There was a simple adage instilled in every flight training program or qualification she’d taken part in: Never fly pissed off. Angry pilots make mistakes, and those cost more than a pair of wings.
It was a lesson her brother said to her before she was old enough to be called a woman, and Shu Meixing had grated her teeth and balled her fists at the insinuation that she was too wily and fiery to keep her temper in check. Such a short fuse had blown her out of the Canadian Air Force, the unusual foreigner looking to study combat aviation in the hopes of defending her homeland-in-exile from the Maoist mainland. A crane with no wings, her anger had bitten off on the first opportunity she could find to fly again, and that chance came to her by way of a jolly round Canuck with a promising contract and a wicked smile.
Now, as her J-53D “Draken” burned circles in the skies above the Mzingwane river in southwestern Rhodesia, Shu felt that anger bubble up into her chest as her radio came alive with callouts and victories from others in the company. Each victory was happily relayed by Aadi, the company’s airborne air controller, who praised each man on their promised payout. First was Draco, who had rained fire down a gathering of insurgents trying to set a trap near Que Que. Then came Skorost, despite not being a ground-pounder by his Soviet training, had managed to wipe out a hidden arms cache in the treescape near Dorowa. Sword reported being shot at by some fool with a missile launcher near Mt Darwin and responded in typical Israeli fashion by dropping several bombs on the area to remove the problem. Even Wampir, despite being a night-hunter most of the time, had been roused from bed with the promise of hunting down an illicit arms shipment flying into Victoria Falls and had sent its burning carcass into the earth.
That left her, the last to be called up to fly. The last to be carrying her load of rockets and bombs. The last to be noticed but the first to be chided for having no bounty to target. Always the last chosen.
Only Aadi had sympathy for Shu, which did her little good as she had little respect for the pacifist pilot. Every time Aadi called out in distress, she wondered if it would be the last time. Yet there was always someone else nearby to rescue him, and Shu had little faith that she would be given the same effort.
“Relay, Zhou. Confirm mission coordinates.” Shu queried Aadi, wondering if she should just dump her weapons now and return to Station Diana. “There’s nothing, repeat, nothing here.”
After a moment for Aadi to check the maps and radios inside his own plane, he responded in his own Delhi-dripped English, “Very sorry, map looks good. Check western side.”
Shu pulled her Draken into a banking turn to give her the best visibility of the Rhodesian waters below. To her surprise, the slow-tracking shadow of Aadi’s O-1F “BirdDog” danced among the treeline, and she quickly saw his slower prop-driven plane making its own track above the area.
“You said the callouts were good. Are you sure?” Shu asked again.
“Now, not sure. Nothing but fish and sticks below us.” Aadi replied, and she could hear him shrug through the radio.
For a millisecond, a glint caught the Rhodesian sun and Shu’s attention, and when that glimmer grew a tail of white smoke from a rocket motor, she also shrieked with excitement “Contact in the treeline! Break away, break away!”
Aadi shoved the BirdDog into a swooping turn away from the missile plume, which paid little interest to the smaller, cooler engine and went instead for Shu’s Draken. Dumping her throttle to power, she pulled the fighter skyward and away, holding the loop as tight as she could. Blood pulled from her eyes and thighs as her Draken swapped nose for tail, but it was enough to send the incoming missile into a disorienting turn. Instead of Shu, the heat-seeker bit off on the sun and chased it into the heavens.
“Looks like small camp, maybe dozen targets.” Aadi relayed as he leveled the BirdDog out. “I think I see tire tracks headed west, will follow and relay.”
“A dozen is plenty!” Shu snarled, clicking the cover off her weapons release switch. Lining up the Draken’s nose with the source of the rocket trail, she squeezed the trigger. A burst of 30mm cannon fire roared from her Draken’s maw and savaged the earth below, sending splinters of wood flesh spraying into the sporadic treeline.
Shu darted past her carnage in a blur before pulling into a leisurely banking climb. Her eyes looked for movement, but she saw none. “Site clear. Give me more, Relay!”
“Hold”, Aadi answered, giving Shu a beat to orient her Draken in his direction. She was already several hundred feet higher than he was, and overtook his BirdDog with ease.
Shu opened her mouth to properly sass Aadi for flying so low and slow, but the distinct clank of something metallic hitting her Draken changed her cheer into Mandarin cursing. “Ground fire! Did you see?”
“Confirm, two vehicles at nearby ranch. Now, three-five-nine from your angle.” Aadi responded quickly, cranking his BirdDog away to stay out of sight and range.
“Stupid bastards…” Shu swore, yanking the Drakken into a steep climb. Looking over he shoulder, she could see where a round tore into her right-side wingroot, gashing the skin of the fighter with another expensive wound. Forced to keep her commands more slack and her throttle away from maximum, Shu rolled the Draken belly-to-sky and back again. Below her, the two vehicles knew they’d made a mistake and had started to flee, each in a different direction.
Their fatal flaw was lining themselves up in an orderly fashion, despite opposing courses. Shu switched her selector switch from the internal guns to the two rocket pods strapped to the Draken’s stubby wings and emptied them as she pulled the nose back up from her dive.
A dozen flaming craters reached up to the sky in her wake, framed by the shredded remains of two trucks and whoever was in them. Shu let herself breathe in the fire for a moment, the totality of the kill sinking into her skin. Then her hand twitched as the voice of her brother replayed in her ears “Never fly angry, xiao meimei. Brashness leads to death.”
Shu looked over her shoulder again at the scar her Draken now wore, and she hated that he was right. Another expense she’d have to pay before her Draken could fly again. Another delay. Another reminder that haste does not become wisdom.
“All right, lao dage, all right. I’ll try your way next time.” Shu whispered to herself as she set the Draken into a gentle climb before turning for home.
In her thoughts, Shu hadn’t heard Aadi relay her kill to the company. So when Draco called out to her, it took a moment for Shu to realize he was actually speaking to her. “Good kill! Hurry up and RTB, I’ve got stragglers in this grid who need mopped up. Yours if you want them!”
“Copy, returning to reload.” She responded immediately, her prior reflection melding with incoming anticipation. “Give me a count and heading while I head back.
*****
A snippet from my New Horizons Air Service crew, which I think I’ve refined enough now to give them the working title “The Dragons of Rhodesia”.
In writing this crew, I spun into the black he of “research”, and it paralyzed me. I told myself that once I settled on key details, that would be enough. But even after doing that, I’ve been hesitating on this project. Hopefully this is the first step in turning the potential energy into kinetic storytelling.
For three days, the endless horizon of the North Atlantic had been as still as the grave. A dozen men took to the skies with the dawn of each day and combed the stillness for a shape cut into the glassy waters below, or the frothy wake of their quarry to show that their hunt wasn’t in vain. Yet each day, over hundreds of kilometers, they found nothing. On the evening of that third day, Captain Robert “Buster” Fowler called the pilots and tail gunners of His Majesty’s 49th Royal Naval Air Bombardier Squadron into a small meeting room to refresh their memory of their prey.
“Are we sure that beast was sailing this way?” One pilot asked, passing around a small black-and-white photograph.
“Aye, that’s what Fleet Intel says,” Fowler replied, pointing to a map on the table they had gathered around. Hundreds of kilometers from the western Irish coast, directly south of Iceland, several red Xs were scrawled in pen. Each marked the final watery grave of a critical transport from the United States, and one marked the broken hulk of the HMS Carrogutte, a submarine-hunting cruiser blasted in half by the Irish Republican Navy’s new fast-attack cruiser. Though it had been built by Imperial Germany in 1934 under a different name, the men of the 49th knew her as the Buaireadh, a tempest of steel and fire in namesake and reputation that now had the entire Atlantic Ocean to hide and hunt in.
“Think they turned around? Went after another convoy?” Another pilot asked, scratching his tuft of a mustache.
Robert drew a line with his eyes from the Buaireadh‘s last known kill to its reported home port in Derrynafinnia, and his scowl deepened. “Maybe, but how hard can they push that monster before it needs more ammo or fuel? Tha spooks in Fleet say it’s due home in five days for a gran’ march and parade.”
Next to his Captain and pilot, Flight Officer Franklin Dunn took the photo of the Buaireadh, turning it this way and that. “The steam from her stacks is pretty vertical, she wasn’t in a rush when the spotter plane found her.”
Robert nodded. The photo itself was three days old, and the entirety of the 217th Naval Bombardier Squadron had scrambled to try and find the Buaireadh immediately after their spotter plane had taken the image. Twelve hours later, not a single torpedo had been dropped. Instead, only still waters and soft mist stretched across the horizon, and nothing had changed seventy-two hours later. All their brother squadron could do was send a flash warning out across the Royal Navy channels and pray someone found the Buaireadh “Aye lad, that it wasn’t. But that bastard can move if ya give it a moment to breathe.”
Franklin passed the photo to the man next to him and scowled. “Fast enough to dodge all His Majesty’s patrols? No…,no, I think she knows where we are and where we’re looking.”
Robert crossed his arms and scanned the room of flyers and radiomen. The Belfast Declaration was only ten years old, but the guerilla war to push the English off the Irish Isle had been as swift as it was bloody. That left many red-blooded Englishmen with divided generational loyalties between the crown and the Isle. Knowing that, Robert couldn’t rule out a spy among them, much as Fleet Intel had its spies among the Reich and the Irish navies. But among his men, the flier found only steeled eyes and firm convictions. “Ya can never rule that out, lad.”
“So where should we look next?” One radioman asked
“SCRAMBLE! SCRAMBLE! SCRAMBLE! ALL HANDS TO MUSTER STATIONS! Enemy vessel detected five-two kilometers aft! And closing!” Announced the loudspeaker in every corridor and large room on the carrier. The men of the 49th began their sprints immediately and silently, no longer questioning where their next mission was. Robert was near the front of the pack, and as he clambered up the stairwell to the flight deck, the clatter of tools and shouting deck hands greeted him. Inside, his mind was racing faster than his boots, Bastards stayed quiet to spread us out…clever twats
All across the flat strip of the carrier’s main deck, sailors from every compartment and rank worked doggedly to strap Mk 25 torpedoes to the centerline of every B-88 Sable, while the trained crew masters gave the airframes hasty checks before preparing each engine to clatter awake. Robert ran for the rear-most Sable, Franklin matching his pace. As soon as they reached the Sable and thrust them through the tiny crew hatch on its ocean-blue fuselage, Robert took to the pilot’s seat and Franklin began helping the deck hands load the rear gun.
“Buster, checking in. Sound off when ready for takeoff!”
The affirmative calls rolled in sequentially, just as he’d trained his pilot’s to do. If not for the fact a leviathan of steel that was now hounding them across the black waves, Robert would smile with pride. Now, there was only a calm scowl. “Tower, this is One. Ready for launch.”
“Launch authorized, Captain! Good hunting!” Reliped the senior flight controller watching the madness take place on the deck of the HMS Primarch.
“Cutter, you’re first off! Launch when ready!” Robert ordered, and was rewarded with seeing the forward-most B-88 begin roaring across the deck. With barely a meter to spare, the Sable’s wheels lifted off the deck, and the bomber began it’s elegant orbit around the Primarch to collect its squamates.
“Form by pairs an’ depart tha pattern when ready!” Robert ordered as his own Sable howled to life under its own power. “Tower, check bearing to target!”
“Target is four-eight miles astern, continuing to close directly. Once you’re up, we’re moving to flank speed.” replied the Primarch‘s controller
“Copy that. One to Squadron, alternate spread plus-minus five degrees from course an’ move ta engage that bastard from the sides!” he quickly strategized. A simple pincer maneuver, but is it too simple for a target that fast?
Based on the rough math he’d calculated from his knee board, Robert knew there was only eight minutes to correct his plan if it were wrong, and perhaps only half of that before the Buaireadh’s flak guns could reach them. “What d’ya think, rear? Can we breach a beastie like that two torpedoes at a time?”
Dunn shrugged, “It’d be easier if we had more of the escort fleet nearby. You think they got any of the other escorts before ambushing us?”
Robert grimaced at that, for the opposing commander had played the game of naval stratagem well. It was a race now; could the men of the 49th sink the Buaireadh before it ran the Primarch down and vanished from sight once again?
“Contact on the horizon! Ten miles on the nose!” Cutter called out from the first Sable pair. Immediately, Robert pulled the Sable’s control stick into his lap to lift the bomber into the foreboding sky to set up the torpedo drop. On his left right wing, a second Sable kept abreast of him, the pilot giving Robert a smart salute to action. “Looks like Spriggs is feelin’ confidant today, rear.”
Dunn laughed at that, “Then open that throttle up and bust his windows open!”
His knuckles white at the lever, Robert pushed the Sable to its highest power and opened the cold air ducts to keep the engine from burning. Regulations told him that such an act was only for aerial combat situations to allow the Sable to escape, but Robert “Buster” Fowler found his bomber to be an unbridled stallion when he let it loose.
