by Mark Wandrey
“Deployed? No, these are evaluation units. They were put aboard at Bremerton by Lockheed Martin right before we sailed.”
“Then they’re experimental? Non-combat?”
“Nope,” Doveri said, “these can be armed. They’re for testing the new catapult under full load. There’s a lot of armament on board for these birds.”
“Damn,” he said under his breath, rubbing his chin. “Any pilots on board?”
“Just one,” a man said as he leaned out of the cockpit of the closest.
* * *
60 Miles South of Santa Catalina Island, CA
The two helicopters finally lifted off two hours late. Jeremiah Osborne was in one of his moods, sitting in the copilot seat of OOE One, which was flying lead. As they’d been warming the birds up, one had blown a hydraulic seal. The birds were high-hour rentals, and the company servicing them seemed to be cutting back on the servicing.
“Maintenance records are probably forged,” his chief air mechanic said, surveying the books stored on the chopper. “This thing is thirty years old, too boot.”
“So we’re fucked?” Jeremiah fumed.
“Naw,” the mechanic said. With a couple assistants, he removed the damaged seal, fabricated a replacement, installed it, replaced the lost fluid, and had the bird airworthy inside of two hours. What was the point of having an aerospace company if you couldn’t fix something like that on short notice? The dust off at dawn didn’t work out, but at least they were away.
“You okay over there, boss?” Jeremiah cast a baleful stare at the pilot, Alex West, who grinned back at him. “Hey, I did warn you it had been years since I flew one of these. I missed that antenna.”
“By about a foot,” Jeremiah grumbled.
“What was that, boss?”
“Nothing,” Jeremiah said.
Immediately after taking off, they’d been questioned by Departure Control from the USS Ronald Reagan. Luckily the Navy man didn’t care why they were going the direction they were, only that they stuck to a course and altitude. As the two helicopters flew northeast, Jeremiah could see the Marine ship USS Essex, one of their amphibious assault ships, launching V-22 Ospreys one after another. The huge dual tilt-rotor craft were the Marine’s aerial workhorse. They were heading east in a line, toward the California coast.
“Looks like the military hasn’t given up on the country yet,” he said over the headset. West glanced at the Osprey, then back at his controls. “Ms. McDill, how’s the signal look?” The rear of their Jet Ranger had three people in it. Two of the team that had disassembled the first alien ship, and Alison McDill, the other surviving veteran of OOE’s first and only outer space trip. She’d helped the others cobble together a unit from the escape boat’s radio, though they’d insisted it wasn’t a radio. The device was tracking the next-closest signal.
“Good!” she said over the helicopter’s intercom. “Can we climb higher?” West looked back toward the flotilla now falling behind them and decided they were far enough from the carriers’ operating zone.
“Sure,” he said, “how high?”
“As high as you can,” she said. “The signal is line of sight. It’s like a radio direction-finder. I have one bearing, but the signal is weak and the needle is moving around a lot. If you can get us a little higher, I can get a better signal as we move to triangulate the origin.”
“Climbing,” West said. Jeremiah checked his safety belts for the umpteenth time. He really didn’t like helicopters very much. No safety margin. “I don’t see why you didn’t ride in back,” West said to him.
“If I’m going to buy it, I want to see it coming.”
West scrunched up his mouth, then nodded slowly. “Okay, I can see that.”
“How high can we go?”
“Until we run out of air. Say about angels ten.” Jeremiah stared at him. “Ten thousand feet.”
“Oh.”
The helicopter flew on, the rotor scream building as Alex West applied power to get the old craft to climb. Jeremiah tried not to think about how long it would take them to hit the water if the blades spun off. Or if the engine quit. Or if the transmission seized. He was an aerospace engineer. Helicopters were nothing but a thousand parts moving in close formation on the constant edge of metal fatigue.
The helicopter took a long time to climb to the altitude West wanted. Finally, he spoke on the headset. “That’s as high as I want to try and push this crate,” he said.
“Thanks,” Alison said from the back. “Maybe we should have taken Azanti?”
