Hammerhead Resurrection (31 page)

After cutting away from his chute forty feet up, Jeffrey had crashed feet first into the depth of the water and sank. His ears popped as he sank. The life raft did not auto inflate as it should have. As he fumbled for the location to the cord, his ears spiked with pain and the water became deeper blue. Sinking deeper his lungs began to burn and he felt panic tickling at the back of his mind. He stopped searching for the cord and went still, the weight of his flight gear dragging him down.

Where had the cord been? See it. Small rib. Left.

His hand went to his side, and he felt the marble-sized plastic ball attached to a cord. He yanked on it. A roar erupted behind him as he felt the shape of the back raft form a perimeter behind him. The water went lighter. He broke the surface, settling onto his back, gasping a deep lungful of air. When he’d cleared the saltwater from his eyes, he saw Hooka not far off, floating with his head back as if unconscious.

At least his raft had auto-inflated as it should have.

With a sweep of his feet, Jeffrey turned his back to Hooka and kicked his way over. In the paleness of Hooka’s skin and the slight gap of his mouth, Jeffrey understood he was dead. As Hooka rocked, blood trailed away from him in the clear-blue water.

Jeffrey gripped Hooka’s shoulder, pulled him close, and placed his hand on the young pilot’s chest.

“I’m sorry I didn’t fly well enough.”

He went through the young man’s pockets, taking his water and nutrient bricks. Turning the body around, he went through the other pockets, taking everything out and laying it on his own belly like a sea otter.

Lastly, he put one of Hooka’s dog tags in his chest pocket, turned himself, and shoved off the body with both feet. Kicking away in casual, easy swe
eps, he moved away from the plume of blood that Hooka had left in the water. He continued at an easy pace until Hooka was a distant shape. He didn’t need any sharks finding him after getting worked up over the blood.

Sipping at the water, he considered his location. They’d travelled approximately halfway across the gulf, headed for the Yucatan Peninsula. Beneath his back lay nearly two miles of water. The depth felt malicious, the rocking of the easy swell deceptively pleasant, putting him at ease before it killed him.

Jeffrey had lived through so much that, when he told the young pilots that anyone lost could not be saved, he hadn’t considered it would be him. But it was, and there would be no location beacon, no last known position, and no rescue team, as was the plan.

He thought of the Sthenos ships that had taken them down. He’d given somewhat better than he’d gotten, but had any of the other pilots encountered resistance? Perhaps all? It was possible that the Sthenos had tracked them the entire way. The Lacedaemon crash site had been left alone, perhaps not because the Sthenos were unworried about the possibility of resistance, but because they’d had them in crosshairs the entire time. He thought back to how quickly they’d lost the first and second engagements and felt intense despair. Had the Sthenos swatted them aside once again?

The Lakota pilots, after spending their allotted three days in secondary locations, began arriving in the Amazon at dawn, which relieved Leif and, he felt sure, the rest of the personnel. Captain Donovan had coordinated the clearing of small landing zones, but as more and more Lakota came in, they realized the cleared forest wouldn’t be enough. Donovan ordered brush to be cut away and the uneven ground leveled with axes and shovels. The aircraft were rolled into those spaces under the canopy. After several hours, the men and women, backs soaked with sweat, had all the landing sites packed with aircraft.

When the slower fuelers came in on broad wings hulking downward as if great vultures with shoulders hunched up around squat necks, Donovan ordered the marine, who identified himself as Master Sergeant Eric Mikelson, to have the fuelers land in the clearings beside the Lacedaemon until more suitable landing zones could be cleared. As the fuelers’ turbines faded beyond the tree tops, the forest fell into an ear-ringing silence.

Aiming his thumb at Leif, Donovan said to Mikelson, “This is Holt’s son,” then said to Leif, “Your dad’s already briefed the master sergeant on the overall mission.”

“Where is he?” Leif asked.

In an obtuse tone, Donovan said, “Don’t know.”

“I thought I heard someone say all the Lakotas were accounted for.”

Donovan shrugged. “I can’t help you with that.”

Mikelson glanced at Leif and then to Donovan. “Sir, we have everyone accounted for aside from Obsessed, Hooka, and Admiral Holt.”

“Three aircraft?” Leif asked.

Mikelson shook his head. “Two. Hooka was back seat with the admiral.”

Leif looked to the sky beyond the wide circle of branches. Hooka and Obsessed didn’t strike him as very good call signs. He hoped the pilots themselves were better than their names.