Even kilometers away, they could see the black clouds puff into existence amongst the grayish sky, the mark of the opening flak salvos. At that moment, Robert said a brief prayer to the spirit of William Wallace, that the eternal sword of Scotland would cut these bastards down to a watery grave. Yet even so far away, the tell-tale trail of smoke falling out of the sky meant that one of the Sables had met a bitter end at the descendants of Cu Chulainn.
“Cutter to Squadron! This bitch has the big guns! I’m at six-thousand and Deetch just got blasted in two!”
Robert swore under his breath as he pulled the Sable into a wide looping climb. Fleet didn’t mention it had 88s on it! In an instant, most of His Majesty’s torpedo-dropping doctrine was tossed aside, as the Sable’s slow climb while laden with armaments made it a prime target for such a heavy anti-air gun. “Break away, break away! Squadron, climb to seven thousand and form flights out of range. Group attack!”
To match his words, Robert signaled Spriggs to slide from right to left, opening the quartet formation to slot in with the pair of Sables ahead of them that were now in a banking turn away from the Buaireadh. Despite the bombers turning away from the battleship, its larger flak guns continued to darken the skies with deadly splatters of fragmentation.
“Flight One, run in when formed! Go!” Robert ordered as his own quartet shaped itself. While he received no response call, he could see the curtain of flak suddenly increase on the Buaireadh’s starboard side. Glinting blips of flame and reflective bits of steel coated the ocean breeze as the first Sable attack dove in. The stuttering pulses of defensive fire followed their targets to the deck, and Robert could see one large splash as the Atlantic claimed another of his men. More importantly in the moment, he heard Cutter announce “Torpedos away, three in the water!”
Three sudden gouts of fire erupted from the Buaireadh‘s bow just before Robert’s Sable flight came parallel to it, dropping the flier’s heart to his boots. “Bastard’s ranging its guns to hit tha carrier! Where’s those dammed fish at?”
“Tracking in now, boss! Impact in five!” Cutter protested, and Robert could hear the flak detonating over the radio around his squadmate’s head. He wanted, needed his fliers to escape to safety, but the squadron itself needed to know if the torpedoes sailed true or not, so Robert couldn’t order his men away just yet.
Those pulse-stopping seconds were thankfully rewarded when massive geysers of water erupted from the Buaireadh‘s right side. “Three hits! Take that, rebels!”
Instead, the titanic terror fired its second massive turret, seemingly ignoring whatever damage it had endured. But the attack had served a second purpose, as now the second Sable quartet had passed the Buaireadh intact and could now attack it from the rear. This left Robert’s flight to keep the enemy gunners focused on themselves along the port side. “Good shot, lads! Flight Three, start your dives and keep limber!”
Now Robert let gravity guide him as his Sable’s nose pointed almost straight down. The bomber shuddered and groaned both from its speed and the bursts of flak exploding around it. Unlike Cutter’s engagement, Robert slipped his Sable right to left by kicking the stomping in the rudder pedals randomly so no one gunner could hit him center mass. Still, the familiar sound of metal being torn from metal echoed throughout the bomber, as did a new, annoying whistling noise inside the Sable’s belly. “You still back there, rear?”
“Won’t be rid of me that easily, Buster! Drop on these wankers!” Dunn cheered.
Robert waited for the Sable’s altimeter to drop to a hundred meters before yanking back on the stick as hard as he could and pulling the torpedo release trigger. The blood pulled from his eyes and into his core as the bomber fought to ascend once again. Pulling into a climbing turn on his right wing, he led his Sables away and around their drop zone, and the churning wake of the four torpedoes stood out among the waves.
“Come on, hit, ya bampots!” Robert shouted, not caring if his radio was cued on. One of his Sables tightened its turn to pull away from the formation, and Robert could see clear through the bomber’s left wing thanks to a barrel-sized hole. Again, the water around the Buaireadh‘s centerline erupted in plumes of churned foam, but this time that water was stained with the beast’s black blood. “Good hits! Bastard’s leaking oil!”
“Copy, One, we’re making our run now!” Hailed his final flight as they began the sneak attack from the Buaireadh‘s stern where the anti-air guns were lightest. Only too late did the battleship take note of both its injuries and the incoming pounce, as Robert could see its bow begin to tilt to port. The final pack of torpedoes swam true and tore into the Buaireadh‘s aft section, twisting it upward in a mangled mess of metal.
What followed such a surgical strike, Robert would swear, was the great claymore of Wallace itself piercing the heart of the Buaireadh. The wounded cruiser continued its mindless listing turn for a breath-seizing eternity before something beneath decks exploded. The vessel’s steel belly inflated before it split open like the skin of a poisoned fruit. The rear turret assembly wrenched itself free of the deck, only to pull its jagged remains into the water. Now mortally wounded, the Buaireadh‘s bow began to lift slowly out of the ocean and point skyward, one last declaration of artificial defiance.
“Bloody hell!” Dunn announced after a moment of watching the kill with a chilled sense of awe. “I’ve never seen one go up like that.”
“Me neither!” Robert concurred, leveling the Sable to the horizon now that the Buaireadh lay dying in the froth. “One to Squadron, check your pre-drop settings! Did anyone drop deep?”
“One, Six. I fat-lingered the trigger depth, shoulda been twenty meters, not seventy!” A distant voice sheepishly admitted.
Both Robert and Franklin laughed at that, both in surprise and as a release of tension. “Kelvin, you make that ‘mistake’ again, and I’ll pin His Majesty’s Cross to your arse!”
A moment of whoops and hollers filled the squadron’s radios as each man relished in their living achievements. Robert sat back in the pilot’s seat and let the Sable fly itself for a moment so he could drink in the sounds. Despite the depth and fullness of the cheers, he could tell there were voices missing from the chorus. “Give my regards to Robert the Bruce when ya see ‘im, lads. You did good today, tapadh leibh.” he whispered in the old tongue, hoping the old clans would welcome today’s fallen with warm lamb shanks and strong hugs.
***********************
One of (I hope) many new scenes to come as I flex my alt-history muscles and craft a different world that could have been, however unlikely. This kind of worldbuilding has been an all new brain exercise, so it may go through several more iterations later that erase this scene. But until then, enjoy a tale of those fine pilots from an age that’s more distant every passing day.
There was a harmony in engineering work that Vexx had enjoyed long before he’d been made into the half-flesh automaton he was now. Computing the synchronicity of fuel flow to compete against the fluctuating gravity deep in the blackness of space was still a source of joy to him, despite losing the ability to emote it. Calculating how lean to cut a vessel’s oxygen mixture in its internal atmosphere to simply sedate a target’s crew so he could then steal the vessel and sell its parts was something he still computed in the quieter moments of slipstream travel, though the math was much easier now thanks to the unwanted implants in his brain.
It had been the replacement of his human hands and arms into flexible nanite-cord tools that had enraged Vexx the most. A soldier or assassin would likely revel in fingers that could be sharpened into claws as sharp and narrow as a tungsten molecule, but an engineer without tools of his trade was nothing more than a bard with no muse. It had taken Vexx weeks to grasp how to grasp a simple wrench without slicing it into ribbons, or how to rewire simple computer structures without shredding their internal workings. Maybe it had been those failures that had led to Vexx’s imprisonment, he did not know. Or maybe it had been his development of the slipstream disruptor, a tool of dominance and deterrence too damning to exist.
Now, sitting in the Carnewennan’s engine bay, tinkering in silence with his many required calculations, Vexx had conquered both. Tools several feet away could be grabbed with ease by extending his flexible arms or legs with an unconscious thought. Delicate instruments and repairs were now commonplace for him, as his enhanced optical sensors and tactile implements allowed him to see even the smallest micro-fracture in a starship’s hull. His crowning achievement, the slipstream disruptor, now sat nestled under an unassuming cargo bay hatch on the Carnwennan’s spine, ready to be deployed in moments and pin any starship in its web. If he could smile whenever those thoughts crossed his mind, Vexx would do so. He’d tied once, when Deter had first freed him from confinement, but the feeling of human muscle pulling against the flexible quadtanium tubing that replaced his lower jaw and throat all the way down to his upper sternum had dissuaded Vexx from ever trying again.
Despite being unable to vocalize anything now, Deter still came to Vexx often for ideas, critiques, or to mourn some aspect of life in a drunken stupor. Vexx found the captain of the Carnwennan an interesting individual, though it hadn’t started that way. Deter’s offer of freedom had never been enough for Vexx to blindly follow. At the moment of his release, Vexx trusted no one, and walking from one prison cell possibly into another did not entice him. So when Vexx had named his price as the chance to hunt down the malcontents and religious zealots in the Unitatis Fidei that had made him, he’d expected Deter to accept with hesitation. Only after Vexx had seen the scar’s along Deter’s skull and shoulders where Deter had once worn the blessings of the Fidei did Vexx trust that this human also sought to escape his previous life. That had given Vexx the higher probability of survival and liberty that he’d followed over to the Carnwennan.
Counseling Deter on possible upgrades to the shared starship was logical and pleasant, despite the captain being focused on profit first. It was easy for Vexx to frame the needs of the ship and his own personal end-goal as being rife with potential gains, and Deter was also inclined to stick a blade into the inner workings of galactic workings. Still, hearing Deter howl through the belly of the smuggling vessel for his long-lost Meitte, whoever this woman was who had clearly scarred him, gave Vexx no shortage of irritance. On one occasion, Vexx had calculated to manipulate a single cord of his finger and pierce Deter’s brain in the right location to remove that memory, but the risk of unnecessary brain damage was measured as too great. Even if that margin of error was less than a single percent.
Dealing with Anon, navigator of the Carnwennan and overall busy-body that Deter tasked to manage things Vexx considered secondary, was often confusing. Vexx had, at best, figured out that self-preservation was what drove Anon to follow Deter. Yet the pilot also drew pleasure from narcotics and brain-altering chemical concoctions that would in time kill him, and this drove a spike of contradictory logic into Vexx’s brain that he simply couldn’t resolve. It was obvious to Vexx when Anon was in sound mind, which was rare, and when Anon was “floating between the colors of pulsars and madness”, and dealing with the pilot during those episodes was often a gamble. Vexx kept close eye on the weapons lockers in each cabin, as well as any tool that could be used lethally, and the Carnwennan passed to him constant updates as to where these were. Yet several times, Anon had produced weapons and other pieces of kit that Vexx had no knowledge of, forcing Vexx to recalculate the existence of magic in the physical universe.
Few and far between were the times Vexx and Wyvorn would interact, but there was no mistaking who was descending the catwalk into the engine room now. The clack of clawed feet on metal grating was unmistakable, as was the snarl of the Soromite coming into a room kept cold by design. Vexx felt no changes in temperature anymore, as his skin was interlaced with artificial heating and cooling webs, but Wyvorn’s need for warmer environments was a stark contrast to why Wyvorn found himself in deep space on a human-crewed vessel.
Leaping down the three meters between levels to where Vexx was nestled was little more than an inconvenience for Wyvorn, and emerald eyes fixed Vexx with an annoyed look. “Why must you keep this room so cold, human? Is this your method of forcing isolation?”
Vexx gestured with one hand to the Carnwennan’s main fuel injector, which he’d worked to optimize at running around zero degrees fahrenheit. Truth be told, Vexx knew the actual ideal temperature of the device as being a hundred degrees below that, but Deter overruled his attempts to make the engine room that cold.
Wyvorn snarled, razor teeth clattering against each other. “Human technology…inefficient and putrid.”
Vexx shrugged, knowing the Soromite was right, but also wanting Wyvorn to come to the reason for his visit.
The latter took Wyvorn a moment, as he flexed his clawed hands several times as if the words skirted between the digits. “I have…a request of you.”
Vexx nodded, letting his leg pistons relax so the half-man shrunk down to the height of a typical human, which still put him just about snout-height to Wyvorn.
Brownish-red scales shook as condensation began to form along the Soromite’s spinal bumps and the intricate machinery woven into Wyvorn’s flesh from the base of his neck to the base of his tail. “I…I require maintenance to my shra-krashan, my…heating unit.”
Adding the translated meaning to his native term gave Vexx a much better idea of what he’d been asked for. Trying to translate Soromite into plain Terran was akin to trying to translate the chaotic math of slipstream phenomena into a child’s poem.
Vexx gestured with one hand where Wyvorn’s heating implant was, and the Soromite shook his head. “No…beneath that. Where it connects to my talras…my collar.”
Vexx tilted his head in curiosity, and carefully scanned his palm upward until it reached the contraption that was fastened into Wyvorn all around where the human collarbone would be. Even with a passive measure, Wyvorn began to hiss and lowered his body into a leaping posture, readying to strike Vexx down. Only when Vexx pulled his scanning hand back in alarm did Wyvorn realize what he was doing.
“Apologies, I will not strike you, engineer. You are only doing what I ask, but the scars of the veikrine, the enslavers, remain close to my eyes.”
The allegory was not lost on Vexx, and the half-man nodded. Vexx placed his other hand around his own neck, letting his fingers extend like a rope at the throat to show he understood the pain of a cage.
To that, Wyvorn nodded, and repeated the gesture at his own scaly throat. “This, I understand with you. You hunt in your way, as I do mine.”
