From Oblivion's Ashes

by Nyman, Michael E. A.

  “I believe I can explain his last comment,” Eva said, looking up at the disoriented professor with an expression of concern. “What he was referring to, Luca, is that it is unlikely we’ll be able to launch the missile. Aside from launch codes and passwords – which we have no way of knowing – there’s the matter of the deterioration of the rocket fuel – which we have no way of replacing. Each missile weighs approximately three thousand pounds, and while a Blackhawk could carry one, if it’s hooked up with a lanyard and a sling, there’s no way the organism will allow us to fly a helicopter straight into the heart of Bangor.”

  “I think… I think I need to sit down,” Scratchard said.

  “Is there any advantage at all to retrieving the missiles?” Marshal asked.

  “Oh yes,” Eva said. “We may not be able to get the missile to launch, but it’s still a fusion bomb. If we remove it from the casing, there are all kinds of things we can do, and it would weigh a lot less. Depending on how it was stored, we could have it ready to go in under a day. Getting the bomb to Bangor, however – or ‘bombs’, depending on how many we can recover – that’s going to require a miracle.

  She helped settle Scratchard down in a chair.

  “But,” Captain Stevens said, “helicopters can carry the bombs. If we use all our helicopters to help with the subterfuge, I should be able to-”

  “If you think we’re going to get a helicopter within twenty miles of that place, Captain,” the General said grimly, “then I suggest you think again. If there’s one thing we’ve taught these creatures, it’s to go after helicopters with extreme prejudice. They’ll hear us coming long before we get close enough to nuke that little science project of theirs.”

  “But what if we come in from above, General?” Stevens asked, holding his hand up above his head, then swooping it down like a dolphin. “If we go high enough, then we can get above them before they can do anything to stop us. Then we drop the bomb and bug out before the blast hits.”

  The General considered this.

  “It won’t work, General,” God said. “When the time comes for them to build the array, they have a whole menu of defense contingencies built around identifying and neutralizing threats, up to and including meteors and debris flung around by hurricane force winds. They’re designed not only to protect the site of the array, but the airspace and the orbital path above it. Even a missile might get shot down.”

  “Shot down?” Lieutenant Marlowe exclaimed. “Shot down by what? They don’t have any guns.”

  “See those… tubular things?” God said, pointing at the some fixtures hanging off of the towers. “Notice how they seem to be pointing in all directions. They’re like blowguns, ejector chutes that can propel globules great distances. You need to take into account that the preferred destination for these organisms were gas giants. They’re meant to keep their cohesion while riding storm winds that could rip this world to pieces. The danger of meteors or flying debris is something they prepared for. Your helicopters, alien though they are, definitely make the no-fly list.”

  Captain Stevens sagged backwards, uncertain what to do next.

  “What if we tried driving it in?” the General suggested. “In one of your… ‘garbage cars’, or whatever you call them. We could airlift it and one of the nukes as close as we can, and slip it in right under their noses.”

  “That won’t work either,” Marshal said. “First of all, the Camoucarts only work when you’ve managed to educate the local undead that they don’t contain human prey. We’re not going to have that luxury this time, nor am I completely confident on being able to outsmart a Swarm the size of the array.”

  “Wait a minute,” Lieutenant Marlowe said, jumping to his feet and approaching the screen. “Er… God?”

  He glanced down at the old man as he pointed at the screen.

  “I can’t help noticing that they’re not worrying about the clouds. Is that something we can count on?”

  “You want to fly a cloud into Bangor?” Marshal asked.

  “No,” Marlowe said. “A blimp.”

  For a few seconds, nobody spoke.

  “There’s one parked in the hangar where we found all the fuel tanks,” Marlowe explained. “It’s pretty big, actually, bigger than Goodyear, and practically brand new. There’s no logo on it, so it must have been purchased just before the outbreak. It looks like shit at the moment, but if we were to patch it up, fill it back up with helium, it should be able to carry a bomb with ease. If we put a few smoke machines on board, we might make the organism think we’re just another cloud.”