“What do we do?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Donovan said. “If they show, they show. If they don’t, we move on with our plans.”

Something in the way Donovan said
our plans
troubled Leif.

Donovan looked to Mikelson. “Master sergeant. I want to discuss other possible locations of aircraft and pilots.”

“We have more than we bargained for here,” Leif said.

“I was speaking to the master sergeant Mr. Holt, but I agree none the less, and those additional forces have me wondering how much more might we be able to muster. 200 fighters, more than we bargained for as you say, is still an insignificant contingent against the Sthenos.”

Leif quelled the desire to ask Donovan what the hell he was thinking and walked away.

“Where are you going?” Donovan asked.

“I’ve got to get back to work. I have vats of suspensions to check on. We have more pilots to modify.” But he had more than enough supplies prepared. He’d be dammed if he was going to let Donovan change gears on him.

…

Leif searched the encampment until he’d found Stacy and her team resting near an ancient rubber tree, its root system half hanging in the air as if suspended in time. He asked her to walk with him. A young woman had told Leif she’d seen Delaney go down the trail to the river. As he and Stacy made their way down the trail, the sound of the waterfall increased.

As they came into the grove, the air cooled with the fall’s mist. The ten foot high falls ran clear, water bending over the lip of rock. Delaney stood beside the pool wrapping her hair in a faded towel. She wore a white T-shirt and BDU pants.

Her expression grew worried when she saw them. “Mr. Holt, Commander Zack, how can I be of help to you?”

“President Delaney, please, just call me Leif. She,” he pointed his thumb over his shoulder, “is just Stacy for this conversation.”

Samantha’s eyes narrowed as she said, “Okay, Leif… Stacy. Call me Samantha.”

“Samantha,” Leif said, “my dad’s missing.”

Her brow furrowed. “He didn’t return with the rest?”

“No.”

“Should we—”

“He’s on his own.” Leif held up a hand. “That’s how it is. I need to discuss Donovan.”

Delaney’s chin came up as though bracing herself. “What’s he up to?”

“The moment he realized my father hadn’t returned, he began changing strategies.”

“Excuse me?”

“Now that we have 200 new fighters, he wants to try and collect more, get as many together as we can.”

“Are you serious?” Stacy asked, her tone a mixture of incredulity and anger. “What the hell’s he thinking? We’ll lose the only thing we have that matters.”

“Surprise,” Samantha said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Exactly.”

Samantha, her hands on her hips, faded into deep thought for some time before saying, “This is bad.”

Jeffrey watched icy cirrus clouds, perhaps five miles up, forming in the colder reaches of the troposphere. With the sea floor two miles below, the clouds miles above, and his head light from limited food and water, he felt disconnected from the world. He’d spent the last three days wandering through memories, all the while his emergency transponder off. If he had turned it on, the Sthenos would likely be on him in a few hours, if not sooner. It would be suicide… unless he could take just one with him.

He put the idea in the back of his mind. The Lakota should be arriving in the Amazon from their secondary landing zones today. They’d have more than enough for the assault… if they hadn’t all been shot down as he had.

Jeffrey lay his head back, letting his hands sink into the water. His lips were already cracking, and his eyes itched. Through his life he’d imagined many different ways to die, but dehydration had never been one of them.

After floating for a time, his mind gone still, he leaned onto the right buoyancy bag to look into the deep-blue water. Sunlight stretched down in wavering fans. While he’d made peace with his coming death, the unfinished fight troubled him.

He drew his
pistol from his thigh pocket. Water drained from its barrel. It would still fire. The smaller nine millimeter bore made him wish he had his 1911. Crossing his arms on his chest he drew a deep breath, catching the scent of the wide open ocean, which would be his grave. The 9mm could spare him a worse end. If he waited to die, he might live for a week. He’d either be found by sharks or, more likely, would die half crazy, thinking his wife was still alive, or that he was the King of England.

The sun sparkled on the water all around him.

Working the pistol’s slide, he chambered a round and looked at the gun as though it were a foul medicine, bitter but necessary. He’d known several who’d taken their own lives after the war. He sighed. Those were, to him, the greatest tragedies. Having felt the suffocating weight of the mistakes he’d made and the unworthiness of having survived, he understood their choice but wished they could have found another way.

Samantha Delaney came to mind. Despite their rocky beginnings, he felt as though he’d missed something special in her, another possibility now lost.