Vexx was surprised to hear that, as he’d never known Wyvorn to show any inclination to learn more about the rest of the Carnwennan’s crew. A stark majority of the time, Wyvorn spoke only to Deter, and the Soromite listened well to the ship’s captain. Filing that new fact away for later research, Vexx opened his hands to a nearby table.
“No, not necessary.” Wyvorn stated, though the clear note of discomfort in his feral voice was detectable. “I will allow you to reach it like this, but the work must be done quickly.”
Vexx nodded, but furrowed his brow. Such delicate and intimate work was not something he’d done before. With Wyvorn’s head lowered, small clamps around the collar popped open without verbal command. Now freed, an artifical suture popped open along the spinal line, spanning three vertebrae. Only now did Vexx’s enhanced eyes see that the flesh covering those bones was not flesh at all, but a mesh of metallic webbing and circuitry linked to the implants inside Wyvorn. How such sophisticated machinery had evaded Vexx’s detection until now was somewhat alarming, but watching it laid bare now sparked an appreciation for non-human engineering in Vexx that hadn’t been there before.
While one hand spindled out to become independent needle-like implements that were the best excuse for surgical tools Vexx had, the other recorded the many intricacies of the machinery, how the heating cell was chambered directly into the vertebrae and the microfiber radiators of gold and other precious metals ran the length of Wyvorn’s musculature and possibly across his organs. Vexx had never seen such handywork, despite all the implants and limb replacements that were forced upon him. A dozen small elements of the various implants were scanned in depth by Vexx’s passive gaze so he could replicate them later. A few even stood out to Vexx for personal implementation, but that work would not be done on the Carnwennan.
Vexx was aware the moment Wyvorn’s heating unit was repaired, as the Soromite gave a satisfying hiss and flexed his shoulders, despite still having internal bones exposed to the frigid air. Carefully, Vexx disconnected himself from Wyvorn’s internals and backed away a step to let the non-human extend himself back to a full height and length. Armed with new knowledge, Vexx now studied the Soromite with intrigue, wondering what it took to damage the internal circuitry in the first place.
Now restored to his full potential, Wyvorn looked at Vexx with careful contained primal energy. “You will tell no one of this?”
Vexx nodded at the rather redundant question, since he could not speak of this even if he wanted. Still, with a traditional finger to his non-existent lips, Vexx assuage Wyvorn that he would be silent.
Nodding in return, Wyvorn then leapt over Vexx’s head onto the next deck’s catwalk with a clang. Clattering claws grew distant as the Soromite returned to his duties, and the momentary fleck of chaos aboard the Carnwennan subsided. Vexx mused on the encounter for a moment to longer, until the math governing one of the nearby fuel injectors suddenly became too irregular, requiring Vexx’s mathematical dominace.
*****
My entry for the current IronAge Media prompt “The Engineer”, and a deeper look into one of my rarely-touched characters. I don’t visit this crew nearly as often as I’d like to, partly thanks to the multitude of space-based rogues out there already, which may simply be my own case of Imposter Syndrome. Still, when the right idea comes, I very much enjoy exploring it.
“Absolutely, Admiral.” Indirez Alzamas began, unconsciously squeezing her hands behind her back even tighter than they’d been before the senior man walked into the conference room. “It simply was not feasible for manned crews to keep up with both the stresses of battle and manage the complex equations of the Buster cannon in that engagement.”
Admiral Hallis’ scowl deepend at that, turning to look away from Indirez and out one of the space base’s large windows. Above them, hovering silently in its defeated pride, the dreadnought Terran Defiance bled from its many open wounds. It was supposed to be the flagship of the Polaris Fleet. Now it was all that was left.
“Are you saying Earth’s finest Marines are incompetent or otherwise unable to steel themselves during battle?” Hallis asked, voice lacquered in venom at the implication she would agree with that.
Indirez was quick to raise her hands to diffuse the moment. “Not at all, sir! But we only drill our crews in a near-parity battle scenario where the Bri’nell only bring one of their Hrash’nok-class Liquidator, not sixteen. No one in their right mind would be stoic and composed when facing those odds.”
“Then you suggest the failure lies with Fleet Intelligence?” the Admiral countered, again daring Indirez to question some aspect of the battle far outside her domain.
Her amber eyes remained soft despite the verbal gauntlets being thrown. Indirez dared not imagine the burden resting on his shoulders. Especially now, when we’re losing the last line of colonized worlds. “That much, Admiral, I don’t know enough about to pass judgment on. But what I do know is the Buster cannon, and Dr Morrisette’s insistence that the weapon should not be slaved to human-centric maximization.”
“My men are the best, miss. Even in the heat of battle, I’d trust them to man every cannon, torpedo tube, and exciter vane in their sleep before letting something else do their work for them.”
So he’s already guessed where this is going… Indirez sighed internally. “But that’s not how Project TRINITY was theorized and designed, sir. The Buster cannon requires incremental focusing of the refraction lenses while also balancing the intake and hyper-excitement of several complex substances. Human minds, as wonderful and inspirational as they are, just can’t keep up!”
“Then your laboratory will write new training manuals and scenarios that we can train to.” Hallis demanded, jutting a finger at her sternum. “Your team will work with my Marines every hour of every day on drills, live-fire tests, whatever it takes to get them ready to re-take the Polaris sector and drive those damned crabs back to whichever part of the Horsehead Nebula they call home!”
“I understand that, sir.” Indirez began, gesturing to the conference table’s interconnected holographic display. “And I will do the same.”
With the push of a button, the room grew dim, and a soft-light orthographic shape began to take shape. Both recognized the hard lines and razor-sharp edges of the Monarch-class dreadnought, as the Terran Defiance was the newest in the line. But Hallis’ silvery eyes locked onto the most obvious difference between what floated in the room with them and what floated in space above them. “It looks…different. A larger variant?”
“It has to be…to accommodate the artificial intelligence required to operate all systems and the Buster cannon.” Indirez confirmed.
The Admiral stepped back from the table, looking decidedly more pale even in his Nigerian-descended skin. “You didn’t…”
“The Admiralty voted 9-0 when news of the Polaris collapse reached Sol. The retrofit of the dreadnought Trinity began then.” Indirez replied. “When you directed this meeting, I…I thought you’d already heard.”
Hallis unconsciously sat down in the nearest seat, eyes fixed on the warship displayed in the middle of the room. His eyes twitched rapidly as a million thoughts ran through them. Some of those same questions Indirez had asked herself when Project TRINITY was revealed, especially those asked by Asimov, Ze Cheng, and even Dr Morrisette herself. When does the weapon stop being a weapon and become its own entity? When the gun decides where to aim itself, do we stand by and let it work? What will liberty become when TRINITY lord over us all?
In her core, she knew the answer to what she didn’t want to see. The discovery and subsequent war against the Bri’nell had become the chrysalis for desperate innovation. Now, the work would bear its deadliest fruit because it had to.
“When will Trinity launch?” Hallis asked, hands crossed over his mouth.
“Less than three months, if all goes to schedule. We’ll conduct the final trial run on…”
“You’ve got forty-five days, Miss. That’s when the dark matter current aligns between Sol and Polaris again, and those goddamn crabs will ride that wave all the way to our doorstep.” the Admiral countered.
Now Indirez took a seat at the table, stunned to silence by the order. “Sir, I…I don’t think that’s even theoretically possible! We need at least sixty days to install all the cooling sinks and new focal lenses inside the cannon to accept updates up to the femtosecond. It can’t”
“Can’t?” Hallis asked mid-sentance, his voice finding its fire once more. “Can’t? No, ‘can’t’ isn’t an option. Humanity needs this. The Admiralty has signed off to this, and you and I will not be the reason that our species is erased from history! Am I clear on that?”
Indirez slunk back In her chair, thoughts now flooded with equations, timetables, and the very verbose apology she would pen to Dr. Morrisette for agreeing to Hallis’ timetable. “Then we’ll need every engineer, cyber-defense expert, and experimental physicist we can get our hands on.”
“And the Marines to build this damn thing.” added Hallis, standing from the table. “I’ve got calls to make.”
Indirez started to pass her thanks to the Admiral, but Hallis held up one hand to silence her. “Save it for when Trinity actually launches. Anything before that…well, anything before that is a distraction we don’t need.”
The door to the conference room clicked shut swiftly, leaving Indirez alone with her thoughts. Part of her hadn’t actually expected the Admiralty Board to ever agree to Project TRINITY after its devastating test-firing into the star Bellatrix. But the unified vote to build the dreadnought to its full potential, along with Hallis’ quick rationalization of the verdict, told her what she’d wanted to deny at first. If they know what Trinity can do, then it won’t be a defensive weapon for long. If they dont…then how do we explain to the world what it is we’ve created?
“Kara charana krutam vaak kaayajam karmajam vaa, shravan naya najam vaa maanasam vaaparaadham, vihita maavihitam vaa sarvametat shamasva, jai jai karunabdhe shri maha deva shambho…Great forgiving God, have mercy upon us all…” Indirez prayed her native Hindu, yet the only judgement she felt looking at her soul was the man-made maw of Trinity‘s three-barreled main gun. The tool that would save humanity, if they lived long enough to see it completed.
*****
Another excerpt from my growing world that is Project TRINITY, one of the first and deepest-buried projects I ever started. This also doubles for the week’s IronAge Media’s prompt “The Chrysalis”. Because when your backs to the wall and you need a miracle, do you ask for second-order effects?
“Stop checking your watch.” Akula chided Volk without looking up from his cards. “It won’t make this go faster.”
“Fuck….how long have we been flying now?” The smaller man retorted, head in his hand and the uneasy green of motion sickness settling into his cheeks. The smell in the enclosed belly of the Il-76 wasn’t helping. The mix of cheap cigarette smoke with human waste was assaulting them even seated at the other end of the bay, by the access ladder to the cockpit.
Despite his own advice, Akula had been sorely tempted to watch the seconds tick by several times already, which is why he’d sat in on the game of durak. Orchid’s men also refused to sleep, but unlike his team, they didn’t appear to concern themselves with anything at all. Akula couldn’t believe how they managed to stay conscious at first. Then again, how long has she kept them awake through beratement and threats, only to leave them alone now?
Many of the North Koreans had passed out from exhaustion or boredom. They laid on each other, despite the wrist and leg shackles restricting their movements. Yet Sum did not sleep, forcing his bloodshot eyes to remain open for any moment of weakness. Akula could respect that in the professional sense, as he’d do the same in that situation. Sleep depravation was nothing new to Akula, as it was a common form of hazing and initiation within the Russian Navy. Grizli also took advantage of Sum’s alertness to continue mocking him at every turn.
On the opposite side of the Il-76’s hold, sitting on a crate and smoking, Marianna continued to watch over Il-Sung Rii as the broken man slept. Unlike the prisoners or their keepers, her hands remained steady and her eyes focused. This is nothing compared to treating gunshot wounds in the back of a BMP, is it?
“How the hell did you survive the flight from Kontrol to Haven?” Grizli teased Volk. ” Did you beg the stewardess to nurse you?”
Volk shook his head before discarding and ending his turn. “Stayed up for three days and passed out on the flight in. Missed the drop-off in Syria, even.”
Akula laughed slightly at that, “Be glad you did. Zhnets would’ve taken you for his Storm-Zed team, and you’d still be eating sand while also watching a bunch of rich assholes pretend that war is over.”
“When were you there?” Nosorog asked, offering a half-drained bottle to Volk, who gratefully took a long draw. “I was in Khmeimim before this, and don’t remember you. Not that a sailor had any work there.”
“Fuck, I was there almost a decade ago now, after that poor bastard got shot down by the Turks. I did two years there for the Aleppo offensives.” Akula summarized. “I was working for Tsezar back then, and learned how to clear buildings while he beat us into shape.”
“Fucking Syria…” Grizli groaned. “The food was shit, the women were worthless, and they had the worst looking armor I’d ever seen! I could’ve make their T-72s sing, if they had the right fucking tools”
“At least Syria had a goddamn naval front, so I could go stand on something floating.” Akula countered. The mere mention of such brought back a flood of memories to the sailor, like watching the mighty cruiser Varyag steam into Latakia port, or the clangs of skulls off bulkheads as the drunken Chiefs beat their younger sailors for getting drunk before they’d safely docked. “Warm water pukes…they didn’t appreciate the sea like we did up North.“
“I remember Aleppo…Kurdish bastards build the best car-bombs.” Nosorog replied, sitting back to let his mind wander back in time. “Best one I’d ever seen was tied to the satellite radio, so it would detonate when the channel search function hit the right station. It must’ve sat there for days until I found it.”
“So why are you here, Akula, and not in the naval detachment?” Volk queried, voice intense with curiosity. “The Brotherhood didn’t let me join the air unit like I’d wanted, and I get why Grizli and Nosorog are in the land division.”
“The company couldn’t fit that Chechen ass in anything smaller than this!” Grizli chuckled, shoving the broader Nosorog with his own massive shoulder.
Akula shrugged at the question, but then shook his head. “I had the option before taking this contract. But Pasha…”
“She told you no, didn’t she?” Grizli finished the thought with a barking laugh. “Our noble Shark, chained by an ample anchor and fed scraps of chum when he does well.”
