Terra

by Robert Turnbull

  “Not when I’m scared.”

  “Then scream yer fool head off if you get into trouble…or see this building is open.” Gil nodded and they began what had become the standard procedure for checking a building for breaches.

  Both men stayed back from the structure so they could check what little roof they could see from the ground. As it turned out now the structure was in full view, it was too large to be a garage. As they met at the front Gil frowned.

  “Dammit Sarge, this looks familiar.” A wide grin broke out and before Sarge could ask Gil what he meant, Gil dashed to the large barn style door and told his pal to help him bust the lock off. As Gil reefed on the door as the hinges squawked loudly and with a snap, began to pull open. There sitting in front of them was a helicopter. The body was covered in a large tarp and the blades tied to anchors in the floor. As the men began uncovering it Gil could see someone had prepared this chopper a long time ago.

  “This is a State Police chopper Gil, WTF is it doing here.”

  “WTF?” Gil asked with a strange look.

  “What the fuck…Jesus Gil where the fuck have you been all…” a sheepish look appeared on his face “ohhhh…I forgot, you’ve been sleeping the last fifteen years. It’s a texting term that…”

  “Texting?”

  “Remind me to explain this shit to ya sometime pal. I keep forgetting that before that you were stuck in that strange program and crap. Guess ya didn’t have much time for the internet.”

  Gil grinned “Nope, never let us go anywhere near a computer after we joined; that’s how top secret it was.” He looked around and all the time Sarge kept noticing that he was either grinning or nodding his approval. Finally he couldn’t stand it any longer.

  “What!” he glared at Gil “You walk around and grin, nod, and don’t say a damned thing. Next I suppose you’re gonna tell me is that you can fly it.”

  “Not exactly…” Gil muttered softly “I took lessons on one like this about seventeen years ago.” He walked over to several fifty-five gallon drums and walked around them.

  “These have been sealed all these years, no leaks…” he tapped each one “all are full.” he broke into a huge grin “I believe this fuel is viable. Look over there Sarge, there’s a hand pump…and look, a hose; someone intended to come back for this at a later date. And over there, empty nitrogen containers and fuel stabilizer, whoever it was finished filling what little air space in these drums with nitrogen. Nirtogen replaces the oxygen and help preserved the fuel, plus kept rust out with no air…someone knew what they were doing.”

  Sarge looked around and nodded “Yeah, agreed! I’ll bet when things fell apart the pilot headed here and prepped the chopper for a quick getaway when he returned.”

  “All the dust on this tarp, I’d say he never got back.” Sarge gave Gil a strange look.

  “Gil…if I pump enough gas into the chopper, can you see if it will start…fly?”

  The color drained from Gil’s face “Fly? Shit, I had six flights under my belt…with an instructor…twelve years ago, and one solo that consisted of a takeoff and landing. Are you fucking nuts?”

  Sarge leaned on one of the large fuel drums and crossed his arms “Ok let me put it this way, compared to the time it takes going the way we have to, using the chopper…faster or not than how we are traveling now with the chopper and ultra-light?” Gil nodded positively.

  “Compared again to what we have and could have…easier to evade swarms?” again a yes nod.

  “How about grinders? I mean if we’re on the ground at night and sleeping inside, can they scan us through the chopper’s fuselage?”

  Gil sighed in defeat, Sarge had made his point.

  “Only if everyone votes on this…and assuming we can get it started.” he started walking out the huge door and turned “AND…assuming it starts, AND I fly it solo around the field a bit to make sure I’m not going to kill anyone other than myself.”

  “Agreed and the gals will get to vote on traveling by chopper too…” he chuckled “after we all have seen how you fly.” He took the bung wrench and opened the first drum and screwed the hand pump into the drum, hooked the hose, and by the time Gil returned with the girls, was cranking furiously. Seeing them enter the building he smiled “Look guys, we take turns…all but Gil.” Gil started to object “Gil, we don’t want you trying to fly with your arms crying out in pain as mine are doing right at this moment.”

