“You might have a broken rib or two... you'll definitely be black and blue. Can you ride? We really need to get out of here. As determined as they were, I'm surprised they didn't follow...”
The sky flashed as a lance of green neon shot up into the sky, the source invisible over the ridge of the wash, but obviously coming from Area 51. At over ten miles away there was still an audible crackle and the tart smell of ionized air. It was sufficient to make both men jump and set them to motion. “Time to go,” they said in unison, their voices overlapping.
Inexplicably, the game had changed. This did not fit in with the rest of the night's narrative; although neither did the UFO. Or why it had chosen to park itself over them, no matter how temporarily.
Chase winced as he re-shouldered his pack and righted his dirt bike, looking back at the empty sky, not sure what he was looking for or what to expect, if anything. “What do you think is going on back there?”
Dan swung his leg over his bike and squeezed the starter button, the bike sputtering to life. “No idea. More testing maybe? I didn't even know they had one here, I thought all the testing was done at Dugway. We need to add this to our report...”
“Chase started his bike, “Maybe they were trying to hit that UFO...”
Dan kicked his bike in gear, “I don't know, that thing didn't look anything like the ship that came down on Fort Myers Beach...”
A crisp, vibrant, neon magenta line flashed from the stars, producing a sharp thunder crack, following the same path down as the green line fired up from the Zenith weapon on the base. The horizon, as seen from the bottom of the wash, flashed yellow-white, the sound of a rolling explosion crossing the desert, vibrating the sandy soil beneath their feet. Something up there didn't like being fired upon and fired back. Exchanging startled stares, neither one of the two riders wanted to wait around for whatever would happen next...
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
UFW FRIGATE REVENGE, EARTH ORBIT : WHAT THE HELL?
Fritz stretched, dropping himself off his human's bed in the muted light. “Room is a lot smaller here...”
“I know,” nodded Jack, sliding a sheer form-fitting t-shirt over his head, “it's a much smaller ship. You understand that, right buddy?”
Fritz nodded his head with a snort. “Yes. Just no room to run here.”
“Don't worry,” replied Jack, slipping a protective combat vest over his head “We'll go back to the Conquest soon. You like the Conquest, right?”
“Is okay,” replied the Shepherd, looking up at Jack mischievously, his head cocked to one side. “I would rather run on the beach...”
“Uh huh,” nodded Jack, zipping up his flight suit. “I knew this was going somewhere... I don't know if we're going to get to do that this time, buddy...”
“Gus wants to run on the beach too.”
Steele raised a dubious eyebrow, “Did he tell you that?”
“Yes...”
“Hmm.” Steele checked himself in the mirror as he slid into a leather flight jacket, hiding his shoulder holster and hybrid 1911. A dark gray flight suit, black boots and dark brown leather jacket... “Meh, looks civilian enough I suppose. If you're half blind and running for your life...”
Sounding like a bass drum strike, the floor rocked, staggering Jack . Red alert klaxons blared throughout the ship, lighting flashing red.
“All hands to battle stations! All hands to battle stations! Gun crews report in..!”
“What the hell..?” Steele activated his TESS, “Lisa, on the bridge...”
■ ■ ■
Jack sprinted down the corridor paced by Fritz, slowing to pass the Marine sentry and through the opening bridge doors, tromping to a stop between the command chairs. “Sitrep, “ he commanded. “What the hell was that?”
Brian spoke without looking back, “Someone on the surface took a shot at us...”
“And hit us...” added Maria.
“Damage?”
“No sir. Our shields were up as a precaution in this floating junkyard of satellite orbits,” he waved at the screen littered with markers and declination trails. “It might've hurt us if we didn't...”
Steele was aware of Lisa's presence behind him but did not acknowledge her there, concentrating on the situation at hand. “What the hell did they hit us with?”
“An energy weapon...”
Raulya looked over her shoulder from tactical, “We're still being targeted, the weapon is recharging for another shot...”
“Take it out,” commanded Steele.