Akula laughed lightly at the ribbing, taking the bottle for a swift drink. “She doesn’t have fond memories of water, and after leaving the Admiral Levchenko, it was time for change.”
Volk watched his team lead for a moment, trying to fill in things left unsaid. To refocus the pup, Grizli gave Volk’s air a mussing. When he got shoved back, the Ukrainian grabbed the bottle with an effortless swipe.
Nosorog gave Grizli a glare of venom and vodka. “Don’t you hate this swill?”
Grizli tapped the label with a mischievous grin. “Not when it’s made with the waters of the Sinijärv! It’s one of the best things in Estonia!”
“Besides their women?” Akula asked, wondering just how good the vodka had to be to get Grizli to drink it.
The Ukrainian’s smile grew wider. “A perfect mix of Scandinavian heartiness, Slavic tongue, and Germanic asses that don’t quit. It’s all they’ve got, but what they’ve got is good.”
“You’ve been there? Estonia?” Volk asked.
“Took a little vacation there to go pay my respects to the Soldier of Tallinn for my grandmother, maybe six years ago. Also got to beat the shit out of a few loudmouthed Londoners, which was an added bonus.” Grizli reminisced, almost dreamily in tone when he recounted the fistfight.
Akula noted just how still Volk had gone during Grizli’s tale, the younger soldier hanging on every word of the larger man. Grizli also noticed, and shook his head. “Don’t let those damned thugs pick your next assignment, pup. There’s work to be done in the West, you’d like it. All the old Pact nations have cells there, trying to bring them back under the influence of the old Motherland.”
Grizli’s expression then darkened several levels at that, and with it went his tone. “Who knows, maybe you’d have better luck in Tallinn than the assholes assigned to Kyiv. Then maybe a lot less people would be dying now.”
Volk went silent for a moment to think on that, remembering his query to his team leader to bring the conversation away from such a polarizing topic,”Did you have that choice when this came up, Akula? Sail the world on missions for the company?”
Akula shook his head, “Not exactly. I took this mission for Andre.”
Volk looked puzzled by that, but Grizli nodded sagely. A small smile of understanding returned to the larger man’s lips, welcoming something new to tease his team leader with. “One can’t raise a newborn pup on Kontrol’s salary alone. And the sign-on bonus was more than just a voucher for rubles.”
“It certainly beat the fucking menial clerk work I was offered after Aleppo…” Akula spat out, momentarily surprised by his own hostility. “I would’ve ended up on Orchid’s staff, or been Silverback’s errand bitch.”
Each expression in the quartet grew darker at the mention of their current taskmaster’s name. Out of curiosity, they all turned to look onto the other four armed guards. Orchid’s team stood separated and rigid, focused on the prisoners who offered little resistance or motion at the moment.
Akula caught one of them glancing their way and lingering for a moment. Akula waved his cards at the man, knowing full well how boring it was to maintain control of unconscious cargo. For a moment, the man was tempted, and his hands tensed on his submachine gun. Yet the curious sentry shook his head and turned away from them, focusing back on their captives. Another of the quartet clearly took offense to seeing such hesitation and promptly began gesturing angrily at his teammate.
“Der’mo…how bad has that witch broken them down?” Volk asked aloud, echoing the group’s thoughts.
“Someone like that only knows one way to deal with people.” Nosorog growled. “Yet they’re always surprised when they get shot in the back.”
“Aspirations for the future?” Grizli asked, voice missing its normal mirth for such a proposal.
Nosorog was slow to answer, but Volk answered for him, “Not here, not yet. Maybe one day, while we sleep.”
Grizli raised an eyebrow at such a forecast. “Like before, back at Haven? Pup, you haven’t been paying attention. Fuck, did that fall off the hanger damage your brain? We’ve each had the chance to kill each other by now. Yet here we are, bastards alike.”
Akula tapped the bottle of vodka with his finger, and Volk was first to take a drink from it. With the Wolf quiet and distracted for a moment, Akula turned to Nosorog. “My offer still stands, Timur. Downtown Grozny, when this contract is over.”
Nosorog laughed at that, though his voice was much more sober than it was a few moments ago. “If Leonid doesn’t kill you first, then maybe.”
Akula and Grizli exchanged looks, the latter raising the bottle in the air as a toast before taking a long swig. “Slava Ukraini, and all that bullshit. Fuck all of them. When this assignment is over, I’m moving to the armor regiment.”
The declaration washed over the group with a beat of surprise. Volk was first to ask “Miss beating people with wrenches?”
Grizli barked a laugh, drawing all conscious eyes towards him, as mirth was a foreign intruder in such a cramped space. Not bothering to acknowledge Orchid’s men, Grizli responded, “The tank drivers may get the flowers and the dead fishes, but the maintainers get the women of true gratitude. No one fucks like a thankful woman. Besides, at least Kontrol will let me take the Driver’s course. I’ve seen Kidra drive, and I’ll run circles around that old fuck.”
Akula nodded at that, letting rapid-fire memories of a very thankful Pasha swim in his mind while Grizli continued to vent. “Kovat would welcome the help running that division, I have no doubt. Maybe you can help him find a nice plump babushka as well. Poor moron has the charisma of diesel exhaust.”
Grizli shouldered Volk, almost knocking the smallest member of the quartet over, “Not until I find this one a beauty to show him what makes life worthwhile!”
“Doesn’t the Brotherhood give you one on credit? For focus or as a drug mule?” Nosorog asked.
Volk shook his head, “Not the real Brotherhood. Too much work to do. All that’s run through other groups, and they don’t like outsiders touching their things.”
Akula noted hesitation in Volk’s explanation, like it had to be remembered or was rehearsed and unused for a while. “Is that what they told you?”
“Galina told me, and she made sure I heard.” Volk answered, voice trailing off to a whisper at the end.
“And so here you are, now in both the company and the bratstvo. Do they at least pay you while you’re in the company?” Grizli queried.
Volk snorted a mirthless laugh, “Not me, but they pay the cops or state guards to not arrest me if I get caught during or after a hit. Here, I think they’re trusting Kontrol to do that.”
For a moment, no one spoke, as each could see Volk’s gaze grow distant. It was more than the thousand-yard stare every battle-hardened soldier wore.
“How many did you have before this?” Akula finally asked directly.
Volk took another drink from the bottle, and handed it to Nosorog. “I don’t bother counting anymore. Galina never had to tell me why, just it needed done.”
“Always obedient, eh Pup?” Grizli noted, but then he nodded to the smaller man. “But, if we all had a choice, we wouldn’t be here.”
“In the company or in this piece of shit plane?” Nosorog asked with growing irritability.
Akula chuckled a little at that, as there was little else to do. No one had drawn a card for several minutes, and the liberated bottle of smuggled booze was almost gone. “Both, it sounds like.”
“Want to go beat that Korean prick for a while?” Grizli asked, half-satirically. “Might speed up the trip.”
At that moment, the Il-76 began a slow lurch to its right. Akula and his quartet were quick to their feet, scooping up the cards and letting the drained bottle roll into a corner.
Arkady’s voice blared over the radio as Akula felt the nose of the massive transport aircraft begin to dip once its turn was complete. “Listen up! We’re landing in ten minutes, so wake up, clear your shit up and get ready to get the hell off my plane!”
****
The next chapter in the Wildlife crew’s journey to potentially nowhere, or right into a lion’s den. I admit, this contract overall has been much more difficult to plan & execute than Contract #1, so it’s been through a myriad of re-writes, re-structures, and a few threats to just dump this arc entirely for something else. But as noted by several of my mentors, I have to do the actual writing first before I can decide if I like it or not.
Today was supposed to be a twentieth birthday full of laughter, love, friendship, and family. She’d finish her classes early, take a day off work, be spoiled by a boyfriend who loved to love her, and be toasted and teased by parents who couldn’t be prouder of the young woman she was becoming.
Now, the room she sleeps in is silent, save for the continuous beeping of the sensors that watched her heartbeat, and the electronic scritch-scatching of the electroencephalogram that monitored her brain activity. The latter rarely moved anymore, despite the many procedures Tamara had been subjected to in the hopes of finding some proof that she still existed in this world. One spark, one flicker Of light in the darkness is all her parents would need to carry hope another year or more.
But it will never come. The damage is too severe, and the vessel is now too degraded to ever house Tamara.
Her body only knows it’s her birthday today thanks to the extra little something added to the mixture pushed into her stomach through the feeding tube thanks to a sympathetic doctor. Whoever Tamara was has been lost for months now, broken by a man who’d played roulette with one last shot of vodka and lost his senses behind the wheel. Justice had been served, and he would never breathe free air again, but such reciprocity is no comfort to the grieving. He will be visited by another, though I do not know who or when. Vengeance and self-loathing are my kinsmen, yet we do not cross paths unless called to.
Her parents had every intention of visiting Tamara each and every day in the beginning. For some months, this promise is made solid through deeds. Long sleepless nights listening to her mother’s voice reading the stories of old. Lunch breaks where her father would join her, though she couldn’t eat with him. Sadly, such noble intentions do not forge gold, and desires waiver in the face of burden. Tamara’s father, a low-level accountant in a cubical farm of faceless drones, was right now still buried in the same stack of menial data that had been given to him that morning. Her mother, unable to calm her grieving mind, resorted to washing dishes in a chain restaurant, taking on every hour of labor she could to avoid the grim silence of an empty house.
Their love for Tamara was undeniable, but that love had been shattered into shades of truth as the months had crept on. Some days, love had been hopeful, even wishful, that a single spike of life would rouse Tamara back to her body and soul. Some days, love had been five minutes by her side on the way to the mines, to kiss her cool forehead and hold unmoving hands just to be near her. Some days, love became an admission of doubt and fear that this is all Tamara would ever be now. And some days, a prayer was crafted deep in the depths of misery and shaped in love: to free Tamara from her mortal anchor at last so her body and soul could rest together.
Those unspoken words, when prayed in harmony by mother and father on this day, were what summoned me to Tamara’s side. I know they will never speak these words aloud, as what parent would. I see what they don’t want to face, which is not a weakness or flaw. On this day, love must be given wings, and I am to be Tamara’s craftsman. My only thought, my only hope, is that Tamara can forgive her family for summoning me should they meet again
My work is simple, and the machines quickly panic as the husk that was Tamara McNair is now emptied of its captive soul. Hers would be wings of golden feathers and ivory inlays. For a life so needlessly ended and by no fault of her own, Tamara will be lifted by the wingspan of lost potential.
The doctors will try and restore her to a deathless paralysis, as they should do, even though they will fail. I will not stop them, as that is not my role. Nor will I watch them struggle with any sense of glee or triumph in fulfilling this unspoken desire. I will weep for a twentieth birthday rendered irrelevant by fate’s cruel machinations. I will watch Tamara’s parents wail and cry for many days, as I must do. In such moments of impenetrable grief and infinite loss, they may wish to join Tamara where they cannot reach her. Should they wish it, I am bound to accommodate. I can only pray they will forgive each other long enough to see the error of such a desire.
I do not keep count or score of all those broken birds I make to fly one last time, as there is no number worthy to mark that tally. Each one is worth more than just a pebble in a never-ending river, and I wonder sometimes if whoever is waiting for people like Tamara will tell them all that they could have been. So much beautiful potential, like paint wasted on a canvas of trash. Do the lambs forgive their butchers? Do the jackals finally cry over their deeds? These details are not mine to know, and perhaps that makes this easier.
I leave Tamara’s room with the defeated doctors and nurses, though they will never see me. I watch some weep into each other’s arms while others coil their fists in rage or beg to whoever they deify that Tamara will find rest and forgiveness for her sins. I also hope that such a young girl finds something waiting for her beyond the grasp of her physical prison.
And then I am gone from that hospital, dispatched a world away to repeat the same kindness upon a boy in Shambiko whose belly has never known a real meal. To never hunger again must be an odd sensation for the living, but to break the chains of pain and strife entirely is a force outside my charter. All I can do is repeat this duty again and again. Infinite are the souls on the plane that are lost, broken, or imprisoned in vessels unable to let them bloom. For this boy, wings of ivory bone and sinew inlaid with jewels, light and unburdened by mortal limits.
Such is the purpose of the Vacuitas Doloris, the Freedom from Pain. The duty is mine always, and I will suffer it alone.
************
My submission for this current IronAge Media’s prompt “The Consequence”. Sometimes the consequence isn’t yours to bear. Sometimes, a moment impacts a lifetime well beyond what can be perceived in the moment. But for every action, there must be reaction.
“Two-Six, climb and maintain five-thousand. Wait for interception.” commanded Ground Control, a distant voice from Irkutsk-2 Airbase.
