by Dean M. Cole
"Comrade, I know we discussed this, but are you sure a pair of ships can handle one of these things? It is huge."
"Believe me, friend. Two will be enough. We hit it with seven." The colonel paused, chuckling menacingly. Sharing Newcastle's apparent vengeful elation, Jake imagined him staring down into the steaming, partially submerged remnants of the shattered enemy ship. "It was destroyed … completely, serious overkill."
"Da, Vampire Six. My wingman and I will attack this one. Thank you for the news, comrade."
"Make 'em pay Vlad."
"Oh, I will," the Russian commander said with an ominous tone. "Bravo Wing, out."
Jake dug a headset from the uniform piled in front of the radio. Sliding it over his head, he detected the faint scent of the previous user's aftershave. Looking down, he saw a name tag.
TANNEHILL
"Oh shit," he said.
Seeing the same thing, Richard bowed his head. After a silent moment, he lifted an angry glare to the enemy ships on the large monitors. "He was a good man."
Undoubtedly thinking of his parents, Vic had a sickened expression.
Jake placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "They may have been out of town."
Shaking his head, Victor's gaze shifted from wall to floor. His expression transitioned from glare to lost stare.
Frustrated, Jake shook his head. "There's nothing we can do for anyone here. Let's focus on what we can do for those left." He keyed the mic. "Vampire Six, this is Turtle One calling from Space Control, over."
"Roger, Turtle One…" said Colonel Newcastle with evident confusion. "You're in Space Control?"
"Yes, sir. I wanted to find out what happened."
"Is this Captain Giard?"
Jake paused, looking at the mic. This guy is well informed. "Uh … yes sir, it is."
"Okay, good job, Captain. What is our situation on the ground?"
Jake swallowed hard. "Sir, DC appears to be a complete loss."
A long silence followed Jake's words. "Thanks for your report, Captain. I'm sure he's on the horn with the president, but I need to speak with General Tannehill. Please call him to the radio."
Jake cast a forlorn glance at the general's name tag. "I'm sorry, sir. It reached here too."
Another pause. "That deep underground?"
"Yes, sir."
"General Tannehill?"
"Gone, sir."
Silent, Jake stared at the radio, giving the colonel a moment to digest the news. When the pause started to feel too long, he reached for the mic then stopped as the speaker crackled to life.
"What happened?"
He looked from Vic to Richard. "Honestly, sir, I don't know. Structurally, everything is intact. Buildings, trees, and equipment are all still standing. Even machines and electronics still work, but all the people are … gone."
"Gone?"
"Yes, sir. It looks like they … vanished. All we've found is piles of clothes left where they dropped. We haven't found any bodies, even down here."
Deafening silence streamed through the radio speaker. "Gentleman, I need to know the range of that weapon."
Jake gave Richard a meaningful glance. "Yes, sir. We were already working on a plan to do just that."
"Good. This thing must have a recharge time. I can't imagine they would've let us within its range if they could've simply activated the weapon and vaporized us. So, if my fighters are going to be successful, we need to know how far to standoff when they're about to activate it."
Jake hadn't thought of that. He was impressed with how fast the colonel accepted the disastrous news and shifted back into strategizing.
Newcastle continued. "We'll work out the timeline, but I need your team to find its range."
"Roger, Vampire Six," Jake said. "We saw some activity in western Maryland. We'll head that way. I'll report back to you on this frequency."
"Good copy, Turtle One. I've split my wing into three groups. We're heading to our next targets, so get me that data ASAP."
"Roger, Six, Turtle One out," Jake said, pulling off the headset. He turned to see Captain Allison and Lieutenant Croft already heading for the door. After a quick glance back at the alien ships on the monitors, he turned and followed.
***
Captain Sandra Fitzpatrick's steady rhythmic breathing, a technique born through years of cardio training, belied the horror gripping her soul. The teddybear, oh god, the teddybear. An image she couldn't shake, the vision would haunt her for the rest of her days.
