by Dean M. Cole
"I can't lose them, Jake." She paused shaking her head, then her lower lip trembled. "I can't lose my Daddy." Before Jake could say anything, Sandy's expression hardened, banishing the scared little girl that had momentarily cracked through her brash façade.
She cast a look at the fuel truck. "All right, Captain Giard, this thing is almost done. I have to get back in the air and report to General Pearson."
"Yeah, we have to get going too. Colonel Newcastle is waiting for our report."
Sandy brusquely swiped a tear from her cheek, then she pointed at him. "Come back to me in one piece, Captain Giard."
"You too, Captain Fitzpatrick."
As her finger approached the screen, she mouthed, "I love you."
Jake mouthed, "I love you, more." The call ended. He stared at the blank screen for a moment then nodded to his wingmen. They proceeded through the airlock, emerging into Western Maryland's cool crisp air. Standing outside the Turtle, they studied the surreal scene of rising smoke columns littering the eastern horizon.
"We've seen this, let's keep moving," Jake said. Turning to head toward downtown, he found himself staring into the cavernous muzzle of a very large double-barreled shotgun.
"Freeze you sons-a-bitches!"
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Angered by her displayed weakness, Sandy batted away another tear. I can't believe I let Jake see that! Wrenching the empty fuel truck's nozzle free, she resisted the temptation to toss it on the ground. Sandy rolled it back into the truck and turned off the pump. Climbing into the vehicle, she stared at the western hills. Retrieving her phone and selecting her parent's home number, Sandy placed the call. After the fifth ring, it went to voicemail. Turning a desperate glance south, in the direction of Monterey, Sandy ended the call and closed her eyes. "Please, be okay."
After a moment, she punched in the general's number, took a deep breath and placed the call.
General Pearson answered on the first ring. "Talk to me, Captain Fitzpatrick."
Taken aback, Sandy hesitated. Finally, she said, "It's bad, sir. Really bad."
She described the scene in the bus, leaving out the teddybear. Also, she told him about her conversation with Jake. None of the news seemed to surprise him, including the downing of an enemy ship. After a brief pause, she told him of her Monterey plans.
"Okay, Captain. Go there and let me know what you see on the ground, but continue on to Nellis as soon as you get refueled."
Expecting this, Sandy countered. "Sir, on the ground, I can travel to the weapon's boundary and find out what's happening there."
"No, Captain." His tone brooked no compromise. "Colonel Newcastle is forwarding Captain Giard's reports. I won't discuss our plans on a nonsecure phone line, but I need you and your aircraft back here."
Sandy's heart sank. Stunned, she was speechless.
Taking her silence as consent, the general continued. "Thanks for your report, Captain. Come see me when you get back to Nellis."
"Yes, sir," she said weakly.
The call disconnected, and Sandy mutely stared at the phone. After a moment, she dialed her parents again. This time, she tried each of their mobile phones, as well. Maddeningly, each went to voicemail. With their cell phones, she'd expected as much. At night, they always turned them off. Hoping they might wake and receive them while she was airborne, Sandy left messages on each.
She took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. "Okay, Captain. Time to get to work."
After looking at the two jets still sitting nose to nose, Sandy dropped the truck into gear. Intending to inch it forward until the front grill contacted the leading edge of the Lear's left wing, she tried to slip the clutch. However, it refused to cooperate. The truck lunged forward. Sandy winced at the sound of metal scraping metal. Fortunately, the jet's brakes weren't set. Bouncing off the front of the truck, the aircraft rolled back a few feet. She nudged the Learjet a few more times, cringing and saying sorry after each impact. Several crunches later, Sandy finally cleared enough space to maneuver her F-22.
Hopping out of the truck, she sprinted to her waiting F-22. Without a boarding ladder, she used the fighter's built in steps and hidden handholds to scramble into the cockpit.
In clear violation of regulations, Sandy left her phone turned-on and clipped it to her approach-plate chart holder. The position would allow her to see the screen should her parents call while she was en route. Sandy planned to stay at an altitude low enough to permit cell phone reception.
