SECTOR 64: Ambush (23 page)

Outside, the airport's runway started to come into alignment. Being careful not to slosh the tanks and risk an early flame out, she started a smooth left turn. "San Francisco Tower and any traffic in the area, Air Force Seven-Niner-Zero-Papa is turning left base to final for Runway One-Nine-Left, over."

Suddenly her fighter's engine noise halved as blossoming red and yellow lights and screaming horns announced the obvious. Her number one engine had flamed-out.

"Oh crap!"

Looking at her last engine's empty fuel gauge, she was reminded of an ancient aviation axiom: An airplane can fly over gross, it'll even fly out of center of gravity limits, but it can't fly without fuel
.

Not for long, anyway.

As the bay waters scrolled under her fighter, the runway slid into alignment. Sandy breathed a sigh of relief. From this position and altitude, she could glide to a landing if needed. She eyed the landing gear lever. Dropping the gear would decrease that glide distance. With so little margin for error, she was loath to extend them just yet. With one engine running, she could still lower them with the utility hydraulics. However, if the second engine flamed out, she would have to activate the emergency blow-down lever.

A new light yanked Sandy from her internal debate. Dead ahead, in the bay waters between her fighter and the runway, a flame flickered to life. In the fire's rapidly growing light, she discerned the aft half of a large jet protruding from the waves. A wing, cracked open midspan like a leg bent at the knee, jutted from the left side of the fuselage. Lightning fast, the fire spread from the jet's right side to its left. Then a blinding roiling fireball exploded from the airplane.

Sandy yanked her fighter hard left, narrowly avoiding the hellish conflagration. The horrible silence of a second engine flameout rewarded her efforts. Passing the expanding fireball, but now out of alignment with the runway environment, she set her flaps for max glide distance. Uttering a short prayer, she fingered the ejection handle. Reconsidering, she released it and gripped the fighter's control stick with one hand and the landing gear lever with the other.

"I'm not done with you yet!"

Passing over the seawall and panting, she watched the runway's near left side slowly slide toward her fighter while the ground grew closer. Her breath hitched as, directly in her flightpath, twisted wreckage of two airplanes loomed out of the darkness.

"Oh shit!" She yanked the control stick left and slammed the emergency landing gear actuator. Three squibs detonated. Their report and the high pitched whistle of streaming compressed air along with the mechanical actions of the gear was uncharacteristically loud against the deafening silence of the dead engines.

Only a few short feet separated her fighter's belly and the airport's sod. Just as the near edge of the runway's left side rolled under her F-22, the two main landing gear indicator lights shifted from red to green. She rolled wings level, and the rear two wheels barked in protest of a rough landing.

Roaring down the runway at incredible speed, Sandy held the nose of the fighter off the ground, buying time for the aircraft's longest landing gear strut to complete its extension. She looked at its indicator light. The bulb formed the top of a triangle of three. Fortunately, the main gear's lower two lights remained solid green. However, indicating it had not reached the lock-detent, the nose gear light stubbornly remained red.

"Come on!"

Losing speed, the aircraft's nose started falling. Futilely pulling against the aft control stop with all her might, Sandra tried to hold it off the runway. However, the tail was in full stall. The drop accelerated. She cringed in anticipation of the gear's imminent collapse. Falling from the unusually nose-high attitude, the gear slammed into the runway with a loud jolting crash. To Sandy's amazement, it held, the indicator shifting to green.

Miraculously, the fighter was directly over and in line with the runway's centerline lights. However, they were still flashing by too fast. Like a meth-fueled Pac-Man, the fighter's pointed nose gobbled up the streaming luminous dots. Sandy deployed the fighter's emergency drogue chute. The runway's edge lights were already red. Less than two thousand feet remained.

Looking ahead, she sought the thousand-foot marker, the section where the alternating red and white centerline lights also shifted to solid red. However, they weren't there. The lights appeared to come to an abrupt end at a rapidly closing point. With renewed horror, she realized the background stars and clouds were being blotted out by the looming nose of a giant aircraft parked over the far end of the runway.

