Origins

by J. F. Holmes

  “Uh, Colonel, what the hell is a ‘Black Iron’ call?” asked her wingman. He was on his first combat tour, first combat flight, and Suarez had taken him out to show him the ropes.

  “It’s none of your business. Return to base,” she ordered. There was no way she was going to involve the junior pilot in whatever bad shot was coming next.

  “But Colonel, I’m your wingman!” he objected.

  “And I gave you an order. RTB, now, dammit, I’ll explain later, Lieutenant!”

  He said nothing, and she watched him drop off her wing as the AWACS came back online. “Valkyrie, this is Darkstar. We have troops in contact box Charlie Niner Two. Estimate two zero ground and one Black Iron incident. Black Iron is priority, over.”

  She took a quick look at the map strapped to her leg, not trusting the computers after several incidents with the thirty-five year old airframe. “Darkstar, be advised, my chart shows Charlie Niner Two is a no-fly area due to proximity to Russian patrols, over.”

  “Roger,” came a new voice, one she recognized as the general in charge of air ops, a two star sitting some air conditioned office in Doha. “This is your call, Valkyrie. You know who is involved, and what they do, that’s why I tasked this one to you. Of course, you’re deniable, over.”

  “You ass kissing, glory seeking, pass the buck suck up,” she said out loud, making sure her mic was off. She keyed it and answered, “Roger, Eagle, understood. On my way, have a tanker standing by. Valkyrie Out.”

  She began a long turn to the west, conserving her fuel, and was surprised when she caught the sight of her wingman’s nose, just behind her and to the right. “Goddammit, Marlin, I gave you an order,” she barked into the radio.

  “Yeah, I just listened to chief big dick on the satcom. You’re my wingman, I’m not letting you do deniable shit by yourself, with all due respect, colonel.”

  She actually smiled at that, but said, “Don’t use private callsigns over the radio. Let’s go, and be prepared for ANYTHING.”

  They picked up the JTAC FM signal after ten minutes of flying, and Suarez called out. “Black Iron caller, this is Valkyrie, coming in hot, you should have visual in one minute, give surface to air threat, over.”

  “Valkyrie, this is Noman, threat is small arms fire, and unknown Black Iron, over,” called a female voice, strained by combat. As she spoke, a heavy fusillade sounded in the background.

  “Roger, understood, thirty seconds to visual.”

  Technical Sergeant Dah began the crucial work of talking theA-10’s into their targets, while avoiding having ordnance dropped onto their own position, and it was like a ballet. She ignored all the firing and shouts around her, working first on getting a gun run onto the reinforcements. They had set up a heavy machine gun, hidden from the SF snipers, and were lighting up the building they were sheltering behind.

  “Be careful to avoid the high peak due south, friendlies there, concentrate one hundred meters west of the burning truck on the ridge line, infantry in the open,” called Dah.

  “Affirmative, Rocket will go first to ID target and drop flares, I’ll run underneath for a gun run. Call corrections.”

  The two Warthogs swung low over the battlefield, running north south to both mask their approach and to keep the greatest angle away from friendlies, Lt. Marlin a thousand meters in front and her plane up and back. The popped over the ridge, two kilometers out, and moving at three hundred knots. Marlin passed directly over the attacking Syrians, turning slightly to get eyes on, and popped a flare before they could react.

  Suarez saw the drop point, lowered her nose, and fired, walking the rounds in as the lead plane arched up and away. She saw the impacts even as she felt the enormous vibration through her seat, clouds of earth erupting beneath the flare position. A slight twitch of the stick and drop in air speed, and she fired again, smashing the two trucks. Glancing upward to follow Marlin as he turned for his own run, listening to Dah call, “GOOD EFFECTS!” on the radio, she hurled over the enemy positions, small arms fire rattling against her plane. It was why she had the junior pilot go first, less likely to draw ground fire.

