Eye of the Storm

by Mark Robson

  ‘Good.’

  ‘So I can come then?’

  She sighed and clenched her teeth together for a moment. Is involving Archie a mistake? she wondered. Do I have a choice? If I do, he could be helpful. He’s already shown more initiative than I would have believed possible of him. If I don’t, then he could sink my plan in seconds by running to his mother. He had her backed into a corner and she knew it.

  ‘I’m almost certainly going to regret this, but I suppose so,’ she conceded.

  ‘Wiz— I mean brilliant!’ he exclaimed, punching the air and dancing around with excitement. ‘This is going to be so much fun! Listen. This is what we’re going to do.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  ‘This is going to hurt!’ Callum muttered, tensing his body as he drove the aircraft directly at the tree ahead. He glanced down through the tattered hole in the lower wing to where the raptor dangling from the undercarriage strut was trying to manoeuvre its body into a position to strike at him again. ‘But I’m hoping it’ll hurt you much more than it will hurt me.’

  The raptor suddenly went still as it realised what was about to happen. They were not high enough for the raptor to be concerned about jumping and for a moment, Callum thought it might let go before the inevitable impact and drop to safety. He had witnessed first-hand how far a raptor could safely fall without injury during his first escape from the clutches of the Imperium with Nipper and Grunt. Unfortunately, this raptor chose to stay with its prey.

  The tree loomed closer and closer until Callum dared leave it no longer. At the last possible second, he forced the control bar as far left as it would go and pulled back hard. The left wing dropped fast, and as the aircraft cranked around into a hard turn, the raptor swung out wide, deep into the foliage of the tree. Unfortunately, the aircraft did not respond with the immediacy of the gliders that Callum had been used to flying and the entire lower structure of the flying machine also ploughed into the thin outer branches.

  Twigs and leaves whipped at Callum’s head, shoulders, arms and hands as he fought to maintain the turn. The caged fan momentarily sounded like a lawnmower chewing on a pile of sticks. In the space of no more than a second, there was a rapid sequence of cracks and a solid-sounding thud. The aircraft lurched and there was a final particularly loud CRACK before it found its way into clear air.

  Later, Callum could not work out how the aircraft had retained enough momentum to stay airborne, especially given that it did not have a lot to begin with. Almost as if it was sticking two fingers up at the laws of physics, it stayed stubbornly clear of the ground and Callum fought the control bar to keep it that way.

  Once clear of the tree, a glance down through the hole beneath him revealed the raptor had gone. Unfortunately, so had more than half of the undercarriage! As far as he could tell, the nose and right main wheels were missing, as was most of the tubular structure that had supported them. Several more tears had also appeared in the lower wing fabric at different points along the wing. Now it was in clear air, the abrupt lightening of the machine combined with the reduction of drag from the raptor and the brush with the tree resulted in a surge of acceleration.

  Callum could feel the blood pounding in his ears as he struggled to retain control. As the airspeed indicator needle climbed rapidly into the heart of the green sector, panic and fear gave way to relief and excitement. Finally, he was in familiar territory. Miraculously, the machine was responding normally and felt like something he could fly .

  Easing back on the bar, he tightened the turn, hauling what was left of the aircraft around until he was pointing back along the field towards the hangar. With the wings level, he pressured the control bar forward, deliberately entering a shallow dive. Down he flew, lower and lower, until it felt as if the remaining wheel must almost be skimming the top of the grass as he converted what little height he had gained into yet more speed.

  A movement to his left caught his eye and he looked over to see another raptor racing across the meadow towards him, but at this speed the raptor had no chance of catching him. With a whoop of joy, Callum eased the control bar back again and soared up high into the air, well beyond any raptor’s reach. The exhilaration he felt as the ground dropped away beneath him was heightened beyond anything he had ever experienced in a glider.

