by Ralph Kern
Mack couldn’t help a wry grin spreading over her face as she sped through the rest of the checklist from memory. She flicked switches and checked her steed before pressing the mic button. “Ignatius, Sierra Hotel 1-1, ready for takeoff, over.”
“Sierra Hotel 1-1, Ignatius, you are cleared for takeoff at your discretion.”
“Thank you, Ignatius. Takeoff and clearing. Out.”
The whirr of the rotor blades became a dull thud as they increased in power. After a moment, the cabin rocked as Mack lifted the powerful machine off the flight deck.
“Ignatius, Sierra Hotel 1-1 clear. Departing one-seven.”
“Roger that, one-seven. See you soon, Mack.”
Pressing down on the left pedal, the helicopter swung around, pointing just off pre-event north. Mack eased the cyclic forward and the nose dipped and they began heading toward the coast.
***
Grayson looked up from his hoe as the dull thudding noise of a helicopter washed across the bay. A shadow flicked across the field he stood in as the large heavy chopper thundered inland.
Giving a shake of his head, he turned and looked back out over the bay, toward the huge ships nestled within.
Chapter Seventeen – The Past
The massive hanger loomed over the water’s edge, intense floodlights playing over and around it, washing out even the silvery brightness of the full moon.
“She’ll be okay,” Grayson murmured as he lay in the gravel and dirt overlooking the shipyard.
Dillon twisted to look at him, his face once again smeared with camouflage paint. He was dressed like Grayson. A woolly skullcap, black “ninja” suit, and both carrying an assortment of weapons. “Are you asking or telling?”
Grayson didn’t respond. Instead, he pulled back on the charging handle of his SCAR-H battle rifle and released it. The working parts slammed forward, making the weapon ready. The barrel extended out to the long cylinder of a silencer, turning it into a quiet but still incredibly powerful tool.
“They’ve got a shitload of guards covering this place.” Dillon took the hint and refocused his attention on the matter at hand as he looked through the scope of his own rifle. “I’ve got at least twenty badass hombres. They’re operating in pairs overlapping each other’s position. We knock one out, the two neighboring pairs are going to know it.”
“Kit?” Grayson asked concisely.
“Military grade, but looks like they’re going on personal preference. We have some guys sporting AN 94s, others with M4s, G36s...”
Grayson nodded. So, private military contractors again. Chances were, they were the same outfit who’d run security at the Carlton Club. An outfit Grayson had already mentally filed under “highly competent”.
“These hombres seem to be wearing body armor. Good thing we have these babies.” Dillon lightly patted his own SCAR-H. The heavy 7.62 rounds would make a hell of a mess of anyone on the receiving end, body armor or not. “They all have the swagger to them which says ex-regulars.”
So, add well equipped and highly trained to my assessment, Grayson thought. And a fair few of them, too.
“You got us a point of entry?”
“We could just wander in and flash our cards,” Dillon murmured. “Might shit them up enough to let us through?”
Grayson considered it for a moment, it actually wasn’t that bad an idea. Under normal circumstances that was, but this mission was starting to give the impression of being anything but normal.
“You wish,” Grayson said finally, deciding against that idea. “I kinda get the impression Wakefield’s committed himself here. And if he has, then chances are he’s paid these guys enough to be equally committed. Flashing a fancy badge is going to get us nowhere.”
“Stealthing these assholes is going to be pure luck. They look the wrong way when we’re sneaking past, they’ll perforate the shit out of us.”
“Yeah.” Grayson rubbed his chin, feeling the stubble abrading his fingers. “We’re gonna need a distraction.”
In response, Dillon slipped a small pouch from his webbing then nodded over at a large propane tank nestled amid the industrial maze of pipework covering a good chunk of the dock. “Like one of these?”
Grayson gave a long exhalation. Up to this point, they’d gotten away without having to take any kind of overt action, but using those things? That would really up the game. But, they had to know what was going on here and Millard had said those two magic words—carte blanche.
“Yeah, that’d do it.”
“Millard will be pissed.” Dillon grinned.