Earlier, while jogging toward the distant terminal building, Sandy came across a still idling airport transfer bus. Hoping to use it to expedite the crossing, she peered into its closed glass doors. In spite of the eastern glow of the coming sunrise, she couldn't discern details through its dirty windows. However, the bus looked empty.
Jamming her fingers into the rubber gap between the panels, Sandy tried to pry the split glass doors apart. After a fruitless half-minute struggle, she finally noticed a backlit recessed emergency-release button left of the door. Activating it, Sandy heard a short blast of compressed air. She jumped as the doors popped two inches out of their opening and then parted, each sliding in opposite directions.
"Hello?"
No reply rose above the bus's droning diesel engine.
She took a tentative step into the opening. "Is anybody in here?"
Standing half in the doorway, Sandy screamed as two strong hands, squeezing from both sides, grasped her shoulders. Another blast of compressed air burped from under the bus, and the door trying to close on her retracted.
"Shit!" Sandy kicked the right panel of the retreating glass door and shook her head. Keep it together Captain Fitzpatrick. She stepped all the way into the bus, and its doors slid closed. Air conditioner blower noise replaced the engine's. Getting over her skittishness, she stepped into the driver's compartment. In the dawn's wan light, the seat looked empty. Groping in the darkness, Sandy worked her way closer. A few awkward seconds later, she finally dropped into it.
Something was wrong with the seat. It felt like someone left a towel or cloth on it. Running her fingers across the material's loose rippled surface, Sandy froze, remembering what she saw while peering down into the empty F-18's cockpit. An uncomfortable hard object dug into her right thigh. Wide-eyed in the dark, she leaned left and pulled it out from under her leg. Breathlessly holding the object up, she studied its angular silhouette against the deep turquoise hue of the early morning sky. A round ball on one end and a long rod on the other, it felt metallic. With her opposite hand, she blindly searched the instrument panel for a light switch. A huge windshield wiper arm sparked to life, its dry rubber blade chattering against the dirty glass. Another switch later, the bus's cabin lit up like an exam room. Sandy blinked and squinted as the sudden blast of light burned her dark adapted eyes.
Finally able to see, she squinted at the device in her hand. Struggling not to scream, Sandy dropped the artificial hip. Jumping to her feet, she looked down to see a bus driver's uniform strewn across the compartment. While the driver's shirt was on the floor, the pants, belt still buckled, lay in the seat. She saw several shiny objects littering the interior of the pants. Bending, she looked closer. In a sudden epiphany, she recognized the parts as titanium screws.
What the hell could do that? She looked from the strewn articles, to the screws, and finally to the artificial hip where it had landed next to her right foot. Why isn't there any blood?
Backing away in shocked dismay, Sandy stumbled. Regaining her footing in the bus's central corridor, she looked aft and froze. Visible in the cabin's stark white light, emptied articles of clothing littered the entire bus.
A glint of light drew her attention to one of the front left seats. A teddybear's half open glass-bead eyes peered from under a vacated toddler's outfit. On the narrow bench, a little girl's tiny white and yellow dress sat between piled clothes of an apparent mother and father. Worn in anticipation of an early morning departure to some exciti
ng destination, the tiny girl's yellow ribbons and pink bows now lay strewn about her emptied clothes.
Sandy had a mental image of the parents casting horrified glances at the monstrosity hovering overhead while they tried to calm their frightened little girl. But, in Sandy's vision, she and Jake were the anxious couple. The child between them was the little girl with golden locks that she'd often imagined would grace their future. Unconsciously, her hand drifted to the point where the baby-bump would soon show.
As a tear threatened to breach the levee of her lower eyelid, Sandy extended a trembling hand toward the stuffed animal. After a short hesitation, she caressed its furry belly.
The teddybear's lifeless doll-like eyes snapped wide-open. "Are you my mommy?"
That was several minutes ago. She couldn't remember leaving the bus. The next thing Sandy knew, she'd been running across the tarmac with tears flowing down her cheeks, an agonized wail streaming from her throat.
Further investigation wasn't necessary. The scene in the bus told her all she needed to know about what had happened to San Francisco. She didn't think a search of the terminal or the city beyond would reveal anything new. Besides, she had no desire to subject herself to more of that imagery.
