by Kyle Noe
“Where the hell is Cody?!” Quinn shouted, turning back.
Nobody answered her as shouts echoed, hundreds more Syndicate soldiers visible in the direction the Marines had just come from.
Milo grabbed Quinn. “We can’t wait any longer!”
She knew he was right and prayed that Cody had found a way out of the lab and was heading to meet them.
Following the others, Quinn ducked down into the loading bay where a separate firefight was in process. Renner and Hayden were expertly picking off the Syndicate soldiers who’d taken cover behind several of the arc gliders.
“Which one?!’ Milo shouted.
Quinn gestured at a larger, assault ship, one that appeared capable of holding thirty or forty fighters.
Hayden wedged his hands up and pulled down the rear ramp on the ship, allowing the Marines to climb aboard.
Soon, Quinn was moving through the alien craft’s interior, Hayden by her side.
“We made it,” she said.
Hayden nodded grimly as they arrived at the vessel’s flight deck.
“So, who’s gonna do the deed?” Hayden asked.
She looked over. “What?
“Who’s gonna fly this thing?”
Quinn pointed at Hayden. “You are.”
Hayden’s mouth dropped open. “Me?”
“You said you used to fly helicopters?”
“No, I believe I said I had a thing for helicopters. Big difference.”
Quinn’s face drained of color. “Jesus.”
CODY HAD a smock pulled partially over his head, but could hear gunfire melding with the echo of explosions and the sirens and alarms.
He made sure to steer clear of the major corridors, threading down inner pathways, keeping away from the Syndicate soldiers. Tucked under his arm was the temporal totem, and he could feel the counter on the bomb slowly ticking down. Less than four minutes, that’s all he had until the thing vaporized him.
“YOU THERE!” somebody shouted.
Cody slid to a stop, his heart racing, the blood in his veins turning to ice. Slowly, very slowly, he turned around to see a Syndicate soldier, clutching a rifle.
“What are you doing?” the soldier said, taking a few menacing steps forward.
“I heard the noises and was afraid,” Cody replied.
The soldier glanced in the direction of the gunfire, then back to Cody.
“What have you got in your hands?” the soldier asked, gesturing with his rifle.
“Oh, you can have it,” Cody said, manufacturing a huge grin. “I mean, it was meant for the Potentate, but I’m sure he’d love it if you gave it to him. Just be sure to get it to him in three minutes.”
Cody set the temporal totem down on the ground. The alien bent to examine the totem that contained the bomb, and Cody crabbed back and disappeared down a nearby stairwell. He soon met a landing and then he was out into the cavernous landing bay, waving his hands, looking for Quinn and the others.
INSIDE THE FLIGHT cockpit of the Syndicate shuttle, Hayden was busily hunting and pecking at keys, swiping his huge hand across the long piece of translucent material that functioned as the alien ship’s controls. His eyes went wide when powerful engines instantaneously kicked on.
Hayden smacked his hands together. “Hot damn! We’re cooking with gas, boys and girls!”
The Marines crowed around Hayden. Renner gestured at the controls as Hayden grabbed a small joystick that looked like a flight controller. “So, how much do you know about flying this thing?”
“I know that it goes up and it’s gotta come down,” Hayden replied.
“Awesome,” Milo sighed. “That’s known as the Wile E. Coyote theory of operations.”
Renner tapped his HUD and sifted through something only he could see, before somehow bringing up the old R. Kelly song, “I Believe I Can Fly.”
Hayden’s volcanic gaze found Renner. “Need I even tell you? Turn that shit off, Renner.”
Renner killed the song as Hayden cracked his neck and took in the controls. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
Milo stared at him. “We could crash, and all of us would be horribly burned to death.”
Hayden thought about this. “Yeah, okay, besides that.”
Hayden eased the joystick back, and the alien shuttle vibrated and lifted up. Renner cheered. “You got it!”
Playing with the joystick, Hayden struggled, the glider sliding to the left, then the right. It sideswiped another glider, then Hayden regained control, maintaining a perfect hover. He looked back up at Renner. “How hard could it be?”