“Understood, Control.” responded Pavel Yostovich Dobrow, chafing against the newly-pressed second star of Senior Lieutenant on his shoulders. Word of his exercise in humiliating his former Senior Colonel had spread quickly, punting Pavel to the desolate and dull Eastern Air Theater from his home in the North. If not for the adulation of his regional Politburo, Pavel had little doubt he was facing a prison sentence as an alternative. But is this really any different? My wife waits for me in Moscow, yet her letters arrive slower each week…
The shining waters of Lake Baikal, hardened by the January ice, helped cool Pavel’s temper whenever he could take them in from the air, but the feeling of eyes and knives glaring at his backside had become a constant. :And yet, the sons of the Soviet Union are all brothers in arms, so said Lenin. Did his brothers seek to betray him so brazenly?” he dared murder to himself, unable to hear the words over the howling air outside, but feeling the thought pass across his lips gave him a small sense of being heard.
Now, Pavel found himself in the inferior position, as his MiG-21 interceptor lazily circled above the jagged island and inlet formations of the lake below, waiting to be pounced on by something. He hadn’t been told what had launched from Ulan Ude, or where it was coming from in its ambush. All Pavel had was his radar-warning receiver and his own eyeballs to scan the gray skies above and barren landscape below. Though his MiG appeared to be armed, the false missiles on his wings and iron ballast in his cannon stores were little more than training aides. Because the “people of the Soviet Union” simply wouldn’t understand letting me fly my machine to its full potential…der’mo, did we learn nothing from the Korean dispute?
For the next few minutes, the only sound Pavel heard aside from the rumbling whine of the MiG’s R11-F turbojet engine was the rhythmic ‘ping’ of the radar-waring receiver on the right side of his cockpit. Casually, the interceptor was being tracked by its home airbase, which was typical for any pilot wearing the Red Star. When it began to ping with a second, asynchronous rhythm, Pavel began to look harder at the eastern skies.
Suddenly, what was an asynchronous blip became an alarmed wail, as the MiG-21 alerted Pavel to a hostile aircraft trying to lock onto him for a missile shot. On instinct, Pavel yanked the interceptor’s nose into a hard skyward turn and pushed the throttle to full afterburner. Pavel kept his eyes glued to the horizon, and at last, caught a glimpse of something shiny against the dull brownscape beyond. It was unlike anything he’d ever seen. A razor-sharp delta-wing, much bigger than his MiG’s, carried a longer fuselage than Pavel’s interceptor. Screaming past Pavel fast enough to shake his canopy with the sonic boom, the intruder also pulled into a climbing turn. On sheer power, the intruder was soon level with Pavel, even pulling beyond and over the MiG with terrifying speed.
Only when the intruder pulled away from Pavel did he see the letters “US Air Force” emblazoned on its sides, and the star-shield sigil on its wings. Instinctively, Pavel recognized the American symbols, but to see it here?! “Control, what the hell is going on?!”
“Two-Six, intercept the bandit! And be warned, enemy has already claimed one kill against you per our data recorders” Control barked back at Pavel, clearly annoyed that this enemy had so easily bested Pavel.
Now incensed to persevere, the MiG completed its looping turn and Pavel dumped the nose towards the ground, flipping belly-to-sky in the process. With such speed, the intruder wasn’t able to turn as tightly to take Pavel’s six o’clock, but it was already reversing its own turn to protect itself from him.
Stomping down on his rudder pedal, Pavel yanked the MiG’s control stick as hard as he could to close the loop. This time, Pavel made sure his own radar was switched from “Standby” to “Active”. By the time the MiG had pointed its nose to the sky again, the enemy was already diving back down onto him. Again, the RWR rang out with the enemy’s missile lock, but in coming almost head-to-head with him, Pavel was able to get his own firing solution. “Kill!”
“Not before you were shot down, Dobrow. Again!”
Growling under the strain of the many Gs his body was enduring, Pavel forced the MiG into another full loop, taking advantage of the enemy’s raw speed in its descent. That advantage paid double when the intruder was slow to pull its nose into a counter-turn to force Pavel’s aim to miss. It’s too fast to turn, even with such a large wing!
Seeing the error of its manuver, the enemy pulled its nose straight up, using its whole airframe to try and slow itself. Gauging his own closure rate, Pavel quicked switched his weapons panel from simulated missiles to the MiG’s internal cannon, and pulled the trigger. “Kill again!”
Control didn’t answer this time. Instead another voice came over his radio, colder and harder than the already-irritated ground monitor. “Lieutenant Dobrow, you have violated standard engagement rules! Stand down and return to Irkutsk!”
Pavel’s stomach froze momentarily, as Colonel-General Andyvich’s order was as clear as it was hard-hitting. The commander of the whole Air Defence Force, here?! “I…I don’t copy, Control. Please repeat.”
“Repeat, cease engagement and return to base!” Andyvich ordered again, nearly shouting at Pavel over the channel. “You will not jeopardize the Motherland’s property!”
In confusion, Pavel scanned the skies outside the cockpit for his opponent, and was quick to to find it. Yet instead of finding a stable, capable opponent, the enemy fighter now belched black smoke and appeared to be shuddering as it descended.
Of course…they can’t risk losing this captured asset. Pavel deduced, pulling back on his throttle and lowering his flaps to stay with his stricken adversary. The MiG shuddered and rattled as it struggled to stay aloft at so slow a speed, starkly contrasting the sound-busting slugfest of a few minutes ago.
“Control, give me their frequency! Let me help guide them down!” Pavel pleaded.
“Negative!” Andyvich countered, “Maintain your distance, and be alert for ejection.”
Much to Pavel’s shock, the enemy interceptor suddenly keeled over and began to spin on its belly. Snapping the MiG skyward to put altitude between himself and the stricken opponent, Pavel could only watch as his adversary smashed Itself flatly into the rocky shore of Lake Baikal.
“Control….no chute. Who was flying that plane?”
Only static answered him for a beat, leaving Pavel to circle the smoking ruin, alone in the skies once more.
“You’re not clear to know that, Lieutenant. Nor were you authorized to take such extreme action!” Andyvich responded, at first with sorrow, then with anger. “You have no idea what your boorishness has cost the State.”
Pavel looked down at the mangled wreck once more, hoping to see the unfathomable sight of a flightsuit-wearing specter walk away from the flames. Still, only carnage looked back up at him, the smoke’s shocking black trail reflecting beautifully of the water of Lake Baikal.
“So what was it I was fighting then, General? What was so crucial that i had to beat it, but couldn’t fly how I must to win?” Pavel asked, knowing full well that such a question had little chance of a true answer.
But what Andyvich responded with was nothing like Pavel expected. “Something you’ll be seeing more of soon, when you are deployed to assist our comrades in Vietnam against the imperialists.”
The command sucked the air from Pavel’s lungs, and he felt his stomach sink into his boots. Again, I am sent further from my home? Farther from Liliya? Is this the cost of serving the State and its people?! “When?”
“Your quarters are being packed now, Senior Lieutenant Dobrow. And you will return victorious, or not at all.”
*****
My next submission to IronAge Media’s weekly prompt, “The Duel”. While they conjures up the classical and romanticized images of swords clashing or pistols at dawn for some, these are the duels I’ve always dreamed of seeing (and possibly being in). Plus, coming back to this character & forming storyline was an exciting exercise in focus, as I’ve very much been scattered lately.
Timur Varayev found solace in the constant rhythm of the cheap wristwatch at his fingertips. How each gear had to mesh with its kin, despite being so fragile he could snap them in half, was a curious sensation of unity he couldn’t find anywhere else. It certainly didn’t exist in Grozny during his short eleven years of life, and he doubted it ever had. It’s hard to know tranquility when we must steal our bread and bones…
Carefully, following the synchronization of each tooth, strong fingers wove thin wires through the artistic spaces, before the light touch of a soldering iron fused the timepiece to the fusing wire of the homemade bomb sitting before him. A simple, savage tool of explosive and time management. It was the first one Timur had been allowed to make on his own, and that weight had made his hands shake more than he’d expected.
“Careful, grandson, don’t let the soldering iron touch the detonator cord.” Ulman chided gently, resting a soft hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“Sorry, grandfather! I’m being careful, I promise!” Timur responded with more nervousness than he wanted to let escape.
A reply that earned the young bomb-maker a squeeze of reassurance. “Calm, my young nosorog, you’re doing well. Steady hands and sure movements, just like the watch.”
Timur nodded, and squeezed the tools in his hands to steady them. Gently, he laid the timing wire against the watch battery and soldered it to the connection. No longer did he have a watch and a brick of high-grade explosive. Now he had a tool of revenge and liberty, set to detonate at midnight in what Ulman and his followers had identified as a supply depot in the neighboring village of Alkhan-Yurt.
Ulman looked over Timur’s work carefully, and nodded his approval with a gentle smile. “You have your mother’s eyes for the clockwork. She looks down on you with a smile.”
Timur nodded, looking down at his creation, “I miss her…”. There had been a brief flash of impulse to refer to ‘them’, but Timur had buried his father in disgust and damnation long ago, and he knew Ulman would drive his palm against Timur’s cheek for even uttering the man’s name. Whatever Kulier had been once had become a traitor and glutton, willing to sell anyone anything if it meant the man could afford one more bottle each day. Some said that Kulier now wore the uniform of a Russian infantryman, but Timur hoped the bastard was crushed under a mass of shit and stone in any of the settlements that had declared itself free Chechnya in the last war.
“I do, too.” Ulman began, letting his hand fall to his side. His other hand went to the necklace at the old craftsman’s neck, and he stroked it gently. Under the collar of his shirt, Timur knee his grandfather kept his old bronze amulet of Alkhan-Yurt, home to the Varayev bloodline until it had been erased in a week of fire and steel.
After a beat, Ulman shook his head and looked at Timur with steeled resolve. “With this, you’re saving another mother from being ripped from her son’s arms. Never doubt that, my little rhino. You do God’s work…”
Before Timir could respond with his own confidence, a shriek resonated from the second floor of their occupied workhouse. A shriek that was answered by the bone-chilling thoom-thoom-thoom of heavy cannon fire. Instantly, a corner of the building evaporated into a shower of brick chunks and broken support beams. Within the flying chunks of stone tumbled the body of a boy not much older than Timur, still holding his binoculars with the frozen grip of death.
Ulman and Timur sprinted across the workshop’s cluttered floor to a barred window, the elder man picking up a rocket-propelled grenade launcher gently leaned against the wall. “SPETZNAZ!!”
Around them, a dozen men and women took to arms, poking rifle barrels out of half-cracked doorways and broken windows. Immediately, the clacking of rifle fire erupted from multiple sides of the workshop, and the voices of rage shouted commands to each other in several shades of Russian.
Timur drew up his hands, thinking the small pistol at his belt was in their grasp. Instead, to his horror, he held the ticking bomb. On instinct, the boy screamed and tossed the explosive down.
“NO!” Ulman shouted at the sight, grabbing Timur by the collar and throwing him to the ground. The older man followed Timur down, landing on top of him and shielding the boy with his arms. Around them, all sound disappeared for a moment and people ran past as blurs of color and panic. Timur’s bronze eyes found the time-bomb laying next to them, staring at them with its inevitable fury.
Yet it did not detonate, despite being tossed aside. In the chaos of gunfire and screams, Timur had been granted a moment’s serenity. As Ulman realized the same, he yanked the boy from the ground to his feet and pushed him toward the center of the workshop. “Run!”
It would be the last advice Timur’s grandfather would give him, and the response did not come from the boy’s mouth. Instead, the 30mm auto-cannon mounted on the invading BMP-2 fighting vehicle opened fire once more, ripping through the window that Ulman had intended to use to attack it. Where once stood a man, a patriarch, and a sage, a collapsing collection of bloodied meat fell to the stone floor with a sickening sound.
Timur’s panicked sprint was matched only by his soul shrieking in loss. Explosive in hand, the young rhino rushed through the only unlocked door on the ground level of the workshop and into a narrow alleyway. Timur’s mind didn’t process the yells echoing off the building walls in blood-soaked tongues, and he drove his shoulder into the first door he saw. Thankfully, the wooden barrier was old, and caved in with his terrified strength. Now in a half-destroyed bakery, Timur dove under a display shelf and pulled his legs to his chest.
The fear wrenched around his chest would not let Timur cry for his grandfather, and for everyone else who had been mauled in the onslaught. It took all his conscious effort to mute his whimpers and shakes, listening to the carnage play out. It was over as quickly as fast as it had begun, with the Silencer evoking its namesake upon anyone else in the workshop. Now, only angry voices remained, shouting to each other to clear the surrounding block and shoot anyone they see move.
When the yells died down into relaxed voices, Timur dared to peek out of his covered spot and look out the destroyed entryway of the bakery. Only broken stonework and glass greeted him. The rumble of the BMP”s engine echoed through the air like a satiated demon, purring in its own revelry.
Timur’s fear crystalized in his belly with each passing second, sparking a new fire in his chest. What had once been the fight to protect Grozny’s piles of rubble now had a face. He could see the scene even when he closed his eyes, the mist of blood and soul spraying into the air from Ulman’s lifeless form. There had been no sound of pain or plea for mercy, just death, instant and total. And Ulman’s reaper now sat a block away, satisfied in its achievement.