  “Mist machines,” Scratchard said suddenly, standing up and rubbing his head. “Smoke would just float upwards. Dry ice would fall to the ground. But we if modify one of the industrial air conditioners on top of one of these buildings, we could generate huge clouds of mist that could envelop a blimp.”

  “I could do that,” Marshal said. “But if we’re serious about flying a blimp, we’re going to need propulsion. A couple of Tesla engines, a few banks of solar panels, hooked up to the propellers should do the trick, but-”

  Scratchard waved him to silence.

  “Leave the mist machine to Samuels,” he said. “With a team of students to help him, he should be more than equal to the task. You work on the propulsion, Marshal. It is far too important to leave to anyone of lesser competence.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” Marshal said.

  “Eva and I shall work on the bombs, assuming there’s more than one,” Scratchard said. “We’ll make sure, first of all, that they’ll work, and we’ll attach some sort of remote timer to the mess.”

  “Wait, wait,” Valerie said. “Hold on just a second. Let’s all just take a breath here. Just think about what you’re proposing! You want to take a blimp, disguise it as a cloud...”

  She paused.

  “You know? I think I can safely end my sentence there and feel confident that I’ve made my point. You say this thing will be smart. Even if we could keep a blimp shrouded in mist – which I really doubt, since clouds aren’t known for being cooperative – it’s going to be one fast-moving cloud. And you don’t think this thing will get suspicious?”

  “Possibly,” Scratchard replied. “But the question is whether or not it will perceive us as a threat? I think not. We’ll attach hoses to the nose and pump the mist out from there, thus creating a slipstream of mist that flows around us as we move forward. But even if the machine fails to completely enshroud the blimp, I think it will be enough. I doubt that anyone has launched attacks against it by blimps in the past, and unlike the helicopters, the electrical nature of our propulsion is virtually soundless. Any human passengers will be riding safely inside the cab, so that the only chemical trace we’ll produce will be water vapor. In other words, with a limited imagination and on an alien world, there’s every reason to believe that it will see us as nothing more than a simple cloud.”

  “Does anybody see anything that we may be missing?” Marshal asked, “bearing in mind that this may be our only chance.”

  Nobody spoke, though whether this was acquiescence or confused uncertainty, Marshal did not wait to find out.

  “All right, then. Kumar, Albert, and James… all expansion efforts are suspended until this project is over. Instead, I want you to focus on clearing another corridor through to the airport. We’re going to need that blimp downtown by the end of the day, and we’re going to need fuel for the Blackhawks and Apaches.

  “General. Put together a team to retrieve those nukes from Borden. I strongly recommend you include Captain Vandermeer. His knowledge of the base and the general geography of southern Ontario could be invaluable. Either way, I want those nukes here and in our possession by tomorrow morning. Can you do it?”

  “If we prioritize fuel acquisition and we have a little luck, I could have them back by late tonight,” the General said confidently.

  “Excellent. Valerie? Make sure he has four Camoutrucks with drivers at his dis
posal. Lieutenant Marlowe. You will lead the team to fetch this blimp of yours. Scratchard. You and Luca will accompany him and his team.”

  “Me?” Luca exclaimed. “Why me? I don’t know nothing about blimps.”

  “You, because you bought yourself into the job when you threw that coffee mug,” Marshal snapped. “You’re to assist him in any way he requires. Besides. Your experience in navigating the undead is a help in any scenario. Professor? I hope you’ve learned a lesson about antagonizing large, violent people and the potential fruit it bears. If not, I can make you two roommates.”

  “Fuck no,” Luca said, glowering at the professor.

  “I’ll be circumspect,” Scratchard said, looking less than pleased himself.

  “Good. Marlowe is in charge. There’s a gases supply and distributor store called Meditrax on University, and another one called Pro-tech Commercial Gases on the Westway, just south of the airport. They should still have plenty of helium and the canisters to transport it. Fix the blimp on site and, if you can, fly it to the First Canadian rooftop. Don’t worry about being seen. I want to gage just what sort of reaction it gets. It may be that the undead ignore it. Either way… by tomorrow. Can you do it?”

