Flying to Pieces

by Dean Ing

  Lovett watched the lagoon streak past as they bored in just above treetop level, up the throat of the lagoon with a bank to the right, evidently to give Ohtsu a clear field of fire. The hammer of cannonfire sent perhaps a half-dozen rounds streaking out, but Lovett could not see the target, He didn't have to. "Loverly shooting," Reventlo exclaimed, pulling up and away over the sea. "I saw hits against the council house roof."

  Without conscious effort, Lovett found himself lapsing into phrases he hadn't used since his tour in Southeast Asia. "Melanie, tell His Nibs this is a dragon ship, and we've got enough ordnance here to hose every hootch in the ville. We're starting with his, 'cause we're nice guys."

  To himself he added silently, Gotta remember that's not her pidgin.

  Roaring back over the council house, well above the tree line, they could see every hut in the village disgorging tiny figures, some fleeing into the jungle, some making for the beach. Ohtsu let fly with two more rounds, probably aimed at the ocean. Benteen had left her radio on and the confused shouts that became background noise suggested that, if nothing else, they had certainly got Jean-Claude's attention.

  "About forty minutes' fuel, if memory serves," Reventio said calmly.

  Lovett, preparing again to try exiting the Ohka: "What, no economy cruise settings?"

  "W e can't land with the Ohka. I know it and Ohtsu knows it. Get out of there, Wade," said the Brit in tones that meant business.

  "If I can, I will." And with the canopy open, Lovett tried again. And failed again. "Cris, I'm gonna have to ride her down and bail after you drop me. No choice; no kidding." It was pilotese for "absolutely out of options."

  Reventlo was silent for a moment while he banked the big plane for another pass up the lagoon. "I'll have to give you some altitude. Don't thank me, mate, the concussion wave will shed our wings if I don't."

  Now the old Japanese was calling excitedly to Reventlo, who banked the bomber into a circle encompassing the village, the council house, and much of the lagoon. Lovett's view was awful, but he -felt a surge of hope when the pilot said, "There's our prize arsehole, You can't miss him coming out of his den." Then, for one instant in passing, Lovett saw the giant Pelele hurrying away from the council house afoot with a trousered figure in tow, and from the hairdo it had to be Benteen stumbling between the lagoon and the plaza. "... Mad as hell, Cris, and he dares you to go ahead," came Melanie Benteen's voice from the radio.

  "He's 'got a thong around my neck and he thinks you won't fire on us both. Show him he's wrong, sweetie."

  "Not an option," Reventio said. Evidently Melanie Benteen had never seen human remains struck by cannon fire.

  Lovett upped the ante. "Mel, tell him what he sees under our dragon ship is a bomb so big it won't fit inside. If we drop it near his council house there won't be any council house, just fifty more yards of lagoon. And the ville had better be empty cause we're gonna frag it. He won't have anything left to be or let us see you and Coop coming President of. Either that, alone down the beach in the next two minutes."

  "Well said," Reventio chimed in.

  They could not clearly hear Benteen's conversation with the big man but, during their next banking pass near the council house, Ohtsu cut loose again with his aerial cannon. Moments later, Benteen laughed. "Now you've really pissed him off, boys. Ruined his big music box."

  "How can he tell from out there," Reventlo asked.

  "If you ever heard a cannon shell hit a grand piano you wouldn't have to ask," she said gaily, then stopped as another voice gibbered in the background. "He says you won't hurt innocent villagers. I think he believes it."

  Reventlo: "The slaughter of innocents is what war is all about. Tell him he taught us that, and we learned fast." Then the Brit called in Japanese to his gunner, and straightened his next pass to parallel the village.

  Lovett couldn't see the result, but through his radio he heard the inarticulate howl of fury from Jean-Claude Pelele. As Revendo resumed his circular pattern he said, "Right down the plaza of Mr. Fundabora Fats. But he's not to worry, Melanie. If he doesn't release you, in two minutes there won't be a plaza."

  They were banking upward, yielding Lovett a sight of the council house, when a portion of its outer wall erupted in a puff of debris. "We got a secondary, Cris," the American replied, wondering what might have set off that secondary explosion.

  Bits of stone peppered the edge of the lagoon in little watery bull's-eyes, and Jean-Claude Pelele sprawled, perhaps feeling some of that debris. Before Lovett lost his view, he realized that Melanie Benteen was off and running. "I'm loose, "she cried.

