“As I flew lead, thinking of all the different ways I could be killed by my wingman, I got my second hint about Evan. My proximity marker showed him at exactly 90 meters. We trained to stay 85 to 95 meters off our lead in route formation. That’s a pretty tight margin as it is, but he was focused right on the center of that. When I realized it, I sped up, slowed down, and turned. The other two pilots faded and caught up and faded again, but Evan stayed at 90 meters. He would slip up to about 92 or down to around 88 and then, in a split second, he was back at 90. We’re talking about six-G turns and changes in velocity of hundreds of miles an hour, and he kept his variation under twelve feet. It was staggering. I had the unsettling realization that if Evan were to go to guns on me, he would kill me in seconds. He was a much better pilot.”
“Later in the flight, we engaged the enemy, and I soon realized that Evan was the most precise pilot I had ever flown with. He slid out to combat position and stayed within my trailing cone through every maneuver. You expect your wingman to fall off a bit here and there, but here was a rookie who had no problem following me through my best patterns. I was pushing to my own G-limit and throwing every tactic I knew at the enemy. He followed me through it all. He clipped two enemy ships off me that day, and never once left me, even when he had a ship lock on him. Some rookies would peel off and try to save themselves when that happens, which is exactly what the enemy wants. Divide and eliminate, just like taking a weak animal out of a herd. The wingman needs to trust the lead to pull him or her out of the tail, and he did. The guy didn’t know me at all, and I had been an ass to him. But he handed me his life and trusted me with it, covering me through the entire fight.”
“After a few weeks, and several more kills, the CO changed Evan’s call sign from Dopey to Mako.”
Stacy sat down next to Jeffrey on the gunship’s ramp. “Why Mako?”
“It was a special call sign, which goes back to the beginning. We were Hammerheads originally not after the sharks, but because we could take so many G’s. The joke was that we had steel in our skulls.” Jeffrey tapped his knuckles to his forehead. “Hard as a hammer. The centrifuge operators started the nickname. Then, when the experiment was moving into an actual combat unit, Gunnery Sergeant Richter drew the insignia of the hammerhead shark on a training-room board. It stuck. Later, the CO’s decided that pilots who distinguished themselves would have the name of a shark as a call sign.”
“It was interesting how much power we put into a name. As Dopey, Evan appeared passive and sickly, but as Mako his hooked nose, hunched shoulders, and quiet off-to-the-side demeanor seemed much more predatorial. He was good at flying lead, but as a wingman he shined. I pretty much knew that, if I had Mako behind me, I was coming home. Knowing that, I could push myself to my own limit. I felt immortal.”
“Evan had a lot of close calls because of his dedication to the slot. He would never leave his wingman no matter how much heat came down on him. He often came home with holes in his ship, but his luck held on for just over a year. Now remember, a tour of one year was a long time for a Hammerhead. The average Hammerhead died in six months, but killed on average over 50 enemy ships. The kill ratio was staggering, and there wasn’t a single member of our unit, man or woman, who wasn’t okay with the price. At first the enemy had us with sheer numbers. But they were a long way from home, and we were chewing through them like chainsaws on fallen trees.”
“A little after a year into his tour, Evan and I were deep in a fight as I chased a particularly quick ship. The enemy had recently destroyed Deimos and a belt of crap was floating around Mars. They were holing up in the debris. I came around one rock, about the size of a four-story building, and the ship I was chasing turned right and went square into another rock behind it. I pulled harder right and went between the two.”
“I knew Evan would have no problem with the maneuver, but it was so tight I looked back anyway to watch him come through. As he passed through the gap, his ship obliterated in a big, yellow ball of fire that started at the engines and blew forward. The explosion snuffed out when it had burned off the ship’s escaping oxygen and hydrogen, leaving only dark scrap scattering in all directions. I couldn’t tell what happened. He might have hit some smaller rock, or gotten shot from an angle I didn’t see, but honestly I think his ship just gave out. We pushed those things to the limit day after day and there were failures, although most not quite that spectacular.”
