by Saxon Andrew
“Yes, you know that’s something I would learn early.”
Jeff smiled, reached into his back pack, and pulled out a duplicate of his handgun. “The magazine has two hundred rounds. You won’t have the aiming helmet to assist you, but just point and shoot. Anything with a heat source will appear in the sight. You have about an effective range of about two hundred yards.”
“The first position on the selector is for explosive rounds, right?”
Jeff shook his head, “Yes, they are effective against aircraft. How did you know that?”
“I’m pretty good at getting into government websites.”
“Well, make them count. Here they come.”
Dolly hunkered down behind the huge lifter and asked, “Are you Alpha Agents as good as advertised?”
“We better hope so. Keep your head down.” Jeff raised his hand and shot three skimmers as they passed overhead. All three blew up in huge explosions, showering the street with debris. Dolly kept her eye on the barrier behind them and fired at two skimmers that came roaring over the top of it. Both exploded and showered the street with hot metal. Dolly heard numerous pings on the blade of the lifter over her head. Another skimmer came screaming up the street toward them, and Jeff raised his left arm and released a small self-propelled missile. It ejected from an arm band and ignited three feet away. It shot away at supersonic speed hitting the incoming skimmer on the nose and blowing it apart. The pieces skidded by them, and two large pieces were stopped by the wheels on the lifter. Jeff hit his communicator, “Alpha Two, what’s your status?”
“Barely holding on, One. Fifteen skimmers have landed, and a hundred ground troops are moving my way.”
“Hold out, help will be here soon.”
Dolly looked up the street and saw one of the larger skimmers had landed at the end of the building. The occupants stepped out and were setting up a tripod. “Dolly, they’re out of my range. We’ll have to move quickly.”
“Jeff, remove your magazine and let me hit it with the anti-gravity gun.”
Jeff furrowed his brown, but popped the magazine and Dolly flashed it with the small gun. “Try it now.”
Jeff popped the magazine back in place, allowed his gun to find the tripod in it scanner, and fired an explosive round at the distant missile launcher. The round left so fast that it broke the sound barrier a hundred feet out and hit the launcher in less than a second. The round hit the tripod and exploded the missile being loaded into its barrel. The eight man crew was blown in all directions, and body parts rained down on the street. Jeff looked at Dolly, “What did you do?”
“The rounds in the magazine are now pretty much weightless. They won’t drop. Just fire them at anything and they should stay on the line. Be careful not to miss.”
Jeff smiled and read the targets being picked up by his helmet’s scanners. He raised his handgun, slaved his gun to the helmet’s scanner, and began firing at the designated targets. Attackers began falling at a huge rate. He hit six more skimmers coming in more than a mile from the port. Debris was falling around the spaceport, and the city just outside the fence. Suddenly more than a hundred and fifty of the attackers rushed down the street toward their location, laying down a heavy covering fire. The rounds hitting the lifter sounded like heavy rain on a tin roof. Hundreds were hitting, and the volume of fire was so high Jeff couldn’t return their fire. Jeff was forced to stay behind the lifter and saw they were going to be on top of them quickly. “I’m sorry, Dolly.”
Dolly saw his face and turned the control on the anti-gravity gun to full and stuck it out around the edge of the lifter and pulled the trigger. She swept it across the width of the street, and Jeff saw attackers flying up into the sky at a prodigious rate. He stuck his head out and saw that all of them were flailing their arms as they rose quickly into the clear sky overhead. Even the debris on the street lifted with them and headed into the blue sky. Jeff watched them disappear and grabbed Dolly’ hand. They ran to the end of the building, turned the corner, and headed to the eastern side of the huge facility. They arrived at the other end and Jeff looked around the corner. He saw more than two hundred attackers advancing on Bob’s position. Dolly raised the gun and swept it across the ones out to the side of Bob’s position. Jeff and Dolly raised their guns and fired on those that were between them and the pinned down Alpha Agent.