The same scenes of sudden abandonment were evident in every direction. Here, a truck's rear end protruded from a ditch. On her right, a tug towed a train of baggage trailers in a large perpetual loop. She imagined the operator's empty shoe must be wedged in the accelerator pedal.
Sandy ran faster toward Gate Twenty-One. Focusing on the object drawing her in its direction helped stifle the shock. Winded in spite of her extensive cardio training, Captain Fitzpatrick finally arrived at her destination. Unable to hear anything over the scream of a nearby jet, Sandy placed a hand against the vehicle's thick metallic skin. She was relieved to feel rhythmic vibrations pulsing through its chassis. Left in park with all of its lights on and flashing, the large fuel truck was still running.
Only fifty feet away, a massive pile of shattered safety glass surrounded the large black tires of a Boeing 777 nose landing gear. Convulsing under the unrelenting thrust of its massive screaming turbofans, the wide-body jet was jammed into the expansive glass wall of Gate Twenty-One.
A windstorm blasted across Sandy as she opened the driver door of the fuel truck. Flowing across the cab from the open passenger window, air rushed to fill the void created at the turbine inlet only twenty feet behind her.
As Sandy climbed into the seat, a loose strand of blonde hair whipped across her eyes. She pinned it behind an ear and scanned the gauges. The tanker only had 600 gallons of Jet-A fuel.
"That will have to do."
The fighter's landing gear blow-down feature only works once. Afterward, the gear stays locked down until a mechanic resets the system, a process requiring tools and equipment not at Sandy's disposal. The resultant high drag and slow speed meant a flight to Nellis required more than 600 gallons. However, it was sufficient for the trip she had in mind. Sandy knew plenty of fuel waited at her next destination.
Depressing the truck's heavy clutch, she dropped its transmission into gear. Releasing the pedal caused the vehicle to lurch into motion. Running through the gears, Sandy coaxed the heavy truck up to speed, gradually pulling away from the noise of the Boeing's roaring jet engines. After a few moments, a new sound supplanted the turbine cacophony. Surreally, Barry Manilow's Copacabana blared from the truck's speakers. Following a cable extending from the radio's face, she found the music's source. The driver's iPod sat on the center console.
The sight reminded her about the phone in her flightsuit's leg pocket. Digging it out, she pressed the power button.
***
Returning to Western Maryland, the Turtle screamed past the raging inferno of the crashed airliner. Jake pointed through the view-wall. "Keep an eye out. We're nearing the area now."
After making their way back to the Turtle, they had departed DC, heading toward Western Maryland. Richard was at the controls. "I'm keeping it slow enough so we'll see if anything changes between here and the edge of the blast area. Hopefully, the weapon's effect drops off at a distance."
An unending panorama of carnage scrolled across the view-wall. Jake's horror mounted as every passing mile brought additional signs of sudden abandonment. Uncountable columns of smoke stretched to the horizon. Blazing pile-ups clogged corners and intersections. Homes burned as their untended heat sources found additional fuel. Shaking his head, Jake said, "It hasn't changed yet."
As they neared the Appalachians, dark shadows coalesced from the smoky haze to form the mountain range's foothills. Nestled amongst them, a small town materialized.
Pointing, Jake said, "That's the last place I remember seeing movement."
Richard slowed the ship. They crossed the town's eastern edge at a thousand feet above ground level. "You're right," he said, pointing to the community's far side. "From up here, I can see some activity on the town's west end."
Looking at the motionless urban scenery beneath the Turtle, Vic shook his head. "Yeah, but it's still dead on this side," he said somberly.
Jake gestured toward the grassy slope of an open-air park just east of the town center. "Let's land over there."
As Richard extended the landing gear, he said, "Good thing the locals haven't ventured over here yet, they'd take one look at this ship and assume we're the bad guys."
Jake's iPhone started ringing. Digging into his leg pocket, he said, "I forgot I had this." Pulling it out, he saw Sandy's picture on the screen.
