Fata Morgana

by Steven R. Boyett

  Then a thin thread of red light ran straight as a ruler from the apparatus the two troops had assembled to the rock where Farley and Broben knelt. Farley frowned and Broben cocked his head at the pure red beam that swirled with dust motes.

  Farley heard a hollow whunk. He turned and yelled, “Mortar! Mortar! Down down down!”

  The ground erupted in front of his boulder. Even with the mass of stone before him Farley was thrown back. As he fell he saw another glowing red line leading from the number-two transport to the slope where Garrett and Everett lay prone with their machine gun. He heard another, more distant whunk. Garrett and Everett were already sliding down the scree with the .30-cal. Three seconds later their former firing position exploded. Rock shrapnel whistled off in all directions.

  The girl stood up from behind the bomber’s wheel and ran back toward the rocks, firing as she came. Beyond her Farley saw helmeted figures advancing. He glanced right. The troops from the third transport were taking advantage of their vehicle’s cover to pin down Farley’s men while the other troops went after the bomber.

  The crewmen were out of the Morgana and now the girl looked imploringly at Farley.

  Farley nodded at her. “Blow it!” he yelled. “Wen, light it up!”

  Wen and Plavitz still struggled with Francis. Wen looked pained and let go of the wounded tail gunner, and Plavitz took up the slack. The smaller of their new friends in black jumped out from behind the cover of his boulder and ran to Plavitz and got a shoulder under Francis’ free arm.

  Wen turned back to the bomber and pulled the flare pistol from his waistband. He aimed it at the bomber. Farley heard another high-pitched whine. Wen held position and didn’t fire. Farley was about to yell for him to shoot when Wen toppled over like a statue, still holding the flare gun out and not moving a bit to soften the impact as he hit the hard ground with a sickening thud like a ballbat hitting a watermelon.

  Plavitz and the small man reached the rocks with Francis. The girl stood by them returning enemy fire. More black-clad figures ran to fortify the ones already taking up positions against the bomber crew. Another electric whine and click sounded nearby, and one of the approaching soldiers keeled over the way Wen had.

  Farley was about to go after the flare pistol when someone gripped his arm. He looked down at Broben and Broben slowly shook his head. “We’re in over our head here, Joe.”

  Farley’s face went tight. He looked at Garrett and Everett, pinned down in a new position where they’d set up the Browning. At Shorty reloading his pistol behind his rock. At the girl returning fire while at her feet the small man pressed Francis’ chest where bandages showed spreading dark as Martin jabbed a morphine syrette into Francis’ thigh and squeezed. At Wen lying in the open with the flare gun in his hand. At the helmeted figures now climbing up the bomb bay into his aircraft. His aircraft, god damn it.

  “Shoot it,” Farley whispered. He cupped his hands by his mouth and shouted. “Shoot the bomber! Light it up!”

  The Browning immediately chattered. The huge rounds slammed home and the bomber shuddered from the impact. But it did not burn.

  “Jesus,” Farley said, “what do you have to do.”

  “Never thought we’d complain about it,” said Broben.

  Farley tried to think about what else they could do but there was nothing they could do. All around him handguns popped and the machine gun jackhammered and those Buck Rogers guns buzzed like high-tension wires. Red threads from the troop transports incised the darkness. The girl was looking at him. The face painted on his Flying Fortress.

  He made the call. “Move out!” he yelled. “Move out!”

  Broben turned his back to the bomber. “Don’t have to tell me twice,” he said, and ran in a crouch, keeping the boulder in line with the first two transports.

  Farley gave his Flying Fortress one last look. Raked, defiant, powerful, beautiful, dangerous, and wholly seized. He looked at the flying woman painted on the nose, pointing the way out. Then he turned and ran the other way.

  eleven

  They ran doubletime for a solid hour, keeping to the shadows by the western canyon wall, before they stopped to rest. One of their four new friends immediately took up tail-end charlie position while the others checked their gear and tended to Francis.