  Megan laughed, called Sarge a ‘wimp’ and took over…and soon was whining and apologizing to her lover. Izzy took over and cranked until the drum was emptied. The second drum was moved over and fuel was pumped in. Gil did his preflight and found the battery sitting in the rear seat. This guy had known what he was doing. It was a brand new battery with no acid in it and vacuum sealed in a heavy plastic. Next to it was a likewise sealed container of battery acid; again Sarge installed the battery not wanting to chance Gil getting injured.

  Gil noticed a switch on the console marked ‘Aux tank’ he checked around and found the auxiliary tank in the luggage compartment; which they also filled.

  “Well guys, that’s it.” Megan shouted down as fuel nearly spilled out of the filler neck.

  Sarge wiggled the drum “Looks like enough to top the tanks off once you take it for a spin. Looks like they had this trip planned to the last drop. We can go now.”

  “Assuming you don’t crash.” Izzy added to a chorus of dirty looks “What? Mom said tell the truth.”

  Gil chuckled “Atta girl Iz, and I wouldn’t want you any other way.” He closed the door and gripped onto the side as the others followed suit. One last look to make sure that the blades were still pointing forward where he had moved them to after untying them. Knowing that unless they were in this position, they’d never make it through the door without damage. He checked the wheels on the skids and realized that there were none. A quick look around and under another tarp were the wheels vacuum wrapped, but made from a solid rubber-like material and began pushing…no air needed to keep the tires inflated; again some well planned, forward thinking. Slowly Gil began to wonder who this person was that prepped this chopper so long ago, whoever it was, it wasn’t some regular pilot.

  “You know guys as this was prepped for long storage, maybe this guy or people might actually thought they’d come back, by the dust, it was a long time ago.” Gil slowly shook his head “Obviously they never did.

  Sarge gave Gil a semi-frown, but without hesitation muttered “Yeah…but now it’s finders keepers!” The girls chuckled and Gil knew deep down inside this was their best chance of survival.

  Now well away from the hangers and clear of the building it had been stored in, Gil had them get their things, including the cycle, and put them out in the open. He had joked about ‘incase he crashed into one of the hangars’ but they noticed that he wasn’t smiling.

  Gil had doubts that he could handle a chopper after all the years, but smiled reassuringly as he switched it on; there was little chance it would start, and he wouldn’t die a fiery death.

  On the second try, Gil was proven wrong. As the jet engine roared to life and the rotors began to spin up, he was glad grinders and swarms couldn’t hear because if they could…he sighed as his hands gripped the controls.

  All the time they had been pumping Gil had been running through what he had learned, what his instructor had told him, and strangely what he had seen in movies…anything that would give him a fighting chance.

  Making sure his friends had moved well back, he smiled to see it had been really ‘well back’. Twisting the throttle and pulling up on the collective the chopper hopped into the sky…and bounced back onto the ground. “More throttle” he shouted and the chopper was airborne. Realizing that his too fast ascent might damage the engine that had set for about a decade, he eased off…too much and the chopper dropped rapidly and as the hangar they had spent the night in loomed in front of him, he gave the throttle a twist and pulled the collective back…once again Gil saw
only sky.

  Now nearing one thousand feet he began a series of small maneuvers of climbs and dives, easy and sharp banks. After a few hovers he headed to the small concrete pad he had taken off from. Flying over the row of hangers he could see the two dead grinders…and the swarm feasting on them. Doing a hard turn he headed back away from his friends as the swarm charged his chopper. With a look back Gil could see the black mass coming hard and wondered if he could take them out with his rotors.

  “Ooooo, nooooo…having them get sucked into the air intake would be bad.” he bemoaned as he headed away at a slow speed. He knew from his past experiences with swarms in his ultralight that he could outrun them with this beast, so he watched his air speed. At five miles, he raced ahead of them, did a high wide turn and got into the few low hanging, fluffy clouds to get behind them and headed back toward the airport. This time Gil swung along the rows of hangers and once sure it was all clear, slowly settled downward toward the pad once again.