The attackers lifted and flew into the sky so fast they were hard to follow. One of the attackers was flailing his arms attempting to get his balance to detonate a device he was carrying. He managed to set it off but he was so far up in the sky that the explosion only killed the hundreds of attackers around him. No body parts showered the streets. Everything continued to lift higher and faster into the atmosphere.
Jeff continued to advanced on the rear of the attackers between them and Bob, and they fell before they realized they were in danger from their rear. Forty attackers lay on the street, and Jeff watched them for any movement.
Then there was silence. Jeff rushed forward and found Bob with a hole in his left chest, grimacing in pain. He pulled a med-pack and bandaged it to stop the bleeding. Dolly listened and heard a loud roar as fifty military craft came charging in and landed in the streets. Four hundred Alpha Agents rushed out and took control, removing the wounded attackers that were scattered around their landing site for later questioning. Any that offered resistance were shot.
Kahale and the Iman watched as the spaceport grew smaller below them. Everything was going according to plan until they were suddenly lifted off the ground and hurled rapidly into the sky. Kahale looked at the Iman as the temperature grew colder and said, “Even Allah has turned his back on us. We have lost our way.” Kahale flailed his arms to face toward the East and offered his last prayer.
The Iman tried to think of how to answer Kahale, but now the air was so thin his vocal cords wouldn’t function. Thirty seconds later they left the atmosphere and their bodies exploded in the emptiness of space. Their remains continued to fly away from the planet. Four days later they passed the moon, and were pushed even faster on their way to the far reaches of the solar system.
Dolly walked up to Jeff, put her arms around him, and held on tight as she started trembling from the adrenaline rushing through her body. She saw Jeff looking at the sky and she said, “What are you thinking?”
“The ones that attacked us were brave warriors and were fighting for what they thought was right. I admire their bravery and their willingness to die for their beliefs. That kind of bravery is a rare thing. I hope they have peace in the afterlife. They deserve it.”
Dolly put her head on his shoulder and felt her love for the man who respected those that would try to kill him. A heart like this was also rare, and she loved him even more for it. Jeff continued to stare at the sky, saying a prayer for those that had died.
General Thompson walked up to Jeff and he saluted, “What do you think happened here Colonel?”
“I’m sorry, General, I’m a Captain.”
“Not any more. Tell me what you know?”
“Robert Owen’s scanners picked up an anomaly in the traffic pattern four days ago. He showed me that the same skimmers were passing the port at the same time every day. We both started looking at the pattern, but nothing conclusive presented itself. This afternoon we saw that fifty skimmers were going to pass close to the spaceport all within ten seconds of each other. I called for help and sent the staff into the armored room. That’s when the skimmers attacked.”
The General looked over the damaged skimmers and said, “I looked over your data, and it appears that the Iman that launched the nuclear warhead on Jerusalem was the leader of this attack.”
Jeff looked up in the sky and then back at General Thompson, “How was he able to get into our country?”
“That’s a question that we will get to the bottom of shortly. Tracing how they acquired these skimmers will start us in the right direction.” The General looked up and said, “I’m curious about how you were ab
le to send those attackers into the atmosphere.”
“Sir, I’m bound by project security to keep silent on what is being done here. I’m sure Arnold Gordon would be glad to tell you. He’s inside, and I’ll gladly bring him to you.”
General Thompson shook his head, “No, No, that won’t be necessary. I’ll contact you if we need to debrief you any further.” He looked at Dolly and said, “Thank you, Miss. You helped a lot.”
Dolly smiled, “I just hid behind Jeff.”
Thompson smiled and said, “Good work, Soldier.”
Jeff saluted, and watched the General go take charge of the cleanup. He went over to the medivac and looked for Bob. “Are you ok?”
Bob smiled and took a deep breath, “The drugs go a long way toward making everything righteous but I guess you already know about those.”
Jeff smiled, “I don’t remember much about them but I know they’ll take good care of you at the clinic. Tell Dr. Keenan hello for me.”
“I will. Be easy on your new partner.”
