A Time to Die

by Mark Wandrey

  He’d flown CAS, close air support, for groundies more than once. He’d even escorted a couple of the gunships. But when they did their thing he was usually 20,000 feet above them, high and circling with radar active to look for threats. Despite the devastating firepower the Specters carried, aside from some flares and chaff, they were easy meat for an enemy fighter or even an enemy combatant with a MANPADS.

  The huge plane circled above them as the Mexicans cheered it killing their former friends, family, and countrymen. Tobey had expected one pass, maybe two. Instead it stayed on station pouring death. Then, one of its engines burst into smoke, then flame. “Oh, that’s not good.” He snatched his binoculars and focused. The fire was out, but he noticed that it was already down one engine. Man, he owed General Rose a fucking semi-tanker of beer for this. That pilot was letting it all hang out.

  Finally, he finished one wider turn and headed off towards the northnorth, much lower than Tobey would have done in any combat theater. As he watched another engine started to smoke. “Go with God, brother,” he said silently, “and thanks.”

  “That was unbelievable,” Kathy said when he climbed out of the hatch on her floor, still smoking machine gun over his shoulder and his last belt of .223 wrapped around an arm like Rambo.

  “Guess that call was worth it,” he agreed, “let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  “There are many more,” Enrico said as he entered the room, pointing out the window. True, the AC-130 had decimated their numbers, but hundreds remained.

  Tobey glanced at his belt, and at the three mags left on the nightstand next to Kathy. “We have to make a run for it while they’re figuring things out.” So in a few minutes they managed to clear the remnants of the stairs and people were half climbing, half jumping into the slaughterhouse of the first floor.

  Tobey was first out the back door, and met by a pair of crazies who looked hungry. He gave them a burst and sent them sprawling off the porch. Then over the scrubs came the second best thing he’d ever seen: two CH-47 Chinook helicopters with a single Apache gunship escorting. He silently changed it to two tanker trucks.

  The Apache affected a tight circle, similar to what the AC-130 had done. Its chaingun cleared a perimeter and it moved off to take down some more crazies that the Specter had missed. The two Chinooks came in how and fast, flaring less than fifty yards out. Both their side doors were open, men on M-60 machine guns firing intermittently at targets.

  The pilots were good. Just a meter off the ground they rode their dual rotors and spun around, rear doors already dropping as they set down. A man was there, .50 Browning on the door mount sweeping from side to side. Another soldier waved then gestured towards the door. “Fast, fast,” was the motion. Tobey nodded.

  “Move it fast!” he yelled and pointed. The people split into roughly even groups and raced towards the choppers. Kathy appeared with her backpack slung, camera in one hand, HK-91 in the other. Tobey watched as the last of the civilians were aboard, Kathy was on board in front of him, then he stepped on the ramp. “Major Tobey Pendleton requesting permission to come aboard,” he told the crew chief and saluted.

  “Major Pendleton,” the man said and returned the salute and then held his hand out, “Lieutenant Alice, Sir. With the General’s compliments, welcome aboard.”

  Chapter 22

  Monday, April 23

  Late Afternoon

  The support ships moved along with the launch platform in the near dusk mist. Now forty miles westwest of Long Beach and well below the curve of the earth, Jeremiah breathed a sigh of relief. At least this time he wouldn’t end up on YouTube. Or so he hoped. They’d been out and back with the launch support ship so many times, no one really took notice anymore.

  The video of Angel One explosively surfacing in San Diego harbor then slowly sinking while all of the OEE support ships raced in to retrieve them had been shot from a cell phone almost a mile away. Poor quality. The press dubbed it a poor forgery, an attempt by Jeremiah Osborne to drum up publicity for his failing venture. Besides, rabid Sure,[[?]] the venture was failing, that much was true. There were dozens of other good quality videos of the sinking ship, but that was not as damaging as the submerged ship popping to the surface like an abused tub toy.

