Lumar decided to take the seat furthest to the back to give everyone else their space. He didn't know any of these people really. It was better than below, but he still felt out of place. Nobody said anything for a long time. Ford and Nate were busy trying to get them to Guardrige. Wallace and Jesse just seemed content to have made it out together. His arm was around her shoulder albeit awkwardly from the added bulk of their shoulder pads. Lumar felt a little jealous.
“What...I mean...what just happened?” Nate stammered. “I thought...I thought the Sarsaul had all gone back to South America and finally left us alone. How could something like this happen?”
Wallace and Jesse sat up straight and moved a few inches apart. Radcliff's face softened. He sat up to his full height. Ford turned his head back. He and Radcliff shared a brief, knowing glance. Ford nodded and turned back to his instruments before Radcliff started talking.
“The war never really stopped,” Radcliff answered. “They hit us with small border skirmishes and raiding parties all the time, but I haven't seen anything like this in years. Sangent never stood a chance against a force that large even if it was just a bunch of their most basic troops. I didn't see a single gun in that whole army or even one elite among them.”
“Why didn't anyone come to help us?” Nate continued. “Guadridge should have sent people. I mean shouldn't they?”
“Yes, they definitely should have,” Radcliff replied. “The Sarsaul have always been pretty good at jamming our communications. We've never quite figured out how they do it.”
“You know, all things considered, we did alright,” Wallace said. “We sure as shit weren't gonna win, but we gave 'em hell.”
“That's about all you can do,” Jesse added.
“How can you be so casual about it?” Nate shouted. “We just lost our homes, our families, everything!”
Wallace looked like he was about to get up and storm the cockpit. Radcliff saw the anger on Wallace's face and caught him by the shoulder before he was able to stand up. Wallace turned his gaze away from Nate and fell back into his seat.
“Calm down, kid,” Radcliff said. “This is too small of a space to be shouting. You're not the only one who lost a home today. We've seen a lot, lost a lot. You never really get used to it, but you find your own ways to cope. For what it's worth, I really liked Sangent. It was just starting to feel like home. I was hoping it would be the last place I served at.”
Nate reddened a little in the cheeks from shame and turned around. Lumar always thought Nate spoke his mind more than he should, but most of the time Lumar liked that about him. He needed someone brutally honest in his life from time to time. Of course it caused most of the fights they got into growing up. Lumar was glad someone else was there this time to get between Nate and the person he'd pissed off by running his mouth.
“I'm sorry,” Nate offered.
“Don't worry about it,” Wallace replied.
It got quiet again after that. Lumar almost wished there was something worth saying, but everything that came to mind just reminded him that he'd lost most of the things in life that were worth talking about. He'd lost his job. He never really liked the job, but bitching about it had always been a guilty pleasure. There was a cute girl in the office he'd had his eye on, Jennifer, she was blonde, blue eyes. She wore glasses. She had full lips and Lumar always liked the way they moved when she spoke. She had a great smile. He knew he'd never see her smile again or watch those lips form words. Then he realized there were people dead because of him. Geo wouldn't have been out so long if he hadn't been dragging his sorry ass through the city all night. Lumar knew Geo would be here with Nate if he'd not been so useless and hungover. There was a guy in the trenches Lumar failed to save because he wasn't expecting the recoil on the machinegun. If he'd just kept the barrel down and hit that hornet instead of letting the bullets go wide, that guy would still be alive too.
“How close are we?” Lumar asked suddenly, louder than he meant to. He needed to think about something else.
“A little over halfway now,” Ford answered. “I hate flying blind. You could probably see the mountains already of in the distance if these stupid panels would open back up.”
“You can still see out through the glass up in the gunner seat,” Jesse offered. “Those don't shut down unless they get busted open themselves.”
“If I could fly the ship from up there that would be great,” Ford complained.
“Could I go up there and look around?” Lumar asked. At least the view might distract him.
“That's fine with me,” Radcliff said. “Check to make sure we're not being followed while you're up there.”
