Tailspin, page 43
“It kind of just happened. I wasn’t expecting to get the offer, but I did. Don’t get me wrong, I love it here. It wasn’t what I thought I was meant for, though.”
That made me smile. “What did you think you were meant for?”
“General scrubber, machine operator. Like most of us in the lower city. I was lucky when someone fell ill on a job. They needed a second person to watch their back and the controls.”
“That fell to you?”
“Someone needed to,” he said.
“Then you fell in love?”
“It was a whole other world being up this side instead of below or in the back, yes. I was hooked and asked for the transfer straight away.”
I scanned my readouts. That wind was up another notch.
“It can be tough out here this time of year,” Aden said. “Justin wouldn’t take us out without proper preparation.”
“Good to know,” I said. I still didn’t relax. If I had under-compensated for anything, my math would be out the window, and I was concerned about our now-dwindling fuel tanks.
“How much gear do they actually have?” I asked him.
“Enough for some days out in the fields.”
“I didn’t think I was off, but this fuel’s dropping faster than I’d like.”
He leaned over to see. “Seems on track for us. We’ll be fine.”
I was not, however, feeling fine, and by the time North Defense came into our sights, I was more than worried. “Red7,” I said across comms. “We need fuel here, now.”
“Keep flying, Ice71,” came his reply. “We do not have permission to stop with full cargo.”
On the inside, I cursed. That only meant they didn’t have permission for the weaponized soldiers I knew were behind me.
North Defense came into view, and my instincts were screaming at me. I only knew of one other fuel stop we could use, and it was a last resort.
“Red7,” I comm’d across again. “Changing trajectory. I suggest you follow me if you want to land in one piece and get back in the air.”
I didn’t hesitate. I knew the path he’d given me would take us too far out. This way would veer close to the dam’s security network, and honestly, I didn’t know how close I was to it, or was I over it? Would the shield stop me dead once again? Without knowing Aden’s capabilities, this was a possibility. I hoped with Apex offline, I was okay…but we couldn’t risk the coast. Not now, with even less fuel. This way—this way would ensure we had a much better chance.
“Ice71, do not deviate,” came Justin’s reply.
Aden looked at me, and one of the men from behind came forward. He tapped the side of his head. “Everything okay?” he asked to my surprise through my helmet’s comms. I guess that meant his tech wasn’t switched off, just mine. A test…yep. His sharp eyes blinked out from behind his full-face mask, concerned of course.
“No,” I replied. “It is not. It’s going to be a slight detour to help conserve fuel.”
“You can’t detour,” he said. “Flight—”
I held up my hand. “Look, I don’t know any of you, but believe me when I say I know my shit. Stick to your own.”
The two men traded glances, but the soldier backed down and I heard his terse words to those behind. “Weapons hot. Watch the skies.”
I swallowed and kept my own eyes on those skies. I knew full well what was out there. I’d been up close and personal with them. Right now, though, they’d be tucking up in nests. At least, I hoped they would be.
“Contact,” someone shouted out the back.
“Fuck,” Aden cursed to my right.
“Don’t panic,” I told him, holding his eyes with mine. “Trust them and me.”
“Fuckin’ skellies,” Justin said over comms. “You knew this. You put us all at risk!”
“They’ll pass.”
The helicopter shifted, and I struggled to compensate for the weight. We were not meant for this, no matter what they said. We were overloaded by a mile. No wonder the fuel was dropping as it was.
“Hold your course,” I said and did exactly that. I held the cyclic nice and steady. Kept our RPM and speed at a hundred knots.
I knew where I was. Even in the growing darkness, the sun bounced off things I recognized. The way the land dipped, the way trees swept to the right, were familiar to me. I followed them like Malaki and I had the other day. We were not over the water this time though. We were far to its left, with more ocean than the side.
This had to be a test, a fucking shit test, but a test all the same.
Calm, I said to myself. Think.
“Do you plan on crossing the dam or over the base itself?” Justin asked.
I tried to remember, to picture the base in my mind as it had looked yesterday while Malaki pulled the best autorotation saves going out of her ass. I had caught several views of the back end of the base. I had to hope I recalled it correctly. “No, we’re heading right on past.”
“You do realize they have security at the back of the base, too,” Aden said.
“Oh, I’m more than aware of what they have there,” I said. “They’ll also be more than aware we’re already in their airspace and deviating off any plan Justin had in mind.”
He side-eyed me, but also didn’t say anything else.
In the darkness ahead, I saw something glint. “There’s the fuel station.” One of the men in the back said, “Between base camp sixteen and seventeen. It’s not usually on any flight maps. It’s meant for…”
“For people like us. In the shit.”
Justin didn’t say anything but the team behind me was. Justin would be in a whole heap of trouble for not spotting this earlier. Or, had he been told not to? I cursed on the inside, this was the pits.
“Pilot Harbor made a bad call,” Aden said. “Glad you’re here to rectify it.”
“Let’s get these guys down and back to refuel first before you call anything.”
Aden nodded. “You’re taking them in first?”
“They’re our mission priority.”
A hand on my shoulder almost made me turn. “No, kid, you’re the priority. Without you, we wouldn’t be around. Take us in.”
