Hammerhead

by Jason Andrew Bond

  Stacy walked over and pointed at the small thumb button under the stock. “I thought you said you were a military guy.”

  “I didn’t say. But if I was in the military, it was before this rifle was used.”

  “That rifle has been standard issue for over 20 years.”

  “You’re getting the idea.”

  “So what branch were you in?”

  “Marines.”

  Stacy’s eyes scanned the mountain ridge just as two more gunships jumped up over the northern ridge.

  “We have to go,” she said, “now.”

  CHAPTER 6

  The gunships came at the wreck fast. Jeffrey looked out to where the first gunship stood on its landing gear. He and Stacy would be caught out in the open if they tried to run for it. The Gorilla was closer.

  “Follow me,” Jeffrey said and pulled himself up over the broken windows and ran to the Gorilla. He wondered if Stacy would be able to keep up. When he looked over his shoulder, he saw her hop over the window frames and run down the berm with a limp.

  Jeffrey ran underneath the Gorilla, waited for Stacy, and then pointed up the rungs to the cab. Stacy climbed up.

  Standing in the cab, Stacy set the rifle aside. “There’s only a place for one person.”

  Jeffrey came up the ladder behind her. “This is going to be uncomfortable, but it’s our only choice. Lean up against the backrest there.” Stacy put her back against the backrest and Jeffrey turned around and backed into her.

  “Hey, wait,” Stacy said, pushing on him. She turned her face to the side. “I need to keep you off my cheekbone.”

  “You good?”

  “Yes.”

  Jeffrey looked down at the rifles sitting loose on the side and kicked them out of the cab.

  He extended the straps of the harness to make room for both of them and strapped himself in front of her, pinning her securely between him and the backrest.

  “Move your feet back, out of the way,” Jeffrey said.

  Her feet slid backward.

  Jeffrey heard the ships circling the site. He closed the cab and darkness sealed around them.

  “This is going to be pretty blind for you, so you’ll just have to trust me.”

  “Again, I find myself without a choice,” she said, her voice muffled, “but so far you’re working out for me.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and grabbed her own wrist. He reached into his back pocket, pulled out his gloves, and put them on. Then he pulled the VR goggles over his eyes. Shaded, dry lakebed blinked into view with a roll and stabilization of the image. He pushed the earpieces in, and the sounds of the ships clarified, loud and circling.

  He gave the activation command and code, and the feminine voice responded, “Activation Code accepted.”

  The Gorilla unfolded, and Jeffrey stood still watching the ships circle around.

  Had the gunships seen the Gorilla stand upright?

  The next few seconds would tell him. The ships continued to circle.

  “What are you doing?” Stacy asked.

  “Waiting.”

  “I am aware of that, but why? Why not get out of here?”

  “There’s no way the Gorilla can run from those ships. Their main guns alone would tear it apart, and God knows what other ordnance they have.”

  “So what good does getting into this do? Why don’t they just shoot at us now?”

  “I’m gambling they didn’t see us get into it. If they didn’t, they might land and do reconnaissance on foot. Then I’ll try to put them on the defensive long enough to trash their gunships and take the third out of here.”

  “Do you think they’ll both land?”

  “No. Well, I wouldn’t. I’d leave one ship up for air coverage, but these guys don’t think they are dealing with a very big threat. I’m hoping that they feel very safe and will saunter in here.”

  “Safe? Their friends were just killed,” Stacy said.

  “Odds are they don’t know that yet.”

  “What if you’re wrong?”

  “Then we die.”

  “What about small-arms fire?” Stacy asked, her voice calm considering her situation.

  “That should be no problem. The Gorilla is constructed to crush and tear apart armored ships. It’s covered in thick enough metal for small arms.”

  “So, you’re going to take on gunships and soldiers with a dump truck?”

  “Heavy is heavy.”

  “But this doesn’t have any weapons, right?”

  Just then the gunships each turned in reducing circles, their landing gear extending.

  “Now we’re in business,” Jeffrey said.