Looking down at the explosive still clutched in his hand, Timur focused on the tick-tick-tick of the wristwatch. The monotony challenged him, begged him to be tossed down upon the Silencer as a divine package of vengeance, but how to deliver it? Gingerly, he pulled the pin from its port and began to spin the hands forward. The bomb in his hands had been meant to travel up to Tolstoi-Yurt, where the enemy had forged their supply routes. Ulman had promised Timur his choice of target when they got there, to let the little rhino choose how he’d extract his first measure of destruction upon those faceless masses that had now taken Ulman to meet Allah in paradise.
“The only vengeance God knows is swift and divine, for in its righteousness, it cannot be abated.” Timur chanted over and over to hold back the tears of terror as he wound the timer forward. What had been set for days in the future now became minutes, and the detonator knew no such function as reverse. Now it just became a question if its fury would spare Timur, or if it even mattered now. The rumble of the BMP’s engine consumed his pulse, giving Timur focus on how its echo reached his ear. Slowly, he emerged fully from his hiding spot and crept back toward the door he’d busted through before.
At the end of the alleway between the bakery and the workshop, Timur could see the knife-edge bow of the BMP-2, and more importantly, its main turret. The barrel was looking up and across the intersection adjacent to the non-smoking workshop, waiting for anyone else to try and oppose it. Along its armored side panel, tossed against the tracks like so many pieces of human trash, were four faces Timur knew well. Each one, a friend of his grandfather’s, each one had shared their bread with Timur, told him stories of their lives now lost. Now, they could only look at their tattered boots, or up at their captors in bloody defiance. Whether any of them could see Timur, he couldn’t tell.
Scanning the destroyed corner of the building casting the shadow he hid in, Timur saw a pile of stones that no Russian eyes could see over without moving. This gave the small soldier an instinctual idea, and he dashed behind the fallen bricks. His timing had to be as perfect as his feet were silent.
Timur didn’t hear the crunch of gravel under his shoes when he sprinted, but that didn’t matter, as the invading ears did. The victorious rifleman of the Spetsnaz unit grabbed the prisoner closest to the front of the BMP first, helped by the woman’s longer hair. Try as she might, Timur’s ear caught Maali’s enraged howl as she was dragged to her feet so her captor could scream in her face. Another rifleman sprinted toward Timur’s cover to see where the disturbance was. With nothing left to do before what seemed to be an encroaching end, Timur pulled the pin from the watch and wound it before throwing the whole explosive over his shoulder.
Immediately, the Spetznaz shouted in alarm and moved away from the lobbed bomb, shooting back at Timur. Rounds scraped and bounced off the mass of brick, forcing the young man to curl himself as small as possible. The toss itself had to be divine in guidance, as the bomb came down on the rear armor of the BMP-2, behind its bulbous turret. The detonation was a crushing wave of fire, screams, and metal rending itself in several directions. More gunfire rang out from a direction Timur couldn’t quite place. Yet none drove its way into his backside, so the young Chechen dared to look up. The invader who had been sent to flush him out now lay sprawled out over the top of the brick heap, his back smoldering and the smell of burnt flesh hanging in the air as a deathly curtain.
The BMP itself was now ablaze, its rear half bowing upward in an unfixable way. None of the other Russians moved, but neither did any of Timur’s cousins and kin that had been captured. Maali…Alda…Jenda…we’ll meet again in Paradise, and I pray you will forgive me for sending you there.
The shriek of a rocket-propelled grenade send Timur back down to his knee, but the numbness sweeping over his body had stripped away his fear. If it were aimed at him, it was already too late anyway, but at least my death will be instant, and then I will see my God.
“Nosorog!”
The use of his nickname didn’t register to Timur at first. It made no sense for a divine presence to refer to him in such a familiar way. Only when a strong arm wrapped around his frame and pulled him to his feet did Timur realize the presence wasn’t holy, but may as well have been. Staring down at the boy was a pair of fiery green eyes and the taut scowl of death. “What happened here?!”
“Spetznaz, Uncle Aslan….I, I tried my best! Ulman is dead…”
The older man nodded, pointing at the buildings around the burning BMP. Wordlessly teams of men and women seemed to appear behind Timur’s uncle. They moved like ghosts, despite their rifles and grenades, while Aslan himself took a pistol from his belt and handed it to Timur. “Then we’ll make sure this filth pays for every life lost here, in the name of Allah and brother Basayev. Come!”
Timur nodded and looked again at the flaming wreckage. The culmination of his life’s work and personification of his fearful rage. As sick as it made him to look upon the bodies of his fallen family, he felt a lingering touch of pride in his work in avenging them. “Steady hands, sure movements.”
Aslan looked up at the young man, having moved to secure the unused rifle magazines from the dead Russian soldiers. Though he didn’t smile, he nodded curtly at the words, “Brother Ulman was teaching you his trade?”
Timur nodded, “He showed me what was coming…”, and then he pointed at the burning hulk, “That was supposed to be saved for another mission.”
Aslan raised an eyebrow in curiosity. “Can you make another, my young nosorog?”
Timir nodded again, his hands absently winding their way through the memory of the watch gears.
Aslan set his hands on Timur’s gently to stop them. “We’ll take you home with us, where you
can eat and drink, then show us your work. Ulman will look down from Heaven and smile, I’m sure of it.” Reunited with his silent fire teams, Aslan pointed southward, deeper into Grozny and Timur began to run. As they ran deeper into the besieged city, more gunfire and distant explosions rose to meet them. Timur didn’t flinch at them now, his mind thought only of the tick-tick-tick of his next weapon.
*******
Another deep-dive into the history of the Wildlife Team, to look at what made them what they are. Making Timur a full-blooded Chechen presented a multitude of challenges when forming the core Wildlife team, but I also think that different perspective also helps in peeling back some of the layers as to what a lifetime of fighting can do to a person and where it can lead them eventually.
Near Khumushkuri, Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia, 2014
Drakon ran her fingers through her bob-cut ebony hair, letting her mind wander for a moment to where she actually wanted to be, which was over a hundred kilometers north in the city of Sochi. “I’m so close…how long has it been since I was so close to home?” She asked the blazing orb in the sky.
“About a year, I think. Not since the pick-up job near Mersin. Fucking hell, the Turks were pissed…” came the intrusive response from the only person in earshot.
Grimacing at the answer, Drakon crossed her arms tight. The runway she stood on now was just close enough to her home city to make her hate it. The winds from the Black Sea felt wrong, filtered through foreign trees and filth. The setting sun shone down on the snow at the wrong angle, threatening to burn the eyes of all who looked at it. Even the flightline of their makeshift camp, as rustic and isolated as it was in the woodlands outside the village of Khumushkuri, felt alien enough to sour her mood. Tracing her vibrant blue eyes to the southeast, to the invisible line separating Abkhazia from its Georgian forebearer, her scowl settled deeper onto her lips. “These morons would’ve been better off just staying Russian, not trying to follow those Georgian fuckers into corruption…how many had to die to pull these lost sheep back into the fold?“
“How many came back from the war all broken? My old man’s leg stump still twitches when it rains, the superstitious old bastard. For what?”
Liliya Maksimovna Kharlamov blew a sharp snort of frustration from her nose, letting the cold wrap her back up in the familiar January blanket. Such discomforts should have been second nature to her by now, as a pilot with no nation, the world was opened up to her. And from those skies, she’d seen more of the Earth than most anyone would ever dream. But almost all of that time had been from the cockpit of whatever aerial demon the company had for her, which suited her just fine. Often, she was the angel that swept in from on high to rescue her brothers, which was as much a reward as her paycheck. Such moments also allowed her to rightfully lord over all those who boarded her steed, as she was the only God they would worship so long as they depended on her.
Such ego and superiority was a burden earned by fire, and Drakon could tell every time Wildlife Security Solutions brought in fresh blood that had not lived the same story. The new dogs tended to slobber or howl at her to get even a glimpse of extra skin or an inviting smile. Such was the case this morning, as Liliya heard the caterwauling across the helipad as she inspected every inch of her Mil-8TVK gunship and troop carrier.
Having long since learned to simply tune out such welps, Liliya instead let a smile peek upon her lips as she caressed her stallion. It was a robust beast, with thick armor and far-reaching fangs. But it hadn’t been her machine until she’d painted her mark in its tail. Barely visible under the poorly-disguised registry number, was a small crimson dragon of her own creation. It was a privilege she’d earned through company profit, and by being the best flier Wildlife could afford. Such success had blessed her with the name “Drakon”, as hers was the roar from above that heralded death.
With the snap of her fingers, Liliya could be in the corporate market, flying oligarchs between their yachts. Or perhaps she could continue filling graves for cash and sell her craft to the tropical cartels deep in Columbia. Yet none of those options inspired her, as the former gave her no fangs, but the latter gave her no pride. Only those who truly knew her understood why Liliya stayed with the company, and she could count all those people on one hand.
“Shut up, and inspect your gear! I’m not carrying any of you dumbasses back to Headquarters if your drop line fails!” It was a command that made even Liliya stop to see who decreed it. Not because of its volume, as any idiot with a rifle could scream. This voice spoke with the weight of knowledge, responsibility, and experience. She hadn’t expected that from a group of fresh meat. Her surprise turned to frustration when she noted the speaker wore the thick, solid gold band of a naval Chief on his shoulder, above the number ‘605’. Great, the only voice of reason is a fish-fucker…
“Oh look, the next big swinging dick…” chuckled another female voice swinging under the Mil-8’s tail. “How long until you think he’s trying to order us around mid-flight?”
Drakon hissed a laugh as she looked to her co-pilot and gunner. “We won’t even make drop-off before he’s unhappy with us, Khimera.”
The second woman laughed in response, running her hand through buzzed blonde hair. “Clip his line off with the tail rotor?”
Liliya smiled briefly at that, but still shook her head, “And lose money because one more shit-for-brains grunt gets left behind? Not a chance. But that doesn’t mean we make the flight easy.”
Khimera smiled wickedly. “Always the right kind of evil. I’m glad the company gave you this beast.”
A moment later, the sea-bred sailor briskly walked up to Drakon, who had moved on to check the rocket pods mounted on the gunship’s stubby wings. “My squad is packed and cleared, commander. We’re ready when you are.”
The pilot looked at him in shock for a moment, before dropping her fists to her hips. “Then we clear up some rules now, Peskar. And no, I don’t care what the company lets you call yourself, you are Minnow until I say otherwise. First, I am your wings and your support, so you accomplish fuck-all without us. I won’t risk my stallion to pick you out of a firefight unless we can make it back. “
Liliya raised a hand to tick off her decrees to the squad’s leader. “Second, mark and call out your positions as accurate as you fucking can, because no one’s picking twelve millimeter slugs out of their skulls on my flight.”
Again, the sailor said nothing in response, so Drakon pressed her index finger into his body armor at the chest. “Third, you or your dogs do any more begging to see us naked, I’m planting my boot up your ass right here as my example. Understood?”
“Understood completely, ma’am. I hope we don’t need to use a single rocket, but I trust your gunner’s aim. We await your clearance.” With that, the Navy man saluted her and turned to run back to his own squad.
“Oh, I might like him!” Khimera chortled, looking at Drakon through the open troop compartment. “Not even a flinch.”
Drakon tightened her glare on the sailor, both annoyed that he’d remained calm and respectful when being degraded by a woman a head shorter than he was, and slightly impressed that the company actually hired someone with some useful skills left. “It just means he’s either competent, or smart enough to keep his arrogance in check.” Liliya noted, before checking her wristwatch. “Finish up, we’re fragged for take-off in thirty.”
*
Thundering rotorblades echoed off the frozen treetops as the Mil-8 crossed the unmarked border between Abkhazia and Georgia. Drakon kept the laden beast low, occasionally blowing the glittering flakes of ice and snow back up into their wake as it darted east, then south, then further east. Just over a hundred kilometers separated the crossing from where she was marked to drop the ground team, but her flight path was almost double that to avoid most every city, village, and random sightseer taking a piss among nature. Such restrictions forced Drakon to select a twilight launch time, balancing the precious remainder of natural light with equally valuable secrecy.
Once they’d taken to the skies, any jovial cat-calling or lewd commenting had ceased. The sailor kept his team in near death-like silence, using gestures and piercing blue eyes to ensure everyone was ready or focused on their tasks at hand. Such professionalism was a welcome reprieve for both pilot and gunner, though Khimera did spare the occasional glance aft to marvel at the gate and build of the sailor. Liliya herself kept her focus only on her stallion, masterfully pulling the Mil-8 between trees and under the mountainous horizon.
The drop zone was little more than a cleared patch of grass well outside Kutaisi, deep in northern Georgia. As the ground troops prepared to leap out of the aft hatch, Drakon noted that many of them carried rocket-propelled grenade launchers, hand-held missiles and other very explosive implements. All save the sailor and one other man, who carried AK rifles and several magazines. Drakon hadn’t been told what her passengers would do, and she knew better than to ask. Her gaze was met by the sailor, who smartly saluted her and Khimera before being the last of the ten men to depart. Seconds later each and every man Drakon had delivered were now invisible in the natural green and encroaching darkness.
The gesture was noted by Khimera, who couldn’t help herself once Drakon had started the return trek. “If they survive, I may have to have some of that Minnow to celebrate.”
