Tomorrow War

by Maloney, Mack;

He would soon spot another. Then another. And another.

  One moment he’d been sailing smoothly along—the next he was heading for a patch of water so turbulent, the waves so high, they were blotting out half the star-filled sky.

  Then just as quickly, banks of clouds moved in from all directions, blocking out any chance to navigate by starlight and making it considerably darker.

  Then the rains came. Then the wind—his friend for all these hours—turned against him.

  Inside of a few very anxious heartbeats, the breeze had shifted around from southwest to northeast. And just as quickly, Viktor found his small boat battling against a gale that was approaching hurricane proportions.

  What watery hell was this!

  He grabbed the sail’s leader with one hand and his crappy little steering wheel with the other and began to ride up the sides of waves that would have dwarfed the largest skyscrapers in this world of bigger-is-better. Overhead, the clouds thickened farther, lightning was now around him. The first clap of thunder was so loud, his ears began to bleed. Even through the clouds and mist and roaring waves, Viktor could see the dim outline of land many miles to the north. Then the answer to his question somehow popped into his head.

  What watery hell was this? It was Cape Horn, the very tip of South America. The graveyard of ships.

  The waves grew even higher and the wind blew even stronger as if the Cosmos had decided to reveal its full fury now that Viktor knew his enemy’s name.

  His little boat was suddenly broadsided by a rogue wave from the right side. It was all Viktor could do to keep himself from being washed overboard. No sooner had this crisis passed when another wave hit him from the left; the impact dislodged half his provisions from the forward hold and washed them overboard.

  Viktor could no longer see now, the salt water was stinging his eyes so badly, he had to keep them closed. The roar in his ears sounded like a thousand artillery guns firing at once. His hands were bleeding, he was holding the sail leader and the little steering wheel so tightly.

  Then he began to wonder strange things. If he were to perish here, where would he go? Would he become a ghost? Would he go to another universe? Or would he simply become a few mouthfuls for the fish and then be … nothing.

  He heard a voice say, “Option number one, actually ….”

  Viktor somehow was able to remove enough salt from his eyes to open them. What he saw startled him to his core. There was a man sitting right in front of him!

  Viktor began blabbering something, but coherent words would not come out.

  “You will become a ghost,” the man said so calmly, his words stung Viktor’s ears. “Like me.”

  Suddenly it seemed as if the storm around Viktor’s boat did not exist. Although the wind was still howling, and the waves were crashing, and the rain was coming down in long hard sheets, he could not feel them. He could only stare in astonishment and terror at the man who so suddenly appeared on his tiny boat.

  “Who … who are you?”

  The ghost smirked with morbid amusement.

  “You mean, who was I?” he said. “My name, way back when, was Vogel. I was a pilot.”

  All around him the storm grew worse, but Viktor was no longer paying attention to Nature’s fury. He was shaking too much. A ghost. He’d heard they were reality in this world—but never did he ever think he’d be talking to one. Yet here he was, a man sitting, talking, moving—just like a human. Yet when Viktor stared hard enough, he realized that he could see right through him, like a magician’s tricks with mirrors, or in another place, a hologram.

  “B-but why …?” Viktor stuttered. “Why have you come to m-me … here? Like this? In this?”

  Vogel let the wash from a huge wave pass right through him.

  “I’m not really sure,” he said. “But I think I’m supposed to tell you a few things and warn you about a couple others—”

  “Warn me?” Viktor mumbled. “About what?”

  The ghost shifted his position slightly.

  “You’re out looking for this guy named Hunter?” he asked. “Hawk Hunter?”

  “I am,” Viktor replied. “Why? Is he dead? Like you?”

  The ghost became visibly agitated for a moment. “Why does everyone expect me to know that?”

  Viktor just shook his head, and was soaked by yet another rogue wave. “I don’t know …,” he sputtered. “I just … well, assumed that …”

  “Assumed what?” the ghost snapped back. “That all ghosts know each other? That every person who has ever died and found themselves in this position, knows every other unlucky soul?”