Finally buckled into the ejection seat, she ran through the start checks. A couple of minutes later, both engines were running, and all systems were online. Ready to taxi, Sandy pressed the F-22's right toe brake and eased the left throttle forward. Responding to the asymmetrical forces of differential thrust and braking, the fighter pivoted about its right main landing gear.
As the nose swung through north to point east, yellow light flooded her cockpit. The blazing sun was rising over the San Francisco Bay and the backdropping Oakland Hills. While the towering storm cloud hid the golden orb from direct observation, the calm bay waters acted as a mirror. From behind the cloud, the sun's reflection burned a fiery trail across the bay. Like spokes attached to a hidden hub, its radiating golden beams framed the cloud in wasted beauty. Ominously, a lightning bolt shot out, striking a grounded tanker ship. Sitting on a rock jetty, the badly listing vessel appeared to have broken open when it ran aground. Leaning to the right, or starboard, the massive ship sat in a spreading pool of crude oil.
Suddenly, light Sandy mistook for the lightning strike's afterimage blossomed into a rapidly growing fire. Its luminosity soon eclipsed the sunrise. Thick black smoke roiled from the ship's surface. Within seconds, the water itself was on fire. It was insanity … and utterly beautiful.
From the F-22's cockpit, Sandy watched in amazement. Craning her head left and right she realized the entire horizon was dotted with columns of smoke. The burning jet at the runway's north end and the tanker to the east were only two of what appeared to be thousands of uncontrolled fires.
"San Francisco traffic, this is Air Force Seven-Niner-Zero-Papa. I am departing Runway Zero-One. Any traffic in the area please advise."
"Dragonfly Five, this is Omaha Four-Four on tactical."
Sandy selected the appropriate radio. "Go ahead Four-Four."
"I copied your San Fran radio call. Be advised, we still have no traffic in your vicinity. All inbound commercial flights have been diverted. As before, I'll be your air traffic controller. What are your intentions?"
The controller's steady uninflected monotone voice was in stark contrast with Sandy's internal conflict and the apocalyptic panorama confronting her. Taking a deep breath, she willed herself into a calmer state. "Omaha Four-Four, I only have enough fuel to make Monterey Regional. I should be able to get more there."
"Five, be advised, I still can't raise Monterey Approach."
Sandy's thoughts returned to her family. She looked south again. Daddy?
"Dragonfly Five, this is Omaha Four-Four. Did you copy?"
"Yes, I copied," she said weakly, unable to keep despair from her voice.
Raw emotions melted through the controller's disconnected monotone. "What did they do?" The Air Force airman paused. Sandy could tell by the background noise that he was still transmitting. He still had his mic key depressed. "I'm from the Bay Area. I have a sat phone, but I can't get anyone to answer. Is everyone all right? Are they…" He stopped, unable to finish the question.
Sandy was speechless. She'd been completely immersed in her potential loss and the apparent real loss of all the people who, a few hours previous, had occupied the clothes, buses, airplanes, terminals, West Coast, and East Coast. Now she realized, at a personal level, this would hit everyone.
If anybody is left alive.
Sandy had no reason to think the aliens would stop before every man woman and child on the planet was dead. She didn't understand why they had attacked Earth without provocation. How co
uld their hate for us be so ingrained that they would build massive ships with a plainly human skull depicted so grotesquely? While she couldn't understand the hate, it was overtly manifest in their ships and actions. Considering all of that, it was hard to imagine them not using a weapon this effective to its final conclusion.
"Five? Are you still with me?"
"Sorry, Four-Four. I don't have any good news for you. It looks like everybody is … gone. I'm sorry, I have to get going, can't tell you more right now."
She took a deep breath, steeling herself for the work ahead. She would go to Monterey, get some fuel, and only stay long enough to verify the weapon's effect on the area. Colonel Newcastle's forces had proved the aliens could be defeated. She needed to get back to Nellis as soon as possible. An apparent plan was in the works. In the long-term, the best hope for her parents and the rest of the world was for a military victory. She would try to call her parents again from the ground in Monterey. After that, she had to follow the general's orders.