  She broke left to follow him, when she heard Marlins’ panicked voice over their intercom, screaming, “JESUS FUCKING CHRIST WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?” simultaneous with a flash of light out of the corner of her eye. An honest to god lightning bolt leapt up from behind her and skewered the lead A-10 dead in the middle, and the tough, armored plane disappeared in a massive fireball. Suarez swore and made the plane twist like a racecar, pulling five gravities as she dumped fuel into the two turbofans, hit full flaps, and dove for the ground.

  Chapter 7

  I watched from the corner of the building as the first Warthog dropped flares to mark target, and then heard that joyful song of my people, the long BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT of the rotary cannon bringing hell to our enemies. Beside me, Dah yelled into the radio, “Good effects!” and then stopped dead.

  I heard it too. Or felt it, more like. In my excitement over the air attack, I had completely forgotten why we were there. It happened like that in combat, the immediate threat took your attention, and it was a leaders’ job to keep an eye on the big picture. It was just an instant, but that heavy THUD as the tunnel exploded outwards brought me back really quick. As I turned my head, I saw a brilliant flash erupt from the demons’ hand and heard a tremendous explosion in the sky overhead.

  “FIRE!” I yelled int the radio, and we did. From over the top of the ruined wall, from windows in the building, those of us who could still do so poured forth such a concentrated wall of lead that the being actually staggered backwards.

  Gandolfini took up the remaining AT-4 and let fly directly at the demons’ chest. It exploded with a deafening CRACK and the thing staggered backwards. An AT-4 is designed to penetrate up to sixteen inches of modern tank armor, and the demon was knocked backwards, a smoking hole in its chest. For a second, I actually saw THROUGH it to the rock on the other side.

  In return it sent another crash of lighting back at us, hitting Dah and incinerating her in a flash of light. She didn’t even have time to scream, just vaporized with a BANG, leaving an after image of her kneeling with the Javelin on her shoulder, arming it. and the supernatural laughed. I was too stunned to move; we were screwed. This was way over our heads, and we were taking too many casualties.

  “GUNNY!” I yelled over the radio, “we need to jump! Get the guys out and head for the RP!” The thing was getting bigger, if anything, now up to thirty feet tall. Our bullets didn’t seem to be doing anything to it. Another crack of lighting, a hole was punched through the building and I heard screaming inside.

  “We’re on it,” sounded Arsene’s voice, and I put that aside. He would handle a fighting retreat, no one better. I ducked down behind the wall and waved for Gandolfini to get clear. He shook his head, a bitter grin stretched across his face, paralyzing horror and resignation to his fate warring with his sense of duty. In his mind there was no question of running, and I nodded. Good man. Holding up my hand, I counted down, three, two, one, and then we both stood and started firing to keep the demon’s attention on us.

  The thing about an A-10 is, if it’s coming straight at you, you can’t hear it. Well, if everything was quiet and you weren’t blasting off rounds trying to cover your squad’s retreat, and half deaf already, ears ringing, you might. I didn’t hear a thing. Normally, the rounds walk into the target, starting a few dozen feet in front and tracking across it. They chew up the ground, and if they hit anything metallic, there are bright flashes of light and explosions. Then the bird is winging overhead in a sharp turn to lineup for another run, if you need it.

  Not this time.

  *****

  She was mad, pissed down to the core. Lieutenant Colonel Elizabeth ‘Valkyrie’ Suarez loved her pilots and her airmen like they were her own kids. She had seen death often enough, usually in training accidents, several times when she had been a young captain assigned to a forward air controller te
am. It held no terrors for her, only sadness, but she had never lost one of her own before. Marlin’s plane getting taken down had shocked her more than anything she had experienced in her eighteen years as a pilot. There one second, doing a gun run, gone the next. As she recovered from her evasive maneuver, her hatred of whatever had swatted her wingman out of the sky blazed into a brilliant fury.