  "Head for the cave," Reventlo urged, increasing the altitude of his banked circle.

  For the first time, the voice of Vic Myles: "Take the rimeter road, I can cover. you," he said. Nothing more. M itoring those transmissions, Myles could have only sketchiest idea of the action but apparently he had mo, closer to the center of it.

  "Someone-running from," Benteen panted. A pat then a delighted cry: "My God. Coop! Coop, over here!' Reventio's view was by far the best. "Run, you punter," he begged as if to himself. "Wade, our people clear. Your choice of targets." He pulled the old bomber i a steep climb.

  Lovett did not want to think of his grandson's rema buried in a Fundaboran grave. There was a better soluti Without hesitation he said,

  "Council house. Villagers dc deserve this." What Lovett really wanted was to aim for Je Claude's navel but from any altitude high enough to saf launch this awful gadget there was no assurance that he co@ locate the man again; and the council house was, after all, local status symbol.

  For maximum climb, the old bomber had to broaden circle a great deal.

  Somehow during all this, Reventio m@ aged to keep Benteen in sight.

  "They've joined up, Wad( had no idea a one-legged man could sprint like that," he s admiringly.

  "I'll need a little more air to play with," said Lovett, s tling himself in his seat, making sure the canopy was fu 'open again. "I don't know how -this thing handles. whether."

  "Rockets might give you some help. No guarantees," s@ Myles, still monitoring as he had from the first.

  With his throttles fire walled, Reventlo continued his ciii until he had a mile of air beneath the Betty. "Your c, Wade. Give me a heading."

  "Come in from the lagoon breakwater and drop me ha way to the council house," said the American.

  "Wilco." The bomber began another steep turn. "Ai ah-Wade?"

  "Yeah."

  "Don't be a bloody fool when we're winning."

  Voice deadly with calm: "You can't begin to know what I've lost."

  initiating my "We may need you, goddan-m your eyes run," the Brit broke off quickly. "Tallyho." to Lovett. Ohtsu salutes A faint burst of Japanese came d so honthe thunder god who treated him and his grandchil orably," Reventlo added. "Don't do it, Wade." Both men knew the old term the Japanese had used for kamikaze pilots sworn to die: thunder gods.

  Lovett was considering a reply when he felt the shackles release cleanly, a tribute to ohtsuls maintenance, and from that instant onward he forgot everything but the task at hand. g dive from The Ohka fell away nose-down in a steepenin perhaps six thousand feet, but a firm pull on the simple control stick brought it up to the horizontal. The huge bulk of the old Betty droned off above him, instantly forgotten, his each side, wind whistling view now remarkably clear to fiercely around the open cockpit. An Ohka had never been intended to fly with its canopy back and, horizontal or not, ng him lose altitude quickly. Because he the drag was maki had drifted to the right, he used both pedals and stick to recover; found himself saying aloud that he was using full control deflections, this terrible device for future Pilots. ight speed it At least the little beast was stable, and at f, seemed to glide perhaps five feet forward for every foot down. By glider standards this was awful; yet it quickly sent Lovett well beyond his intended target and a steep banking turn without power would only make the device plummet faster. He didn't actually think about f
iring those rockets; he simply did it, snapping the first of three firing studs Ohtsu had shown him near the center of the prinidtive instrument panel. The result was instantaneous, a rushing burst of sound behind him and a surge of thrust against his back. His speed increased steadily until the lift of the Ohka's stubby wings roughly matched the forces drawing him down, and -as Lovett Bangin' it on the stops," as if testing banked the monster he realized that he was almost over the runway, down to perhaps four thousand feet.

  Too damned low, too damned far, he thought, and knew he must have more thrust. Well, there were two more rockets, two more chances for one of them to blow his backside off, and as he felt the first rocket subside he fired another.

  And this was more like it, sizzling back over the jungle with the council house well in view, still dropping but not losing too much altitude, but when he tried to stand up the wind shear force nearly took his head off, forcing him back.