  The wounded tail gunner was bad off. Shrapnel had flayed the left side of his head and upper left chest. He’d lost an eye and a lot of blood. His breathing was labored and Farley was sure his left lung had collapsed. Apparently one of their new friends was sure, too, because the first time they stopped to catch their breath he fixed a needle to a tiny hypo, threw away the plunger, and jabbed it into Francis’ chest. Farley heard air hiss into the needle and Francis immediately breathed easier. His respiration was shallow and he was in and out of consciousness. The morphine probably helped, but the man treating Francis didn’t seem happy that they’d juiced him.

  The medic, whose name was Sten, said he thought his people might be able to save Francis if they could get him back in time. It would mean running all night and stopping only long enough to catch their breath and quickly eat. Farley was all for it if it gave Francis a fighting chance, but it was also hugely frustrating. He had a thousand questions and no opportunity to ask them. For now he had to bottle it up and keep an eye on his crew and the four strangers and the terrain.

  As Farley ran, a part of his mind that was purely Walter and Amanda’s boy Joseph needled the rest of him like a playground bully. You lost Wen to enemy fire, it whispered. You’ll probably lose Francis. An hour ago you lost your second bomber in as many missions. You know how long you were at her controls? A whopping four, count ’em, four measly hours.

  No. Farley shook his head. No. In those four hours the Fata Morgana had flown through thick flak and swarming fighters and God’s own freak storm. She’d deadsticked down into some Moon Man version of the Grand Canyon, dogfighted on one engine with a goddamn monster, for christ’s sake, put down in the dark on unknown ground in enemy territory—and swung through every inch of it like Joe Louis with a white-hot grudge.

  She sure did, Joe, the bully in his head agreed. And you fell in love with her because of it. The Voice of America was a jinx ship, a flying curse from nose to tail, and you burned her for it. But when it came time to pull the trigger on the Morgana your judgement was clouded and you were too damned late, and now she’s crawling with strangers and a good man’s dead. How’s that for bringing them through the fire, Captain Midnight?

  *

  They took their next break near the mile-wide fissure entrance. The canyon floor had grown much darker and a faint green glow came from center of the crater off in the far distance. The girl, Wennda, stood point, and from where Farley sat she was skylighted against that sickly light. He studied her and the landscape beyond her but could make out nothing that told him anything useful.

  Shorty had dug into his bag of rations and now he was making the rounds, offering water and smokes. All of Farley’s men took some of each. Their new friends’ outfits had built-in drinking bladders and sipping tubes. They just looked confused by the cigarettes.

  Broben was huffing and puffing with his hands on his knees. He’d gone through Basic like the rest of them, twenty-mile humps wearing forty-pound packs, drop and give me twenty, dig this, climb that. But he’d gained back a lot of the weight he’d lost in training, and he smoked like a burning tire factory.

  Boney simply sat down against a rock and waited till his breathing slowed. Garrett and Everett had been carrying Francis, trading off with Sten and the other one, Arshall, who ran with the .30-cal on his shoulder. All four of them were big boys in terrific shape and looked as if they could run in their sleep.

  Farley watched Martin and Plavitz approach the unarmed man who had run out to help bring Francis back. They spoke for a moment and Martin held out a hand. He and Martin were nearly the same size. They shook. Then Plavitz shook the man’s hand and patted his shoulder.

  Farley went t
o the girl looking out at point. She glanced at him as he approached, and he nodded and showed his hands. “I just wanted to say thanks for helping us out of a tight spot,” he said. “And for everything you’re doing for my tail gunner, Francis.”

  “You really aren’t from the Redoubt,” she said.

  “Never heard of it.”

  A crease appeared between her eyebrows. “Yone said you had to be from somewhere else.”

  “You have no idea how right he is.”

  The furrow deepened. “But he can’t be.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because there is nowhere else.” She looked past him and raised an arm. Her colleagues immediately readied to march. Arshall came up from tail-end charlie, and he and Sten grabbed Francis up in the sling they’d rigged from some strong and superlightweight material they used for a sleeping bag or blanket, Farley wasn’t sure which. Garrett and Everett grabbed the Browning and the remaining ammo. The small man, Yone, hung back as rear spotter. Farley wondered why he didn’t have a weapon. Maybe he’d lost it in some earlier engagement.