“Yes he will, but he said to do whatever it took.”
***
“Ready?” Grayson hissed.
“Ready.”
“Execute.”
Dillon pressed down firmly on the red button on the end of the small cylindrical detonator.
The thermite charge they placed on the propane tanks hissed and fizzed as it burned through the inch-thick steel pressure vessel. And then it breached through the metal. The charge ignited the liquid within.
On the other side of the hanger from Grayson and Dillon, a thunderous crack sounded, resonating across the port. A roiling ball of orange fire shot into the night sky, dissipating as it rose.
The port came to life. A siren wailed from speakers mounted on the buildings.
The men and women they could see guarding the hanger responded quickly. Grayson noted they didn’t panic. Instead, an unseen person seemed to coordinate them, forming a group of ten on the corner of the hanger, stacked up in a formation. Seconds later they moved out, weapons tucked into their shoulders at the ready.
The rest of the PMCs reformed themselves. Widening but maintaining their coverage of the hanger.
“Damn these guys are good.” Dillon’s scope swept back and forth across the hanger. Like at the Carlton Club, everyone knew their jobs, showing self-control and coordination. “Wait. Got an uncovered section. Moving.”
Dillon darted forward in a hunched-over run, weaving between crates, loading vehicles, and more tanks. It was now or never, and Grayson trusted Dillon completely. If the man had spotted an opening, it was good. He followed, keeping to the same path as his partner.
From somewhere far away, a different kind of siren washed over the port—undoubtedly the fire service, coming to find out what was going on and deal with the conflagration still raging around the burst tank.
They reached the wall of the dock and crouched down. Grayson glanced left. There, a transom window. He crept to the frosted glass and saw it was open a few inches. He gripped the underside edge and tugged, quickly realizing it was designed to only be partially opened.
“Fuck it,” he hissed to himself.
He wrenched hard, ripping the window partially from its hinge, and launched himself through and dropped into a small workshop. A technician looked startled, standing by a CNC terminal. Without pausing, Grayson pulled his taser out of its thigh holster and drove it crackling into the man’s midriff while covering his mouth with a gloved hand.
He dropped him carefully to the floor amidst the smell of ozone and flipped him over onto his belly. He holstered his taser as Dillon squeezed through the window.
Dillon’s eyes flicked down at the noise of the groaning casualty. He pulled out a huge combat knife as Grayson tilted the man’s head back so he could look forward at it. Theatrically, Dillon wove his blade in front of his petrified eyes. They locked on the tip of the blackened metal, as if hypnotized.
“Shhh,” Dillon whispered. “My friend’s going to take his hand away from your mouth. And when he does, you’re not going to give so much as a peep or I’m going to slide this into your throat. Understood?”
The man’s eyes were wide in fear and pain as he gave a jerky nod against Grayson’s hand.
“Good. Now how many guards are inside?”
Grayson moved his hand away, looking distastefully at the slobber and snot covering his glove. “Errr none. I think. Just the crew. Wait, I think some of
them may have guns and—”
“Okay, okay,” Dillon said with a hush, his teeth white against the blackness of his face. “What’s your name?”
“R... Ronnie.”
“Hi, Ronnie. Thanks for that info. But I need to know something. Are you going to be missed?”
“Yes, I mean no. I mean maybe.”
“Maybe, Ronnie. Maybe?” Dillon moved his face close to the man’s. “What I mean is, are you going to be missed by a wife? Girlfriend? Son? Daughter? You know, if we have to kill you that is?”
“Yes,” the man’s teeth chattered as he whispered. “Please. Please... please. Oh god please don’t kill me.”
“Shhh. Listen, I ask ’cause we have two ways of dealing with this. One is we’re going to cuff you, gag you, and shove you in that closet over there.” Dillon inclined his head at a doorway. “Or two, we’re going to kill you... then shove you in that same closet. I’ll tell you now, I personally don’t give a shit which, Ronnie. I get paid the same either way. But I’m going to have to be confident you’ll stay quiet as a mouse if we leave you breathing.”
