Fata Morgana

by Steven R. Boyett

  Boney nodded and turned back to the bomber.

  Broben waited till Boney was out of earshot, then turned to Farley. “We fighting or running?” he asked.

  “We’re covering our bases.”

  “Well, if I’m not gonna help fly this tub, I better find somewhere to shoot from.”

  Farley turned back toward the approaching transports. “Maybe they’re just bringing us the key to the city.”

  “Sure. And it’s so big they need two trucks to carry it.” Broben pulled his Colt and chambered a round. “I’ll see you when the dust settles, Joseph.”

  Farley touched the bill of his crush hat and glanced up at the figure so recently painted on the nose of his new aircraft. He nodded at her, then hurried back to the main door.

  *

  The fuselage already reeked of spilled high-octane, and a spent fuel can lay where Wen had tossed it near the right waist gun. Shorty was pulling one of the rubber rafts from the overhead wing storage. A pounding from the rear of the bomber startled Farley until he realized it was Martin, trying to get back to the tail gun. Something clanged from in the left wing crawlspace and Farley heard Wen yell, “God damn shit house mouse!”

  “Wen,” called Farley, “find some cover when you’re finished and hold onto that flare gun. Don’t light her up till you have to, and don’t wait a second longer than that.”

  “Ah-ight.”

  Shorty looked startled but said nothing. Farley saw that he’d got hold of a carton of Luckys to bring along with the water and rations he was pulling from the rubber rafts. He caught Shorty’s eye and tapped his wristwatch, then hurried past him and through the radio room.

  In the bomb bay Boney was already pulling the cylindrical fuse booster from the thousand-pounder stuck in the rack. Farley set a hand on Boney’s shoulder and eased by him on the catwalk.

  Plavitz stood in the top turret, swiveling the guns around to face the oncoming transports. Farley went around him and nearly got hit in the leg by the muzzle of a Browning M1919 .30-caliber machine gun as it suddenly poked out of the crawlway from the nose. He danced back and Garrett followed the weapon out. The big man picked up the machine gun and straightened as Everett came out behind him, bandoliered by ammunition. With four men in it the pit was crowded as a rush-hour bus.

  “Don’t embarrass the Army, boys,” Farley said, and climbed into the cockpit.

  Garrett set the Browning on the deck and swung down from the forward hatch. Everett handed the weapon down to him, passed him the ammo, and followed him out.

  In the pilot seat Farley switched off the interior lights. “Wen, Shorty,” he called over his shoulder. “Time to go! Boney! How’s that firecracker going?”

  “Done,” came Boney’s nearly uninflected voice behind him. “I tucked it away.”

  “All right. Check your ammo and get behind a rock outside. Plavitz! How you making out up there?”

  “Apart from not knowing where we are or who’s coming after us,” came from behind and above, “I’m ready as a pig at a luau, captain.”

  Farley snorted. “All right, then.” He climbed back down into the pit and looked up at Plavitz. “It’s you and Martin on board once Wen and Shorty clear out,” he called up. “I’ll direct fire outside. You know the drill.”

  “Press the shiny red button till they go away.”

  “Only once it’s clear they want to make us go away first.”

  “Roger that.”

  Farley took one quick look around and then knelt and grabbed the bar and swung down from the hatch to the alien ground.

  *

  Broben faced away from the bomber in a half crouch with his pistol drawn. Farley’s first thought was that the transports had arrived and unloaded, but a quick glance showed them still approaching. They had slowed to a crawl. Farley unsnapped his holster and stood close to Jerry and drew his own .45. “See something?”

  Jerry shook his head, still scanning the twilight canyon. “Heard something. Someone. Plain as day, and close.”

  Farley widened his eyes and looked around. He couldn’t even see the crew behind the rockfall cover they had taken, and all of them knew better than to make any noise. “Maybe you’re spooked,” he said.

  He turned back to Jerry just as a woman’s voice directly in front of them said, “Don’t shoot.”

  Farley aimed and Broben aimed but there was nothing to aim at.

  “Don’t shoot,” the woman said again. “We’re here to help you.”

  “Prove it, sister,” said Broben.

