The Beginning of Sorrows

by Gilbert, Morris

  Vashti frowned. “I don’t know. And what does this have to do with maggots and worms?”

  “Huh? Oh. Yeah. Well, I was the only one in the command room that night who thought about putting extra guards on the backup generators in case the commandos took them out,” he explained with a touch of his normal Texas cowboy bravado. “So the captain graduated me from maggot to worm.” Abruptly he turned back to their odd situation. “Since the generators haven’t kicked in, what’s really happened here?”

  Vashti still didn’t understand either their predicament, or his worry.

  “Colonel,” Ric went on softly, and Vashti was never more aware of the complete silence than at that moment when his voice seemed to segment and rebound from everywhere at once. “What if there’s been some sort of attack?”

  A chill traveled up Vashti’s spine to tingle at the back of her neck. “Impossible. We would be hearing sounds of combat— explosions, the artillery—”

  “Maybe, maybe not. Anyway, we gotta get out of here, Colonel, but I can’t see a blasted thing . . .” He trailed off until Vashti heard the slap of skin on skin, and realized that he’d slapped his forehead. “How could I be so stupid !”

  “What is it?” Vashti asked anxiously. Then she heard thumps at her feet. “What are you doing?”

  “Trying to get into this case of snaplights.”

  Now Vashti, too, felt foolish. She was the ranking officer, for goodness’ sake, and here was this American lieutenant out-thinking her! Snaplights were small tubes of thick liquid that, if flexed slightly, would give off a flameless colored light that lasted for twenty-four hours. True to the tech-head’s word, there’d been case after case of blue snaplights that were now the “official” color, replacing the green ones. Vashti had remarked that she liked the blue much better than the serpentine green, which was what the Israelis used. Promptly, and with solemn gallantry, Ric had “liberated” one of the cases and presented it to her. Her strong sense of military protocol had reared its head and signaled disapproval, but she’d said nothing, only smiled. He’d looked so boyishly pleased at his “gift.”

  The sounds at her feet became more violent, ending in a screech of wood giving way. “Ow! Man!”

  “What happened?”

  “Broke a nail.”

  In other circumstances, Vashti would have thought this funny, but all emotions except relief left her as she saw a snaplight come alive in Ric’s hands.

  “Here, Colonel, toss this down to see how far we are from the floor.”

  Vashti did so, peered through the grated walls of the elevator, then told him, “Twenty feet or so.”

  After bringing more lights to life, Ric threw three toward the wide door of the second floor, which consisted of collapsible bars spaced six inches apart. It was directly above their cage about five feet, and at a steep angle. “Can’t jump that,” he commented absently. “Here . . . help me.” He began tugging on one side of the elevator door, while Vashti took the other. Once opened, Ric plopped onto his belly and waved a handful of lights around beneath the elevator.

  “What do we do?” Vashti asked.

  “Take off your shirt, Colonel.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be taking mine off, too.”

  “That’s not much consola—”

  “Have a look, Colonel, ma’am.”

  Vashti lay down beside him and studied the gloom beneath them.

  Ric pointed the snaplights to their right. “See that metal pole? That’s one of the ones that the elevator slides up and down on. It’s probably covered with little metal slivers that’ll slice up your hands really good, so you’ll need to use your shirt to slide down.”

  “Slide . . . down?”

  In the dim blue light, Vashti could see Ric’s boyish grin. “It’ll be a breeze for you, Colonel. Easier’n rappelling out of a helicopter.”

  “It is?” Vashti said, gulping. It didn’t look easier. It looked harder. And much more dangerous.

  Unceremoniously, he threw some lit snaplights to the floor around the pole. It didn’t provide nearly as much illumination in the vast warehouse as Vashti would have liked, but there was nothing to do about that. Ric hopped to his feet and began unbuttoning his shirt. “That pole’s just a little too far from the door, so we’ll have to make a jump for it.”

  Vashti stood and began working at the fastenings on her own shirt, telling herself over and over that they were just fellow soldiers with a job to do, instead of man and woman. It didn’t help when he pulled his shirt off to reveal a sleeveless T-shirt and arms that were well-toned and undeniably powerful. Vashti shook off the thought and concentrated on the slide down.

