by Read, John
As I cruised low over a highway, I noticed flecks of light zipping by out of the corner of my eye. Moments later I heard the crack-crack-crack of the muzzle blast, the noise delayed by the speed of sound.
I’m being shot at! I realized. I watched two men taking cover behind a beat up Ford pickup. The truck’s red paint had faded after years in the California sun.
I hit the transmit button on my radio. “Taking small arms fire here,” I said, trying my best to sound calm.
“Don’t worry about it,” Avro replied.
“Don’t worry about it?” I yelled back into the radio.
“Yeah, don’t worry about it. I’ll be there in ten minutes, over.”
I glanced back at my attackers and realized that they were covering their eyes. I looked closer; they appeared to be painted in a blinding green light.
The SAR computer displayed a message. “Arms suppression activated.”
“Oh God!” I said. Apparently, the countermeasures that Avro installed on my aircraft included suppression lasers. When the sensors detected small arms fire directed at the aircraft, the lasers locked onto the assailants, temporarily blinding them.
“Dammit Avro, you could have told me I’d be blinding people,” I yelled.
“Wait for it…” Avro said.
“Wait for what?” I asked, in a panic.
“Are you still watching the bogeys?” Avro asked.
“Yeah, why?” I asked, banking the aircraft to maintain visual contact.
“Wait for it,” Avro said, I detected a smile in his voice.
Something caught my eye and two streaks of light whizzed down from the sky towards the attackers. I watched as the streaks sliced the men in half from head to groin, their bodies exploding outward, leaving two red stains on the golden California grass.
“What the hell was that!” I yelled into the radio.
“Predator drone, guided bullets,” Avro said. “The lasers on your aircraft guide the bullets to their target.”
“That was brutal!” I said.
“This operation has a zero tolerance for civilian casualties. Absolute zero. This method also helps reduce the enemy’s reliance on human shields.”
“What if they shine a laser back at me?” I asked.
“Your aircraft’s canopy reflects laser light. Just get out of there would ya?” Avro instructed.
I pushed the throttle to full and climbed past one thousand feet and continued my sweep of the area.
“Avro, John here,” I radioed on our shared frequency. “I see people waving their arms at me. Looks like about twenty people.”
“Hang tight, Johnny,” Avro radioed back. “There’s a wide scan option on your SAR display. Check them for weapons and explosives. I don’t want any bombs on my chopper.”
I tapped the display and a live video feed of the area appeared. The video divided into grids. “Select target zone,” said the computer. On the display, I watched the people waving their arms and selected the zone containing the people.
“Fly a circuit around the target area,” the computer instructed me in a calm tone. I cut the throttle and extended the dive brakes, descending in an arching path.
“Scanning. Scanning. Scanning,” the computer announced. “No arms detected.”
“They’re clean,” I announced to Avro.
“Alright. Coming in for extraction.”
I watched as the giant helicopter raced in from the south, sounding like a thousand lawnmowers. Avro flew past the survivors, pulled back on the cyclic and reduced the throttle, effectively hitting the brakes. The chopper pitched up and descended. Avro chose a level stretch of road to make his landing. As the Super Stallion approached the pavement, a donut-shaped cloud of brown dust rose into the air around it. The helicopter’s rear hatch opened.
People ran towards the helicopter, some protecting their heads, and others covering their ears. Once they were aboard, Avro closed that hatch and lifted back up into the air.
“Where now?” I asked.
“Beale Air Force Base,” Avro replied, “fifteen miles north of here. The National Guard is holding the base, but it’s a hot zone. We’ll drop the civilians off and refuel. If you see anyone who needs rescuing along the way, we’ll pick ‘em up. I’ve got a few empty seats here.”
“Roger, see you at Beale,” I said, selecting Beale Air Force Base on my GPS.
We switched our radios from a private frequency to the general search and rescue channel and Avro radioed the base, letting them know we were coming.