  Yowser! This is fantastic! Dad’s going to totally freak out when I tell him about flying this beastie, he thought, laughing aloud as a sensation of sheer joy swept through him. The gentle thrum of the caged fan was accompanied by a slight rattle that had not been there when he had first started the machine, but it didn’t sound bad, so Callum chose to ignore it.

  Looking down as he swept over the roof of the hangar, he saw a patrol of half a dozen raptors approaching the open main hangar doors. From his vantage point, he could also see the rebels exiting through the back door. They would not have much of a head start on the patrol, but there was nothing Callum could do from up here, except perhaps attempt to distract the hunters if it came to a chase.

  Suddenly, he saw David in the other flying machine come into view on his right. He was overtaking Callum, descending past him in a dive and rocking his machine rapidly left and right. Callum understood instantly. David was asking Callum to follow him.

  Giving a gentle wing rock of his own to acknowledge the message, Callum gently turned his machine to the right and began to follow. Did David know where he was going? Callum knew from experience that navigating in the air was totally different from navigating on the ground. The different perspective made judging distances hard, and things that were great landmarks for finding your way when you were on foot were often not so obvious from the air.

  From what Callum could tell, David had set a course almost directly towards the secret rebel cave. But Callum wondered if flying in a straight line to where they were going to land was a good idea. The raptor patrol was sure to try to track them and the last thing they wanted was to make it easy for the Imperium to find them. If their initial heading was observed, any trackers could simply project forward the line of flight and keep going that way until they eventually caught up. It would be better to fly a more circuitous route to their destination. But how could he communicate this to David?

  Callum thought for a moment as he settled his machine on to a parallel heading. What would I give for a radio now? he thought, clenching the control bar with frustration. Think, Callum! How else can you communicate? At the gliding club they sent simple messages to airborne pilots with coloured lights. Ships used to talk to one another using different-coloured flags. Neither of these methods was any more available than a radio.

  I could try hand signals, but even if I could get close enough to get his attention, what signals do I make with my hands to get my message across? I’d do just as well by shouting.

  It was then that he remembered a strange phenomenon he had noticed one day while gliding. On days like today when there was very little wind, sounds from the ground carried into the air with remarkable clarity. He had sat one day, circling high above a cricket match, and he distinctly remembered the surprise he had felt as he was able to listen in on conversations being held such a long way below. That was it! He was right. He would do just as well by shouting. What he needed to do was to get below and slightly ahead of David’s machine and yell to him.

  Although the idea was simple, it proved impossible to execute. Even though it was now in a steady climb up towards the top of the ridge surrounding the bowl-like valley, David’s undamaged machine was flying faster than Callum’s. Try as he might by holding his altitude and even descending a little, he could not catch the other machine.

  ‘OK,’ he muttered aloud. ‘If I can’t catch you, David, I’ll just have to do my best to throw them off our trail on my own. With luck, you’ll catch on to what I’m doing.’

  He turned to the left, enjoying the breathtaking view as he headed back towards the spectacular city. For a moment, he was tempted to climb his aircraft so that he could go and circle rou
nd the central spire, but he decided better of it. Instead, he concentrated on returning to the hangar area. There was no sign of Sam and the others now, but he spotted the raptor patrol straight away. They were leaving the hangar, clearly looking to pick up the trail of the rebels.

  ‘Let’s see if I can’t distract you a little,’ he breathed, grinning as he drove his machine back down towards them. Wish I had something to throw!

  Closer and closer he flew, narrowing his eyes and imagining he had a machine gun mounted in front of him. Dacka-dacka-dacka-dacka,YAHOOOO! he yelled, pulling up over the hangar roof and rolling left again. His body felt heavy against the harness as he manoeuvred hard and there were some ominous creaks from the lower wing structure. A momentary vision of the aircraft wings folding up made him ease off the back pressure on the control bar. He had no way of knowing how strong the machine was – especially as damaged as it was. The raptor patrol was still next to the hangar and every one of them was looking up at him.

