Tomorrow War

by Maloney, Mack;

  Zushi’s Bug was suddenly filled with tracer fire. Zushi felt two bullets enter his right arm and saw a piece of another guard’s head flick off the control panel and land in his lap. Zushi immediately panicked and, in trying to sweep the piece of bloody skull away, hit the Bug’s vertical-translation lever. The aircraft was now on fire and plunging rapidly toward the dense jungle below. Just beyond the next hill, Zushi could see the glowing green lights of the Cherries’ main base. He looked around the Bug cabin and saw his three companions were dead, their skulls perforated with still-glowing tracer bullets.

  The Bug plunged into the jungle seconds later.

  Just how Zushi managed to survive the jetcopter’s crash, he would never really know.

  One moment the aircraft was totally out of control, on fire with his dead companions’ bloody bodies being thrown around the small cockpit like mannequins, and the next thing he knew, he was lying facedown in a jungle stream. The water was warm, gurgling up against his face—it felt too good to be true. He looked up and saw that a colleague’s body was lying in the stream about ten feet away from him. It was spewing blood and other bodily fluids, and it was this warmth that was washing across Zushi’s face.

  Zushi leapt up in horror and began scrambling away from the corpse and the bloody stream.

  He nearly ran right into the burning wreckage of the Bug—it was hanging from a tall tree, gas and oil leaking down on him just as his dead colleague’s bodily fluids had done. Zushi bounced off the tree and threw himself into the jungle, running as fast as he could away from the crash site.

  His body pumped with adrenaline and fear, he topped a hill and saw a bunch of lights over the next ridge. He heard voices—urgent, commanding tones, but not in Japanese. These people were speaking English.

  Zushi immediately dove into a thick bush and hugged the ground. Fifty feet away he saw more of the black-uniformed soldiers running this way and that, carrying huge weapons, talking into radios and looking up into the early-morning sky as if a battalion of angels was about to descend down upon them.

  Beyond these men was the red brick mansion, a house that had existed on the atoll for a hundred years before the Cherrybenders ever came to this place.

  It took Zushi a few moments to realize what he’d stumbled onto. The mansion was where the Wiki-Wiki hostages were being held. The Cherries’ ace in the hole. Now these soldiers in black were running through the building and bringing the hostages outside.

  Out from the darkened sky, one Bug appeared over the treetops and went into a hover. It began a vertical translation, and no sooner had it done this, another Bug appeared above the tree line. Then another and another.

  As Zushi watched, the hostages were taken out of the mansion, were loaded on the Bugs, and were lifted away. Zushi was amazed at the precision. Within two minutes the Bugs had landed, all twelve hostages taken out, loaded on board, and lifted away.

  The thing that stayed on Zushi’s rather rattled mind was the fact that the hostages, while being loaded onto the Bugs, never once lost their poise, their bearing, or even the slightest curl in their hair.

  They looked like princesses, he thought. But Zushi knew better. These people were comfort women. The hostages the Cherries had taken from Wiki-Wiki were actually high-priced prostitutes who had once served the top echelon of the Japanese Armed Forces.

  Each one was more beautiful than the next.

  Zushi felt a foam start to dribble from his mouth. He began to lose consciousness. He felt his temple, and for the first time realized he had a bloody gash stretching down to his ear lobe. Stars appeared before his eyes, yet he couldn’t take his eyes off the lovely painted women.

  They were so beautiful ….

  Zushi passed out shortly afterward—and yet he dreamed.

  He saw in his dream frightening air machines flying overhead. The huge soldiers in their black combat fatigues were running all over the island, stepping on him as they did so.

  They were cutting down all the trees and burning the rocks and draining all the water out of the lagoon—and …

  And taking the beautiful comfort women away with them.

  What could be worse? Zushi’s bleary unconsciousness was asking itself. The island without trees would be barren, hot, like a desert in the middle of the vast ocean. The island without rocks would be formless, a puddle of mud—not solid enough to stand upon. The island without water in the lagoon would mean no fish, no coolness in the heart of day.

  But the island without the comfort women—that would be the worst of all.

  It was deep into the night when Zushi woke up again. The air was filled with smoke. The smell went up into his nostrils, into his lungs, and it felt like it was leaking back out his ears. It was a combination of cordite, burned flesh, and perfume.

  It was the perfume that had brought Zushi around in the first place. He began sniffing, and in his semi-delirious state he picked himself up, wiped the blood from his head wound, and began following the smell of perfume.

  He stumbled over rocks and bush and down into the creeks and larger streams, and once he’d passed the waterfall, he knew he was approaching the lagoon.

  He reached a tall cliff that looked out over the lagoon. And that’s when all his fears came true. He realized that most of the trees on the island were either on fire or had already been destroyed. He saw that many of the huge rocks that had anchored the atoll had been blown to bits, and now the tide was rushing in on the lower parts of the island.

  It was at this point that Zushi realized that while he was unconscious, a massive battle had taken place on the island, specifically around the lagoon. There were fires everywhere and bodies and shot-down Bugs and destroyed weaponry.

  It was like this little bit of the world had come to an end.