  When they had pulled out in the predawn hours, a few curious boats had tailed them. He’d been a bit concerned. Then the last of them turned around more than twenty miles ago, unprepared for an open ocean trip. The seas were pitching three meters, and he was sure that had helped.

  “We’ve established station keeping,” his chief of ocean operations announced.

  “Thank you,” Jeremiah responded. It was the first time his Mission Control center was fully staffed. Many of them had been called in with little notice. He was surprised most of them showed up. Personnel filled in the holes with contingency lists. Considering they were all temps, he tried not to think about how he’d pay them. His accounts looked like binary, without the 1s. “Let’s have a go, no-go report?”

  “Flight ops, go.”

  “Tracking, go.”

  “Telemetry, go.”

  “Computer, go.”

  “Propulsion…go?”

  “That doesn’t sound optimistic,” Jeremiah said. On the big screen, a camera from inside the ship showed the flight crew. Pilot, copilot, and engineer. In this case the engineer had ended up being Alison McDill. Jeremiah had figured he’d have to bribe or cajole her into doing the job. The right stuff wasn’t found in most scientist or computer types. Instead she’d cornered him in his office after she’d returned from the recovery ship and just after the Coasties were finished with him and said if he tried to keep her off the next test, she’d quit.

  Jeremiah tried to act like he wasn’t certain if it were a good idea, but the ear to ear grin resulted in a rather unsuccessful attempt. She’d left feeling rather smug with herself.

  “Captain West, how’s it look?” he asked.

  The test pilot, Alex West, came well recommended. Well past sixty, he’d cut his teeth in the F-18 test program and had more than 10,000 hours in various high altitude, faster than the speed of sound platforms. He was one of the only pilots that had responded to his offer who was also helo qualified.

  West shrugged and checked his displays. “Considering this is officially the strangest ship I’ve ever strapped myself into, looks fine.”

  Jeremiah had been surprised someone as qualified as West had come to him, especially since the money he offered was anemic at best. “The heyday of my career is behind me,” he admitted. “I have to admit the chance to get into space one more time is impossible to resist.”

  His copilot was exactly the opposite. Lloyd Behm was an Air Force Academy dropout. Top of his class, he just wasn’t Air Force material. But his piloting ability was top notch. After winning two Red Bull championships on the high performance plane circuit, he was looking for a challenge. Going into space qualified. “This is going to be awesome,” Lloyd said, strapped into the copilot seat with a grin that would take surgery to remove.

  “A great disaster,” Alison whispered into her microphone.

  “I heard that,” Jeremiah said. “So what, we have a countdown?”

  “Seems redundant,” his range control officer said. “It’s not like there’s going to be a blastoff or anything.”

  “Good point,” Jeremiah agreed. He waved at the bank of LCD screens. “Azanti, you’re cleared to take off when ready.”

  “About fucking time,” Alex said. “Engineer?”

  “Well,” Alison said, “the interface hasn’t been trimmed out but you have poweeeerrrrR!”

  “Seems to work well enough,” Alex said as the Azanti left the improvised cradle and rocketed straight up into the morning sky.

  “Mach 1!” Lloyd called out as a shudder passed through the craft. “Mach 2, MachMach 3, MachMach 4. Alex, easy man, this thing isn’t hypersonic rated!”

  “Nose temperature approaching red line,” Alison warned.

&
nbsp; Alex nodded and slid the throttle back until their acceleration slowed.

  “Max Q,” Alison said.

  “No need to throttle back, I guess,” Alex said. There was a silent agreement so he just held the speed.

  “Altitude 100,000 feet!” Lloyd said. “Yahooooo!”

  “Throttle forward,” Alex said as the atmosphere thinned. He glanced at the track and angled their ascent. The controls weren’t as linear as he’d like so he touched one of the little tabs on the yoke, adjusting the trim. “Better,” he said.

  “How’s it handling?” Alison asked.

  “Surprisingly well,” Alex said, glancing out the wrap around one piece polyacrylic view port. “And you can’t beat the view.”

  Lloyd looked up from his instrument. “Are we in space?”