  Four figures appeared out of thin air not ten feet in front of them.

  Even as he squeezed the trigger Farley registered that the strangers all had their gloved hands high and wide and empty, fingers spread. The gun went off but missed its mark, though the tallest figure took a step back.

  “Jesus Mary what the holy shit,” said Broben. He held his fire but kept his aim.

  The tall one stepped forward, hands still high. “Will your aircraft fly?” she asked in a lilting accent.

  Farley raised an eyebrow at the anonymous figure. Like the others she wore some kind of tight-fitting black uniform set with thin and hard-looking panels, like a matte-black flak suit with a visored balaclava. The woman and two of the others had stubby weapons, bigger than a pistol and smaller than a rifle, slung bandolier-style and pointing down.

  “We have very little time,” the woman insisted. “Is your aircraft able to fly?”

  Farley studied her. “Who are you?”

  The one without a gun, who was also the smallest of the four, spoke up. “Please, she is correct,” he said, and nodded at the approaching transports. “We must hurry.” His accent was different from the woman’s. Farley couldn’t place either one.

  “We can get you out of here,” the woman said. “But we have to go now.”

  “I appreciate the offer,” Farley told the woman. “But we’re not leaving our aircraft.”

  “You can’t fight the entire city,” the small man said.

  Farley looked him up and down. He looked like he was wearing some kind of padded dance leotard. “You should get your people out of here before it gets ugly,” he told the small man. “I don’t have time to—” He broke off.

  The two who had not yet spoken were staring up at the bomber’s nose.

  He turned to see what they were looking at but saw nothing that seemed odd to him. The front bubble, the cheek gun, Shorty’s artwork. Maybe it was the bomber itself.

  Farley turned back. Now the tall woman was staring up at the bomber, and the other three in her party were staring at her.

  Broben glanced back at the ship, then looked at the strangers. “What’s the deal?” he said.

  As if moving of its own accord the woman’s hand came up to pull the top of her balaclava. The mouth hole stretched in some parody of astonishment as the balaclava slid off her head.

  “You gotta be kidding me,” said Broben.

  Farley could only stare in mute wonder.

  Shorty stepped out of the waist door clutching a canvas duffel. He saw the woman and stopped cold and said, very slowly, “Holy moly. I’m better than I thought.”

  The woman looked from the nose art to Farley. Farley felt a jolt of recognition and his palms grew slick. Long black windswept hair and pale green eyes in a pale face that was long and angular and determined. Stern and regal and refined.

  The woman’s face and everything around her lit with sudden bluewhite light as the transports parked behind the bomber in a V and turned on a bank of blinding spotlights. The twin .50s chuddered as Martin opened fire with the tail gun.

  Farley didn’t so much as flinch. Even as the firefight erupted all around him and the others moved to find cover he stood rooted to that foreign ground and stared at the face that also adorned the hull of the Fata Morgana right behind him.

  Something shattered and the light went dark.

  ten

  Farley stared numbly at the pistol in his hand. He pulled back
the slide and saw that a round was already chambered. He frowned.

  He was sitting with his back against a boulder. Broben crouched beside him with his own pistol out, peering past the edge of the rock and looking as if he wanted to shoot at something but wasn’t sure what.

  Farley looked for the four newcomers and couldn’t find them. Then the girl moved and he saw that she was crouched behind a low boulder, peering over the top with her blunt weapon beside her. One of her confederates crouched down beside her, still in his ski mask. He had no weapon. Their outfits were no longer matte black. They had taken on the shadowed mottling of the rock they hunched behind. They were very hard to see unless they moved.

  Beyond them Garrett and Everett lay prone behind the main wedge of rockfall, a little up the rise. They’d lugged the .30 cal up the slope and propped it on a rock, with Garrett sighting and Everett beside him to feed the length of ammo belt. Boney and Shorty squatted behind their own small boulders with pistols drawn. The remaining two new arrivals had taken up positions behind the rockfall. Their outfits now matched the landscape behind them as well. Shadows had stretched across the valley floor and it felt like night here by the canyon wall.