  “I’m sorry,” Viktor mumbled. “I had no idea what it was like to be—”

  “What? To be dead?” the ghost rankled. “Well, let me tell you, for spirits like me, it’s no fun at all. I must have done something really bad while I was breathing. But damned if I know what it was. That’s the worst part: You don’t necessarily know what you did wrong. Oh, I mean, some souls do. But some don’t. I don’t. Not really, anyway.”

  It was to Viktor’s credit that, even under the perilous circumstances, he knew enough to change the subject. Not to spare the spirit’s feelings, but to retain his own. The less he knew about the dead, the better.

  “You said you were here to tell me something,” he asked the ghost. “About Hawk Hunter?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” the ghost said agitated again. “I guess I’m just supposed to tell you that you’re not the only one looking for him. Dead or alive—there’re some other dudes who are trying to find him, as well.”

  “Interesting,” Viktor yelled over to him. “But how does that help me in my search?”

  The ghost growled back at him. “How am I supposed to know? I’m just here to fill you in on that aspect. Maybe if you find these other people it will aid you in your search for Hunter—or more likely, his body.”

  Viktor began to reply snottily, but found himself holding his tongue. Instead he yelled back, “What else? What else did you come to warn me about?”

  The ghost did not reply right away. Instead he looked over his left shoulder to the raging sea beyond.

  “Well, this gets complicated,” he said, finally turning back to Viktor. “But I guess you’re a special case or something. And it ain’t like I’m not trying to make my wings, you know? So, I have to tell you something that not many people know in this place.”

  “And what is that?” Viktor yelled back.

  The ghost moved a bit closer. Even in the perilous elements, Viktor could feel an additional chill go through him.

  “Well, sometimes, if the conditions are made right,” the ghost began, “people in this place—people like you, though I don’t know why you’re so damn special—can see things that may have happened in another place. And another time. And at another point in the globe. Why this happens, or how? I don’t have the slightest idea. All I know is that these things happen, and they apparently happen for a purpose—and if it happens to you, then you better damn sure make the most of it. If you don’t, you’ll wind up just like me, talking to schmucks just like you ….”

  Viktor shook his head. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  The ghost didn’t reply. He just looked over his left shoulder again and then turned and pointed off into the raging darkness.

  “I’m talking about things like that!” he said.

  Viktor looked in the direction the ghost was pointing, and soon his eyes focused on the most unbelievable sight!

  It was almost as if there was suddenly a very clear patch of weather in the midst of the raging gale. And what he saw first was a submarine. Not the enormous ones that he’d heard prowled the seas of this world. The sub, while large, looked like it was built by people from another place.

  It was long and thin and had odd ornamentation on its snout. It looked almost Nordic in its design. It was black with some red lining here and there.

  But the strange thing was, an aerial carousel of aircraft was circling th
e huge sub and was firing at it. There were helicopters—dozens of them—and not the crappy Beaters that were favored by the people of this place. These were sleek, powerful, smaller machines armed to the teeth—and they were sending vast streams of bullets and rocket fire into the helpless submarine.

  Viktor tried wiping the salt water from his eyes over and over again as if the brine was causing this vision. But it was not. What he was seeing before him was real—and oddly familiar.

  It seemed to go on forever. The battered submarine trying to get away, the swarm of aircraft pouring sheets of flame into it.

  How strange was this!

  Viktor was mesmerized by the vision—until the ghost turned back to him and got his attention again.

  “Oh, yeah,” the ghost said. “There was one other thing I was supposed to warn you about.”

  Viktor tore his eyes away from the surreal battle and looked back at the ghost.

  “And that is?” he asked him.

  The ghost just pointed behind Viktor’s shoulder.

  “That ….,” was all he said.

  Viktor turned and saw an enormous wave heading right for him. It was so large it blotted out everything else.