  Broben touched his toes and coughed and quickly straightened up. He gave Farley a grim smile and a thumbs-up, and Farley realized he must have been looking concerned.

  “You ain’t got no friends on your left,” said Broben.

  “You’re right,” Farley replied.

  *

  They were barely out of the fissure and hugging the shadows at the western edge of the vast crater bowl when Yone signaled that they were being pursued. They were thirteen counting Francis and they scattered and took up position behind rockfalls and tumbled boulders that lined the crater perimeter. A few men shifted position after the group had established, and Farley noted with satisfaction that they had moved to widen the line of fire on anyone who might be approaching, without exposing their own men to friendly fire.

  Farley held position alone and watched the girl work her way along the makeshift picket to Yone. They had a brief discussion. The girl turned back and studied the waiting array until she spotted Everett and Garrett. She signaled them with two fingers, mimed firing a big gun, and beckoned them to her. Garrett and Everett immediately came forward carrying the .30-cal and the worrisomely short ammo belt.

  Farley felt Broben come up beside him. Both men stayed low and kept their eyes forward as they talked. The darker depth of the fissure entrance from which they had emerged loomed straight ahead. It all looked ancient, raw, foreboding.

  “Another clown car?” asked Broben.

  “Hope not.” Farley nodded at Garrett and Everett working their way to Wennda and Yone. “We’ve got one gun that can take them out, and it can’t have ten seconds of ammo left.”

  Broben looked up, then looked away quickly. “Jesus,” he said. “I don’t recommend doing that.”

  Farley glanced up. The crater wall rose up a distance his mind did not want to accept. He felt like a bug clinging to the ceiling of a vast cathedral and looking down at a distant floor that was the stripped-bare sky.

  He looked away and blinked. “Don’t get that dizzy doing barrel rolls,” he said.

  “Company,” said Broben.

  It rolled out of the dark wedge of the fissure entrance, angular and flat-black. It turned left and came toward them slow and steady. As it neared Farley saw that this was not a fourth transport, but one of the three they had shot up.

  “Christ, their jalopies don’t stay dead either,” said Broben.

  “They must’ve put the good tires on the heap in best shape and come after us,” said Farley. “They don’t want us going back for the bomber. Or they don’t want these people getting back to their base with news of it.”

  The girl turned away from the approaching transport and made a lowering motion with both hands. Farley got down, but she kept making the motion. He and Broben slid down until they could barely see, but the girl kept motioning.

  “I don’t think so, sister,” muttered Broben.

  Farley agreed. Maybe she knew something they didn’t—probably she did—but Farley wasn’t about to let others do his fighting for him while he cowered blind behind a rock. He shook his head at her.

  She turned away and huddled up with Garrett and Everett. Then the gunners put on Wennda’s and Yone’s balaclavas. Wennda adjusted one of them and nodded, and the two men rolled a foot-high rock to the edge of their boulder and rested the barrel of the Browning on top of it. Garrett lay prone and sighted the machine gun while Everett held the ammo feed.

  Farley looked at the pistol in his hand. It might as well have been a slingshot.

  The transport came on. To Farley it looked purposeful, unwavering, as if it knew exactly where they’d stationed themselves.

  At a hundred feet a red streak shot up from the vehicle like a firework. A moment later it exploded and a bright blue star flare on a parachute lit up the ground below.

  “I hate these guys,” said Broben. “I don’t even know who they are, and I friggin hate ’em.”

  Farley was about to make some reply, but a shadow streaked across them. He just had time to think that something would have to have passed beneath the flare to cast a shadow, when an angular, winged shape blurred into view fifty feet off the ground in utter silence. It banked left and shot skyward. Farley’s head turned to follow it and the troop transport exploded.

  Farley fell back and pulled Broben with him. The concussion slammed across them. Pieces of carrier smashed into rock or hissed past. Charred chunks pelted rocky ground. Farley waited a few seconds, then sat up and took a look. Where the carrier had been was now a burning and twisted metal chassis. Thick black smoke billowed up from the puddling remains of balloon tires.

