Star Angel: Prophecy

by David G. McDaniel

  Completely.

  CHAPTER 24: RAIDERS

  Pete gave them ballcaps. One for Jess, one for Zac. Black, with some sort of Spec Ops logo. A shield, stitched with a leering skull wearing a beret, backed by crossed rifles and a few lightning bolts. White on black. The hats were actually kind of cool.

  “Where is he?” Heath asked no one in particular. They all wore the caps; Heath and Steve’s faded from use, Jess and Zac’s brand new. Pete was around but they’d lost him for the moment. This little group, save Jessica, was part of the core operations team that would lead the strike on the refinery. That strike would also involve Cooper’s SAS guys and the local militia, but those members of the group had gone off on another errand, leaving Heath’s team to wait and, basically, kill time. It was mid-afternoon, a gorgeous Summer day under blue Scottish skies, and they were all standing around outside a giant hangar. The huge doors were pulled open wide, and Jess had to admit standing there idly, talking and speculating on what came next, was, in all, not an unpleasant thing to be doing.

  She was enjoying the chill of just hanging with the guys.

  “In the office,” Zac saw him. He pointed into the depths of the massive hangar. Jess followed his outstretched arm to the little office across the way, a little mini-building at the center of the expansive hangar floor. Through one of the windows she caught sight of Pete, moving around inside the smaller building like he was looking for something. Elsewhere inside the hangar were the slagged remains of three fighter jets, Panavia Tornado GR4s, she recognized the remains of their forms, along with some flightline equipment, all of it detonated or melted to a greater or lesser degree. Remains of the hasty clean-up operation executed by the Kel. Out on the tarmac and at various points in the wide-open distance were the hulks of other casualties, victims of the alien attack, those targets annihilated with far less precision. Charred remains; in some instances merely craters in the ground, scattered debris at the fringes the only evidence there was ever a target there at all. This hangar and a few other buildings on the compound remained standing.

  After they arrived at the airbase Cooper and his SAS team, along with some of the local militia, had gone off to locate the secure weapons area, the stockpile that supposedly had not been scrubbed by the Kel, items that were still intact and could be used for the refinery assault. Since then Jess and company had been hanging out—“milling about smartly”, as Heath called what they were doing—keeping an eye out, presumably, but mostly just chewing the fat and waiting to see what the rest of the team uncovered.

  Jess stood a little apart from the others, gazing around the vastness of the ruined airfield, watching as Heath and Steve tossed a football. An American ball, they’d somehow come by, much to their shared excitement, and the well-used pigskin had become an instant hit. Every now and then they tossed it to Zac and he threw it back; idle throws and catches as they talked and shot the shit.

  Jess took a deep breath.

  Till that moment she’d been finding time and space where she could to prepare, to practice her own brand of training, the exercise difficult when she, at the same time, did not want anyone to see what she did. Or could do.

  No one but Zac would understand.

  She watched the guys. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail, stuck through the back of the cap, swishing out behind her when she moved. Zac’s hat was pulled over his brow, bill bent at each side like the other guys and partly covering his eyes. He’d bent it like that to mirror Pete, Heath and Steve’s. With the beard and the dark civilian clothes it made him look more like an operator than ever. In fact right then he looked totally normal, the most absolutely normal he had yet—in that he looked like a normal guy, dressed casual, everyday clothes, wearing a hat. In some ways not so much. Hunky, tall, dark and handsome, fashion-ad gorgeous—in that regard not normal, but hanging out, cracking little jokes as they talked and tossed the ball … he just looked so human.

  It became a wonderful moment for her and she found herself smiling.

  “You think we’ll ever have an NFL again?” Heath asked Steve as he threw him the ball.

  Steve caught it and spun the laces to throw it back. “It won’t be the first thing we put back,” he said as he threw. “But you can bet we will.”

  Heath caught it; threw it to Zac. Jess noted they treated Zac like one of them, completely including him, and where they veered into things for which he had no reference Heath usually took a second to explain.