Jeffrey drew a slow breath, exhaled, and then looked at Stacy. “That’s only one story I have of a good friend’s death. There are a lot more. I’ve had to work through each one throughout the years, which has been a terrible process.” He kicked at the sand. “During the fight, when each one died, I had to ignore that something horrible had just happened, or I would have died as well. I shoved each aside and they dissolved into my bones. I didn’t even realize they were still with me. Years later, something would trigger a memory, a song or a smell, and I would find myself thinking about a good friend I had forced myself to forget ever lived.”
“It was that way with Evan. It’s not that I couldn’t remember him. I had chosen not to remember. However, no matter how much I didn’t want them to, the dead always found their way back to me. My memories of Evan were triggered several years after the end of the war. I was with Leif and his mother watching fireworks. One of the fireworks exploded with the same bright yellow flame as Evan’s ship. At first I tried to block it out, but he pushed right through. I left my son and wife in the field and sat in the car alone, working through events I hadn’t faced since I had survived them.”
“It’s a very confusing experience for someone like me. I always believed I had to be strong at all times. I attack and I win. Once I’d won, the situation was over, end of story. But until you’ve reconciled each loss, the dead won’t let you rest. When the memories first started coming back, I tried to stop them, but I learned that, if I blocked them out, they would only come back again another time. Others turned to drinking or drugs to hold back the ghosts, but I couldn’t let myself go that way with a wife and new son.” Jeffrey turned to Leif. “You don’t realize it, but you being born may have saved me from the self-destruction I’d seen others go through.”
Leif shifted his weight and twisted his hands together.
Jeffrey said, “I don’t worry too much about my own death. I’ve had a long life, much longer than I expected when I was young. What troubles me is outliving others. It’s you two who I have to see through this, and I want you to believe, Stacy, that I will not carelessly put you in harm’s way. I couldn’t stand to do it. I’ll lay down my own life without hesitation before I let anything happen to you.”
Stacy stood up and motioned for Jeffrey to stand as well. He did, and she hugged him, saying, “Thank you.” She held onto him a moment longer and then let him go. She looked up at him. “What was your call sign? Great White?”
“No, at first it was ‘Grinch’ because I was a real grouch in training. But then, because of my flying, they changed my name to Orca. The CO said I was deadly, but too big to be a shark.”
“That’s a good name,” Stacy said.
“Not so much,” Jeffrey said, chuckling. “You try catching hell for six years being named after a whale in a tank of sharks.”
Stacy laughed at this and then looked out to the canyon walls. “What do we do now?”
Jeffrey followed her sightline up to where the rust-red edge of the canyon cut a ragged line under the sky. The sky held nothing, no wisps of cloud, no birds, no aircraft, and it’s smooth, blue perfection gave it a depth that drew Jeffrey in. He drew another deep breath, exhaled, and let Evan Welch go one more time.
He looked at Stacy. “I need information on System Alliance Development. That spider’s the only lead we have. We need the name and address–home address I mean–of somebody important in their robotics division, someone who can get us access to their manufacturing data.”
“What are you planning?”
Jeffrey smil
ed. “You ever kidnap anyone before?”
Stacy shrugged her shoulders. “Why the hell not? I mean if we’re going to prison, let’s go whole hog, right?”
“That’s the spirit,” Jeffrey said, and looked over to Leif who sat hunched over a sat-phone, tapping on the screen with his thumbs.
“What are you doing?” Jeffrey asked.
“Relax dad, I took this from the truckdriver.”
“Stop,” Jeffrey said. “What have you looked up on that thing?”
“I was about to look up some information on management in System Alliance’s robotic division.”
“Have you searched anything yet?” Jeffrey asked.
“No. I was just about to hit ‘enter’. Do you want me to?”
“No. They might search that phone’s records when our friends are able to get connected with civilization. It’s a long shot, but if they think of it, then we just dropped our pants.”
“What do we do then?” Leif asked.
“I don’t know,” Jeffrey said, sitting back down on the ramp and putting his head in his hands. Stacy sat down as well. The three stared at the sandy ground. A cooler breeze blew down from the narrower reaches of the canyon now, flushing out the heat of the day. The shadows had reached halfway up the side of the canyon wall.