Beale Air Force Base hustled and bustled with activity despite the cracks in the runway, some large enough to drop a tank into. The hangars had significant earthquake damage and the wooden barracks were completely flattened. Even the control tower was a pile of bricks.
On the plus side, there were third generation Ospreys ready to airlift the civilians out of California and medical tents set up in a staging area. I noticed eight helipads mapped out in bright orange spray paint, each a thirty-foot painted square with an “H” in the middle.
For a moment, I was seriously concerned that there would be nowhere for me to land. Fortunately, I only needed a few hundred feet of runway. I did a low pass over the tarmac and found a place with enough undamaged concrete.
I lined up for my approach, deploying my spoilers and dive brakes. I pulled back on the throttle, setting turbofan regeneration to full. This slowed the aircraft to thirty-five knots. Within moments, I was on the ground. When I came to a complete stop, a soldier in an orange vest marshaled me toward a parking spot.
The airbase had emergency generators on site. I retrieved the power cord from the plane and within minutes had a full charge.
Avro landed nearby and was out of his helicopter in seconds. He began helping get the evacuees to a waiting Osprey. The Osprey’s twin rotors were already spooling up as the people transferred from one aircraft to another.
After the Osprey departed, Avro and I met on the tarmac. “How’re you doing, boss? Ready to do it all over again?” he asked. I nodded. “Great.” He had to yell to be heard over the sounds of the nearby generators. “I’ve asked the team to throw some sandwiches and coffee into our cockpits. We’ll stay in this area tonight and head back to Vegas tomorrow. After this, you’ll want to keep a small suitcase with you. We’ll be spending quite a few nights in the field.”
I nodded again, looking to my left as a corporal dropped off the food.
“Rock and roll,” Avro said. He held up his hand for a fist pump. I returned the gesture and walked back to my aircraft.
We rescued over two hundred people that day, turning in shortly after midnight. We slept in a military green GP tent along with other members of the SAR squadron. The next morning we sat impatiently in the tent while a tech repaired Avro’s Stallion. It had taken a hit from a single guided bullet.
Avro reached for a bottle of water. It crinkled as he squeezed the container, shooting the last drops of liquid into his mouth.
“Do you think we’ll be assigned to the North Bay?” I asked. Avro knew what I was asking, I wanted to search the area where I had lost track of my family.
“Hey, Lieutenant,” he yelled to a young pilot who was still in bed. “You’re assigned to San Fran, right?”
The pilot slid into a seated position, dangling his legs over the bed and letting the blankets rest on his lap. “Yeah, place is messed up.” A duffel bag sat at the end of his bunk. A nametag that read “Jamison” was sewn into the green canvas.
“Who’s got that sector now?”
“Captain Gimply’s got it,” Jamison replied.
“Gimply. Dammit!” Avro shook his head at the floor. He looked up, his eyes widening, and the corners of his mouth curved up, giving him a mischievous look.
“Who’s Gimply?” I whispered. “You sound like you don’t get along with the guy.”
“Gimply’s not a guy,” Avro said. “She’s my ex-wife.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I just stared
at the green wall of the tent. The tent had six windows made of transparent plastic, which didn’t provide much visibility but let in the morning light. I looked over at Avro. He was concentrating.
“Any chance we can trade sectors?” I asked.
“Yeah, we can ask, follow me. It’ll be fun.” Avro stood up, wrapping a small white towel around his boxer shorts.
I pulled on my jeans, which made me look out of place, and chased after him.
Avro marched into the only hangar that was still standing. He ducked under an Osprey’s propeller and walked along a row of offices on the far side of the hangar. Names and ranks were written in sharpie on each door. He checked the names until he found the one he was looking for. I stood back, not knowing what to expect.
Avro knocked and a woman in full military dress opened the door. When she saw Avro, a look of pure unadulterated rage crossed her face. And out of her mouth shot the longest stream of obscenities I’d ever heard, ending with, “You-god-damned-cheating-son-of-a-whore!” The woman’s black hair was tied back in a bun, and her pale round face reddened as she swore.
