The sinister airport's control tower was manned by Mr. Watson, a middle-aged company man with short, brown hair and a mustache. Ryan's override had kept the launch of the helicopter off the Troopers' alarm panel in the lair, yet the beacon still identified the craft to the A.S.W. tower as Gene's. Watson was a bit surprised to see the call letters of Gene's helicopter on his radar screen. He knew the head of industry and media was attending business elsewhere on the island and had not expected him to return so soon. It was known to most A.S.W. staff that Gene often changed his plans, so the lone air-traffic controller wouldn't dream of questioning the request for clearance. Like a robot, he replied over the radio.
"Affirmative, Apophis-One. Clear for descent and touch-down at hangar five-two. We welcome the big guy." Watson was a bit uncomfortable with the amount of pressure that came with hosting the high-ranking traveler.
Tasha's descent was swift. She didn't take the time for a soft touch-down. Flight manuals and a first aid kit flew from their supports as the strong thud of the hurried warrior's landing rocked the craft. With the rotors still spinning down, Tasha exited the helicopter through the side door. Many of the ground crew looked her way, hoping to catch a glimpse at the firm's powerful leader. Their curiosity was partially satisfied when the company's chief of covert forces raised the right hand to her temple. The pack of ramp-rats snapped to attention and returned Tasha's salute. Without breaking her stride, Tasha approached the rear of one of the modified airliners and walked up the stairs that extended below its tail. The support workers quickly made sure their prep was coming to completion. The men responsible for the jet Tasha just boarded were amongst the ones who had not yet completed their tasks. One of the workers dragged the yellow braided power cable towards the ground connection. With the help of his colleague, he connected the rectangular-shaped female end to the bottom of the jet that had suddenly become the most important item on the tarmac. The workers quickly shoved its male connector into the ground-power supply. Inside the large aircraft, Tasha was passing the many massive tanks of barium solution on her way from the tail to the cockpit. Tank after tank of the highly toxic cloud-seeding agent filled the cabin where seats would normally carry human cargo.
As soon as she reached the cockpit, the former commander of Gene's special forces took her seat in the pilot's spot. The heavy bird was equipped with a modern glass cockpit in which every one of the plane's function was controlled digitally. As a result of this fly-by-wire system, the signals for the craft's rudder, engines and all other functions could come from a location other than its own controls. As was common in passenger air-travel since the 1900s, take-off and landing required no pilot input other than the command to execute the maneuver.
The plane was still being supplied with ground power. Tasha initiated a short pre-flight check. Screens and controls booted up as the experienced aeronaut activated the main power switch. With a few taps on the interactive display, Tasha raised the aft stairs - the plane was locked and it would have been difficult to interrupt her. The increasing whining of the turbine blades confirmed the start of each of the four enormous jet-engines. Next, she keyed in one of her secret codes that would unlock any Apophis product's covert means.
The details of this code's function became apparent when her screen listed the call letters of the other planes in the cloud-seeding squadron outside. Tasha swept her hand down the screen, highlighting all 23 aircraft. She pushed the power switch in the console above her head again. This time the other planes powered up and booted their avionics systems in drone mode. This enabled the crafty woman to control the entire squadron from her cockpit. Without waiting for a few stragglers to finish their fueling process, Tasha sent the command to the fleet that started one after another of all the airliners’ engines until a deafening noise filled the area. The aft stairs on all planes rose simultaneously, an urgent reason for the ground crews to disconnect fuel and power supplies.
Tasha set her flaps to maximum. A bit concerned, the leader of the support team looked up at her from the concrete with a questioning look on his face. With a stern demeanor, she gave him a thumbs-up, the signal that she was ready to taxi her plane. Tasha keyed her radio. "A.S.W. control, this is Squadron Commander Methusa, requesting clearance for taxi and take-off for X-Ray 101 through 124."
This was all a lot more than Mr. Watson was used to on the night shift. Rarely was there any runway traffic when he was alone. On active nights a staff of several traffic controllers would handle the load for him. His orders were to make sure the facility stayed quiet and this did not fall into that category. He decided to play it safe. Tasha didn't care much for his transmission.
"Negative, Commander. I don't have a flight plan for the squadron tonight."
She replied, "Affirmative, this is a black-ops flight."
Watson had more to say she didn't want to hear. "Furthermore the 2001 moratorium on unmanned flights is still in effect company-wide. Stand down X-Ray 101 while I authenticate your orders."
Tasha could hear Watson's phone ringing in the background. She had had enough and knew the tower would not come back with permission for take-off. The ground-workers had to run to get out of the way when Tasha pushed her throttle forward. The airliner was making its way towards the facility's single airstrip. As if moved by an invisible hand, the pilotless aircraft around her followed one by one in the order they had appeared on Tasha's screen. Lifting off a runway without clearance from the tower would normally be a very dangerous endeavor. Just like in the woods of Berlin, Tasha knew there'd be little chance of another aircraft crossing her path. Of greater concern to her was the danger the Apophis Aerospace Works security forces would pose to her. Tasha had gone to boot-camp and special-forces training with several future members of these elite troops. She had been presented with the opportunity to join their ranks. Despite the prospect of working in the jungle, Tasha had declined, citing their suicidal tendencies. The men who guarded Gene's secrets would gladly take a bullet for their cause. Not so for Tasha. She was a hunter. A hunter who wanted to live at the end of the workday.