  “The NFL is the National Football League,” he told him as Zac caught the ball. “In America, our country, we’re big on organized sports. It’s big business. Lots of money. The NFL is the biggest.” He caught the ball Zac threw and held it in one hand. “They play with this. A football.” He pivoted and tossed it to Steve.

  Steve caught it and looked to Jess, holding the ball a little to the side with a question on his face. She declined with a shake of her head. He tossed it back to Heath.

  “It will be interesting to see how everything gets reset,” he commented. “Talk about a mess.”

  Jess fingered the little angel necklace as she watched the boys, snug around her neck, a little above her T-shirt collar. Delighting in its significance.

  “Yeah,” Heath threw the ball to Zac. “But in a way, not so much. I mean, the surgical precision of the Kel is almost something to be admired,” he spoke in his smooth, Southern accent. “Maybe at the end of all this that works to our advantage.” Zac held the ball as Heath kept talking: “I mean, if we can figure a way through this without ruining everything, maybe it won’t be that hard. We’re still here, we’re still alive and most everything is the same.”

  Steve held up his hands and Zac threw him the ball.

  He caught it and threw it to Heath. “Maybe.” Heath tossed to Zac. Steve was nodding his head. “But this is only going to get way worse before it gets better.”

  Then … Air-raid sirens. Sudden, shocking, out of nowhere and Jess whirled.

  What the …

  Her heart skipped as the panic-inducing wails burst from giant megaphones at the corners of the building. But as the shock of those first sounds passed … she recognized what she was hearing. Guitars, grinding behind the sirens. Drums.

  It was music.

  “Hey,” she turned to find Pete jogging across the hangar floor, heading toward them from the office, a shit-eating grin on his face.

  “Found it!” he shouted, then stopped and made drumming motions as the sirens broke and snares tapped out the intro to …

  “That’s War Pigs, right?” Jess asked loudly as he ran closer and air-guitared the opening riffs. “Black Sabbath.”

  Pete nodded. “Roger that!”

  “God that’s old!”

  “Classic,” he corrected, shouting over the music and taking up a pose to crank out the jam on his imaginary guitar. Ozzy opened the song in earnest, Pete mouthing along, expression intense, the hangar loudspeakers hammering the tarmac with their tinny reproduction. It was perfect, actually, and though the other Earth soldiers, Heath and Steve, were also in their 20s, not much older than her, she could see they recognized the tune and were into it.

  Though no one as much as Pete.

  “Death and hatred to mankind!” he belted out, singing loud, right along with the great and powerful Ozz. “Poisoning their brainwashed minds! Oh Lord yeah!” Followed by a furious set of air drums, leading right into the most epic air guitar Jess had ever seen.

  Truly.

  She found herself laughing in witness of Pete’s enthusiasm, a one-man concert right there in the doorway of that giant hangar, blasted hulks of fighters his backdrop. Heath and Steve nodded along. Even Zac. Zac loved Earth music and this, while in a class of its own, was all Earth.

  Suddenly it was a party.

  Pete went on, right up to the point it was about to become tiresome, everyone laughing and playing along—even Zac started playing the drums—then Pete stopped his performance and went closer to Heath, mind onto the next fun
thing.

  “Break ‘em out!” he said.

  “What?”

  “The stogies!”

  Heath balked. “They’re for after the mission.”

  “There ain’t gonna be no ‘after the mission’!” Pete nearly laughed. He held out his hand, looking around to the others. “We’ve got to celebrate now. Let’s light ‘em up!”

  Heath looked to Steve and Steve kind of shrugged: “Can’t jinx ourselves anymore than we already are. Hell, at this point it might even bring good luck.”

  Heath considered that, went to his rucksack, which sat on the tarmac near the edge of the hangar, opened it and pulled out a bag of cigars.

  “Yeah!” Pete enthused.

  “All right,” Heath shrugged as he passed them out. “Guess we celebrate now.”