Captain Fitzpatrick jammed in full right pedal, but the fighter didn't respond. Inexorably, it persisted on its collision course with the huge airplane.

"Shit!" Realizing the problem, she smacked the drogue chute's jettison lever. Released from the device's inline drag, the fighter shot diagonally off the runway, narrowly avoiding the double-decker Airbus A-380. Its nose gear and then its left engine passed just off her left wing.

The last of her momentum carried her across a strip of sod and fortuitously onto a section of tarmac. Pressing the toe brakes with all her might, she finally brought the F-22 to a full stop, nose to nose with a stationary Learjet.

"Holy shit!"

Following the weapon's deployment, Commodore Salyth scanned the displayed surface images, verifying the weapon's effect. The results mirrored those seen during the test against the Argonian refugees. Exposing dripping fangs, a dark grin spread across his face.
Lord Thrakst will elevate me above all others
.

On his command console, he watched the planet's radio traffic spike as panicked communiqué raced to every corner of the globe. "These Argonians are sniffing their fate," he gloated.

Yanking him from his exultations, the weapons officer yelled across the bridge. "Commodore Salyth! We have several ships inbound from port!"

"Don't bother me with trivial intelligence, idiot. Just destroy them!"

"But, Commodore, they have the maneuvering profile of Argonian ships—"

Cutting off the officer, Salyth gesticulated toward the main display. "They're all Argonians!"

The weapons officer opened his mouth to speak.

Salyth's temper flared. Blood boiling, he closed on the obstinate officer. Towering over the hatchling, he placed a razor-sharp forearm talon against his neck.

To his surprise, the officer stood his ground. Slowly extending an arm, he pointed toward his display. "
Galactic Defense Force
Argonian ships, Commodore."

Salyth froze.

The officer continued. "Their trajectory originated from the surface."

After a moment, Salyth allowed his talon to slide into its recess. With a final glare at the officer, he turned to face the front of the bridge. "Put them on the main display!"

Without the commodore's attention, the monitor had returned to its default. It now showed an image of the bay waters ahead of the ship. The weapons officer changed the feed, and it morphed into a formation of eight fighters as they approached from the left side.

Studying the unexpected ships, Salyth stepped closer to the display. There was nothing Argonian in their appearance. "Those are not Galactic Defense Force ships," he growled at the officer. "They're on straight-line trajectories! I see nothing to ind—"

Salyth cutoff mid-word. In an instant, all of the ships changed heading, shooting into eight separate vectors.

"Battle stations!" Salyth roared. He turned and ran to his command post. "How long until the weapon is charged and ready to deploy?"

"Thirty-eight zyxn, Commodore."

"We don't have time for that," he roared. "Engage them now!"

"Lord, the build-up of the weapon's quantum field can't be rushed. I can't fire it now. It won't—"

"Curse the gods!" Salyth roared. He blazed across the bridge. His steel reinforced talons gripped the floor's stony surface leaving a flurry of sparks in his wake. A ferocious blow sent his weapons officer flying across the room. A wet smack echoed through the cavernous bridge as his partially decapitated lifeless body crumpled against the far wall.

Standing over the weapons console, he activated the hull mounted defense systems. Eight energy beams shot out, one for each ship. Salyth's dread grew tenfold. As he'd feared, each ship instantly repositioned out of the beam's path. Their movement was so fast, it looked like the small ships disappeared from one spot, and reappeared in another—a ghostly blur, the only evidence of the transition.

The form of the ships confused him. They obviously weren't Argonian, but somehow these humans had mastered the same inertial control that had eluded Zoxyth for untold millennia.

"These devolved Argonians will not block my ascension!" he growled.

Activating all weapons, Salyth sent a barrage of beams at the enemy ships.

Feeling the pressure of their rapid descent, Jake pinched his nose and popped his ears. The elevator chimed and slowed. With a final lurch, it came to a stop at the bottom of the deep shaft. The doors slid open and revealed the familiar stainless steel trimmed onyx walls decorating Space Control's deep underground entrance.

