In Times Like These: eBook Boxed Set: Books 1-3

by Nathan Van Coops

  “Nice to meet you, Don.” I glance at the door I came in, then follow Don out a different door to the tarmac. A handful of single engine planes are tied down on concrete pads in the asphalt. Don leads us toward a blue and white Cessna that has grass stains on its landing gear. He begins to discuss the plane’s characteristics, and I nod along as he takes samples of the fuel and checks the oil. I keep my eye on the parking lot and one hand in my satchel on the EMP. Don directs me toward the pilot seat and tells me to strap in.

  “Have you ever been in a small plane before?”

  “I’ve actually had a fear of heights until recently, but I’ve been working on getting over it. I was in a hot air balloon before.” I leave out the Hindenburg and the trip to the space station, as he might find those a bit tough to swallow.

  Due to the tight quarters, I’m obligated to shove my satchel into the back seat. Don follows a checklist and chats amiably with ground control before taxiing toward the runway. “Do you want to try to steer?” He points to the pedals near my feet.

  “No, I’m good. Maybe once we get in the air.”

  Don nods, and after another quick dialogue with the control tower, begins to taxi onto the runway.

  I’m looking out the window toward the parking lot when I spot him. Traus Gillian has just entered the gate and is peering in the windows of the flight school. Don gets lined up with the center of the runway and shoves the throttle forward. I glance back at the flight school and find Traus staring at us. How did he find me? I watch in shock as he pulls a gun from his jacket. Holy shit.

  “This makes it go faster, right?” I push on the throttle lever Don was using.

  “That’s as far as it goes,” Don replies.

  Traus’s gun flashes, and I duck instinctively. I don’t know where the bullet went, but we’re not hit. We’re rolling at a decent rate now and putting the flight school behind us. I catch sight of Traus running past a couple of parked planes to aim again, but Don lifts off and we’re airborne. If Traus gets off any more shots, they don’t hit us. I try to relax and go back to the task at hand.

  Don hasn’t noticed my little freak out, or perhaps he has chalked it up to nerves, but as we make a turn north over the pier he gives me his full attention. “You want to take the controls? You just use nice easy motions, make a left turn using the yoke here.” He explains the basics of flying to me as I take the controls. I pay close attention when he starts describing the gauges.

  “So that’s the altimeter? How high are we now?”

  “Just climbing through a thousand feet. We’ll head up to twenty-five hundred or so on our way out to the beach.”

  I watch the needle slowly making its way around the gauge and pull back harder on the yoke.

  “Whoa, not too much now. You don’t want to aim too high or you’ll start to lose lift. That can cause what we call a wing stall.”

  I lower the nose of the airplane and wait for him to finish his lesson on aerodynamics, but he stops midsentence. He puts one hand to his headset and looks back toward the airport. The tower had been speaking to someone else on the radio, but I had tuned out since Don didn’t seem to be paying attention either. Now he’s heard something to make him listen. From what I can make out on the radio, the air traffic controller is attempting to get a response from another aircraft. He doesn’t sound happy.

  “What’s going on?” I crane my neck to try to see, while still doing my best to keep the plane level.

  “Someone took off without a clearance. And they’re in one of my planes.” Don pivots farther in his seat. “Wow, they aren’t even trying to use the pattern. They just cut right past the control tower. If I find out who’s pulling that stunt they’ll never rent here again. Better not be one of Dave’s students . . .”

  Don directs his attention back to me. “You’re doing really great here. Just keep us aimed west. We’ll go out over the gulf and do a couple maneuvers. You’ll be able to get the feel for flying.” He points toward the gulf shoreline, then turns to look backward again. He seems perfectly happy to leave the controls in my hands, and while my grip may be a bit tense, it’s not just the new experience of flying making my heart race. I keep an eye on the altimeter needle, trying to ignore what I suspect about the pilot of the plane behind us. He won’t be able to catch us up here. Two thousand feet ought to be enough.

  As the altimeter needle climbs past eighteen hundred feet, I reach my hand into the back seat for my satchel.

  “You need me to grab you something?” Don asks.