  Zushi then saw the most incredible sight of all. For the lagoon was indeed empty—not of water, but of the aircraft carrier he and his colleagues had stolen earlier and had planned on using to escape this haunted part of the Pacific.

  The carrier was now about five miles out to sea, covered in thick early-evening fog. There was a bunch of tugboats pushing it, and another group pulling it. But how could this be? The pirates had not been able to get enough tugboats to move the damn thing. How was it moving now?

  Zushi had his answer as soon as a fateful wind blew away some of the fog surrounding the carrier. He saw an enormous seaplane riding in the water about a quarter mile in front of the carrier with a huge line attached to its rear end and tied to the bow of the carrier. Along with the tugboats, the seaplane was pulling the vessel, and their combined strength was enough to get the ship moving.

  It was such a strange sight!

  Tears streaming down his face now, Zushi collapsed to his rear end and just watched as the strange group of vessels faded over the horizon.

  He realized that he was probably the only one left alive on the island. All the food and drinkable water was probably gone, and there were no more weapons left, so complete the destruction had been.

  But that wasn’t why Zushi was weeping. It was the absence of one more thing, neither food nor drink nor a means of protecting himself.

  No—it was the absence of something else. There was no longer any scent of perfume in the air.

  And that was why Zushi was crying.

  CHAPTER 9

  The Falkland Islands

  THE TWO JET FIGHTER planes lifted off from McReady air base at the first light of dawn.

  The huge storm had blown itself out by this time, and though the seas were still very rough, with very high swells, the sky was clear and the sun was peeking through the typically dense overcast.

  The jet pilots were on a search mission. They had heard the story of what had happened over on West Falkland Island the day before. How the strange man had somehow shepherded ashore twenty boats filled with children he’d apparently saved from a ship that had been caught in the raging storm.

  The pilots were now looking for the ship itself. />
  But this would prove to be a fruitless task. They flew in box patterns for three hours, covering hundreds of square miles of ocean north of the Falklands, but they could see nothing. No wreckage, no flotsam, no sign at all of the ship that had been carrying the children and the strange man.

  The fighter planes were called back to base shortly before noon. The British Royal Army contingent on the island knew that if a ship was caught in a storm such as the one of the previous day, the South Atlantic was quite capable of swallowing it up whole. That no other survivors were found surprised no one.

  The fact that the strange man had saved so many children was what everyone was baffled about.

  Colonel Neal Asten was commander of all British Royal Forces on both East and West Falkland. His command consisted of 150 men and a squadron of SuperChieftain tanks. These behemoths held a crew of nearly two dozen, featured twin 188-mm guns and a myriad of antiaircraft, radar, and night-detection equipment.

  Their mission was basically to protect the ultrasecret research facility located deep in the ground beneath West Falkland Island at a place known as Skyfire.

  Just what went on below the farmhouse that sat atop the hill at Skyfire, Asten had little idea. He’d heard rumors of everything from superbombs to Life itself being created within the facility that stretched some sixteen stories into the earth.

  The farmhouse had just been recently rebuilt. It had been destroyed a month earlier in the huge battle fought against Japanese forces on the island. The house had taken no less than the brunt of a massive bombing strike. The facility beneath, however, had survived intact.

  Two people lived inside the house—a husband and wife, both were in their late fifties. Asten didn’t know their real names. He rarely talked to them on anything but a professionally cordial level. But he did know the Man was an American who many believed knew all the secrets of the universe, and then some.

  A person like this was very special. So after the battle had been won and the Japanese defeated, Asten and his men built a new farmhouse for the Man and his wife.

  The new farmhouse looked exactly like the old one, right down to the slight lean to the east caused by the raging storms, which always blew in on the island from the southwest. Everything on the island leaned east—and less than a month after its completion, the farmhouse was no different.

  Asten was inside the command SuperChieftain when he received the report from McReady air base across the sound on East Falkland. No sign of any ship had been spotted by the search planes. This was no surprise to Asten. He’d been on the Falklands long enough to know what the brutal storms could do. He’d seen some so fierce, he doubted even one of the Americans’ huge megacarriers could make it through without some kind of damage. A smaller vessel would have no chance.

  After confirming the radio report, Asten ran out the pilots’ official report on his signal printer and then placed it into a white envelope, which he sealed with red tape. Then he left the command tank and began the long walk up the hill toward Skyfire.

  It was up to him to inform the Man of the pilots’ fruitless search.

  He found him sitting in his new living room, his back stiff against the new chair Asten’s troopers had provided as part of the refurnishing of the house.

  Across the room sat the survivor named Viktor, the man who had somehow saved the children from the storm. The children themselves were down in Port Summer Point, the small civilian settlement located about a mile away from Skyfire. Viktor, however, had been kept at the farmhouse since the dramatic rescue. Asten had learned the night before that Viktor was suffering from shock, exhaustion, and partial amnesia.

  Asten knocked once on the front door, and the Man motioned for him to come inside. Asten did so, snapped off a sharp salute, and removed his battle beret.

