The colonel was already unfastening the safety harness from the fallen gunner. He gave Troy a half nod in affirmation and then clipped him beneath the window. “This isn’t that hard. Two hands, aim and shoot. Your cannon fires tracers and live rounds, additional rounds are mirrored from the turrets forward and aft.” Troy peered across to the gunship and its firing cannon, the turrets syncing with the gunner’s movement. “They’ve hacked into our own automated defenses,” the colonel continued, “so we’ve got nowhere to go but the target. You see anything on a rooftop move, light it up!”
Then Samuels returned to the men up front, leaving Troy in the gunner’s position.
The gunner’s vantage was a lot different than the view from the backseat. Their sister gunship was meters away. He could see the glowing blue eyes of the Syn gunner, and he was now in the hail of fire. Down on the seawall, tiny fires burned across the building tops, some exploding into elongated plumes. The section of the city beneath them appeared to be an incomplete model, with several of the pieces, girders, and lumber stacked neatly to the sides. There were no people or cars, just rows and rows of construction sites, some with small fires. Then the harmless façade went active as a barrage of fire and sparks showered up toward him from the darkened rooftop.
Without thinking, Troy squeezed and saw his tracers rain down onto the roof. The large cannon rattled his teeth. He focused and targeted. The brilliant glow of his tracers arced in a long flowing ribbon from the muzzle of the cannon as he swung it to the side. There was small plume of flame — a silent explosion from the building — and the tracers below stopped spitting, but only from there.
It was a game of whack-a-mole, one turret down would awaken another. There was no system, no measure, and if there was, his mind was too busy concentrating on seeking out the next eruption of anti-aircraft fire to process one.
Their sister gunship was already spiraling down before Troy realized she’d been hit.
The oddity of the silent fall, he thought, yet he’d no time to muse over the descending gunship. Countermeasures burst below and other turrets were popping up. Troy remained focused. His heart pounded rapid in his chest, yet his aim was true to his mark.
He was confident the lights below were extinguishing faster than they were igniting, that he and the other gunners were overcoming them. Then the deck of the gunship slipped from beneath him and he fell back as the huge craft flipped in the sky.
He dangled from the harness as the cabin rolled into several directions.
When the gunship righted itself he was thrown to the side, head on the floor. Spitz was lying at Leana’s feet, his eyes lifeless. Troy’s eyes darted up to Leana’s face. She stretched her hand across the cabin, and he met hers with his. The craft was near level. They were weightless —falling.
Then Samuels was on her, wrapping her with a sidewall-fastened belt.
“We’re going in!” Samuels yelled into the headset. “Hold tight.”
* * *
To fall from such a great height takes tens of seconds, yet to Troy, the plunge was slow. He stared into the image of himself in Leana’s tearing eyes. Each was strapped to a different side of the cabin, their forearms in an interlinked embrace that promised to never let go. It was now that he could see deep into his lovely wife’s soul, now that he felt close to her, he mouthed the words, “I love you.”
And she, the beautiful red-haired girl he’d fallen in love with at school, planned a life with, the mother of his child, responded, “I love you too.”
* * *
The gunship touched terra firma solid and hard, slid to its side, and then began a series of thumping, rolling tumbles.
Troy’s body flew up and then jerked back taut on the sidewall-clipped line.
The gunship abruptly stopped.
He jolted forward as a jagged piece of metal jutted through the back of the cockpit toward him.
The fallen Syn gunner shifted, stopping him, the bloody metal girder an inch from his face.
Troy guessed the landing was not so good for at least one of the pilots. Fortunately for those in the cabin, an unfinished building cushioned the impact.
Troy was pinned between the thin metal girder above and the body of the Syn gunner below. He thrust his neck back to see if Leana was okay. Frantically he reached up, tore away the headset muffling the world around him, and began to push at the metal to wedge himself out.
“Leana!” he yelled. “Leana!”
“I’m okay!” he heard her say. “I’m okay.”
And with another hefty push, he forced the body beneath him back and slipped himself free.
Samuels was untying the quagmire of knotted belts he’d hastily fastened around Leana and himself. Troy took a knee to help. The left-side gunner was scanning the outside of his window and the two men up front were checking their equipment and cockpit.
“Report,” Samuels said.
One of the men up front rattled off three names, one of them Spitz. Troy wasn’t focused on the words, but he knew that was a list of the dead.
Troy’s focus was on Leana.
“We have to save her,” Leana said.
“We will,” Troy said. “I promise.”
“Apart from Spitz and the gunner, one of the pilots was taken out on impact and the other is seriously injured,” Samuels said, his drawl serious, slow. “They used the city’s own defense batteries on us. They weren’t all online yet, or…” His face went wiry as he slid his lower jaw side to side and then pulled it back center. “Anyway, that young fella up there is attempting to contact the other gunship that went down. We’ll have to wait for reinforcements.”
“We don’t have time,” Leana said. “Our baby could die in that robot womb.”
Samuels set his eyes deeply on Leana for what seemed a long time to Troy. He could only imagine what it was the colonel was trying to understand. Finally, Samuels spoke. “I’m sorry. I underestimated these people. I can’t do that again. I can’t risk your safety any further.”
