“My Lord, man, you look completely rested and then some,” Winsteed remarked. “I’m afraid you’re going to need all the rest you can get for this flight.”
“Any changes in the storm track?” Seven asked confidently.
“None. She’s holding to the model and not moving this way.”
“Good, we’ll be out of your hair in less than an hour.”
“I do have some good news for you,” Winsteed remarked. “It won’t be necessary to affect the truck launch as before. You can take off VTOL and raise right off the center of the runway safely.”
“What’s changed from before?”
“Oddly, we haven’t detected any activity from the community rebel militia force since you departed on your last flight. We have no idea what they’re up to, but whatever it is hasn’t been directed toward us. Because of their distinct lack of interest in us, we’ve decided it’s safe for you to depart without aid of the truck, which I think you’ll agree, wasn’t an ideal situation, at best.”
“Oh, how disappointing, no Lieutenant Juarez E-ticket send-off,” Serea quipped with a relaxed smile and a deep voice.
Winsteed looked back at her and smiled, then he remarked bluntly and unexpectedly, “Has anyone ever told you that you are possibly the most beautiful woman on the planet?”
A stunned second passed, then Seven responded, “Do you know how far a swim it is from here to Pacifica?”
“Aaron, please,” Serea replied then kissed Winsteed on the cheek. “What a wonderful compliment; thank-you so very much,” she said sweetly with her devastating charm.
Seven knew well that she had no idea whatsoever that the kind-hearted charm itself made it so very much worse for the receiving end. He looked back to Winsteed and thought he could actually feel the testosterone firestorm ignite inside this poor man’s limbic brain.
“Where’s my father?” Serea asked, looking about the crowded dining hall.
“Sitting alone over there,” Winsteed responded, motioning to the far end of the large room. “He’s asking for total privacy, and of course we’re enforcing that.”
Seven saw from a distance that Desmond sat alone at his table, but the Commander stood behind him, arms folded, eyes scanning the room, ever the protector of his boss.
“Aaron, can you bring me my usual breakfast, please?” Serea asked, taking Luci from him. “I’m going over to talk to him. Give me a few minutes, please,” she said with a wink and a gentle touch on his lips with her forefinger.
As she departed, Winsteed said, “I think you’re about the luckiest damn guy on earth…”
“Kevin, haven’t you ever heard the great wisdom of the islands?” Seven asked.
“And what might that be?” Winsteed asked cynically.
Seven began to sing lightly, “Never make a pretty woman your wife, so from my personal point of view, get an ugly woman to marry you…”
“And so, where did you go wrong, Dr. Seven?”
Seven laughed loudly, his brain reviewing all the details of his nearly sleepless night. “I really don’t know. But it’s bound to catch up with me sooner or later! If the laws of nature are truly balanced, then I’m in for one hell of a backward and upside down ride one of these days.”
Aaron Seven had no idea that day had just arrived.
gh
Professor Desmond remained oddly distant and cold during breakfast. He totally ignored Luci even after Serea’s gentle introduction which visibly exasperated her. Desmond barely spoke a word to Seven and only responded when direct questions were asked. The minutes to take-off ticked rapidly by until they were all assembled in the underground passageway leading out to the interior of the hangar and the runway. Seven, Serea, Luci, the Commander and Desmond stood together ready to fly.
The clouds of the edge of the massive hurricane whose eye was over a thousand miles distant to the south hung in the darkening evening sky. The air was thick, humid and muggy, quite an unusual phenomena for the Aleutians at any time of the year. It had an oppressive feeling to it and the evening sky held an odd green, nearly frightening glow. The wind blew steady from the southeast. Aaron looked toward their destination to the west and saw a thin streak of lightening dart across the horizon.
“It’s not too late to change your mind, Doc,” Winsteed stated, his eyes dashing about the sky with obvious concern. “You’re certainly welcome to stay here as long as it takes - you know that.”
“Stop worrying, Kevin. My mother’s in charge of that, and I can assure you she’s hard at it right now. Both of you can’t do the same job at the same time, and she’s much better at it than you.”