“And spoil all my fun. I’ll keep him on his toes until you’re able to come back.” Jeff put his hand on Bob’s shoulder and nodded at the pilot, “Take care of him.”
“I will, sir.”
Bob looked Jeff in the eye and Dolly saw the mutual respect they had for each other. Dolly held on to Jeff as they watched the medivac lift and head toward the west.
“You two have been quite the busy pair.”
Jeff and Dolly turned around and saw Jillian and Chris standing behind them.
Dolly smiled, “Jeff wanted to dance with these strangers and you know how jealous I am. I told them he’s mine and to go find another one.”
Jillian laughed and Chris said, “Dolly, tell me what you did to the anti-gravity device?”
Jillian looked at Dolly with a furrowed brow and Dolly looked guilty, “Uhh, what do you mean?”
Jillian looked at Chris also wondering what he was talking about.
“We had scanners in the room and we saw the attackers being pushed into the sky. It had to be done with anti-gravity. I’ve studied that device and the most it could do was make something weightless. You made it operate at a high positive gravity setting. What did you do?”
Dolly smiled and looked at Jillian as she said; “Now Chris, you know we have been forbidden to do anything to the device. I could be imprisoned for making any changes to it.”
Jillian started giggling, though she was trying to control herself. Chris watched her struggle to keep a straight face and started smiling. Dolly looked at Jeff and said, “You know how I follow instructions.”
Jeff burst out laughing, and Jillian lost it as well. Chris was smiling and shaking his head. Dolly took a deep breath, “Putting something like that in front of me is like a bowl of ice cream in front of a Rottweiler; something is going to get eaten. Just don’t let it be your hand trying to remove it.”
Chris said, “Dollllllly?”
“All right, I just connected it to the original settings the Sheera had on it.”
Jillian stopped laughing, “What do you mean the original settings?”
“I took a good look at the device and thought about what I would do with a similar device being used by a primitive society. I would make sure they couldn’t hurt themselves with it. I started thinking about how could someone get hurt with anti-gravity and it occurred to me that if the device could actually negate gravity; why couldn’t it use gravity?”
Chris tilted his head, “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Well, what if it truly was an anti-gravity device where anything hit with it was pushed away from anything with a gravity field. The stronger the anti-gravity field, the harder the push away from anything with gravity.”
“What did you do?”
“Well, Jillian, I removed the cover over the control and saw that there was an equal amount of movement beyond the setting on the handle. So, I modified the handle to allow me to trial it.”
Chris smiled, “What was the result?”
“Wellllll, I took one of the control modules from a weather balloon and put it on the ground and hit it with the beam at noon.”
“Why at noon?”
“Chris, you should know the answer to that: so that if it did work, the module would head toward the sun and not endanger any ships in the solar system. We don’t have any ships operating toward the inner planets, so I felt it shouldn’t cause any trouble.”
“And?”
“According to my monitors, it left the planet at a hundred thousand miles an hour and was picking up speed. However, I made a mistake.”
Jeff looked at her, “What was that?”
Jillian said, “What has the largest gravity field in the solar system?”
Jeff furrowed his brow, and then knew, “The Sun.”
Dolly laughed, “It left Earth and got as far as two hundred thousand miles away, then reversed course and came back at us at eighty miles a second. As it approached Earth, it was pushed off to the right and then accelerated out toward the orbit of Neptune.”
Jeff smiled and said, “Looks like you won’t need the weather balloons to lift the ship.”
Chris nodded, “You’re right. Dolly, is there a limit to the size of object the field can move?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, could it affect Earth’s orbit if many large objects are made weightless?”
Dolly got a far-a-way look and then frowned, “This is not a device that we want to build a society around. It just might have an effect if used on a large scale. This should be engineered to be used only on starships outside Earth’s gravity well.”
Jillian smiled, “Dolly, you have free reign to work on any device in this project.”
Dolly smiled and said, “I was hoping you would let me play. This is going to be fun.”