  One thing that had made her an excellent ground attack pilot was a remarkable sense of where she was at all times, and how to use the terrain around her. Despite the wild maneuver, she still had marked in her mind where the lightning had originated from. She pushed her plane hard, regardless of the fuel consumption and gravities she was pulling, rolling through a box canyon and popping up over the ridgeline.

  There. Whatever the hell it was, that had to be it. The thing was … fuck it, she didn’t care what it was, though a very human reaction to the supernatural made a chill run down her spine. Icey panic and fear replaced her anger, for only a moment. She could see tracers from the TJF team, and the flash of anti-tank weapon going off, followed immediately by the thing throwing bolts of lighting, one of which blew right through a building and out the other side.

  Her computer started screaming about her altitude, and she switched it off. Then her targeting system glitched, skipping around inside her helmet, so she killed that too. Using all her skills of over two decades of close air support, Liz Suarez opened up on the demon using her Mark One eyeball. No walking rounds in, no short brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrtttttt and then a climbing arc. She held the trigger down and watched as the demon was hammered by the depleted uranium rounds. One of the lighting bolts reached up to her as her gun ran dry, and she tapped the stick, almost losing control as five feet of her right wing disappeared. “KISS MY ASS!” she yelled, and hammered the throttle down, struggling to keep the nose pointed at the creature.

  *****

  As much as I wanted to watch, we were within a hundred meters from the creature, way danger close for the big 30mm rounds. I dove behind the wall, and heard, mixed with the impact of the rounds, a roaring, screaming wail from the demon. Then the gun stopped and a bolt of lightning flashed over our heads in the other direction.

  I heard the turbines then, a howling, screaming wail, and the Warthog passed twenty feet over my head. The crash, when it came, deafened me and shattered the wall we were hiding behind. Twelve tons of titanium, aluminum and steel smashed directly into the demon at four hundred miles per hour. A wave of heat washed over me as I was thrown ass over end; the only thing keeping me alive was the low ditch I was in behind the wall. The last thing I remembered was being thrown flat, and then everything went black.

  Epilogue

  I went to see her in the Combat Support Hospital, before they flew her out to Germany. We owed her our lives, after all. Reynolds and Dah were dead, of course, but Smith would make it. Well, he’d live, anyway. Getting shot often meant years of rehabilitation.

  “Master Sergeant Chamberlain,” the pilot said weakly, looking pale under her desert tan. Both of her legs lay wrapped in extensive bandages, and one was shorter than the other, missing the right foot. They would only let me talk to her for a minute or so.

  “Colonel Suarez. I just wanted to say thank you for our lives. Not just ours, but many others. If that thing has gotten loose...” Standing as tall as I could on my own crutches, I gave her the best salute I could.

  She smiled weakly and closed her eyes. I thought she had fallen asleep, but then she said, “Goddamned ejection seats. Next time I hear your call sign on the radio, I’m going to do a one eighty and hit afterburners in the other direction.”

  I had nothing to answer that. She may have said it, but like me, she never would. Because soldiers like us were all that stood …

  … between Heaven and Hell.

  J.F. Holmes is the owner and editor of Cannon Publishing, as well as being an accomplished author in his own right. He currently has seventeen books out, including two Dragon Award finalists. His work can be found here on Amazon.

  Redeye

  Dan Humphreys

  Dante Accardi slung his battered rucksack into the storage compartment over the business-class seat. The seats were at the ass-end of the section, jammed right up against the lavatory, but the sections to either side of the center row consisted of only two seats on each side. No chance of armrest thieves boxing him in was good enough, but on this Airbus, the section in front of the bathrooms was one of the three exit rows. He had more than enough leg room, even with his carry-on stowed behind his feet.

  He rocked forward from the impact of a shoulder into his back and turned in mock annoyance. “It’s a sixteen-hour flight, bro, keep your pantyhose on.”

  Tyson Fisher grinned as he hoisted his own pack into place. Where Dante was stocky and olive-skinned, Ty was long and lean, his curly hair bleached blond by the sun, a classic central casting surfer dude. “I love how hot and bothered you get without a chute, Super Mario.”

