Sky Ghost

by Maloney, Mack;

Something very big…

  Payne needed no convincing of this. That’s why he sent out a general order to all active bases to pack up everyone and everything they could and get airborne. And do it all in 45 minutes.

  This was the shrinking time frame Hunter had figured out on the ride back. He reached this number by back-guessing when the Germans expected the second load of men and red tape to arrive at the target site if their plane hadn’t been shot down.

  In many ways it would have been better had they discovered the big X without shooting down the seajet. That way they would have had the window of opportunity to work with as the Germans were attaching the fourth arm of the X.

  But now, once the Germans realized their plane was gone, and their intentions somewhat uncovered, they would probably accelerate their plans and send whatever they were going to send anyway, hoping the partially-constructed cross would suffice as the aiming point.

  These thoughts and his gut were telling Hunter they had no time to lose, no time to sit around and figure out what to do and when.

  Something big was coming, there wasn’t really much they could do about it and so the prudent thing was to get the hell out—damn quick.

  The Beater dropped them in front of the Dreamland ops building then its crew hurried back to Base Two to gather its own stuff, pick up some comrades, and bug out.

  The Air Guards scrambled to grab a few personal items and then ran out to one of the big Flying Boxcars waiting out on the runway.

  Meanwhile Hunter and Payne hurried into the ops building and began unloading as many of secret documents they could stuff into a duffle bag. Then Payne grabbed pictures of his wife and kids, took his baseball glove and ball and his last bottle of scotch, and ran back out again. By the book to the end, he actually locked the door behind him as he left.

  People were running all over the base now, most of them heading out to the waiting Boxcars. Calls had gone down to Atlantic Wartime Command about the bug out, but there was no indication they’d been decoded and read as yet—and the people on the active Circle bases had no time to hang around and wait for the official order to evacuate.

  Even details of where everyone was going hadn’t been worked out. The main thing was for everyone to get into the air and as far away from the Circle as possible. Just where to put down would have to be divined later.

  Hunter had barely the clothes on his back to his name, so there was no packing for him. He’d hailed a big jeepster and loaded Payne and the secret documents into it. Zoltan appeared and Hunter stuffed him inside the jeep as well, along with Colonel Crabb and his eight lovelies. Each one was crying and hugged Hunter before loading into the vehicle.

  Meanwhile the first of the squadron fighters was taking off. The roar of their combined engines made it nearly impossible to talk. One of them screamed right overhead, wagging its wings as it did so. Hunter knew it was Sarah, waving down to him. He felt a chill go through him. He really liked her. But when would he see her again, if ever?

  He got the last of Crabb’s girls loaded into the jeepster and then told the driver to head directly for the front of the big Boxcar. They could all get access to the plane by the forward cargo door.

  Just as the driver was about to speed off, Payne reached out and grabbed Hunter by the arm.

  “What are you doing? Get in!”

  Hunter just shook his head. “I’ll catch up with you,” he said hastily.

  “Catch up with us?” Payne said, not getting it yet. “How?”

  Zoltan was catching on.

  “Where are you going?” he asked Hunter.

  Hunter looked down the long line of open hangars.

  “I’m not sure yet,” he said.

  With that he tapped the driver on the shoulder and the guy finally took off.

  The last Hunter saw of Payne and Zoltan were their astonished faces in the rear window of the jeepster as it drove away.

  Hunter now had 20 minutes.

  He ran to the meteorologist’s station and quickly studied as many weather charts detailing local conditions as possible. He got as much information as he could absorb in about three minutes.

  Then he ran back out to the street.

  Dreamland was really like a ghost town now. The last plane was just leaving. Its engines whined unbearably as it ascended into the frigid clouds. After that, there was nothing but the wind.

  It was closing in on 15 minutes to go. Hunter grabbed an abandoned snow cycle and began screeching up and down the base’s roadways, between the hangars, looking in each one.

