by Dirk Patton
We waited outside while Vance did whatever it is pilots do before taking off. I kept waiting to hear one of the big engines come to life, but they remained still and silent. A minute later he emerged, shaking his head.
“Batteries are dead. Let’s try another.”
He led the way to the next aircraft, disappearing inside as the rest of us took up station at the nose. Glancing through the windscreen, I could see him in the cockpit, flipping switches, and checking instruments. A moment later there was a loud whine from the left engine nacelle.
The noise rose in pitch as both rotors slowly began to turn. They were horizontal, making the plane look like a twin-rotor helicopter because they’re too long to be oriented vertically, in flight mode, when the Osprey is on the ground.
As the left engine spooled up, thick, white smoke poured out of the exhaust. We had to step back to avoid being engulfed by the cloud, but the rotors continued to accelerate and quickly cleared the air. They continued to spin faster as the engine roared, then the right one came to life. More white smoke poured out but was instantly whipped away by the rotor wash. Vance looked at us through the windscreen and flashed a thumbs up.
Running around the Osprey, we gave the engines plenty of room. The rear ramp was coming down as we arrived, and I led the way inside. When Dog and the girls were aboard, I slapped the button to raise the door and headed for the cockpit. Rachel and Tiffany looked around for a moment before taking a seat on the deck. There weren’t any seats for passengers.
“Ready?” I shouted over the bellow of the engines when I stuck my head into the flight deck.
“Good to go,” Vance said. “Might want to take a seat. I haven’t flown one of these in about five years.”
Oh, crap. I rushed back and dropped to my ass as the aircraft lifted off, the deck tilting to the side. Dog started to slide, and I grabbed him and held on as the vibration increased and for a moment we tilted even farther. But, Vance eventually got us leveled out, and it felt like we were in a static hover.
That lasted for a few seconds, then he began to accelerate, the deck tilting back as we gained altitude. Checking on the girls, I saw a terrified look on Rachel’s face, but she was holding it together. Tiffany, on the other hand, was smiling from ear to ear.
“Think they’d teach me how to fly one of these?” She shouted when she saw me looking in her direction.
“You can’t do roller coaster and you get seasick, but you want to be a pilot?” I shouted back.
“Yes!”
She smiled, expecting that one word to explain everything. Shrugging, I smiled and nodded. It just so happened I knew the man that could make that happen, and there was no doubt we were in desperate need of pilots.
The smile vanished from my face when the deck suddenly tilted without warning and Vance shouted for us to hold on. A vibration strong enough to rattle my teeth started up, growing worse as we banked and began rapidly descending. Rachel and Tiffany looked terrified, and frankly I wasn’t feeling too confident at the moment, either.
A couple of minutes later there was a brutally hard impact as we reached the ground. Somehow the aircraft held together and began taxiing.
“Still wannabe a pilot?” I asked Tiffany before scrambling forward into the cockpit.
“What the fuck was that all about?” I shouted.
“That’s called a good landing,” Vance grinned.
“What?”
“Still alive, aren’t you?” He chuckled.
“Funny, asshole,” I grumbled, climbing to my feet and looking out the windscreen. We were near the end of a runway on Luke Air Force Base. “What happened?”
“Something wrong with the port engine,” he said. “Felt like the rotor was running slower than starboard. Other than that, beats the fuck out of me. I just fly ‘em.”
“So what now?” I asked, watching as we slowly approached the flight line where the Osprey had been parked.
“Check the others,” he said. “No way in hell I’m going back up in this egg beater.”
I nodded, then went to the back to fill in the girls. Vance pulled to a stop a few minutes later, the engines going silent as the rear ramp descended. He stepped out of the cockpit and I held up a hand to slow him down.
“We’re on security,” I said to Rachel and Tiffany, leading the way out.
While the pilot checked the remaining Ospreys, we kept an eye on the surroundings. To my great relief, nothing and no one appeared to bother us.
“None of the V-22s are going to fly,” Vance said after nearly ten minutes of checking them. “There’s two of them with juice in their batteries, but no fuel.”
“Can’t we transfer the fuel from this one?” I asked without taking my eyes off my area of responsibility.
“We can, but it will take a lot of time. I’m starting to wonder if these should have been red-tagged, and were left behind for a reason.”
“Any bright ideas, or are we driving again?”
“Saw some helos from the air, on the far side of those hangars,” he said, pointing. “We should check them out before we make a decision.”
I thought about that for a moment, then nodded agreement. We all piled into the Tahoe and drove down the flight line before cutting between two massive hangars. Behind them was a secondary flight line for rotor wing aircraft. There was a lot of empty space, and the only helicopters remaining were five hulking Chinooks.
“Can you fly one of those?” I asked, staring at the twin rotor behemoths.
“They’re actually easier to fly than an Osprey,” Vance said as I pulled to a stop next to one. “Let’s hope they’re airworthy.”
We repeated the process, the girls, Dog and I standing watch while he checked out the closest aircraft. I turned when he shouted from the hatch.
“Sit tight. I’m going to take it up and make sure we don’t have another problem.”
