“Uh oh,” she said to herself. Louder, she added, “Unk. We have a problem.”
“What’s happening?” he asked, his voice thick with worry.
Kyla held the tablet so he could see what had her bothered. “The waypoints. I didn’t put these in. If I had to guess, I would say there’s secondary guidance for if the plane loses contact with its home base. It’s trying to put itself back in position over Denver.”
The plane turned to the right and angled up a few degrees. The engine pitch changed, too, as if it was now serious about gaining altitude.
“Can you override it?” he asked.
“Trying.” She already had access to the code guiding the plane, but the more she tapped around and opened new avenues, the more she realized the answer wasn’t inside the tablet. It was inside the plane’s internal guidance. All the tablet did was display what the plane intended to do, almost as a courtesy.
She watched, helpless, as the airport came and went. They were on the first loop of a huge spiral going high into the atmosphere. There were thousands of waypoints on her screen, making them appear as a solid helix line when she was fully zoomed out.
Turbulence caught the aircraft, rocking her and Uncle Ted in their rope seatbelts.
“No luck?” he asked, ready to report back to Avery.
She smiled sheepishly. “I don’t suppose you packed a pair of parachutes?”
Above Wild Horse, CO
The pit of Ted’s stomach turned into a sucking black hole as the SACA made another loop up to the stratosphere. Kyla furiously tapped at her tablet to regain control of the plane, but he had to assume that effort was going to fail. In the back of his mind, he saw his sister tapping her foot and saying, “Well, how are you going to save my little girl?”
“Team Yankee, this is Rebel One again, we’ve got a situation here.”
“Why are you guys going up?” the man asked with evident confusion. “This was a one-loop test.”
“I’ve been asking the same question,” he said with a strained laugh, trying to level out his panic. “It seems as if the plane wants to do its own thing.”
A short pause. Emily jumped on the line. “You have to bring it back down. There’s no telling where it will go.”
His laughter sounded fatal. “Oh, we know where it’s going. Back above Denver.”
“That’s too high,” she said sensibly.
“We’re working on it. Standby.” He looked to Kyla. “Hey, any progress?”
A chill wind blew across the wing. He knew from spending time in high-altitude aircraft they were soon going to be cold, and, eventually, freezing. They had to do something, fast.
“I’m not sure how much time we have. I might be able to grab one of the planes on the ground in Lamar and fly it up here to meet us. We could then try to jump from one to the other.”
He knew it was insane. Still, he tried to imagine if it could be done. They did have a long climbing rope. Maybe something was there. Or there were smaller planes on the little airway below them. Perhaps they could wait until the SACA was high enough, then jump and be caught by the other plane. He’d seen stunt jumpers do it.
“No, I need you to work on this plane. Get it to release its autopilot function. We have to land this.” He no longer cared about the attack on Lamar. They were on a bucking bronco he would never trust again.
“I’m trying,” Kyla said, shivering for a second. She tapped the metal fuselage. “I might have better luck if I could get into this plane. Maybe there’s an onboard computer I could hack, but it seems unlikely.”
He looked at one of the nearby engine pods. The rotor in front of it chugged away, doing its part to carry them above the clouds. “I could shoot the engines.”
“What?” she replied.
“I could shoot an engine and see if it makes any corrections. Maybe protocol for these giants is that when they lose engine power, they immediately try to find a landing strip. What better place to go than the one right below us?”
“Or it might drop like a rock!” she said, fear in her voice. “You can’t!”
They were now a few thousand feet above Emily and the airfield. He was beginning to think having her fly up to meet them, and them jumping without parachutes to try to reach her plane, was the rational choice.
“Kyla, I don’t want to put any pressure on you, but the tablet is the only thing between us living or becoming popsicles. Your mother would not be happy if I let you freeze, you know?” He got close to her, both as encouragement and to see her tablet.
She turned to him with a furrowed brow. “I’m trying. I can get into every system from here to New York City, but I can’t access this particular aircraft. It’s like it locked us out and then physically severed the route back in.”
He was proud to see the look of angry determination. She was scared, same as him, but looked prepared to continue trying to save them until she couldn’t move.
“Don’t worry. You’ll get it.”
Ted glanced out to the three propellers on the front of the starboard wing, remembering what someone had said down on the ground about what would happen if all of them failed. If that was what it took to keep them from going into low orbit, he was willing to try to knock them out. Suddenly, by accident, he realized he’d found something even crazier than jumping to another plane.
He was going to deliberately crash them.
Eastern Colorado
After his moment of clarity at the gas station, Dwight was ready to take on the world. He even grabbed a map from inside the convenience store and showed the kids where they needed to go. However, after a couple of hours of cutting across empty fields, he found himself in a mental loop.
The girl riding on his dirt bike had given him permission to kill Bernard and absolved him of his sins, but she hadn’t come clean about her role in losing Poppy. He was happy for one and angry at the other. Each mile of bouncing travel made him less certain which was the most important. It affected his grip on reality.
“I’d give anything to be back in my cardboard bed,” he said, somehow finding a fondness for the dirty, cat-urine-soaked basement where he lived in San Francisco.