Winsteed popped his cigar into his mouth. Surprisingly, it was alight and smoking.
“I thought you only lit that up in a firefight,” Seven said watching the smoke curl up toward the top of the hangar.
Winsteed pulled his M-16 rifle up to his chest and chambered a round with a loud ratcheting click. “I can smell it coming,” he said ominously, his eyes scanning the runway outside. “I won’t have time to light up when the shooting starts. Juarez, get over here,” Winsteed barked. His demeanor had changed. He was no longer soft on any edge, but rigid and intense.
“Any change in your intelligence estimates of the locals?”
“None, sir, no sign of any movement anywhere,” she responded with a matching intensity.
“Is it too late to launch these people on the truck?” Winsteed asked.
She looked momentarily disoriented. “Ah, yes sir, we aren’t configured for that, and I thought we talked about…”
“Never mind,” Winsteed responded curtly, walking to the open cavernous door of the hangar. Then he took his cigar out of his mouth and blew a long thin line of smoke into the breeze as though he were measuring its shape, motion and velocity.
“Let’s get these people out of here and quickly,” he said, his voice layered with an apprehension he could obviously not quite put his finger on. “Get in the Hummer,” Winsteed ordered Seven. “We’re skipping the truck mount. We’re taking your aircraft out with the crane – it’ll shave four and a half minutes off the tarmac operations.”
Seven simply nodded as he, Serea, Luci, the Commander and Desmond stuffed themselves into the squat military vehicle. The noise and diesel exhaust of the crane engines and three Humvees springing to life in the hanger enforced the urgency of the moment.
Seven, Serea, Luci and the Commander were stuffed into the rear seat of the second Hummer with Winsteed driving and Professor Desmond in the front seat. They were escorted by a lead Hummer driven by Lieutenant Juarez bristling with exposed automatic weaponry and a top mounted .50 caliber gun. The crane with the slung VTOL aircraft followed behind Seven’s vehicle and two more heavily armed vehicles behind the crane. The entire military entourage was loaded to engage a serious threat and moved with an equally serious purpose. They made their way with haste toward the center of the runway with two of the vehicles breaking away to survey and secure the ends of the long concrete strip on Dutch Harbor.
“All clear, lower the aircraft,” Lieutenant Juarez said over the communications circuit.
Winsteed simply made a thumbs down motion to the crane operator who immediately lowered the VTOL aircraft onto the runway surface. Another team instantly un-strapped the aircraft and the crane backed away.
“Load her up, Dr. Seven, and make haste,” Winsteed urgently motioned.
The five of them unfolded themselves from the Humvee and paced quickly to the waiting aircraft. Seven forgot protocol and simply pointed to Professor Desmond and the Commander ordering, “Backseat, hurry, please.” Then he pointed to Serea, “Start the engines, let’s get this beast in the air. Minutes count.”
Turning to Winsteed he said, “Kevin, thanks for everything. I mean that.”
Winsteed’s eyes continuously scanned the edges of his perimeter as he responded, “Dr. Seven you saved us all. The entire contingent would be dead without your efforts, and yours alone.” Then he look
ed Seven in the eye, “God be with you, Doc. Godspeed.”
Seven just nodded, then touched Winsteed’s arm with his fingers. “I’ll send the Leviathan to pick you up, I promise. One way or another, you can all pack your bags.”
“Get that monstrosity off my runway, Aaron Seven,” Winsteed said without a trace of a smile.
Seven turned and walked briskly toward the VTOL. “I’m working on it,” he responded over his shoulder just as Serea ignited its engines. He stepped through the open forward hatch to see little Luci perched in his seat. “Commander, hang onto this child until we get airborne, please,” Seven said picking her up and starting to pass her back to the large, obviously displeased man stuffed into a seat smaller than his frame.
“Noooooo,” Luci responded, shaking her head in a building panic and clutching Seven’s arms with one hand and Flower in the other.
