Tomorrow War

by Maloney, Mack;

  The Jones boys looked at each other. What the guy said was true. The wounded pilot’s AirCat was still at Red Base One.

  But how could this creepy guy have known that?

  Hunter was now jammed in the back with the blonde, holding her so tightly his hands were turning white.

  “Don’t ask how he knows,” he simply said to the Jones boys. “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you.”

  They flew back to Red Base One, only to find the place was completely surrounded now—Black Forces on the south, Blue to the north.

  As predicted, they were pounding each other with renewed ferocity.

  “What makes me think these guys are going to let us set down pretty and fly out again?” Dave Jones asked with some disgust.

  “They won’t see us,” Viktor said from the rear seat. “We can do whatever we want …”

  Dave turned to look back at Viktor, but Seth stopped him.

  He turned toward Hunter instead.

  “You’re the Sky Ghost,” he said. “What do you suggest we do?”

  Hunter clutched Dominique even tighter to him.

  “I suggest we do what he says,” he said, indicating Viktor.

  The Jones boys just looked at each other and shrugged. The Bug was running out of gas, and even on a full tank they could not have flown very far. Setting down and trying to get the last AirCat was really their only option.

  And it did get weirder here.

  Because as they zoomed into the base right over the heads of the advancing Blue Force troops, it did seem as if they were invisible. They were so close to the ground on their landing approach, they could literally see the faces of the Blue Army soldiers. Yet not one of them looked up or made any indication that the Bug was nearly right on top of them.

  Dave Jones set the Bug down next to the AirCat fighter-bomber, and everyone piled out. Seth was the first one into the fighter. The cockpit was stained with the blood of the wounded pilot, but other than that, everything looked to be in order.

  He immediately started the airplane’s mighty double-reaction engines and felt a reassuring kick as both came to life with a great roar of flame and smoke. Dave Jones was now punching buttons and throwing levers preparing for a very hot takeoff. Hunter, meanwhile, had led Dominique into the airplane, and with Viktor’s help, put her into one of the crew bunks at the rear.

  He and Viktor sealed up the plane’s hatches and belted themselves into the extra crew seats.

  At this point, Seth Jones already had the aircraft rolling down the runway. They could see hundreds of artillery shells crisscrossing in front of them—the two huge armies were about one minute away from finally meeting each other. Seth laid on the power—the double-reaction engines were running on almost pure zerox-45 now, giving the aircraft a kick equivalent to a full afterburner takeoff. Just as the first Black and Blue troops met on the runway in front of them, Seth Jones pulled back on the airplane’s column and up they went. Two solid waves of artillery and rockets were about to envelop the air base as the two sides were a heartbeat away from their final clash. Jones somehow managed to yank the AirCat all the way back to the vertical and pushed the engine to 110-percent power.

  They climbed. Three hundred feet … four hundred … five hundred … Nearly straight up for the first one thousand feet. Only then did Jones level them off.

  Everyone was breathing hard, as if they had just climbed that first one thousand feet by hands. Heart pounding, brow sweaty, Jones looped back around, and now below, they could see the two mad armies finally collide. The slaughter had begun.

  “If I ever get within a thousand miles of this crazy place again,” Dave Jones said. “I want someone to shoot me.”

  “If you come within two thousand miles,” Seth said. “I’ll shoot you myself.”

  They quickly climbed to five thousand feet and turned southwest.

  Passing over the Indus-Nawa convergence thirty minutes later, they saw that all of the AirCat squadron had made it safely back to the carrier, as had the Bro-Bird seaplane.

  Hunter cranked up the airplane’s radio and contacted Fitz down on the Bro-Bird.

  He told the Irishman that he had to go somewhere, to check something out, and that the Jones boys had agreed to take him there. The AirCat commanders would have a further explanation once they returned to the carrier.

  It nearly killed Hunter to mislead his friend—but he had no heart to tell him the truth. He asked Fitz to say thanks to the rest of the team, and promised that he would see them all again soon.

