Flight (5 page)

That didn’t make sense to
Wolfgang. Why would a pressure activated bomb be left on a civilian
freeway. For all the damage it did to the military truck, it would
have shredded a car, killing everyone in it and destroying all the
contents. Why would someone want to do that in Switzerland? It had
no purpose. Everyone did everything for a purpose.

Wolfgang tried to think, but the
clouds in his head were as gray and ugly as the clouds in the
sky.

Someone had to be targeting the
military truck. He was convinced of that. The soldiers were heading
for a rendezvous point and there must have been other trucks. Their
attackers must have lain in wait. Maybe they assumed the truck had
food and weapons, which it did, and they had spotters out,
triggering the bomb when the truck got close.

But if that were the case, why
hadn’t anyone attacked yet?

Wlazlo interrupted his thoughts
with the pills and a bottle of water. Wolfgang drank gratefully,
swallowing the medicine with the warm liquid. Feeling had returned
to his arms and he was able to take the plastic bottle from the
soldier and drink more himself.

“Now you’re coming back to
life.”

The captain turned away from him.
Wolfgang could see a rifle slung over his shoulder. A rifle had
been placed on the ground next to Wolfgang, along with a full
backpack. He stared at the weapon. It looked impossibly
complicated.

“We might have to leave soon, so
you gotta get your legs under you.”

“How long did I...?” Wolfgang
couldn’t remember the word for sleep in English.

“How long you been passed out?”
Wlazlo asked over his shoulder. He didn’t wait for a response.
“About thirty minutes.”

Thirty minutes. Why hadn’t anyone
attacked yet?

Trained soldiers would have
attacked immediately. Four injured people in an upside down vehicle
would be no match for two or three competent soldiers. Even a
couple of hunters could have taken them out. So who would
wait?

The only people who would wait,
Wolfgang decided, were those who were so unsure of themselves that
they wanted overwhelming odds. Perhaps they would want the
surviving soldiers to leave so they could loot the truck without
danger. Perhaps they were waiting until it was so dark they could
surprise them. What they didn’t realize was how deadly these men
probably could be. The weapon at Wolfgang’s side looked horribly
complicated but horribly lethal at the same time. If their
attackers were just some amateurs waiting to ambush them, the
soldiers would slaughter them.

“The gun?” he asked in
English.

“The MP23?” Wlazlo replied,
turning back to face Wolfgang. He continued without waiting for
Wolfgang to respond. “Deadliest assault rifle known to man. One man
with a fully loaded MP23 with spare magazines is the equivalent of
a squad of Gulf War soldiers. It’s the only US rifle in a hundred
years that could compete with the AK-47. It’s still only special
forces issue.”

Wolfgang tried to follow along but
gave up.

“Very dangerous?” he
asked.

“You need to learn to speak
English, man. Yes. Very. Dangerous. Don’t mess with it.” He spoke
clearly and distinctly as if that would help.

Maybe it did. Wolfgang got the
message.

“Help me,” he said and tried to
stand. Wlazlo put his hand under Wolfgang’s arm and pulled.
Wolfgang stood shakily, feeling dizzy, and leaned against the
overturned truck. He wanted to throw up.

Wlazlo stayed next to him, his
hand on Wolfgang’s arm, steadying him.

“Thank you,” Wolfgang said. “I’m
okay.”

“Alright. Let me know before you
try wandering around.”

Wolfgang nodded, trying to ignore
the pain. Nodding made the nausea grow.

He looked up at the sky and it
seemed to be growing dark.

“What time is it?” he
asked.

Wlazlo looked at his phone. “Five
twenty-seven.”

“We must go soon,” Wolfgang said.
“Before dark.”

“I agree. This is giving me the
heebie-jeebies.”

Wolfgang had no idea what that
word meant, but he got the gist of it. He pushed himself away from
the truck and tried to stand on his own. He still felt dizzy and
leaned back against the metal frame of the vehicle for support. He
held himself straight and looked around. Things were a little
clearer. As long as he didn’t make any sudden moves, he would be
fine.

He looked at the truck and thought
about the force of the blast that had propelled the huge thing off
the bridge. It had to be amateurs. Amateurs would use too much
explosive. Pros would have just used enough to disable the truck,
then would have attacked immediately.

His thoughts turned to the weapons
in the back of the truck, the ones they wouldn’t be able to carry
away. They shouldn’t let them fall into inexperienced hands.
Amateurs would attempt to use them and end up getting themselves
killed, hurting a bunch of other people along the way.

“We must blow up guns when we
leave.” His English still felt choppy, halting. It hurt his head to
try to remember words.

“You want to scuttle the truck?”
Wlazlo asked. He held his rifle ready and scanned the area around
them.

“Just guns. Food okay.”

“I don’t think we’ll have time for
that, Wolfie. It’s all or nothing.”

Wolfgang considered that for less
than a second.

“Blow it up.”

“I’m with you on that. I’d hate
for anyone to use any of this stuff against our boys.” Wlazlo
looked back at him and continued, “You gonna be able to walk soon?
Colonel says there’s a town up that hill over there. Oscar, or
something.”

Wolfgang looked where the man
pointed. He didn’t see any buildings, but a road crisscrossed up
the side of a hill. There was a cleft to the left of the hill, and
another, steeper hill on the opposite side that led up into the
mountains. There were no visible trails that way. That’s the way
they should go.

“No,” he said. “We go that way.
Enemy not that way.”

Wlazlo hummed, then said, “You
might be right, Wolfie. If we go up to Oscar we could be just
walking right into a trap. It might be fellas from there that blew
us up. Good idea. I knew we brought you along for something.” He
looked up in the direction Wolfgang had pointed. “That’s a pretty
steep mountain. You up for it?”