  “Um, actually, can you take the controls a minute? I’d like to get my camera. Great view up here, you know?”

  “Oh. Sure.” Don rests a hand on the yoke. “Do you live around here? We can probably get a shot of your house on the way back in.”

  I fiddle with the latch on my bag, trying to get it open with one hand. “Um. I’m actually not sure where my place is from here.” The bag finally opens, and I lift the flap enough to slide my hand in. The smooth metal finish of the canister is easy to locate. I slip it out of the bag but leave it on the seat momentarily while I try to remember how to work the controls. The top of the device looks a lot like the concussion grenade the Admiral set off on the Terra Legatus. A single red light adorns the top next to a safety guarded trigger switch.

  I lift the canister into my lap and note the altimeter has passed twenty-three hundred feet. “Do these windows open? Like if I want a clearer shot?”

  “Oh, sure. Gets a bit windy, though, so be careful not to lose your camera.”

  “Okay, thanks. I attempt to unlatch the window and Don reaches across me to help. The window pops open part way and the gusting wind makes the microphone on my headset crackle.

  Don raises his voice to compensate for the extra noise. “What kind of camera is that?” He’s looking at my lap. Something thuds into the aircraft and distracts him. “What the hell?” The noise came from the right side of the plane. After a brief survey, he curses and banks the airplane left. “There’s a hole in our tank! It’s like someone took a shot at us!” I peer past his head and see blue fluid leaking out a hole in the bottom of the wing. Don moves a lever on the floor labeled “Fuel Selector” to the left position.

  I press the button on the top of the EMP and the light starts to blink. It increases in speed and lets out an audible tone. “Sorry, Don. I gotta do this.” I drop the EMP out the window. It detonates just below the aircraft and all the electronics in the plane immediately blink off. One radio actually emits a puff of smoke. Don is staring at me wide-eyed.

  “What did you do!” The headsets no longer amplify his voice, but I can still hear him over the engine noise. He looks at the dashboard and runs a hand over the circuit breaker panel. Almost all of them have popped out. He rips the headset off and starts resetting breakers. His nostrils are flared and he angrily switches knobs on the radios to no effect. I start to point out the smoke issuing from the top of the radio stack, but he slaps my hand. “Don’t touch anything!”

  I glance out the window and see the other Cessna gaining on us. “Don, we have another issue.” I point toward the plane. “He’s the one shooting at us.” Don stares out the window at the other plane, and we are close enough to make out the hole that Traus has broken in the windshield. As we watch, he pushes his hand out the hole again and takes aim with his handgun. He seems to be taking no heed of the spinning propeller out front, or perhaps our height above him is allowing him to miss it.

  Don banks the plane hard right and Traus’s shot misses. “Is everybody losing their minds today?” Don shouts over the engine noise. He dives the plane below the level of Traus’s Cessna and makes a turn back toward downtown. I get a temporary feeling of weightlessness during the dive, followed by the feeling of being pressed into my seat as he levels back out. “You’d better have a good lawyer, buddy, because I will be suing you for all the damages to my planes.”

  In the intersections of the city below, people are milling around on foot in the streets. T
he EMP has shut down traffic lights, and a lot of vehicles are now parked haphazardly where they stalled. I reach into the back seat for my satchel again and pull it into my lap. I find the baseball still inside, and the soft leather feels excellent in my hand. “As much as I would love to stick around for that, my work here is actually done.” I use the photo of the baseball to set the coordinates on my chronometer. Don watches me use the degravitizer on the baseball while still trying to fly the plane. It’s awkward trying to position the baseball in a way that will let me land on my feet even though I’m leaving from a sitting position, but once the gravitites are all extracted, I orient the ball in my hand in a way that will work.

  “Who are you?” Don’s expression makes him seem disgusted with my very existence.

  I position my finger on my chronometer and grin at him. “I’m a time traveler.” I press the pin.

  Nothing happens.

  I double-check my settings and make sure the slider is set in the right direction. “What the heck?”

  Don goes back to concentrating on flying. “I get all the crazies. I swear I need to get out of this business.”

