“Yes, we are, but hopefully not all the way at once,” Seven responded icily. “And if you thought that was fun, kids, wait till you see this!”
At that moment, Seven simultaneously pulled the wing all the way back to 90 degrees vertical and slammed his hand against the VTOL’s powerful engines. His reasoning was perfect. The missile had calculated its impact based upon the VTOL’s freefalling trajectory. But in the split second before impact, Seven’s alteration of the craft’s velocity and motion successfully evaded the missile and it streaked past them, less than two feet from their plane. As the missile flashed past, it left a film of smoke across their windows.
But now the second half of Seven’s two part drama began to play itself out. They were not only falling and would have to recover an appreciable vertical velocity to keep from crashing, but suddenly the fuel alarm began to whine and they were at least 250 feet short of the glowing flares and were about to crash into the icy river below.
Between the stall alarm and the scream of the low fuel alarm, Seven was beginning to become distracted, so he struggled to keep it all in the background. His mind was working out the two part calculus of the vertical and horizontal velocities and distance by watching the spin of the gauges before him and by an occasionally reality check out the window. It was going to be close, very close. He could manage the descent and the horizontal position, but the fuel was not under his control. If it ran out, it ran out.
Serea apparently could understand the endgame strategy being played out and her hand inched toward his leg, her fingers digging into his pants. Seven reached down and quickly touched her in reassurance, then his hand firmly resumed its position on the controls.
“Any more missiles coming our way?” he asked calmly.
“No. I think Winsteed’s ground troops fried them before they had the chance to fire any more,” Serea responded, her voice still shrill and stressed to its max.
He willed his eyes to stay frozen on the panels because their only hope of survival was his ability to do the math in his head and only use his eyes to correct his relative position but not the trajectory. If they had another incoming missile, it would just have to hit or miss – it was far too late to do any fancy maneuvering at this point in the landing.
The dark waters of Dutch Harbor passed 500 feet beneath them as they were finally approaching the runway on a sharp perpendicular approach. Seven permitted his eyes to scan the area and focus on the blue and yellow flares that marked his landing spot. He could see the forces arrayed across the landing field before him now, illuminated by the azure and brightening sky of Alaska’s dawn.
There were foot soldiers and vehicles stationed across the runway and Seven could see them moving rapidly around the landing zone. He could even see tracers fired from their weapons as the VTOL approached, but they were all firing away from him. Near the landing flares, he could also make out a flatbed truck and a crane.
“Serea, call out my altitude,” Seven ordered calmly.
“432 feet,” she responded immediately.
This allowed Seven to concentrate on his visual angle of approach and still have a data stream flowing to his brain.
“Speed it up… more data,” Seven said evenly, crisply.
“412, 402, 389…” Serea intoned, her voice now steady.
Seven’s eyes concentrated on the two flares and the ground now rising to meet them. The VTOL’s engines screamed, pumping out energy at well beyond their designed capacity. It was going to be very close.
“212, 207, 198…”
Seven hands worked the wing angle deftly and expertly. From those wing tips spewed the VTOL’s energy, its altitude and horizontal placement. He could now make out the shapes of the individual figures below them on the ground.
“115... slowing … 98 feet.”
“Steady, baby, steady; you can do it…” Seven spoke gently and calmly to his flying machine.
The pair of alarms squealed out their warnings as red caution lights began to flash all over the face of his panel. The engines screamed their highest pitch. Seven’s mind simultaneously filtered and calculated: altitude, approach angle, velocity, noise, lights and watching for incoming missiles, all at once. If they crashed, they crashed. If they died, they died. But Aaron Seven had no intention of being the direct cause of either. Death was God’s play. Until the Almighty trumped his hand, surviving the worst was entirely under his prevue
“21 feet… 15…. 12 … 9 feet… 6… 3…”
At three feet above the runway, the engines sputtered, then the noise ceased altogether as the craft dropped to the runway with a jolt, skidded eight inches and stopped, the alarms still blaring, just four feet from the flares.
