The Survivors

Dear God she was fast, much faster than I was. She had her knife out and moving before mine even cleared the sheath.

Cindy was fast too. Still lying on her side on the ground, she sank her fangs into Angela's left calf muscle, gripping the leg with both hands. The sudden shock of pain made Angel pause for just a moment. That was all the opening that I needed.

I didn't dare try to take Angela alive. For one thing, she was a far deadlier fighter than I was.

Trying to get information out of her would be futile. So I struck for the kill.

The knife came up, striking her just under the solar plexus, angling up toward the heart. I felt the momentary slight resistance as the blade punched through her shirt and skin, then the blade slid through her muscles and organs with a wet, tearing sound. I felt the knife twitch for a second as her heart beat once around the steel piercing it, then I twisted the hilt of the knife and yanked it out of her.

The blow had knocked the breath out of her, and she died with a look of shock and amazement on her face.

I lowered her to the ground as Cindy scrambled to her feet, wiping the blood from her face with her sleeve. "Yuck." She said softly but with feeling.

I rolled the corpse under the building where he wad been hiding. "Come on," I told Cindy. "The patrol dogs are going to smell the blood and all hell is going to break loose."

I had a faint idea where to find the general, but Nellis was just too big to get there, find him and kill him before the alarm was raised when the security patrols found Angela's body.

Shit.

"Back to the flight line," I whispered to Cindy. She nodded.

We made out was back to the flight line, keeping to shadows and moving as silently as possible.

The desert night was warm, bit I still felt cold as I strained to hear the first hint of an alarm being raised.

Cindy and I crouched near a FB111 sitting on the tarmac a dozen yards or so from Hamilton's Apache gunship. I could hear the voices of the crew working on the chopper and arming it.

"C'mon you guys, hustle your butts here. If this bird ain't ready to go the instant the General arrives, it'll be our asses get fed to his pet monsters."

"Lighten up Parker," another voice said. "The bird'll be ready. It ain't my fault that the General flies this thing like a ham-handed chimp."

"Yeah Chief," chimed in someone else. "The General gets to showing off for that ice bitch of his, and he comes back with the chopper all fucked up. Hell, it's a miracle he got back here last time."

The crew Chief sighed. "Yeah, I know. But do any of you want to tell the ice bitch that her boyfriend has to wait to go play with his new toy?"

There was a chorus of "No Chief." And a renewed business as the men got back to work.

Cindy moved off so quietly that I didn't even notice she was gone for several minutes. When I did notice I cursed myself for getting too wrapped up in the ground crew's conversation.

Cindy slipped back up beside mea few minutes later. "I went to listen to the guys in the big hangar over there." She jerked a thumb over her shoulder to one of the biggest hangars on the base. "They 're bitching about having to load nukes on the biggest plane I've ever seen."

Oh shit.

That could only mean that they were going to hit our new homesteads.

Even as spread out as we were, it would only one good-sized nuke to be sure of getting all of us.

No way I could let that plane take off.

I let Cindy lead me over to the hangar. The main doors were partly open, and it wasn't hard for us to slip inside unseen and hide among some boxes along one wall.

There was a B-52 sitting along in the middle of the vast room with men swarming over it like ants.

"I don't see what the fuss is about some damn group of farmers out there." One guy was saying.

"It's that same group that wiped out the colonel and his crew," said someone else.

"Good riddance," came back the first speaker. "That was one seriously sick bastard, and his buddies weren't a lot better. You saw what they did in Oakland to that commune."

Someone spat and said, "True enough, but as long as I have a place to sleep that's safe from the monsters and 3 meals a day, I ain't gonna complain too damn much."

Cindy was bristling at the men's words, and I laid a hand on her shoulder to calm her down. She hugged me and stayed quiet, watching the men with an unwavering gaze,

I took out a small notepad and pen and scribbled a quick note telling her to stay put while I went outside and took care of something. She read the note, nodded and hugged me again.

I slipped out of the hangar and made my way to the FB111 again just in time to see the ground crew packing up their tools and moving off.

As soon as they were far enough away, I slipped up to the Apache and scrambled atop it. I spent a few minutes arranging a nasty little surprise for the General, then slithered down the side of the aircraft and headed for the hangar again.