  Dust billowed around the gunships as they settled onto the lakebed. They now stood in a line, the two new ships closest, and the blond man’s, farther beyond. The ramps opened and four soldiers came out of each, crouched and running. One at a time, they shimmered into invisibility. The pilots of each ship came out on the ramps armed with rifles. More cautious than the blonde man had been, they looked around before moving off the platforms and vanishing as well.

  “Gorilla, thermal,” Jeffrey said, and his vision of the desert swirled into brilliant reds and oranges. Jeffrey scanned the area, but could see no sign of the camouflaged soldiers.

  “That’s some good armor,” Jeffrey said to Stacy. “It doesn’t even throw a heat signature.”

  “The new generation covers heat signature. The soldier wears a respirator that cools breath to the ambient temperature.”

  “Good work, Stacy.”

  “What did I say?”

  “Breath,” Jeffrey said. “Gorilla, Visible light.” The desert flickered, and the white salt and blue sky returned.

  “Gorilla, layer over imaging for significant CO2 density.” In Jeffrey’s vision, dark blue puffs formed up about head high here and there around the wreck site.

  “You know the best thing about newbie special forces?” Jeffrey asked.

  “Again, I might take this personally.”

  “No matter how hard you try to beat it out of them, training at that level runs the risk of developing arrogance. When you’re told you’re the best of the best, and you train ruthlessly to get there, you tend to actually believe it.”

  “So why shouldn’t they?”

  “There is no best, only luckiest. Skill’s important, but it only keeps you alive by the grace of blind luck.”

  “You learn that in the war?”

  “I didn’t say I was in the war.”

  “Please.”

  A puffing line of CO2 made its way toward the Gorilla. It came right next to the leg, the soldier apparently using it for cover from the wreckage. Jeffrey noted that all of the blue clouds of CO2 had moved far enough away from the gunships.

  “I guess that makes you first,” Jeffrey said. He moved and the Gorilla lifted its foot and stomped the soldier into the dirt. The Gorilla reached down and picked up a section of hull, close to a ton of metal. It turned and tossed the hull section at the first gunship. The section of hull hammered into the side of the cockpit, shearing halfway through the pilot’s seat.

  Bullets began to crack and clink off the Gorilla. Jeffrey saw sparks flicking all over the Gorilla’s surface, but none of the bullets left appreciable damage.

  A trail of blue puffs approached right up in front of the Gorilla, and an electric bolt jumped out at Jeffrey. He had not expected the bolt, and the Gorilla’s hands came up in a shielding motion mimicking Jeffrey. When he realized the Gorilla had withstood the shock, he gritted his teeth, stepped forward, and punted the soldier a few hundred feet across the lakebed.

  He walked the Gorilla toward the gunships. Bullets clicked on the metal plating. Under the pressure, Jeffrey moved his legs too quickly. This caused the Gorilla to stop and rematch his legs. If one of the remaining two gunships got in the air, he and Stacy would die. He had to be patient and move his legs at a rate the Gorilla could keep up with.

  He had to disable the second gunship and get the th
ird airborne. He walked past the nose of the first gunship and, confirming that the hull plate had made it unflyable, walked on toward the second. The second gunship stood farther away than Jeffrey had estimated. A trail of blue exhalations moved toward it at a full run. The Gorilla walked just about as fast as a person could run, but the soldier was closer. As the blue puffs of gas coming from the soldier disappeared into the gunship, the Gorilla had only crossed half the distance. Jeffrey looked around for a section of hull to throw, but found none.

  Jeffrey saw the soldier, now uncamouflaged, in the cockpit, jerking at his seat restraints and throwing switches. Jeffrey continued his steady walking pace. The engines fired and dust blew out, blinding Jeffrey’s cameras. Inside the cab of the Gorilla, the sound of the gunship’s turbines rose to a scream. Only a few more steps. Jeffrey felt Stacy’s bear hug tighten around his waist. Small-arms fire continued to crack across the Gorilla’s surface. The silhouette of the gunship lifted out of the dust and Jeffrey reached up for the ship.

