by Неизвестный
Josie watched as a group of American fighters peeled off to engage a group of Martian saucers and small fighters that had come into view from the south. The Martian Killers and the bombers from Jersey were the main force going up against the refinery, so the squadrons of escort fighters were the first to see action, much to Josie’s chagrin.
Jack must have heard her sigh. “Don’t worry, angel—you’ll get your chance to use those rockets.”
Before long, he was right. The bomber group was soon over Lake Michigan, and Milwaukee was coming into view. Steam and clouds of smoke could be seen rising from the cream-bricked city. Their target, the converted factory, lay beyond. Most of the remaining civilian population lived in the shadow of the city or the farms farther out, so casualties would hopefully be kept to a minimum, but then there were no guarantees in war. So much life had already been lost, Josie knew; the alien invaders had practiced a scorched-earth policy across entire swaths of the Midwest countryside, collecting humans as slaves where needed, or simply ruling captured cities as conquerors of the Earth. Life in the occupied territories was dismal and cruel. Portions of Milwaukee itself looked like bombed-out Europe, while in other areas entire city blocks were still beautifully intact and quiet, as though the coming winter was the only thing keeping its denizens indoors.
But along the banks of the Great Lake were rows of Martian Walkers and cannon emplacements. They turned as the escort fighters pulled ahead of the bombers and came into range. Then they began to fire their death rays into the sky. The fighters dove in, unleashing a hail of gunfire and rockets, trying to take out as much of the ground defense as possible before the bombers could come into range. A second wave of American planes continued ahead to take on the anti-aircraft cannon.
Then the saucers took to the air.
“Martian Killers, engage,” came Hunter’s command.
Josie smiled and pushed the throttle. She found herself leading the charge as the small group of modified Mustangs, Corsairs, Hellcats, and Texans pulled away from the dozen bombers and dove for the incoming alien ships. She gripped the stick and prepared to fire, bringing the first saucer into her sights. “Let ‘em have it, boys!”
Ignoring the first few blasts that shot past her cockpit, she mashed the trigger and poured hot lead directly into the center of the ship, strafing its center cockpit and cutting the ship in half with a well-placed rocket. She adjusted her flight path and tore into a second saucer with a burst of gunfire, passing it as it began to leak smoke and curl toward the lake.
“Let some daylight into those Three-Eyes, gents! Am I the only one who can get ‘em on the first pass?” Josie pulled hard on the stick, turning to chase the saucers heading for the bombers above. “Mask,” she said, still steering toward Jack and his formation. “You’ve got one bearing down on you.”
“Yes,” was his only reply. While Josie made for the saucers already being peppered by turrets on the Flying Fortresses, she watched from her canopy as the ship firing at Mask’s P-51 passed him without scoring a hit. His Mustang slid over and gave chase, cutting past diagonally and strafing it with lead. The concentration of machine gun fire that would have torn an axis plane to shreds only damaged the invader, but the Martian still cracked open along one side. Though it stayed airborne, its ability was severely hampered.
“Score one bandit for Mask,” Josie called.
“I’ve lost a waist gunner,” Jack’s voice came over the crackle of the radio. “Josie, get up here! One of the bombers is already flying without a tail.”
“I’m on it,” she replied.
“Haul ass!” Jack swore as a blast from a saucer tore through part of his B-17’s wing.
Josie’s guns roared to life and sent the saucer spinning out of control. “Squared away, Cap. Or did you forget this skirt could fly?”
“No comment, Angel,” Jack squawked. “Two more coming in from the sun.”
“Got it,” said Hunter. His plane passed through the formation of bombers and flew toward the diving Martians. “Josie, you take the one on the left; I’ve got the one on the right.”
“Roger,” she said, and gunned the throttle. She rolled her plane over when the first few death-ray blasts tried to clip her wings, caught the ship in her sights, and poured it on. The guns rattled their fury, and Josie could see shrapnel flying off of the ship gunning to pass her and take out Jack’s bomber, but the damage she was doing just wasn’t enough. She loosed a rocket instead. The saucer exploded. Josie banked hard and made for the deck, hoping to take out some walkers on the downturn before coming back up for more. She was feeling cocky.
