'Hold on…activating counter measures. Chaff away!'
A burst of radar-inhibiting particles dropped from Eagle One's undercarriage, fooling the first of the incoming missiles. It veered away, eventually landing in a long-abandoned coastal neighborhood.
Nina slipped on the duplicate pair of navigation goggles to follow the action. The view astounded her: she saw a night-vision enhanced image of the space in front of the Eagle and, as she turned her head, saw the area all around, including the glint of fire coming from two more inbound missiles.
A symbol on the goggles' display blinked 'heat defeat' as Hauser activated another counter-measure. Flares fell from the craft, pulling the heat seeker into the water below as the New Jersey coastline faded behind. One more… Nina saw the missile zoom closer…closer. The warning chimes blared. Hauser grunted. More chaff. More countermeasures. BAM!
The Eagle rocked side to side as the warhead hit high on the spine of the ship throwing Nina from her chair. Her goggles fell off. She saw a thunderstorm of sparks and electrical bolts engulf the pilot's side. Flames shot out from the side panels. Hauser slumped in his restraints.
She scrambled over, pulled an emergency fire extinguisher, and doused flames. Then she shook his body while also feeling for a pulse, which she found, but Hauser remained unconscious.
Nina sat on her knees on the grating between the two seats. Beyond the thin windshield she saw only darkness as the fast-moving craft began to descend toward the harsh waters of the Atlantic. The Eagle would be torn to pieces on impact.
She gazed at the empty co-pilot's chair. The controls there appeared undamaged. But who would fly the ship?
I will.
Her palms grew sweaty; her heart beat hard as adrenaline pumped into her veins.
Nina cautiously returned to the chair, unsure of how or why she felt she could conjure such a miracle. Yet as she fixed the goggles over her head…as she gazed at the control panel and took hold of the sticks on either arm of the chair…things appeared, just a little, familiar.
For the first few seconds she gently maneuvered the pistol-grip sticks. Her feet worked the pedals to stabilize altitude. Each action rocked the craft clumsily, but the ship did steady.
How can I do this? This is not possible!
She gauged at the altimeter: fifty feet, practically skimming the Atlantic, certainly under the radar net cast by the pursuing Chrysaor. No doubt that dreadnought would soon launch fighters for a detailed search.
Still, Nina faced more immediate concerns. She managed to steady the transport and keep it on course, but could she change that course? If not they would be easy to find, regardless of darkness or altitude.
With full fuel tanks range would not be a problem, but where to go? And they had to go somewhere. While the damage from the missile strike appeared contained, Gordon required medical attention that would not attract Internal Security.
She first thought of Shep. The Southern Command Headquarters lay to the southwest of their position. She could fly them across Delaware Bay and be there in a short time. With Ashley's testimony No.
That's the first place they would look. Ashley would not have the opportunity to testify before the public, a judge, the press, or whatever. Nina doubted they could make it into Annapolis air space. The conspiracy surrounding the apparent assassination of Trevor Stone stretched from the new President to the aliens known as The Order and throughout the Internal Security apparatus. Such a conspiracy had the means to defend itself. She envisioned mobile Internal Security Anti-Air batteries sent to the Highland Beach coast with orders to shoot any incoming transports on sight. If that were not enough, certainly Captain Kaufman would order her jets to sweep the area between the Eagle's last known position and the coast.
Her head swirled, not from the enhanced night vision of the goggles but from the scope of the task before her. Ashley's son kidnapped, Gordon Knox dying, and Trevor Stone…alive?
Maybe.
They needed to hide where Gordon could be looked after and where she could contact people who could expose the conspirators and knock Evan Godfrey from his perch.
Nina pulled off the goggles and consulted a small monitor screen displaying an electronic map. Her hands and feet wobbled but held the craft on course a few meters above the ocean. Rain drops splashed on the windshield that seemed pointed at a wall of black.
She scanned the map and considered. As she reached a conclusion, the bulkhead to the cockpit slid open and Ashley walked in. The first lady of The Empire rushed to Hauser. 'What hit us?' 'A missile.' Hauser stirred. 'Rich looks like he'll be okay,' Ashley said. 'But Gordon needs help, fast.' 'I know.' Ashley knelt alongside Nina in the co- pilot's chair. 'How long have you been flying these?' Nina said, 'As far as I know, today is the first time.' Ashley’s eyes bulged. Nina went on, 'I've thought of somewhere for us to go; someone for us to meet up with.' 'Can you trust this person?'
Nina thought about the days she had spent fighting the Hivvans in North Carolina. She thought about Mutants taking hostages, about clearing Wilmington at the head of a massive Hunter-Killer team, and about meeting Denise for the first time. She thought about other things, too. Things that once held promise only to turn to disappointment.
'I hope so.'
– Dawn came but with no fanfare; a ceiling of gray clouds remained stuck overhead in a gloomy quilt, turning the sun from bright to dull like light hidden behind curtains. The rain still fell but with little enthusiasm; nothing more than a soft drizzle sprinkling into puddles remaining from the night's more impressive downpours.
Jim Brock crossed the living room of his small home, careful not to wake the sleeping baby in the first bedroom or the teenager in the second.
His biological clock did not allow him to sleep in, not on a day that promised a lot of activity. The Wrightsville Beach Community Club had scheduled a cleanup along the south beaches in the morning and Jim planned to attend a luncheon of 'Concerned Citizens' to discuss the changing political landscape and, of course, to celebrate the end of the war.
On top of that came the needs of an eight-month-old daughter as well as a fourteen-year-old boy, and Jim had promised his wife a Friday night break from diaper changes so she could attend practice with the newly formed Wilmington Oratorio Society.
As hectic as his scheduled sounded it did qualify as a 'normal life,' the idea of which once seemed a fantasy in a world where aliens occupied most of the globe, monsters lurked in the swamps to the south, and where a young man had crowned himself Emperor and sent his armies marching off to re-conquer the world.
Brock had often told his day care kids in the old world and his students in the new one that two wrongs did not make a right. That and the usual, ‘the ends do not justify the means.'
Thoughts of Emperors and Empires drifted through his mind as he examined the front page of the North Carolina Reporter. He read the Reporter and not the Wilmington News because he found the latter to be far too militaristic.
Brock shook his head in disappointment as he sipped hot tea at the breakfast counter and glanced over the stories on the front page.
FUGITIVES AT LARGE; REWARD OFFERED. SECRETARY'S DEATH LINKED TO DISGRUNTLED MILITARY AND INTELLIGENCE OPERATIVES. PRESIDENT ASSURES NATION SECURE. FINANCIAL MARKETS WAVER IN CONCERN OVER POLITICAL STABILITY.
'Some people just don't know how to live without war,' he thought between sips.
A series of soft thuds interrupted his musings over headlines, politics, and conspiracies. He realized those thuds came from his front door. Knocks, actually.
Brock set his mug on the counter top and gazed at the door curiously. He knew the people of Wrightsville Beach liked to attack the day early, but so soon after dawn?
Nonetheless, he stepped from the kitchen, crossed the living room, and opened the front door. Outside, the rain splashed intermittently on the long sidewalk curving through a landscaped lawn with a stone garden and a small but well-trimmed dogwood tree.
In his doorway stood a woman covered in drizzle, her curly blond hair matted flat and a waterlogged ponytail drooping behind to her shoulder blades. She wore a soldier's uniform and carried a rifle.
The sound of a visitor stirred Jim's wife awake. The petite brunette drifted into the living room tying a powder