  Pete got his. Jess and Zac got one too—it looked like Heath brought enough for everyone. Jess took hers and ran it under her nose, sniffing like she’d seen people do—no idea what a good cigar smelled like. She’d never smoked a cigar, never smoked anything, really, and as she admired this fine example, long, thick—certain Heath would only have picked the best—she wondered what she was supposed to do.

  “I forgot the cutter,” Heath pinched the tip of his tightly between his front teeth, biting open a small hole.

  Pete bit his too. “You didn’t forget the jet did you? Tell me we ain’t got to use ciggy lighters.”

  With a sly smile Heath reached in his pocket and … pulled out a matte-black lighter.

  Pete grinned, mimicking Ozzy: “Oh Lord yeah!”

  Heath flicked the little lighter, hit a button and three amazingly intense jets of blue flame erupted from the triple-nozzle array, aimed at each other toward a brilliant point of heat.

  “Yes!” Pete enthused. “The tri-jet! That’s what I’m talkin ‘bout!” He went over and held his cigar while Heath lit it. No puffing, no help needed to get it going—he didn’t even have to hold the cigar in his mouth. Heath just ran the blue-hot tips of the jet exhaust in circles around the end and soon the tip of the cigar was glowing cherry red. Pete put it between his lips, puffed a few times and tilted back his head.

  “Ahhh.” He turned to Jess and Zac. “Heathy knows how to pick ‘em. You can bet these are some primo sticks.”

  Heath went to Steve, lit his, then showed Zac and Jess a little of what to do, where to bite the tip to open a hole, advising them to puff and not inhale, then lit his own and soon they were smoking away. After a few puffs Jess had the hang of it and tried blowing a few rings. Pretty much just little cotton-balls of smoke. The guys ambled further afield, chatting and tossing the ball, mostly paying attention to each other, and as they did she became fascinated with controlling the smoke and quietly practiced her rings. She noticed Zac watching and smiled. He smiled back, that wonderful, boyish grin, a look in his eyes that spoke of the incredible bond they shared, more than any girlfriend and boyfriend, just the two of them, so far beyond the amazing camaraderie developing within that small group of friends and the sight of it thoroughly warmed her. She smiled wider; then, determined, puffed heavily on the cigar, gave it her best effort and … blew an actual, really good ring. It floated and expanded, holding form well away from her and she laughed in witness of it. Zac laughed with her, a private laugh as the guys around them continued to joke and talk.

  Together the group drifted farther away from the hangar, onto the airfield, tossing the football as they went, music diffusing gradually into the background of the wide-open space until it sounded like a distant, badly tuned concert. Sabbath had been replaced by another rock song, another classic, Wayward Son by Kansas, and Jess suspected Pete had fired up some sort of online music account or something. She could imagine the station name. Classic Rock. Or, knowing Pete, something more like Kick Ass Rock! or Epic Badass Hell Yeah!

  “Enjoy, boys,” he said as he took the cigar from his mouth, holding it in his fingertips and admiring it. “It could be our last.”

  Jess gave a puff and held the cigar toward him in a sort of toast, like raising a glass. The taste was terrible, but there was something about holding the quality cigar, blowing tons of smoke and generally feeling the bite of the strong tobacco that was immensely satisfying. It made you feel at peace. Like the rest of the world could wait.

  “You’re more pumped than usual,” Heath noted, chomping his own cigar and speaking to Pete between tosses of the ball.

  Pete shrugged. “This is it,” his tone was casual. “Time to get ‘er done. We may not come back from this one.”

  “Don’t get all philosophical,” Steve mocked. “You’re just happy you get to see old Esmerledy tonight.”

  Pete grinned from behind a wall of smoke.

  It was true.

  “She’s my gypsy queen,” he caught a pass from Heath.

  Steve scoffed. “More like your gypsy grandmother.”

  “Not that old.”

  “Dude! You’re twenty-five. She’s, like, sixty.”

  Pete didn’t dispute the numbers. Instead he just grinned wider. He threw the ball to Zac. Zac caught it and held.

  “Age don’t matter,” said Pete. “She’s a very loving woman.”

  Steve nearly laughed. “I’ll bet.”