  Asten had seen Viktor briefly the day before, but now he was able to get his first full measure of him. He looked very odd, slightly different than most people Asten had met. It was his eyes, his mannerisms, his very being that made him, well … different. In fact, Asten had met only one man before that had this same undeniable yet indefinable alienness about him.

  “You have the search report, I take it?” the Man asked Asten.

  “I do, sir,” Asten replied crisply. He handed the envelope to the Man. “No surprises in there, sir,” he added.

  The Man quickly read the report, then resealed it and put it inside his suit-jacket pocket.

  “I didn’t expect any,” he told Asten.

  They both turned back to Viktor, who was slumped in another chair near the window, staring out at the cruel sea beyond.

  The Man walked over to him, and for a moment Asten thought he was going to pat Viktor on the shoulder. But the Man kept his distance. He lowered his voice.

  “I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” he began.

  But Viktor simply lifted his hand.

  “I know already,” he said, his voice dripping with sadness. “No one else survived.”

  The Man just nodded—and the room was suddenly filled with intense melancholy. Asten himself felt a mist come over his eyes. Why was this happening? He’d been in war before. He’d seen brutal combat, the most intense here on this very spot a month before, during the invasion by the Japanese. He’d not had any sense of weeping then. So why now? And why so intense?

  It was a most eerie feeling.

  “I didn’t expect there’d be anyone else left,” Viktor said slowly. “Not after seeing what I saw.”

  The Man stood hovering near him. Asten was sure that if it had been anyone else the Man surely would have touched him to comfort him. But the Man still kept his distance.

  “Well, you should take heart in the fact you saved so many children,” the Man said softly.

  Viktor remained silent.

  The very awkward moment continued. The Man looked over to Asten for help, but the British officer could only shrug weakly in return. The sadness in the room was now so thick, it seemed to be dimming the daylight

  “I, for one, would like to hear how you were able to save those kids,” Asten suddenly heard himself say.

  Viktor just shook his head.

  “I don’t really remember how I did it,” he said. “I was in charge of the children on the ship. I used to be a rower but they put me in charge of the kids and I loved it. And we’d sailed these waters and others before—but never through a storm like that. And now—now, they are all gone. Now, it’s just me … and the kids.”

  At this point Asten became aware of someone stirring in the kitchen. A moment later the Man’s wife walked into the room. She was an attractive, middle-aged woman with a bright smile and large blue eyes. But as soon as she stepped into the room, something happened to her. She was carrying a tray of coffee and sandwiches—but she dropped it. A stunned look went across her face. She put her hand to her chest and grasped it. Then she collapsed to the floor.

  Asten and the Man reached her at the same time. Her face was already turning blue. Her lips were trembling. Her eyes were open, but she could not speak.

  “I’ll get my corpsman!” Asten yelled, dashing off.

  Asten ran down the hill, literally dragged his medic out of the command tank, and ran back up to the farmhouse.

  But by the time they arrived, Asten knew it was too late. The woman was no longer breathing. Her eyes were closed. She had already turned cold. There was no pulse. There were no signs of life at all.

  The Man just stared down at her. He couldn’t believe what was happening.

  “No,” he murmured. “This cannot be.”

  Then something very strange happened. Asten looked up and saw Viktor was standing over the woman.

  He was crying.

  Then he knelt down and held her head in his hands and whispered in her ear.

  “It is not your time to become a ghost,” he said.

  And with that, the woman’s eyes opened. She began breathing again and the heavy sadness that had weighed down on the room was lifte
d.

  Suddenly, the woman was alive.

  Again.

  CHAPTER 10

  Y WAS DRUNK. AGAIN.

  He was sitting in Cloud Nine on the Bro-Bird, a bottle of rice wine in front of him.

  Zoltan was sitting across the table from him. The band had just taken a break. They were both drinking rice wine, but Y was the only one who was drunk.

  “This is ridiculous,” he was saying. “This just isn’t how this mission should be proceeding.”

  Zoltan didn’t say a word.

  Y took another gulp of wine.

  “I mean, my orders were to get over here as fast as possible,” he went on. “With minimum of exposure. We were to determine the last known position of the super-bomber and track the crew from there.”

  He took another gulp of wine. His head was beginning to spin. The attack on Kibini Atoll had been a success—with no loss of life on their side, thank God. If Y had lost any men to such a bizarre operation, he wasn’t sure he could have lived with himself. But Unit 167 proved its worth, and the Cherrybenders had been ripe for the picking. The pirates had been caught off guard—demoralized, confused, and unprepared. Managing the operation from the Bro-Bird’s combat room, he had taken Zoltan’s advice and played upon the pirates’ well-known superstitious nature. When it was over, most of the cutthroat pirates were gone and the Americans had … well, they had themselves an aircraft carrier.

  “Now look at what we’re doing,” Y went on. “We’re way behind schedule. We’ve attacked the largest pirate force in the region—and now …”

  He looked out the large porthole window to see one of the towropes stretching from the Bro-Bird’s port-side wing.

  “And now we’re towing a freaking aircraft carrier!”

  Zoltan pulled his goatee in thought.

  “I know it seems strange,” the psychic said. “But you asked me to come along on this operation because you said you wanted a psychic option. That’s what I’ve been providing for you.”