  “We’ll do our best, sir,” Marlowe replied, tossing off a salute. “Give me a team of twenty helpers – and a pilot - and I’ll have it here by tomorrow.”

  “Take whoever you need. Jerome. In case we need them , I want two Tesla engines delivered to the rooftop by tonight. Eva? If you could talk to Samuels about the mist machine. Tell him we’ll obviously need a lot of mist, and-”

  “I’ll tell him,” Eva said. “Marshal. How much time to we have? What I mean is, how severely must we cut corners.”

  Marshal glanced over at God.

  “Four days,” God said softly. “Maybe five.”

  Marshal turned back to Eva.

  “Think of it as three,” he said.

  It was two am when General Williams fulfilled his mission. In the dead of night, three choppers descended towards the lit rooftop, while the others reached their landing pads on other buildings. Two, sleek twenty-foot long missiles were gently lowered to the flight deck to be unlashed by a waiting ground crew. A few moments after they were on the ground, Torstein and his group were busy building pop-up shelters to protect the delicate technology and the scientists who would be working on them.

  “Easy as finding sand in Afghanistan,” General Williams said, removing his Hazmat hood. “They were right there in the open, believe it or not. The outbreak hit them just as they were being transferred to the loading dock. Brenner must have been in mid-flight at the time.”

  “No damage?” Marshal asked, looking up from the long, linking line of solar panels he’d been working on.

  “Not a scratch. Speaking of… where’s your Professor?”

  “I’m right here,” Scratchard said, stepping out from behind a nearby wall with a half-finished cigarette in his hand. He was already dressed in a radiation suit, with the top part, tied off around his waist. “I gave all the help I could to Marlowe and his crew. Now I’m just having a cigarette and waiting for someone to trust me with a thermonuclear weapon.”

  The General blessed him with a brief look of disdain.

  “Any troubles with the undead?”

  The General shook his head. “Apaches swooped in for a few fly-by’s of the base, picked up a horde of fans, and led them away. The Blackhawks came in after and had everything sewn up in less than thirty minutes, easy as pie. After that we flew up into the clouds as a group and lost them.”

  “Amazing,” Marshal said, looking wistful. “It’s really a shame that those helicopters run on a fuel type that’s all going bad, and that we can’t reproduce. If it’s even possible, we’ll have to try and find a way to convert those helicopters to electric. We have plenty of solar. We’re finding more panels every day, and the ability to simply airlift to a nearby city is like a magic trick. It makes me sick when I think of the advantages it would give us.”

  “Build a new prototype,” the General shrugged. “It seems to me that you’ve got the brainpower. Why be confined to these obsolete models? Just build your own flying version of the garbage car, and launch them from the rooftops. Then you could have as many as you like and have them all look like clouds or whatever.”

  Scratchard laughed openly as Marshal looked thoughtful. With an uncharacteristic scowl, the dictator of Toronto sent his top scientist off to work on the missiles.

  Lieutenant Marlowe’s mission did not achieve success until mid-afternoon the next day, but he enjoyed the biggest entrance. Spewing smoke and roaring from substandard fuel, the blimp looked improbably huge as it floated its way across the city and right up to the rooftop of First Canadian Place.

  Marshal had been working with Jerome on the two Tesla engines when it arrived, and for a second, he just stared at the beast in wonder. It was so BIG! Silver hue with a pair of thin black racing stripes, the slow, emphatic approach was mesmerizing.

  “Kumar,” he said hoarsely, speaking into his communicator. “Tell the perimeter teams to keep a special lookout. The undead had to have seen that thing, and we’re about to find out which side of the undead ‘must attack’ list blimps fall on.”

  “Got it, Marshal,” Kumar replied. “So far they don’t seem interested, but we’ll stay on it.”

  Through the windows of the gondola on the underside of the balloon, Marshal could see the grinning faces of Lieutenant Marlowe, Luca, and half the entire team looking down at him.