Brian swiveled around, “Admiral,” he said slowly, “It's in the U.S.”
“What's your point, Commander? They're being hostile. Take. It. Out.”
“Sir,” called Raulya over her shoulder, “I'm reading a similar power buildup in another area. I believe there may be another weapon...”
Steele pointed at the big screen, “Can you bring it up on screen?”
“Aye, sir.” Raulya's fingers danced over her glass keyboard, the big screen zooming in to the North American continent, markers appearing on screen in the west, the icons showing a circular power gauge around the target. “First target is approximately ninety percent, the second at about thirty percent...”
Steele could see Brian's hesitation to fire upon the hostile weapon batteries, his indecision jeopardizing the ship. “They're both out in the desert, Commander...” prompted Jack, hoping it would move him to action. Watching the levels on the on-screen icons, the first target neared one-hundred percent. “Tactical, target the weapon only. Take it out...”
“Yes, Admiral.”
Zwump, Zwump. The floor vibrated, the forward turret firing one volley. “On target, Admiral. Direct hit, weapon destroyed.”
“Any collateral damage?”
Raulya zoomed in as close as she could get, a flaming crater showing where it was obvious a building had stood, several nearby structures appeared damaged, and images of men and equipment moved quickly about. Steele recognized Area 51 but said nothing to Brian who stared silently at the screen.
Steele eyed the icon of the second weapon nearing seventy five percent. “Lieutenant, if they shut it down, mark its location but leave it intact. If it passes ninety-five percent, take it out.”
Raulya nodded, “Aye sir.”
Steele pursed his lips, “Mr. Carter, ready room. Now.” He turned on his heel and headed for the Captain's Ready Room, staying Lisa with a discreet wave of his hand.
■ ■ ■
Jack Steele sat on the corner of the Captain's desk facing the door, Brian walked in looking troubled. Jack waited until the door closed before he pointed in the direction of the bridge, “You want to tell me what the hell happened to you out there?” Brian Carter shrugged, shaking his head as he stared silently at the floor. “I can't read your mind, man. Tell me what's going on in your head.” Steele ran his fingers through his hair. “Do you need a break? Should I put someone else in command..?”
“No, no...” waved Brian weakly.
“Then what?” gestured Jack, his palms facing upward in question. “Was it just because it happened to be the United States?”
“I don't want to kill Americans...”
Zwump, Zwump. The floor vibrated beneath their feet.
Jack nodded, “OK, I get that. So you're saying if it was someone else it would have been alright?”
Brian took a deep breath, “I really don't want to kill humans...”
Steele pointed to the bridge, “In case you hadn't noticed, they, we... are pretty much all humans. The only ones I have a question about are the Gogol's...” he mumbled, thinking about that for a second. “Not really sure what they are...” he waved away the thought. “What I think you really mean is; you don't want to kill Earthlings...” Brian looked up, seemingly satisfied with that assessment. “OK look; I see someone shooting at people, I don't take the time to find out who he is, what Godforsaken armpit he's from, what demon he worships, the color of his skin, or what kind of fucked-up childhood he had... I ta
ke the bastard out. Period.”
“I get it...”
“They threw the first punch. We offered no threat, we weren't bothering anyone...”
“I get it,” insisted Brian.
“Are you sure? Because that can't happen again...”
“I'm sure.”
“Fine then get back out there and let's get back to work...” Steele stood up, “We good?”
Brian nodded, looking relieved, “We're good.”
Jack caught Brian by the shoulder before he turned for the bridge, “You sure you don't want to go see your mom and dad?”
Brian's mouth skewed crookedly, “Just to say hello to say goodbye again? I don't think I could do that to them. I gotta think it's better this way. They have their lives, I have mine, they don't have to worry anymore...”
Jack patted his shoulder, “Alright, it's your call. But if you change your mind...”
“Thanks.”
■ ■ ■
Having delayed their launch several hours to determine if there would be any new developments or threats put Jack and Lisa behind their preferred schedule but it seemed a reasonable precaution.