“I just hope it’s not pickled by so much salt water!” Drakon chuckled. After that, the joking ceased, and the illegal return flight began. Low clouds had swept in to mask any sort of moonlight, which worked both with and against Drakon. But having earned the right to paint her symbol on the tail rotor, Drakon let the Mil-8 talk her through, feeling the shift in the downdrafts as they neared taller trees or a hill, turning with the cross-winds as they dashed between jagged stone fangs. Despite adding a few extra minutes and kilometers to the journey back was thankfully as smooth as the outbound one. By contract, the Mil-8 would return to that same field in four days to retrieve its passengers, who had hopefully expended all their explosives and achieved whatever it was their contract stated.
The airbase was lit only by a few dim glow lamps by the time the Mil-8 returned, its massive rotorwash echoing through the still night. Skillfully, Drakon set the stallion down and began to power down each and every system. Four days until we fly again…fuck, I hate waiting that long…
“If that peskar is smart? Maybe… If he’s just another fish-fucker, then we’ll get a new contract in a couple days.” Drakon replied with a shrug.
Drakon was less than busy during the four-day downtime, giving her time to absorb the pages of her latest acquisition: a proper Soviet biography of Marina Mikhaylovna Raskova, one of the finest female flyers under the Red Star. Only when Liliya had a fleeting moment of peace between pages did she let herself wonder if the professional fish-fucker would succeed or not. Those instances gave her a welcome surprise as well, as she typically cared little for anything outside her cockpit. I swear, if Khimera is rubbing off on me, I’ll gladly toss her to that Minnow…
On the day of the retrieval mission, Drakon’s pre-mission brief contained several alarming indicators that made her blood run hotter. Firstly, Kontrol passed an increased number of Georgian air patrols along the Abkhazian border. This was out of sequence with normal Georgian levels of readiness, but that single fact was not fear-inducing. Drakon knew she would just fly under the gaze of those old Su-25 ground-attack fighters, who rarely flew without daylight, and never flew with live weapons.
Next came the Georgian news reporting of explosions in the city of Kutaisi. The press itself didn’t state what exactly had blown up, but Wildlife had passed to Drakon that a Georgian arms plant and airframe repair facility suddenly stopped existing. And how many of your grunts did you lose blowing those up, Minnow?
The most alarming piece of the brief given to Drakon was the activation of a mobile P-18 air surveillance radar on a hilltop right on the nebulous Abkhazian border. Its placement was perfect, right along the flight path she’d taken into Georgia four days ago, but the report didn’t explicitly say where on the hilltop it sat. Drakon knew from experience that such a radar covered at least two hundred kilometers in all directions, which conveniently covered most of her primary and alternate routes to the extraction point. The immediately available intelligence told Drakon that such a move had been planned for a year, but she didn’t buy it. Fucking kiskas were too lucky, placing it right in my way at just this moment…
Checking her map with Khimera, the gunner traced her finger across a deep ravine that cut through the border, inside the Caucasus mountains to the east and northeast. “We could fly under it?”
Liliya shook her head, pointing to a small speck of buildings huddled around a swollen river swath traveling east-to-west. “Can’t risk being reported, not with the increased air patrols.” Taking a ruler from the planning table, the flier drew a crude line from the hilltop to a spot two hundred kilometers south. It was partly a futile gesture, as she knew the Mil-8 didn’t carry the fuel they’d need to avoid such a large detection bubble. The gunship pilot then paused, staring at the small red circle that marked the estimated area where the P-18 was parked.
“I see you thinking it, Drakon.” Khimera scowled. “And it won’t work. Even firing all the rocket pods at range would take too long. Someone would sound an alert.”
“Except you don’t have to destroy the whole site, der’mo. Just take out the generator truck and it’s useless!” A point Liliya punctuated by pointing at the airstrip’s air surveillance radar. “How many shots do you need to blow up a goddamn truck?”
Khimera nodded to that idea. “Depends on how straight you can keep your nose, crazy suka.”
However Drakon was about to counter her gunner’s sass was quickly lost when her hip radio chirped “Scramble! Scramble! Scramble!”
“Oh, that fucking Minnow!” Liliya shouted as the two women ran to the Mil-8. They were joined in the sprint by a few nameless crewmen Drakon hadn’t bothered to learn. Under normal circumstances, Liliya would in fact yell at them to treat her gunship with dignity, but such an urgent order demanded she take to the skies as fast as possible.
As the massive overhead rotorblades whined to life, the Mil-8’s on-board radio clicked on, “Drakon, ground team reports ambush by Georgian guard units, need immediate evacuation or elimination. Full weapons authorization granted by contract. Udachnoy okhoty!”
Spinning around in her chair, Khimera acknowledged the order, while also clicking on the Mil-8’s master arm switches, demonstrating how she’d earned her name by assuming multiple roles. Such a feat always impressed Drakon, as the gunship was designed to require a three-man crew. Yet she and Khimera had always made do with no need for the additional deadweight, a respect Drakon gave dutifully upon her gunner with a nod.
The gunship roared into the air two minutes later, and Drakon immediately pointed it northeast into the baseline of the Caucasus mountains re-tracing her original intrusion route as best she remembered it from the curves of hills and man-made paths carved through the empty lands. Now fully loaded with weaponry, the beast grumbled and pushed back against her commands as they stayed extremely low to the ground, kicking up surf as they crossed into the Gali Reservoir before turning south towards the protective mounds of the neighboring hills. All the while, Drakon cursed under her breath, knowing full well that she was being watched from a long distance. Adding to her frustration was the unfamiliar terrain of the northern ravines and mountainous cutouts, forcing her to keep looking down at the map on her thigh as much as she did forward into the jagged, snow-capped stones. Unforgiving crosswinds smashed in her stallion seemingly from every direction, but Drakon kept her white-knuckled grip on the throttle and control yoke, forcing nature to respect her presence.
She could tell they were nearing the P-18 thanks to a panel over her head, solid amber lights chiming on whenever the radar saw her between the peaks. This also worked for Drakon, giving her a general bearing of where to aim Khimera. “Warm up the anti-tank rockets!” the pilot ordered as she turned the Mil-8 southeast for a dozen kilometers.
“Priobretennyy! I see the radar!” Khimera declared, pointing to a flattened hilltop a few kilometers away, where the ridgeline dipped down before clawing into the clouds to meet the mountain peaks. It was hard to see, even with a misting of snow along the rocks, but the movement of the radar’s spindly array gave it away.
On instinct, Drakon let the gunship drop until its wake blew all the snow off the rocky ground below. Small pebbles and dust kicked across the glass screen at her feet as they pushed forward. Nothing was going to hide the thunderous thumping of her rotorblades now, so the attack had to be swift.
Sparing a moment to look up at the hilltop, the pilot caught the waddle of a man running through snow from his mindless walk, back toward the control van next to the radar. At a guess, she had to pray they were close enough. “Shoot!”
The AT-2 anti-tank rocket screamed out of its tube and began to spin, keeping its electronic nose locked onto the targeting laser Khimera pointed at the P-18’s crew cabin. It was a race to see who would reach it first, human or weapon, but it was also a moot point. The AT-2, designed to rip into thickened tank armor before detonating, had little trouble punching through the large truck’s cabin of simple aluminum. The subsequent explosion tore the manned vehicle into slivers of metal and flames, the sheer force of pressure and heat torquing the radar’s transmitting array into a non-functioning shape.
The cockpit’s receiver confirmed the P-18’s destruction, and Drakon wasted no time pushing forward again, weaving east and south and east again back toward Kutaisi. While Khimera kept a constant watch for anything in the grass or skies over the course of the next hour, Drakon’s eyes were quick to spot the plume of black smoke rising to the north of the city when they reached it. Instead of flying straight towards the black pillar and risking all sorts of calamities from the cityscape at her nose, Drakon pointed the Mil-8 into the Sataplia Nature Reserve to come around the disaster area from the east.
“Does your Minnow like climbing trees?” Asked the pilot rhetorically. Woods are cover, but also a trap. Who forced you in there, you idiot?
“Nyet, but I see what does! Heavy trucks outside the woods, looks like BMPs!” Khimera retorted, eyes never leaving her targeting scope.
“Clear them out!” Liliya ordered, pulling the Mil-8 higher and lifting its nose.
“Thunder!” Khimera called, rattling off a dozen high-explosive rockets at the Georgian barricade. Two troop transports were lifted off the ground and tossed aside in blazing fury, the third simply collapsed on itself.
Among the rapid chaos, the pilot soon became aware of the three-peating ‘chirps’ of the radio assembly between pilot and gunner. Drakon nodded for her gunner to attend the radio, making the latter curse repeatedly for having to take her eyes off her killzone. “Minnow, report!”
“Position comprised! Holding new LZ for pickup half-kilometer north in small clearing, look for black truck!” Reported the ground team. Drakon noted the strain in the sailor’s voice, it made her wonder just how much had gone wrong.
This moment of distraction allowed a Georgian rifleman clear aim, and bullet impacts rang out against the Mil-8’s belly. On instinct, Drakon pulled back on the stick and stomped on a rudder pedal to swing the beast around and out of danger. This also took the gunship’s nose out of line from the Georgian defenders, so Khimera could not shoot back.
Drakon paired the rotation with a dive, putting several small rises between the Mil-8 and the return fire. It didn’t matter now if they wiped out the whole column, she had no doubt their intrusion was now broadcast across Georgia. With only a thought, Drakon could easily turn back northeast and leave the entire ground squad to be captured or killed, and no one back at Kontrol or in the company would ever know. But such cowardice wasn’t why she was named Drakon.
Dropping low enough to blow down the short mountain grass, she pushed the Mil-8 forward and around the outskirts of the forest until the rising smoke was on her shoulder. Only when she couldn’t see it easily did she pull the stallion higher into the air and pivot it again to sweep in and grab the ground team while sprinting from west to east. Once over the treeline, Drakon flew the Mil-8 sideways, its nose pointed south while the beast side-stepped left.
“Black truck!” Khimera called as soon as she saw it. Minnow had found a sizable clearing within the forest’s heart that Drakon could easily set down in. Yet instead of being secure, the flashes of rifle fire and tracer rounds criss-crossed to and from the boundary line.
“They’re pinned! Light those fuckers up!” Drakon ordered. A split-second later, the rapid ‘thoom’s of automatic cannon fire tore ancient trees from their roots and sprayed bits of earth and man into the air. At the same time Drakon lowered the Mil-8 to the ground, but kept her stallion’s engine at full power for the quick retreat.
She could feel the rear hatch open, the tremor sending a wave through the entire gunship. With each man leaping back on, the Mil-8 rumbled, allowing Liliya to count each survivor. To her surprise, there were ten thumps before the rear hatch light on her control panel showed the door being closed again.
“Lucky bastard…” Drakon admitted.
“I knew he was good! No one has an ass like that and isn’t good!” Khimera barked with a laugh, switching from the cannon back to her rocket pods and blasting the treeline one last time with blistering fire.
“Enjoy it when we get back, kiska!” Drakon countered, pulling the Mil-8 back into the air. What Liliya hadn’t seen at that moment was the presence of another BMP slowly pushing its way through the woods toward them. On its roof, a Georgian defender hoisted his Strela anti-aircraft missile launcher to his shoulder and lined up the shot. It took only a moment for the Strela to find the massive gunship’s heat signature upon which he fired.
“MISSILE!” Drakon shouted, pulling the Mil-8’s nose skyward and away from the incoming rocket plume. At the same time, Khimera began dumping anti-missile flares from the gunship’s belly. The Strela was even older than the Mil-8 it targeted, so the missile chose instead to attack one of the flares and detonated barely ten meters away from the helicopter.
Drakon felt herself go weightless for a moment as the blast lifted the entire gunship higher into the air. Clenching her teeth and wrenching the throttle and yoke into submission, she let the Mil-8 drop just enough to regain its own power before pulling the machine into a tight turn away from the forest and back towards the northern mountains.
Drakon’s heavy breathing and the thumping heartbeat in her ears had masked all other sounds at first, but after a moment, she registered the odd sound of a wet cough and choking somewhere close by. Sparing a moment to look to her right, Drakon’s adrenaline rush became horrified despair as Khimera clutched at her own throat, trying to ebb the rush of blood painting her flightsuit a deathly dark crimson.
“Nadia! No! Don’t you fucking dare die!” Liliya screamed, now commanding the Mil-8 on trained instinct alone instead of complete awareness of her surroundings. Ignoring the rush of cold air whistling into the cockpit through several jagged holes in Khimera’s canopy door, Drakon put full power to forward motion. To save weight and, possibly, her co-pilot’s life, Liliya dumped all unspent missiles and rockets from the Mil-8’s stumpy wings. “Stay with me, Nadia! Keep your eyes open!”
The cockpit’s aft door swung open, and into the commotion stepped Minnow. Instead of asking any number of stupid questions about their status, the sailor quickly pulled Khimera from her chair and took the bandages from his calf pocket. “Keep us steady! I’ll try and get the bits of slag out!”
