affirmative and steered Toad into the hangar.
“Let’s break out the toys,” Thomas said as more resistance members arrived from other doors. “We need to set up a perimeter. Take position under cover.”
Every person on the mission, with the exception of Sammy and Toad, had brought at least one firearm along for an extra measure of security. Thomas and Stewart had hand cannons, a few other men had automatic rifles, but the rest only had pistols. The biggest problem was ammunition. No one with automatics carried more than a few clips.
Next to one of the half-repaired cruisers was a pressure-driven nail gun. Sammy picked it up and tested it. In a tool box nearby, he found two more bottles of CO2 and an extra magazine of nails.
“Toad, no offense, but I don’t think you should have a weapon,” Sammy told his friend. “Stay out of the way, and you’ll be fine.”
Toad looked anything but fine.
“Did you hear me?”
Toad nodded.
Sammy looked out the hangar. The cruiser would be landing in less than three minutes.
“What’s our plan now?” one man asked Thomas.
Sammy, used to being the one to come up with great schemes, set his brain in gear but felt only the familiar emptiness he’d come to associate with the loss of his anomaly.
Thomas drew himself to his full height. “Close that door,” he ordered with the same commanding presence and voice as his son. “At any moment our enemy is going to come through here along with who knows how much security from the base. Our goal is to get Sammy and Toad out of here. To do that we need to clear the runway. Clear the runway. Understand me? This is kill or be killed. When you run out of ammo, which I’m sure you will employ sparingly, use whatever you can find. Throw anything you can at them. This will either be the resistance’s finest or final hour. Do not let yourself be captured alive.”
“Will the other teams be coming to help?” someone called out.
“We can only hope,” Thomas answered.
Sammy took cover behind a small tool cart with Thomas and Stewart.
He saw a broken pipe with a sharp, broken edge and gave it to Toad. “Focus on defending yourself. Let me take care of the rest.”
BOOM!
One of the big hangar doors gave a violent shudder and wobbled in its track. Screeches and yells muffled through the door and reached Sammy’s ears.
“They’re coming,” he whispered to himself.
A small rush passed through his body. He hadn’t felt this alive since the factory. As he gripped the nail gun tightly in his hands, every muscle and joint tensed itself, ready to spring into action the moment called upon. This was what Byron had prepared him for.
BOOM!
The door bent inwards but did not break. In the corner of his eye, Sammy saw something shaking. He turned and saw Toad’s hands trembling visibly, tears leaking from his eyes.
“Just remember to take cover if they shoot at you,” Sammy said. “Like I taught you. Use your speed to your advantage. None of them can match your speed.”
BOOM!
Flame rose up through a great seam in the bottom of the door and rent the door in two, peeling inward along the tear. A small object no bigger than a golf ball flew in through the crack.
Dink.
It bounced once on the cement floor before Sammy recognized it as a round grill canister—a smoke or gas bomb.
Probably filled with nerve gas.
He took careful aim and shot a hand blast at the canister. It stopped mid-air and bounced again on the cement. He quickly blasted twice more, forcing the canister back out the crack. Through the door, Sammy heard a sharp yell and a foot kicked the canister down the runway. Then the battle began.
Two body-length plastic shields emerged through the breached door carried by two Aegis in their green-brown uniforms. A third Aegis crouched behind them. All three shot into the hangar. Any resistance fighter not already behind cover moved quickly to find some. The Aegis were virtually untouchable as they worked their way in with their backs to the wall, making room for others to enter the hangar.
It wasn’t like the last time Sammy had battled the Thirteens. They had attacked swiftly and without warning, overwhelming them with their numbers. This was different.
Why are they making such a show of entering the building? Sammy wondered.
He remembered the sims, how the Thirteens always tried to surround him.
“Come with me,” he told Toad.
“Where are we going?”
Sammy didn’t waste time answering. He left his post and ran, still barefoot, down the hangar. Toad followed behind. An old bomber under reconstruction was parked not far from a door opening to a hallway extending toward the back of the building. A service ladder stood next to the plane. Sammy checked to make sure it was firmly attached at the top. Once certain, he sprang up the ladder and walked across the top until he came to the plane’s vertical stabilizer. Toad climbed up with him.
Sammy crept along the stabilizer until he had a clear view of the door. Toad leaned over Sammy’s shoulder to get a look.
“You think more will come through there?”
Sammy nodded.
Wit
hin a minute, the doorknob turned. A head poked out searching left and right, but not top to bottom. A man in a military police uniform came through the door, his weapon ready for assault.
“See?” he whispered to Toad. “The Thirteens will come in from the front, while security sneaks up from behind.” Another man and woman came next. Sammy took careful aim with the nail gun.
Spit! Spit! Spit! Spit!
One guard received a nail through the ear, the next in the throat. The third guard reacted quickly, and Sammy missed. Sammy ducked down, lying flat on his belly. He shimmied slowly toward the end of the plane and fired again.
Spit! Spit!
A nail went into the guard’s chest, close to his heart. The guard dropped his weapon and grabbed the wound.
“Take one of those weapons for yourself and take the other two back to the team,” Sammy told Toad. “Stay under cover as much as you can while you move.”
Toad nodded and turned to leave.
“I’ll come find you as soon as I know this way is clear.”
Toad climbed down the ladder while Sammy jumped off the edge of the plane and landed near the door. He threw open the door and pointed the nail gun down the hall. No sign of security. He ran back into the hangar, away from the battle, until he came to a second hall. Two more security guards were coming in. Sammy rendered one of them unconscious with a nasty blow to the side of the head, then dropped the other by blasting him into the wall. Gunshots rang out behind him as the resistance opened fire on the invading enemy.
He had one more hall to check.
Sammy opened the door and took a few steps into the dark corridor. A strange sensation crept over him, telling him he wasn’t alone. It was like an awful restlessness starting between his shoulder blades and spreading over his back. He came to a bend in the hall and stopped at the corner. Leaning his back against the wall, he readied himself for his next move. In a whirl, he rounded the corner, shielding with gun at the ready.