“Will do,” Lumar replied.
Nate turned back around in his seat and watched Lumar climb the short ladder up into the seat above. Lumar felt a little bad for leaving him alone with the others, but at least Nate had something to do to keep busy.
The ladder went up about ten feet. At the top, the glass dome attached to a metal ring that let the whole set up rotate 360 degrees. The ladder was offset to the left of the ship's central line. The seat was right over the spine of the ship. The glass ceiling wasn't high enough for Lumar to stand up when he reached the top of the ladder so he had to half climb, half crawl the last few feet into the gunner's chair. It was a small bucket chair that could lean almost all the way back. Lumar almost cried out when the chair fell back flat when he tried to put his back up against it.
Once he got the chair upright, he found a little lever on the left side that locked it in place. There were pedals by his feet that turned the dome and the gun attached to it when pressed. The left one turned the chair counterclockwise. The one on the right made it turn the opposite way. The two handles for the gun always stayed right in front of his chest. They made him think of a steering wheel. It didn't rotate side to side though. It just went up and down along a track in the glass. The barrel was offset on the right so the track wasn't directly in front of his field of vision. It was filled in with a clear plastic-looking material that bent and folded around the gun in an airtight seal.
Lumar spun the gun around in lazy circles looking around them. At first all he was concerned with was whether or not there were any more of those dragonflies following them, but after making a few rotations he didn't see anything but open air. It didn't seem like they were very high off the ground, but the fact that he was above the hovertruck didn't let him see much of the ground other than the faint blue of the horizon.
It must have been about eight o'clock by now Lumar realized. The sun was out at their back. The sky was clear. Under normal circumstances, it would have been a beautiful morning. Lumar wished he could feel the cool morning air on his face. It was September 4th and the heat of summer had still been hanging around. Lumar had always enjoyed his walks to work at this time of year. It was just the right temperature for him and it always reminded him that Fall was just around the corner.
Lumar turned the gun forward. He was starting to see the mountains materializing out of the morning air. They were the first thing to give Lumar any indication of how fast they were going. They'd started out in central Kansas, but by now they must have been in Colorado to be seeing the Rockies. It didn't feel like they'd been gone that long, but it must have been getting close to an hour. He didn't have any way of checking the time.
The mountains were huge in no time. Lumar could feel the change in altitude as Ford flew them higher and higher into the mountains. It looked to Lumar like they were hugging the valleys between the peaks. They passed right by one snowcapped peak so close Lumar could have spat on it if the glass wasn't in the way. Everything looked so green and white in the mountains. There was snow all over the mountain tops and below the snow were huge evergreens. Lumar had never seen the Rockies before. All he'd ever been around was the flat brown grass of the Central Plains. He was really starting to like this seat. He knew exactly why Ford was complaining about flying blind now. The view from up there was amazing.
&
nbsp; Lumar couldn't help but think of his mother. She loved the Rocky Mountains. She talked about them all the time. When she was a little girl, before the war, they were her family's favorite vacation spot. She always loved to tell about the time they climbed up Pike's Peak and played in the snow in the middle of the summer. She said it was a hundred degrees on the ground, but the higher they climbed the more jackets they had to pack on. She said there were walls of ice up there that never melted. She'd always wanted to take their family up there when the war was over. He wasn't sure which mountains he was looking at, but he hoped she would have been happy that he at least got to see them.
The beauty of the ice and snow and the tall ancient trees started to feel lonely. People used to climb all over these mountains. They'd been mostly neglected for decades now. They flew within a hundred feet of the remains of a hotel that looked like a giant log cabin. Even with only glance at it, Lumar could tell no one had ventured up to stay there during his lifetime.