Despite the utter chaos and pool of blood on the floor of the gunship, the man Drakon had derided as a Minnow was still calm and controlled. Sparing only a moment to look back, she saw trained hands trying to block the wound from bleeding further while also removing a sliver of shredded steel from Nadia’s neck. Her gunner’s pale complexion had become white from shock, and vibrant brown eyes now trembled in pain. Equally infrequent, the sailor would lean forward into Khimera’s seat to retrieve whatever he could, going so far as to take Khimera’s checklist pad and rip pages from it to pack into the dressing.
Seconds stretched into centuries as they fled for home, Drakon’s attention now unequally divided between watching her gunner bleed out and trying not to smash the entire Mil-8 into a cliffside. “Get ahold of field station, let them know we’re coming!” She shouted at the sailor, no longer caring that her voice shook with anger and fear.
Pressing down on the field dressing with one hand and using his other crimson-stained hand to manipulate the gunship’s radio set, he was quick to find the emergency channel set in his own mission brief. “Morskoy; Akula! Objectives completed, one wounded on the aircrew!” The sailor reported, nodding when he received a response before setting the headset down and calling to Drakon. “They’ll be waiting for us…she may just make it!”
A promise that turned an already-grueling flight of delicate maneuvers and subtle course changes into a marathon against the icy fire growing in Drakon’s stomach. Were this any other mission, her orders would’ve had her lay waste to the entire Georgian response, and let the politicians weasel their way out of a larger war if they want! Yet the company had been clear in its contract, and her wounded stallion had to bring the ground team home. Pushing the Mil-8 at its maximum power for so long had brought the stallion a wheezing rattle in its engine’s normal rumble, but Drakon didn’t care at the moment, as she could see the runway on her nose now. Several vehicles were gathered at the end to meet them, and she set the gunship down with an atypically hard ‘thud’ at the end of the concrete. Immediately, Drakon unbuckled herself, ignoring the voice shouting at her through the radio.Vaulting around her pilot’s seat, she took to Nadia’s side opposite the sailor.
Liliya didn’t bother to read the sailor’s eyes, as the ghostly-pale skin and the unmoving chest of her co-pilot told Liliya everything she needed to know. “When?” Was the only question Liliya could muster, her normal Drakon ferocity now heavy and drained of feeling.
“About ten minutes ago.” Akula answered. “I’m sorry.”
Liliya’s hands balled into fists, and she slammed those into the Mil-8’s floorboards. The small splash of blood that leapt up her fingers elicited a fiery roar from her throat, drawing the attention of Akula’s men as they departed the gunship’s aft ramp and circled the wounded stallion in shock. One of them tried opening the Mil-8’s copilot seat, only to have the door itself come off the hinges in his hands and clatter to the helipad. Akula barked an order for his men to disperse, but Liliya cared little for anything else. Carefully, Liliya tucked her arms under Nadia’s lifeless body and pulled it upright. Needing no cues, Akula did the same on the other side, tucking Nadia firmly into Liliya’s arms, then opening the pilot-side door to ease their exit.
Once Nadia’s body had been laid in the field medic’s tent, Liliya let her brain register the feeling of crimson stickiness along her skin and between her fingers. She also became acutely aware that she’d been followed. “Thank you…for trying to save her.”
Without warning, Liliya’s next response was her fist against the sailor’s cheek, which surprised the larger man but didn’t stagger him. Instinctively, his hands mirrored Drakon’s, but he released his fists quickly. Such restraint didn’t go unnoticed by Liliya, but her fire was too unbridled to acknowledge it at the moment. “That was for your life, you fucker. Tell me it was worth it.”
“It’s never worth it to lose a comrade,” he began, “but these are the risks we take. She died well, and you brought everyone home.”
Liliya was silent for a moment, then allowed herself to nod once. She’d been fully prepared to hit this man again, or be hit for daring to strike him, neither would be new occurrences. Yet this sailor neither lashed out in response, nor cowered at her rage. This steadfast calm surprised Liliya, and her shoulders sagged at the unmoving company.
It was then the fire inside her cleared enough to pierce the fog in her thoughts. “The extraction was too risky, but I did it anyway. I put her on this slab.” She snarled as the words spilled from her lips. “So tell me, fish-fucker; what was her death worth to the company?”
“We destroyed a prototype light-attack platform the Georgians were building, and a large stock of old Soviet air-to-air missiles.” the sailor began, before looking back at the damaged Mil-8 and its still-smoking exhaust pipes. “Whatever comes next will be that much safer.”
Liliya snorted at that, turning her gaze to match his, toward her wounded stallion. “If I were in a fucking gunship, she’d still be alive.”
“Or would you both be dead in your next operation because the Georgians sold their machines to someone else?” he countered. “New weapons mean that those bastards are trying to break into markets they have no business in. Now, we’ve set them back years, or maybe permanently.”
Liliya gave the sailor an icy stare, but allowed herself a curt nod. “So you think the company is planning more ops out there?”
He nodded, “I’d bet my pennant on it. They wouldn’t send you and a fully-stocked Mil-8 for a single sortie.”
In a surprise to Liliya herself, a small measure of a grin crossed her face. “And what is that pride worth?”
Raising an eyebrow at the challenge to his assertion, the sailor pulled a small billfold from a front pocket and drew out a five-thousand ruble bill, which he laid on a nearby cart. “If I’m wrong, consider it my donation to Nadia’s memorial, or a bottle of fine spirits for you.”
Drakon looked at Akula with a mix of dumbfounded respect and dark mirth. After a beat where words competed to coalesce into a thought, all she could do was chuckle. Meeting the taller man’s eyes, she extended a steely hand in a gesture she hadn’t allowed anyone to share since welcoming the now-fallen Khimera. “Liliya Maksimovna Kharlamov.”
He took the hand with equally strong grip, “Mikhail Aslanov Rybakovl.”
*******
Another slice of backstory for the Wildlife Team, and one that I’ve worked on for longer than any others. This was a challenge not only of character but of situation, and I wanted both to flow as smoothly as I could picture it, and hopefully I did.
The voice reverberating through his spacesuit drug him slowly from the blackness, only to have the shriek of the suit’s internal alarm assaulting his ears snap him back into reality. His eyes struggled to focus on the tumbling void marred by pinpricks of light, and that sensation stilled the heart in his chest. Reflexively, Travis flexed his arms and legs, hoping he was wrong. But when he failed to find the solid metal of the Eclipse Glider‘s hull under his feet, Travis let out a panicked wail of realization. “Oh fuck…”
“Travis! Are you all right?!” His radio demanded of him. In his mind, Travis could picture his commanding officer, steel-eyed and strong, gripping the transmitter with all her might as if to force more power from it. He’d never known Sarah to voice anything but resolve, be it brutish or calm. To hear the alarm in her voice now dropped his heart to his boots.
“I’m…I’m alive, Commander. But I’m stuck in a spin! I don’t have a thruster pack to stop the rotation. I don’t have visual on the Glider.”
“Focus, Travis! Suit diagnostic!” Sarah ordered.
“You can’t…” he began to question, before the real gravity of the moment hit home. No, they can’t pull my suit readout…because I’m too far away. “Standby one, Commander.”
Now focused on a specific task, the calm clarity forged by thousands of hours of training seeped back into his blood, cooling his pulse and steeling his nerves. Bringing up his wrist control, the push of a button sent a dozen lines of text past his vision as fast as he could read it, most of it red. It was then Travis noticed something else in his vision, barely visible against the insignificant lights mounted to his shoulders and palms. Glinting flicks of metal spun with him, forming a ring of unwanted dance partners in zero-gee. With nothing to pull them away, Travis had to wonder if they came with him from the Glider, or elsewhere.
Reaching his free hand behind him, Travis felt along the life-support unit until he hit something metal and definitely foreign. Once his hand reached a notable ball joint in the mechanical appendage, Travis let grim realization wash over him. “Repair drone malfunctioned, must’ve hit me hard to knock me out…”
“Cory saw it when he was coming to help you with the long-range radio array. Little shit hit you on full thrust.” Sarah relayed, though her voice dropped several notches of intensity. “What about your air, Marine?”
“Pack’s intact, Commander. I’ve got about five hours for you to come pick me up.” Travis noted, double checking his own math. “Looks like my beacon is out, though. Fucker must’ve hit the battery.”
A long pause answered him, telling Travis as much as the spinning starfield did. “How far out am I, Commander?”
“Eighteen klicks down and still fading…” Sarah responded at last. “I’ve got Matt and Maddie calculating for course change and full burn now.”
But you don’t know if you can risk the fuel loss to slow down, divert course, and then get the Glider back on course. Travis finished Sarah’s thought from afar. “Can you contact the drone I’ve got stuck to me? Have it drag me back?”
“It’s dead, no signal from its beacon either.” Sarah admitted. “Cory wanted to chain the rest of our drones together into a missile and shoot them your way.”
“But they’d never have the fuel to pull me back in like that.” Nice thinking kid, but that’s a plan built on hope, not math. Travis noted, biting back the bile in his throat. Mentally, he checked over every pocket and belt loop he could reach. Hull sealant patch, collapsible wrench, Ohm gauge, spare connector hose…none of this is useful. But the Glider was full of colony start-up gear…
“Is there anything in the hold?” Travis asked, hoping his mental inventory missed something.
“Bunch of hydroponics and an earth-mover. Nothing with a hard-vacuum engine.” Sarah snorted. “And no, we can’t just dump the fertilizer in the fuel tank for an extra kick.”
Travis had to laugh at that, “Not with that attitude, Commander. I bet I could make it work if you give me a few hours.
“Smartass.” Sarah retorted, before a second voice, hushed and rushed, quickly got her attention away from him.
In the silence, Travis rested his head against the back of his helmet, and felt something scratch the back of his scalp. Whatever it was, he couldn’t see, but reaching over the top of his helmet, Travis caught something uneven and broken sticking out the back of his gear. The realization was immediate. The drone had impaled his helmet with one of its many spidery arms, but his suit had sealed the breach before space had sucked him out through the jagged hole. Now, the only thing keeping Travis alive besides the mutli-layered glass before his eyes was a small ring of globbed sealant and the titanium mandible behind his skull.
In that moment, a new, fatal thought crossed his mind. They won’t lose any time if they don’t have to turn around… “Commander?”
No response. Travis had partly expected that, as the Glider was probably a madhouse of activity and frustration at the moment. He could picture them all, gathered in the main docking bay, trying to draw out the myriad of schemes they could plan to retrieve him while still completing the delivery. The thought wanted to warm him, to reassure him there was a way out of this. But the silence remained the omnipresent cloak wrapped around him.
“Commander?”
Still nothing. Only his own breathing in his helmet and and the shaking in his voice as he began to lose the Marine-forged sense of calm under pressure. Travis couldn’t be sure anymore how long he could wait before he tried once more, so the name escaped his lips quickly.
“Sarah?”
Silence still. Now his palms began to quake as Travis re-summoned the diagnostic report. There were more red lines now, but only one mattered to him now.
INTEGRATED COMMUNICATIONS RELAY – FAILURE: POWER SUPPLY DEPLETED
“So this is it, then?” Travis said to no one. “This is how the first human dies in space? After all the hours training and all the sims, I get taken out by a faulty fucking drone and some bad luck? Fuck…”
He swore again and again, growing louder and louder each time until the word erupted from his throat like an undechipherable roar. Travis screamed and screamed again until his ears pulsed in pain and his throat was raw. When he could yell no more, Travis felt the numbness creep across his body as his very soul was exhausted.
For a long moment after that, there was only the spin. Again, Travis tried to focus his eyes on the closest object that wasn’t himself, hoping to see the bulbous bow of the Eclipse Glider creeping towards him. Travis tried to count his rotations, but trying to get a fix on an exact set of stars proved annoyingly difficult. He then quietly sang a few rounds of the Marine Corps’ Hymn, but soon the sound of his own voice isolated inside the spacesuit began to grind on his nerves. He tried to shut his eyes, to let his mind abandon the grim reality for the false hope of a dream. But Travis couldn’t shut off his own mind, couldn’t block the creeping spectre of Death creeping into his vision.
“Sarah,” He started knowing full well she would never hear him now. “I was to thank you for choosing me for this mission. It was an honor to fly with you.” After a somber beat, he couldn’t help but add, “Oh, and yours may be the finest ass I’ve ever seen in cammie shorts.”
He smiled a bit at his confession, his last mortal sin in this body, and reached up for the obstruction in his helmet once more. He tugged gently at it at first, waiting to see if it would give any under his grip. When he felt the wiggle gently rock his helmet, Travis took the mandible in both hands and pulled as hard as he could. For a brief second, there was the unholy wail of sealant giving way to vacuum, and the back of his skull felt like it was on fire.
Then the spinning stopped, and Travis became aware that two of the infinitely distant stars followed his eyes wherever he moved them, as if the universe itself were staring into his soul.
**********
A new submission for the latest IronAge Media prompt. A lot of castaway stories have a glimmer of hope to them, as there’s typically something in the environment that the stranded can use for assistance. So I’ve always wondered what one does when you take away every semblance of hope?
shadetheraven 