“Dutch Harbor Command, this is Pacifica flight, how do you read? Over.” Serea said in her microphone.
“It’s okay, he won’t bite,” Seven attempted to reassure Luci. “You don’t bite little girls, right Commander?”
Blake just stared back at him with an obvious frown and he did not make any attempt to take her from Seven.
“Alright then,” Seven replied. “Everybody gets what they want.” He lifted Luci over his legs and buckled her in with himself squarely atop his lap.
Serea did not even look his way as she flipped a myriad of switches, following the checklist strapped to her right leg. Seven joined the checklist as he popped his flight helmet over his head. In minutes, the craft was ready for takeoff.
“Commander Winsteed, we’re ready for liftoff on your command,” Seven said into his lip mounted microphone.
“Roger that, stand by Pacifica flight.”
Winsteed polled his ground forces for the final security status. Then he said, “Pacifica flight, you are go for takeoff.”
Serea needed no other instruction. She pulled back hard on the VTOL’s throttle. It paused as the powerful engines whined, then roared, surging with internal momentum and spewing that force all over the concrete runway. There would be no finesse in this takeoff; it was a sheer, fuel gulping, vertical takeoff designed to gain altitude and reduce the target area as quickly as possible. With any luck at all, they would be away from danger in but a hand-full of seconds.
The g-forces pulled them all down into their seats hard and instantly. Serea had designed their take-off to net as many vertical feet as possible before leveling off for a hazardous dash across the harbor. The more vertical feet she could muster, the less danger they would encounter from any incoming missiles.
“Passing 500 feet, 600, 750…” Seven intoned into his mic.
“Incoming! Incoming missile!” said the panicked voice of Winsteed from the ground. “From your left window – due west! Get out of…. damn it to hell, Jaurez, reposition your forces! Second incoming missile, on your right… they’re crossing your flight profile…”
Seven panned his eyes across both windows at once. He could clearly see the missiles streaking their way, one from the opposite banks of the Shaishnikoff River and the other from the shoreline adjacent to Ballyhoo Road. They were close and approaching fast. Their only hope of survival was to do something dramatic and accurate, or their life spans would all reach their conclusions together in less than six seconds.
Seven had the remarkable and uncommon ability to think in an unusual mental calculus that merged and quantified real time data streams and fused them into yet another cerebral processing track. Mere seconds were all he needed to solve exceeding complex problems in real time.
“I have the controls,” he said matter-of-factly.
Serea clearly sensed the gravity of the moment and instantly lifted her hands free of her control stick.
Seven simultaneously and sharply pulled back on the throttle, rammed the VTOL’s wing controls to their fully extended positions while sending the ship into a sharp roll to the left. Instantly, the artificial gravity induced by the violent maneuver slammed them all forward and twisted them into their seats.
While Seven had calculated the maneuver required to pull them out of the direct path of the missile, he had not taken the extra quarter second to calculate g-loading on their bodies. His hand literally snapped away from the control stick and his head slammed against Serea’s right arm. This fraction of a second loss of control also significantly changed their momentum and trajectory. While it successfully evaded one missile which streaked harmlessly by the front window, it also pulled them directly into the oncoming path of the second.
Seven could sense this change in plans, even though the entire sequence of maneuvers had been affected less than three seconds earlier. With an inhuman effort, he forced his hand against the crushing centripetally loaded gravitational field and gripped his control stick to compel the craft away from the path of the deadly onrushing missile. There was no calculus involved here, only common reflex. But it was far too little – far too late.
From the missile’s point of view, its quarry had first affected a startlingly effective evasion maneuver that would have out-reacted even its electronic brain and guidance systems. But the secondary twist in their motion had brought them back into the crosshairs again. Its sensors had now done their job, and the only thing left to do was to detonate its warhead, which it did.