  Well, he'd known for ages-thirty seconds or so-that this would probably be the way his world would end; not with a I whimper but with a God-Almighty bang. No time for self pity, none for rage, and damned little for aiming himself while eering through that ridiculous aiming circle just ahead of the windscreen, but he might plant the Ohka's nose just beyond the council house, where he could see two tiny figures on the roof, the taller one in a yellow cap; and then he saw the taller figure turn to peer at him, waving what might have been a pistol, and it wasn't a cap at all but a mop of sun-bleached hair, the only such hair on Fundabora; and with one-tenth of a second of decisions left to him the word, Chip! burst in his rmnd, and he hit the last of the firing studs as he horsed back on the control stick.

  In absolute extremity to miss the council house, it was possible to convert all that speed to stretch a glide, even to climb briefly, but the laws of physics said there was going to be a price to pay. Lovett streaked over the council house with only three-hundred feet of altitude, in a darting climb that would last for a few seconds at most. With the fact of Chip's unexplained survival, in the space of one second Lovett had shifted goals, and if he'd had the thrust to do it he would have tried to roll the Ohka, use gravity to help pull him out, perhaps live to embrace his grandson again. But that was no longer possible; that was the price he'd paid to the gods of physics. Instead, as he flashed above the lagoon he tried to cheat with aerodynamics. He wrenched the stick for a wingover to reverse his direction which robbed him of some of his newly gained height. With a convulsive movement he put both hands on the canopy rail, and planted one foot on the control stick. His height above the lagoon may have been as much as five hundred feet.

  When he sprang away, the little Ohka responded, snapping its nose down as his foot forced the stick forward. In a sense, the little brute simply ducked its head and flung him out. Men had lost their legs that way but Lovett was already clawing at the D ring on his chute, flipping over and over, expecting to be slammed into marmalade by the Ohka's horizontal tail.

  Spread-eagle, commanded some old memory, because you fell more slowly that way and he didn't want to be found tucked intg a ball, and a mass of white stuff erupted at his chest but chutes didn't open that fast and he was falling, tall palms rushing up for him, the world whirling around, and fronds slashed past his feet as the awesome wallop of an opening chute squeezed him breathless. You were supposed to relax, he recalled. No problem.

  His compressed sense of time was disorienting because, as the ground rushed to meet him, he truly was failing more slowly, then not at all, swinging eight feet above a big fern as, two hundred yards distant, the Ohka pancaked into the lagoon, having obediently regained its level attitude the instant his foot left the control stick, but still losing altitude fast.

  Lovett could not even cover his face, helplessly dangling, and saw the Ohka bounce flat, shedding one plywood wing that flipped away while the little monster spun furiously, skipping like a child's boomerang along the lagoon. And because the old fuze in the Ohka's nose did not strike the water with enough force, Lovett waited in vain for the explosion.

  The remains of the Ohka slid near the shallows, its fuselage now a huge, flattened, buckled aluminum toy, and the entire one-ton nose section quickly sank, breaking away so that the aft end of the bomb protruded just above the surface like a buoy. Lovett was astonished to find that, among the emotions that flooded him, the primary one was disappointment.

  The laughter behind him had a tinge of mania in it as Jean Claude Pelele, having watched the Ohka destroy itself, drew near enough that he might have reached up to grasp Lovett's kicking legs. The chute had no single-point release and, grinning up at his helpless enemy, Pelele shook his finger cheerfully. "Lubbet plenty from byandby," he pron-dsed, and began to bellow toward the village, actually beating his chest before he trotted to the shallows where the Ohka's debris lay.

  It didn't take a genius to realize the big man's agenda: call his people back, show them he was still the alpha male, exhibit Lovett as a trophy before dragging him down to have plenty fun with him. Wade Lovett was digging into his trousers for his knife as Pelele strode bravely into the water.

  A few faces peered from foliage near the village and Jeanclaude, to embolden them, held up a shard of floating plywood as he shouted encouragement. He was laughing as he stroked out to the base of the warhead, hugged it, slapped a big meaty hand down on one of several protruding studs.

  Evidently the Ohka had impact fuses fore and aft. The shock wave generated by two thousand pounds of high explosive blew down trees, lifted a geyser hundreds of feet into the -sky, and tore Lovett's chute completely free.

  Almost everyone involved knew the fate of Wade Lovett before he did.

  Reventio and Ohtsu knew because, circling far above and beyond the blast radius, they cheered the sudden blossoming of his chute just above the treetops. Benteen, Coop, and Myles knew because they could hear Reventio's play-by-play reportage. From such a distance, the Brit could not identify a given person and didn't figure out why the Ohka's muffled blast and attendant waterspout were delayed so long, or where Jean-Claude had gone-"Everywhere," Keikano was to explain cheerfully-until the mutual debriefing later.