Avro held up his arm as she tried to slap him. Avro was over a foot taller than the stout woman, and most of the blows impacted on his forearm, but some struck his bare torso. “I told you not to ever ever ever ever come see me again!”
Avro backed away to the middle of the hangar floor. A mechanic working under a nearby helicopter slid from under his aircraft on a creeper and just stared.
Captain Gimply gave Avro one final blow to the ribs, stormed back into the office and slammed the door.
Avro stood in his towel, and even with his tan-colored skin, I could see the bruises.
“That’s your ex-wife?” I said, my plans for switching search zones fading fast.
“Ah, yeah, sort of, I guess. It’s a long story. No, it’s a very short story actually.”
I walked with Avro back the tent. I looked towards Avro’s helicopter in the distance. The tech was finishing up a weld on the patch.
“Well?” I prompted.
“Okay, Johnny, but you keep this a secret, okay?” Avro stopped walking, facing me.
“You got it,” I said. We continued walking, picking up two individual meal packs—IMPs— on the way back to the tent.
“Gimply was my senior officer. But in SAR, we try not to take rank too seriously. We were stationed in Vegas and hit the strip four times a week, at least. Gimply and I became a killer blackjack team.”
“You counted cards?”
“You keep that a secret, too.” Avro pointed at my chest. I nodded and he continued. “Anyway, it was her birthday and everyone bought her shots. We ended up on the dance floor and before we knew it, everyone else had gone home and it was just her and me. Boy were we wasted! We left the club, and stumbled past a little chapel off the strip, found a rabbi dressed as Elvis and got married.”
“I awoke the next morning in the Altucher suite, Vegas’s most expensive Airbnb. I had a searing headache and Jane Gimply was gone.” Avro took a large bite of blueberry muffin before continuing. “I got texts all that day, like ‘What do you want for dinner honey,’ and ‘I’ll be home soon my love,’ which I thought was hilarious, so I played along. She was my senior, so we couldn’t reveal what we’d done. I figured it would stay a secret, you know, forever. What happens in Vegas, right?”
“Right,” I repeated.
“That night, the guys went out on the town again. Captain Gimply was still out on a mission. I had a few too many, again. Hit the dance floor, again. I played wingman for one of my fellow pilots. Before we knew it, we were making out with two beautiful brunettes. Well, his was beautiful, anyway.”
I laughed.
“Gimply, retuned from her mission and came looking for me. When she didn’t find me in the barracks, she accessed my military RFID chip,” Avro held up his left wrist, pointing to a scar, “to track me down. The woman is bat-shit crazy. She found me, hauled me out onto the street, and gave me this scar.” Avro pointed to his temple. “And this scar,” he said, pointing to his jaw.
“You didn’t hit back, did you?”
“Hell no, Johnny, I just stood there and took it! The next day there were two sets of documents, hidden in my bedsheets. The first informed me that I’d been transferred to another CO.” Avro took another bite of his muffin.
“What was the other document?” I asked.
Avro snorted, and then answered, “Divorce papers.”
It had been a year since impact. My family was still missing and the Cartel continued its guerrilla war against the U.S. government. The SAR squadron had lost eight pilots out of the thirty back in the beginning.
I had originally planned to return to NASA once I found my family. But within a month of the disaster, Congress dissolved NASA after an independent panel determined that due diligence could have prevented the whole thing. After losing a class action lawsuit, there was no money left to continue, and I was left with a toxic organization on my resume.
Eddie Rizzo made a steady profit off the data I provided. He was one of many people looking to cash in on unclaimed California resources. To me, Eddie was nothing more than a desperate scavenger. When I saw him, which wasn’t often, he tried to tell me where to fly, so I avoided him as best I could.
After the Impact, I spent a month living in a rundown Super 8 motel. After that, I rented a furnished studio apartment near the base. I also bought a motorcycle so I could get to my aircraft before dawn each morning, which beat having to wait for an auto-car to pick me up.