“I think we just ran out of gas, my dear,” Seven calmly said to Serea who looked back at him with awe and wonder. “And damn! I can’t believe I actually missed my target by four feet! I’m gonna have to go back and red the manual again…”
A uniformed figure ran over to the VTOL and stopped just outside Seven’s window. A bearded man with an enormous cigar stood with crossed arms and stared at Seven with a huge smile.
Seven pulled the hatch and extended his hand. “Aaron and Serea Seven. Request permission to debark.”
“Permission granted, Dr. Seven,” the man said, gripping Seven’s hand. “I’m Kevin Winsteed. But we’ve got to hurry this evolution along. Minutes count. By the way, that was one hell of a landing. I wouldn’t have given you a chance at making it down – none at all. I thought you were toast.”
“Don’t feel so bad,” Serea responded. “For a minute there, so did I.”
“You must be some kinda expert at flying these babies,” Winsteed said. “You a test pilot?”
“No, actually not,” Seven admitted. “First time, really.”
“Right,” Winsteed responded dryly with a sly wink. “Yep, right…”
Serea burst into laughter. “I don’t think he believes you.”
The troops around the VTOL began to move with a purpose. As Seven and Serea stepped out of the aircraft, the flat bed truck pulled beside them on one side and the huge crane on the other. The troops began to run wide nylon straps under the aircraft as the crane positioned itself to lift the VTOL on the wide open bed of the truck.
“We need to be out of here first thing after sunset,” Seven said bluntly. “Any chance we can beg, borrow or steal some AV-gas?”
“Already taken care of,” Winsteed noted perfunctorily. “We guessed your plan and were apparently right. Now, Dr. and Mrs. Seven, please come with me,” he said, motioning them toward a squat Humvee painted with winter camouflage.
“What are you doing with the aircraft?” Serea asked, unmoving, eyes flashing back and forth between Winsteed and her precious, irreplaceable VTOL.
“You have to trust me on this, Mrs. Seven,” Winsteed replied over the roar of the crane’s engines.
“He’s right,” Seven encouraged her, touching the back of her arm with his fingers. “Minutes count.” With that caution, Seven looked toward the eastern horizon. The red edge of the sun was just beginning to peek over the edge. “Fifteen minutes, no more,” he said to no one in particular.
“At this latitude, we actually have about twenty,” Winsteed responded. “But things are well in hand now. We should make it just fine. Please,” he said, motioning again toward the Humvee.
Serea looked back to her aircraft just as the crane began to lift it off the surface of the runway.
“We’ll refuel her tomorrow just before you take off,” Winsteed offered. “No time left to refuel now.”
Serea just nodded as she turned toward the Humvee. “Who were those insane idiots firing at us?” she asked, walking.
“Russian mafia gangster militia,” Winsteed spat disgustedly, his cigar still firmly clenched in his teeth, as if the mere mention of them was literally distasteful to him. “They came in originally to Unalaska to run a fancy resort hotel. Soon their seedy gambling, drug and prostitution business ruine
d the island. After the nukes stopped flyin’ they took the whole place over – except for us, of course – and set up their own little Tsar-dom. They know we have food and supplies, and they’re heavily armed, so they make a run at us nearly every night. We finally had to blow the Airport Beach Road Bridge just to keep ‘em at bay. They have boats, but boats are easy targets and they know it. So we’ve had a relatively easy time of it lately. Now, that shoulder launched missile – that’s new. We didn’t know they had that little ace up their sleeves.”
“Hopefully they just had one,” Seven said sincerely.
“I guess we’ll find out tonight,” Winsteed responded logically, but with no appreciable sensitivity. Seven laughed but Serea just glared at him.
“Sorry,” Winsteed said as he finally understood his faux pas. He opened the back door of the Humvee as Serea and Seven slid in one after the other. Winsteed climbed into the front left seat after sticking the unlit cigar into his upper pocket, as a fresh faced young driver made the unspoken motions for them to buckle their seat restraint harnesses. The moment the last belt clicked into place, the Humvee raced away across the runway toward the center of the airport.