  Farley frowned. He could not remember how he’d gotten here. There’d been the four newcomers. The pulled-off balaclava. The girl’s face. The sudden spotlight. The following machine-gun fire. And then, and then?

  He must have run with the others. But what he remembered was just standing there, staring at the girl. A stranger’s face that he already knew.

  He shook his head like a dog shaking off water. Your station’s drifting, Captain Midnight. You’d better get tuned in.

  He peered out from his side of the rock. The Fata Morgana faced him a hundred feet away. Directly behind her the two dark and nonreflective troop transports were parked in a V. They looked purely mangled. Both leaned out where their balloon tires had been shredded by gunfire. The metal sides were dented, dimpled, and holed. The spotlights on each transport had been shot out. Curiously, the dark front windshields remained intact. Hatchways had opened on the far sides of the vehicles.

  “Jer,” said Farley.

  Broben did not look away from the tableau. “Yeah, boss?”

  “Plavitz, Wen, and Martin still on the bomber?”

  “Unless they got Houdini with ’em, they are.”

  Black-clad troops wearing matte-black helmets with dark faceshields came around the sides of the vans and sprinted toward the bomber. Their outfits had the same chameleon trick as the newcomers, and it was hard to draw a bead on them. Broben squeezed off a round and the lead man staggered back, looked down at himself, and kept going. Broben looked at his pistol.

  Farley saw the bomber’s top turret swivel, but Plavitz didn’t fire. Farley realized that the vertical stabilizer was in the way and the turret’s cutoff cam was preventing the gunner from firing.

  The tail gun opened fire again and two helmeted men fell apart like cut dough. The others checked their advance and retreated back behind the angled carriers. Martin didn’t waste more ammo on the vehicles.

  “Welcome to the big leagues, assholes,” Broben muttered.

  Farley glanced at the girl behind her boulder. She had been sighting down her chunky weapon and now she brought her head up, apparently startled by the twin Browning’s relentless firepower. Farley noted her stance, her steadiness, the way she coordinated with her team. He felt her over there like a beacon and he knew he had to put her out of his mind for now.

  He looked back at Broben. “Those people sound German to you?” he asked.

  Broben frowned. “They sound something, but it ain’t German. I’m not—whoah.” He raised his automatic as two more helmeted figures carrying stubby weapons sprinted for the bomber from different directions. Farley fired. He was certain he hit the left-hand runner in the chest, but the man just flinched and kept going.

  From his left Farley heard a rising, high-pitched electric whine that cut off with a dull thunk. The man he thought he’d shot suddenly stiffened and fell forward like a toppled statue. His helmet slammed the ground without his arms coming up to break the fall.

  The remaining runner raised his weapon. Farley heard another whine like a dentist drill revving up. It cut off, and some instinct made him duck back behind the rock. Something crackling whooshed by him and the hair on his arms stood up. He smelled an odor from his childhood, the sharp metallic smell of a nearby lightning strike.

  He peeked out again just as Garrett’s .30 cut loose from the rockfall. Blood and bone exploded out the running man’s back and he went down like a dropped sandbag.

  Broben waggled his pistol. “I want to trade up,” he said.

  Now the crew and their new friends were firing at the transports. Pistol pops and guttural machine-gun fire and the weird windup whine-and-clack of the strangers’ stubby weapons.

  Motion caught Farley’s eye. The girl was waving at him. She pointed forward but Farley didn’t see anything. “You got field glasses?” he asked Broben.

  “Nope. Got a Zippo, though.”

  Farley scowled. “I think there’s another transport headed our way.”

  The girl leaned back from her boulder. “We have to go,” she called to Farley. “Destroy your aircraft and come with us.”

  “Three of my crew are still in there,” Farley called back.

  She shook her head. “Their reinforcements will flank us and attack while the others target the aircraft,” she said.

  “I’m not leaving my men,” Farley insisted. “And I’m sure as hell not setting them on fire.”

  “Do you know what they’ll do to them?”

  “We should burn them alive so they won’t be tortured?” said Broben.

  “We’re grateful for your help,” said Farley, “but it’s not your fight.”

  “If your aircraft is captured it will be used against us.”