Wolfgang looked at the hill. He
nodded painfully.

13

After the attack on the lunar
base, 1804 returned to dropping meteors on the planet. Targets and
desired meteor sizes were fed to it during refueling, although as
the attacks continued the size parameters were loosened. 1804
sensed that some of the asteroids it directed towards the planet
were much too large for their targets, causing unnecessary
destruction. Others were too small, and the targets required
multiple strikes.

On its eighth refueling since the
bombardment had begun, it received a new assignment. It noticed
more Hrwang ships appearing in orbit, fifteen of them, and handlers
directed it to report to the newly arrived command
vessel.

There it was cleaned up, its
damaged leg replaced, an extra fuel tank added, and given an
assignment from the Lord Admiral of the Fleet of the People
himself. 1804 felt pride at receiving instructions from such a high
level. It had been doing its job well.

“You won’t
believe it, Sherry. I’m talking to the aliens. I’m actually talking
to the aliens.” Stanley hadn’t been this excited since Christmas as
a child. Sherry, the
Beagle’s
atmospheric chemist, sat in her lab in her
pajamas and looked up at him.

“He calls himself a Lord Admiral.
A bit pretentious, don’t you think? Their English, or at least his
English, is pretty good. A little stilted at times, you’d
definitely know it wasn’t his native tongue, but still pretty good.
His accent is almost American.”

Sherry didn’t say
anything.

“I’m talking to aliens,” Stanley
repeated. “Can you believe it?”

He gushed on for a while longer.
He looked up at the clock in the lab and said to her, “I gotta get
back. I’ll tell you more later.” She nodded and went back to
work.

“This is the Lord Admiral.
Captain, your response has surprised me. I do not need a lecture on
cultural naming conventions. I have knowledge of them. And it is
wrong to ask my name. And to broadcast your own name! I’m
surprised. We are all surprised and...” the voice paused as if the
speaker were looking something up, “...dismayed. Please never
broadcast your name again. I trust you will abstain from this
impropriety in the future dealings.”

Stanley was horrified. “Who knew?”
he whispered to Purcella and Irina.

“Now that that matter has been
resolved, Captain, please pay attention to the instructions which
are following. Lieutenant Grenadier will address you.”

“But that’s a name,” Stanley
hissed.

“No it isn’t,” Irina said.
“Grenadier is a military position.”

The Lieutenant Grenadier’s accent
was heavier, but his English less awkward and easier to understand.
A ship would appear that would dock with them or land on them, they
weren’t sure, and it would bring them to the Fleet of the People.
They were not to interfere in any way with its functions. Travel
would be instantaneous.

When they arrived, they would meet
with the Lord Admiral.

“See. I knew they had a way to
travel faster than light. It’s the only way to get between the
stars. I can’t believe we’re going to be a part of this,” Stanley
exclaimed when the message completed.

“What about Opportunity and
Spirit?” Commander Samovitch asked. They were the two Martian
bases.

“They’ll be fine.”

She glared at him.

“Fine. I’ll say something to the
Lord Admiral.”

“We’ll be abandoning them,” she
accused.

“No, we won’t. They have food and
supplies for at least a year. And if we can return to Earth faster
than light, don’t you think supply ships can come back here the
same way? They aren’t being abandoned. They won’t even be isolated.
They’ll be more connected than ever before. And we have the Hrwang
to thank!”

Stanley’s second-in-command just
grunted.

She was hopeless, he thought. She
simply doesn’t understand. He shook his head, pitying her narrow
viewpoint on life.

Stanley signaled
Purcella that he was ready to reply to the Hrwang. “Lord Admiral,
this is the Captain of the
Beagle
. We understood your message
and look forward to meeting with you soon. And please accept my
humble apologies for asking your name. I didn’t understand your
culture but hope to learn more. Thank you.”

He leaned back in his chair,
satisfied, but nervous. Irina got up and left the command
cockpit.

1804 drifted in space, just
outside the Hrwang command vessel, listening to the messages being
received from the space vessel orbiting the system’s fourth planet.
It didn’t have a language module that allowed it to understand what
was being communicated, but it used the signals to refine its
calculations of the location and speed of the fourth planet. When
it received a go ahead notice from its handler, it replied,
requesting confirmation. A valid confirmation code
returned.

It double checked its
calculations, including extrapolating the planet’s movement.
Jumping to the wrong place and finding itself in the path of a
moving planet would end its existence. Then 1804 would not be able
to fulfill its mission. That would not be pleasing.

It ‘closed its eyes’ and it was
near the fourth planet. It could see several satellites, but not
any vessel. The ship in orbit must be on the other side of the
planet. 1804 did the math and jumped to the far side. It looked
around but only saw other satellites.

It used the broadcast band the
Hrwang command ship had used and asked for an acknowledgment. Then
it waited.

Stanley and Lieutenant Commander
Purcella didn’t understand the next message they received. It was
as if it were in a foreign language.

“I’m sorry Lord
Admiral. This is the Captain of the
Beagle
. We didn’t get your last
message. Could you repeat, please?”

1804 registered a response from
the vessel. It used the response to determine where it
was.

It felt something that could only
be classified as surprise when it decided that one of the tiny
satellites was its target vessel. It had operated drones larger
than the ship it now examined.

It examined the other satellites,
calculating their orbit and extrapolating their future locations.
When it had sufficient data, it jumped closer to the vessel,
allowing its newly acquired momentum to bring it close. It then
used maneuvering jets to slow down and orient itself so it could
land on a flat spot on the surface of the ship.