  “You can buy me a beer when you return,” Fitz told him.

  “I’ll spring for two,” Hunter lied.

  It was the last time he would ever talk to Fitz—in this world anyway.

  In effect he’d asked the Jones boys to fly nearly halfway around the world—to the Falkland Islands. They’d agreed only because the circumstances of their finding Hunter and the two others in Kabul Downs had been so weird, they felt compelled to take him where he wanted to go.

  Still, the pilots could not look at Viktor; it was just too disturbing for them. He was sitting quietly in back of them, staring out the window at the Arabian Sea below. Hair mussed, eyes bloodshot, he looked like he hadn’t slept in days, which was an accurate assessment of his condition.

  Hunter was sitting right beside him, charting a course to the South Atlantic, Luckily, the AirCat fighter-bomber had a range measured in days not miles—making the Falklands wouldn’t be a problem.

  But what’s going to happen when they got there? Hunter wondered.

  “You will have the opportunity to finally go back,” Hunter heard a voice answer his unspoken question for him.

  Suddenly all the lights on the AirCat’s control panel lit up.

  “Jeesuz, what the fuck …,” Seth Jones cursed.

  That’s when Hunter turned around and realized there was another presence on board with them. An ethereal one.

  Viktor looked up and saw the ghost, as well.

  “You?” he asked, authentically surprised.

  The ghost looked at Viktor and smiled.

  “Who else?”

  Hunter just stared at him, jaw open slightly. The spirit had materialized on the forward flight compartment next to the small galley, about ten feet from Hunter’s crash seat. He was standing there very nonchalantly, looking just as he did when he appeared to Hunter on the super-bomber.

  The strange thing was, Hunter, Viktor, and the ghost all had something in common.

  “Well, I did what you asked,” Hunter told the ghost. His body shook a bit in its presence.

  “You did what you had to do,” the ghost replied. “And you got what you wanted …”

  Hunter looked back to where Dominique was sleeping peacefully.

  “I got what I needed,” Hunter mildly corrected him. “Thanks to you.”

  The ghost shrugged. “It’s the least I could do,” he said. “Especially after all the trouble I caused everyone when we first got here.”

  Viktor stood up and walked over to the ghost. He stared at him intently. “Yes, I know you,” he said. “Don’t I?”

  Both Hunter and the ghost smiled.

  “Our little secret,” the ghost said.

  Hunter took a few steps closer to the spirit.

  “Did I do everything right, though?” he asked the ghost. “I mean, I was told when I got here that just by my presence, I could have … well, some kind of effect on things. But after this crazy war, I can’t see how I helped anyone at all.”

  The ghost just smirked.

  “Believe me, you did,” he replied. “Look at it this way. If the Blues won the war, they would have held the rest of the region hostage for a long time. If the Blacks won, they would have sold the city to the Germans. The Germans would have linked up with Khen The Great, and their empire would have stretched from the Middle East to the Pacific Rim. But now, seeing as you wrecked the central command station, the Blacks and Blues have annihilated each other. In fact …”
>
  He held his hand up—as if he was waiting for something. A second later, the whole airplane started shuddering.

  “That was a DG-fifty-five bomb going off,” the ghost said. “That’s how that big battle ended, with all those clowns in the Black Army and in the Blues wiped out. That means a couple hundred thousand more assholes coming over to my side.”

  “Jeesuz,” Seth Jones cried from the front of the plane. “Whatever that was, it was big!”

  The ghost just shrugged and smiled.

  “So, you see, Hawk,” he began again. “Whether you know it or not, you helped a lot of people in this world. You just don’t realize it.”

  “Well, it was only with your help,” Hunter said. “I guess …”

  The ghost began to fade slightly. “But there’s one more thing you have to deal with,” he said.

  “Name it,” Hunter told him.