Not waiting for more questions, Sandy called the controller, shifting back to standard radio protocols. "Omaha Four-Four, Dragonfly Five on Runway Zero-One, ready for departure. For a final recon, I'll make a low pass over the city before turning south for Monterey."
A long pause followed her radio call. The man's voice returned choked with emotion, but he resumed standard radio protocols. "Roger, Dragonfly Five. Cleared for departure. I have no other traffic in your area. Following your recon, cleared direct to Monterey Regional." Through a stifled sob, he added, "God's speed, Captain."
"Thank you, Four-Four. Dragonfly Five copies cleared for takeoff. Will advise when I turn direct Monterey. Five, out."
Taxiing past the massive double-decker Airbus at the runway's south end, Sandy studied its inflated emergency slides. Encircling their bases, piles of clothes and bags marked the spot where each person had succumbed to the weapon's effect. Two widely dispersed trails of clothing streamed away from the aircraft. One led toward the bay to the east, the other toward the nearest terminal building. It looked like some people ran toward the nearest shelter, others appeared to have simply run away from the monstrous alien ship hovering overhead.
Sandy's eyes returned to the slides. She saw a civilian pilot uniform stuck on the nearest slide's yellow surface. Knowing the captain would've been the last to depart, Sandy realized the crew had shutdown all systems and abandoned the plane with the passengers.
That's why I didn't see it sooner, there were no lights left on.
Clear of the Airbus, Sandy steered her fighter to intercept the runway's centerline. Ready to put the airport and its teddybear behind her, Sandy firewalled the throttles. Pressed deep into her seat, she watched the withering column of smoke rising over the burned-out partially submerged fuselage to the north. Judging by the fuel required for a fire of that intensity and duration, the wide-body 747 had probably been en route to Tokyo or some other far east port of call. However, its journey had ended far short of that. The weapon's energy wave must have hit just as the pilots started an emergency takeoff. If not, the 747 would have crashed well beyond the departure end of the runway, perhaps hundreds, if not thousands of miles later.
Captured like a macabre snapshot by the energy wave's near simultaneous eradication of all life, the positions of the A380 parked at the south end, and the burned out 747 at the north end painted a picture of escalating chaos in the minutes before the hovering ship deployed its main weapon.
As her fighter accelerated through takeoff speed, Sandy applied aft pressure to the control stick. Her F-22 rose gently from the runway. Initially banking right to avoid the smoke billowing from the Boeing, she then banked left as the burning tanker, its fire still growing, passed to the right. Turning slightly left, toward downtown, Sandy throttled back, wanting to stay low and slow.
"Any traffic in the San Francisco area, Air Force Seven-Niner-Zero-Papa is 5 miles southeast. Will be crossing downtown at one thousand feet AGL. Any traffic in the area please advise."
As expected, the radio remained silent. With the exception of Omaha Four-Four's symbol, her F-22's tactical display was void of air traffic. The last of the empty aircraft had either crashed or continued flying straight and level beyond the sensor's range. As far as Sandy could tell, nothing bigger than a large bird was airborne within 100 miles of San Francisco Bay.
She wanted to check the city center. Reasoning the efficacy of the alien weapon might attenuate when the target's density rose above a certain level, Sandy hoped to see signs of life. If the weapon's effect could be overloaded by a dense population center, what better place to look than downtown San Francisco.
Crossing over the eastern edge of the area, she turned her fighter. Flying low in a left bank, she studied the motionless streets as Transamerica's iconic thousand-foot pyramid passed on her left, its pointed peak rising higher than her current altitude.
Sandy strained to see through the exceptionally smoky air clogging the atmosphere over this part of the city. She gasped as the source of the obscuration came into view. The slopes of Telegraph Hill on her right, as well as Nob Hill and Russian Hill to her left, were ablaze. Reminiscent of photos she'd seen of the immediate aftermath of the great earthquake of 1906, whole blocks were involved. With no one to fight them, the fires were spreading from house to house. Flames leapt hundreds of feet above the homes framing Russian Hill's crooked Lombard Street. Stacked at the bottom of the street's switchbacked section of road, several cars burned in a Detroit-fueled bonfire. Devoid of their controlling occupants, the cars had left a trail of destruction in their wake. As they careened down the steep hill, they had crashed straight across the center of Lombard Street's retention walls and flowerbeds.