Tabby wouldn’t have heard him over the engine noise, but Poppy would have replied to him. She would have assured him it was possible to go back, but she would also tell him he had to protect the kids.
“Why don’t you come back and tell me those things?” he said aloud.
They had to stop at another gas station. When Tabby got off his bike, she went right to the pump already off the handle. Since someone had been using it when America disappeared, it was still active. He was glad to do it that way. At the last fuel stop they had to dig around in someone’s clothes to find a credit card to use. It was not pleasant.
“Are we almost there?” he asked.
Tabby had gone closer to her two friends. She pulled out the map and studied it for a short time. “We’re two towns over from Lamar. I think we should hang out here until the sun goes down. They’ll never see us driving in the dark.”
His first thought came from his days in the Army. Night vision. If the enemy sat around with NV goggles, they’d be spotted no matter the light level. However, he was willing to forget the discussion when he saw an advertisement on the front window of the gas station’s little store. It hyped a brand of beer he’d never heard of. The picture showed a bikini-babe holding one, beckoning him to sample her wares.
“I’ll be back in a minute…” He walked toward the store.
“It’s not full!” Tabby yelled to his back.
“I’ll be in here,” he said, not caring about the bikes for the moment.
The inside was cool, which was a relief after being out on the hot, dusty fields. The power was still on in this part of the world, which meant David’s people hadn’t been able to destroy everything yet. More to the point, the drink case was chilled.
“Jackpot!” he cried out.
The fancy blue cans of the unfamiliar b
eer brand beckoned him from behind the glass doors of the cooler. They were all his, for free. As much as he could drink. It suddenly became a difficult decision…
Half a minute later, he heard a voice.
“You can’t ride if you’re drunk.”
Dwight assumed it was Tabby, who would naturally have the most to lose if he tried to drive her across anything while drunk. However, he clearly saw Poppy perched on top of the next aisle.
“You!” he said with shock.
Another voice called out from closer to the front of the store. “Dwight? You okay? Are the drinks cold?”
It was Tabby that time.
Poppy had disappeared.
He studied his choices for a long moment, then opened the cooler to grab a soda pop. “Yeah, it’s why I came in here. It’s all the cool you can drink.”
CHAPTER 24
Above Wild Horse, CO
Kyla was shivering, despite wearing the heavy black uniform of the Legion. “I can’t do it, Uncle Ted. If Meech heard me say it, she would kick my ass, but I’ve tried everything. The tablet isn’t going to let me take control of this aircraft.”
“That’s it. I’m going to shoot the engines.”
He expected a protest, but she agreed. “Yeah, let’s crash this thing. At least we’ll be warm.”
Ted laughed to prove to her he wasn’t scared, though he was terrified. The airfield was at least ten thousand feet below. The temperature had already gone down about forty degrees, to say nothing of the wind chill. After swinging his rifle off his shoulder, he lined up the closest engine. “Cover your ears!”
The crack-bang of the rifle barely registered over all the other noise. When the first shot seemed to do nothing, he fired five more times at the bulbous casing of the engine. They went into the metal, he saw them go through, but nothing was smoking or sizzling, and the blade of the prop continued to spin at the same rate as the others. He held back more rounds since all his gear and spare ammo was far below.
“Did it work?” Kyla asked.
“No,” he said sadly. “I think I need to walk over there.”
She said nothing to stop him. He suspected the cold was getting to her.
“You just hang tight here. I’ve got all this rope and I’m tied off. It’ll be a piece of cake.”
“Be careful,” she replied.
Despite knowing he wouldn’t fly off the back of the wing and fall to the ground, he did worry about getting swept off and being trailed along like a dog on a leash. To counter the effects of the wind, he crawled on the wing, using the front edge of the rectangular solar cells to prevent himself from sliding backward. It took him about two minutes to reach the first engine.
“It’s going to be fine,” he told himself.
The engine panels took some effort to swing open, but once he had access to the internal workings, he was able to piece together the most effective points of failure. Since the motor was driven by electricity from the solar panels, there were no fuel lines to cut or valves to close off. It took a bit of deduction, but he finally settled on a large metal box that seemed to be the link between the engine and the fuel cells.
“My kingdom for a shielded wire cutter,” he said aloud.
Left with no choice of tools, he clumsily aimed his rifle into the compartment. He held his breath when he fired into the box, expecting an explosion or at least some sparks, but it did neither. The shot went into the device, he knew that much. He was about to fire again when the prop began to slow.
“That did it!” he shouted.
He sat there for a full minute as the rotor came to a stop. He expected the plane to switch directions, heading for an emergency landing as any live pilot would likely do. However, even after three or four minutes, the plane continued its ascent.
Ted scurried along the edge of the solar panels until he returned to Kyla. She seemed happy to see him, and the dead engine at his back.
“You have to knock out more!” she shouted.
“I know. I’m going for the one on the far side of the fuselage. I want to knock them out in sequence, instead of all on one wing, so the crippled plane can get down to the ground with us still on it.” Knocking out three engines on one side might not send them crashing to the ground, but it would make maneuvering more difficult for the robot plane. He was sure of that. In order to give them the best odds, he was intent on being methodical.