I gave him a thumbs up and we moved away as the engines came to life and began turning the long rotors. Soon, they were at takeoff speed, and he lifted into the air. For several minutes he circled the area, banking and changing altitude. Finally, he landed the huge helicopter in a stinging swirl of dust. I could just make out the thumbs up he flashed through the windscreen.
“Let’s go,” I said, heading for the rear ramp that was already on its way down.
Rachel, looking dubious, mumbled something I didn’t catch over the roar of the idling Chinook. After a moment, she fell in behind me and we boarded the waiting helo. Tiffany dashed forward and disappeared into the cockpit. When I checked on her, she was strapped into the co-pilot’s seat and grinning from ear to ear as she watched Vance work the controls.
47
“Sir! Battlespace is coming back online!”
Admiral Packard had fallen asleep at his desk. He jerked awake when his aide delivered the news from the outer office in a very unprofessional manner. Packard didn’t care. Leaping to his feet, he charged across his plushly carpeted office and through the door.
“CIC!” He roared at his Marine guards.
As two of them dashed ahead to clear the way, Captain Black radioed a heads up to the enhanced protection detail spread around the building. The rest formed a bubble around the Admiral, matching his pace.
It was still dark when the group pushed through the building’s doors, the sun just beginning to lighten the eastern horizon. Walking so fast it nearly counted as a double-time jog, Packard turned and headed for the Combat Information Center. All around him was movement as more Marines fell in to join the procession. A pair of Super Cobra helicopters hovered above, constantly scanning the area with their FLIR systems. Captain Black wasn’t about to let any more harm come to the Admiral.
Pushing through a set of doors, Packard ignored the elevator and raced down a flight of stairs to the subterranean levels of the operations building. Without breaking stride, he burst into the CIC, which was a hive of activity.
All around the room, screens that had been dark were coming
to life. Data scrolled across them as the servers in Hawaii reestablished communication with the handful of ships the US Navy still had operational around the globe. One by one, the system began updating their position and status, plotting them on a single, massive display that covered an entire wall.
Still more screens brightened as surveillance feeds from aircraft and satellites began working again. The Admiral breathed a sigh of relief before shouting for a status update on the Russian fleet. While he waited impatiently for a console operator to answer his request, the steel door from the stairwell behind him slammed open, banging loudly against the concrete wall.
Captain Black was the only Marine that had accompanied Packard into the CIC, and he reacted immediately, spinning and raising his rifle as he placed himself between the Admiral and the door. Jessica, flushed by a sprint from where she’d been working, froze in her tracks when she saw the weapon aimed at her face.
“Stand down, Captain,” Packard said, pushing past the Marine to greet Jessica.
Black lowered his weapon but didn’t take his eyes off the new arrival.
“You did it!”
The Admiral extended both of his hands to shake Jessica’s. She smiled at his praise.
“Sorry it took so long, sir,” she said. “And, I’ve got one more thing to do. Thor didn’t come back online automatically. I’ve got to give it a little nudge.”
“By all means, carry on,” Packard said, stepping out of her way.
As she dashed for a vacant console, another screen came to life. It showed a crisp image of a fleet of ships spread across a large swath of ocean.
“Admiral, the Russian fleet,” the operator called.
Packard stared at the display, counting the number of ships still bound for Hawaii. Before he finished, Commander Detmer ran into the room, breathing hard. He stood beside the Admiral and quickly counted, then dropped into a seat and began working on a console.
“They’re down four more ships since our last report, sir,” he said. “All four were civilian cargo ships that we believe were carrying ground troops. That’s the good news. The bad is that there’s still some serious firepower heading for us. Three guided missile cruisers, four guided missile destroyers and four guided missile frigates. There’s also ten landing ships and two more civilian cargo ships remaining.”
“Range?” Packard asked, glaring at the screen.
“Two hundred nautical miles northwest of Oahu, sir. They are well within range for all of their missiles to strike any target on the island.”
“Why haven’t they started softening us up, yet?”
“All I can surmise, sir, is that they want Oahu intact. There’s not much of the world left that’s habitable, other than Australia. Maybe this isn’t about finishing us off so much as seizing the island for themselves. It’s definitely better weather than Moscow.”
“And, they’d have the entire civilian population to pick and choose from for a captive workforce. Slaves, if you will.”
Captain West hadn’t been able to keep up with Jessica and had arrived in time to offer an opinion on the Russian’s motives.
“It’s time to show our hand,” the Admiral said. “Bring the subs up and feed targeting data to them.”
“Aye, aye sir!” The CIC duty officer responded before turning and snapping off a string of orders.
Five minutes later, four American guided missile submarines each received a two-character message over ELF. The two letters were GO. Eighty miles due north of Oahu, they had been maneuvering silently in the ocean, steering racetrack patterns 800 feet beneath the surface for several months. Never believing that Hawaii wouldn’t become a target for a Russian invasion, they were Admiral Packard’s holdout Ace.
The submarines, all Ohio class, had been sorely needed in the various naval engagements that had been fought with the Russians. But the Admiral wasn’t one who liked to put all his cards on the table until there were no other options. Now, he was going to use them, and the more than 600 Tomahawk cruise missiles they carried.
