What if it was lush, green, and safe? She’d come home a hero.
Her eyes glazed over as she daydreamed about it. All her worries had just about melted away when Major Burridge brought her back to the meeting.
“Captain Fowell, you’ll be the one to go for the Perseus.”
Applause erupted in the room, and several of her coworkers clapped her on the back.
“Well, what do you say, Captain Fowell?”
Before she could even consider if it were the safest choice, she stood and looked at the major, her own captain. “When do I leave?”
Six
That night, she didn’t sleep much again. She was sequestered to solitary quarters near the top of the ship. She was allowed to call Jo, but she couldn’t tell her why she wouldn’t be home.
“So where are you?” Jo asked, the concern clear in her voice, even though Vega couldn’t see her face.
“Crew quarters. Near the cockpit.”
“Why can’t you come home?” Her tone climbed two notches, and Vega worked to calm her down.
“It’s okay. They’ve just got me on an early morning fl—” She caught herself before she finished the word flight. “Shift, and they want me to stay close by.”
“Any of this have to do with your nightmare, or why you didn’t want to go for drinks yesterday?”
Yesterday. Was that really just yesterday? Vega wondered, feeling like an eternity had passed since she learned the ship was failing and they’d have to land.
“Jo, I hate keeping stuff from you. But trust me when I say that I can’t talk about it. You’ll find out soon enough.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean? Are you secretly getting married to someone and not inviting me? Are you pregnant and having an abortion or something?” Questions flowed out of Jo like water from a faucet.
“Oh my God, Jo. Really? No!”
“No to what? The wedding or the kid?”
“Both!”
“I don’t understand what that means.”
“Me neither, to be honest, Jo. I don’t understand what’s going on at all. But I do understand that I need to follow orders.”
“But you’re a captain! You give orders.” Jo was almost shouting, and Vega held the phone away from her head a bit to spare her ears from the lashing.
“I still have a boss, just like you. And in this case, I think he’s doing the right thing. For now.”
A stalemate settled between the two, and neither said a word.
“So it’s about work?” Jo asked, a certain finality about her voice.
“Yes. There are no lurid affairs going on or whatever you hoped was happening here.”
“Fine. Good thing too. You can’t get married without me.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I’m well aware of the rules when it comes to marriage,” Vega said, dry humor in her voice.
Jo didn’t even laugh. “Good.”
After a few more moments of silence, Jo asked, “Vega?”
“Yeah?”
“Just be careful.” There was such concern in her voice Vega wondered what Jo thought was going to happen. Somehow, Vega knew her friend wouldn’t even come close to guessing at the possibility.
“I will, Jo. I promise.”
“Fair enough. Talk to you tomorrow.”
“Okay. Have a good night.”
“Goodnight, Vega.” Jo hung up the phone. Vega sat there staring at the blank screen, hoping she’d see her friend again.
She was up before the sun, reporting to the jet at six for the run up and associated checklists. The jet was as much like those of Ashby’s day in design and purpose, or so she’d read during her training courses. It was sleek, fast, and loud. All her favorite things in an airplane.
Vega diligently checked the plane over, running a hand lovingly along the outer skin before getting inside and starting her procedures.
The engine fired without a hitch, and the bird lifted off like she was born to it.
“November seven seven two Sierra Echo beginning my descent,” Vega said over the radio.
“November seven seven two Sierra Echo, clear to descend at will,” the com controller responded.
A chatter filled her ears as the other pilots got their own respective clearances to descend.
It took Vega about ten minutes to reach ten thousand feet, where she finally broke through the cloud level. She could’ve done it much faster, the jet was certainly capable, but Selam warned her against pushing the aircraft.
The world below was like nothing she’d expected or imagined. Never did they venture down below the cloud level. Not only was it hard on the jets to take them through the turbulent weather, but they didn’t have the resources to replace the fuel the jets needed. The trip was unprecedented, and so was the land below. It wasn’t anything at all like the desert landscapes shown in some of the movies where survivors struggled to maintain some semblance of humanity. It was a flat, grey expanse of nothingness. It took Vega’s breath away.
“November seven seven two Sierra Echo, please report.”
Vega cleared her throat. “Visual on mainland obtained. Passing over to the ocean and some small outlying islands now. Too high to see much definition. Continuing descent to—”
“Golf Tango Mike Whiskey Charlie declaring an emergency.”
Vega’s blood ran cold.
“What do you need?” a controller with a heavy British accent asked.
“A miracle,” the pilot responded. “I’ve hit some turbulence, and the radar looks—” His voice cut off, and Vega held her breath.
“Golf Tango Mike Whiskey Charlie, do you copy?” the British controller asked.
The controller repeated it several times before asking, “Does anyone have a visual?”
Silence. They all knew what had happened to him. He’d crashed. Weather could be a bitch to the jets; that was why they were equipped with sophisticated radar to avoid it. Vega could only assume he was too busy looking for the surface to notice.