Jake felt his last shred of hope evaporate. A pile of clothes and a discarded weapon lay where the guard should have been. Checking Victor, he was thankful to see the young lieutenant successfully fending off the dread hovering just behind his eyes.

Reaching the vacated guard station, Richard activated the security panel. It still worked just as the one aboveground had. Once they passed the computer's security checks, the door opened, affording them their first glimpse into Space Control.

They silently walked into the large room. Jake wished everyone would pop out of their hiding places and shout:
Surprise
! Instead, he saw a broken coffee cup in the middle of the floor next to another pile of clothes. An unfinished email was visible on a computer near them. Empty shirtsleeves lay strewn across its keyboard.

"Oh shit," Vic said, looking at the far wall's large monitors.

A separate monstrous alien ship filled each display.

"They must've set the satellites up to track them automatically," Richard said.

Jake nodded. He counted six unique enemy ships. Four of them hovered over major cities while the other two glided across the surface, one over water while the other traversed a mountainous area. With compounding dread, he wondered what the other ten ships were up to.

Richard pointed at the alien ship on the top right monitor. "That looks like Paris,"

"Yeah, that's the Arc de Triomphe on the right," Jake said.

"Look," Victor said excitedly. "Cars are still moving—" He broke off with a choked scream as a sphere of light blossomed from the hideous ship. Racing across the surface, it quickly filled the satellite's field of view.

"Oh god," Richard said.

Jake felt his heart sink.

As if trying to hold himself together, Vic wrapped his arms around his own shoulders. His eyes unfocused, he kept repeating the same words. "Oh god. Oh god…"

Knowing they needed something to focus on other than the televised hell filling Space Control's walls, Jake moved to stand between his wingmen and the monitors. Placing a hand on Vic's shoulder, he tried to shake the young officer out of his catatonic state. "Listen, guys. Let's get out of here."

Richard tore his eyes from the displays. After a moment, he nodded.

Jake nudged Victor again. Sluggishly, he focused his eyes and also nodded.

"We have to figure out the weapon's range. Whoever is left in charge will need to know where to send aid. We need to know how far it went and what happened to the victims not at the epicenter. Maybe people were just incapacitated farther out." Jake pointed around the room. "This weapon isn't stopped by soil or rock, but we don't know what happens to it over distances."

Something on one of the displays drew Richard's attention.

Jake turned to see what had distracted him.

Richard pointed at the top left monitor. "Look at the ship over the water. It must be the one that attacked DC. You can see those small ships closing on it."

"You're right," Jake said. Glimpsing his first clear image of them, he studied their shape on the high definition display. "They look like smaller low-profile versions of the
Turtle
."

"Yep, like a fighter version," Victor said.

Suddenly, a barrage of laser beams shot out from the alien ship. Somehow, the fighters evaded them. A few seconds later, an intensified laser attack streamed from points all over the enemy ship. Fired in an enveloping strategy, they appeared to cage each fighter in brilliant beams. Again, the small ships dodged the attack, each leaping out of the path of the laser aimed at their central mass. However, one jumped into the path of another beam, instantly transforming into a brilliant vapor cloud.

"No," Vic whispered.

"Look!" Jake said, pointing at the screen. "The lasers won't be enough. They're almost to the ship's shields."

Richard nodded. "I hope they have a way to get through, otherwise…"

Jake's optimism sprang anew as the ships made another rapid hop, safely emerging within the alien ship's forcefield. "Yes!" He pumped his fist. "Get some!"

"Who are these guys?" Victor wondered aloud, a glimmer of optimism edging the dread from his words.

A moment later, a familiar voice blared from a radio speaker.

***

"We're in, gentlemen," Colonel Zach Newcastle said to his space fighters. "Let's not waste Major Pell's sacrifice. Make it count. Go to your attack vectors. Launch your weapon at the assigned time. Once it's away, get the hell out of there. We'll rendezvous just as we've trained, assess the situation, and god willing, move on to the next targets."

He looked down at the narrowing bay, wishing it was open ocean. He never imagined a scenario where they deployed these dreadful weapons this close to the planet, much less a population center.