“You don’t have to kill me,” Ronnie whispered. The man was petrified and Dillon was being very convincing that he’d do just what he said. Which, Grayson knew, was because he would. In a heartbeat. That was, if the man couldn’t convince him he was not going to be a problem. “I’ll be quiet.”
“Good, Ronnie. But, if you make so much as a peep...” Dillon drew the blade across the front of the man’s throat, just close enough to touch but not cut. He lowered his knife to the man’s chest and grabbed hold of the man by the scruff of his neck. His eye’s widened, then Dillon quickly cut a strip off the overalls and wrapped it around his face, gagging him. Grayson roughly pulled Ronnie’s hands behind him and reached into his pocket and pulled out a plastic flexicuffs, looped them around his wrists, and tugged them tight.
Grayson stood and opened the closet door and gestured with a flourish into the opening. Dillon hoisted Ronnie through and dumped him on the floor.
“Remember, no noise. Or...” Dillon drew a finger across his throat before gently closing the door.
“Let’s move.” Grayson walked to the other door and gently tugged it open a crack and looked through the gap. Through it, he could see a smooth white wall thirty feet beyond the gantry, which ran just outside the door. He twisted his head, trying to make out more of what was in the huge room.
“Holy shit,” Grayson whispered as he realized what he was looking at.
Chapter Eighteen – The Present
Mack scanned left and right as the hypnotic, rhythmical beat of the rotor blades filled the cabin. Flying these days was a rare experience. It was something to be treasured, something to be proud of. The long, grueling days training at Naval Air Station Whiting Field in Florida, paying off with the honor of being recognized as not just a pilot, but a Naval Aviator. One of the best of the best.
Sure, there had been times she’d envied the F35 or F18 pilots, screaming around in their shit-hot fighter jets, doing cat shots off of one of the sexy new behemoth Gerald R. Ford-class super carriers, but for Mack, nothing else held the freedom and variety of flying a helicopter. She could, and had, kicked more ass than a Topgun since coming here and in her tours in the Vortex.
She glanced at the compass, it showed they were heading roughly south. Which meant, in this strange, screwed-up future world they’d found themselves in, they were heading north. Laurie had explained it. At some point in the millions of years they’d bypassed, Earth’s magnetic poles had flipped. Making the north now south and vice versa. In the last two and a bit years though, she’d simply become used to it, automatically calculating the reciprocal heading which put them on the desired course. These days, without the more high-tech navigation aids, she had to go back to the basics, using pilotage and dead reckoning to get her where she needed to go.
Fortunately for her on this flight though, she had a big ass mountain to aim for.
“You see that?” Donovan’s voice cut through her rumination.
“What do you got?” Mack snapped her focus back to the cockpit.
“Something shiny, at our two o’clock.” Donovan pointed. Mack followed the line of his finger, seeing something twinkling in the distance, almost occluded by the green of the forest.
“I see it.” Mack squinted. Definitely something metallic was catching the sun’s rays, but it was mostly covered by the thick vegetation, leaving nothing but an indeterminate flashing. She looked over at Donovan. “Want to stay on mission or go take a look?”
“What are we? Thirty-miles inland and that thing another few miles away? That puts it a good ten miles beyond our deepest expeditions so far.” Donovan shrugged under his restraints. “We could log it for further investigation later and stay on course?”
“Or we can go take a look now?”
“Or we can go take a look now.” Donovan grinned at Mack. Maybe the commander wasn’t such a stick in the mud after all, she thought. “What will that do to our fuel burn?”
It was Mack’s turn to shrug. Despite the slow trickle of fuel refined from the Titan, they weren’t quite desperate enough to use it in the helos. But that did mean every drop had to be accounted for. “It’s not too far off our course. It’ll cost us, but not as much as a dedicated recon. I say let’s go take a look. If it’s something exciting then we can log it for a foot mission.”
“Sounds like a plan. I’ll call it in.” Donovan reached for the cyclic and pressed the radio stud. “Ignatius, Sierra Hotel 1-1. We have some kind of anomaly we are going to investigate just off our course. We have a twinkling object, possibly metallic. We’re going to go take a look and assess.”
