Hellcats: Anthology

by Kate Pickford

  “Well, it’s none of my business, but, well, it is your money, isn’t it?”

  “It is. It takes a lot to go ask those people for anything, though.”

  “You’re still yourself,” Catherine offered. “Some kinds of pride might not be worth keeping.”

  “Hmm,” Gladys said, studying the pilot next to her. She rose to her feet and gestured back toward the Hellcat. “So, what happened, then?”

  Catherine also got up, and grunted in annoyance.

  “Well, I suspect the ADI fluid gauge, along with a leak in the anti-detonate reservoir…” She saw Gladys’ glazed look, and began again. “There’s a gauge that’s supposed to tell me when I’m about to blow the engine. It didn’t tell me.”

  “Well, that doesn’t sound like your fault,” Gladys said, indignant.

  “I don’t pass the buck, Mrs. Ashford. It’s not fair to the crew.” Catherine set her jaw. “I pushed too hard to run tonight’s test. I was wrong and things got rushed.” She paused, then suppressed a smile. “Also, between you and me, I was grandstanding just a little. I didn’t really need to run the blower that hard. Bad for the engine, even when it’s working right.”

  “Not easy being under the microscope at that place, is it.” It wasn’t a question.

  Silent seconds passed. Catherine grinned again.

  “Didn’t take the job because it sounded easy.”

  The Hellcat creaked, some portion of its innards settling uncomfortably into a new home. Gladys jumped back, colliding with Catherine.

  “I’m sorry, excuse me,” Gladys sputtered, at the same time Catherine said, “Quite all right.”

  The two women readjusted their jackets, eyes not meeting. Bobbing lights rounded the hedges, accompanied by voices. In the distance, sirens grew closer. Catherine coughed.

  “Time to get back to work.”

  “Really?” Gladys asked, instantly. “I don’t think anyone will begrudge you a drink indoors first.” She gestured at the nearby gardener’s cottage. “I’ve got my coffee and sugar ration. Might as well enjoy it with someone.”

  Catherine cocked an eyebrow, started to shake her head, then nodded.

  In the morning, Gladys returned to the Hellcat, where Catherine waited. The local firemen and the crew from Grumman had been over the plane and its now-trampled floral environs all night, and the wreck was now inert, perhaps even a bit forlorn in the sunlight. The pleasantries and matters of disposition took time, but eventually, Gladys found her way over.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” she announced. “I think I’ll keep it.”

  Catherine cocked her head.

  “The plane? The wrecked plane?”

  Gladys nodded.

  “I’d like to be reminded to push too hard sometimes.”

  Catherine stepped toward the wreck to look it over again.

  “Well, I doubt Mr. Grumman will charge you for it,” she said over her shoulder. “Bethpage is building a new one every hour these days. There are some test parts left that they’ll want. Bits of the radar, I should think.”

  Gladys moved up next to her, and smiled.

  “Oh, they can keep the radar. I just want the Cat.”

  2024

  “I mean, it’s a little corny,” Rehema said, to an empty room, on that first day.

  The plaque on the stone bench read “G+C. By falling, we find new heights.” The nearby mass of metal wasn’t technically a wreck anymore, despite appearances. It was still a mangled mess of a fuselage, bent metal, and charred surfaces, but anti-rust protectant coated every surface, debris was inconspicuously glued or bolted in place, and even the burn marks had been touched up with paint.

  A decade’s worth of leaves and debris cluttered the concrete under the pavilion that covered the Hellcat, but it was clear that the structure and its contents had once been faithfully tended.

  Heavy steel pillars supported the pavilion. Bent around one pillar was a red plastic bumper, still attached to the compact car whose tires drew pungent black lines back to the nearby drive—and the large branch that spanned its pitted asphalt.

  “Sorry, Nana, Bubbe. Distracted today.”

  She wasn’t sure why she’d driven to the old estate. It had been left to her cousins, and clearly some parts of the grounds weren’t high priorities for maintenance. Perhaps, though, it still felt enough like family for it to pull at the strings of supposedly directionless meandering.