  The spirit pointed to one of the overhead bunks next to the reserve navigator’s seat. It was like a Pullman sleeper, a place where a crewman could catch a nap while on a long mission.

  “Open it,” the ghost said.

  Hunter did as he requested—and an unconscious body tumbled out and hit the floor with a thud.

  Hunter was quickly on his knees, turning the person over.

  It was Y.

  He’d gotten drunk again and had stolen away on the airplane even while the battle for Red Base One raged around him. He still smelled of booze.

  “He’s been in a very bad way,” Hunter said, helping Y to his feet.

  “He’s in the same position you were in,” the ghost said. “Just reversed. He lost someone here.”

  Y got his bearings, took one look at the spirit—and passed out again.

  “So that’s the one last favor I have to ask of you,” the ghost said to Hunter. “Take him with you. He’s been through a lot—even before he met his cosmic mate. He really has to find her again.”

  “I’ll take care of him,” Hunter said. “I promise.”

  With that, the ghost began to fade away for good.

  “Wait,” Viktor interrupted. “I know who you are. We went into the water together, when I first got to this place. You, me, and Hunter. But I still don’t know your name.”

  Hunter and the ghost just smiled.

  “OK,” the ghost said finally. “It’s Elvis. Elvis Q … see you Hawk. Have peace wherever you go.”

  “I’ll try,” Hunter replied.

  But Elvis had already vanished.

  Meanwhile, the Jones boys were doing everything they could not to look back at what was going on behind them.

  “Next time we’re looking for a job,” Seth said to Dave, “let’s make a rule: No ghosts, OK?”

  Dave shook hands with his brother.

  “Deal and sealed,” he said.

  CHAPTER 47

  West Falkland Island

  COLONEL NEAL ASTEN WAS having a dream about angels and devils getting along, having a laugh and a pint in an old English pub when he was suddenly awakened.

  He’d been asleep in the commander’s compartment of one of the SuperChieftain tanks protecting Skyfire Hill when an odd noise knocked him right out of his bunk.

  He grabbed his rifle, crawled out of the tank, and looked up to find a strange airplane circling overhead.

  His first reaction was to sound the alarm—he couldn’t imagine how a plane could get this close to the island without getting picked up on his unit’s extensive radar setup, and his men armed with antiaircraft weaponry. Once alert, they could bring any aircraft down in a few seconds.

  But just as Asten was about to hit the alarm Klaxon, he felt a hand on his shoulder. Someone whispered in his ear. “They are friends.”

  Asten spun around. No one was there.

  He felt a chill go through him.

  What the hell was that?

  By this time the airplane had circled twice more. To his astonishment, it was coming in very low, as if to land. His position was on the side of Skyfire Hill, about 150 yards of flat field and that was it. Everything else was very hilly and rugged.

  Not the kind of terrain suitable for landing a plane.

  The airplane’s wings folded down and a bunch of rockets started firing, and the plane came in like a graceful bird. Asten thought he was still dreaming. He’d never seen anything quite like it.

  He approached the aircraft as one would have approached a UFO. He was astonished again to realize that the first person to climb out from its hatch was someone he recognized. It was Hunter, the pilot who had helped them repel the brutal Japanese attack on West Falkland just a few months earlier.

  Even more astounding, the second person out of the plane was Viktor, the guy who’d saved all the kids from the shipwreck only to disappear a few days later.

  The third person he did not know: he was a little, wiry guy, who looked like he was recovering from a very bad hangover.

  But it was the fourth person out, helped by Hunter and Viktor, who really set Asten’s heart to beating. She was without a doubt the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. She was blond, her face like a painting. She was simply radiant. She smiled at him and he felt as though a bolt of electricity had run through him. He wasn’t sure why, but he went down on one knee the second he saw her.

  Hunter immediately went over and helped him up.

  “It’s a natural reaction,” he told Asten.

  Hunter pointed to the farmhouse that sat atop Skyfire Hill.

  “How are they?” Hunter asked, referring to the two people who lived inside.

