by Gus Flory
The aircraft spun round and round as Chief wrestled the stick. The rocky orange ground rushed up at them.
The TH-60 struck the surface in a horrific crunch of metal and glass.
High above, a small spacecraft circled the crash site.
“Down there, east of the base,” Pristina said.
“I see it,” Sonny said.
“Let’s go down and take a look.”
Inside the TH-60, Victoria was unsure how long she had been unconscious. She was suspended sideways still strapped into her seat. The front windscreen was shattered. Titan’s orange sand had flooded into the aircraft and filled much of the cockpit.
“Is anyone alive in there?”
“Prissy?”
“Mom?”
Pristina and Sonny climbed into the wreckage.
Pristina pulled her knife from its sheath on her hip and cut through the straps holding Victoria to her seat. Victoria fell into Sonny’s arms.
In the tight confines of the wrecked aircraft, they found Kona half buried in sand. They dug him out.
“I’m OK,” he said as they pulled him out of the wreckage.
Chief was unconscious, still strapped into his seat, half buried in orange sand. They worked to pull his limp body from the sand and the wreckage.
He came to as they struggled to extract him out of what remained of the side door. He helped them as they pulled him out. He struggled to stay on his feet as Pristina and Sonny held him up.
Pristina and Sonny stood in the sand holding Chief. Kona and Victoria stood next to them. They stood on a rise next to the crashed TH-60 looking out across the reddish-orange plain at the site that was once Camp Hammersteel. The giant beam was gone. The buildings, towers and hangars of Camp Hammersteel were no more. Nothing was left except a smoldering crater. A plume of steam and smoke rose skyward to the orange and yellow clouds. Saturn and its rings were enormous in the hazy sky.
“I can’t believe we survived,” Chief said gazing out across the plain. He turned to Victoria. “Looks like you’ll get to see Kepler-22b after all.”
“Yes,” she said. “Thanks to Major Zanger.”
“Where is Diego?” Pristina asked. “We got a message from Colonel Butcher that he was bringing you to Mount Caponic.”
“He sacrificed himself so that we could live,” Victoria said, gazing out across the plain. “Whom the gods love die young.”
“He was a good soldier,” Chief said. “A good man. I’m going to miss him.”
“We’re free now,” Sonny said. “Free of the Federation. Free to travel the galaxy.”
They stood in silence gazing out at the plume that wafted skyward over what had been Camp Hammersteel.
“What’s that down there?” Pristina asked. She pointed out to the plain. “Something’s moving.”
In the distance, a human figure walked toward them over the desolate moonscape.
Pristina stepped forward.
The figure walked over the rugged, rock-strewn ground, disappearing behind the orange dunes.
Pristina jogged down the rise and onto the plain. Debris littered the ground—sides of buildings, wrecked vehicles, office furniture, computer equipment. An exposed human body lay dead in the sand with half its battle suit ripped away.
She lost sight of the figure walking on the plain as she ran. She crested a sand dune and bounded down its steep face.
Up ahead of her, she saw the figure walking on the ice-encrusted sand. The rising steam from Camp Hammersteel was behind him. Saturn and its rings filled sky. The figure’s battle suit was battered and blackened. One wing extended from his back.
She ran to him.
“Diego!”
She ran up to him and hugged him. She looked into his eyes through her visor. His visor was cracked. His eye was black. Blood was smeared on his face.
“I thought the gods had taken you.”
“They’re not that into me.”
Her brilliant blue eyes looked into his. “I thought maybe I could turn you. But you left me.”
“You did turn me.”
“I’d kiss you if I could.”
“I’d kiss you, too.”
The two armored figures held each other on the orange plain as the column of steam and smoke drifted upward into the haze and Saturn and its rings glowed above them in the morning sky.
***
George sat on the couch watching the flat screen in their living room. The news was on.
On the screen was the image of a giant red and white beam cutting through orange clouds, obliterating Camp Hammersteel in a blaze of fiery destruction. The unstable footage had been shot from an unmanned aerial vehicle that was being buffeting by powerful winds as debris shot past.
“Mom, it’s on the news,” George said. “Camp Hammersteel was destroyed.”
Tegan, holding a breakfast burrito, walked to the couch and sat down with her eyes wide and mouth agape. She held the burrito in front of her mouth without taking a bite.
“Turn it off,” Havana said from the kitchen counter.
Judy Reza appeared on the screen. She looked disheveled and shaken. She was standing on the steps of the Titan Capitol Building in Cassini City.
“On a day when violent rioters freed a convicted war criminal from captivity and Titan Governor Fareed Cone was found murdered in his office, a powerful precision weapon destroyed T-FORCE MAIN in the heart of Cassini City. Hundreds are either dead or missing. Neo-Fascists are brazenly parading the war criminal Tiberius Marko around the Capitol with impunity, without fear of Federation authorities.”
The screen showed footage of rioters in Einstein Plaza tearing down the giant statue of Albert Einstein.
“Sacrilege,” Reza said.
Reza put her finger to her ear. “I’m receiving a report that a Neo-Fascist ship has destroyed Camp Hammersteel, the Forward Command Post and Camp Lonely Mountain.”
The screen showed military footage of the Wardenclyffe rising out of Kraken Mare. Then the footage returned to images of the giant beam shooting down from space onto Camp Hammersteel.
“They built some kind of super ship,” Tegan said.
“I think Dad’s really dead this time,” George said.
“Turn it off, I said.”
Judy Reza appeared on the screen again. The crowd behind her on the plaza was chanting.
“Give her the boot. Give her the boot.”
She looked worried.
“This is Judy Reza, in Cassini City, reporting for Titan News.”
She ran past the cameraman for the Capitol door.
The doorbell rang.
“Answer that, George. It’s Jody.”
George pressed a button on the remote control and the front door slid open.
Diego stood in the doorway. He was wearing a black jump suit. He had a black eye and a bandage around his head.
“Daddy?” Tegan asked.
“Hey, pumpkin.”
“Dad!” Tegan and George exclaimed together.
They ran to him and he lifted them in his arms.
“Man, it’s good to see you guys.”
Diego smiled the most honest and genuine smile of his life.
“We thought you were dead,” George said.
“Nah.”
Havana walked up to him and stood in front of him. She had a confused and uncertain look on her face.
“You look great, babe,” Diego said.
“I… I’m speechless.”
“You don’t know how much I’ve missed you.”
“I don’t understand. You’re not supposed to be back for two-and-a-half years. And all this craziness on the news. But… here you are.”
“That’s right.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I’ve been thinking. I want to put the band back together. Me on guitar. You on bass. Tee on keyboards. George on the drums. You and me on vocals. We’ll go on a galaxywide tour. What do you say?”
Her eyes welled with tears.
“Oh, Diego.”
She embraced him, and they kissed.
THE END
Books by Gus Flory
Galaxy of Heroes
Galaxy of Heroes II: War Heroes
Galaxy of Heroes III: The Red Wrath
The Sheeple
The Psychic