  It was lucky of course that just about every hangar door was open. The problem was just about all the hangars were empty. Hunter was beginning to wonder whether his gut had finally sent him the wrong message—and stranded him here just as the sky was about to cave in.

  And that’s when he found it,

  He’d always suspected that some of the stuff kept in the hangars out back of Dreamland was top secret. Outrageous prototypes sent north to be tested in the harsh conditions and left to rust once the war started going against the Americans.

  But this thing…what was it?

  Hunter found it in a hangar whose doors had not been open. He just felt compelled to screech to a halt in front of a black air barn at the very rear of the airbase. There were no less than five locks on the front door—a good sign of a top secret place. There was a window though and three bullets from his massive survival gun took care of it forthwith. He crawled inside and found the strange aircraft. It was sleek, it was small—and it had no rear end.

  Its fuselage was cut off just a few feet from the end of the canopy. Here was a powerful pusher-type turbo-prop. The wings were swept way back. The nose was very long and sleek.

  Hunter inspected the strange airplane anxiously. Maybe this was pushing the plot envelope a little; he had less than 10 minutes to get the hell out of here. Would he, could he, really expect to do so in a strange, rather bizarre looking aircraft, one that he had no idea how to fly, or even if it was airworthy? Or if it had gas in it—or any fuel around for him to load in, which alone would take more time than he had left on the ground.

  And even if he was somehow able to get airborne, what he intended to do—what his gut was telling him to do—would require some weaponry.

  This airplane was obviously a test model of some kind. The proper maintenance would call for it to have empty fuel tanks if it was in storage, and few test planes carried weapons.

  But he checked its gas tanks and for some absolutely unknown reason, they were full. And then he checked for guns, and sure enough the plane was packing four cannons, two on each wing, an outrageous set of armament for a test platform, but installed nevertheless. Even more incredible, the guns were loaded and ready.

  Hunter had no time to question the twists and turns which brought him here, to this place, and to the airplane that was exactly what he needed. He just whipped open the hangar doors, climbed into the airplane, and did a quick check of the instruments. They looked like they belonged in an alien spaceship. But he pushed the right buttons and threw the right levers and the engine started up, true and burning fine, on the first try.

  He popped the brakes and the strange airplane screeched out of the hangar and into the wind and snow. Hunter fought the foot pedals and finessed the brakes to keep the thing pointing straight while taxiing as fast as he could go.

  Meanwhile he was looking over the instrument panel. It was so old—or new, or whatever the word was that he needed to describe things in this place—that the panel-backing was made of highly polished wood, like that found in a luxury car. The seat was lambswool, the knobs and buttons all polished chrome. There was even a little name plate at the bottom. It read: XF-55/4, “SuperAscender” manufactured by Curtiss-Wright/McDonnell-Douglas company.

  Hunter’s head was filling with so much stuff now, it was getting hard to think straight. But the odd airplane’s name rang another minor chord in his blocked memory bank. This airplane looked like a mutated com
bination of a World War II test plane and a funny-looking but venerable jet fighter the design of which he could just barely frame in his head. Funny nose, tail wings that pointed down while the wingtips pointed up. As if someone had closed the hangar doors on it. It was big. Fast, named after a jungle animal. The Rhino? Or was it called a Phantom? Or both? But why would an airplane share two names like that?

  Hunter didn’t have time to puzzle it out—he was approaching the main runway and now all his thoughts had to concentrate on the matter at hand.

  If some kind of German weapons strike was coming, it was simply against his nature to just leave and not attempt to do anything about it. That’s why he’d stayed behind, that’s why he was lucky—so incredibly lucky—to find this airplane, gassed and armed to the teeth.

  If something was incoming, Hunter intended to meet it—head-on if necessary. Why? Because the sad fact was this: while everyone at Dreamland might have been able to get out, there were still seven other active bases in the Circle and all of them were bigger, had more planes, and more people. The chances of all of them getting off the ground in time was small. By trying to affect the enemy’s incoming, even just a little, Hunter believed he might be able to save some lives.