There was only one place in this whole range that people still visited. Lumar recognized Guardridge the moment he saw it rising up ahead of him. It wasn’t because he'd seen pictures of it or because it was the biggest mountain in the range. It was its nakedness. The trees had been cleared off its face and its peak was strangely bald for a mountain so tall. Even its shorter brothers and sisters wore a white blanket, but Guardridge stood gray and rocky above them. Compared to the other peaks it looked dark and uninviting. Lumar knew why there was no snow on top of the mountain. The mountain was almost completely hollowed out with a huge military base inside. Lumar could see the opening near the peak growing larger. It almost looked like a giant had taken a bite out of the side of mountains face about three quarters of the way up.
Inside the bitemark were the hangar bays and their destination. Getting closer Lumar could see that there were several floors within the mountain's wound with giant doors like car garages that could roll up and let Guardridge's warships out. There was almost no light coming from the gates. A small trail of smoke rose out from the top of the hangar area. It made the mountain look like a lazily burning volcano.
Ford started yelling something Lumar couldn't quite make out from the cockpit. Lumar slid back down the ladder.
“You think I'd just make this up?!” Ford yelled as Lumar's feet hit the ground.
“Y'all can't just show up unannounced and expect me to just open mah doors up for yah,” the voice of the air traffic controller drawled through the radio. “If yah want me to do something for yah, you gotta get outta mah way first. I'll have Shadow Hammer take a look at yer little town, but I'm gonna need yah to circle round to the north face so she don't run yah over on her way out. After that I'll talk yah through our procedures.”
“Don't keep me waiting,” Ford growled back. “I've got a lot of injured people on board here.”
“I understand, but I got rules in mah hangar. I can't just let yah come in here however yah like whenever yah like. You'll wait or you'll find somewhere else to put in. Yah hear me?”
Radcliff stood up. He leaned over Ford's shoulder and took the radio receiver out of his hand.
“We'll be waiting on the other side for further instructions,” Radcliff said. “I recommend you send more than just one ship.”
“Noted,” the controller replied. “I'll have Shadow's crew decide that when they get there. Launching in five. Y’all best be out of the way.”
Lumar couldn't see the heading any more, but Ford pulled hard on the controls and the ship turned hard to the ride. Lumar had to hold on to his seat to keep from sliding the other side of the room. Lumar could hear and feel the Shadow Hammer's engines burning through the air. Ford must have cut it really close. The hovertruck shook for five seconds before the Hammer got far enough away that the wind she kicked up died down. Lumar wished he would have stayed in the gunner seat for that. Shadow Hammer must have been massive.
“This is why I hate flying blind! If I could just see that wouldn't have been so close!” Ford shouted.
They idled around for about ten minutes. Ford turned the radio off instead of just waiting for the controller to pick back up.
“What the hell is taking this asshole so long?” Ford growled. “What does he not understand about us needing to land to get our injured off?”
“He's on our side Ford,” Radcliff said. “He's trying to keep his people safe.”
“Why do you always have to be so reasonable?” Ford asked.
“You don't hardly ever swear,” Wallace observed. “What's got your panties in a bunch?”
“Probably the windows being all shut up,” Jesse said. “He's been complaining about it the whole time.”
“I've got an approach vector to listen for,” Ford said. “Keep it down back there.”
“Or what?” Wallace challenged. “You'll make me walk the rest of the way?”
“I just might.”
The radio started beeping. Ford flipped it back on.
“Alright Ford,” the air traffic controller said, “I'm gonna need yah to land in hangar bay D on level four. Yer gunna land in the lighted area and only in the lighted area. Yah hear?”
“Unfortunately sir, I'm flying blind,” Ford replied. “Our windows got busted out in the escape. I've been flying with nothing but my nav instruments.”
“Not a problem. I'll send yer autopilot a landing pattern then. Just let go of the wheel and I'll guide yah in. Don't go trying to disembark on your own. I got someone coming to meet yah. Y’all let them offload your passengers and then we'll collect yer crew.”
“Affirmative,” Ford said. “Letting the autopilot take over now.”
“See yah inside.”
The ship rocked back as it came to a complete stop. Lumar's head bumped back against the seat. He was thrown to the right as the hovertruck banked hard to the left. They leveled out after that and crawled forward. There was really no way to tell where they were or how long it would take the autopilot to land.