“Josie, where are you going?” Hunter asked over the radio.
“That next line of ground artillery will cut the bombers in half before they reach the target,” she replied, still diving.
“Let the escorts take care of them,” Hunter ordered. “The bombers still have in-bound.”
Josie got a far-off walker in her sights and opened up with her guns for a standard burst before breaking off. “Roger,” she cursed, and pulled up.
“Three o’clock,” Hunter said, racing to meet the saucers. His plane fired a rocket of its own and destroyed a saucer.
Josie’s plane passed under the bombers as they opened their bomb-bay doors. With one eye, she watched them begin their run while she sighted in on a saucer that had gotten close enough to fire its main guns on a Liberator bringing up the rear of the group. The B-24 exploded into a million pieces, and the saucer turned its sites on another. Josie loosed a rocket that glanced off the Martian craft. The saucer rolled once, regained its heading and fired on the bombers again.
Meanwhile, Josie had passed the alien by and was turning to engage him again. As she did, she could see the bombers had dropped their ordinance. The bombs toppled toward a standard set of buildings and smokestacks that the Martians had added huge portions of their own engineering onto, to make it all into one huge refinery. The entire structure began to explode as soon as the bombs hit, and within seconds, the Martian refinery was flattened.
The bombers had already begun to turn for home, but the saucers weren’t done with them yet. Josie poured on the speed, hoping to intercept. Nevertheless, the damage was already done; the ship she had failed to down blasted away at Jack’s bomber, and the Flying Fortress burst into flames as its engines caught fire.
“Oh God,” Josie gasped. “Jack!”
She watched in horror as Jack’s plane started to fly apart. “Hit the silk!” the command to his crew came over the radio.
“Hurry,” Josie said anxiously. She slowed long enough to watch several men drop from the disintegrating bomber, then she climbed high again to take on the few remaining saucers. When she saw that her fellow pilots had engaged them all, she turned her own plane over and headed for the deck. “I’m going to get Jack,” she radioed.
“Negative,” Hunter replied. “I’ll send one of the bombers down for his crew.”
Josie was already looking for a field to put down on. “Jack was the last to bail and he got separated,” she cried. “He’ll never make it in time!”
“Josie, that’s a single-seat Corsair,” Hunter reminded her.
“So I’ll rip the seat out and stuff him in the back,” she said adamantly. “I’m not leaving him behind.”
Josie lowered her gear and come in to land, using a stretch of road and a clear section of farmland as a runway. She was a sitting duck if there were still any Martian ships or walkers nearby, but she just had to get Jack to safety. Her wheels touched down.
The Corsair’s canopy popped and slid open, and Josie stood up, drawing her pistol. “Jack?” she called. She pulled off her goggles and flight cap to hear better. Flurries had begun to fall, settling briefly in the nearly frozen field. She scanned the treeline surrounding her. “Jack?!” There was no sign of him. “Damn…” She tried her radio/TV wristwatch, but all that came through was static.
Josie tried to get her bearings. She was pretty sure she had landed
just north of where she had last seen Jack’s parachute go down, but the landscape all blended together from the air. Taxiing her plane up against the mostly leafless forest, Josie slipped out of her gear and got out a camouflage net for the plane. She turned off the Corsair’s giant engine and began covering the craft, ready to go get Jack out of a tree or help him walk if he had broken a leg.
The dirt was cold and hard beneath her boots. Josie gripped her .45 tight in one fist while scanning as far ahead as her eyes could see, but the trees and bramble were thick, even at this stage of autumn. Once more she took note of the sun’s position, then walked into the forest.
She ran as fast as she could while dodging branches and keeping sure footing. No longer willing to call out his name this far from the safety of her plane, Josie’s heart began to pound. “Come on,” she said under her breath.
Then she caught sight of something, at last.