I had just slipped inside and found Cindy again when I heard a jet engine spooling up outside.

'Someone's going on an early flight. ' I thought.

There was only the one engine started when I heard the whine of the jet go up and the noise started moving away.

F-16 I thought.

That could be a problem if we had to fly out of here.

Try as I might, I couldn't see any way to get to the plane in the middle of the hangar without being seen.

Then it hit me, I didn't have to get there unseen. All I had to do was get there as someone they were expecting.

Cindy and I made out way to the offices in the back of the hangar and slipped into one. As I suspected, there was one of the huge coffee urns there, along with a wheeled serving tray and a supply of cups etc.

I soon had the coffee going and started putting cups etc. on the tray.

Cindy watched for a moment, then she started grinning. "Gonna give them a little wake-up call huh?"

I winked at her. "Yup."

I used the sink to clean Angela's blood off my hands and arms, then rooted around until I found a set of fatigues in roughly my size. There were corporal's stripes on the sleeve. 'Perfect' I thought. Cindy came up with a stained white apron from somewhere and I slipped it on over the fatigues.

The coffee was done and I moved the urn to the trolley. Then I whispered to Cindy to wait until everyone was looking at me before slipping out to wait for me in out hiding spot. She nodded and moved to stand beside the door.

I left most of my weapons with Cindy. All I kept was my pistol tucked inside my shirt and a single grenade that I stuffed into a pocket.

I opened the door quietly and pushed the trolley on through headed directly for the plane.

I was nearly there when someone noticed me. The crew chief came over and looked me up and down suspiciously. "What the hell are you doing here?"

I shrugged. "Hey, I'm just doing what the ice bitch told me to do."

"And what's that?" he asked warily.

"She said to bring you guys some coffee." I replied. "She said she wanted you guys wide awake and alert so there won't be any fuck-ups with the nuke loading."

"I'd better check on this," he muttered.

I gave him a cheerful grin. "Go ahead. It won't be my ass that gets fed to the general's pets for interrupting him and his ice bitch in the middle of their pre-flight orgy."

The crew chief grunted at that and waved me on toward the plane. "Hurry up then, we don't have a lot of time here."

I waved him a salute and pushed the trolley under one of the big bombers sagging wings. "Coffee for anyone who wants it!" I called. This announcement was greeted with glad cries from the working crew, and they soon clustered around the trolley for their caffeine boost.

"Is there anyone else?" I asked.

"Yeah, Connors didn't bother coming down from doing her nav system checks," said the crew chief after scanning the crowd around the trolley.

"No problem," I said cheerfully. I filled a cup with coffee and picked up some packets of creamer and sugar. "I'll just take hers on in if that's OK."

The chief just waved me on, so I climbed up through the open access hatch in the belly of the bomber.

I carried the coffee up forward to the nav station where a rather cute blonde sat muttering to herself as she ran system diagnostics.

"Here's some coffee," I said.

Connors almost jumped out of her skin when I spoke. "Goddamnit!" she snapped. Don't sneak up on me like that!"

The she looked closer at me. "Who the hell are you?"

I handed her the coffee and the packets. "I'm the guy who got stuck with coffee detail by the ice bitch."

She rolled her eyes. "Someday someone's gonna ice that cunt and her psycho boyfriend, and I'm gonna party for a week."

"Yeah, I'm not too fond of those clowns myself," I said with a straight face.

Connors sighed. "If it wasn't for those goddamn monsters of his, I'd tell the general what I think of him and his idea of nuking a bunch of farmers. Then I'd shoot him right in the nuts."

She scowled at the navigation console. "I'm about ready to go AWOL anyway and fuck Hamilton and his whole crew."

"Mighty open talk," I observed.

Connors tossed her head. "Fuck it. The ice bitch and her kill crazy bunch are gonna find a reason soon, and I'm gonna be monster chow anyway. They don't like anyone to be too good at their job." She gave a short bitter laugh. "They already killed my sister and my boyfriend for no better reason."

I made a decision.

"Ok, you want to get out of here in one piece and fuck over the general in the process?" I asked.