“The best computers in the world and these autopilots still jerk you around like that,” Ford complained. “Better not have hurt any of my passengers down there.”
“I'll go check,” Radcliff said.
Radcliff slid down the ladder. They stopped moving before he climbed back up. Lumar heard the doors of the cabin open up with a whisper of released pressure. Lumar stood up and started moving towards the ladder.
“I'd just wait in your seat,” Ford said. “He was pretty clear about us not getting off until they call for us.”
“What's the big deal? We're all going the same place aren't we?” Lumar asked.
“Not necessarily,” Ford replied. “Those people down there are probably all off to the infirmary. We'll probably be doing some debriefings and other boring stuff for the next few hours.”
“Oh joy,” Wallace said.
“My favorite,” Jesse added.
Radcliff climbed back up the ladder and reclaimed his seat.
“I guess they don't want my help,” he said. “I guess you can never be too careful, but they're just wasting time not letting me help them get those people out.”
They passed the next thirty minutes or so listening to a group of soldiers struggle to carry the immobile passengers down out of the ship. Lumar couldn't see any particular reason why it was taking so long to do what they'd done in less than half the time, but then he realized they didn't have Radcliff lifting people up by himself. Finally, one of the soldiers poked his head up into the cockpit.
“We're ready for you now,” the soldier said.
They all stood up at about the same time. Lumar was closest to the ladder, but he waited for all the others go down before him. He didn't want to look stupid or ignorant in front of these soldiers. He didn't really know what the deal with all this waiting was, but was afraid if he stepped too far out of line he'd end up getting himself shot. Nate was the last person to go before him. It looked like he'd had about the same idea.
At the bottom of the ladder
were four soldier standing with guns trained on them. There were two at the front of the cab, one at the back, and the last standing by the door. These soldiers were wearing the same kind of armor that they were, but their armor had been painted white instead of black. In the center of their breastplates was an insignia of a red mountain with a blue lightning bolt slashing diagonally from the top right of the logo to its bottom left across the red peak.
One of the soldiers pointed the barrel of his gun squarely against Lumar's chest as he passed him. Lumar almost threw his hands up in surrender, but saw that none of the others were doing anything like that. He awkwardly passed the slight raising of his hand off with a yawn and a stretch. He didn't get shot, but that seemingly irrational fear seemed more rational by the minute.
The soldiers had put a ramp up against the side of the hovertruck so they didn't have to climb down the ladder. Lumar couldn't imagine why it took so long to get all the passengers out with a ramp until he saw that they were stripping Radcliff's armor off of him. One of the soldiers had a black plastic device about the size and shape of a ping-pong paddle in his hand. As the paddle passed over the plates of Radcliff's armor the pieces detached from the skinsuit. There was another soldier catching the plates before they hit the ground and still another with a box to sort the pieces into. If they were doing this kind of strip searching with the patients it really was no wonder that it took so long. What he did wonder was where the injured had gone. They were nowhere to be seen.
Lumar decided it wasn't something for him to worry about. He was just relieved to see how the armor came off. Radcliff had told him he should just pee in the suit if he had to go, but Lumar just couldn't make himself do it. He hadn't had anything to drink in hours, but the need was starting to build.
There was a box for each of them, but Ford’s only ended up holding his coveralls. After the armor came off another soldier used a metal detector wand to check for anything else on their persons. At least they weren't doing cavity searches. Lumar already felt uncomfortably naked with just the skinsuit on. It left very little to the imagination. It didn't help that all the rest the others were muscled up from head to toe. Even Nate looked buff next to Lumar. Nate was sort of a mechanic, so he'd put on a little muscle from his job. Lumar's desk job had let his body atrophy. Even Jesse, the woman, made him look weak. Nate was standing in between them, so he couldn't see her front, but the muscles in her back had distinct waves between her shoulders.
When Darkness Reigns Page 8