  Ric didn’t so much as glance her way as she removed her uniform blouse. Underneath she, too, wore a sand-brown T-shirt, but hers was sleeved. Ric went to the box of snaplights and promptly slid them over the side to crash to the floor below. Finally he turned to her and said intently, “I’ll go first. I know you can do this.”

  “Of course I can,” Vashti answered, with more confidence than she felt.

  The careless grin flashed again. “If you can’t, I can always go down, then throw you up a rope and pull you down.”

  “Very funny. Go, Lieutenant.”

  Ric folded his shirt lengthwise three times, and she did the same. Then he sat down in the doorway and without hesitation sort of torqued himself down and around. Now he was swinging in midair, awkwardly holding on to the lip of the floor through his folded shirt. Ric eyed the pole, which was about five feet away, and began to swing his legs back and forth to gain momentum. Suddenly he let go with a grunt and flew toward the pole, first wrapping his legs around it, then his protected hands. Like an expert fireman he neatly slid to the floor.

  “Nicely done,” Vashti called down to him as she tried to ignore the knot in her stomach. What if she missed the pole?

  Ric’s face was a blue orb in the neon light as he gazed upward. “Piece-a-cake, Colonel.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Uh—never mind. You aren’t scared, are you, sir?” he teased her.

  “Of course I’m not scared!” Vashti sat down and immediately swung her legs over the side and did the same trapeze torque Ric had done. Keeping a hold on the lip of the floor through the shirt proved to be more difficult than she’d thought. One hand came loose, and with a gasp she nearly lost hold altogether.

  “Hold on there, Colonel,” Ric coaxed from below. “You’re tough! You’re Fire Team Eclipse! Huu-ahh!”

  “That is easy for you to say, Lieutenant,” Vashti returned through gritted teeth. “You’re on the ground.” Desperately she gained a better hold, and began swinging her legs toward the pole. It looked like it was fifty feet away instead of five. “Only five feet,” she whispered to herself. “Five feet.” She reflected that she wouldn’t have been able to perform this feat before training in the personal program of weights and exercise that Ric had developed for her. She could feel strength humming through muscles she’d never known, and suddenly her confidence soared. Grunting “Huuu-ahh!” she let go.

  Vashti hit the pole so hard it knocked the breath out of her. Then she was sliding down too fast gripping the pole with her legs and hands as hard as she could to slow down. Too fast . . . too fast!

  Strong hands stopped her just as she realized she was going to crash into the ground like a rock. Disentangling herself from the pole, pushing Ric’s helping hands away, she muttered, “Just a slice of cake.” She considered putting on the splinter-and oil-covered shirt, then threw it aside in distaste. Ric pressed a handful of snap-lights into her hand, and they took off running for the door, their heavy jump boots echoing loudly in the silent warehouse.

  When they burst full speed from the doorway, Vashti was bowled over by another running figure. Together they went down on the ground in a tangle of arms and legs. Ric jumped on the man and jerked him up by his shirt.

  “Watch where you’re going! Mitchell? What the devil
are you doin’, boy?”

  David Mitchell reached down to help Vashti to her feet with a plain look of horror on his honest face. “Golly, am I sorry, Colonel! But you just popped out right in front of me! No, I mean, I just popped out right in front of you—”

  Vashti brushed grass from her T-shirt. “Never mind, it’s all right, Sergeant.”

  “Mitchell, what’s going on?” Ric asked as he looked around the completely dark facility. “Why aren’t the backup generators—”

  “It’s worse than that, sir,” David replied, waving a hand to the northeast. “Didn’t you notice that the lights from Colorado Springs are out, too?”

  Fort Carson was only five miles from the city, and one could normally see the lights as a hazy glow at night. Now, the stars could be seen clearly all the way down to the horizon.

  “Yeah,” Ric muttered. “And I guess your GL’s out, too?”

  David nodded.

  Vashti was really worried now. “What does this mean?”