Connors looked at me carefully. "What, a cook is gonna get me out of here and kill the general and his ice bitch?"

I let her see my eyes clearly and she shuddered. "No," I said softly, "But a Ghost can. The ice bitch is already dead."

Her eyes widened. "Holy shit!" she breathed. "So you're the one that has the general shittin' his drawers and jumping at shadows."

She reached under her console and pulled a couple of wires loose, then she efficiently stripped the ends of the wires and twisted them together.

"Let that bunch of incompetents figure that one out," she snickered as she tucked the wires back up under the console. "Nothing will happen until they fire up the attack radar, then every circuit breaker on board is gonna pop all at once."

I handed her the grenade. "Got a good place for this?"

She grinned evilly. "You bet." She moved up into the cockpit and busied herself near the pilots console for a bit. "I never did like the pilot anyway. His idea of comforting someone grieving is to hustle them into the sack."

Now to get back to Cindy without being seen.

"Connors, make an excuse to leave the hangar in about 10 minutes. Meet me by the old Aardvark out there near the general's Apache. I'll have a friend along. And remember, she IS a friend." I told her.

She winked and pretended to go back to work.

I exited the plane and started pushing the trolley back toward the offices. The crew chief gave me a wave of thanks and turned back to supervise his men. I pushed the cart back into the office, then slipped back out and made my way over to where Cindy waited. "Back to that other plane," I said.

Cindy and I made it to the door just as Connors climbed out of the B-52 waving a piece of electronics. "Chief, I'm going to take this out to the 'Vark and plug it into their system. If it works there, then it had to be the main capacitor, if not, I'll bring the one from the 'Vark over here and it'll get this beast up and running."

"Get a move on Connors," was the reply.

By the time Connors got over to the FB111, Cindy and I were waiting for her.

"As soon as I open the canopies, get in," she said eyeing Cindy warily.

Moments later we were all in the aircraft. Connors started flipping switches and the starboard engine began to whine to life. "We'll have about 5 minutes until security is all over this plane," she said tersely. The starboard engine settled into a steady whine and the port engine started to spool up.

I ran my eyes over the gauges. Nearly full fuel tanks, and glory be, the stores list came up. We had a belly full of cluster bombs and a full set of AMRAAM's on a rotary launcher in the forward bay.

I could see a sedan with a flashing light on top come to a halt near the open door of the big hangar.

"Time to scram," I said and shoved the throttles forward.

As the plane started to move, I could see men pouring from the hangar to stare at us as we started to taxi toward the runway.

As soon as I had us more or less centered on the main runway, I jammed the throttles into full afterburner and began the takeoff run.

There were missile batteries everywhere, so I just climbed enough to raise the landing gear and clear the fences at the end of the runway, trying to stay under their effective envelope.

I stayed low and fast, until we had put some miles between us and the base, then I lifted us to about 100 feet and pulled back out of afterburner.

Connors was shaking and sweating in the co-pilot's seat, and Cindy was trying to make herself small behind us.

I made a couple of sweeping rudder turns to check our six, then straightened out on a course that would take us in a great curve to the south and then back up toward home.

"Do you know how to work the weapons?" I asked Connors. She held up a hand palm down and made a so-so motion. "I can get the missiles up and ready, I don't know about the bombs."

"Get the missiles up," I said. "If it looks like we'll run shy of fuel, we'll jettison the bombs later."

I kept the radar warm but in standby until we reached the area near Denver. No sense in telling the enemy where we were by broadcasting radar signals all over the place.

Connors and Cindy had started chatting, and the older woman was starting to relax around the little changeling.

Finally I climbed to 15,000 feet and switched on the radar.

There were two blips up ahead. A big one at about 10,000 feet and almost 40 miles ahead. And a smaller one much higher and a little closer.

The B-52 and the F-16 I guessed.

I shut down the radar and climbed another 10,000 feet. Connors and I were on oxygen now, and Cindy was using the smaller emergency bottle from behind my seat.

A few minutes later, I heard the radio crackle to life. "Phillips, I know it has to be you out there. No one else would have the balls to steal a plan right under my nose from my own goddamn base."

Hamilton.