  He caught the ship on its side, near the bottom. The Gorilla’s armored hand sank deep, and Jeffrey–gripping his fist in the empty black of the cab–prayed that he would catch some significant part of the frame. The ship lurched, and the Gorilla’s hand stayed solid, wrist deep in the side of the ship. The Gorilla weighed much more than the gunship despite its being significantly smaller. Jeffrey pulled the ship back down into the dust cloud and punched into the nearest engine housing. The engine blew apart. Fan blades, pipes, hoses, and sheet metal slammed into the Gorilla, shaking the cab. The ship lifted to one side, but the Gorilla held it steady and Jeffrey pulled the ship down, aiming his cameras at the pilot. The pilot looked at the Gorilla with terror.

  Swinging the Gorilla’s forearm down, Jeffrey smashed the cockpit flat. He then pushed the ship to the ground, reached over the top, and hammered the other engine’s air intake shut. The engine died. Jeffrey tore large sections of the wing off. He stuffed a section under the left arm of the Gorilla and then tore off another section and passed it to the left hand. He tore off a third and walked around the ship toward the final gunship.

  Three trails of blue exhalations huffed toward the third ship. He took aim at the one closest to the gunship and tossed the section of wing in the Gorilla’s right hand with a blistering overhand pitch. The section of wing connected perfectly with the running soldier, spraying chunks of metal and an arm.

  “Gorilla,” Jeffrey said, “External speakers. High volume.”

  “I see you,” Jeffrey said. His amplified voice boomed out over the lakebed and echoed off the distant hills. The tink and clack of small arms fire halted. The two traces of CO2, which had been trailing toward the ship, stopped and pooled, gusts jetting out from the panting soldier’s mouths. Jeffrey took the chunk of scrap out from under the Gorilla’s armpit so each hand held a ragged piece of wing.

  “Forty years of throwing scrap with this thing,” Jeffrey said, holding up the chunk of scrap in his pitching arm, “has made me ready for the majors, folks. If you want to live, back off.”

  One of the soldiers ran at the gunship, while the other remained frozen out on the lakebed. Jeffrey pitched the section of wing at the running figure. The scrap caught the wind and spun, cutting the soldier in half. A set of legs appeared out in the desert and fell to the salt, blood gushing from them.

  “Don’t be stupid folks. You’ve lost this time. Live or die with it. You choose.” No one else moved toward the gunship, but the one last soldier still stood out in the open, halfway to the gunship, breathing. Jeffrey turned and walked straight at him.

  “That gunship is mine, squid. Run, NOW!” Jeffrey’s shout distorted in the speakers making it a metalized growl. The soldier’s blue exhalations turned and trailed away in a line toward the wrecked freighter.

  Jeffrey said, “Gorilla. External speakers off.”

  “How are we doing?” Stacy asked.

  “We’re doing great.” But he knew a lot could still go wrong. “Here’s how this works,” he said. “I’m going to get us set so, when we come out of the Gorilla, the gunship will be on our right. It’s going to happen fast, and we’ll be blind from dust so just run. When you get in the ship, you close the ramp and get strapped in fast. Any questions?”

  “None.”

  “Excellent.”

  The Gorilla walked up to the gunship, turned sideways, and Jeffrey said, “Gorilla, blower, left.” A pipe extended from the left forearm, and Jeffrey closed his left fist turning the blower on full. He aimed the blower at the lakebed and moved it back and forth raising a billowing cloud. After doing this for several seconds, he said, “Gorilla, power down.”

  The blower shut off, the Gorilla crouched over, and the air began to clear. Jeffrey smacked the Cab-Open switch. He tore off the VR goggles, and his hands scrambled at the straps of his harness. He pulled away from Stacy and felt cool air on his sweat-soaked back. He spun and climbed down the rungs as the Gorilla finished hunkering down. Then the bullets came in, cracking off the Gorilla’s legs. Stacy came hopping down the rungs, slipped off the last one, and fell. She grunted, push-upped off the ground, and ran out from under the Gorilla into the dust. Jeffrey remembered the spider and box. He lifted himself up, reached into the cab, unstrapped the bag, and dragged it out of the corner. He dropped back down to the lakebed, throwing the strap over his shoulder, and ran after Stacy. Gunfire clacked off the looming silhouette of the gunship. A round licked at the dirt near Jeffrey’s feet. Stacy jumped onto the ramp. Jeffrey jumped on right after her. As his feet touched metal, the ramp began to close.