A group of figures were ahead, helping Jack disentangle himself from his chute while getting him down from a tree. As she approached, she could tell they were all human and not military. One was dressed in flannels, denim, and a furry cap—clearly a farmer of this land. The other two were dressed as standard civilian men, one in a suit and fedora, the other in a gabardine jacket. Josie lowered her gun as she neared them, but didn’t yet holster it. She was behind enemy lines after all. She called to Jack.
“I’m okay,” he answered, hobbling.
“His leg’s sprained,” said the farmer. “Maybe broken.”
Josie put away her gun away and laid her hands on Jack. “Can you help us to my plane?” she asked while studying him.
Another of the men said, “I hope it’s hidden, ma’am, ‘cause we need to get under cover. There’s a Martian patrol headed this way.” He pointed first to the farmer, then the man in the jacket. “That’s Bucholtz and Rhode. I’m Andy Gorder. We’re part of the local resistance.”
The farmer nodded. “We’ll use the stash at my place. Come on.” He and Josie took Jack’s shoulders under their own.
After a moment Andy asked Josie, “You’re a…pilot?”
Josie glanced at him once and smiled a little. “Takes all kinds, huh?”
“Uncle Sam’s luckier n’ I thought these days.”
“You’re dressed like an Ace Kraut,” Rhode piped in, looking at Josie’s flight gear. “No offense, Bucholtz.”
“None taken,” the farmer grunted.
“A girl’s got to have some style, gentlemen,” Josie shrugged and helped lift Jack over a log.”
Jack shook his head. “You want me to hit him?”
“Sure.” Josie pulled a face. “You’re up for it, Jack.”
He mocked a resigned sigh. “Well, just so long as he doesn’t start going on about your headlights.”
“We’ll lay low for a few hours,” she said assuredly. “Then we’ll get airborne once the coast is clear. Things are fine; your run on the refinery completely destroyed it.”
“I hate to be the bearer of harsh reality, you two,” Bucholtz said. “but the refinery you attacked was a decoy. The real one’s in the city and fully operational.”
Josie was gripped by shock. “WHAT?”
Josie and Jack were lying on a flatbed truck under a false bottom and a few hundred bushels of corn. They had spent a cold night in a shed behind Bucholtz’s farmhouse, wrapped in each other’s arms for warmth. It would have been one of the most romantic moments they had ever had the time to share, if not for the fear and exhaustion. So far, though, they had eluded capture and were being taken to meet the resistance groups hidden in the city.
The truck bumped along backwoods roads and streets in disrepair on its way to a checkpoint leading into Martian-controlled Milwaukee. Jack sniffed. “The Martians must like beer.”
“How can you tell?” Josie whispered.
“I can already smell the breweries. They’re still in production.”
Josie wrinkled her nose. “Is that what that is?”
Jack suddenly sounded far off. “I wonder if the Braves are still allowed to play.”
There was a knock from the cab and the truck came to a stop with a squeak of brakes. They were at a checkpoint, and Josie found that she was suddenly holding her breath.
“Papers!” The weird, grunting warble of a Martian’s voice was a sobering sound in the confined darkness of their hiding spot. Jack grasped Josie’s hand tightly.
After a moment’s scrutiny, she heard two of the aliens speaking to each other in their native tongue and then laughing. “Bucholtz, farmer. What is it you American humans say about the farmer’s daughter?”
There was more alien chortling.
“Why you…” Bucholtz could be heard getting out of the truck and cursing the creatures in German. Then he screamed. Josie gasped, then covered her mouth.
“No!” Rhode cried. “No, please! He’s sorry!”
The Martian snarled. “He’s swine for the camps.”
Rhode continued to plead, “His wife and his daughter were both taken by the Blue Sheik. You must understand his feelings, yes?”
“Take him.”
“NO!” Rhode must have gotten out of the truck. “No, take me instead. He is important, you understand? Needed: a farmer.” By the angle of sound and tone he was on his knees, begging. “He is needed,” he repeated. “A farmer.”
“Very well,” the Martian acquiesced after a moment. “But to farm, he does not need all of his left fingers.”
Bucholtz screamed again.