“What if—”
“You take us down. We’ll deal with the rest,” the man said.
I nodded and slightly altered my course to head straight forward to where the base would be.
The closer we got, the darker it got. The night was truly setting in now, and my visibility was increasingly reduced.
“Contact!” I heard again from the back.
I kept my eyes on the goal. That freaking fueling station.
“Red7,” I said. “You’re down first. We’ll hold the air. Then repeat. Understood?”
Justin’s voice cracked when it came back. “Understood.”
I eased the Bumble 66 in and waited while he moved to land, but it had my stomach twisting. I turned to Aden. “Keep your eyes on those dials. Anything else shows up, and I don’t see it, for whatever reason, you call it.”
“Got it, I am your eyes.”
He was. He had to be. Justin was an expert when it came to flying, but his math—holy shit, he needed more training. His helo touched down, and the six people he had aboard jumped out and went straight to work on priming that fuel station. The lights lit up around it, and I heard someone else on comms. “DP Silao here, with Red7. Ice71. We’re taking in fuel now.” There was a slight pause. “Good call on the fuel. We would not have made it back.”
I kept my eyes on them and didn’t respond. The fact Justin’s DP had radioed me instead told me everything I needed to know; he had fucked up, and he knew it.
“Contact incoming,” a young woman said through my headset comms.
“Guns hot?” I asked. “If you get clear sights, fire.”
“How are we supposed to get clear sights?” someone else asked in my ears.
“Keep watching!” I said. “If you can, shoot!”
All went quiet, and time ticked by. That contact drew in closer but didn’t engage. Our gunners were safe for now.
“Full tanks,” DP Silao reported. “Loading up.”
The soldiers reboarded, and I waited for them to return to the same elevation as us. “Contact is staying outside the barriers,” I told them. “Watch, though. Just because they haven’t doesn’t mean they won’t.”
“Copy,” Silao replied.
“Justin?” I asked.
“Understood,” he replied.
I wondered if the DP had kicked his ass over his mistakes. I would have bet on it. Hence, he was being subdued.
“Taking her down,” I told them. “Ready?”
“Ready,” came in a chorus from the back.
I touched down with ease. The doors opened, and the fireteam was out in seconds. I did not like being on the ground here at all.
I looked at Aden, whose face was as pale as I felt, but he put his eyes back on the skies, and I did the same, for a moment at least. Then I turned back to the fuel tanks. “Something’s wrong,” I said and popped open my belt.
“You can’t leave!” Aden said.
“You got this. Keep an eye on those gauges—all of them.” I threw open the door, and a moment later was at the back of the helo. The loud sound of the helo’s engine roared in my ears and I covered my face against the rotor wash. I knew something was wrong, and I moved to the back.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Justin screamed at me.
I had no idea how I heard him! A moment later my HUD lit up. “No tech, you said,” I shouted back.
“You threw everything out of the water when you decided on a detour,” he spat back. “Might as well let them all know where we are now.”
I didn’t give him any more time. I cut off his direct comms to me.
Apex?
Here, he said. SITREP?
Refueling the Bumble. We’ve got a leak somewhere. Can you help me locate it?
Incoming skellies!
52
Send the details to the fireteam and Justin.
I felt my internal system working. The colors from the tech as it lit everything in my sights was just phenomenal.
Two incoming flights. Justin’s gunners can handle one, but the other is coming down.
Fuck. That meant eight skellies. We couldn’t handle that number. No way.
The engine and its components lit all in red around me as Apex also tracked our fuel from the tanks.
Bingo.
There it was…a drip. It might seem like a tiny drip, but it was more than enough at high pressure to drop our tanks fast.
What are you going to do? Apex asked.
Track it down. With a tug, I pulled down on one of the side flaps and opened up the side of the helo where I could get the best access. The stench of volatile chemicals hit me in the face, and I gagged. Fuck, one spark in here and we’d have gone up in smoke.
On my flight suit, I pulled off one thing I had seen Malaki put there weeks ago. A hair band. “I might need a spare,” I recalled her saying.
This, this spare, was going to have to do. I yanked it till it broke, tore off a piece of my uniform with my teeth, and then carefully threaded it around the short plastic fuel line where it dripped from.
“This should have been spotted before,” I said through to Justin. “I want to know who checked this for the flight before arriving. They need a fucking ass whooping.”
“I don’t know,” Justin said. “I just get the job locations and comply.”
“I guess you need to be more specific in the future,” I said and made sure the line didn’t drip anymore. “I’m not done. We will talk about this later.”
I focused back inside to Apex. Will it hold?
It will. Get back inside.
“What the fuck was that?” I shouted through comms as the ground shifted beneath me with a thunk.
I didn’t need to see the skellies land. I felt them.
“Don’t panic,” Justin said his voice calm, way too calm.
I tried to look out into the darkness, but I couldn’t see anything.
Screams erupted all around us, the pop-pop of gunfire. I ran back to the front of the helo, shielding my eyes as best I could. I didn’t need shit in them from the blades either.
I flung the door open, took one look at Aden. “Tanks full?” I asked.
“Tanks full. We can pull out.”