“You obviously have deep shelter,” Seven said to Winsteed.
Winsteed looked back at them over his shoulder. He was a rotund man with a full salt-and-pepper beard. He had the friendly face of a young Santa Clause and a physique to match. Seven noted to himself that if a youthful Saint Nicholas had dressed up in a military uniform, he would have looked exactly like Winsteed. To make the perfect match complete, he slid on a pair of half-lens reading glasses and began to scan a report he held in his hand.
“This says you’re the discoverer of the quantum storms – that you are the Dr. Aaron Seven – the real deal! We were wondering whether it was really you or not!” As Winsteed said this, the younger driver stole a furtive glance over his shoulder as he continued to drive at breakneck speed across the broad runway stretching before them.
“Yes, that would be me, Commander, the real me.”
“Damn it to hell man, I don’t know whether we’re actually glad to have you as our guest or not!” Winsteed said with a chuckle.
“We need to be out of here at dusk tonight,” Serea said bluntly. “We don’t have even five minutes to spare.”
“Yes, Mrs. Seven, we’ve managed to piece together the details of your mission to rescue your father. Unfortunately, the same transmission was obviously intercepted by the local raiders and now they’re aware of your mission, as well. It’s my responsibility to ensure your safe take-off in the face of what is now a compromised mission plan. I’m also responsible for the lives of my own men and women. Therefore, as long as you’re under my care, I’ll decide when you depart, and how. If I deem it’s not safe this evening - due to intelligence, weather, the enemy, or any other reason - you won’t take off tonight,” Winsteed said decisively, staring firmly back at her over the top of his lenses in the rear view mirror.
Serea’s response was completely unexpected, perfectly timed, brutally executed, unhesitant and totally unfair. She simply smiled back at Winsteed with her awesome XY-killer grin that would melt the heart of any mortal, breathing, heterosexual man. “Call me Serea, please,” she stated warmly.
Winsteed looked surprised, and then smiled in return. “Alright, then, Serea. I can assure you I’ll do everything in my power to keep you on track with your mission.”
Seven sighed to himself with a fatalistic grin and slowly shook his head. Primal lust was a far deeper power than anyone could ever imagine, especially in the hands of someone like Serea. He knew.
Minutes later, just as the edge of the sun was peeking over the horizon, they pulled into a cavernous hangar. Seven looked behind them to see the flatbed truck closing on them fast with the VTOL aircraft strapped to its back. On each corner of the truck were four heavily armed soldiers. The truck pulled in beside the Humvee and everyone scrambled to what were obviously well practiced positions.
Winsteed stepped outside the vehicle and held his hand out toward a concrete wall while two soldiers wheeled the huge hangar doors closed with a loud slamming bang.
“This way, please,” he directed.
They walked toward what appeared to be a newly constructed wall and a small metal door. Seven looked to see the rest of the soldiers falling into a disciplined line behind them.
The door opened and they descended down a long, vertical, dank passageway that turned on eight stair platforms. Then they faced another enormous metal door that looked more like a bank vault than anything. Its opening mechanism was a huge wheel that spun as they approached and then opened before them. Facing them was a young woman of fair skin who looked no more than 17, dressed in camouflaged fatigues, just like the rest.
Seven allowed Serea to enter before him and smiled at the youthful soldier who stared at him in an unbroken, irresistible flat smile.
They entered a single expansive room of naked grey concrete lit by a bank of fluorescent lights down its center. He could see the massive room was divided into communications and control areas, a well equipped galley and an entertainment center.
“There are twenty-one of us left,” Winsteed said, his eyes scanning the bunker and his soldiers who just all seemed to be quietly staring at them. “Seven have been lost in various accidents and firefights with the locals. And this, well, this is home. This bunker is deep enough to keep out the nasty rays during the day and afford a modicum of comfort. It provides most of the necessities – bunk rooms that hold four soldiers or two officers each, a galley and a common area for relaxing.”