The radio stayed silent while Vega tried to focus on her own jet, and not the fact that she’d just listened to someone die.
Her hands started shaking as she held onto the yoke, guiding her aircraft further out to sea. Nothing but open ocean ahead of her. The one place where the bots couldn’t be found.
“November seven seven two Sierra Echo, please make a low pass,” the controller instructed her. “Do you copy?”
“Aye. November seven seven two Sierra Echo, low pass.”
Shifting her mind back into gear was a herculean task. But she had a job to do. There would be time to find out who the pilot was and mourn him later. Maybe. If they all didn’t get eaten by Ashby’s bots.
She descended below five thousand feet on her way back to the mainland. Passing over a small island a few miles off the coast, she thought she saw something. Smoke coming through what looked like trees. Trees? Could that be right? That would mean there weren’t any bots on that island. But it was far too small for even her jet to land on, let alone the Perseus. And so were the others she passed over. Islands wouldn’t be their salvation. She started to go lower as she turned south and followed the shoreline.
The ocean crashed against the rocks as the grey wasteland spread out ahead of her.
“November seven seven two Sierra Echo, please report.”
“There’s something on an island just offshore. Need to make another pass to say exactly what,” she said as something caught her eye.
“Changing course…wait.” She squinted as she stared out the window to her left. Could there really be…
She almost laughed at what she saw on the mainland, right along the shoreline. They were just small, barely perceptible dots, but there was no mistaking what they were.
“People!”
Seven
“No, that can’t be right. I’ll make another pass.”
“Please confirm,” the controller said, his voice a little shaky. They all knew what it meant if there were people d
own there. But it was an odd sight. So out of place.
She descended to five hundred feet, plenty close enough to Ashby’s bots, and circled around.
What she found was one of the most bizarre things she’d ever seen in her life.
“Okay, it’s definitely people, but there’s a problem. They’re surrounded by a cloud. Some kind of fog. It makes sort of a lopsided circle around them, but it’s interrupted by the shoreline. They’re busy working. Looks like they are setting up some kind of settlement, maybe? Hard to say. They don’t have many structures or much shelter. Maybe they just arrived? But if so, where did they come from?” Her questions were more to herself than the controller, who stayed quiet as Vega worked it out.
She thought for a moment before the answer came to her. “The smoke.”
“November seven seven two Sierra Echo, say again,” the controller requested.
“I saw smoke coming from a small island offshore. I bet they came from there.”
She turned her jet north, heading back to where she thought she’d seen the smoke. But there were so many small islands that it was impossible to say for sure. “I can’t find it,” Vega said, frustration leaking through her voice.
The major came over the line. “Captain Fowell, please return to the mainland settlement, take some pictures, record your coordinates, and then return to base. How’s your fuel looking?”
“Not great, sir. Quarter full.” She wasn’t ready to go back. She wanted to stay there, among the mysterious people on the ground.
“Fine. Take some pictures and return, or you won’t have enough to get back here.”
“Aye, sir.” She felt betrayed by her plane. Why bring her this far if it wouldn’t allow her to get all the answers they needed? But what did she expect to do really? Land? There wasn’t enough space inside their circle to land a jet, and the island was so woodsy she’d never set down there. No matter how many passes she made, she’d never get the answers she craved while piloting the plane anyway, so she couldn’t really be mad at it.
The ascent back home was long, and she was left in silence as the others were also instructed to return to base, having found nothing at all on the mainlands they flew over. Vega was the only one who had found something remarkable. And Vega wasn’t even sure what it meant, or if the island people could even help the huge airships. There were so few of them. But if they could live on the mainland with so little resources, why couldn’t everyone?
Despite her lingering doubts, Vega landed back on the Perseus feeling rather hopeful.
As soon as Vega popped the door open, a military man practically manhandled her straight back to the conference room.
“I would’ve followed you willingly, you know? You didn’t need to force me,” she said as he jostled her down to the elevator and through the halls, back to the major’s office.
The man didn’t respond, but kept a tight-lipped face as he jerked her along. She had trouble keeping up with his long strides, tripping more than once.
“If you’d just let me walk on my own, for Earth’s sake,” she said after nearly eating it again. Her arm was sore from the tight grip he had on it. She didn’t have a clue why there was a need for a less-than-welcoming military escort. Was she under arrest? But there was nothing she could be imprisoned for. She’d done exactly what they’d asked. She’d followed her orders. She assumed the fellow manhandling her was doing the same. But why was he ordered to do so?
Finally, they arrived at the conference room, and Vega jerked her arm out of the man’s hands as soon as his grip loosened the tiniest bit.
“Thanks for that,” Vega practically spat as she looked over at the major. He stood at the head of the table, leaning against it, staring at her hard. His salt-and-pepper hair was more disheveled than it was when she’d left. It looked as if he’d run his hands through it repeatedly. Vega had only seen him do that when he was particularly stressed out. She thought sarcastically that he should join the club.