“Acknowledged,” the reply from their mothership was distorted and static laden due to the range, but still intelligible. “Advise caution... mission is the priority.”
“Right, commander.” Mack came to a decision. She was going to take advantage of the opportunity to give Donovan some stick time. “Time for you to do some work. Put us on course for your anomaly. You have control.”
“I have control,” Donovan responded and took the cyclic in hand. He gently eased the Seahawk around.
The forest rolled by beneath them and before long, they reached a glistening, snaking path of a river which led toward their new destination. They followed along it, raising over a final tree-covered bluff as they closed.
“Oh my.” Donovan leaned forward against his restraints as he caught sight of what was beneath them.
Mack saw the long cylinder of an airplane. It was difficult to make out the type, with nothing next to it to give it scale, but the glimpses of two large engine nacelles suggested it was big.
“Ignatius, Sierra Hotel 1-1. We have a downed aircraft here. We’re possibly looking at a Boeing 777 or similar heavy aircraft.”
“Understood... survivors... report.”
Mack brought the helicopter in a low circle around the craft. She took a moment to look over her shoulder at Laurie and Tsang, who were glued to the window. “Folks, I need you to keep an eye out for any signs of survivors down there.”
“They could have been down there for ten days or ten years,” Donovan muttered as he leaned over to get a better view. The anomaly of the Locus had thrust people into this future at wildly different times. The further from the center they’d come through, the earlier they’d arrived. No one had spotted any signs that a plane had come through before, but it made sense. The Locus hadn’t just plucked ships and boats in 2D out of the twenty-first-century waters. It must have stretched up in a dome shape.
“I’m opting for at least before we got here. We would have seen or heard it come in and there’s no sign of disruption to the forest canopy,” Mack noted. “It must’ve grown back. The poor bastards have been down there for years.”
“It looks relatively intact though.” Donovan pressed the visor of his helmet against the window to better look down.
Mack grunted as she flicked a swit
ch, activating the forward-looking infrared turret. A small screen came to life on her console and Mack played the turret over the crash site.
“Nothing obvious on the FLIR below.” Mack looked around and saw a sandy embankment clear of foliage where the river bent a couple of hundred yards from the aircraft. “I’m going to put us down there so we can take a closer look.”
***
The blades spun down and Mack shut the aircraft down.
Donovan looked over his shoulder at Tsang and Laurie. “Okay, folks. This isn’t a rescue mission, it’s recon. If we find any survivors, we administer any immediate first aid which might be necessary, but beyond that we’re just gonna be giving them our heart-felt promise we’ll be back. And we will. So don’t anyone go promising any taxi rides without our say-so.”
They stepped out of the helicopter and Mack locked the cockpit doors and pocketed the key. She glanced across at Laurie, who had raised a questioning eyebrow. “Well, it’d be pretty embarrassing if someone flies off in our ride. Speaking of which...”
She stepped up to the main cabin, opened up a locker and pulled out two M4A1 carbines, handing one to Donovan. She kept the other before sliding the cabin door shut and locking that, too.
Slinging the weapon over her shoulder, Mack began walking toward the forest’s edge and the airplane just beyond.
Chapter Nineteen – The Past
The towering white cliff of the vessel’s hull extended left and right into the distance. Echoing from the gantries and deck far above were the cries of workers as they busied themselves on and around the huge craft.
“He doesn’t do things by halves, does he?” Dillon’s face squeezed into the gap alongside Grayson’s.
Even having had a look at the specs on the craft and seeing the raw numbers after a Wikipedia search, Grayson hadn’t appreciated how damn big the ship was.
At the best part of five hundred feet long and sporting nine decks, she made for an imposing craft. He was vaguely aware Osiris had briefly held the record as being the largest sail-assisted superyacht in the world, before it got edged out in the constant dick-measuring competition the super-rich played with each other. Some Russian oligarch’s personal ride had taken that title from Osiris last year, and in turn had it taken by a sheik’s yacht six months later.