“Do not challenge us another time, swine!” the Martian barked. “Now get on with your delivery, before we change our minds.”
The men could be heard getting back in the truck and they drove on.
“I need you to stop squeezing so hard, Angel,” Jack whispered.
Josie let out her breath at last and released Jack’s hand. Tears were rolling down the sides of her cheeks to get caught in her hair. She was glad for the darkness that concealed them. She breathed deeply; at least they were in the city.
The truck slowed, and the squeal of brakes echoed. It must have pulled inside a building, as a set of doors could be heard closing behind them. The truck stopped and the engine shut off. Within moments, men were opening the back of the vehicle and helping Jack and Josie out from beneath the false bed.
Jack hobbled a bit as he looked around. His leg wasn’t broken, but it wasn’t the type of sprain that healed overnight, either. This mission has become very complicated, Josie thought, and it’s only getting deeper.
They were inside a warehouse where several men were gathered holding rifles, shotguns, and a few machine guns. A man offered his hand to Jack and then to Josie. “Jeff Wilson. Welcome to the Milwaukee Resistance.”
Rhode helped Bucholtz out of the passenger side of the truck. The farmer was cradling his left hand, wrapped in a bloody rag. “Big-Head Bastards,” Rhode said.
Josie wanted to say something to them, but knew it would have to wait. “We’ve come a long way, Mr. Wilson.” She turned on him. “What’s this all about?”
“This way, please, Ms. Taylor.” He led them to a meeting room downstairs. A group of people, men mostly, from all walks of life were gathered in the room. Rhode and Andy Gorder were there, along with some military men, a few teenagers, and Rhode’s German Shepherd. The room was dark and mostly made of brick, but there were alcoves, some wooden cabinets, and a few places that looked like emergency exits in case of sudden need of egress.
Jeff Wilson sat on a beaten old table in front of a chalkboard, waiting for the people to gather and settle.
“All right,” he said, “I need everyone except the essentials to step out for a few minutes, please.”
Everyone but Wilson, Rhode, Gorder, and a man called Peterson left via a door at the far end of the room. Wilson looked briefly at the newcomers, and for an instant, Josie wondered what the hell was going to happen, thoughts of a double-cross streaming through her head. He knocked twice on a wooden door closest to where he
sat and the door opened.
And into the room stepped two figures.
“Hunter!” Josie cried. “Mask!” She ran to them and shook Hunter Noir’s hand, then briefly touched Mr. Mask’s bicep, genuinely pleased to see them.
“Shouldn’t you be in New York by now?” Jack asked while exchanging greetings.
“How did you get here?” Josie asked.
Hunter shook his head. “There’s still work to do, and we couldn’t leave you both behind. We found a place to put down and hide our craft, then snuck into the city last night.” He glanced at Josie. “When you didn’t radio whether you had found Jack, I knew that you two would need the help of my local contacts.” He nodded at Wilson.
Wilson smiled at Josie. “Fortunately Bucholtz and his men found you both before it came to that.”
Jack fidgeted on his hurt leg. “Well, at least we’re all here to finish what we started.”
Josie’s confusion got the better of her. “Why are we here? If that wasn’t the refinery we destroyed, then where is it?”
“Underneath the city,” Wilson replied.
“What?!”
Wilson nodded morosely. “We only recently learned the horrible truth when a slave escaped from the new underground facility a few weeks ago. We hadn’t been able to get a message out since then, but I’ve been filling Hunter and Mr. Mask in on the details since they arrived.”
“Under the city,” Jack said with a roll of his eyes.
“Exactly,’ Hunter replied. “It’s the perfect hiding place for an operation as large and important to their war effort as this one: an inexhaustible supply of local slave laborers, a built-in decoy and secondary location within a few short miles, and the Martians knew that if we ever found out about the new location that we’d think twice before bombing the heart of a human population center. Even then, the underground facility would probably survive an aerial assault.”
Jack snapped his fingers. “So they’ll just rebuild the decoy we destroyed and continue to supply their war machines in America from the hidden refinery that sits beneath us, untouched.”