On the first anniversary of the impact, I showed up at Nellis at the usual time. Avro met me in the alley between two hangars where I parked my bike. Before I shut off the motorcycle, I knew something had changed.
“Hey, Johnny,” Avro said.
“Hey,” I said, stepping on the kickstand and dismounting the cycle. The enclosed space between the hangars suddenly felt claustrophobic.
“I just got word from my CO. They’re calling off the search,” Avro said. “We’re being redeployed.”
“Calling off the search! What about my family?” I could feel my face reddening and my stomach tightening as my body entered a state of fight or flight. I felt the anger surge though me and I turned and punched the seat of the bike. I stood, leaning over the motorcycle with my back to Avro.
“John, we haven’t rescued anyone in weeks!” Avro said. “We’ve had a dozen teams in the air every day, putting their lives on the line. There’s no one left.”
I turned around, yelling now, “So, what, now we’re just supposed to go home? Go home to what?”
“No one’s going home. We’ve been redeployed,” Avro said. “I’ve been redeployed,” he corrected himself.
“What do you mean, you’ve been redeployed? Redeployed to where?” I said.
“San Diego. I’ll be stationed on the Enterprise. They’re sending in more ground troops to fight the Cartel and we’re to provide support. The civilian rescue mission is officially over.”
“Dammit!” I swore. I had no idea what to do next, not only in that moment, but with my life.
“You’re a fine pilot, Johnny, and a good wingman,” Avro said. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
Doing something stupid was exactly what I needed to do. “I’m going out there,” I said and stormed off toward the hangar. Avro followed.
“Don’t do it, John,” he said, grabbing my shoulder. I shook him off. “Don’t go out there alone, not without drone support.”
The hangar door was open. I walked in, snatching a tow bar off the wall and connecting it to my plane. Avro didn’t stop me. He just stood there as I dragged the Stingray onto the tarmac.
“You need to get out of Vegas and start over. Go back to D.C. if you have to.”
I chucked the tow bar into the hangar. It clattered against the floor, and slid into the side wall. I threw open the canopy and hopped in, activating the twin turbines as soon as my ass hit the chair.
Avro backed awa
y as the props sucked the air.
“Goodbye, Avro,” I yelled over the sound of the fans. “It’s been a pleasure.” I slammed the canopy shut, leaving Avro alone. Hitting the throttle and not bothering to taxi to a runway, I took to the sky. The air traffic controllers would write me up for that stunt, but I didn’t give a damn. To hell with Nellis.
With the throttle at full, I cruised towards San Francisco at full speed. I’d developed a habit of listening to music while over the mountains, becoming addicted to an old band Marie had turned me on to, Angels and Airwaves. I’d listen to the same songs over and over. The songs made me angry but in a good way. I was angry at the hate I felt, and one particular song seemed to justify that, so I turned it on.
But those words from your mouth they are scary,
and the hate that you have, that you carry,
it will grow, it will grow, till we're buried.
And there will be nothing left except sadness,
and a scar without words, without anything
cuz we've done this before, this is madness.
This was madness, what I was doing. I’d been risking my life every day, and for what? My life was a purposeless repetition. This was my last flight. After today, my search was over and I’d never return to California again.
I reached San Francisco and flew north over the remains of the Bay Bridge. The bridge’s piers remained, but the roadway had fallen into the bay. Treasure Island was under water, only a few foundations rising up above the waves. On my right, two red towers were all that was left of the Golden Gate Bridge.
I flew low over the water, between the towns of Sausalito and Tiburon, then around Mount Tamalpais and Point Reyes Station. I was looking for a camp or some civilian holdout we might have missed. Maybe there were still people here; maybe they were hiding.
Regrets poured through my head. Did we try hard enough to negotiate with the Cartel? Should we have met their demands? They had demanded the execution of everyone involved with the impact. No. We did the best we could and Avro was right. The area wasn’t just cleared of civilians; it was cleared of everyone.