“I’ve got an idea,” Leif said. “How many vehicles did you pass when we were coming across the Outback?”
“Oh, I suppose I saw dust trails from two or three trucks,” Jeffrey said. “Why?”
CHAPTER 14
Just beyond the orbit of the thin, crescent Moon, a long blade of darkness blocked out the stars. The faint moonlight illuminated dozens of large cannons. The dark shape, the USS Lycurgus, was the command center for the Navy fleet. While not as large as standard battle cruisers, it was much more heavily armed and armored. Docked against the black metal of the Lycurgus via the fixed cylinder of an airlock, a small, civilian yacht caught and reflected more than its share of the dim light.
The sleek lines and oversized hydrogen-oxygen engines illustrated the yacht’s opulence, and shining white ceramic tiles gave it away as an atmospheric re-entry vehicle. While unmarked, its uniqueness made it easy to identify as the Corona Mundus, the flagship for United Aerospace, which–for over a century–had been the United States’ largest military contractor for spacecraft and aircraft.
Along the starboard side of the yacht, large circular windows faced out toward the Earth. In one of the windows, a woman stood in her private suite and looked out on the Moon and the nightside of the Earth. The terminus of dawn glowed along the rim of the planet, matching the Moon’s crescent.
The woman turned and faced Carter Roberts, anger flaring in her eyes. “What do you mean you don’t know where they are?” Despite Carter’s years of military experience, he winced at her derisive look.
She continued, “You had their location in the South Pacific and knowledge of their search for fuel trucks but have found nothing?” She jammed the silver nail of her index finger into the “United Aerospace” patch on his chest. Carter’s heart accelerated at her touch.
She said, “Mr. Roberts, this is totally unacceptable. Those two people could undo all we have worked for. If it weren’t for that nosy bitch we would have no opposition,” She turned back to the window.
“Yes, Mrs. King…”
“Oh dear God, please don’t use that name,” she said, reaching up and pressing her palm to her forehead. “I suffered far too much being married to that old bastard. Now that he’s gone, I don’t want to be reminded of it.” She placed her hands back on the window sill. Carter Roberts looked out, over her shoulder, at the dark sphere of the Earth and the electrified edges of North and South America, their major cities illuminated webs.
He looked back to Maxine King and thought she looked rather Grecian in her long, white gown with one pale shoulder bared and the other covered by a draped length of fabric, which shifted in subtle colors as she moved. For tonight’s meeting with military commanders, her hairdresser had pinned her hair back into a formal twist with pearled clips. She normally wore it down between her shoulder blades. Carter did not like the severe style. It, blended with her uncharacteristic anger, made him unsure how to proceed.
“Maxine,” Carter said after a pause, “they identified several hundred fuel trucks, and there is nothing to suggest which one they selected as their actual target. We have no idea of their fuel range, their ultimate destination, or their intent.”
“And they made no response to your messages,” she said.
“Exactly. They’re cautious and resourceful.”
“What do we know then?” her voice went softer, closer to where Carter felt it should be for the mother of the New World: tender and caring. She touched the sides of her neck with her fingertips. Carter stared at her neck where the silver nails caressed the skin.
“Mr. Roberts?”
Carter pulled his gaze away from her neck. “I have some more information on the shipbreaker from the landing strip. It turns out that he was a Hammerhead.”
“WHAT?!” Maxine turned on Carter, glaring. “How is it that we are only finding this out now?” She held up a hand and, as she inhaled, pulled her shoulders back and her chin up. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “The Hammerheads were a myth, and any member of their group is useless. It will not be a problem.”
“I agree that the Hammerheads were just one more element in the military’s ruse to justify itself. However, we can only assume that this Holt is the reason Stacy Zack was able to escape. That, and the luck of the devil. We still can’t understand why the freighter’s bridge did not burn out on re-entry. It was an error on our part.”
“A significant error, on your part.”