  He’d just turned back in time to see the ghost slowly fading from view.

  The huge wall of water engulfed his boat an instant later ….

  CHAPTER 23

  THE Z-16 HAD BEEN airborne for nearly twenty-four hours.

  In that time the recon plane and its five-aircraft escort had covered only about fifteen hundred miles total. Not that the aircraft was going so slow—it was cruising at nearly three hundred knots. The flight computer, obeying the commands inputted by persons unknown, was making the airplane take a long, looping, meandering course, with many double-and triple-backs, and a dozen or more orbits that lasted an hour or more.

  Luckily, the Z-16 was built for such a crazy flight path. Indeed, one thing the crew did not have to worry about was fuel.

  This was because the plane’s double-reaction engines needed very little fuel to operate—that was the beauty of double-reaction engine (DRE) technology. The combining of two highly-volatile chemical agents—usually xerof-2 and zerox-45—provided the catalyst for combustion in a double-reaction engine, thus its name. Because these two agents were so volatile, only minute amounts were needed to produce the combustion necessary to turn the engine blades inside a DRE.

  This method of propulsion allowed the aircraft in this world a wide range of operating and design characteristics. First of all, the whole double-reaction propulsion system was small, and the chemical agents extremely lightweight. Thus, aircraft could be built larger as the weight of fuel they needed to carry was minor. Secondly, aircraft could go faster by adjusting the mixture of the two chemicals. By adding more zerox-45 to xerof-2, the aircraft would increase in speed dramatically, a kind of super-afterburner effect.

  But third and most important, the relatively little need for refueling allowed aircraft with double-reaction engines to stay aloft longer. That was why some aircraft in this world were built like aerial ocean liners, while others, though smaller, were constructed with sleeping and living quarters for their crews to make long flights more comfortable. To become airborne and stay that way for days or even weeks was not unusual at all here—in fact, it was commonplace. That’s why even a relatively small fighter-bomber like the AirCats drove had accommodations for their crew of three.

  The Z-16 was a typical example of this aircraft-design philosophy. It had been built as an ultralong-range recon plane. The designers envisioned recon flights of up to a month or more. It was slightly reminiscent of an aircraft in another universe known as the U-2, but it was much larger, its wings were much longer, and its fuselage much thicker. It could fly extremely high—altitudes of up to 110,000 feet were not uncommon—and it could reach three times the speed of sound—more than 2,000 mph—at least for short periods of time. If necessary, it could carry as many as one hundred passengers.

  That was the original idea for taking the Z-16 along as a tow plane on the B-2000 superbomber’s mission to sink Japan. If the huge bomber was forced down—either by hostile action or mechanical problems after the bomb was dropped—then the Z-16 could have been used as a lifeboat of sorts. The entire bombing crew could have fit aboard her and could possibly have escaped.

  Obviously, finding the Z-16 hidden in the cavern at Long Bat did not fit into this scenario.

  But as it turned out, that was just one thing that proved unusual about the Z-16’s role in the search for Hawk Hunter and the other missing members of the superbomber’s crew.

  The airplane had climbed to 65,000 feet upon taking off from Long Bat, but in reaching that altitude, it quickly leveled off, turned west, and started descending.

  Sitting in its flight compartment, the two Jones boys were at the primary controls. They were fulfilling the wishes of the unseen person who had set the Z-16’s autopilot—they were flying the plane completely hands-off. All they were doing was monitoring the aircraft’s vital systems and keeping an eye on its main flight computer as it ticked off the various inputted commands.

  It was a strange way to fly—as if unseen hands were doing the work for them. Watching the controls move this way and that, it had come to both their minds more than once that this is how the plane would have flown had a ghost been at the wheel.

  The flight pattern was not only bizarre, but mysterious, as well. The passengers aboard the Z-16 found themselves flying in circles above huge patches of Southeast Asian jungle, mostly over Vietnam, but also Cambodia and Laos. At one point they circled the ancient ruins of Angkor Thom in Cambodia for more than three hours before the flight controls clicked again and they shot off to the south.

