by Randal Sloan
Then began the second period of what once again felt like floating, the air still too thin to let them be aware of it inside their little cocoons. Gradually that feeling began to fade, as she could feel just a hint of the resistance of air. But the AI started the next step, easing on the anti-grav and applying it’s tiny braking field.
Julie had told them all what the suit could do. But its full meaning didn’t come to her until the last section of the drop. It was like hanging over a cliff, expecting to fall but supported somehow miraculously on silk threads, threads that stretched forever, but like tiny bungee cords gradually slowing you on the longest bungee jump in the world. Exhilarating, but yet terrifying at the same time.
After what seemed like forever, the AI of each suit brought its occupant softly to the ground, only shutting down the anti-grav after both feet were solidly on the ground, the AI countering any instability by adjusting the power muscles of the legs. As the last one touched the ground, they all breathed a collective sigh of relief.
Finally able to speak, Julie said into the control circuit, “Guys, you’ve all just made history. Someday we’ll be able to talk about what we just did, but for me at least, right now, words can’t express what I feel.”
She cleared her throat. “Unfortunately, we have a mission to complete. Everyone ok or do you need a moment? Sound off, please.”
Slowly each team member made his own mental assessment and began to sound off. They started to move around slowly. As team leader, Chris sounded off last and made his own assessment of the team.
Satisfied, he began to give their orders. “Each team member move to your assigned position, following your designated path in your AI interface.” He laughed, “Just in case, look before you step. After what my AI just did, I no longer have any doubt about its capability, but it doesn’t hurt to use common sense.”
The sense of awe broken for the moment, each moved into their place. They were about to finish making that history.
#
Just like the others, Julie moved carefully, following her AI directions to take up her position on the top of a ridge facing the stronghold. Just before she reached the top of the ridge, she activated her chameleon circuit, Jazz doing the same thing beside her. Because her AI knew where Jazz was located, it drew a hazy outline around her, allowing the two of them to work together to set up her sniper position.
As soon as she was in position, Julie looked through her scope. Just her luck, she had not one, but two men in the overwatch point. The second had probably just been bored, but nevertheless, that meant she had not one tremendous shot to make but two. The bullet would take just over a second to reach its target, so she would have to have the second shot on its way before the first one arrived. Using her rangefinder, she took the first reading. Almost exactly 2000 meters, just over 1.24 miles. Nothing near the record, which she had heard was approaching twice that. Although to be fair, that was using a special bullet that was more like a tiny missile than a real bullet. If she’d thought that was necessary, she would have brought it, but here it would be overkill.
Jazz did her job as the assistant, taking her own range. Her unit was slightly more accurate, so Julie adjusted to her range. Next Jazz took climate readings, the temperature, the wind direction, even the air pressure. All of that went into the setup. With her AI to help Julie was able to gather additional information from the area, using input from each of the other team members as they moved into position. She was able to determine a slight pattern to the wind, which although slight, started out moving across her path from one direction, but because of the layout of the mountains shifted to almost the opposite direction further down the path. Because of that she had Hernando release a tiny, tiny little drone that transmitted even more accurate data. All of this fed to her AI, allowing her to finalize her settings.
Everything set, Julie signaled a ready on her part. Quickly, she received a ready back from each of her team members and from Zeke. Explaining that she had two shots to make, she set a two second delay in the Go signal, so that she could completely concentrate on that second shot. Tonight, Julie could not worry about the men on the other side of the mountain. She would do her job, regretting the need to take the shots, dreaming of a time when men could learn to live together and not have to take each other’s lives.
Signaling the AI to start the timer, Julie carefully, precisely took the shot, immediately moving the rifle only very minutely as she lined up the second shot. That was quickly made also, taking it with the same care, but with extreme speed. Just over a second between the shots, her AI told her, the first shot hitting home a fraction of a second after the second shot was fired, no question he was down. She knew the results of the second before it hit, the man barely recognizing what was happening but unable to do anything about it before the shot targeting him hit home. He chose the wrong job and the wrong place to be.
Being where she was, Julie had a front row seat for what happened next. Zeke came roaring out of the sky, two missiles barely moving faster than his ship to strike the anti-aircraft missile launchers on either side of the stronghold, and what looked like brilliant streaks of fire shooting at a tremendous speed from the ship, rail gun rounds sent to strike all the secondary targets, the artillery and the other anti-personal weapons within their defenses.
Then in a move that even blew Julie’s mind for a moment, Zeke went screaming across in front of her, and passing within what looked like inches of the compound, used pulses from both the anti-grav and the ship’s drives at the same instant to blow the gates of the compound to smithereens, leaving a completely clear path to the compound. Finally, moving even faster, he zipped across the compound, rail gun rounds striking all the remaining targets in the compound, and shot back up into space. The whole flight had taken only a few more seconds than Julie’s sniper shots. Julie’s AI told her the verdict, 100% elimination of all targets within compound.