  “Listen up, everyone!” Marshal bellowed. “Put down whatever you’re doing, grab a rope and help tie it down to the rooftop. Do it as fast as possible! If the rope isn’t tied down and you feel it pulling away from you, for God’s sake, let go! I don’t want anyone clinging to a rope several hundred feet above the ground because they were too stubborn to let go. Understood?”

  People obeyed, but the mooring of the airship proved more difficult than it appeared. In the end, it was Luca who’d had the foresight to have an electric winch bolted to the superstructure that allowed the massive vehicle to be reeled in with any degree of authority. After about twenty minutes of struggle, however, the Gondola was hovering four feet above the rooftop, with various other lanyards and mooring lines fixing it into a more or less stable position.

  “Pretty fucking cool, eh?” were Luca’s first words. “Honestly, Marshal, you gotta try flying in one of these things! It’s like… fuck! It’s like a floating complimentary lounge! They even got a john on board this thing.”

  “Wish I could,” Marshal said and meaning it, “but we have work to do. How was the flight? I noticed the propulsion didn’t make that much noise, and I’m starting to wonder if it’s necessary to install the Tesla engines. According to Kumar, the undead don’t seem all that bothered by the blimp either.”

  “The flight was amazing,” Marlowe answered, and it was clear he was speaking for everyone else who’d been aboard. “It still has that fresh, ‘new blimp’ smell. And it was much faster than I thought it would be. There’s a stack of pamphlets on board that give the stats, and they all say that it can hit seventy miles per hour. I think you may be right, Marshal. We have a full tank of gas now, and if the undead aren’t reacting to it, then I’m not sure you want to screw with that kind of performance.”

  Marshal nodded. “What do you think, Luca?”

  “Save a lot of fucking time,” the big Italian answered. “On the other hand, we only get one shot at this. We don’t want to fuck it up by trying to be cute, you know what I mean?”

  “Yeah,” Marshal said, rubbing his forehead. “I guess we’ll have to weigh the pros and cons. Professor Scratchard?”

  “Definitely, you should install the Teslas,” the professor said.

  Marshal blinked. “Actually,” he said, “I was going to ask if the bombs could be put on board yet. There are two of them, right?”

  “What? Oh. Yes. Without the missile, they’re only a few hundred pou
nds. Eva and I have given them a new protective casing, a timer switch, and a remote activator, just so that we’ll have options. They can be loaded anytime. But the carbon-monoxide smell of the blimp’s engines could potentially draw the undead as quickly as-”

  “Excellent. Hold that thought, professor. We’ll schedule a final meeting in the conference room at… let’s say, eight o’clock tonight. Some of us have been up all night, and need some sleep. We’ll all hear reasons for installing the Teslas. For now, we could use the rest, and I need to see my wife. Luca? Before you leave, tell Vandermeer I want him to put guards on the rooftop. Four Bastards. That should be enough to keep people away from the blimp, and more importantly, the nukes.”

  “No problem, buddy. We’ll see you later.”

  With an irritated frown, Scratchard pulled out and lit up a cigarette.

  Marshal arrived at ‘the Presidential Suite’, which was how his Christmas gift from the community had come to be known. Technically, it was attached to the Hotel, and Martin was authorized to rent it out. He never did, and no one ever asked. Unofficially, it had come to be known as Marshal and Valerie’s working office and home away from home, whenever they stayed over at First Canadian, a genuine gift from New Toronto to its dictator. No one, other than Luca or Angie, would ever dream of trying to stay there.

  “You’re back, finally,” Valerie said, surrounded by papers and devices from her place on the couch. The television was on at low volume at the same time, playing an episode of “X-files”. She did not look up from her work. “How did things go today?”

  Marshal crossed the floor tiredly and opened the fridge.

  “Better than could be expected,” he said, gazing at his options before finally pulling out a bowl of pasta leftovers. “We have another meeting at eight o’clock.”

  “Know that,” Valerie said, still not looking up. “I already set it up, sent out emails, and told the kitchen to send up a catering tray with plenty of coffee.”