  Kid gloves from here on, he thought. No more flying like a hooligan. Come on now. Here, raptor, raptor, raptor! Come follow me. You know you want to.

  Rolling out of the turn, he settled the machine on to a heading about twenty degrees to the right of where his friends would be going. Close enough to be believable, but far enough from the true heading to give the ground party a good chance of getting away. In the far distance, he saw David disappearing behind the ridge at the edge of the valley. Had the raptor patrol noted his path? It was impossible to tell. As far as Callum could tell, he had gained their undivided attention, but there was no guarantee.

  He settled the machine into a climb, keeping the airspeed as low in the green sector as he could. He wanted to give the patrol as much opportunity to follow him as possible, but at the same time, he knew he had to give himself a small margin of safety. The damaged lower wing would not be generating as much lift as the designer intended and he did not want to stall at low altitude. As he climbed, he eased a few more degrees to the right, subtly steering the trackers away from his final destination.

  The ridge ahead climbed steadily and to begin with, Callum wondered if his damaged machine was going to climb fast enough to clear the top without building in a greater ground track by zigzagging or circling. Although circling would have allowed the hunters a better chance of following him, he did not want to have them so close on his tail that he couldn’t lose them on the other side of the ridge.

  ‘Come on, baby,’ he urged as the ground crept closer and closer. ‘You can do it.’

  It was close, but he squeaked over the ridge, all but skimming the treetops as he flew first out of the valley and then out of sight of the City of the Imperium. The ground dropped away again on the far side of the ridge and the rich green countryside spread out like a gently rucked carpet below.

  All that was left to do was to fly in a wide triangle to confuse the hunters and then land. For the first time since smashing through the tree, Callum gave thought to landing. With only the left main wheel intact, landing without destroying the rest of the aircraft was unlikely to be easy. He was used to landing gliders on a single central wheel and allowing a wing to drop as the aircraft ran out of forward energy, but what would it be like to land on a single wheel that was offset to one side? With the bottom wing so close to the ground on landing, there was little likelihood of cartwheeling, but Callum was keen not to damage the machine any further. It represented his chance to get home, and now that he had got it away from the raptors, he had no intention of destroying it.

  He looked around for any sign of David’s machine, but could not see it anywhere. It seemed likely that David had already landed, as it was only a few miles to the hidden cave. No doubt the inventor would be wondering why there was no sign of Callum and the second machine by now, but that could not be helped.

  For the next half an hour, Callum flew in a huge triangle, only turning for the second leg of the circuit when he could use the contours of the land to hide his course change from the raptor patrol that he hoped was following him. Dropping down, he flew lower and lower until he was almost skimming the treetops. Once he was sure he would be invisible to his pursuers, he turned north and then eventually back south-west, looping back towards his intended landing ground.

  Flying so low meant that he didn’t see the landing site approaching until he was virtually on top of it. David was standing in the open waving to him as he flew over. There was no sign of his machine. Callum circled the field once in an effort to determine the direction of the surface wind, but as far as he could tell, there was none here. The air was still, which was not ideal for his purposes.

  ‘Come on, Callum,’ he ordered himself. ‘Chin up. You can do this. Time to turn off the power and get back into familiar territory.’

  He reached up to the two electromagnetic converter switches and flicked them off in quick succession. The hum of the fan died to a whisper and suddenly, the only sound was the gentle rushing of the wind and the flapping of the torn fabric beneath him. Watching the airspeed indicator closely, he felt for the correct glide angle with the control bar. He lowered the front of the aircraft gently further and further until the needle stabilised in the bottom of the green sector. The glide angle was steeper than he was expecting, but then he realised why. The big fan propeller now idling behind him had gone from being a power source to a gigantic airbrake, generating a huge amount of drag.

  ‘This is going to be a bit hairy,’ he muttered.

