Kendra climbed, looking out for the formations of troops and supporting gunships, and flew over them before setting a course for the house. She turned on the comms and listened in on what was going on, then keyed up her mic and said, “Franklin, you still need a ride to the house?”
“Sure,” his voice came back, “If you don’t have anything better to do. You got my position?”
“Yeah, but it looks like you’re not far away from their formations. How does it look?”
“They’re about a mile to the west of me. So far they haven’t taken any notice.”
“Okay, I’m going to come in from the east, We’ll have to move fast.”
“I’ll watch for you.”
“Who was that?” Shawna asked.
“A friend. We have to stop and pick him up on the way.”
31
Franklin bounded up the ramp, noticed the two other people sitting behind the cockpit, and stuck out his hand.
“Hi, I’m Franklin, Kendra’s friend.”
The other man took his hand and smiled.
“I’m Moses, Kendra’s father.”
“Nice to meet you, sir,” and turning to Shawna, “You must be her mother. The resemblance is obvious.”
“Yes, I’m Shawna, and I think I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You good flying us back?” Franklin yelled up toward the cockpit.
“Just strap in and hold on. I got us this far,” Kendra yelled back.
“So, are you the guy she’s been hanging out with?” Moses asked.
“Yeah...guess you could say that.”
“Anything more than just hanging out?”
“Uh...not really.”
“Honey, is this the time for that? The poor boy would be blushing if he wasn’t black,” Shawna said.
“She’s my daughter. Just looking after her interests.”
“We’ve behaved, sir, just going to the gym and shooting hoops, mostly.”
“Shooting hoops, and getting involved with alien stuff, looks like it.”
“Well, that just kind of happened, ever since I met Walter.”
“Walter’s an alien?”
“Oh no, he’s just a normal dude, a little cranky sometimes. That’s how he got his powers. An alien zapped him by accident and now he’s like Superman or something.”
“Great, so you hang out with Walter and Walter gets involved with aliens, and now my daughter is flying this contraption.”
“There’s a bit more to it than that, but yeah...we’ll fill you in completely when we get to the house.”
“The house?”
“Yeah, the good alien lady has this house, or had...she died. Anyway, there are a couple bad dudes trying to take over the earth and there was this nice lady who was against them. The bad ones killed her and now there are a few of us at the house using the ships she had stored there to try to stop the bad aliens. And we have Walter on our side.”
“Okay, that’s a bit hard to wrap my head around. If I wasn’t sitting in this thing right now.”
“Seems like a bit much, but you saw what we’re up against.”
“I saw them on TV. How many people do you have with you?”
“Not counting Walter, twenty.”
“Twenty people and an old superhero against thousands with the fate of the world at stake. This sounds like a comic book.”
“You all strapped in? I think I’ve lost them and I’m headed down to the house,” Kendra yelled from the cockpit.
Five minutes later, they were in the house and Kendra was back on the computer, checking in on the others. She was only getting scattered communication, but some of what she caught between the static indicated that they were coming back after having no success. They showed up in three groups, in only three ships. When everyone came in from the hangar, Kendra looked across the group and shook her head.
“Is this everyone?” she asked.
“Everyone that made it,” Morrison said, “We lost Reynolds and Kingsley.”
“Lost them?”
“Yeah, they’re gone. It happened so fast. Reynolds must have already been damaged because one of those gunships blew him up in one shot, shields and all. He never had a chance. Kingsley...he got out and his pod took a direct hit. There was nothing left. We couldn’t touch those ships. Never even made a dent in the shields. Lost every ship but the three we came back in, and those are barely holding together.”
“Great, two dead, our fighters out of action...what other kind of ships are down in that hangar?” Franklin asked.
“Just transports, and they’re not armed. Can’t see what good those will do us,” Kendra said.
“So, what does that leave us now?” Curtis asked.
Walter stood up, clenching and unclenching his fists.
“You still have me.”
Cat Mixon was getting bored. Anything she wanted to rob was hers for the taking, and Walter didn’t even seem to be trying to stop her. She remembered what he said about the threat they were facing, and she remembered the video he had given her. It sure looked convincing, but what if he was just trying to stop her? She had hit a few more bank vaults, taken a few high priced museum exhibits, and was now on the way back to her warehouse with an armored car. She would wait until she got there to crack it open and see what was inside.
She didn’t think she would get bored, but she was. The challenge was gone, and she had more cash on hand than she could ever spend in a lifetime. Well, maybe not, depending on how high she set her sights. She could always buy off some politicians, go after some real power like she had heard about others doing back in the day, back when a gangster could have a whole city in his back pocket. Yeah, that sounded good, but who was she fooling? She had power, real power, and now she was bored. As she neared the city, she flew over the formations of mechanized soldiers and gunships and did a double take. Was this part of the threat Walter had warned her about?
She dropped the armored car and flew as fast as she could back to her warehouse and entered the basement. She found two of her people standing by a television, transfixed by the images on the