  He tossed the bag down and ran to the cockpit, shifted around the seat arm, and hit his head. He cursed, rubbing his scalp as he looked over the controls. The basic setup hadn’t changed since his time. He flipped the Engine-On switch.

  “Please let them not have locked the console.”

  Stacy came up behind him and reached over him, pulling at his five-point harness. He looked over to her.

  “Don’t worry about me. You just get this damn thing in the air.” She pulled the shoulder harnesses over his arm as he fired the compressors. The compressed air whined in the engines, spinning them up, and they blasted to life. In the back of the ship, the ramp clamped shut. The roar of the engines reduced to a vibration, smooth and quiet. The gauges for operating temperature both flicked to green as the desert sun and recent use had left the turbines still hot. All the while, bullets sparked off the cockpit glass.

  Stacy moved into the back. Jeffrey looked into a small, curved mirror, placed for the pilot to see the navigator, and saw Stacy, surrounded by instrumentation, strapping herself into the seat behind him.

  “Are you good?” Jeffrey asked.

  Stacy shouted, too loud for the new quiet in the cockpit, “Yes. Go.”

  Jeffrey yanked the gunship off the ground, spun it around, hammered the throttle forward, and shot out across the long distance of the lakebed.

  “Holy God,” Stacy said, “how far off the deck are you?”

  Jeffrey looked at the instruments. “Thirty feet.”

  “You have to fly higher.”

  Jeffrey looked at her in the mirror. She continued looking at the back of his head. He reached up and tapped the mirror. Her eyes snapped up to it.

  “Would you keep your hands on the controls?”

  “You don’t need to shout.”

  “I’m sorry, but you really need more altitude.”

  Jeffrey looked back out on the lakebed blurring by, turned the ship a bit, and then said, “Have a little faith.”

  She did not reply.

  The gunship flew sharp and clean. The lightness and precision of the thing filled Jeffrey’s heart with gladness, and a grin cracked across his face.

  “Great,” Stacy said, looking into the mirror, “you’re nuts. Can you please fly higher?”

  “I’ll take it up another five feet, how’s that?” Jeffrey said.

  Stacy groaned in resignation.

  …
/>   As the soldiers sat hunkered in and around the freighter wreckage, their last gunship flew away with professional precision. It appeared after a few seconds to be still touching the ground, and then the rooster tail of dust and warping heat waves obscured it entirely. The soldiers verified there were no other people in the vicinity and then powered down each of their camouflage units. Out of fifteen soldiers, only five still stood and had nothing to show for it.

  One of the soldiers threw down his helmet. “What the hell just happened?”

  Another soldier, kneeling on the ground near him, said in a quiet voice, “We got our pants torn off and stuffed in our mouths is what happened.”

  A soldier in the freighter’s bridge shouted out, “There’s four dead up here, but Sergeant Morgan is still alive. Barely.”

  CHAPTER 7

  The mountains bordering the western edge of the lakebed ran up on the gunship with an unreal sense of speed. Jeffrey throttled back just a bit and lifted the nose of the gunship. As it rose, G-Forces pulled him down into his seat. He instinctively tensed his leg and stomach muscles to keep blood in his head. The mountain ridge passed beneath the gunship’s belly. Jeffrey nosed the ship down and went weightless in his gut. Beyond the mountain ridge, a desert floor, scarred with shallow canyons and washes, ran out to the next mountain range. As he brought the gunship down over the canyon floor and leveled it off, the canyons and washes seemed to weave and snap as the ship ripped past only a few spare feet above the ground.

  “Are you supersonic?” Stacy asked, her voice tense.

  “Yes, we have to move fast and low.”

  “What about the IFF transponder?”

  “Dammit!” Jeffrey said, hitting his leg with a fist.

  “What?” Stacy asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “I forgot about the damn IFF transponder.” Jeffrey looked over the navigation and flight computers, “Is there a way to shut it off?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you rated to fly?”

  “No,” Stacy said. “I specialized as an ordnance engineer. Explosives.”