“Colonel,” Leana said, “our child may be the last chance for the human race. Without her, keeping us safe doesn’t matter.”
Samuels held her stare, then the decidedly old colonel said, “According to the doctor that may not be true. You two made it through the protocol once…”
Leana didn’t flinch. She stayed firm. It was obvious to Troy that the man was relenting, he himself had stared into those emerald eyes many times over.
Samuels sucked in a breath, turned to the side gunner, and said, “Trooper.”
“Yes, sir,” the gunner replied.
“Stay here with Mr. and Mrs. Owen. Until reinforcements arrive.” Then Samuels turned to the other trooper. “Gregor, hand me one of those rifles down there and ready one for yourself.”
“You’re not leaving me here,” Troy said.
The colonel gave him a cockeyed glare as he began to field check the automatic rifle the trooper had handed him. “No, I don’t suppose I am.” He flipped his chin toward the side cannon. “You handled that pretty well up in the sky, you figure you can handle one of these on the ground?”
“If I have to.”
“I bet you can,” Samuels said and handed Troy the rifle. “Gregor. Give me another one.”
* * *
South of the wreckage was the dark fifty-meter-high seawall, and glittering a hundred meters above the rim, a light-peppered scaffold covered the beginnings of the new translucent dome. Even through the downpour, the mountainous skyline of Manhattan lit up the northwest. Gregor took the lead but the going was slow. The loam was soft from the day’s rain and they had to find footing on chunks of concrete protruding from the mud until they hit the hardtop of the nearest street. Gregor’s pad had a digital map but the topography was false. The section of the city where the gunship crashed was in early development, and the new structures of the reclamation project were in different stages of completion. The landmarks and buildings highlighted on his display hadn’t been built yet, and in
their place were indistinguishable barren tracks and chasms; even the roads of the grid were incomplete. The blue LED lights that lit the project were mounted on high poles and muted by the storm.
They stopped each time they ran into a deeply dug out pit where a thruway should have been. After the third time this happened, Troy grew impatient and stepped between the two military men he’d been trailing.
“Can I see the map?” he asked.
He was draping his poncho over the screen to keep the rain from washing out the picture. “You know how to read this?” Gregor asked.
“I’ve reviewed sheets on the project a hundred times. It’s probably based on one of my layouts. Just show me where we need to be.”
Gregor pointed at the red dot on the screen. “We rendezvous with the other troopers at this point here on the grid, that’s where the Guffers have the child.” Then he gestured up over the huge pit in front of them. “It should be a klick that way.”
Troy’s heart jumped at the sight of the small red spot on the water-beaded pad. He smeared away the gathered drops and tapped the corner to the far right. “We have to cut over here around that service tunnel opening to this back access road.” He traced his finger to show them. “Make a hairpin, that’s the only road in. The building they’re in is near complete, but the other three sides are holes like this. They’re protected on three sides by a moat.”
“Lead the way,” Samuels said.
And he did, at a rapid pace.
With Troy in front, the three were at a jog. His street shoes were soaked through and slapped hard and loud on the black top. So did Samuels’s. Only Gregor’s boots made a thudding pound, and that was the sound Troy locked onto. He’d never had military training, but the cadence seemed right. It all felt right, the way the poncho pulled back and the water ran down the sides, how the automatic weapon held high in his hands. Leana’s face flew into his mind, and then the baby, floating peacefully in the Syn womb. The one time he’d seen his daughter, the daughter they hadn’t yet named.
Troy’s footfalls, his breaths, were in tandem with the trooper’s.
He rounded the corner toward the service tunnel, the stretch to the hairpin. Adrenalin coursed through him. In less than a day, he’d gone from a waiting room to firing a cannon from the side of a gunship. Maybe not a real cannon, he thought, but a large weapon just the same. He’d seen the men killed in the gunship next to him. He’d killed. Or had he? The city defense array was automated. He’d merely fired at installations as they came online. He’d taken part in a lethal video game. Now the stakes had gone up. If he had to, he would fire the rifle in his hand at the Guffers.
The Guffers. The fanatics that took his daughter. Yes. He’d blast every last one of them.
The rain beat upon the top of his poncho with the same rhythmic thud that his shoes made as they met the ground.
Troy rounded the end of the service tunnel toward the last bit of road to where his daughter was being held.
And then found himself flying through the air.
* * *
The next moment was a blur. He’d rounded the hairpin. Samuels had yelled something and then either Samuels or Gregor tackled him. He wasn’t sure. All three were in a pile on top of each other across the narrow access road. That was at the same time a rattle of shots went off and a series of buzzes zinged past.
Troy and Gregor now sat with their backs against the flat side of a meter-high concrete cube cornerstone. Samuels was on a knee facing them. The light shining over the cube cut a hard horizontal shadow line across his chin, accentuating the seriousness of the stink eye he gave Troy to show his disapproval. He then gave Gregor a nod.
Gregor tapped the digital pad he’d used for the map and then in one rapid motion jerked the device straight up to peek over the block and then back down.
