The oncoming gunship’s cannon lit up orange and Jeffrey shifted his ship sideways, spinning it on a belly-out axis, circling around the path of the other pilot’s bullets. Tracer rounds flashed by the right side of his cockpit. Jeffrey pulled the yoke’s trigger, firing the big nose cannon. The other pilot, realizing at the last moment that the advantage was lost, tried to evade, but too late. Jeffrey landed a burst of armor-piercing rounds through the cockpit glass. The glass caved in, and one engine split outward in a brilliant fireball. Jeffrey flew just under the other ship, which flashed past, leaving a trail of black smoke.
Another pilot and navigator gone, along with God knows how many troops.
Jeffrey tried to level the Kiowa, but it tipped and then dropped sickeningly sideways and fell toward the beach. Warning indicators lit up across the panel. He shoved the stick sideways, attempting to control the ship. It leveled, but continued to fall toward the ground. He pulled back on the throttle, set the airbrakes, and slammed the gunship into a hover. The left side flipped up and the gunship barrel-rolled, the horizon spinning in front of Jeffrey. The ship had gone insane in his hands.
He looked out the right side, and the problem became clear. He thought he had avoided the gunfire, but the other pilot had made his last act count for something. Jeffrey’s gunship had no right wing. Only a torn stump extended out beyond the fuselage now. Ragged carbon fiber flipped in the wind, and fuel drooled out of the remnants of the right tank.
The ship dropped toward the beach and, instead of fighting the barrel roll, Jeffrey shoved the stick right, accelerating the roll. He timed the acceleration well, and as the ship came through an upright position it slammed into the sand. The impact broke the front landing gear and the gunship’s nose dug into the beach. The windscreen shattered, covering Jeffrey with small bits of glass. Jeffrey flipped up a red and white cover and pulled the emergency lever under it, shutting the ship down.
“What the hell was that?” Stacy called up from the back.
Jeffrey brushed bits of glass aside and unbuckled his harness. He jumped up, slamming his head into the roofline. He groaned, pressing his hand onto his head, and stepped into the back.
“Everyone grab one survival bag,” he said. “Make sure to get the ones with food.”
“Did we just crash?” Leif asked.
“Yes. I took one down, but this ship is done, and the right side is covered in jet fuel. It could ignite at any moment. We need to get out of here and up into the forest, now.”
Stacy and Leif hustled out of their seats. With the power off, Jeffrey cranked a handle, lowering the ramp. Stacy and Leif grabbed emergency bags, pulled out the shoulder straps and flipped them onto their shoulders. With the ramp half way down, they slid out the side and jumped to the sand. Leif helped Jeffrey put his pack on.
“Oh my God,” Stacy said, as she saw the shredded nub of the wing.
“I’m sorry,” Jeffrey said. “I should have turned faster.”
“Are you kidding me?” she said, and pointed down the beach to where the other gunship had crashed, black smoke now reaching up several hundred feet high. “Your flying is the only reason we’re not a ball of flame.”
Jeffrey looked at the inland forest and realized the magnitude of his more critical mistake: He had landed on a beach, which was separated from the forest by a cliff wall. The sandstone precipice rose high above the beach and, at the top, hung with loose roots and scrubs. Jeffrey looked north, up the beach. There the cliff face ended in a black-basalt wall with waves crashing at its base. South, the beach ran out long and flat, with little cover. However, at the far end, the cliff leaned back and might be climbable.
During the last few days, he had regularly derided those chasing him for their lack of foresight. Now, he had fallen prey to his own arrogance. Never imagining they could be found on the beach, he had dropped his guard. They should have stayed inland, where the forest surrounded the gunship, cutting off visual lines. Due to his mistake, their best hope of getting out of this mess, and saving the entire spaceborne fleet, lay on the sand with one wing ripped off.
Stacy and Leif began to jog away. Jeffrey moved out after them, but his back spiked with pain, slowing him. Leif glanced over his shoulder, stopped, and jogged back to Jeffrey.