  Sliding into the window seat, Dante scratched the side of his nose with a middle finger.

  His friend chortled and plopped into his own seat. “You have to admit it, dude. This is definitely worth the upgrade.” He checked the stream of passengers moving down the aisle and lowered his voice. “No sweaty Iraqi taking up the armrests while he waxes poetic about his gold toilet or whatever.”

  Dante grunted in agreement. Their companion on the flight over had been annoying as hell, even after both men had plugged in earbuds to drown out his incessant bragging. Considering they’d all flown to Qatar in economy class, the Iraqi was probably full of shit.

  A tone sounded over the plane’s speakers, and one of the flight attendants made a short speech in Arabic. Dante knew enough to get by, so when the same voice shifted to English and repeated the same announcement in a cultured British accent, he already had the gist of it.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard Qatar Airways flight 755, with non-stop service to Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in the United States. Should you need any assistance finding your seat, seek out a member of the cabin crew, and we’ll be happy to help.”

  Another tone sounded, and the plane fell silent, save for the usual boarding sounds—feet shuffling over the carpet, crying children, and murmured conversation. With little else to do but wait, Dante crossed his arms and watched the train of people, while Tyson whistled and drummed his fingers on his armrest.

  Much like the flight they’d taken to Doha, this one held an eclectic mix of passengers. Native Qatari men in long shirts and gutra mixed with Asian and white—European, Dante supposed—businessmen in their fine suits, though most of the latter had doffed their jackets and loosened their ties in recognition of the marathon flight ahead. Most of the women wore abaya and Shayla, though a small number wore full burqa. The few Western women were modestly dressed—long skirts or slacks, high necklines, and long sleeves. Qatar was the richest country in the world, socially advanced in comparison to the rest of the Middle East—but it also had a government-enforced dress code for its own people.

  That bipolar aspect to the culture, combined with the fact that he hadn’t been home in six months, left Dante eager for the pilots to get the proverbial show on the road.

  When Tyson had called him nine months ago with a job offer, he’d been reluctant at first. They’d met during their time in the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg, and the unlikely friendship they’d forged had endured well past the time both men had left the service. Managing a construction crew for his dad’s company had left Dante questioning his life choices, especially during rush hour on I-95. Yeah, Khost and Karbala had well and truly sucked, but at least they’d been able to run over and shoot their way through any obstacles. Pleasant daydreams aside, Boston PD tended to frown on any such displays within their jurisdiction.

  In the end, the money won out as much as the change of pace. Once Dante reacclimated to the climate, it was even a little boring. The contract required them to provide protection for a team of
scientists studying a potential new oil well out in the Qatari desert. To Dante’s surprise, the work mainly consisted of office work, looking over satellite photos, ground surveys, and other information well above his area of interest. Trips out to the site were few, far between, and uneventful. Although Dante welcomed the lack of action in one regard, it had made the long contract seem all that much longer.

  On the bright side, their ‘net connection was good enough that Dante, Tyson, and the rest of the crew had plenty of time to catch up on Netflix and polish their Madden skills.

  The flight attendants gave the usual spiel accompanied by helpful videos in multiple languages, and began the process of takeoff. Tyson shifted in his seat and raised an eyebrow.

  “In the event of a water landing,” he whispered, “you’ll be thousands of miles from land, so keep a firm hold of your seat cushion and kiss your ass goodbye.”

  Dante snorted a chuckle and shook his head. “That was funnier the first time.” A flash of movement caught his attention, and he raised his head to see a wrinkled face peering back at them through the gap in the seats. “Sorry, sir,” he said, louder. “My friend’s had too many head injuries over the years, and it’s affected his sense of tact.”

  The elderly man blinked in surprise, then chuckled. “Quite all right, lads. You Yanks do tend to love your gallows humor.” He extended his hand between the seats. “Graham Hales.”