In a different lifetime perhaps…

He rocked the slide back, leaving the pistol’s hammer cocked and said to himself, “I won’t let myself go insane. That leaves me only one option.”

Reaching up to his shoulder, he snapped on his emergency transponder.

Leif stepped into the command tent and found Captain Donovan sitting on a storage container beside Commander Holloway.

“You asked to see me?” Leif asked.

“Where’s Zack?” Captain Donovan asked with irritation.

“I don’t know,” Leif said. “Shall we wait for her?”

Donovan nodded as though he couldn’t be bothered to waste words on Leif and pointed to a container.

Leif contemplated not sitting. He felt sure Donovan was about to usurp everything his father had put into place. Deciding the moment to fight back had yet to come, he sat and waited.

In a few moments Stacy came in, eyes narrowed and jaw tight. She squared on Donovan and asked, “What the hell’s going on?”

“Commander,” Donovan said in a tone which weighed her rank against his, “you will be seated. The nature of this meeting will be discussed when all parties are present.”

Stacy did not move. “Whom are we waiting for?”

“Zack,” Donovan said, pointing to the crate beside Leif, “sit down, or I will have you put in your seat.”

President Delaney came in.

“Good,” Donovan said as he stood. He indicated where he would like Delaney to sit, and she did so.

“Thank you all for coming. I’ve asked each of you to be here because you all have specific interests.” He looked to Leif. “Holt, you hold the reigns of the Hammerhead program, which we all agree is a critical part of our plans. Zack, you are the highest ranking officer for guerilla warfare in our group,” He turned to
Samantha, “You are our representative of the United States government.”

“I’m a bit more than just a representative,” Samantha said.

“A politician in a time of war…” He shrugged, not finishing the thought.

Samantha leaned forward, “I’m
not sure how I feel about your tone.”

Donovan gave an easy smile as he held up a hand. “There’s no need for argument. All will be clear in a moment.”

At that Leif felt any slight glimmer of hope fade into darkness. This would go down the hard way.

“I’ve gathered you here to ensure we are on the same page.”

Stacy asked, “And which page is that?”

“I’ve considered the current situation, new forces having arrived, possible other forces available, and Admiral Holt lost… presumed dead.”

“We’ve made no such assumption,” Leif said.

“Your father instructed us to make that assumption for those who did not return. But I understand why you’d hold onto hope. That’s precisely why those who are too close to an individual cannot be trusted to make good decisions, and you,” he pointed to Leif, “the son, and you,” he pointed to Stacy, “the daughter by proxy,” he pointed to Samantha, “and you—”

“What is the point,” Samantha cut him off, “you are doing such a poor job of getting to
Captain
?”

“You are all too close to him. You’ve bought into his plan
too fully.”

“It’s a sound plan,” Stacy said, “and if you’ll recall it was
my
plan.”

Leif nodded.

“In our opinion,” he indicated Holloway, whose expression remained hard as her eyes met Leif’s, “that plan is no longer our best option. We need a fresh approach. You,” he pointed to Leif, “will continue modifying pilots.” He spoke as though he’d given Leif a magnanimous gift.

“If we aren’t moving forward with the singularity warheads,” Samantha asked, “What do you propose we do?”

“We’ll use the Lakota we have to seek out more military forces. When we have enough to form a full division, we’ll begin an all-out attack on one Sthenos installation at a time.”

Disgusted, Stacy slapped her hands on her thighs. “A war of attrition.” She jabbed herself in the forehead with her index finger. “You’ve
gotta get that big-war bullshit out of your head.”

“Watch your tone Commander.”

“I’ll watch you get your ass beaten down before I let you run this into the ground. All you know is macro warfare. You’re a fleet commander, and you,” she said to Holloway, “what the hell are you doing backing this shit? You’ve already seen where it’ll get us. Neither of you can think small enough to know how this needs to work. The Sthenos out tech us and now out mechanize us a thousand to one.”

“I disagree,” Donovan said. “I think—”

Stacy interrupted. “Do you disagree that the last time we went head-to-head we got slapped across the ass hard enough to leave a mark?”

Samantha laughed at that.

Donovan eyes narrowed as he opened his mouth to speak, but Samantha held up a hand.

“As the president of the United States, I am the commander in chief of the military forces. While I appreciate your thoughts Donovan, we are going to move forward with Admiral Holt’s plan.”

Donovan yelled now, spittle flying from his reddening lips, “We will do
no
such thing. I refuse to recognize you as having any authority in this matter.”