Ubiquitous fires littered the scene. The speed with which untended technologies ran amuck amazed Sandy. She knew crashed cars caused many of the fires. However, flames also leapt from buildings in the middle of roadless blocks. She envisioned a flaming stovetop with a spatula's plastic handle melted into a puddle. Completing the imagined scene, a wedding ring sat in the middle of the bubbling plastic, still lying where it had dropped from a vaporized hand.
Sandy shook off the unbidden vision. Ahead, Fisherman's Wharf emerged from the haze in stark clarity. A strong northwesterly wind blew the smoke inland. Several businesses burned, but the onshore breeze quickly carried the smoke away.
Banking her fighter hard right, she circled back around. Extending her flaperons, Sandy slowed to a velocity just above the F-22's gear-down stall speed. In a few moments, the wharf was back in front of her. Craning her neck for a better view, she saw the movement again. Having grown up in Northern California, Sandy had visited the Bay Area on many occasions. So, when she saw the location of the moving bodies, she instantly realized what they were.
"How are you guys still alive?"
Somehow, the energy wave hadn't affected the famous Pier 39 sea lions. Apparently startled by the roar of her passing fighter, several of the sunbathing beasts rolled off their floating docks. Their huge mass cast jets of saltwater onto the buoyant panels.
Additional movement on her other side drew Sandy's attention. She banked hard left. It was a horse-drawn carriage. Apparently panicked by the fires or Sandy's fighter, a frightened horse was galloping down a street bordering the waterfront. A loose collection of clothes was all that occupied the carriage's front bench.
How could it only affect humans? Angry and confused, Sandy shook her head. "Fuck it!"
Retracting the fighter's flaperons, she shoved the throttles forward and banked the fighter. Setting the GPS to Monterey Regional Airport, Sandy engaged the autopilot. As the aircraft climbed above the Presidio, she checked out the Golden Gate Bridge on her right. Another vehicular bonfire was growing on the near side of the central span. A tanker truck on the edge of the conflagration suddenly detonated. Cars and debris shot in every direction as the mushroom cloud exploded skyward. Water fountains sprung up beneath the bridge as smoldering chunks rained down fr
om above.
The apocalyptic scene mercifully faded to gray as her fighter rose through a cloudbank drifting in from the Pacific. No longer able to hold back the rising tide of emotions tearing at her soul, Captain Sandra Fitzpatrick sobbed uncontrollably.
***
Staring into the cavernous maw of a very large double-barrel shotgun, Victor froze mid-step, slowly raising both hands. Captains Giard and Allison did the same. From the other end of the cannon, a huge sheriff glared down the weapon's sights. "Who the hell are you?" he asked. Without taking his eyes or the gun off of Jake, he nodded toward the Turtle. "And, where in the hell did that thing come from?"
Intelligent eyes peered from the deputy's confused face. The man had the haggard look Victor often saw in the eyes of pilots returning from Afghanistan. He thought it came from seeing more hell in a single deployment than most people experienced in a lifetime. The officer's eyes darted to Victor, then Captain Allison and back to Jake. Apparently registering their uniforms, his evident confusion doubled. "Well?" he demanded.
Richard held his hands in front of his shoulders, palms facing the deputy. "We're from the Air Force." Without lowering his arms, he pointed an index finger toward Washington D.C. "We're trying to find out how far that weapon reached, and what it did."
Still aiming the shotgun at Jake's face, the deputy nodded toward the Turtle again. "That doesn't look like any Air Force ship I've ever seen."
Jake nodded. "Suffice it to say, the government still has a few secrets." Slowly, very slowly, he offered his right hand. "I'm Captain Jake Giard."
After a few tense seconds, the deputy relented, his expression and stance softening. Lowering the shotgun and shifting it to his left hand, he shook each of theirs. "I'm Sheriff Larry Biggs."
Fitting name, Victor mused as he glanced down.
His mother's voice chimed in. I can't believe you didn't piss yourself.
"Shut up," Victor muttered. All of the men looked at him. He shook his head. "Sorry."