  Farley looked up at the sky. The star flare still descended and the flying thing was already gone. It had banked in, released, and arced away—the fastest strafing run Farley had ever seen. And the most accurate. There had been no rocket streak. That thing had gravity-launched some kind of bomb and hit a bullseye.

  Everybody picked themselves up in the stark light, looking around as if they’d inexplicably come awake in this forsaken place. Even Jerry had no wisecrack. What they’d just seen had been too sudden, too fast. Too big. As if the sky had opened up and the hand of God had lowered from on high to smite their enemy.

  Wennda glanced at Farley and Broben as she went by him to retake point. She had got her balaclava back and it was clenched in her hand like the skin of some small animal. Farley hoped his shaking didn’t show as he held up a hand for her attention.

  “What the hell is that thing?” he asked.

  She glanced up at the empty sky. “Biomechanical aerial drone,” she said. “We call it the Typhon.”

  “Will it be back?”

  “I don’t think so. Not if we stay by the rim. It’s protecting something in the well, in the middle of the crater. It destroys anything it sees as a threat.”

  “Who’s flying it?” Broben demanded.

  She frowned. “No one. Its mission program is still running even though there’s no more mission.”

  Broben shook his head as if trying to clear water from his ears. “Do you savvy any of that doubletalk?” he asked Farley.

  Farley held two fingers a quarter inch apart.

  Wennda went to talk with Arshall and Sten as Yone, Garrett, and Everett headed toward them.

  “I’m telling you it was there,” Garrett was insisting. “What do you think, it dropped a rock?”

  “I’m not buying it,” said Everett.

  “It had a bomb under its wing,” said Garrett. “It wasn’t there before.” He turned a pleading gaze to Farley and Broben. “You saw that thing,” he said. “Did it—”

  Farley held a hand up. “You take your orders from me,” he said. “Got it?”

  Garrett looked puzzled. “We were only—”

  Everett elbowed him in the ribs. “We got it, captain. It won’t happen again.”

  “No it won’t.” Farley moved aside. “Go on.”

  Brobe
n watched them walk off and lit a Lucky. “You okay, Joseph?”

  “Sure, why wouldn’t I be?”

  “You tell me.”

  Farley glanced at the popping wreck. The star flare finally landed and lay burning on the barren ground. “You’re gonna have to put out the cigarette, Jer,” he said.

  Broben held out the Lucky and raised an eyebrow. “How come?” he asked.

  “They can detect heat.” Farley indicated the bonfire that had been a twelve-man transport. “That’s why she kept telling us to get down.”

  *

  They ran the dark perimeter of the crater and took five minutes every hour to rest. Farley followed the girl’s lead and did not question her. Her team had fought alongside him and were going doubletime to get Francis to a doc, and that was good enough for Farley for right now.

  Whenever they stopped, Farley checked on Francis and the crew members who were starting to flag. Whenever they ran, Farley tried to identify constellations or plan his next move or count paces, or anything but dwell too much on things outside of his control. Which right now was pretty much everything.

  Several times he thought he saw the skeletons of enormous creatures in the distance. Each time they resolved to the burned and twisted frames of vehicles.

  Soon Farley simply trudged like a mindless hamster on a treadmill, not thinking about much at all beyond making it to the next break. A tour’s worth of action in the last half day had left him running on fumes. His A-2 jacket was driving him nuts. At first he tied the arms around his waist, but the leather kept working loose with his stride. Finally he put his belt through the arms and gathered the jacket like a curtain and buckled the belt and ran with the hem of the jacket tapping the backs of his legs. His boots were hot and heavy but there was nothing he could do about them so he ignored them.

  False dawn found them near the entrance to another fissure. They’d passed several during the night, canyon cracks radiating from an explosion or a meteor strike or something that had blown a crater the size of Manhattan. The ground showed evidence of lava flow, huge ripples frozen in stone, clustered spheres where molten rock had hardened over air bubbles. The scale of devastation was too large for the mind’s containing. In the soft gray eastern light the world around them was a pencil sketch of ruin.