  As he landed and put the engines to idle, he saw the girls running to the chopper with their belongings and Sarge lugging the drum on a two-wheeled dolly. As deadly as it could be to refuel with the rotors running at idle, Gil had the tank topped off and as he scrambled back in as Sarge unscrewed the hose and hand pump. As Gil marveled at Sarge’s ingenuity, Sarge strapped the hose and pump into the skid supports. As Sarge climbed in the rear seat next to Gil, Izzy shouted and pointed to the field beyond the road…another swarm had found them!

  Gil gave the controls all he could with the extra fuel, the extra people, the chopper was rising far too slowly to escape the massive swarm. They knew they had been seen as the black cloud of death quickly changed in their direction.

  Knowing that he couldn’t climb quickly Gil waited until he got high enough to clear the hangars and swung the chopper around the building in which it had been stored. His companions grimaced as Gil threaded the needle between the two hangars, His blades mere inches over the quonset hut-style hangars and out over the open airfield. They slowly gained altitude and as they approached the trees on the far side of the runway another black swarm appeared.

  “Holy Shit!” Izzy screamed “There’s the ones we saw you lose.”

  “Yeah, about that,” Megan shouted as Gil swung the chopper hard to parallel the runway and slowly gained some more altitude “they’re back.”

  A few choice words from the worried pilot the chopper began to gain not only altitude, but distance from the two swarms. Still flying forward, Gil slipped the chopper sideways enough to see the two swarms come together into one giant mass, but instead of straightening back out kept flying at an angle away from the swarms.

  “Well will ya look at that?”

  Everyone strained to see what Gil was seeing until Izzy muttered “Are they fighting?”

  Sure enough, as they looked on, the swarms had stopped following and as the chopper gained even more distance the swarmers were dropping from the sky…they were indeed fighting.

  For the next hour or so all the conversation was about swarmers, maybe they were territorial like the grinders. But if that was the case, then why were the grinders they had seen lately so close together? Nothing was making any sense any more but then again, nothing really had made sense for the last decade.

  Chapter 14.

  Stopping at remote airports and mixing it in with the more stale fuel got them closer to the base in Texas. However it was getting to the point that Gil could barely get enough speed to stay airborne and he knew that this would be the last they could refuel unless they could find fresh fuel or some settlement that still knew how to create fuel, and those were a rarity these days. But luck held and a strong tail wind got them well into mid Texas and Gil prayed that they could reach this top secret complex that had been built under ground.

  He had been told it was huge and in the center was an underground structure the size of the old Houston Super Dome. Scanning the arid Texas landscape he began to wish they had built it on the surface as none of them could see a thing other than prairie, sand, and… he grinned, no signs of swarms or anything for a grinder to hide in. Where they were at now, must have been to hot or arid.

  “Guess that’s something.” he chuckled as they skimmed at about a thousand feet.

  “Makes sense.” Meg muttered as she heard Gil’s musings “Too hot and arid for humans, no humans, no grinders.” she chuckled as she squinted from the glaring sunlight streaming through the side windows “Guess no grinders, means no swarms.”

  Sarge nodded “That and swarmers seem to dry out too much in the desert and I found a grinder lying on the desert back in Death Valley just after our company broke up. Jesus, that thing was all cracked and oozing, guess the sun really dries those things out, worse in the desert. Not to mention…”

  Something caught Izzy’s eye and she nearly deafened everyone as she shouted over the headsets “SOMETHING GLINTED IN THE SUN!”

  Gil swung the chopper around to the southeast in the direction Izzy was pointing “There it is again!” she shouted in a more civil tone as the chopper slowed they could see a tent of some kind and flashes coming from the front flap.

  “Looks like someone is trying to get our attention.” Sarge muttered as he clicked the safety off his M-16.” he patted it and smiled “Might not be much good for grinders, but it sure will stop a scavenger or ambusher. Gil do a quick circle and then a slower one if it looks clear, could be someone hiding out under the sand and scrub brush.”