  Alex checked his angles again, made another adjustment of their vector, and then glanced at the radar altimeter just as it passed 350,000 feet. “You are now.”

  “Azanti, OEE flight control.”

  “OEE go ahead,” Alison replied.

  “We show you in powered orbit. You need another 4,000 MPS for self-sustained orbit.”

  “Noted,” she said.

  Alex said, “Roger that,” and pushed the throttle forward again. As before, there was absolutely no sensation of motion in the ship. A moment later ground control came on once more.

  “You’re nominal, Azanti. Congratulations.”

  The flight control supervisor’s voice was almost inaudible over the roar of applause from everyone present. All except Jeremiah Osborne. He knew he should be excited like everyone else, but all he felt was a bittersweet feeling of defeat. All those years to develop and finish the Azanti, and in the end it gets into orbit the first time as a result of an alien device no bigger than a toaster and whose workings no one understood.

  In the background he listened as the controllers gave reports of the craft’s condition. The hybrid hydrogen fuel cells, beefed up for this trip, had barely used 5% to reach orbit. Next they went through an agreed upon series of tests of the drive mechanism to see how it responded outside of the atmosphere. Sending complex power waveforms into the drive they spun, yawed, and rotated the Azanti. Next they used the built in RCS thrusters to do the same. The alien drive was far more efficient and used almost no power in the process.

  Captain West spoke up. “Recommend we go to stage two.”

  “I disagree,” Alison replied instantly. “We need to take this step by step, and that’s not a step, that’s a leap. We don’t know how long that orbit will take!”

  Everyone in flight control looked at Jeremiah. “How’s consumables?”

  “We have human consumables for 96 hours nominal,” the specialist replied over her intercom.

  “Fuel?” Jeremiah pressed.

  “That’s unknown,” Alison said. “We used very little getting up here. But we don’t know if that gets worse the farther we are from a gravity well.”

  “Worse case we turn around,” Lloyd suggested.

  Jeremiah held up a hand as conversation buzzed. It quickly quieted down. “Can we plot a free return, just in case?”

  “No problem,” flight control reported.

  “Oh Lord,” he heard Alison whisper. He needed to remind the engineer just how sensitive the microphones were.

  “Flight, they’re good for lunar orbit,” Jeremiah said, to more applause.

  “Mr. Osborne?” Jeremiah looked up to see one of his assistants running over with a phone. “It’s Space Command, sir!”

  Jeremiah smacked his forehead. “I guess no one thought to file a flight plan?”

  In space, the two pilots were exchanging high fives. Behind them, in one of the three rear seats, Alison looked like she’d just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. The captain, Alex, as he insisted his crew call him, turned to offer her a high five and saw the look of horror on her face.

  “Cheer up, Ma’am,” he said with a typical big wide smile. “What could possibly go wrong on the maiden voyage around the moon of a ship that’s never been in space?”

  “And not designed to leave earth orbit?” Lloyd added. Turning back forward, Lloyd winked at Alex who gave him a wry grin.

  “Assholes,” Alison said as she turned attention to her boards.

  “Guidance is being uploaded from ground control,” Lloyd informed them.

  “Did you get your calculation on approximate G forces at liftoff?” Alex asked Alison.

  “Computer says 120 gravities, nominal.”

  “Never felt a thing,” Alex commented. “And I didn’t get past 20% throttle.”

  “And the power input of 20% was just arbitrary,” Alison pointed out. “I can flip a switch here and 20% becomes 2%. Or .002% for that matter.”

  “What’s the limit?” Lloyd wondered.

  She shrugged and considered. “Well, the device has to have a limit, unless we’re wrong about more than how gravity works. But the real limit is out input voltage. Based on that I can increase power by five orders.”

  The younger pilot did the math in his head. “So top acceleration is on the order of 60 million gravities? You’ve got to be shitting me, right?”

  “That’s what the max suggests. I guess we’re going to find that out.”