“Be careful,” she said, giggling. “As if you were going to be dangerous about it!”
He laughed, careful to step around her. After making sure the climbing rope had enough slack, he went over the minimalist fuselage. Since there was no cockpit, the body of the plane was sleek and streamlined. There were undoubtedly computers and other gear inside the pencil-like body, but there was no time to divert from his efforts.
Once on the far side, he repeated his balancing act along the front face of the solar panels, stopping only when he reached the engine pod. He found the same box inside, took the same shot, and watched the prop come to a halt.
“Come on!” he yelled when the plane refused to divert.
“All right. Fine. Let’s try this again.” Cinching his rope tighter, he struggled to get past the motor of the first propeller, then made his way to the number two engine. Fighting the chills in his fingers, he opened the hatch and targeted the critical piece of equipment. To his shock, he missed the first shot.
“Damn!”
He bolstered himself against the cold and purposefully lined up his target. The second round went in, immediately stopping the prop. Unlike when he disabled the first two engines, the plane immediately changed course when he knocked out the third. After a brief turn, they were faced south—toward the little airfield.
Now with perk in his step, he returned to Kyla and crouched next to her. “I did it! We’re heading back.”
“But not down,” she complained.
It was true, they were flying due south, but at a level altitude.
“We’ll drop in a second. The airfield is right below us. We’ll have to loop around.” After saying it, he and Kyla watched as the plane continued its journey without making any effort to swerve or land. After a few minutes, he craned his neck to see over the back of the wing, admitting to himself they were heading away from their friends.
He picked up the radio. “Team Yankee, this is Rebel One. I think we stopped it from going to Denver, but it isn’t landing at your location.”
“Copy. Can you see where it’s heading?”
Ted tried to look ahead, but the endless flat fields gave no clue. However, he had a better way to find out. “Kyla, what does it say on your tablet?”
She slowly pulled it out from under her arm. It probably gave off heat while operating, so he didn’t blame her for using it as a warmer. After tapping the screen with shivering fingers, she tilted it so he could see the path.
“We’re screwed,” she said through chattering teeth.
He took a moment to absorb the implications.
“The auto-pilot is taking us to our original target…” he reported, pausing to think. He was unsure what to tell them. If the attack was on, they would be going in without a firm game plan. If the attack was off, they might never get another chance. “I recommend we launch the attack, Team Yankee. We can’t stop this thing, so we’ll do whatever we can when we get there. It would be nice to have backup, but I know you’ll make that decision when you can.”
He had a sneaking suspicion his sister was flying alongside them on angel wings, wholly disappointed he would get Kyla into even more danger.
“Sorry, sis,” he said under his breath.
Lamar, CO
Dwight steadily became less reliable as they got closer to Lamar. He’d guided them well out of Colorado Springs, but his direction had gotten worse as they neared the target. They’d crossed a bridge over a wide stream, giving her a clue where they were.
“You’ve overshot the whole town,” she said seriously.
They’
d stopped on a dusty two-track on the edge of a bare farm field.
Dwight acted as if he’d been interrupted. “What? Oh, yeah. I wanted to come at the town from the side, not the front. It’s a key military stratee-jury.”
“You mean strategy?” Peter asked.
“What did I say?” Dwight responded.
The boy brushed his hand in front of him. “Never mind.”
Tabby had to keep them from losing track of the target. “Dwight, why did we come this way, though? The town is basically a square, right?” The map didn’t show much detail, but the shaded part did seem to be shaped like a square. “There is no front or back to a random square.”
“Poppy said it was best to go around the target. Come at a direction you’d never suspect. Besides, I’m a soldier. You three are…kids.”
Peter’s hackles went up. Even Audrey seemed taken aback.
“Hold up a second,” Tabby said sternly. “We’ve followed what you said on these dirt bikes. We’ve listened to your advice and did everything you’ve asked. Why are you insulting us now?”
He used his fingers to pinch his eyelids shut for a few seconds. “I’m sorry. You three are cool. All we have to do is drive across these last few fields and we’ll be in the town.”
She stood back a step. “Okay. The bunker entrance is at the airfield. If you can get us there, I can take us the rest of the way.” It was close to sunset. They’d spent the entire evening alternately driving over desolate farm fields and looking for gas. The old dirt bikes seemed to always run out.
Dwight looked right at her and spoke, eyes suddenly clear. “You said we should wait until dark, and I agree. I’ll take you the last little way. It’s what she would have wanted…” He’d left it hanging in an ominous tone. The she in that sentence was undoubtedly his missing bird, but his tone made it sound as if she wanted to get even with Tabby, not help her.
Stepping away from the man, she pulled Audrey and Peter toward her and whispered, “What do you think? Should we walk the last couple of miles, or wait for dark with him?”
Audrey bit her lip. “I would rather ride the dirt bike. If we get spotted, or are in danger of being caught, we’re going to want something that can get us out in a hurry.”
Minus America Box Set | Books 1-5 Page 108