He swiped a few buttons on the console, and several rockets fired from the shuttle, setting the faraway walls on fire. “Shit! My bad!”
That’s when Quinn looked up and saw him.
Saw the man running toward the shuttle, being chased by dozens of Syndicate soldiers.
It was Cody!
“THERE HE IS!” Quinn screamed.
She dashed back through the shuttle and kicked down the landing ramp. Balancing her weight, she descended and looked to her left. She glimpsed Cody and shouted, “GET DOWN!”
Cody immediately dove to the ground only twenty feet away, barely missing being atomized by a flurry of gunfire from the approaching Syndicate soldiers. He struggled to his feet, and Quinn jumped to the lowest rung on the landing ramp, whipping out a hand. She grabbed his wrist and pulled back with everything she had.
Cody collapsed on top of her, panting, eyes jitterbugging from fear, utterly spent. “Miss me?” he asked with a smirk.
“I have no problem throwing you right back off this ship,” Quinn said and began dragging him back into the ship a few feet before he gasped.
“Oh, crap,” Cody said.
She looked down at him. “What?!”
“THE BOMB!”
They heard it before they saw anything. They felt the energy from the explosion roll through the shuttle. Quinn ran toward the cockpit. She could see a hundred Syndicate soldiers aiming rocket launchers.
A wall of flames erupted out of the side entrances.
Quinn’s mouth unhinged. “PUNCH IT!”
Hayden grabbed the joystick and swung it to the left while throttling the engines. The shuttle jumped forward as the tsunami of fire from the explosion swept over the Syndicate soldiers, setting them on fire. Quinn glanced out the window, heart in her throat as the soldiers ran around like ambulatory torches. But her joy was short-lived because she realized the flames were barreling toward the shuttle.
Hayden wildly piloted the shuttle to the left, barely avoiding the flames and making for an open bay door. The shuttle clipped the top of the bay, but rocketed outside into space.
Quinn left Cody in the loading bay and made her way to the bridge. Along the way, she bounced off the walls as turbulence rocked the ship.
“What’s with the shoddy driving?” she said, when she made it to the others.
“Dodging missiles while learning how to drive a stick,” Hayden said.
Quinn strapped into a chair and took in the obstacle of Syndicate drones coalescing from other ships, readying for a strike.
“We can take ‘em,” Renner said.
“No, we can’t,” Quinn said. “We need to get into Low Earth Orbit.”
“What does that even mean?” Renner asked.
“Earth’s gravitational pull will give us a boost, more or less.”
“The fast lane,” Hayden said.
“Right,” Quinn said. “Ignore all enemy ships and get us to Earth.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” he said.
“Still Sergeant,” Quinn said.
There were a few chuckles as Hayden shifted their trajectory downward and headed straight for the atmosphere. The turbulence picked up, and everyone rocked back and forth.
To everyone’s surprise, except Cody’s as he entered the bridge, the Syndicate drones appeared smaller in the viewer. Their stolen glider was picking up speed and getting away.
Renner let out a hoot. “Hot damn! We’re leaving ‘em in the dust.”
“It’s going to get rocky,” Cody cautioned. “Arc gliders aren’t meant to enter the atmosphere this quickly.”
“Will it hold together, though?” Hayden asked.
Cody shrugged. “Hope so.”
Milo glared at him.. “Your plans are the worst.”
“Not my plan,” Cody deflected. “Quinn’s. I’m just the resident scientist.”
“Don’t put this on me,” she said. “Well, okay, maybe put this on me. I am the one who got us all killed today.”
Now, everyone laughed. Only to be interrupted as they were jolted so hard Hayden hurled.
Then, without warning, they slowed on a dime.
“What’s wrong?” Renner said. “What’s happening?”
“We did it,” Quinn said. “We’re past the atmosphere.”
“Now what?” Hayden asked.
“Straight to Shiloh,” Quinn said, thinking back on the message that Giovanni had sent her.