Carter acknowledged the comment with a pause and then continued. “Regardless, this Holt has proved to be a skilled pilot. According to the records, he was decorated many times during the war–”
Maxine cut him off. “Why are you speaking as if the war happened? It was a lie. You know that. The Hammerheads were a lie. It means nothing. Anyone saying they are a member of any combat unit during that war should be easy pickings for our troops. They did nothing for years, aside from having false memories implanted, while society quavered in fear thinking a mythical, alien race was about to destroy life on earth. Meanwhile, my husband’s father made his fortune.” She stopped and pursed her burgundy lips, closing her eyes.
“Yes,” Carter said, “but it still doesn’t change the fact that this Holt has been able to out-fly our best pilots.”
“What do we know of this Holt’s weaknesses?”
“The only living member of his family is his son, Leif Holt.”
“No one else?”
“No one else.”
“I think it is time we took custody of this son, don’t you?”
“Yes, well.” Carter took a deep breath and exhaled. “We went to his quarters in San Diego and–”
Maxine’s eyes went flat. “San Diego?”
“Yes.”
“So that’s whom he picked up in Ramona then.”
“We can only assume so, as we haven’t been able to locate the son. However, he is not scheduled for duty for another 12 hours, so we will not be able to verify an AWOL status until then.”
Carter saw Maxine’s jaw muscles working, and he hesitated.
“What do you have to add?”
“It appears preventing us from using him as leverage is not the only reason Holt took his son,” Carter said, looking back over his notepad. “Leif Holt is an electronic warfare technician, countermeasures specifically. We lost the Kiowa’s IFF transponder a few moments after they picked him up.”
“I am displeased with this situation, Mr. Roberts,” Maxine said, stepping closer to him. “It was your decision to dispose of the Special Warfare unit via the freighter, so it is your problem. The fact that this Holt was not eliminated before the cleaning crew arrived is also your fault. I expect a resolution within 24 hours or you
will answer for the failure, is that clear?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Carter said, looking slightly up at her. He remained quiet, letting himself be drawn into her eyes. He stared at the long, blonde lashes, moved across the pure white, and then followed the delicate fan of sea-green around her pupil. Transfixed by her eyes, he felt electricity in his legs.
“Is there something else, Mr. Roberts?”
Carter felt the sudden urge to reach out and pull her hair free. He saw himself taking hold of her by the waist and wrist, and then pressing his palm to the small of her back, feeling the silvered fabric and the line of the zipper. He would pull her close and, as her ear brushed his cheek, inhale the luminous scent of her blonde waves. His chest swelled with heat and his pulse tapped in his neck.
“Well, Mr. Roberts?”
The vision shattered. He was left with her scowling at him.
“No, ma’am.”
“Then get to work, Mr. Roberts.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Carter said, and turned and walked out of the room, his face red, and his heart pounding.
CHAPTER 15
Leif fashioned a backpack with handles from the survival bag’s straps and thought it looked convincing enough. He finished the costume by rubbing dirt on his legs, chest, and arms and then brushed it away. They took off and flew out over the Outback. As the sky darkened, Jeffrey spotted, along a lonely dirt road, a tail of dust rising from a 4x4. Jeffrey flew well ahead of the 4x4 and landed beside the road, which was really nothing more than two ruts. Leif walked down the ramp to the dirt.
The ramp of the gunship lifted up, Leif turned away, covered his ears, and jet blast hammered his back. He felt dirt scattering across his neck, and then the roar diminished. He turned and saw the gunship fly away and land on a ridge a short distance off. Its black paint against the dark sky made it invisible, unless one knew exactly where to look.
Leif waited by the side of the road and considered the last few days. He had surprised himself because he hadn’t screwed up yet, even when that thug had pointed a gun at Stacy. He had always wondered how he would do if presented with life-or-death scenarios like in his dad’s war stories. Did he have some of that do-or-die in his blood? He had thought his dad had never been scared, because how could you be scared and still do the right thing? Now he realized that fear and ability were not mutually exclusive. He had been scared as hell but had done well. He smiled at himself.
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