Steele glanced up through the Reaper's canopy, the last sliver of interior light coming from the belly of the Revenge disappearing as the armored hull closed above them. Inside the cockpit, the air system pumped cool, clean air into the silence and he adjusted his flight gloves.
“I still think I should get to fly,” mumbled Lisa from the back seat. “It's supposed to be my bird...”
“Hush.” He ran through his checklist as the crane arms extended, easing the Reaper out of the nestled belly slot in the hull of the Revenge, the silence retreating to the sound of electronics waking up, the sudden growl of the engine warmers and the hum of power units. “Position of the rest of the Task Force?”
“Dark side of the moon,” replied Lisa, going through her own checklist. She glanced up as the crane's claws released with a metallic kachunk, their magnetic surfaces reversing polarity, pushing the Reaper away from the Revenge. She watched the arms retract, “We're clear.”
“R1 to Revenge, we're away...” He tapped the igniter, lighting the twin engines with a twin thump and swung the nose of the fighter to the right, adding throttle as he rolled, arcing down towards the planet.
“Copy R1, happy trails.”
“Plotting you a course down...” announced Lisa. “Did Fritz mention to you he wanted to go to the beach?”
“Did he try to run that guilt trip on you too?” chuckled Jack.
“Yeah, and he tried to tell me Gus told him he wanted to go too...”
A plotted trajectory appeared on Jack's navigation screen, “Well I gotta hand it to him, he's thorough.” He reached forward and flipped on the shield system, the generator spinning up with a whine. “Do me a favor and monitor a Fleet screen, keep an eye on things?”
“Got it.” Her TESS covered by her flight suit and flight jacket, was set to voice recognition. “TESS, holo screen please...”
A holographic screen appeared above her wrist, TESS's face appearing, “Hello Lisa, what can I help you with?”
Lisa grabbed the frame of the screen and moved it to hover independently above her main screen, only blocking her view of the back of her brother's helmet, adjusting its size by the corners of the frame. “TESS, tie me in to Conquest Control and the Fleet Information. I need plotting, movements and communication...”
“Does that include Conquest's Flight Operations and patrol movements?”
“Yes, TESS.”
“Connecting and assembling information,” confirmed TESS, her interactive animation minimizing up to the right corner of the hologram. “Lisa, there is too much information for a single screen. You will have several tabs at the top, just select the one you need to examine, they are all live feeds...”
■ ■ ■
Lisa tabbed through her Fleet Information screens. “You want to tell me why we're coming down over the Arctic?”
“No eyes... unless you want to count polar bears and penguins. We'll level off over Hudson Bay and move south over Ontario. A lot more of nothing there too...”
“Seems like a real roundabout way... just saying.”
Jack adjusted his sensor screen, “They saw us coming... which in itself is troubling, but they fired on us. And I don't know what they're using or how they got it, but they shot at us with something that seemed considerably more advanced than I would expect. Without so much as an attempt to find out who or what we are...”
“I guess a; Hello, who are you? woulda been nice.”
Steele shook his head inside his helmet,”Makes me wonder if duck hunters would be so eager to shoot at ducks if they knew the ducks were carrying grenades...” He held the throttle at zero, letting the Reaper drop through the atmosphere, adjusting attitude or power as needed for stability.
Checking her Fleet activity screens, Lisa paged to a global plot, “Looks like we've got two of our birds dropping in over the North Atlantic... one fighter, one shuttle.”
“That would be Commander Brighton, his mom lives in; Vauxhall London, Borough of Lambeth...” he added with a British accent.
She raised an eyebrow, “Uuhh, OK... And we've got two more dropping in behind us, both fighters.”
“That should be Mike Warren, his folks live on a farm in Iowa...”
Lisa reached forward and adjusted her airflow, “Why is Commander Brighton using a shuttle?”