  Her own inheritance had come with a message from her grandmothers: Dear Hemi, we know you won’t need it, and that makes you the right one to have it.

  The sum was enormous, but at the time, when she was bound for a world with no economy, it seemed rather pointless, aside from the sentiment that these two mighty old women regarded her, the quiet studious misfit of the family, with such unwavering confidence.

  Misplaced confidence.

  She still held the letter in her hand. Crumpled text peeked out from clenched folds:

  The International Mars Stage 5 crew selection is complete, and I regret to inform you that, despite your superb performance overall, continued evaluation of your planned gravitational physics research has been sufficiently unconvincing that...

  Everyone else in her cohort, all five of them, had gotten in, an unmatched acceptance rate that only made her exception all the more conspicuous. They were gone now, whisked away to isolation and years of mission prep, never to be seen on this world again, in all likelihood.

  “It’s not fair.” She felt like a child saying it, but nothing else would do. They all got what they wanted, and left, just like that. Years together, working, struggling, siblings of manufactured rivalry. Barely a goodbye. Not good enough to fly, not good enough to friend.

  “Jackholes.”

  She looked around the shrine again, then turned and strode out. “See you in another twenty years.” The car rattled a bit, but drove away without significant complaint.

  On the second day, she came back. Duct tape glinted off the bumper, which halted at a respectful distance this time. For hours, Rehema paced in silence around the Hellcat, stopping occasionally to glare at the bench and its plaque.

  On the third day, she laid on the bench all afternoon, looking up to the sky, sniffling.

  On the fourth day, she remembered to bring a sandwich.

  It was on the tenth day, absently circling the wreck, that she took interest in the cat. The orange of the flames had dulled somewhat, but the feline eyes remained prominently white, and the bat wings retained sharpness in their silhouettes. Under the cat was a Roman numeral, VI, clearly visible, surrounded by ersatz rust and grime.

  Her eyes narrowed for an instant. Then she left.

  Twenty days. She sat cross-legged, regarding the cat and its numeral.

  Six candidates in the cohort. Six cohorts. Only twenty slots for the mission. It still wasn’t fair, but it had to be admitted that she wasn’t the only one who would get left behind. It still stung that her friends had earned air quotes, but nothing was to be done about it. Indeed, she herself had been none too kind to the other cohorts and their washouts.

  Her research, derided, discarded, was still hers. So much of her adult life had been spent assuming she would live out her lifetime on another world, and though the other world was no longer an option, she did still have the lifetime thing to deal with.

  Day twenty-one. Halfway through her lunch, she paused mid-chew, and smirked. She got up and left. Later, she came back, walked up to the cat, and swiped mud onto part of the old lettering.

  “Screw those Martian jerks,” she said, and left again, with a bounce in her step.

  There were more important things to focus on.

  Day fifty. The money, against advice, was exchanged for equipment and the rental of the old gardener’s cottage. The other washouts had mostly returned to their old lives, but some answered her call, and came to join her, drawn in by impassioned entreaties, the lack of anything better to do, or the sort of casual curiosity a steady mid-grade sala
ry could buy. Ensconced with computers, occasionally laundered sweatshirts, and pallets of cup noodles, they went about continuing the work that had gotten their leader laughed out of an international science mission.

  On the thousandth day, in that crowded cottage, a pale blue spark floated inside a small chamber for a fraction of a second, and Rehema screamed with joy and triumph alongside her friends and family.

  Day 1,051. Rehema had to explain it several times, in simple language, for everyone in the room. Some investors were also scientists, but most of them thought about science books the way Sam Cooke sang about them.

  “The particle mass is entangled with specific points in Earth’s core and mantle. At those specific points, gravity can be manipulated. That produces force, energy. A trickle, yes, but from a bottomless well.”

  That last bit got their attention. And their money.