  So these were his thoughts as he brought the Super Ascender out to the runway and ran up the engine. It was snowing hard of course, but he was able to get one last look at this place, the place that had been his home for what seemed like a century or so. The polar camo buildings, the rows of hangars and barracks, the blowing snow, the ice and the OC.

  Damn, he surprised himself by thinking, he was actually going to miss the place.

  He gunned the engine and felt the odd little fighter push its way down the runway. He reached takeoff speed in an astounding five seconds—the plane was incredibly fast for a turboprop. He yanked back on the control column and up he went. Nearly straight up and at an amazing speed.

  “Super Ascender?” Hunter thought. “The perfect name…”

  It was now 1300 hours.

  A huge storm was brewing up north. The winds and the snow and ice were heading south like a tidal wave.

  The Super Ascender reached 45,000 feet in less than 90 seconds, without losing its breath. Hunter was amazed at the airplane’s technology, despite the fact it looked in many ways like an antique.

  Still the words “Phantom” and “Rhino” kept going through his mind, though he would never be quite sure why. Not for a long time, anyway.

  He passed through 50-angels, and the tiny little fighter still wanted to climb some more. Trouble was, Hunter had had so little time, and had moved so high so fast, he was still figuring out oxygen levels, the heating systems, and other settings. So he finally leveled out, did some yard work, then came back to the matter at hand.

  The huge storm over his left shoulder looked like it was about to devour him at any moment—yet it was still 200 miles away. On the southern horizon, the bare wisp of smoke rising from enemy territory. He could just barely make it out, sooty and black against the bluish white clouds far, far away.

  He turned the Ascender over and looked below. He could see planes taking off from the handful of Circle bases remaining. How much longer would it take them? Five more minutes? Five more hours? He didn’t know. This made his mission even more difficult. What to do? He would begin a square holding pattern, loitering over the island, waiting for what he was certain would come at any moment.

  But then a very dampening thought hit him: how foolish was this? How could he expect to find something if he didn’t even know what he was looking for? In all this sky? With the perpetual gloom of dusk and a gigantic storm just over his shoulder?

  Again, he didn’t know—but he was certain that he was supposed to be in this place, at this time. His consciousness wouldn’t allow him to be anywhere else, and from that perspective, he knew he was doing the right thing.

  But what tidal wave of emotion inside him could control his very being so much? Every day since being picked up in the Atlantic he had learned just a little bit more about who he was before he came to this place. What was a rather more frightening thought—frightening in the sense of trying to know the unknown—was what was he before all this? He’d seen no evidence that other men he’d met along the way had these forces twisting, turning, pushing them in all directions at once. Who was he? That answer was getting simpler everyday. What was he? That was still locked in black, still way too deep in the back of his skull.

  And just as he was thinking these thoughts—and wondering if there was any chance in a zillion that he really was an angel—his body began vibrating with unbelievable intensity. His breath caught in his throat—the sensation had startled him so.

  “Jeesuzz—what is this?” he whispered, knowing trouble was on the way.

  He got his answer just two seconds later.

  It was a missile. Nose cone, first stage, second stage, steering fins, long fiery trail of exhaust coming from its tail.

  It was way up there, probably at 100,000 feet or more, but it was coming down too, and an incredible rate of speed.

  This thing was simply colossal, and its true size still was not apparent because it was growing bigger with each blink of the eye.

  Hunter guessed correctly that it was at least as tall as the Empire State Building—the newer, taller one—and at least the same girth. He could only stare at it for what seemed to be the longest time, as if he was standing still and it was moving at twice the speed of sound.

  Pictures flashed through his head and before his eyes. A V-2 rocket, he believed, was used in his version of World War II. This thing looked like that. But there was also something called a Saturn 5 rocket that was stuck in his memory banks too. Much larger, much more powerful than the V-2—but both had something in common. What was it?