“Are you,” Samantha asked, her tone calm, “refusing to obey your chain of command set forth by United States law?”

Donovan said through his teeth, “There is no more
United States
.”

Leif saw doubt creep into Holloway’s expression.

Stacy stood. “If there’s no U.S. then there is no chain of command for me either.”

“Stand down Zack,” Donovan said.

She stepped forward. “On who’s authority?”

Leif had had enough. He drew his father’s Colt 1911 from his cargo pocket, ratcheted the slide, and leveled it on Donovan. “That’s enough.”

All eyes turned to him.

Stacy’s eyes went a bit wide with surprise as she moved to the side.

Donovan said, “This is—”

“What?” Leif asked him, “Treason? You just refused a direct order from the president.”

Donovan stood, a vein rising on his forehead. “Who do you think they’ll follow? Power isn’t based on a piece of paper or a gun, it’s based on who they’ll obey. You think that’s going to be a technician who spent a soft four Army years at an electronics station?”

“So when my team doesn’t follow you, and the Lakota pilots don’t follow you,” Stacy said, “you’ll be creating a fracture that might lead to internal war.”

“If it takes that, yes, but it will be you and yours creating the facture.”

“Excuse me,” Leif said. “I’m the guy with the gun.”

“I don’t care if you have a—”

Leif yelled now, his voice finding its power and roots to his father. “You will when I label you a traitor and execute you. Now I want to know one thing right now, and know it fast.” He looked to Holloway. “Where do you stand? Are you going to listen to the president? Or are you going to side with Donovan?”

Donovan looked to Holloway.

Holloway’s jaw worked as her fingers gripped her knees. “This is a real problem.” She looked at Donovan. “I’ve known you a long time and trust you. However, I’ve sworn an oath to support my country and obey the president.”

“She is
not
the president,” Donovan said. “She’s just a skirt who thinks she’s stepped into the game.”

“Just a skirt?” Stacy said as though she couldn’t believe she’d heard it.

Samantha said, with a nod to Stacy, “I never wear skirts.”

Donovan gave a dismissive laugh, “Look—”

Stacy cut him off. “Donovan, I’ll make you an offer. You kick my ass, and I’ll give you airtime.”

“Stacy,” Leif said and twitched the gun as if to remind her that he had the situation in hand. When Stacy looked away from Donovan, he grabbed her. As he wrapped his arm around her, he drew his own side-arm.

Stacy said, “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

Popping both arms outward and her hips backward, she bumped Donovan’s hold on her and fell straight down onto her back, curling her legs up to her chest. As Donovan’s gun tracked downward, Stacy planted her left boot between his legs hard enough to lift him off the ground.

As Donovan doubled over, Stacy slammed her right boot into his face. He flipped backwards, his gun firing wild, and landed with his arms and legs askew.

Jumping up, Stacy picked up Donovan’s gun.

“Oh my God,” Holloway said, her eyes wide. She ran at Leif. Leif centered the gun on her, but it wasn’t aggression he saw in her yes. It was fear. She shoved past him.

He turned to find Samantha
on her back, her legs draped over the container she’d been sitting on.

Crouching down beside her, Holloway shouted at Leif, “Give me your shirt.”

Leif stared at her hand, which was pressed over Samantha’s neck, blood coursing through her fingers.

“Dammit Leif. I’ve got to stop the bleeding or she’s going to die. Give me your damn shirt.”

Leif tried to take off his shirt, but realized he still held the gun. He pocketed it, ripped his shirt over his head, and held it out to Holloway.

“Fold it up.”

Folding it, he gave it to Holloway, who pressed it to Samantha’s neck. Samantha’s eyes searched the roof of the tent with a scowl as though she couldn’t quite understand what she was looking at.

Behind him, Stacy had Donovan face-down, groaning as she tied his hands behind his back.

“Leif,” Holloway said.

Leif looked back to her.

“Get Dr. Monti.”

He nodded and leapt over a container. The tent flap pushed inward, and he had to slide to a stop as Whitetip stuck her head in.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “but…” she trailed off as she looked at Holloway, hands and forearms covered in blood, the president laying beside her, paling.

“Holy shit,” Whitetip said, her eyes going wide. “We heard a gunshot, but…”

“I need that doctor,” Holloway said in a growl.

Whitetip nodded and said, “We just picked up Admiral Holt’s emergency transponder in the Gulf of Mexico.”