  The baseball in my hand confounds me. A bump of turbulence almost makes me lose my grip on it. I check my chronometer again. Son of a bitch. Did the EMP break it? Damn you, Milo. You said it would still work.

  Don is concentrating on the control tower in the distance. “These guys need to be giving me light signals if we’re going to get a clearance.”

  “I doubt their light signal is going to work. Is it plugged in or battery powered?”

  “What? Why?”

  “They’ve had a power outage down there.”

  Don looks out the window and starts to notice the chaos on the ground. “What did you—”

  A sharp crack resounds through the aircraft as a bullet busts the back window and penetrates the aluminum floor between our seats. Don banks left and yells. “Stop putting holes in my plane!”

  I reach into my satchel and yank out the Zealot gun. I pivot in my seat and try to get a look at the plane behind us. “Can you turn us so I can get a clear shot at him? I might be able to take him out.”

  Don looks from me to the gun. “What is that thing?”

  “It’s called a dynamo-powered pulse cannon. It’s great for blasting through—” Don snatches the weapon out of my hand and chucks it out the window. “No!” I watch it plummet toward Lake Maggiore. “I was—he’s trying to kill us—”

  “STOP WRECKING MY PLANES!” Spit flies out of his mouth and he dives the aircraft, forcing me to hold on. “If he wants a fight, he can get in line when we’re on the ground. I’ll kick his ass right after I’m through beating yours.” I keep a tight grip on the armrest until he levels out around eight hundred feet. He’s approaching one of the runways at a diagonal and making adjustments to the controls with short, angry movements. “If I wasn’t flying this plane right now, you would be in a world of hurt.”

  I shake my chronometer and start to fiddle with the lock on the band. I need to get out of here. I pull Abe’s tool kit out of my jacket and get out one of the tiny screwdrivers.

  “What are you doing now?” Don eyes me suspiciously.

  “Nothing, don’t worry about it.”

  “Is that another bomb?”

  “No. It’s just a . . . fancy watch.” It’s not even that at the moment. I get the lock loose using the technique Abe taught me, then slip the chronometer off my wrist. I start working on taking the backplate off.

  “I swear to God, if you mess up one more thing on my airplane . . .”

  “You just land the plane, Don. Don’t worry about me.”

  “You’re the one who should be worried you piece of . . .” He carries on into a description of me full of colorful adjectives. I check his progress toward the runway, then work to unscrew the backing on the chronometer. Luckily, Don’s ranting doesn’t seem to be affecting his flying skills. He drops us the remaining few hundred feet and lines us up with the runway with an efficiency I’ve never witnessed before. He puts the plane on the ground right on the runway numbers and is applying the brakes by the very first taxiway exit. I gather my belongings hastily and detach my seatbelt.

  “I don’t know where you think you’re going, we’ve got business to attend to.” Don brakes hard at the taxiway intersection and the airplane slows almost to a stop.

  “Sorry I can’t stay for that.” I pop open the door and throw my legs out.

  “Hey, get back here!” Don grabs at the back of my jacket, but my momentum is already pulling me out the door. I manage to avoid the landing gear and roll free of the aircraft before the tail can hit me. I’m back up in seconds, making sure I still have everything I need. I dash across the grass drainage ditch next to the runway and onto a parallel taxiway. Don is revving the engine again and making for the next taxiway exit, so I pause to look at my chronometer. I work the screws the rest of the way off and inspect the inside. The damage is readily apparent. While most of the pieces look fine, including the power supply, one diode just inside the bezel has blackened and come unattached at one end. The connection is burnt.

  “Damn it.” I fumble for Abe’s tool tin and rummage around for more diodes. I find three of them tucked in brown wax paper, but I have no way to install them. I scan my surroundings. People are milling around the flight school pointing toward the aircraft on approach. I recognize the plane with the busted windshield trying to line up for the runway. It’s clear that Traus is nowhere near the pilot Don is because he comes in high and is still fifty feet over the threshold where Don touched down. The plane porpoises its way to a landing a couple thousand feet beyond where Don made contact, but despite the difficulties, Traus does manage to put it on the ground. I hold out hope that he’ll go off the end of the runway into the bay, but he brakes hard before he hits the seawall and comes to a stop amid a screeching of burning rubber. To my dismay, he guns the engine and starts turning the plane around. I sprint for the buildings near the flight school.