  “I don’t know, but I’d sure like permission to go to the airstrip, ma’am,” David said, then turned to Ric. “There are two Stealths up there somewhere, they’re almost out of fuel, and the world has disappeared, and I guess gone silent, right out from under them. Uh, sir, Joey Dane is one of the pilots. You remember him?”

  Ric nodded. “Sure I do. Your funny redheaded friend from high school. You’ve got permission to go, Mitchell. We’re headed to the command center. They must be going crazy in there.”

  David pointed to the snaplights. “Mind if I take a couple of those, sir?”

  Ric handed him two of the lights. “Take care of yourself, Mitchell. And keep your eye out for other team members. We need to gather somewhere later. At the Apache, right?”

  David was already running off, and called over his shoulder, “That’s affirmative, sir!”

  David Mitchell, unlike every other member of his specialized team, was trained to do all of their jobs. He was an adequate helo pilot, kept himself up as best he could on all new advances in electronics and weaponry, and had the most field training of any except Captain Slaughter. When he went with the team on training or, if the need ever arrived, a mission, his job was to fill the position of any man who was wounded or killed. He didn’t like the idea of his job—sometimes he felt like a ghoul—but he and all his team members knew that it was essential.

  Since David couldn’t concentrate on only one specialty, his skill as a pilot couldn’t equal Deac Fong, and there was no way he could outshoot Rio Valdosta. He wasn’t an unfailing leader like Con Slaughter, and he wasn’t a techno-genius like Ric Darmstedt. But David had worked hard to at least be adequate at every position. There was no way he would let laziness be a reason to let the team down should he ever be called upon. And he looked at his team as if they were all fingers on one hand—and he viewed himself as the thumb. The thumb could hardly function alone, like the other fingers could; but the whole hand couldn’t work unless it had a thumb. It was a childish analogy, he thought, but it worked for him.

  But even though David’s loyalties, and yes, friendships, were strongest toward his fire team, he still had one especially good friend from his childhood, Joey Dane. A cheerful, energetic man, Joey had planned to be a Stealth pilot ever since he was five years old. He’d worked his whole life to that end. It had just worked out that David and Joey had been assigned to Fort Carson together, and their friendship had grown. When David had heard from a tech-head about the two planes in the air, he’d known that Joey was on a night patrol, so one of the pilots must be him. They never sent more than two of the outrageously expensive Stealths out. Immediately David had grabbed his NVG’s—Night Vision Goggles—and set out for the airstrip.

  The closer he got to the strip, the more he had to dodge other men running around. He wondered where they were all going in such a hurry, since there was no job that could be done without power. None. When the power had gone out, David had, of course, been confused, but only for a moment. Somehow he’d sensed the complete finality of the blackout, and he knew that flipping a switch wasn’t going to set things right. It had disturbed him to think this, but it had also set him into action much more quickly than anyone else.

  He rushed through all the confusion, by the cannon cockers and duck hunters who were still furiously trying to make their weapons work, and came to the N4 runway where the fighters would be landing. Quickly he donned the NVG’s to scan the sky, and with the aid of the stars it seemed that it was full daylight through the lenses. He spotted the Stealths at once. They were coming in from the south, already descending in landing formation, one right after the other. David looked down at the runway and his heart stopped.

  There was a dead Humvee V sitting right in the center of the strip where the planes would be landing. It didn’t matter that Humvees were strictly forbidden on the runways; the only thing that mattered was that it was there. At a hundred yards away, there was no way David could grab a couple of men and explain to them and then reach it and move it before the planes touched down. And it was far enough down the runway—almost at the very end of it, where planes didn’t touch down anyway. That was probably why some dumb grunt had taken a chance on crossing there.

  “Their landing lights will pick it up,” he whispered to himself. “Sure they will . . .” Remembering those bright lights that illuminated the way for the planes, he removed his NVG’s. If he’d been looking at the plane as they came on, he’d have been blinded.