“Drop the pack, dad. Your back can’t take it.”
Jeffrey let Leif help him pull off the bag. They left it on the beach, and Leif helped him walk. Jeffrey looked over his shoulder one last time to see the gunship catch fire. The ship went up quickly, and an explosion thumped the air as a pocket of fuel vapor ignited. Flames ran down the side, tracing the path of jet fuel, and swallowed the fuselage.
The gunship that had carried them halfway around the world leaned sideways and burned, lifting its own stack of black smoke up into the sky.
Stacy had stopped running and stood waiting for Leif and Jeffrey. Jeffrey shooed her away, saying, “You both need to get up that cliff. I’ll be right behind you.”
“Good luck getting us to leave you alone,” Stacy said.
They walked together, and Jeffrey moved as quickly as he could with the pain shooting down his leg. It seemed to increase with each step, and he was unsure how much longer he could keep up the pace. The outside edge of his left foot began to go numb.
Over the rumbling of the waves and his own breath, Jeffrey heard the faint, consistent thunder of a jet engine again. Stacy slowed and looked out over the ocean. Jeffrey looked as well.
The distant gunship had turned toward them, but the thunder Jeffrey heard could not be coming from it. It was too far away, and its jet exhausts were pointing away from them. Jeffrey listened, and his ears led him to the cliff. Above the cliff, the pale, blue sky had washed out the stars, and sunlight glowed behind the treetops. Somewhere beyond that ridge, at least one more gunship patrolled the area.
“I don’t think we’ll make it down the beach,” Stacy said, and pointed to a tangle of gray logs, which lay at the base of the cliff. “Should we hole up there?”
“They’ll find us with their heart sensors,” Leif said.
“That’s better than getting strafed running out on the beach,” she said.
“Yes,” Jeffrey said, “but in the long run, they’ll have us. Our only hope is the end of the beach.” He gave Leif a gentle push. “You both need to run there, now.”
“I won’t,” Leif said.
“Please. Go.” Jeffrey saw in their faces that they understood what he left unsaid: I’ve lost too much in life already.
They ran.
Jeffrey tried to walk faster, but the intense pain checked him. He looked over his shoulder and saw that the gunship over the ocean had come about half the distance to the beach. Inland, beyond the cliff, the third jet engine continued to rumble.
If it holds off just a bit longer, Stacy and Leif can make it to the trees.
They only had a few hundred more yards to the base of the cliff when the third gunship came up over the trees directly ahead of them. It flew out over the beach, pulled to a hover, and lay down a line of cannon fire in the sand just in front of Stacy and Leif. They stopped running and stood, looking up at the hovering gunship. Jeffrey continued limping toward them.
As Jeffrey approached Stacy and Leif, the gunship coming in from over the ocean arrived and landed behind them. The gunship, which had fired on them, landed on the sand just as another gunship came out over the trees and turned in a patrol pattern around them. It was not going to land.
“I see you do learn from your mistakes,” Jeffrey said.
I wonder if I’ll live long enough to learn once more from mine.
Leif lifted his arms in surrender. Stacy looked at him and then did the same. It made Jeffrey’s heart sink to see them standing in submission. He kept his arms at his sides as he walked up and stood with them. Eight troops carrying rifles came around from behind the gunship. Jeffrey noted that two soldiers’ guns were trained on Leif, two on Stacy, two on himself, and two roved.
These
guys are ready for the game.
A tall, thin man, wearing slacks and a black military sweater, came around. The soldiers established a line, and the man crossed it, walking toward Jeffrey.
He smiled and said, “An old man and two children have caused us all these troubles? Ridiculous.”
“Is it?” Jeffrey asked.
I wonder if he’ll drop his guard, get close enough…
He felt the weight of the Colt in his cargo pocket and he wanted to reach for it, but not yet.
The commander stopped a safe distance from Jeffrey and nodded “Yes, perfectly ridiculous.”