Seven’s eyes panned about the bunker, eying the soldiers. “They’re young,” he said, “and some native Alaskan?”
“Yeah, they’re young, and more than half of them local, Inuit-Aleut. But we’ve also got African-American, one Native American Comanche, some Asian Pacific Islanders and even a few token Caucasians scattered throughout the bunch.”
“How are your supplies holding out?” Seven asked, staring Winsteed in the eyes.
Winsteed sighed deeply and looked tired, returning Seven’s hard stare. He motioned with his head for Seven and Serea to follow him to a nearby area that lent them more privacy for the continuation of their discussion.
“You don’t mind getting right to the point, do you Dr. Seven?” he responded flatly. “We have 14 months stockpiled, provided we ration and provided we don’t lose any more of our number. In 14 months, we all die, radiation or not. And, as you might expect, that’s why the Militia’s so interested in us. Their stores are apparently far less adequate than ours, so they don’t mind dying to get in here. I figure they won’t be much of a challenge anymore if we can just outlast their stores. One of the things I’m really worried about is the last push.”
“The last push?” Serea asked.
“Yeah. When they figure out they only have a few days left. Then their attacks will become suicidal. They won’t have anything to lose, you see. It’s one of my main worries. That, and if they get in here and burn the hanger over us – then we’re finished.”
“And what of your other chief concerns, Commander?” Serea asked.
“Breaking the bad news to all of these fine people under my command.”
“What bad news?”
“That the enemy’s about to get crazy and come in here and fight us one-on-one to the death. That the food’s gonna run out and there won’t be any to replace it,” Winsteed sighed, as he removed his coat and sat down in a grey, steel chair. His face was lined deeply with the chronic pressure. “There have been a few quiet rumors to that effect, but no one has asked and I haven’t had the heart to tell them. Hell, their average age is 21. They’re just kids. They’ve already lost everything and now I have to tell them this.”
“How much AV-gas do you have in storage?” Seven asked bluntly about the base’s aviation fuel supply.
Winsteed looked back at him with a steely-eyed, silent rage and said nothing. He was obviously mo
re than just a little put off by Seven’s gross insensitivity.
But Serea’s left eyebrow raised slightly as though she understood there was a plot afoot in Seven’s ever racing mind.
“How much fuel, Commander?” Seven pressed brusquely.
Winsteed sighed, then responded icily, “Probably a little over 30,000 gallons, give or take, why?”
“We’ll be departing tomorrow morning and should be back in around 72 hours. We’ll refuel, then depart back to Pacifica. On our return, I’ll be sending the USS Leviathan back to pick you and your people up for transport to Pacifica. I would send for them now, but I have a job for you to do in the meantime. Do you think you have 21 days before the offensive begins?”
Winsteed appeared to be in disbelieving shock. He slowly nodded, staring back at Seven without speaking. Serea stood with a slight grin, nodding her head in silent approval.
“Your assignment is to safeguard that fuel in any way you can, plus your food stores. You must think out of the box on this one, Commander. You have to do this while maintaining your defensive posture. Don’t get distracted, but figure it out and make it happen. This landing strip is our critical link back to the North American continent and we may need the fuel stores again. None of us can afford for the locals to use it for a bonfire after you depart. I don’t know how you’re going to do it, but you need to come up with a plan to store, hide and protect the fuel and what remains of your food supplies. With any luck, we can have you and your people out of here in 21 days, give or take. Can you do it?”
Winsteed still appeared to be frozen in shock. He had the appearance of a man whose diagnosis of a fatal illness had just been rescinded. “Why, yes, of course, of course we can! But, how… how can you take us all on at Pacifica?” he asked in a near whisper. “Won’t that diminish your own stores?”
“We’re designed to be self sufficient, Commander Winsteed. We can and will take you on, and we need your talents, your youthful energy and your rather remarkable genetic diversity. We may have tight bunking arrangements, but we can all fit and we can all eat.”
Quantum Storms - Aaron Seven Page 40