  Had they been designed by the same man maybe?

  Hunter had no idea, but something in his brain was telling him that this thing coming right for him, this enormous stick of metal and fuel and fire, and no doubt high explosives in its nosecone, looked like both a V-2 and a Saturn-5. Just a dozen or so times bigger.

  And now the reason for the big X became very clear. This giant had a TV camera in its nose, Hunter was sure, and the people controlling it back in Germany were steering it to its target—and looking for the X, or at least a partially complete one.

  Had they had more time they could have dug out the miles of red tape from the ice—but Hunter knew it was useless to worry about that now. The flying monster would find the ragged target and if the people steering it were good and if something this big, and moving this fast was at all accurate, it would slam into the middle of the Circle within the next two minutes. And there really wasn’t much Hunter or anyone else could do about it.

  But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try.

  He pushed his throttle forward, his steering yoke back and he was soon climbing again. Lining up the nose of the Ascender with the nose of the approaching giant, he test fired his cannons and was amazed at the kick as all four fired at once. And unlike his old Mustang-5’s nose mounted noisemaker, these cannons were lively, accurate, responsive.

  The missile was now passing down through 85,000 feet just as Hunter was climbing through 60-angels. He knew he really only had once chance: that was to try and hit the TV camera in the monster’s nose and maybe affect its impact point—but at the same time realized this was just a crazy notion. The missile was coming down and the unfinished big X was just a matter of convenience now for the unseen controllers.

  Still, as Hunter closed to within 5000 feet of the missile he pressed the firing button for all four cannons and a long stream of fiery sparks came pouring out of his gun ports. The stream filled the empty sky between him and the missile but only for a few seconds and not to much good.

  But at least he’d accomplished one thing: whoever was controlling the big missile had undoubtedly seen him. Seen the defiance in his desperate attack.

  So Hunter just kept firi
ng and firing and thinking that knocking done the big seajet had been a breeze compared to this impossible task. Plus, he knew that in a million to one shot he actually hit something in the nose cone that ignited it, he and the missile would be blown in a million different directions—and his stay in this strange place would be a very short one.

  And just as that thought was processing through his head, something very strange happened. He felt his hand go up to his left breast pocket, and pat it, as if his brain expected something to be in there, some kind of good-luck symbol. But his pocket was empty, just as the German’s seajet pilot’s had been.

  His hand tried again, patted his heart three times, like some unseen force was moving it. This was a very frightening thing for him—more frightening than thousands of tons of explosive and missile bearing down on him.

  An instant later, his guns ran out. The missile was no more than a half mile away now and he fought a sudden urge just to ride the little plane right into it—knowing in the same breath that it would be as futile as a gnat trying to stop an eagle.

  So, in a final defiant act, he turned off right in front of the rocket and raised his middle finger—a last message to the evil hands controlling it. Then he finally banked hard and got the hell out of the way.

  As far as Hunter could tell, the huge missile hit the partially completed X dead center.

  The blast was yellow at first, quickly growing into an orange ball and then finally a brilliant balloon of blood-red crimson. It lit up the perpetual dusk for hundreds of miles around; its brilliant colors reflected off the snow and ice, intensifying its frightening beauty.

  Hunter had put the Super Ascender on its tail and had climbed to escape the effects of the huge blast, but still, even at 55-angels, the shock waves buffeted the small plane for one long, terrifying minute. They were strong enough to send him toppling, head over tail, while still going straight up! He lost all power, lost his engine feed, lost all control. But he stayed conscious, knowing this tempest had to be a temporary one.

  And finally, the world outside did calm down and Hunter regained control of his airplane. He leveled off, turned over, and looked down at what was once the island that held the Circle of 12 American air bases and saw that nothing was left. It was crater—melted snow, smoking chunks of ice, the seawater already pouring in.