  “I’m not killing my own men.”

  “If I can get them out, will you destroy the aircraft?”

  “Count on it.”

  She studied Farley a moment, then conferred with her team member lying prone now beside the rock and looking very naked without a weapon. Then she leaned out and signaled one of her confederates behind the rockfall. She made a series of complex gestures that reminded Farley of a baseball coach signaling an on-base runner. Her comrade replied in kind and she nodded and looked back at Farley. He thought she was going to say something, but she didn’t. She turned and ran out into the darkness.

  *

  Farley could see the third transport coming now, angling off to the right. Moving to flank, as the girl had said.

  “Now what?” said Broben.

  “I don’t even have a bad idea,” Farley admitted.

  They watched the bomber’s top turret as its twin machine-gun barrels lowered and began to track the transport.

  “Come on, Plavitz,” said Broben. “Beat ’em to the punch.”

  Plavitz did. The moment the transport was in range he opened up. Hot streaks flew across the canyon air and struck the slowly moving transport. The vehicle rocked from the barrage, and a dull ring of hammered metal carried along the valley floor, as if an invisible giant were pounding the vehicle with a mace. The metal dented and dimpled and crumpled, but resisted the fusillade.

  The transport stopped. Light spilled onto the canyon floor as a hatchway popped open on its far side. Brief silhouettes appeared as troops hurried out and ran for cover. Plavitz peppered the balloon tires and the transport lowered a full six inches. He kept hammering until he took out the spotlights and the metal hull looked like a cheese grater. It was purely awesome to behold. Their new friends in black could only gape at the devastation wrought by the terrifying weaponry.

  Broben nudged Farley and nodded at the bomber. Farley looked just in time to see a dark figure sprint to the forward hatch, jump up, and swing inside.

  “That your girlfriend?” Broben asked. “Think so,” said Farley. “Man.” Broben shook his
head. “What I wouldn’t give to see their faces when they get a load of her.”

  Farley snorted, imagining Plavitz and Wen seeing the girl climb aboard. Hiya, fellas! I’m the nose art on your bomber! A kind wizard brought me to life, and I have come to save you with my toy ray gun. Walt Disney with the DT’s couldn’t have tricked that one up.

  The top turret stopped firing. Farley thought Plavitz couldn’t have much ammo left. Martin either. Once they all were down to pistols this party would be over.

  A hand holding some kind of device emerged from behind the newly devastated transport. Machine-gun fire erupted from the bomber’s left waist hatch and the arm withdrew. From the bomber Wen’s voice yelled, “That’s me wavin’ back, you dumb bag of shit.”

  Farley heard a motor start up inside the Morgana. He recognized the steady chug of the auxiliary generator. He wondered if Wen were trying to start the engines, but then the bomb bay doors whined down.

  The waist-gun firing resumed in short bursts just as the girl dropped from the front hatch and darted to a cover position behind the right wheel. She fired on the rear transports while the waist gun covered her against the new arrival away to her right. She was efficient as hell, and smart: Fire, duck back, sight from a different angle, fire again, all without predictable rhythm.

  She brought up a fist and yanked it down like a semi-truck driver blowing his horn, and Martin jumped down from the bomb bay. He turned back and reached up and Francis was lowered into his arms.

  What the hell was that Indian thinking? Farley was about to yell for Martin to take the dogtags and leave the body, but then the ravaged sky went bright. A bluewhite arc of burning flare descended, wavering shadows as it floated down.

  Farley saw two soldiers setting up some kind of apparatus behind the third transport. Maybe the bomber didn’t have a line on them, but Farley sure as hell did. He pointed them out to Broben and both men aimed and fired, the twin pops overlapping. The two soldiers sat down hard and looked at themselves and then resumed their work.

  “Stay dead, you son of a bitch,” said Broben, and fired again. Either he missed or the shot had no effect.

  The machine-gun fire from the waist port cut off abruptly as Wen jumped down and ran toward Plavitz and Martin struggling with Francis, waving Martin on as he came. Martin shrugged out from under Francis’ limp arm and sprinted for the rocks when Wen took over, and only then did Farley understand that Francis was still alive.