Steele adjusted the Reaper's attitude, the sparkling blue water of Hudson Bay rushing up at them. “London is like New York, it's big, busy, crowded and really doesn't sleep. If he took two fighters it meant one would be sitting empty on the ground. If it got discovered it could go all sorts of wrong. A shuttle with a three man security team can move and come back for extraction if needed.”
“Chicago's big, busy and crowded...”
“Well,” waved Jack theatrically, “the Reaper has the magical cloak of invisibility...”
“You think the Automatic Reflective Camouflage system will be enough?”
“Yes,” he declared with a booming voice, holding up his hand. “We have the wondrous, mighty ARC to conceal us from our enemies...”
Lisa rolled her eyes, “Oh, brother...”
At ten-thousand feet, Jack pulled the throttle back into the negative which fired the breaking jets. Pulling the stick back, the Reaper arced gracefully to level flight at four-thousand feet. Gently dropping the nose he let her sink to a thousand. The sparkling blue water of the massive Hudson Bay soon gave way to the gray glacial bedrock and thousands of lakes in northern Ontario. The closer they got to the top of Lake Superior the greener it became, turning into endless lush rolling green forests only broken by long, winding rivers.
Jack rolled them upside down, looking up through the canopy which was actually down, “Man, there's a lot of nothing down there.” He rolled the Reaper upright again, “Seems like such a waste of space, doesn't it?”
■ ■ ■
“You'd better back it down, Jack...”
Jack eyed his telemetry screen, as he walked the throttle toward the zero mark, “What month do you think it is, Lisa? May? June..?”
“Has to be June or later... otherwise we would have seen snow and ice.”
“Hmph,” Jack acknowledged. “There was some just off the bay, some ice on the Hudson but not much. Not sure if it ever melts completely up there.”
“In any case,” said Lisa, tabbing through the Fleet screens, “It ain't Christmas like you promised mom and dad. They're going to be pissed.”
Dropping under Mach 1, Jack reached over and switched off the shields, trading them for the ARC system. “ARC is on and active,” he noted, looking out over the right wing. The Reaper faded to an outline, the shining water of Lake Michigan visible through it.
Lisa looked left and right, “I always feel like I'm flying a video game when that's on.”
“It's hard to appreciate how effective it is in space..
. but here, the effect is quite amazing.” He throttled back as the skyline of Chicago grew ahead of them, bringing the speed down to something resembling sane, setting up his approach to pass over the city. “How are our other flights doing?”
Lisa tabbed to the global tracking map. “Commander Warren's flight is over Minnesota, on track for Fort Dodge. Commander Brighton is approaching London from the Channel...” She looked out over the horizon of the city spread out around them, “What time do you think it is over there?”
“If I remember right, they're six hours ahead of Chicago, so it should be about midnight there...”
■ ■ ■
With a baseball game occupying the field at the park, Steele was going to have to make use of the bike trail across the street from his parent's home. Landing gear extended, anti-gravity holding the fighter in a hover, he maneuvered the Reaper over the small parcel around the trail, lowering it gently in between the trees, the task made more complicated by the ARC system's ability to reflect its surroundings. “How are we on the right?” he asked, watching the outline of the left wingtip clear a heavy branch.
“Good to go.”
Jack felt the ground and released the actuator for the anti-gravity, the Reaper settling on its legs. He sighed with relief as he pulled the canopy release, flicking systems off one-by-one with his free hand. The canopy motored back with a hum, a breeze flowing into the cockpit. “Mmm, smell that?”
“The flowers or the bar-b-que?” grinned Lisa.
“Yeah... all of it... Smells like home.”
Dropping his helmet on his seat, he admired the trees along the house as he climbed down the ladder to the grass. He remembered planting those trees as saplings; they stood nearly forty feet tall now, a canopy of leaves that extended over the house and the street, a haven of shade.
“Hey, get out of the way?” griped Lisa, standing on the ladder.
“Huh?” Jack stepped aside, “Sorry,” he mumbled, “I was just taking a trip back in time.”
Wings of Steele: Revenge and Retribution Page 42