“I was worried about showing it off to the military again,” Jeremiah said, trying not to look down through the chin-bubble glass below his feet. It was a clear, cloudless day. The water was so far, far below. It didn’t help that it was getting cold inside the cockpit, and that it was harder to breathe. “Can we just get this done, please?”
“I’m working on it,” Alison said. The tracker was on the seat next to her, computer in her lap as she typed at the program. “Got it. Coordinates 33 degrees, 19 minutes, 54.6 seconds north, 118 degrees, 20 minutes, 13.3 seconds west.” West punched the data into the helicopter’s rather dated navigational system.
“Near Joe Machado Field, about a mile from Avalon. Santa Catalina Island.”
Twenty minutes later the two helicopters flew over the southern edge of the island. West felt a little surer of the controls. He’d occupied his time thinking about the setup they’d used on the Azanti, and how a more helicopter-like control scheme might work better.
Below them, the island was steep hills leading to nearly nonexistent beaches, with almost the entire population living in and around the tiny town of Avalon. The land mass wasn’t even a mile wide.
They passed over the island’s botanical gardens, picking up one of the island’s few paved roads. That led to Avalon, and, before long, Joe Machado baseball field came into view. The helicopters began to circle as Alison used the system to close in.
“Up there,” she said, pointing to a nearby hill. Below them, a few dozen figures were running as if they could catch the helicopters hundreds of feet above. They weren’t waving to draw attention to themselves.
“Looks like the island is infected,” West said as he turned in the direction Alison indicated.
“They get a lot of their food from fresh fish,” Jeremiah said. He’d spent many a summer on the island with his family, diving on the reefs from the family yacht.
The helicopters climbed along a grotto that ran north, off the Avalon Canyon road. Steep ridges followed to either side, with short, scrub-like trees and brush common on the island. As they reached the summit of a small hill, West pointed.
“Over there,” he said, “two o’clock!”
All eyes on the right side of the helicopter looked as the craft banked toward a small burned section of a hill. Jeremiah was immediately reminded of the crash site they’d found in Texas. They wouldn’t have to dig this time.
“There it is!” Jeremiah gasped. Lying in the middle of a circle of burnt brush was another ship. The same flattened, elongated sphere shape. This one didn’t look burned, and the cockpit was closed. Had it made a controlled landing, then?
“At least we don’t have to dig it out while the boss drinks cold water,” West chuckled. Jeremiah shot him a glare, and he found the pilot sporting a toothy grin. “What do you want to do?”
“Is there anywhere to land?”
West looked all around, giving the area a professional appraisal. The other helicopter was hovering perfectly one hundred feet away. West needed to make constant corrections and was struggling to hold their position in a hover. He occasionally let a little curse escape his lips when he overcorrected. Eventually he keyed his radio.
“Patty, what do you think?” Patty Mize, the pilot of the other helicopter, was much more experienced in the craft than West. After a moment, she replied.
“There’s a dirt road on the other side of the ridge to the south,” she said. “The map ident
ifies it as Divide Road. I think we can put down there. It’s maybe fifty yards from the crash site?” West looked at Jeremiah, who was nodding enthusiastically.
“Sounds good, Patty. You go first, and I’ll take my lead from you.” The other bird angled sideways and slid in the direction she’d indicated. West needed to go nose first; his vertical movements were not nearly as flawless.
Patty had been right; it was little better than a dirt trail. However, it was wide and relatively clear of obstructions. “At least there are no power poles or light posts,” West said. Without hesitation, the other helicopter leveled just past a bend and quickly settled down amid a huge plume of dust. The skids had maybe five feet on either side.
“I left the bend for you,” Patty said over the radio. The bend in the road at the peak was about a third wider. West nodded, his jaw muscles flexing and teeth slightly exposed as he came in for a landing.
“Check your belts,” he warned as dust exploded into the air from their rotor wash.
“Is this a good idea?” Jeremiah asked. West didn’t answer; it took all his concentration to fly the helicopter. Jeremiah watched with eyes wide, holding his breath. He had a few hundred hours in small planes and couldn’t imagine the concentration it took to control a helicopter. Alex West had said he hadn’t flown one in years. Great.