While the submarines were about to send a veritable swarm of missiles towards the Russian fleet, he also knew that only a small percentage would actually succeed in penetrating the enemy’s defenses. But, it wouldn’t take many. The idea was to overwhelm the approaching warships’ ability to knock them out of the air.
The four subs, already spread across thirty miles of ocean, quickly responded. Each ascended to periscope depth and extended an antenna mast above the waves to receive more detailed orders as well as targeting information from Pearl Harbor. Once this had been completed, the captains ordered the commencement of the cruise missile attack.
Within minutes, dozens, then hundreds of missiles erupted from the dark surface of the Pacific Ocean. Each was launched vertically by high-pressure gas, a solid-fuel rocket booster igniting to lift it clear of the water and quickly accelerate the weapon. Transitioning to horizontal flight, the wings deployed and a jet engine took over, propelling the missile at well over 500 miles per hour.
Each had received targeting coordinates seconds before launch, and the onboard guidance systems turned them to streak towards the Russian invasion fleet, less than fifty feet above the gentle swells.
“Lead missiles will arrive on target in nineteen minutes, sir,” the CIC TAO (Tactical Action Officer) reported to Packard.
He nodded, eyes fixed on the screen that gave him a view of the ongoing launches. It wouldn’t be long before the Russians detected the inbound weapons. This was when things could go horribly wrong for Hawaii.
The enemy still had plenty of nuclear tipped, tactical missiles, and the Admiral had no idea what the fleet commander’s orders were. Was he to take Oahu intact, at all costs? Or, if he was met with insurmountable resistance, had he been given the authority to launch on the Americans?
Worry over that possibility had caused Packard to hold back a damaged Arleigh Burke class destroyer. It was seaworthy, barely, but he’d kept it at anchor in the middle of Pearl Harbor. With its SPY radar system and anti-missile missiles, it was the last line of defense for the island. Linked into the Battlespace network, it also had control of multiple missile batteries that had been set up on the summit of Mt. Kaala.
“Sir, the Russians are maneuvering!”
He looked at the real time image of the enemy fleet, seeing every ship accelerating and turning their bow to the attacking missiles. The idea is to present as narrow of a profile target as possible, hoping to avoid a direct hit by any weapon that leaked through the ship’s defenses.
“Admiral, Thor is online!” Jessica called from the far side of the CIC.
The duty officer shot a dirty look in her direction for the severe breach of procedure, but both she and the Admiral ignored him. Packard quickly strode to where she was working.
“Can Thor hit a moving target?” He asked as he approached.
“No sir,” she said, shaking her head. “It makes slight targeting adjustments to the rods when they’re dropped, but after that, it’s no better than a dumb bomb.”
Packard cursed softly, cutting his eyes back to the screen displaying the Russian fleet. Dozens of fires bloomed briefly across all of the ships as defensive missiles began leaping off their rails to meet the incoming wave of Tomahawks.
“Will they stay on a straight course, sir?” Jessica asked.
“The Russian ships? They should, at least until the attack ends. Why?”
“Because,” Jessica began, spinning and typing furiously. “I think, if I know where they are, their course and speed, I can calculate where they should be when a Thor rod arrives.”
Captain West and Commander Detmer had followed the Admiral, and both immediately began encouraging him to let her try. He nodded, which was all Jessica needed to keep working on the targeting solution.
“How are you accounting for the change in target position that occurs in the time necessary to perform the calculations?” Captain West asked, leaning over her shoulder.
�
��Here, sir,” she answered, briefly tapping a line in the code she was creating on the fly.
He looked at the indicated point, then straightened up and smiled at the Admiral.
“Think it will work?” Packard asked quietly, not wanting to distract Jessica.
“She knows what she’s doing, sir. As long as the Russians don’t change course or speed, she’s got a good shot at dropping a rod right on top of the bastards’ heads.”
48
“So far, so good,” Vance said when I stuck my head into the cockpit.
We were airborne, again, just starting to turn north to head for Nevada.
“I have a favor to ask,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“If we’ve got enough fuel for a side trip, I’d like to head east. Far edge of the city.”
“What for?” He asked without taking his attention away from the flight controls.
I sighed before answering.
“My house. What’s left of it. I’ll probably never have the chance again, and there’s something I’d like to get.”
He was quiet for a moment, his eyes scanning the instruments.
“What?”
“It’s personal,” I said, not feeling like telling him my life’s story.
He turned to look at me for a few long seconds, finally nodding. A moment later we banked to the right.
“Where am I going?”
I leaned forward over Tiffany’s shoulder to see through the windscreen, looking for landmarks.
“See that freeway to the south? The one running east-west. Follow it until I tell you.”
He did as I asked, paralleling the multi-lane stretch of Interstate that ran through downtown Phoenix. Soon, we overflew the airport, continuing east.
“About thirty more miles,” I said, looking down at all the burned out neighborhoods.
There weren’t any vehicles moving. No people, infected or not, on the streets. Just another of the thousands of ghost towns that was all that was left of America.