A soldier flipped a long metallic object end over end through the air. It landed at Jeffrey’s feet.
“So much for taking a hostage,” Jeffrey said.
“What?” Stacy asked, just as the shock grenade popped open, exposing a web of electrical antennas. Arcs of blue static flashed out. Then darkness and nothing.
CHAPTER 24
Maxine King sat at her breakfast table, a crystal cup filled with tea in her hand. She looked out on the sun-covered gardens. Birds hopped on the lawn, turning their heads sideways, listening for worms. Maxine set the cup down and crossed her hands on the marble tabletop. Her breakfast sat before her, untouched. She heard footsteps coming down the far hallway.
A young soldier came into the room, stopped just inside the door, and squared his shoulders. “Ma’am.”
Maxine looked over the young man and sighed. His thin skull and large eyes did not match well, and his ample Adam’s apple made his long neck appear jointed.
Why do they trouble me with these ugly ones?
“What is so important that my breakfast must be interrupted?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the soldier said, shifting his weight. “Mr. Roberts asked that I come get you.”
“What does he want?”
Maxine now understood this poor example of a young man as Carter’s doing. She had made it expressly clear that she was to be surrounded by the finest examples of young soldiers her security detail had to offer. She would remind Mr. Roberts of this fact.
“He said to tell you that the three fugitives have been captured.”
“What?” She jumped up, tipping her chair backwards onto the slate floor.
“The three fugitives have–”
“I know. I heard you.” She walked over to him. “When did this occur?”
The young soldier shifted away from her. “I don’t know, ma’am. You’ll have to ask Mr. Roberts.”
She stared at the sorry excuse for a soldier. “Why didn’t Mr. Roberts come here to tell me of this himself?”
“I don’t know, ma’am.” The soldier looked over his shoulder and then back to her. “You’ll have to ask him.”
“I will indeed,” she said, pushing past the soldier and walking down the hallway.
…
Even before she was through the door to the cell area, Maxine said, “Why was I not awakened to be told Holt and the others had been captured?” She looked around at the gray cinderblock walls and concrete slab floor. No rugs. She hated the basement cell area. Unpleasant odors hung in the chilled air.
Carter Roberts stood with a pair of soldiers, each a far better specimen than the scarecrow she had just had to deal with. Carter turned to look at her.
“Maxine. Hello. What did you say?”
“You did not wake me when Holt was captured. Why?”
“You were not asleep. The call came in five minutes ago. I sent Thompson to get you the moment I received it.”
She walked across the room and looked Carter over.
“Why did you send that soldier?”
“What are you talking about?”
“The soldier you sent to me.” She looked at her nails. “He was not aesthetically pleasing. You know my preferences. Why did you send him? Is this a new game of yours?”
“Are you seriously suggesting–” Carter began, but Maxine’s glare stopped him. He drew a deep breath. “I had four soldiers in the room. I told someone to go get you. They chose which among them on their own.”
“Please be more specific next time. I do not need to deal with that along with all the stress I am facing.”
Carter stared at her for a moment and then said, “Of course.”
“Why did you not come yourself?”
“Maxine, I am preparing to receive the prisoners.” He held up a clipboard.
She snatched the clipboard from his hand. On it, she found a list of locations: the Aleutian Islands, the Tonga Islands, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines. She scanned down the list to the last item, which was circled in black ink: Washington State coastline.
She tapped the list. “This search took far too long.”
She set the clipboard on the desk and walked down the cell hallway. Carter walked with her. Each cell was clean and furnished with a low cot covered with a wool blanket, an aluminum toilet, and a sink. Only the last cell contained a prisoner, two in fact. Maxine approached the cell and saw an older couple sitting on the cot, holding each other’s hands. Maxine stopped a few feet from the bars, and the man looked up.
Low, angry tones lay in his voice as he said, “Are you the monster responsible for this?”
Redness mottled the skin around his eyes, but a strength Maxine did not care for still burned in them. She said, “There is a greater good at work here. You will understand and accept that soon enough.”