I keyed the mike. "Yes, it's me you psycho bastard, and next time I'll get you too."

"Now is that any way to talk to your commanding officer?" came the reply with a chuckle.

"Commanding nutcase," I replied.

Abruptly the general's tone became crisp. "Here's the only deal you're going to get, so listen close. Either you come back and agree to work under my command, or I am going to turn all of those pretty farms and your family into radioactive glass."

"Fuck you," I replied and shut off the radio.

"Are the missiles ready?" I asked Connors.

She nodded and swallowed hard. She switched the radar to attack mode and locked onto the B-52 with ease.

"Screw the bomber right now," I told her. That goddamn fighter is out here somewhere, and unless we get him, he's going to nail us before we ever get into missile range of that bomber."

She started pushing buttons and soon found the fighter. The F-16 was ahead of us and slightly to one side, coming down at us fast.

I heard the missile lock indicator tone start up.

"Oh no you don't," Connors growled. She hit a few more switches and the warbling tone stopped.

She peered closely at her screens, then pushed a button 3 times in rapid succession. Through the controls I felt the vibrations as the forward bay doors opened, then felt and heard the thump as 3 of the AMRAAM's were dumped out into the slipstream.

The missiles steadied and raced ahead of us, curving up toward the now visible fighter.

The F-16 pilot was good. He managed to avoid the first 3 missiles by a diving turn while dropping chaff.

But Connors had already pumped another pair of missiles out, and these were aimed in the general direction of where the pilot would be when he came out of his turn.

The second set of missiles locked onto the fighter at the last moment, and there was no time for the pilot to evade.

I saw a flash of light as the fighter pilot ejected, and then another pair of flashes a second later as the missiles blew the small fighter to bits.

"Now lock us on to that bomber," I said.

Connors tried, but the bomber had dropped low and off our screens.

Well, I knew where the bastard had to be headed, so I pointed the nose of the Aardvark toward home and nudged the throttles up a bit more.

Cindy was shivering behind us, and she was making small whimpering noises.

Connors reached back and patted her reassuringly.

We were almost home when we spotted the bomber climbing to attack altitude ahead of us.

I jammed the throttles into full afterburner and went after him.

Connors reached over and pulled the throttles back. I looked at her in surprise. "What the fuck?"

"Watch," she said smugly.

As the B-52 leveled off at 10,000 feet, we were less than a mile away.

"Missiles ready?" I asked.

Connors just pointed at the bomber.

We watched as a flash of light and a billow of smoke erupted from the nose of the aircraft, and it pitched over hard, falling off on one wing.

"The grenade," I said.

Connors smirked. "I rigged it so that when the master breakers under the dash were pulled, the pin would come out."

"You have a nasty sense of humor," I said.

"It gets better," she replied. "the emergency O2 bottles are under the console. The grenade blast set those off too."

We saw several people eject from the stricken bomber as it plunged earthward.

There were several good chutes visible as the B-52 hit the ground and exploded.

"Can you arm and ready those bombs?" I asked.

"I think so," Connors said.

We orbited the area while Connors figured out how to arm the cluster bombs and read them for action.

I made a single pass over the area where the aircrew had landed, and Connors dumped the entire load of cluster bombs right on top of them.

We didn't hang around to see the results, the fuel was getting low, and I had to find someplace to put this bird down before we fell out of the sky, the FB111 not being noted for it's gliding characteristics.

I saw a long straight and relatively flat stretch of highway just outside of the town of Scottsbluff.

The wind was wrong, but I didn't have a lot of choice. I set the bird down.

It wasn't the best landing I had ever made, and we ended up sliding down the roadside ditch, but we walked away from the plane with only minor bumps and bruises.

"Where to now?" Connors asked.

"Home," I said, pointing north.

Something was bugging me though. I wished I could have seen General Hamilton's body.

Had he been killed when the cockpit of the bomber exploded? Had he been caught in the cluster bomb run? I had no way of knowing for certain, and that cocksucker seemed to have more lives than a cat.

As much as I hated the idea, I was going to have to go back to Nellis soon and find out once and for all.

But for now, just getting home was my main priority. And we still had over a hundred miles to travel.