  Diving at the ground, he knew he could not afford to level out early. If he did, he would float briefly, run out of airspeed and stall – dropping whatever distance was left to the ground at a bone-crushing rate of descent. He considered flicking one of the power switches back on to reduce the descent angle, but realised there was no time. The ground was rushing up to meet him fast. He had to concentrate on maintaining the approach and airspeed if he was going to make a safe landing.

  ‘Look well ahead,’ he coached himself, his heart thumping against his chest like a jackhammer. ‘Wait for the ground to swell round your ears and then ease her level.’

  How many times had his gliding instructor repeated those words to him? His approach and preparation for landing were perfect, but as the aircraft touched down he discovered the field was far from flat and the resulting bounce was not pretty. The aircraft bucked a metre back up into the air again, the airspeed bleeding off so fast that before he could even think to try to force the aircraft back down on the ground, it went of its own accord. In a moment of inspired quick thinking, Callum threw the control bar left, forcing all the weight on to the remaining wheel. Somehow the structure withstood the firm impact and this time the aircraft stayed on the ground, though even with the control bar fully left, he could not stop the right wing from dropping and catching on the ground.

  Slewing round to the right, the aircraft came to a dizzying and abrupt halt. Callum swung from side to side in the harness for a moment until that, too, came to rest.

  Moments later, David arrived at a run. ‘Where the hell have you been?’ he panted. ‘And what have you done to my poor machine? I thought you knew how to fly?’

  ‘I do,’ Callum replied, a wave of relief and elation rushing through his body as the reality of what he’d just done struck home. He looked David in the eyes and grinned. ‘I’ve been leading the raptor hunting party a merry dance round the countryside to put them off our trail. As for your machine, I thought it could do with a few modifications. Your version had far too many wheels and I decided a downward facing window or two would make great new features.’

  David’s mouth opened and closed as he tried to articulate an answer. No words came.

  ‘Can you give me a hand?’ Callum asked, trying to keep his voice casual. ‘I’d hate to damage anything as I get out.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  ‘No! Leave me alone!’

  ‘There’s no time, Sam. We’ll all grieve when we’re safely away from here. There’s a raptor patrol appro
aching across the meadow. We’ve got to get out of here.’

  Nathan put a hand on Sam’s shoulder, but the boy shook it free and continued staring at the holo-projection, tears flooding down his face.

  ‘Don’t make me do something I’ll regret later, Sam,’ he warned. ‘We need to leave. Now!’

  Sam could hear Nathan, but his words were like the distant echo of a dream. He was reliving the moment in the heart of the Central Plaza. His mother was still alive, impaled on the spike, dying, but not yet dead. How could he leave? She was not struggling, but he could see she was speaking. Even though the camera shot was far from being a close-up, he could see her lips moving. What was she saying? He wanted to know.

  At the edge of the camera shot there was a disturbance. Raptors were struggling against raptors. What was happening? Suddenly, the picture shifted to focus on the Raptor Council retreating in a stately procession through the main doors of the Imperium Tower.

  ‘Sam! Listen to Nathan.’ It was Sherri. Her voice was pleading. ‘Do you think your mother would want you to die here? Come on, Sam! We’ve got to go now. Watch it later if you have to. Newton’s recorded the transmission back at the cave. If we don’t get away from here, how will we ever hope to avenge her?’

  Vengeance. The concept acted like the trigger of a gun inside his head. No sooner had Sherri squeezed it than Sam fired into action. His blood seemed to ignite and burn through his veins like liquid fire. Without a word, he turned and ran for the door.

  ‘Finally!’ he heard Nathan mutter.

  Crick and Edison were waiting. They stared at him with their cold reptilian eyes. Sam got the distinct impression that they were trying to convey emotion to him – sympathy maybe, but if they were, he could not read their raptor expressions well enough to understand them. He looked away, searching for Newton. The raptor scientist was holding position near the main doors, keeping watch on the approaching patrol. Nathan signalled him to join them and he came running at a sprint. There was a whooshing noise, accompanied by the gentle whine of a propeller overhead as one of the flying machines made a low fly-past over the top of the building.