The man stood up and walked to the bars. Maxine gave him her warm matron’s smile.
Spit hit her face, warm and wet.
“Oh, Gerald, dear,” the woman in the cell said.
“She deserves no better, Ingrid,” the man said. “She’s trying to kill our daughter. The Good Book says to turn the other cheek, but if I could reach through these bars, I’d gladly take my place in Hell for what I’d do.”
Maxine had lifted her hands halfway to her face and then, in disgust, gone still. Carter walked away and came back with a towel. He set it on her hand. Taking hold of it, she pressed it to her face. She held the towel away from her and noticed that a significant amount of makeup had come off on it. Folding it, she handed it back to Carter. She looked at the wall above the sink in the cell, but no mirror had been installed for the inmates.
She pressed her hands together. “Your daughter is getting in the way of the progress of civilization. Her life is meaningless when considering the thousands and millions who will be saved.”
“It takes an immature and unholy mind to think that way.”
Anger flared in Maxine, but she reminded herself that she was the one in control and let it go. She turned and walked past Carter saying, “Break him, Mr. Roberts. Make it look terrible so when Ms. Zack gets here she knows what she has coming.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
…
Maxine stood in the hallway just outside the re-education room and listened as they worked on the Reverend Gerald Zack of Midwestern America. While actually watching would have made her physically ill, his screams made her chest flutter.
When they had finished with him, she stepped into the doorway. Her throat closed slightly, and her stomach tightened. Red speckled the white tile floor. He sat in the center of the room, strapped to a stainless-steel chair. She forced herself to walk over to him, wishing she had not come in, but she had to show him that she took pride in his re-education. Snot and blood drooled down his face and onto his chest. A tooth lay on the floor nearby. Maxine’s smooth-soled shoes slid a bit on the blood, and she felt bile rising in her esophagus.
“How do you feel about spitting on me now?”
He mumbled something, the blood bubbling in his throat. She noticed that one finger lay twisted up over the back of his hand. She signaled a soldier to give her a towel and used it to push on the finger. He yelled out in pain.
“What did you say?” she asked.
He said, in a whisper, “I’m sorry, so sorry. Please make them stop.”
“Do you see w
hy your daughter is in the wrong now? Do you see the beauty in the cause?”
He began to sob, and she could see that the sobbing caused him agony. She felt joy rise at that. His pain confirmed the strength of her group and the justness of her cause.
Those like you and your bitch daughter will be washed aside in the New World.
Maxine walked over to a rack of tools and, setting the towel down, picked up a smooth nylon baton. She walked back to him and pressed the end of the baton into his ribs. He did not respond. She tried a few other areas on his chest until he screamed out in primal terror and pain. She smiled at him.
“Please, I can’t remember.” He gasped for air. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?”
“I can’t…” and he wandered into mumbling.
Maxine smiled. He had broken. Now his soul, exposed and weak, lay before her.
“You remember Stacy though, yes? That she is going to die terribly?”
Tears began dripping from his eyes, mixing with the blood and mucus on his face.
“Do you remember her?”
He turned his head left and right, saying, “No. no. no. no.”
“She is your daughter. She is why you are suffering so much. She is a traitor and a terrorist.” Maxine smiled at the old man. “Don’t you hate her for letting this happen to you?”
He looked up at her and his lips moved, but she heard nothing. In his eyes, she no longer saw the fear she wanted. She grabbed him by his blood soaked hair, too angry to care about the drying, glutinous mess, and pulled his head back. His eyes rolled in their sockets, wild, like a roped goat whose throat had just been slit open, life pumping in thick streams from its neck. His lips continued to form words. She leaned in closely to him so she could hear.
“…the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: For thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies…”
She let go of his hair, and his head dropped. She walked toward the door and, remembering the baton in her hand, threw it at him. It hit his shoulder and then clattered to the tile floor. He kept up his mumbling prayer. She took a towel from the tray, wiped her hand off, and left the room feeling unsatisfied.
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