  The first Stealth hit the lights only a moment later, and David could clearly see the pilot make a last-minute correction to avoid the Humvee. Maybe these ultrafast jets did need that part of the runway for landing. The Stealth landed with a scream of reversing engines and taxied by, still at fully two hundred miles an hour.

  “One down,” David said, but was horrified to see that the other plane hadn’t turned on his lights. “Turn them on!” he shouted hoarsely, but he could barely hear himself over the engines of the landed plane. He remembered the snaplights in his hand, and knowing it was a futile gesture, he sprinted for the Humvee, waving the puny lights over his head. “Turn on your lights!”

  With a sinking feeling, David realized that the Stealth’s landing lights must have malfunctioned. He had just enough time to wonder if that was somehow connected to this eerie power outage— and why the other pilot hadn’t voice-warned the second pilot about the Humvee—then the underside of the Stealth barely touched the vehicle.

  It was like a terrible nightmare. David saw the landing gear separate from the aircraft in small pieces and go flying. The Stealth itself listed to the starboard side, hit the runway, and wheeled horribly twice. The metal din was deafening. One wing shattered and tore from the fuselage, and the plane slid on its side directly toward David. He took a few steps backward on legs that were numb and yet shaky, his mind frozen in horror as the Stealth plowed into the earth beside the runway.

  The aircraft came to a stop on its belly only a hundred feet from David, who stood with his mouth open, still not believing what he’d just seen. In the ensuing thunderous silence, David felt the hot air from the plane’s momentum wash over him, carrying the acrid scent of jet fuel. This dangerous smell spurred him into action.

  David sprinted to the aircraft, his mind ricocheting between praying that the copilot wasn’t Joey Dane and praying that he was still alive. On the side where the wing had been stripped away, he saw shorted wires sparking along the torn part of the fuselage, and the fuel smell was now close to gagging level. One of the cockpit latches was still intact, and with quick, sure movements he disengaged the lock. The titanium enforced canopy was lighter than he’d thought, but it still took all of his strength to use leverage to break the other lock. When it snapped, David threw back the canopy and looked inside.

  The pilot was dead. In all his training and travels, war games and rescue missions, David had never seen a dead human being before. This was no Ultimate Reality game on Cyclops where you blew raiders out of the sky
, or gleefully mowed down enemies with assault rifles. This had been a living and breathing man, with family, friends, and dreams, who was now staring up at David with blank eyes from a head that was twisted almost completely around on his neck.

  David felt his gorge rise, but he made himself look at the copilot. It wasn’t Joey Dane, and he was still alive. His head was resting against the instrument panel, and when David gently pulled him back against the seat he heard a moan escape the man’s lips. David could see no wounds except for the blood coming from the man’s nose and trickling from his mouth.

  David heard another snap from the shorting wires below, and knew they didn’t have much time left before the jet fuel caught. David had had the minimum field medical training, and he was aware you weren’t supposed to move an injured man until you knew the exact nature of the injury. But it was obvious he had to either get him out of there or let him go up in a flaming ball. David released the shoulder harness and easily lifted the man out, inwardly cringing at the protesting howl of pain that escaped the injured man, but determinedly dragging him clear.

  David wasn’t a big man, but he had an innate strength and vigor, and he had no trouble carrying the man a safe distance from the plane. He could tell, from the slight movements of the man’s body, that he was broken, probably irreparably so. David would have kept going all the way to find some medical help, but somehow he knew that the flier didn’t have that much time. It would be better to let him rest.

  He laid the man down in cool grass and removed his helmet. The navigator was no more than a boy, and David held his snap-light close enough to make out the name stitched on his flight suit—Fleming. His eyes fluttered and he tried to say something, but he choked and began coughing.

  “Don’t try to talk, Fleming,” David said calmly. “Help will be here soon.” He looked up and saw figures running toward them in the distance, and could only hope that one of them was a real medic. At that moment, David would have gladly traded any of his million-dollar training to have taken more courses in Med-Aid. He was ignorant and he was helpless. For all he knew the kid could take his last breath at any time. He checked for broken bones in Fleming’s arms and legs. When David touched his left arm, Fleming cried out.