“Why do I get the feeling I’m not the ranking Marine anymore?” Hayden said, with a glare.
No one answered. They just held on tight as if they were still rocketing down. But their descent was smooth once they were inside the atmosphere, and Hayden piloted them in the direction of Wyoming as if he’d been flying these things since he was a kid.
The glider dropped through banks of clouds, accelerating at a dizzying speed as it sliced out the upper atmosphere. Quinn looked over Hayden’s shoulders. She could see the faintest outline of the Earth which
Quinn allowed herself a small. “Wow. That was actually way easier than I thought—”
BOOM!
A sonic shriek ripped the air, snatching the words out of Quinn’s mouth. An immense craft blasted directly over the glider, nearly tearing it in half.
Quinn watched the craft, a long Syndicate assault ship flash past the glider, the other ship so close she could see its afterburnes leaving roils of liquefied air.
Her eyes enlarged. “Where the hell did that thing come from?!”
Hayden gaped at the assault ship. “Most likely it was leaving the Earth and heading back into space! Perfect timing!”
“Think it saw us?” Renner asked.
Quinn shot him an incredulous look, then glanced a viewer which showed the alien assault ship arcing around, heading back toward the glider. Milo looked sideways to catch a glimpse of the approaching ship.
“Maybe they think it’s one of theirs,” Milo said. “Maybe they won’t know we stole it.”
There was a flash of light on the alien ship and—
CRACKBOOM!
A missile from the assault ship detonated twenty yards away from the glider, casting it in a fireball.
“Maybe not,” Milo gulped.
“SECURE YOURSELVES!” Hayden screamed. “I’M GONNA DO MY BEST TO TAKE OUR LITTLE FRIEND ON A BUMP ‘N GRIND!”
Quinn watched the big man pressed down on the control stick. She looked over to see the assault ship pursuing, slicing through a cloud bank. Cannon fire rang out from the assault ship, energized rounds slamming into the glider which dipped and dropped straight down.
Quinn was pinned in place by the G-forces as Hayden drove the glider into a gut-wrenching maneuver. It was like being on the world’s worst roller coaster.
The Marines held on for dear life as the glider plowed down, the assault ship matching it move for move.
The glider dropped low and then Hayden pulled back on the control stick as the assault ship scythed past, strafing the glider with rounds from its cannons. Quinn craned her neck as the glider lurched left, veering down toward the desert and what looked like a river curling between a broad sweep of copper-colored canyonlands.
“You know what you’re doing?” Quinn shouted.
“Absolutely not,” was Hayden’s response.
Quinn could see it. She knew that Hayden was flying the glider down over the river, toward a colossal stone arch that the river poured through. The arch looked impossibly small, too small for a glider to fly though. Her eyes strayed to Milo who swallowed hard as he mentally sized up the arch. Renner was busy muttering what sounded like prayers while simultaneously drumming with his fingers on his flight seat.
Quinn reached out a hand and placed it on Hayden’s shoulder.
Hayden looked up at her and grinned. “There are two types of air ships, troop. Fighters and targets. Guess which one we are?”
A look passed between them. Something Quinn had seen in countless battles before. The expression of a man who’d defied death many times before and lived to tell about it.
“You’re a bad man,” Quinn whispered to Hayden.
Against the echo of Renner’s drumming, Hayden slotted the control stick down, and accelerated toward the river.
Quinn’s mouth peeled back as the glider dropped down, shooting lower and lower, the assault ship swinging into position directly behind the glider, readying to blow it out of the sky.
The stone arch suddenly filled the foreground and Hayden shrieked while corkscrewing the glider through the opening. Quinn’s eyes, wild and white, nearly burst from their sockets as she witnessed the tips on the glider’s wings literally kissing the edges of the arch before –
WHUMP!
The glider successfully flew out of the other side!