Luckily for all on board, West possessed excellent instincts. That and the intervening hour of flight time had quickly helped bring back skills long dormant. There were some updrafts, but it was still spring, so they weren’t nearly as bad coming up the canyon as they would be in July or August. The helicopter’s skids hit the hard-packed tan soil with a thump! They started to bounce, and West worked at the controls, killing their lift and reducing power. They instantly settled back down.
“Thank you for flying OOE Airlines,” he said, “please wait until the pilot has turned off the fasten seat belt signs before getting up. Some baggage may have shifted during landing.”
“I think I left some baggage for you in my pants,” Allison said from the back. The craft’s turbine engine began to wind down as West went through the power-down checklist.
“We’re good,” he said, then examined the fuel gauge. “Plenty of gas, too.” He tapped an instrument. Jeremiah popped the big plastic copilot door, and the warmer Santa Catalina air blew dust in his face. Instantly his nose scrunched up.
“What’s that smell?” he asked.
“Decay,” West said. Everyone froze half out of the helicopter. The turbines on the helicopters were still spinning down, and the blades were whizzing overhead. They all sniffed the air. The smell of rot was subtle and unmistakable. “It’s coming up the canyon,” he said and pointed. A mile away, over the tops of some hills, the town of Avalon was partly visible. It looked normal, complete with several sailboats bobbing in the bay. Normal except for numerous curls of smoke rising from buildings.
“Come on,” Jeremiah said and slid down to the ground. “Let’s get going.” The rest of the men and women hesitated for a moment while their boss began trekking across the hilltop toward the crash site.
“Move it,” West said. “You heard the boss.” In moments, the tools and equipment were unshipped, and everyone was following him. “Stay with the helicopters,” he said to Patty as she was getting ready to leave her bird. “I want someone here to dust us off fast if things get dicey.” She examined the area, then nodded.
“Good vantage point,” she agreed. The woman reached under her windbreaker and drew the small frame semi-auto, checked that the chamber was loaded, then returned it. “You’re packing, right?”
“You bet,” he said. “After that adventure in space, I doubt I’ll ever be unarmed again as long as I live.” He gestured toward the group overtaking their boss. “I didn’t tell him, but most of us are carrying.”
“Don’t be long,” she said and began surveying the surrounding terrain. He shook his head and held up one of the small VHF radios.
“I’m on Channel 5,” he said. She reached into her helicopter and pulled one out, turning it on and switching it to the same channel. They did a quick radio check. “Sounds good, see you soon.”
West jogged along the rough path. It didn’t take long to catch up to Jeremiah. He was already complaining profusely and stumbling over bushes. The man was as wilderness-savvy as a Boston debutante. He managed to catch up well before they reached the crash site.
“Same craft,” Alison said from a few feet away. One of the specialists was sweeping the air with instruments, checking for radiation and dangerous gasses. “The lifeboat theory is more and more valid.”
“No harmful radiation,” the technician announced.
“This one is in a lot better shape,” West said as he stood next to Alison and examined it.
“I wonder if it still flies?” Jeremiah asked aloud.
“You’d have to find a toddler to fly it.” West noted. Jeremiah looked at him sideways, then remembered the pilot of the one they’d found in the Texas desert was tiny. It had resembled a red fox in some regards, a lemur in others. They had the body in a freezer back aboard his ship.
“Can we move it?”
“It only weighs around 100 pounds,” Alison said. They’d used straps to move the first one, though they were still worried about contamination from radiation back then. After taking that one apart, no such concern remained. The men all looked skeptical, but Jeremiah thought it was a grand idea, especially since he wouldn’t be doing any of the lifting.
The team set to work with shovels, carefully dislodging the craft from where it had hit. The one in Texas had been buried almost six feet under the hard-packed desert soil, but the ground here had cushioned the ship’s impact somewhat.