“Let’s go!” I screamed out into the dark at the soldiers.
Nothing. No answer, just gunfire and the monstrous shriek of something in the distance.
Apex, connect me to the soldiers comms net now. Now.
Connecting tactical net now.
“Pull out,” I ordered.
“We can’t,” someone screamed back at me. “We have skellies on all sides, and then…then that fucker!”
I couldn’t see what he meant but it was clear he wasn’t talking about a skellie. With nothing but darkness ahead, I focused my mind and tried to see. I couldn’t. The more I thought about the X16, the more I realized I needed it, and I needed it above the TAP. My head pounded with every beat of their rapid gunfire. We were being overrun.
“You pilot,” I said to Aden. “I’ll man one of the guns.”
“What? You even know how to shoot?”
“Get us the fuck in the air!” I watched as he started flight protocol, his hands shaking. “Now!” I shouted. “Fuck protocol!”
The Bumble lifted with such force I had to fasten my belts fast or risk falling. Pulling the guns forward, I let my X24 take the lead here. I settled my fingers around the trigger, the vibration of the helo thrumming through to my bones.
“Follow my instructions to the letter,” I said. “Fifty feet. No more, and bank left ten degrees.”
As my HUD managed to find some light ahead, I could see the monster clearer.
It…
That was one of the largest creatures I’d seen in my life. I mean, I’d not seen anything but a skellie so far. It towered about forty feet high, its thick back-hooved legs taking the weight of its massive torso. Four skinny arms tapered into hands with thick claws easily my size.
What entranced me the most were its eyes, six of them in the center of a stupidly tiny head. It had an overbite worse than one of my old street friends; its fangs protruded at odd angles. No such thing as a dentist for that thing. I shivered imagining it running at me. Almost like it was going to right now. My ass puckered, and I wanted a piss so badly. Skellies were scary enough. This thing was freaking me the fuck out.
It followed the helo’s movements. When its head turned, there were two flat ears and horns protruding out by either side. They must have been ten feet long, curling high into the skies.
I couldn’t stare at it any longer, “Forward steadily till I say,” I ordered Aden.
The helo’s nose dropped slightly, and we moved slowly.
“You’re going over their heads,” Aden said.
“Stay on course,” I replied. “You will bank left when I say, only then. Got it?”
“Y-yes,” he said
His hands shook, but as I hit the buttons to bring our guns online, so were mine. “Lining up, do not fucking move. Hold this line.”
We were heading over the soldiers’ heads and right for that abomination as it now stomped toward them.
As soon as I had range, I fired. The helo vomited fire in bursts. The whole aircraft vibrated so much my bones hurt.
“Keep firing,” someone shouted at me.
I wasn’t letting go till I saw that piece of shit fall.
It didn’t fall; it turned its eyes on us instead. The molten lead shooting out of both sides of our aircraft cut it so badly I could see the red splurging from its neck. It opened its mouth. Was it going to fire on us?
“Bank left, now!”
As our Bumble banked, the creature let out a bellow of fire towards us. Aden was yanking the cyclic with everything he had.
The splutter of fire stopped short, though, and while the earth hurtled towards us, the creature’s head slid from its body and fell with a sickening squelch. I let go of the guns unbuckling myself fast as the ground sped towards us.
Aden had frozen. Forcing my legs to push myself to my seat. I grabbed for the cyclic on my side, switching control over to me. With speed but great care, I eased us back up and straightened us out. Nothing but dark skies lay ahead, and I let out a breath, sucking in air I desperately needed.
The weapon’s fire from the ground ceased, and a voice panted at me through comms. “Ready to load, now!”
I dropped our airspeed and deftly settled us down on the ground. There we waited while the men loaded up. A moment later, everyone was on board, safe, and I was lifting us into the sky.
“Keep your eyes on the sky,” I said. “Don’t let up. We’re not out of the woods yet.”
Aden turned his eyes to the sky, and the others in the back did what they could.
“Silao,” I said. “Keep close. We aren’t far off the drop now. Get in, down, and back out.”
“We need a rest.”
“We’ll rest when these men are down, and we are back in Sector Two, got it?”
“Yes, sir,” Silao replied, a little too formal. I wasn’t his command. The fact was though he’d taken over from Justin, and that meant something, at least to me.
I led us in, down, and then back out again.
“Let me take it,” Aden said. “You don’t look so good. Headache?”
“How’d you know?”
“Been around many a young pilot. Some suffer more than others.”
I clicked the control back over to him. “Just for a bit,” I said.
“Don’t worry,” he replied, his hands soft on the cyclic. “Rest.”
My head, the headache, a pounding eight, almost a nine on the scale. I was only letting Aden take over for a bit to rest my eyes.
“I’ve got this seriously,” Aden said a while later as he spotted me checking on him. “For a while you clearly need rest, reach in the back. There’s a kit. Take the water out. It’s not just water. It’s got extra relief in.”
“Pain relief?”
“Yes, as I said most pilots suffer from headaches. It will help. Trust me.”
“For this, I do.”
He lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry. There will be a full investigation on who checked the lines today. Don’t worry. This should not have happened.”