The lone warrior had to hurry once she would get the cloud-seeding fleet off the ground. It wouldn't be long before an armada of supersonic fighters was going to be deployed from the compound to engage her. A swarm of cumbersome and relatively sluggish airliners would stand no chance against even one of the newly developed killing-machines Gene housed in the hangars across the compound. Suddenly, it occurred to Tasha: She was taking on her own suicide mission to protect what was dear to her heart - her family. This was not Tasha's usual way to approach a problem. There had never been anything in her history worth losing her own life. Not for Gene, not for her pride and honor. Not until now. This time, there was no choice. Tasha knew if she shut down the plane's engines, her parents, her childhood friends, and the rest of her family in Eritrea would all die. The love for her parents was winning the battle between her reptilian and her mammalian brain. Tasha was suddenly no longer acting out of anger and fear but on her intellect, out of love and compassion. The young woman had no memory of anything that had ever made her feel this way.
Tasha’s aircraft had reached the take-off position at the head of the runway, the fleet behind her like a row of aluminum ducklings. There was no question left in Tasha's mind, she had to go through with her plan of creating a lighting storm to stop Gene's attack. She made a right turn, the plane was pointing down the length of the stretch of concrete before her. Watson's voice came in angrily over her headphones.
"Stand-down X-Ray 101 or be prosecuted for air piracy."
Tasha could hear the Tower’s alarm horn echo behind his infuriated voice. She knew the facility's forces were on their way. The daughter of her parents threw the throttle controls for all four engines forward. The heavily loaded craft shot ahead, pushing her back in her seat. Tasha could feel the expansion joints between the slabs of concrete as the carriage rolled across them. The time in between bumps grew shorter with each strike until she had
reached the speed necessary for lift-off. Tasha pulled the yoke towards herself and the feel of the irregularities of the runway had disappeared. She was airborne. Behind her, the first drone in digital tow had followed suit and was halfway down the runway during its lift-off sequence. Soon, it was airborne behind her.
One after another, the row of cloud-seeding planes moved to the head of the weapons maker's airstrip. Several planes had become airborne when Watson's orders to stop Tasha manifested a barrage of armored vehicles speeding across the compound towards the remaining airliners. The first to reach the tarmac was an armored vehicle driven by one of the men Tasha had encountered in her training. It was his attitude towards sacrificing oneself to protect the company that lead to her decision to become the commander of Gene's undercover forces. The Trooper was about to prove his philosophy. A plane was lifting off and another one had just begun to accelerate for take-off. He sped down the middle of the long concrete lane, directly towards the bright beam of the nose-gear's landing light. The airliner was getting closer at breathtaking speed. The Trooper skidded to a halt on the center strip, in line with the nose gear. There was not enough time for him to run clear of the impending calamity. The Trooper jumped out of his vehicle, ready to give his life for the company when another personnel carrier sped towards him. The truck slowed just enough so he could grab on to a handle bar on its side. His feet hit the step board while the truck raced off. Tires spun fast as the vehicle cleared the concrete and ran onto the adjacent strip of grass. At the same moment, the airliner's front wheel collided with the mass of steel left in its path. The undercarriage snapped like a twig, leaving the enormous jet's nose to scrape along the reinforced concrete. A rain of sparks lit up the night as the plane's powerful jet engines pushed it along.
The next airliner was headed directly towards the crashing plane. Its sensors detected the obstruction and powered down the engines. The craft had gained too much velocity to stop in time. The crashed plane's engines were powering down under its own emergency protocol, leaving it to grind towards a spark-filled halt. Just before the loaded jet came to a stop, the plane behind it rammed into its tail. The impact tore the left wing off the plane in front. The fuselage broke open like a raw egg, spilling the contents of the fully loaded tanks across the crash site. Sparks from the scraping airliner ignited the fuel on the runway and caused the tanks in the torn-off wing to explode. The blast destroyed both planes and set off a series of secondary explosions. Their cargo of barium-salt solution spilled and mixed with the burning jet fuel. The ensuing inferno lit up the facility with eerie bright-green flames.
A chunk of concrete from the destroyed runway shot directly towards Watson in the control tower, but descended just short of his window. The lone air traffic controller knew this had not been a good night-shift for his career with Apophis. With the deepest sigh of his life, he pushed the fire alarm. As quickly as the Troopers had swarmed the area, a team of fire fighters in environmental suits invaded the inferno to fight their battle. Watson keyed his radio to shout at his Troopers.
"Send everything we've got after her. I want her back on base now!"
Unable to comply, their leader pointed out to Watson that the runway had become completely unusable. Wreckage, fire and its partially destroyed surface had made it impossible to send fighters after Tasha.
Watson knew the phone call he was about to make would cause his transfer to the Arctic outpost, or worse.