  During most of the flight, Y slept in a bunk with Emma, and Zoltan and Crabb played cards with the four other hookers on board. Each one as beautiful and young and delectable as Emma. Their names were easy to remember. Brandee, Brandi, Brandy and Brayn-Di. All were blonde, all were abundantly friendly, and like Emma, all were striking in their very tight cutoff jungle camos.

  They were also great cardplayers. After the first eighteen-hour-marathon poker session, the four girls had relieved Zoltan and Crabb of most of their monetary reserves. Once Crabb leaned over and whispered to Zoltan: “If I’ve got to give them money, I wish I was getting more in return than just a couple shitty straights and an occasional two pair.”

  The flight went on into its second day high above the ancient religious site of Angkor Wat and U-Suk-Bum.

  That’s when Seth Jones, who had been poring over the navigational computer trying to detect a pattern in the autopilot’s maddening course, finally discovered something.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” he whispered.

  This exclamation brought his brother, Dave, over to the huge circular computer screen. Both were now focusing on a line pattern Seth had coaxed out of the hard drive. In a small way their strange, circular, looping, repetitive flight became a bit clear.

  “We are flying over old railroad beds,” was Seth’s conclusion.

  It was true. By superimposing old maps over their current grid of Southeast Asia, it appeared that the Z-16 had actually been following the meandering route of railway lines throughout old Indochina, many of which were now in disuse, disrepair, or mostly hidden by the thick jungle canopy.

  Whenever the Z-16 went into an orbit, it was usually because they were circling over an old railway exchange yard. Even near the site of Angkor Thom, there had been a large railway station at one time, complete with circular track turnarounds and serving facilities.

  “That has to be it,” Dave Jones said after studying what his brother had discovered. “This airplane has been set to fly over just any length of track ever laid down in this part of the world. The question is: Why?”

  “Because the person who programmed the automatic pilot knew they would be searching for a certain railroad line,” they heard Zoltan’s unmistakable deep voice say.
/>   The psychic and Crabb had joined the Jones boys at the navigational screen. Even the four “Brandys” were showing interest.

  “They intended us to make the same search as they did,” Zoltan continued. “At least, that’s my best guess.”

  Seth turned toward the psychic. “Isn’t everything you do simply just your ‘best guess’?”

  Zoltan’s brow fell a few inches. He was ultrasensitive to those who questioned his psychic abilities—but at this moment he wasn’t sure if Jones was needling him or not.

  “I have a perfectly acceptable success rating in these things,” he told Jones. “You can peruse my service record at the push of a button.”

  He indicated another large computer that was located at the far end of the Z-16 flight deck. This was the Main/AC, the omnipresent computer terminal which could be found in every American military aircraft, vessel, land-fighting vehicle, and facility, from the room of the Joint Chiefs down to the lowliest supply office.

  The Main/AC in the Z-16 had not been activated yet—they still considered their mission to be extremely sensitive, and turning on one’s Main/AC was like lighting a beacon and letting everyone with Main/AC access know where you were and what you were doing at any given moment.

  So Zoltan’s challenge to Jones was a bluff of sorts. And everyone knew it.

  A silence descended on the flight compartment—two worlds were close to colliding here. The military-think and hands-dirty experiences of the Jones boy against the eclectic, paranormal doings of the former Psychic Corps officer.

  Oddly, it was Dave Jones who broke the spell.

  “It makes sense to me,” he said. “I think …”

  They all turned their attention back to the navigational screen. The Z-16’s flight path did look like it was searching for something having to do with railroad tracks. But what?

  “Maybe the person who set these controls knew they would be flying over every railway in this part of the world,” Dave Jones surmised. “At the moment they were inputting the autopilot commands, they didn’t know what they were looking for, either. So they simply sent us on the same pattern.”