“Must have come in a lot slower,” Jeremiah noted. He had the ‘meteor storm’ data back in his office. All the targets entered the atmosphere at roughly the same speed, and that speed was damned fast. The one in Texas had never slowed a bit, while this one had apparently braked a lot before hitting. It wasn’t until they had it loose, and four strong men lifting it between them, that a thought occurred to Jeremiah. I wonder if the pilot is still alive inside? After a moment, he decided to keep that to himself.
“What’s that noise?” Alison asked as they began moving back toward the landing point.
“What noise?” West asked from his place at the nose of the craft.
“It sounds like a howling,” she said, and stopped to listen better. “Yeah, howling.” Jeremiah came up next to her on the side of the trail and looked down. His blood ran cold.
“It is howling,” he said. “We need to hurry!”
“Easy for you to say,” one of the men grumbled as he staggered and almost tripped over a large rock.
“No, he’s right,” Allison said, “we really need to hurry!” They could all hear the howling sound now as it got closer and more defined. West craned his neck to look and saw the source. A wave of people racing up the hill with stunning speed.
“Oh, fuck,” he said. “Jeremiah!”
“What?” Currently Jeremiah was doing his best to try to keep up with the now accelerating team carrying the spacecraft. “In my waistband, under my windbreaker, there’s a pistol.”
“A what?!” Jeremiah snapped. “You brought a gun?”
“Look down the damn hill, and tell me I shouldn’t have brought a fucking gun!” The howls were clear enough to make out individual voices. They ranged from young to old, male and female. They all sounded crazed, and the screeching was beginning to make them all wide-eyed with fear. “Take the gun, Jeremiah.”
“I…can’t.”
“Bullshit!” West snapped. “Take the gun, or take the ship from me.” Faced with choosing between two distasteful options, Jeremiah chose what he saw as the least physical. West felt his coat being moved and Jeremiah ineffectively tugging at the gun.
“It won’t come out of the holster thing.”
“It’s a positive retention holster,” he explained. “Push down
against the holster with your thumb while pulling the grip.”
“What?”
“Oh for fuck sake, take the ship!” West let go of the nose of the ship. The team all cried out and West caught Jeremiah by the shirt front and pulled him into position. The executive looked like he was being forced to carry a body, or a huge bag of stinky trash. West could tell he was taking less than his load. Still, he appeared to at least be stabilizing it for the other three.
Unburdened of the ship, West reached around and freed the gun from its holster. The weight of the Glock 23 was comforting in his hand as he let the others move on and took up a position near the rear. He could see more clearly now. There were at least a hundred infected scrambling up the hill. Many were nearly naked, while others were mostly clothed. He could see bare feet, torn bloody by the rock scrabble, but their owners were completely unaffected. Many had blood all down their fronts or bite marks on their bodies. Many looked right at him with deadly intent. It was the space station again, times a million.
West lined up the front sights on the approaching horde and fired his first shot. Some twenty yards further on, Jeremiah let out a loud yelp of surprise. His shot hit a naked man in the shoulder and passed through with a splash of blood to take a chunk out of a woman’s face behind him. The woman staggered but kept going. The man showed no reaction at all.
“Jesus Christ,” West hissed. They were less than 50 yards down the hill and running up it like they were on level ground. How could normal people even run up a hill like that? He aimed at the one at the very front of the pack, a Hispanic-looking man in his twenties wearing only a sports jersey and a single shoe. He shot him though the center of the chest. The round destroyed the man’s heart and exited his back to hit another man in the stomach. “No way,” West yelled as the first man continued for several steps, then simply fell face first. Two men behind him were sent sprawling as they fell over his body. Forty yards.
West ran for a moment to catch up with the others. Once he was behind them again, he turned to face their pursuers. Thirty yards. Abandoning precision, he aimed about hip-high and started firing, moving his aim side to side. Bang, bang, bang! the Glock pumped rounds down at the rushing mob. Then he pulled the trigger, and nothing happened. He turned the gun sideways to see the slide locked back. There was no way he’d gone through 13 rounds that fast. No fucking way. The result of his mag-dump was four more down, five injured. It’d had about as much effect on the mob as you’d have blowing air from your lungs at a tidal wave. He dropped the magazine, caught it with his right, slid it into a pocket, and reached for one of the two spares on his belt.