Quinn glanced at the side viewer, barely in time to see the Syndicate assault ship clip the edge of the stone arch and go into an unchecked swoon before it could blast the glider to pieces. The massive ship tipped sideways and smeared across the canyon walls, fireballing across the river. Seeing this, the Marines rose from their seats and cheered, pumping their fists.
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, the glider had begun its final descent, flying down over the flatlands of Wyoming before hovering over the outskirts of Shiloh. Quinn peered down on the Air Force base which appeared deserted. She wondered how the sight of a Syndicate glider would be received to the extent any resistance fighters were around.
21
REUNITED
Alarms blared throughout Shiloh’s corridors. An attack hadn’t been anticipated by intel, nor had there been any warning signs, but an arc glider had been spotted overhead.
Giovanni had been separated from Samantha after the alarms sounded. He rushed to the command room, but no one was there. He snatched a resistance fighter who was hurrying by.
“Hey,” Giovanni shouted. “Where is everyone?”
“Heading up top to fight,” the fighter said.
Giovanni let him go and fell back against the wall. He thought there’d be a chance to make a better plan. To do more than just defend. To go on the attack. That’s what he really wanted. To fight back. But damn it all to hell. If this was gonna be their time, might as well join the fray.
In less than a moment, he was up top and alongside a gauntlet of resistance fighters at the ready. One of the fighters handed him a rifle and he aimed at the glider, shocked that nobody had yet started to fire.
“Hold your fire!” Comerford shouted.
Giovanni glanced up and that’s when he saw it.
Saw the thrusters on the glider swivel and blast upward so that the ship descended, almost like a yo-yo on a string. Next came the landing gear, emerging from the belly of the craft as it executed a perfect landing on a section of barren cement.
Giovanni looked down over the barrel of his rifle, approaching the glider warily.
Giovanni was no fool. The arc glider was still a war fighting machine, regardless of whether its landing gear was out or its front door was open. The beast had more firepower in its belly than a fully armored Marine Division. One little ship could take out an army. He knew that all too well. So, when the others started to clamor forward to find out what was what, Giovanni stayed back, waited. Needed to know this wasn’t an ambush. For all he and the others knew, the glider could be a Trojan Horse.
A ramp on the glider dropped down and Quinn was the first one to appea
r. She was also holding a rifle. The other Marines and Cody filtered down after her.
Giovanni’s rifle came down. He was dumbstruck, absolutely overcome with emotion and shock. Shocked that Quinn was alive and standing before him and that she hadn’t lowered her own gun. He could hear the other resistance fighters murmuring all around him. They were flummoxed, perplexed to see Quinn and the Marines dismounting from an alien ship. Somebody shouted that it was all some kind of trick and Giovanni raised his hand to silence everyone. “I know them!” he shouted. “Hold your fire! They’re friendlies! They’re Marines!”
Then he turned back to Quinn and heard himself stammering, “Jesus, Quinn, h-how?”
Quinn squared up on him, her voice tight with anger. “Only by the grace of God.”
“What does that mean?’
“We barely made it down. Somebody sent a bomb back with us,” Quinn said, her gaze narrowing. “But I guess you already know that.”
He slowly nodded. “One of our people fucked up, Quinn. There’s no other way to put it. They believed the ends justified the means and they took matters into their own hands.”
“And you were planning on telling us that when?” she asked.
“I couldn’t. We didn’t have a way to contact you.”
“BULLSHIT!” Quinn thundered.
“It’s all true!” someone shouted and Quinn swept her gaze left and right before stopping on Xan who was holding up her rifle. “I did it,” Xan said. “I’m the one that planted the bomb! Nobody else was involved! Nobody else even knew!”
Quinn aimed at her. “You could’ve killed us all, bitch.”
Xan didn’t give an inch, just held her ground and returned Quinn’s volcanic look, spitting on the ground. “I could’ve, but I didn’t. And I’d do it again if I had the chance. Nothing is more important than defeating our enemies. Nothing and nobody, and that includes you, lady.”
“What’s your name?” Quinn asked.
“Xan.”
“Excellent. Now at least I can put a name to a corpse.”