A swipe of his finger connected the video call. For a moment, Jake couldn't tell what he was seeing. Then, a light illuminated, and he saw Sandy's beautiful face. It looked like she was in the cab of a truck. Barry Manilow's nasal crooning erupted from the phone's speaker.
Copacabana? "Sandy?"
"Jake? Oh, thank god!" Sandy yelled over the crazy music. "Shit! Hang on." Barry's voice died mid-Copa. Then Jake heard her grunt as he saw her throwing something through the truck's open window. "Enough of that shit."
"Baby? Are you okay?" he said.
She looked into the phone's camera. "I'm a long fucking way from okay, but I'll live. What about you? Where are you?"
"I'm … okay, so far. I'm with Richard and Vic." Turning to his wingmen, he mouthed, "Let's go."
With a final look at the panorama of carnage visible through the ship's view-wall, Jake turned and walked toward the airlock. "I won't be able to talk much longer, baby."
"Where are you?" she asked again.
After a quick glance at the alien ship's strange interior, Jake shrugged. Considering the day's events, the program's secret status was a moot point. "I'm in Western Maryland … in a spaceship."
On the screen, Sandy's face froze as she stared unblinkingly back at him. After a few seconds, her eyebrows raised in a go-on gesture.
"A galactic government loaned it to us." She still didn't respond, so he continued. "It's part of what I've been doing since the … uh, accident. Anyway, we're assisting the fighters that destroyed the enemy ship over Chesapeake Bay."
From across the continent, Sandy stared through the phone's screen as the news left her speechless. A diesel engine droned over the speaker. A moment later, she found her voice. "Oh no … oh my god. One hit the East Coast too?" Then, apparently registering his last words, she raised sanguine eyes. "We killed one?"
"Yeah … wait. Where are you?"
"I'm in San Francisco."
Joining the other two in the airlock, it was Jake's turn to freeze as fear gripped his soul. "Get out of there, Sandy!"
Richard and Victor swapped concerned glances. All three of them had seen one of the alien ships peel off the main formation and head toward the West Coast.
When Sandy's voice returned, Jake heard tremendous emotions straining her words. "It already hit here." She paused, looking down. When she looked up, Jake heard and saw the tears. "Everybody's gone."
Over the next couple of minutes, they ex
changed stories. Sandy relayed a brief synopsis of her experiences, both in the air and on the ground. Jake told her what they'd seen over Maryland and inside the Pentagon.
The news that they'd also lost a huge swath of the West Coast hit Jake hard. On the video, he watched the same gut-wrenching emotions march across Sandy's face.
Then, her expression morphed into anger. "What Galactic Government? Is that who is attacking us? Is this—"
"No," Jake interrupted. "I promise, these aren't the same aliens."
"But…" She paused, apparently searching for the right words. "Why are they attacking us? What could we have done to them?"
"We can't figure that out either, baby. But, thank god you had that engine problem. As far as we can tell, their weapon has some effect out to about a hundred miles. If you'd been any closer, I probably would've lost you too."
Holding the phone with one hand, she grabbed the fuel truck's single-point refueling nozzle. "Hang on." Sandy set the phone on the tarmac under her F-22's wing.
Looking up from the camera's grounded point of view, Jake watched as she wrestled the heavy fuel hose to the fighter's refueling socket. Grabbing the nozzle's two handles, she slammed it home. Throwing her whole body into the movement, Sandy wrenched it ninety degrees to the right, locking it into place.
Watching the nozzle, she picked up the phone and pointed at the tanker behind her. "There's enough fuel in this truck to get me to Monterey Regional." Sandy's gaze turned from her aircraft to stare into Jake's eyes with a meaningful look. "That's about a hundred miles south of here. I gotta check on my parents."
"Oh shit," Jake whispered.
"Yeah, they live a few miles southeast of the city." A tear ran down her face.
Jake stared into her beautiful eyes. Picturing the desolation spanning the hundred miles between D.C. and his current location, he looked into the iPhone's camera and lied to the love of his life. "I'm sure they're okay, baby."