Two single shots rang out. One grazed the top of the cube and sprayed a gray mist of water and dust onto the three below, but the pad was already clear of fire.
Gregor tapped the screen again and then held the panel flat for the other two to see.
On the display was the building behind them.
There wasn’t much to see in the rainy picture. The straight access road, the wall to the tunnel on the left side, debris strewn along right, and at the end, a black hole of a door with a floodlight on either side.
“Only one way in from here,” Samuels said.
Off in the darkness, in the other direction from where they came, they heard the rattle of a turret. Gregor put a finger to his headset. “Report,” he said. Then he looked at Samuels. “They’re pinned.”
Troy didn’t have to be a trooper to understand. “It’s up to us to take the Guffers out.”
“I suppose,” Samuels said. “I figure there are two Guffers in the door, but we don’t know that for sure. You said we couldn’t go around?”
“No,” Troy said. “There’s a drop-off on the right side of that road. The only way in is to take the door.”
“Yeah,” Gregor said. “That’d be a fine trick. But they’d see us coming.”
“Our only chance then is if they don’t see us,” Troy said.
Samuels sucked in a cheek again, a mannerism Troy noticed he did often, and then the old man nodded. “Yep. That’s about right. What I’d give for a grenade launcher right about now.”
Gregor reached beneath his poncho and then held up a fistful of metal, not a launcher, but a grenade just the same. “I have this,” he said.
“That’ll do. We’ll need to get farther away first.”
* * *
Troy had pegged Samuels at sixty, at least, but the thin man was limber and fit. A sparkle hit the colonel’s eye when he delivered his plan to the two other men. The plan was insane, and the better bet would’ve been to wait for reinforcements to take out the turret that held them in place.
But that was precious time they didn’t have.
The plan, though crazy, was simple. Samuels would fall back fifty meters. From there he figured he had a better chance of taking out the floodlights. When the access road went dark, Troy was to reach around the cube and provide cover fire as Gregor moved forward enough to throw the grenade. Then Troy was to wait for Gregor and Samuels to clear the door.
Samuels fell back. He pulled the hood of his poncho low over his forehead, turned, hunched forward, and then scurried out to the edge of the light.
“When you go,” Troy said to Gregor, “I’m going with you.”
“You can’t,” Gregor said. He already had the grenade in hand. “Just follow orders.”
“For one, I’m not a trooper, so I don’t take orders. For another, if I’m reaching around I’m liable to shoot you in the back.”
Gregor’s head swung to look at him. In the shadow of the bright floods, his rain-soaked cheeks were sallow and flat. The young man’s pallor reminded Troy of a dying man.
“Okay. Stay far to the right. I’ll be to the left. Don’t shoot unless they shoot to the sides.”
“But if they shoot to the sides they’ll hit us.”
“Well, if we’re lucky they won’t see our silhouettes and they’ll shoot down the middle.”
Then they heard the first single shot.
But it didn’t come from the field. It came from the door behind their backs.
“Dammit,” Gregor said.
“What?” Troy asked.
“They must have some type of long-range scope.”
“You mean they can see him?”
“That’s my guess.”
Troy’s heart sank at the possibility that the Guffers had taken out the silver-haired old man. Then another shot from behind rang out, followed instantly by another from the field.
The light above the concrete faded.
Another crack from the field and the floods were out.
“Let’s go,” Gregor said as he lunged from behind the cube.
Troy’s boots pushed into the soft sandy loam. His shoes sank deep before thrusting him forward.
He heard the buzzing of metal pass by him as he rounded the huge cube. His footing was unsure and his body fell forward, swaying to the sides with his legs as they scrambled, one in front of the other, until he was running. The warm drops pummeling onto his head streamed across the creases of his face and into his tightly wedged eyes. The dim gray wall of the building grew closer as he ran, while bright crackling flashes flared from the black void at the end of the access road.
The buzz and zing of each fired shot was far too close, but it was when Troy was certain a bullet near grazed him that he decided it was time to return fire.
With a hard twist he stopped his full run, Troy pulled his right shoulder back, pointed the muzzle of his rifle toward the void.
He squeezed the trigger and heard a loud screaming roar he realized was stemming from deep within himself.
Troy didn’t let loose until the burst was exhausted.
Then he stood silent in the hard pour of the rain.
The void had ceased to flash and pop.
Gregor yelled, “Now!” and the front of the building filled with light.
* * *
A webbed arc of lightning backlit Gregor as he bent and offered a hand to Troy. Though he’d shielded himself when the grenade went off, Troy was still close enough for the concussion to lay him flat.
As Gregor pulled him up, he could see two small fires burning inside of the service entrance that’d been a black void a moment before. Away from the building, they heard a set of splashing footfalls against the pavement.
“Shhh,” Gregor said softly, and when the runner was near enough, clicked his tongue twice. The runner stopped and clicked back.
“Samuels?” Gregor asked.
“If not, you’re a dead man,” Samuels said.
Samuels joined them and they approached the entrance of the building. Troy was satisfied to stay back and let he professionals take the lead. When the two troopers decided the door was clear, they signaled him in.
The Doomsday Chronicles (The Future Chronicles) Page 30