49 TASHA SOWS HER SEEDS
The computer in Tasha's lead jet showed her airborne with a total of 12 planes. The other half was left behind, two of which were burning in the middle of the partially destroyed runway. This was bad for the reformed warrior. Although the Aerospace Troopers weren't able to get into the air to shoot her down, only a dozen aircraft would make it very difficult to create enough condensation for a lightning storm in the small amount of time left before the launch. Tasha programmed the flight computer with the revised data. The results on the voice prompt would have discouraged most who knew the mechanics of cloud seeding.
Multiple cross-passes required.
Current wind conditions prohibitive of successful seeding.
Tasha had come this far, she was not going to be lead off the trail by a computer prognosis. She programmed the drones to fly in formation, side by side. Soon after Tasha had climbed to her operating altitude, she felt tremendously fortunate when she read the screen with the weather conditions. It had been a windy night so far, the cooling jungle had pulled in air from the warm ocean, but morning was only a few hours away and temperatures had equalized. Tasha had unwittingly timed her attack with the wind-still moment in the early morning hours. A good time for the unusual farmer to seed the fields of her personal deluge. Their course would lead the squadron of ghost ships and their Captain directly over Gene's lair. At a tap of the screen, Tasha and her eleven drones were releasing their mixture of condensation seeds into the atmosphere. High-volume pumps were sending the contents of the tanks in the cabins to spray-nozzles under the wings. The nozzles were positioned at either side of the engines. This caused the force of the jets to aid in the distribution of the chemical into the air. The fine mist of barium solution was doing the job for which it had been designed. The microscopic droplets of the seeding agent began forming bonds with the surrounding water vapor that filled the atmosphere. Water droplets were growing larger as a result of the condensation process.
Twelve gigantic airliners were leaving thick trails of clouds. A look at the radar confirmed that her attempt to turn Nature against herself was nearing success. With the grace of black swans, Tasha turned her flock for a cross-pass in the sky. Before her laid an evenly spaced cloud-field of monumental proportions. Suddenly, the green stripes on her weather-radar faded to blue before completely disappearing one after another. Like a giant squeegee, hot air had swept in from the island's center and wiped the sky clear as it evaporated the water droplets.
Tasha was back where she had started.
50 GENE SHOOTS BACK
A group of tunnels followed an underground incline from the powerful hydroelectric generators. One of the passageways branched off to the missile bay where preparations for the attack continued. Further along, a bulletproof set of doors lead to the command center where Gene was unusually agitated. The lair's view-screens, where his eyes were feasting on the preparations for his first launch just moments ago, presented a much less palatable menu.
The eerie-green glow from the chemical inferno was reflecting on Gene's face as Tasha's airport calamity filled his wall. Droplets of spit where spewing from him in an angry furor.
"Get some men on the cliff and shoot the planes down. I want them gone!"
A spark of fear was in the Trooper's eye when he hesitantly replied, "But sir, you sealed the shaft."
The veins on Gene's forehead were swelling through his complexion with his increasing anger over someone interfering with his plans. He rose from his chair, angrily shouting at the warrior before him.
"Send an escape pod!"
The Trooper had no interest in further disrupting Gene and catching more of his wrath. With an intimidated "yes, sir'" he dispatched two of his own. To facilitate the launch of an escape pod through the missile tube, Gene's henchman halted the progressing countdown. A brief look at the gage for the mountain's energy storage revealed the rising temperature of the capacitor well within limits.
Commandos were following their leader's orders in the armory further up the facility's main hallway. In preparation for Tasha's demise, a detail of Troopers left hurriedly with three large crates. Each tightly packed with several dozen shoulder-mount ground-to-air weapons. Shortly thereafter, the Troopers arrived in the missile bay where two frog-suited colleagues were boarding an escape pod. The bullet shaped pod was entirely comprised of tungsten. The two fighters in the amphibian attire had barely taken their seats in the center of the vehicle. A crate landed in each lap and the third installment of weaponry slid in behind their seats. The
pod's hatch fell shut. The other Troopers cleared the launch track. The pod was guided by wheels that surrounded its circumference at each end. A low rumble filled the room as the strange-looking vehicle disappeared into the launch tube.
Isabelle was still treading water near the end of the launch tube in a survival dive-suit from Gene's helicopter. The launch door that laid atop the large metallic cylinder was hinged to the pipe at its edge. A latch opposite the hinge held it secure. Isabelle knew from Ryan's instructions there would be a test-firing. The only chance she saw to get in was when the door would be opened for launch. Isabelle felt the rumble of the approaching escape pod. Swift as a mousetrap, the lid on the pipe snapped open. The escape pod shot out far enough to clear Isabelle's view and splash down in the distance. The launch pipe was between her and the violent frog-men. Isabelle swam to the opening. She had to reach high over her head to grab on to its edge. The lake had become more narrow and so its level was dropping much faster.
Isabelle had little doubt it was time to hurry. She struggled pulling herself up. The air bottles and dive vest added strain to her already weakened condition when she rose above the water line. There was no way she could reach the release to ditch her gear. Like on her obstacle course at home, Isabelle pulled herself up. Her face had just reached the height of the edge when an unusually large wave washed her down. The finder of truth lost her grip where high-velocity hydraulics slammed the heavy tungsten door shut. It would have cut off her head.
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