  Years later, she still visited every day, even when construction was at its busiest. The new complex would sprawl across the old estate in concentric layers, gently curving around the preserved manor and cottage. Levels above, with offices, homes, gardens. Levels below, secured for research, testing, and, if needed, self-sufficiency. Rehema’s own office would be in the center, overlooking the Hellcat, rooted to the earth, and the better for it.

  The talks she gave to guests were nearly a daily affair, but necessary for the undertaking.

  “The gating is maintained with computing and sensing networks all over the world. The gravity module network can’t work anywhere but here on Earth, at least not without basically building a global civilization on another planet. Each node is locked to a power and computing hotspot, which means one in every major city. Every node, all over the world, has to function in perfect sync, all linked together. It only works if we’re all in on it.”

  There were concerns from every angle: national security, political strife, economic factors, and public perception. But the results were confirmed and undeniable.

  The review board had been right, in a way. Her research wouldn’t have worked. At least, not out there.

  “But if we can do it, all of us, together, we can turn the trickle into a river, an ocean.”

  She always smiled at the end.

  “Warmth to share. With everyone.”

  2084

  “Even those jackholes on Mars?” Felix asked, incredulous.

  Bullets impacted against the upturned desk he was crouched behind. On the other side of the lobby, past the impassive bulk of the Hellcat memorial, shadowy figures moved through billowing smoke. Blinded in the murk, he fired his pistol in the general direction of the last gunshots to come his way.

  The voice in his head from the SkullComm sighed with frustration.

  “Yes. Especially them. They’ll need as much help as anyone down here, probably more.”

  More bullets whizzed over his head. Not aimed, just sprayed. Retreating, for now. He glanced over at his holographic SightClock.

  “Three minutes left,” he said. “They caused the end of the world, you know.”

  Makalua sighed again.

  “They sent a note.”

  It had been a short note. Take a look at this. Odd? That was it, and a few pages of mathematical expressions.

  Decades ago, the colony had started noticing sporadic gravimetric anomalies timed with Earth’s closest approaches and seemingly related to the Cordon-Jalani Global Energy Network. Analyzed alongside data from local experiments, the readings implied some possible additions to fundamental physics. Nothing beyond theory, not even worth the time for a formal report. Just a note.

  It had taken less than four years for someone to figure out how to use that note to blow up the planet.

  Six days ago, the entire city of New York collapsed into a microsingularity, along with five other cities around the world. Other cities followed in the next few days, every one of them a node in the network.

  Felix looked around the glass-lined lobby, into rows of ransacked offices. The people here had been taken as much by surprise as everyone else. They did all they could, but the chain reaction continued on, leaving vast, hemispherical divots eaten out of the Earth, roiling the oceans and whipping up titanic storms. No culprit was apparent, no smoking gun revealed itself, and with every data center literally vanished, no one would likely ever know how humanity brought about its end.

  Certain that attention, more unfriendly than not, would soon turn toward the Cordon-Jalani facility, Felix had ordered the evacuation and sent most of his security team to help the staff get to safety, by whatever definition of that seemed proper. Now, it was just him, Makalua, and her team of do-gooders—and the disaster vault that had seemed like such an extravagance when Rehema had it built.

  “You all inside?” Felix asked. “They’ll come back with more.”

  “Yes,” Makalua replied. “Your evac shuttle is still online, if you can get clear.”

  “Last chance. You stay here, it’s going to be for a long time.”

  “When the supply ships stop coming, Mars will be in trouble. If we can maintain communications, at least we can offer support, advice, data. Maybe even send help, if they can stay alive long enough.”

  The colony numbered only two hundred, but they had enough equipment and gear to stand a chance at self-sufficiency, and they’d certainly proven that they were no slouches when it came to brainpower.

  Felix checked the door with his EarAmp to ensure the soldiers (he’d lost track of who or what organization these ones were with) were indeed out of the building. He rose to a low crouch and shuffled out of Rehema Cordon-Jalani’s old office, aiming for a path that would shelter him behind the Hellcat monument until he could make a run for the opposite door. Careful to avoid catching on the jagged metal at the end of the plane’s wing stumps, he crouch-ran toward his escape.