Jillian smiled and then looked at Chris, “I guess we need to put the dance off. We have a lot to do.”
Dolly laughed, “Go ahead and get at it, but Jeff and I are going to dance, dance, dance.”
Chris smiled and said, “Not without us.”
Jillian looked at Chris and he said, “Like you said, it could cause bad luck if we miss a day.”
Jeff looked at Dolly and she winked at him. Jeff was constantly amazed at the free spirit he had chosen to love. Now he knew she was brave, almost fearless, and he felt his heart beat faster as he thought about holding her close. Dolly looked at the tablet and said, “The video on how they built it can wait until tomorrow.”
Chris smiled and said, “I’ll see you back here at eight.”
Jillian looked uncomfortable, but nodded.
Jeff took Dolly in his arms and lifted her for a kiss. Jillian watched them and left for her quarters. She was worried about the project and didn’t want to lose time getting the ship ready. She sighed, and thought that luck had been with them today. The ship could have been destroyed, but fortunately Dolly came through again.
Jillian thought about the young couple and wondered how Dolly could be so attracted to a man that was not nearly as brilliant as her. But she was. She looked back at them as she reached for the door and saw Jeff hold Dolly under his left arm as they stared up at the tablet. Then she knew. She knew why Dolly had followed Jeff into the teeth of the attack. She felt safe in his arms. In an unsafe world, Dolly had found her haven. She had looked at Jeff’s personnel file and saw that he had an IQ of 160. He was no Einstein, but he was smarter than ninety eight percent of the rest of the planet. If Dolly waited for someone as smart as she was she would probably end up alone. She looked again and saw Dolly looking up at Jeff with love in her eyes, and Jillian felt envy. She opened the door and left the building.
It was eight thirty and Jillian had not appeared. Dolly looked at Jeff and saw he was feeling bad for Chris. So was she. She thought Jillian was making progress, but she began to realize that the closer Jillian got to anyone, the faster she would run away. Oh well, that’s a burden of loneliness she would a
lways bear.
Chris looked at Dolly and Jeff and said, “Well, what would you like to hear first?” He stepped up to the terminal and punched up the sound system. He adjusted the searchlights and had them shine on Dolly and Jeff. He lowered the other lights in the building and said, “I’ll pick one for you.”
Dolly did a curtsey and said, “Surprise us, oh master of the music.”
Chris connected his computer pad to the sound system and pulled up a song, “This is a song that was done by Gene Pitney back in 1963. Let’s see how you like it.” The song started and Dolly moved into Jeff’s arms.
“If I didn’t have a dime and I didn’t take the time to play the juke box, ohhhh Saturday night would have been a sad and lonely night for me……”
Chris watched them dance and thought about his family. He had lost so much when they died, but he had been given so much in life. He realized, for the first time, that he wouldn’t change his life if given the opportunity. He knew he had made a difference in a lot of students’ lives, and that made him feel fulfilled. He knew his family would be proud of him. He glanced at the jug of booze next to him, but felt no desire to drink. He leaned back in his chair, took a deep breath, looked up at the ceiling, and said, “Thank You.”
He felt a tap on his shoulder, and there was Jillian in a bright red two piece outfit. The top was tight on her, and very revealing. The short red mini-dress was amazing. “Who were you giving thanks to?”
Chris stared at her, and she saw his appreciation of her appearance, “I was thanking God for giving me such a wonderful life. Seeing you like this is the icing on the cake. You are so beautiful, Jillian. You don’t have to dance with me if you don’t want to.”
Jillian looked him in the eyes and said, “There is nothing in this universe that I would rather do than dance with you tonight.” She smiled and said, “I’ll even let you lead.”
Chris stood, stepped down from the terminal, and gave Jillian his arm. She stepped down and they moved to the dance floor as the song continued, “...now with every sweet caress, oh my darling how I bless that little jukebox. Ohhh, love songs that they sing wouldn’t mean a single thing, if you weren’t standing there…..”