  Where can I hide?

  There are two big hangars next to the flight school. One is labeled maintenance, and the other has a plate glass door that reads Bayside Avionics. I head for that one since it’s closest. While there had been a cluster of people outside the flight school, I find the front room of the avionics shop deserted. I ease through the office toward voices coming from the back shop.

  “I’m telling you, I tried that. The power supply is shot, just like the others.”

  The lights are out in the shop, but daylight is still illuminating the back office where two men are bickering over some electronics. They both have their backs to me. “Did you check the breakers out back?” The bald, taller man flips open the breaker panel on the wall and shuts it again.

  The shorter technician rotates on his stool. “I can walk over to the pilot shop and see if they have power. They’re usually on a different transformer than us.” It’s clear the two men haven’t left their workshop yet and are still unaware of the scope of the power outage.

  “Did Trish over at the school have power?”

  “Phone was dead, too, remember?”

  “Figures this would happen on a day we were already busy.” The bald man turns and notices me in the doorway holding my handful of chronometer parts. “Oh, hey there. Afraid we aren’t accepting new work today.” He steps over to have a look anyway. “What do you have there?”

  “Hi. I actually just have a timepiece I need to solder a diode into. You guys happen to have a soldering iron?”

  The shorter man slips off his stool and wanders over. “Got about four of ’em. Won’t do you much good though, because the power is out.”

  “Damn. They’re all electric?”

  The bald man moves over to his toolbox. “Actually I do have a butane powered kit in here somewhere. If I’ve got enough butane in it we could try that.” He slides open a drawer and starts shifting tools around.

  A loud crash out front makes all three of us jump. The
short man immediately squeezes past me and heads for the window. The bald man temporarily abandons his search and steps to the doorway, too. I want to encourage him to keep looking, but he seems intent on finding out the cause of the ruckus. The shorter technician shouts from the window. “Somebody just clipped the side of the fuel truck with the wing of one of Don’s planes. He’s gonna be ticked.”

  His compatriot joins him by the windows. “Oh, there’s Don right there.”

  I slide over to the toolbox and hesitate momentarily. In the maintenance world, rummaging through a man’s tools without permission is something akin to groping his wife, and I’m not used to violating that unwritten rule, but time is of the essence. I push the top drawer shut and pull out the next one. I shift a box of electrical connectors aside and find the soldering kit underneath. A loose roll of solder lies next to it. I toss my other things onto a stool and put my chronometer on the workbench. The butane soldering torch has plenty of fluid in the reservoir, so I flip it on and strike the igniter button. It blazes to life with a sound like a miniature jet engine. One of the men shouts from the window. “Oh shit, he’s got a gun!”

  There is scrambling for the door and the front room goes quiet. I poke my head around the corner and get a look out the window. To the men’s credit, they haven’t run away from the danger, but rather toward it. Traus is out of the plane and waving a gun around. Don seems to be facing the majority of his anger and I’m worried for the big man’s safety, but I also imagine Traus is trying to save whatever bullets he has left for me. It doesn’t keep him from pointing the gun in people’s faces. Some of his threats must work because someone I don’t recognize points toward the avionics shop. Traus looks my way, and while I doubt he can see me from his position, I curse inwardly and dash forward to lock the office door. I shut the door to the back shop as well. It’s a flimsy plywood door and won’t hold up long, but I need to buy all the time I can get.

  I dart back to the soldering torch and find it plenty hot. I carefully burn away the solder holding the ruined diode and use a pair of needle-nose pliers to yank the part free. The new diode has a line on one end that means it’s directional, but the old one is burnt too badly to decipher which side was which. I have a fifty-fifty chance of getting it to work. I try to imagine what getting something backward in a precision chronometer could mean. I hesitate just long enough to remember the diagrams. I plunge my hand into each of the pockets of my jacket and pants till I find Abe’s schematics. The sound of plate glass breaking heralds Traus’s entry into the building. Shit.