  Heath sniggered. Zac looked between them, holding the ball and listening as the trio bantered. Steve was shaking his head. “You know she was the town whore back in the day, right?”

  Pete’s expression fell, just a little, and it wasn’t clear whether he did or didn’t. He probably suspected.

  “Come on, Steve,” Heath admonished. “Let’s not rag on Pete’s grandma—I mean girlfriend.”

  “That’s just a rumor,” said Pete. “I’ll admit, she’s a little worn out, but she’s a mature woman.”

  That, of course, brought more snickers. “What are we talking,” Steve wanted to know, “is it like throwing a hot dog down a manhole?”

  Pete mocked being amused. “Ha ha.”

  “I mean, do you have to watch your step down there?”

  Heath upped the ante. “Are you kidding? He’s gotta tie a broom across his skinny ass to keep from falling in.”

  They both laughed, stepped to each other and high-fived. Jess laughed too, as did Zac, though it felt a little weird to be in the midst of their crude guy humor. Almost as if they’d forgotten they were hanging out with a girl. Which, in a way, made her feel kind of good. Like she was one of them. They’d stopped walking and were facing each other in a loose circle, out in the field, Zac holding the football in one hand, puffing his cigar with the other. It was relaxed, it was chill, and Jess appreciated being made a part, no special exceptions. Even if she was just listening it felt like being included. They talked right along as if she was.

  Pete took the ribbing well.

  “All right, all right,” he said as they chuckled at his expense, imagining the condition of poor old Esmerelda. “She’s a little creaky, sure, but let me tell you,” he paused for the delivery: “She can suck the chrome off a trailer hitch!”

  Ooh, snap! he seemed to be thinking, quite pleased with himself. As if that ended the discussion.

  And it might’ve, until Jess blurted—much to her own shock:

  “Is that with her teeth in or out?”

  An icy, split-second of silence …

  “Whoa!” Steve burst in disbelief. He stepped immediately to her and gave her a high-five, Heath too, laughing, and even Zac was laughing hard, and she saw they were all laughing, except Pete, who was feeling the burn, and the guys were rubbing it in and she was breathing a trembling sigh of relief.

  It didn’t bomb.

  “She got you, man!”

  Pete looked at her like she’d just betrayed him.

  “Not you too!”

  She tried to cover her grin but couldn’t. Putting a hand in front of her mouth just looked silly. Even puffing the cigar didn’t conceal it. The sound of her own words thundered in her mind. She could scarcely believe she’d said them. It just poppe
d in her head and she went with it, going along with the wisecracking—and probably the fact that she jumped into the joking out of the blue, silent until that point, only added to the zing. That and the fact that it was a perfect, totally awesome retort.

  She never would’ve said it if she stopped for even a second to think about it.

  “Dude!” Heath was laughing harder the more it settled. Pete was shaking his head. Heath stepped over and gave Jess another high-five. She looked at Zac, feeling just a wee bit embarrassed, but he was laughing right along, all of it at Pete’s expense.

  “Come on,” Pete complained to the laughing mob. “Is everyone going to give me shit?”

  Jess was so glad it didn’t fall flat.

  “We love you, Pete,” she said. She stepped over and gave him a hug, a real one, not just a cursory pat on the back. “It’s the end of the world,” she said over his shoulder as she squeezed him. “We’re just having some fun.”

  That did it. That totally did it and Pete was back in the fold and not the butt anymore and they were all laughing, and as Jess stayed near, more comments, more good fun, taking puffs of her cigar between chuckles, bonding like never before …

  A wave of sadness crashed unexpectedly across her incredible mood. Totally out of nowhere, on the heels of such a fantastic lightness, yet there it was, and she felt her smile fade as she looked at this handful of incredible guys, laughing, faces so filled with the fun they were having, her spirits too high with the moment to let the sadness find root but its bitter implications gripped her. She fought it, found a desperate determination and forced it to rise.

  They’ve got to live, she decided, grim, watching them with a sudden and overwhelming sense of protectiveness. They’ve got to make it through this.