“Remind me to never make that young man mad,” someone said into the control circuit. Julie smiled. That was her Zeke. He might not be able to take her in a long defensive struggle, but come a no holds barred straight up attack, no one was as good as he was. She suspected Chris’ question about a risk from a missed shot might have given him just a little more mustard to his flight, but Julie knew what he was capable of doing. She also knew for a fact that Chris would never ask that question again.
“No sign of nuclear material of any significance,” Hernando spoke into the control circuit. “We’ll continue to scan. Please remain cautious and aware of the possibility.”
Julie had been packing up her equipment without thought even as she watched the results of Zeke’s flight, so she was ready to move. Speaking to Jazz on a private channel, she told her, “Thanks for your help. Go with God’s grace and with care, and take up your position. I’ll see you back at the pickup point.”
Rushing off to her next position, Julie listened to the control circuit and watched her AI’s picture of the battle before her. Between the ferocity of Zeke’s attack and the impossibility of what they saw before them as bullets seemed to come at them out of thin air, the Organization camp was in total disarray. Even if they got a shot off, it either didn’t hit anything or was totally stopped by the new armor. It appeared that no one was even able to get to a weapon of a high caliber, not that it would have made any difference. And still no sign of significant nuclear material. She breathed a sigh of relief at that.
At first it appeared that no one would even come close to escaping out the back exits. But then, the unexpected happened, as she knew it would. A single man appeared in her view, not on the path the intel had said was the only exit possible on this side of the camp, but on another that was almost entirely hidden from view, one even now she wouldn’t know was there if she hadn’t seen him.
Signaling to Jazz and the others, Julie told them the situation as she was already in motion. “Primary team will need to verify my exit remains clear. I have a runner, on a hidden path. Will
signal if I need backup.”
It wouldn’t take her long to catch up to him. It had been getting boring anyway.
#
Carson Caleb was terrified. He had been practically drafted into the Organization by his older cousin, who had promptly gotten himself killed. He had tried to escape once and had been punished for that. They had watched him closely ever since. Since then, he’d been trying to keep his head down, waiting for his chance to escape. Then he had gotten assigned to this unit as the com guy, and he was hoping to get the chance to somehow find a way to slip away, go somewhere else, and start over.
But then tonight, what he swore was a mythical dragon from his homeland in Ireland had flown across their camp, spitting fire down on their camp and leaving destruction in its path. Then demons had come, spitting their own terror and completely impervious to weapon fire. Not that you could even see them.
Carson had been in his assigned position in the radio room when the attack began. He couldn’t have sent a signal if he’d wanted to; the dragon had taken out the radio tower in its screaming flight overhead. But earlier when they had first arrived at the stronghold, Carson had discovered a path behind his radio shack that led out from the compound. It led to nowhere, ending in a cliff that fell to a river below, but it was a good spot where he could sneak off to be alone away from the riffraff he was stuck here with. They were always talking about the people they had killed, or worse, how they were going to kill the next ones.
Carson thought just for a moment that he had gotten away from the demons. But then he heard one behind him and he knew he was done for. Unable to even think about how to shoot at it, he threw the single grenade he carried as his second weapon, the second weapon that the Organization demanded he carry. That didn’t even slow the monster down. Even more terrified, he almost forgot where he was going, but at the last instant realized he was at the end of the trail and frantically tried to stop, grabbing a small shrub at the edge of the cliff. For a moment, he thought it would hold, but it was not to be, the feeble roots unable to hold his weight. He slipped off the cliff edge, falling in a last terrified scream to the swirling river below.
When Carson hit the water, he was fortunate enough to land in water deep enough that he wasn’t instantly killed, but he was immediately swept away by the flood. Swallowing water and unable to even get a sense of up from down in the blackness, he would be done for soon and he knew it. Praying to God to send him an angel, he gasped a breath before going under, perhaps for the last time.
Just as his last hope was gone and he knew it was the end, a hand grabbed him, pulling his head out of the water and slowly pulling him to safety. He could have sworn he was somehow flying at the end. Then he passed out, the ordeal just too much.
When he finally came aware a few minutes later, he thought at first that he’d died and was in the afterlife, but he felt too many pains to believe that was true. Maybe an angel really had rescued him. Then she came over to look down at him, and he was sure he was right. Surely she was an angel.
#
Julie was finally gaining on the escaping soldier when he threw a grenade at her. He wasn’t a very good aim, the throw off target by several feet, but you know what they say about grenades. Close counts as good as a hit— except when the target is wearing Space Force PSCH armor, which this person was. She pushed right through the blast, it not phasing her in the least, not even a hair out of place.
She was just getting ready to finish him off when the path came to a sudden end, and the man who she suddenly realized was quite terrified, teetered on the edge before falling off into the river below. Without a second thought, Julie reached the edge of the cliff and jumped in after him.