  “They are well,” Asten said, still not able to take his eyes off Dominique.

  “Can you tell them we’re here, please?” Hunter asked him.

  Asten kind of half stumbled away.

  “Sure thing,” he said.

  Hunter turned to the Jones boys. Their airplane’s engines were still turning. They would not be staying long.

  “I know you guys will never understand what is going on here,” Hunter said. “But I’ve just got to thank you for all you’ve done. I knew you both, in another place. You were great guys then, and you’re great guys now.”

  They all shook hands.

  “Please tell the others,” Hunter began stammering. “That I-I thank them, as well. And I’ll try like crazy to see them all again s-someday …”

  But he knew that would never happen.

  They shook hands again. The Jones boys walked back to their airplane, revved the engines, activated the rocket bottles, and lifted off as smoothly as they had landed. They did a 360-degree spin as soon as they were airborne.

  To Hunter’s mind, that was their way of saying goodbye.

  Forever.

  Ten minutes later, Hunter was sitting in the living room of the farmhouse.

  It was strange: they were all drinking milk and eating cookies the Man’s wife had just made. It seemed like such a familiar setting for Hunter. Even though it was six in the morning, the Man and his wife couldn’t have been more gracious. They were very happy to see them all, especially Viktor.

  Hunter did not have to say why they were here. The Man already knew.

  “Are you ready to go through this?” he asked Hunter. “Have you done all you need to do here—in this place?”

  Hunter contemplated both questions. His heart sank when he thought that he’d never again see the friends he’d made here. But he had no nostalgia for this odd place.

  It seemed like his whole time here he’d been involved in one kind of war or another. He told this to the Man.

  “I’ll bet you also felt like you were reliving things that happened to you before, am I correct?” the Man asked him.

  “That’s for sure,” Hunter replied. “It’s like I lived an entire lifetime all over again in the space of one month.”

  The Man grinned. “Well, then, I think you’re ready to go.”

  He looked at Dominique and smiled. She smiled back.

  “She was a princess in this world,” he said. “Was i
t worth coming to a new universe to find her?”

  “Absolutely,” Hunter answered right away.

  The Man patted him on the shoulder in a very fatherly way.

  “Well, take care of her this time, OK?”

  Hunter just nodded. “I’ll try,” he said.

  They stood up. It was time to go. Y was still stuffing cookies in his mouth. The wife came over to Hunter and looked deeply into his eyes.

  “I want you to promise me that you will be careful,” she said, welling up a bit. “Promise me.”

  Hunter stared back at her. She looked and sounded so familiar. It was as if he’d heard those exact words many, many times before.

  “I promise,” he said.

  A few minutes later, they were all deep inside the mountain, squeezed into the small cloud chamber.

  The Man pushed the button on a combination lock, and after making sure everyone was holding tight to the restraints, he opened the huge heavy metal door.

  There was a loud whoosh and immediately the room was filled with a fine mist. The deep blue Atlantic was about a mile below hem.

  Y nearly passed out. A million questions started spinning in his head—but he chose not to ask any of them.

  “I’m ready,” he just said instead. “I know I am. I’ll do anything to see her again. Even this …”

  Hunter put his hand on Y’s shoulder.

  “Just remember: wherever we are going, Emma will be there too. And we will find her. OK?”

  Y nodded. “Deal and sealed—that’s all I want.”

  The Man handed them their parachutes. There were only three, but that was not a problem.

  Viktor climbed into his chute, then embraced the Man warmly.

  “Thank you for what you did for me,” the Man told him. “Good luck always.”

  Viktor brushed a tear away and then without another word, stepped out into the abyss. They watched him go down, his parachute opening almost immediately.

  Y went next. He closed his eyes, whispered Emma’s name and then stepped out too. He fell head over heels twice before his chute opened.

  Then Hunter turned back to the Man.

  “Can I ask you just one more question?”

  The Man nodded.