  With only a few minutes of fuel left after that fearsome blast that cratered the lagoon, Crispin Reventlo had lowered his landing gear and made a single straight-in approach to the runway, knowing he would not get a second chance. With no heavy fuel load, no cargo, and next to no crew, he should have made it down cleanly. He very nearly did.

  It could have been the surrounding water that allowed so little metal shrapnel to tour the deserted village. As for Wade Lovett, stunned but otherwise untouched hundreds of yards from the epicenter, he needed two minutes to unbuckle the chute harness and thrash his way out of his blanket of waterlogged palm fronds, and two days to lose the persistent tone in his ears. Later, when he whistled the tone for Chip, the youngster frowned and shook his head. "E natural. You'll he said in some joke all his own.

  never be a composer, For an hour after he stumbled toward the crumbling council house to be met by his grandson and Keikano, Lovett had found himself half-deafened, poised between anger and delirious glee. Chip sat with a beaming Keikano on the steps be side him and replied to Lovett's confused muttering. keep telling you, Pop, Coop was half right. They held me down and poured that shitty scotch into me to keep me quiet. I was dead-dead drunk. I must've been dishrag-limp, hardly breathing I suppose, and I guess poor Coop just took one look and jumped to conclusions."

  "He could've let Benteen know later," Lovett mumbled, still coping with a mild case of shell shock.

  "How could he know, after they moved him? He'd smuggled the forty-five in somehow, and by the time I came to, they'd taken him away. Found out the lump under my back was the gun he'd stashed under me. I couldn't aim it or stand up straight for half the next day; I was wasted, Pop. First time I tried to shout, it felt like the top of my head was coming off. I didn't try that again."

  "So how'd you get out, Chip?"

  "Keikano," sa
id the youth, and hugged the doe-eyed native. "She sneaked in and talked to Pelele's wives after the big bastard hauled Benteen outside, and she found out where I was, and pulled the hinge pins out of the door. Would you believe Pilau had oiled them? Anyway, I had the pistol so we snuck up on the roof. I was gonna nail the fat man as soon as he got close enough; honest, I was ready to shoot him, Pop, but here came this twenty-foot skyrocket and I had no idea you were in it, and then... Lovett, who still had trouble focusing and considerably more trouble deciphering this babble, put up a hand. "She? You said she, dammit. You mean Benteen? Talk sense."

  Chip slid his glance to the silent Keikano, and they shared ntle kiss.

  "No, I mean Kei. I should've known sooner, Pop, but I didn't 'til the night we waited for her grandpop in the dark, and she put my hand on her chest and-well, anyway-.

  "Keikano's a girl," Lovett said stupidly, and Chip merely nodded.

  And now the young Fundaboran did speak, and when allowing her voice its natural timbre it was even more musical and as girlish as a giggle.

  "Several families raised their first girls as boys, sir," she said. "The Pelele tradition is to make child wives of eldest village girls. I am not the only one. The wives know it. They envy me, I think."

  Lovett put his head down on his knees and rocked it to and fro. Muffled between his hands: "You know what I thought."

  "Sure, Pop, but this was serious stuff. I swore not to tell, and a promise is a promise. If anybody gave the scam away and Pelele's bunch had found out, a dozen village girls would've been in deep trouble, same as Kei." He paused, cocked his head. "Somebody's coming in the half-track," he said. "Let's get out of sight."

  They didn't show their faces outside the council house until convinced that Pilau's mission was peaceful. The formidable Rongi commanded the half-track, his spear adorned now with Merizo's bedraggled little fly whisk, his face and breast streaked with hastily applied paint. He looked warlike and grimly satisfied. No wonder: trussed in the half-track's cargo bed lay three of Jean-Claude's burly guards with little Merizo for lagniappe, like a goat tethered among a trio of surly hogs. Keikano spoke with Rongi for a time, then called her friends out of the ruined lobby. When Rongi rapped out a question, Keikano pointed at Lovett native fashion, with her chin. Rongi, his face split in a grin, leaped from the half-track and enfolded Wade Lovett in a sweaty embrace while speaking the local argot, and Lovett looked to Keikano for help. 'You sent Jean-Claude to the -great fire below," she explained,