The missile did not actually strike the VTOL. Seven’s maneuver required less than three quarters of a second to effect and change the aircraft’s trajectory. But it was just enough to evade a direct hit. The missile exploded two meters below the VTOL’s right wing. The primary force-wave of the blast struck under the extended wing and immediately spun the VTOL wing-over-wing in a half-vertical spin. Fractions of a second later, a large, single piece of shrapnel tore through the craft’s right door just below Seven’s right leg. It traveled up through the fuselage and ripped a large section of the door away. That impact reduced its energy but changed its motion as the spiraling piece tore through Seven’s jump-suit, gashed his right leg, cleanly severed his seat harness at the buckle, passed less than a fraction of an inch in front of Luci’s face and exited through a baseball sized hole in the front window just in front of Serea’s helmet.
“Serea, fly the aircraft!” Seven ordered, knowing he had been hit. He also knew that his own home spun brand of make-shift, straight line flying, regardless of its complexity, was no match for an experienced pilot when recovering from a spin. Spin control was, in fact, a learned art that no amount of mental calculus could solve and they were already into their second complete revolution wing over wing.
Seven could feel more than actually see Serea save the aircraft from the spin. Her skills became immediately evident as the VTOL recovered itself forthrightly.
“Anyone hit?” Seven shouted through the cacophony of alarms and the screaming river of damp air now pouring through the hole in the front window and his half-missing door.
Silence.
“Serea, are you hit?”
“No!”
Seven looked down at Luci whose expression was frozen in sheer, white-faced terror. But her eyes were open and the only blood was coming from him.
“Commander, are you hit?”
“No,” he replied in his ever-stoic and calm voice.
“Professor Desmond?”
Silence.
“Father!” Serea screamed through the noise in a panic.
Seven forced his head around to see his father-in-law who was seated immediately behind his seat.
Desmond stared back, not frightened at all but obviously supremely annoyed, and mouthed the word, “Fine.”
“Father!” Sera screamed frantically again.
Seven lay his hand on her knee. “He’s fine; fly the plane.” His eyes scanned the area beneath them for anymore incoming missiles. There were none, but now they were flying due west over the North Pacific.
“Oh my God! Aaron, you’re hit!” Serea screamed looking at the widening red splotch
on his right leg.
“Pacifica Flight, this is Dutch Harbor, do you read? Over.” said Winsteed from the ground communications.
“Ground, wait, please,” Seven responded. “Fly the plane, dear, I can handle this, but somebody’s got to fly the plane. I need to know the status of this aircraft right now. And would somebody please cut the freakin’ alarms!”
“Give her to me now!” the Commander said in a controlled, strong voice, reaching over Seven’s left shoulder for Luci. Seven gratefully complied.
“Neither of us are attached anymore, Commander, “Seven responded tossing the useless restraint harness aside. “Just take her.” Luci, stiff with fear, did not resist this time.
“We’re holed but not wounded,” Serea said, her eyes scanning the instruments. “Fuel tanks intact. We’ve completely lost pressure integrity. Hydraulics appear normal. Avionics and communications are normal. Can somebody please stuff a sock in this window? I can hardly see anything. No, Aaron, fix your leg. We’ve got to turn back! I can’t do this.” Serea seemed clearly disoriented. She was dealing with far too much information.
“I’m fine,” Seven said clutching the gash in his leg with his right hand and laying his left over Serea’s hand gripping the control stick. “Don’t turn back, Serea, we’re committed now,” he said gently.
“No! You will turn this craft back immediately, and that is a direct order!” Desmond bellowed from behind Seven’s head.
Seven sighed deeply and did not turn around. He counted on his lip mic and Desmond’s cockpit communications system to carry his message over the deafening noise all around them. “No, Professor, it’s far too late for that. All our vital systems are intact and operating, we’ve lost nothing that would prevent our return to Pacifica…”
“How dare you defy me again!” Desmond growled. “How dare you! I will not say it once more. Turn this aircraft around and return to Dutch Harbor with all haste!”
Seven paused, then said, “Professor, if we return now they’ll finish the job. We’ll be returning to our certain deaths. Therefore I must decline to support that option.”
Quantum Storms - Aaron Seven Page 45