“Major, this escort was entirely unnecessary and most unappreciated. I do not need to be manhandled to follow orders. If my last twelve years of service haven’t shown you that, I’ve failed tremendously.” She glared at the man in uniform, who only looked straight ahead as he leaned against the back wall. Well, he wasn’t really leaning. He was standing rigidly, maybe an inch from the wall, almost like a robot. Just how the men in charge seemed to like their lackeys.
“I do apologize for the rude welcome, Captain Fowell. Believe me when I say that it wasn’t my idea.” He glanced to the speaker in the center of the room, and then back to Vega, looking apologetic. But she wasn’t ready to forgive him. She just glared in his direction, her arm still sore from the jostling.
“Tell me what this is about.”
The president came over the speaker as a huge piece of glass descended from the ceiling, showing Vega’s pictures on both sides, so the whole room could see them.
They’d been enhanced, and the detail was amazing.
“Captain Fowell, what you’ve found is rather remarkable. Here, you can see several people working around a device of some type. And it’s clear your description of them was quite accurate. They appear to be trapped inside a semicircular shape of safety from that fog, or cloud as you called it. We can only assume the cloud is Ashby’s bots.”
Vega’s head spun as she stood a few steps away from the table. If that was right, it made everything more confusing than ever. She looked to the major for a lifeline, but he seemed just as helpless and perplexed as she was.
“So, if there are people on the mainland, trapped by what we can assume are the bots, does that confirm or deny our safety if we try to land the Perseus?” Vega asked.
“Unknown at this time,” the president responded. “We need more—”
“Information,” Vega interrupted impatiently, barely restraining the urge to roll her eyes.
“How dare you interrupt the president of the United States,” a deep voice chided over the speaker.
“Please,” Vega responded impatiently. “When it comes to death, sir, we’re all equals.”
The president audibly cleared his throat, and the major gave Vega a cautionary look. Vega returned it with a glare.
If you didn’t want me so pissed and confrontational when I got here, you shouldn’t have had me forcefully dragged here like some criminal. I’ve done nothing wrong, she thought as she stared hard at the major. Eventually, he sighed and returned his gaze to the images that were scrolling on the glass.
One showed an older gentleman covered in a robe-like garment. It could be just a very long coat, she mused. It was cold down there. He looked far too old to Vega to be lifting the piece of wood he was handling. There was a middle-aged woman helping him, as well as a man about Vega’s age on the other side. The younger man held up a machine of some kind, as if they were trying to get the wood under it. Vega didn’t know what they were trying to do with it, but she was curious nonetheless.
Her eyes went from the machine to the younger man again. He was bald, except for a rather scraggly beard. Although the photo was black and white, she could see something in the man’s eyes. Something that made her breath hitch. She wanted to meet him. Wanted to meet all of them really, but her eyes kept going back to the mystery man. It was like she was attracted to him, even though she’d only seen him in a picture.
Major Burridge turned to the head of the engineering department, who’d been scrutinizing the images. “Mr. Smithy, what do you think they’re doing down there, with that machine-type device?”
Smithy stood a little straighter. “Unclear, Major. One of my engineers believes it to be connected to the bots and how they might be keeping them at bay.”
“An EMP?” the pilot who’d brought up the same topic the day before asked.
“Possibly.” Smithy was being frustratingly vague, but Vega couldn’t tell if that was because he was hiding something or because he truly didn’t know.
“If that’s what it is, we’ll
never be able to contact them. Anything we use to fly down there would die and fall out of the sky.”
“Possibly. The technology is different now. At any rate, we can’t jump to any conclusions,” Smithy answered.
“Fine. So, what is the first thing?” Vega asked.
Major Burridge looked thoughtful for a moment before answering. “Making contact. We must make contact with them.”
Eight
The journey to the mainland had been fraught with problems. Mason hadn’t anticipated how difficult it would be with more people and more crap. When he’d come with Ashley, they’d been in smaller boats with only each other to worry about. And while he had nearly tipped the canoe, they’d made it.
But doing it with so many people, with so much at stake…it wasn’t easy.
Then, getting the EMP set up before the bots descended on them was another issue. They’d left it on when they left the island, but it had gotten jostled around so much during their less-than-graceful landfall that it was knocked offline. They were frantic to get it going again. Mason constantly watched over his shoulder at the horizon for the fog of death to descend on them.
“If you see it, get back to the boat. We’ll regroup once we’re safely out to sea.”
“Maybe we should just go back out and get it online out there,” Lehman suggested. She looked ragged. And Mattli looked even worse. Mason hoped the journey wouldn’t be the death of their dear friend.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only a few moments, they got it running again. They could hear the hum, and could only trust in the science that it would do its job. They had nothing electronic to test it on. When the bots came, they’d know then if it would keep them safe.
“Well, here’s where we take our lives in our hands,” Mason said, suddenly not entirely comfortable with their choices. They could all easily die here, right now, and the islanders would be left to suspect the worse without any clear confirmation.
The Dead Room Trilogy Page 38