Julie jumped out as far into the direction of the river’s current as she dared. With her IR vision, she spotted him just ahead, so she popped her anti-grav so that she could use the suit’s minute little drive to push her forward enough to catch up to him. No time to use the AI, she did it all entirely on instinct, landing in the water with just enough room to catch him with an outstretched arm. Pulling him to her, she pulled his head out of the water, holding him in the lifeguard carry she’d learned a couple of summers ago, a lifetime ago now.
Her armor was light enough that it actually helped her stay afloat and Julie wasn’t worried that anything in the river could hurt her, but now that she had enough time to tell the AI what she wanted, she was able to pull them out of the water. The anti-grav did its job, lifting them out of the water and clumsily flying them across to land on the bank. The anti-grav strained with the extra weight but it held, something Julie realized would need to be tweaked later; the anti-grav should be strong enough to hold the wearer and the heaviest man on the team. But they reached the shore safely, and she carefully laid the man down.
Setting up emergency lights so she could see, Julie quickly checked him for injuries, the same training that had taught her the lifeguard carry allowing her to complete those steps without having to give it a conscious thought. Although he was suffering from swallowing water and from exposure to the elements, short of a number of scratches and bruises from his ordeal, the man appeared to be ok. Quickly extracting her emergency kit, she made him comfortable, covering him with the emergency blanket for warmth as she hoped to prevent him from going into shock.
With everything stable, she only then took the time to call in her position to the team, requesting an extraction team with a stretcher to come to her location. She also sent Zeke a mental message, in response to his rather urgent query. “I’m fine, Zeke. I think I just did another rescue. You’ll have to tell Carla. I don’t think this one qualifies as a kitten, though. Maybe a wet bob cat.”
Julie had completely changed her mind about the man in front of her. She didn’t know why he was with the Organization, but she just didn’t think he belonged here like the rest of them. It was probably that last moment of terror she’d seen in him just before he fell into the river, but she felt like she’d seen into his soul in that barest fraction of time.
Julie saw signs the man was beginning to revive, and she didn’t want the first sight he had of her to be of someone wearing a helmet, so she stepped off to the side so that she could remove her helmet before coming back to look at him. His eyes going wide, the man tried to speak, but it just came out as a croak. Julie leaned closer so that she could hear him. Finally he was able to get out, “Are you an angel?”
Completely taken by surprise, Julie finally answered him with a soft laugh. “No, just a rather unusual girl; I’m Julie Randolph, here with the team that just took out your camp. Do you want to tell me your name and explain why you were here with that lot?”
He sighed, his eyes turning a little sad. “I really thought you were an angel. I’ve never met one before, but I thought I had now. I’m Carson Caleb, and my cousin tricked me into going to a meeting with some of his ‘friends’, who turned out to be rather bad people. I have been trying to find a way to get away from them for two years now, but they kept me too close to be able to do that. I was the com tech for the camp above.”
Julie wondered just how many men like the man before her had been in the main Organization camp that she’d wiped off the face of the earth. Probably a small percentage, but each of them a human being who at least had deserved a chance. Tears in her eyes, she answered him. “Well, I think your ‘friends’ are all dead. Why don’t you start over and try to make some real friends this time? You can start with me if you want to.”
Smiling, Carson told her. “I would like that.” Then his smile grew bigger. “I bet I can give you a friendship gift, if you want it? How about the com codes to the remaining active Organization teams, along with their communication schedule?”
Julie beamed. “I’d like that present very much, Carson.” She picked up her helmet to respond to a notification from her AI. “It’s going to be just a few minutes till our ride gets here. Why don’t you tell me about yourself while we wait?”
Carson smiled back at h
er. “I was born in a small village in southern Ireland. We still have many myths and legends that are common there. One of them is of dragons, which I swore I saw one a few minutes ago. We know that not all of those legends are real, but we’re also smart enough to know that we don’t know enough to know for sure. Without a doubt, some of them are based on real creatures which existed at least at some point in time, and some of them were probably just imagined. But we do believe in angels and demons. While you may not be truly one of them, to me you’ll always be my angel.”
Carson went on to tell her stories of growing up in Ireland. She made him promise that he would someday take her there to see it. Carson never asked, and Julie didn’t interrupt to tell him, but she was determined to get him a full pardon, and a chance to make that return to Ireland. After all, what were friends for?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Back to the Island
Julie was once more at the controls of her corvette. She had been wanting to try out the drive in atmosphere since Zeke figured out how to make it work. It still irritated her that he could when she hadn’t been able to. He always said she could do most things better than he could, but she saw some of the things he did and actually believed otherwise. Other than flying her little ship! She had him on that…
Then she remembered the last time he had flown just a few days prior. His flight preceding the assault on the Organization mountain stronghold was still strong in her memory. She still struggled to believe it, but she had witnessed it herself so she knew it was true. She could still outfly him in some ways, but make it an all-out assault, she knew he had her beat.