  “Roger that Sarge, would hate to get shot after getting by grinders and swarmers” he looked carefully as he swung low and fast by the tent.

  “Someone lying just inside, still could be a trap.”

  After checking the surrounding terrain they found they could set the chopper down one hundred yards away. The second the skid hit the sandy prairie Sarge and Meg headed toward the old torn tent while Izzy got out and covered the chopper from the other directions, Gil looked at his 9mm pistol and frowned, just felt helpless knowing that he wasn’t the best of shots. Should danger arise, he was to wait for Izzy, and take to the air, Sarge’s orders and even though he was a major, he relied on Sarge when it came to survival. He looked at the fuel gauge of the idling helicopter and frowned, there was barely any white showing between the last hash mark of the fuel gauge and the big ‘E’ on the left, and he doubted that they had twenty minutes left in the reserve tank.

  There was a few minutes of silence as they waited near the chopper and then came the call; it was all clear and to come in a hurry. Izzy jumped on the skid and Gil hopped the chopper much closer to the tent. Fearing he’d blow it off the ground, he landed and shut the engine down as Sarge instructed. He and Iz dashed over to the tent to find Sarge and Meg giving water to a man and woman. Both covered in dust, both looked like they were on their last legs. The woman swallowed and gave them a weak smile.

  “Thanks, you all came along just in the nick of time. We ran out of water about two days ago and in this heat…” she looked at Gil and Sarge looking around “They don’t roam out this far, grinders or the swarms. There’s no place for them to hide during the day, no place for the swarms to hide at night.” She went back to slowly sipping the life giving water.

  The tall and rather muscular man looked through his shaggy growth and Izzy almost giggled as he looked like a drawing of a big foot that she had seen in a book. His long brown hair dropped past his shoulders and his beard had to have been a good two months old.

  “Came out here to get away from a swarm about two and a half weeks ago. Damned vehicle Sue was driving blew something called a radiator hose.” he rubbed his sunburnt neck very gently and sighed “We took what we could and headed east hoping to find someplace called Zephyr. There is supposed to be some secret base south of there.”

  The woman nodded “Some guy in a settlement told us where to start looking, but it was a long time ago and he didn’t remember where this place he told us about was exactly.”

  “That’s where we’re he
aded…I think.” Gil muttered not sure if he should say anything or not. Finally figuring that they couldn’t leave them stranded out here, he continued “I have some business there…maybe.”

  The scraggly man stopped sipping and looked at Gil “You do?” there was a pause and then he strained to look at the pilot “I think I know you from somewhere.”

  Izzy and Meg walked closer to look at the dusty and dry pair as Meg pulled out her map.

  “There’s a small lake near where we’re headed so we can take you guys that far, but if we don’t find fuel soon, we all may be walking.”

  “Well if you all don’t mind going back the way we came, we passed a small airport about two days walk from here to the north.” she grinned with cracked dry lips, then winced when she smiled too wide “Car’s about a day’s walk north of here, the airport is on the same road. If that thing will run on car fuel we have some extra cans in the SUV we were driving. I know it’s a gamble, but could be worth the risk to back track.”

  Gil told them it might help provided there was enough av-gas to mix it with and agreed to take them there. A brief chat and the four agreed that they’d risk letting this couple take them to the airport. That was where they had gotten their regular gasoline, so maybe the av-gas tank was also holding enough fuel to get them to this base Gil kept talking about. It was there they had met a small group of prairie dwelling nomads, and given directions to this mysterious base called Zephyr. Even the nomads didn’t come out this far due to the lack of water and this pair found out why.

  Once the couple got hydrated enough they all squeezed into the chopper and made it to the spare gas, within an hour more, they were parked in front of a hangar and filling the nearly bone dry tank.

  There was a small rivulet running nearby and the new comers ducked out to bathe. Sarge covered the man and Meg the woman as Izzy and Gil fueled the chopper. Meg chuckled as the small stream ran muddy from all the dirt that was washed off the man, and then came downstream and was joined by the woman’s.