  “Wait!” Makalua shouted. Felix froze. He looked back and forth for something to shoot.

  “No, it’s okay,” Makalua said, more calmly. “Just, just look back there.”

  Felix swung his head back around so that Makalua could see, via his EyeCams, whatever it was she was looking for.

  “There! That box, under the wing.”

  An empty cart, its contents absent, lay on its side next to the freshly dented fuselage. Felix leaned over. Slid under the Hellcat’s wing-stump, barely in view, was a dark-blue metal case with an alphanumeric code stamped on its side. It must have fallen there and been left behind, hidden by the wreck’s bulk and disarray. He leaned closer, so that the EyeCams would pick up the code text. Makalua gasped.

  “Oh my God. I can’t believe it. This is, this is beyond luck. It’s…Felix, you need to kiss that plane or something.”

  Felix poked the box with one FingerScan, unconvinced. “So, this is what they’re looking for?”

  “Not specifically, not that they know, but yeah, they want that. Felix, listen to me. This is really important. I need you to bring that case to us.”

  “I’m the last one up here,” Felix said, throwing up his hands. “I can take these yobs, and still get out. You and the eggos lock-up down there, and I’ll make sure they don’t getaway.”

  “It won’t matter. These doors are twenty-five tons and the cloaks have their own power source. They’ll never get in, even if they think to look.”

  “Two minutes. What the hell is this thing, anyway?”

  Silence. Precious seconds. The box took on an ominous air.

  “It’s a gravity module. A portable one.”

  Felix grimaced. “That’s impossible.”

  “Dr. Cordon-Jalani’s last work before she died.” Makalua spoke quickly now. “I thought it had already been seized.”

  Felix recoiled.

  “Wait, is that thing on?” he shouted.

  “No, no, it’s inert,” Makalua reassured him. “It’s fine. No black holes, no squishy-squashy, okay?”

  “Yeah, okay, I got it. I’m not stupid. It’s…just been a weird week, you know?”

  “I know,�
� Makalua sighed. “Look, I know I’m asking a lot, but that device in there could save a lot of lives. Maybe all of them.”

  “Does it even work?”

  “Maybe. Maybe none of it will. But if we can get it up and running, we’ll have power and safety. Communications. Hope.”

  Felix was silent. The SightClock numbers ticked down. He rolled his eyes and sighed.

  “Guess I can’t argue with that.” He looked toward the outer doors, through which came the thudding of more helicopters landing. “Y’all are lucky,” he muttered at them.

  He slapped the side of the Hellcat’s fuselage. The bell-like toll echoed through the lobby. “And you, thanks for saving humanity, I guess.”

  He activated his FeetWheels and slid down a shadowed ramp. Sliding hatches whispered shut above him.

  “Less than a minute left,” Makalua warned. “Roll fast.”

  “I’ll make it,” Felix said, sliding between rows of storage crates in the dark corridor. In the distance, a pair of massive four-meter-tall doors began to slide shut. “So long as I don’t trip on anything.”

  2264

  Quathah looked quizzically at the object she had tripped over. Thin, dark-blue metal, with odd hinges. Rusty, too. She was lucky it hadn’t broken skin. Her tattered breeches and tunic, traded for years ago, were of little use in preventing lockjaw wounds.

  Gingerly, she dug at the rubble surrounding the fin, exposing more surface. It was unlike anything she had seen here, its dull finish and muted color out of place amid ruins of plastic and glass.

  She stopped for a moment to look around the remnants of what must have once been a vast castle or palace. There were many others like it on the island, of course, but this place felt…odd.

  The whole island was not quite right, though, according to the tribe’s lore-reader. They had always avoided the island. Few animals lived here, and little would grow in the soil. It was too close to the vast bay where a place called New York once stood, a roiling abyss treacherous with strange effects and flashes of deadly energy. No boats entered that water, and the northern crossing was little safer. But the lords of the surrounding lands encroached, pushing the tribe further into these dangerous lands.