  “Azanti to OEE,” Alex transmitted, “we have your uploaded telemetry. We are preparing to break orbit in five minutes.”

  “Acknowledged, Azanti. The clock is running.”

  The crew worked for a few minutes as the data was input into the computer and numbers were estimated. “Looks like we have the solution,” Lloyd said and displayed the data.

  “That’s a lot less than we used to get into space,” Alex noted.

  “You hotshots are the ones that insisted we leave orbit, at least let me widen our base measurements before we go all apeshit?” Alison demanded. Alex nodded in agreement. She did have a point, not knowing what the drive might do when away from a planet.

  The clock ticked down and the captain linked the flight controls to the computer. This would be their first test of the automatic systems. The timer reached zero and the power meters showed power flowing to the drive. Outside the stars moved as the ship aligned with its new course and accelerated.

  “Smooth as a newborn’s ass,” Alex said with a thumbs up.

  The ship accelerated smoothly for five minutes. Lloyd used the onboard radar system to take measurement readings from established sources to estimate their distance from earth. “We’re nominal to profile,” he told them. Everyone nodded, even Alison was beginning to feel confidence.

  “Approaching midpoint,” Alex told them. “MECO in five…”

  Alison glanced up and saw something white streak out of her view. “What was that?”

  “Uhm…” said Lloyd, “the moon?”

  Alison’s eyes tried to focus out the wide panoramic windshield, and comprehend the sight of the stars turning into long streaks of light. “Oh, fuuuuu!”

  * * *

  Vance turned the fine tuning knob on the shortwave radio, everyone else in the lodge gathered around on stools listening quietly. Even the three dogs which had all been acting like preteen boys since the new arrivals two days ago were now quietly sitting by their owners. Perhaps they could sense the tension in the air. Four hours ago the cellular network had failed, followed shortly by the broadband DSL. Vance had reached everyone via radio and brought them in quickly. By the time they all arrived he had the shortwave antenna extended to its full 20-meter length and was surfing the bands. It didn’t take long to find what he was looking for.

  “…York city,” a refined voice was saying. “National Guard units have arrived in Humvees and tracked vehicles to assist police in riot control gear. Wide spread reports say there have been intermittent reports of… I’m reading this directly from the AP, cannibalism!”

  Vance moved the dial to another preset.

  “…a running firefight near Redondo Beach with rioters. LA County Sheriff units have requested assistance
from the National Guard, however the Governor has thus far resisted these calls, referring to them as reactionary responses to minor civil unrest.”

  He moved it again.

  “…of over 3,000 micro Sieverts per hour. We say again, stay in your homes. Civil defense warnings are in place!” The broadcast broke into static.

  “What the fuck was that?” Belinda asked, her eyes wide. “Did he say 3,000 micro Sieverts?”

  “Yes,” Vance said, “that’s a radiation reading, right?” He was struggling to remember how much that was. Prepping for a nuclear war was way out of vogue.

  Belinda shook her head. “That’s as much radiation as the average American absorbs in an entire year! How long is that exposure, and from what?”

  Vance had been hearing whispers on the web of a nuclear bomb going off in Mexico when his connection failed. It wasn’t enough to go to them with details, so he hadn’t mentioned it. He was about to say something about it when the broadcast restarted.

  “Civil defense through FEMA has issued a warning for the Gulf Coast of Florida from Naples to Pensacola. An incident within Mexico has released significant amounts of airborne radiation which has crossed the Gulf of Mexico and is currently impacting the Florida coasts. This radiation is hazardous, and extended contact has the risk of being fatal. Residents should stay indoors. Avoid going out doors except in emergencies. Exposure levels of over 3,000 micro Sieverts per hour are possible. We say again…” Vance turned down the volume. The room was deathly silent. There was his confirmation.

  “Try the BBC,” Tim suggested. Nicole nodded.

  “Do it,” Ann prompted. Vance turned to the preset, afraid of what he’d hear. He almost laughed in relief when he heard the British accented announcer. Then he listened and felt his blood turn to ice.