(no subject)

30.

The plane hummed hollowly as the pilot rounded a cloud bank over the gulf.

“Some kind of tropical storm starting to fire up down there,” He said, almost to himself.

“Will it be a problem?” Stonedragon asked.

“Nah,” The Pilot answered, “We’ll be long gone before it can even make up its mind if it wants to be anything at all.”

Silence settled over the cabin again.

“How long . . .” Stonedragon discarded the words.

“About another 40 minutes or so,” The Pilot speculated.

The Colonel looked back at the boy sitting behind him. There was little anyone was going to be able to say.

Mickey looked forward, doing his best to look “grown up” and in control. Stonedragon hated that part of being a man. He hated that society wanted to place some kind of shame on the open show of grief, while that was the most human of emotions.

“Have we gotten any updates from any of the other teams?” He queried Jeremy, who was acting as Communications Officer for this trip.

“No, sir,” Jeremy said, uncertainly, “We haven’t heard from anybody since about 3 minutes after we took off.”

“Fine,” The Colonel said.

“That was when Dr. Thursday told us about her Washington team running off the Werewolves and Vampires.”

“Good,” The Colonel said, a little more finally.

“We started to hear from ‘The Vibrator’ and ‘Swordsman’ squads, but the signal broke up as we passed through that thunderstorm,” Jeremy was starting to get into this “reporting” thing.

“Thank you, Jeremy,” Stonedragon said, in a tone that telegraphed that the report was over. Jeremy looked confused, and then his face reflected that he had “gotten it.”

The light in front of Jeremy flashed, and the boy listened to his headphones for a second.

The Colonel looked at him, and waited for more information. The light went out, and the boy had an empty look on his face.

“Well?” Stonedragon demanded.

“It was the ‘Cherokee Coyote’ squad, you know, the one with the guy who howls . . .” Jeremy said hollowly.

“I know who he is,” The Colonel chided.

“He said they were being attacked as they returned to base . . . and then they were cut off. But the last sound,” Jeremy looked scared.

Mickey was at his side now, interested. It was possible that anything was better than just thinking. “What was the sound?”

Jeremy didn’t answer for a second. It wasn’t for the melodrama. The boy was too unnerved to be that presentational. He looked up at his friend, and at his sage elder, and then he said, “It was Coyote. He screamed.”

© 2005 by C. Wayne Owens

(no subject)

31.

The incident repeated the same routine as the last one. There was the distant sound of some sort of flying engine, probably a jet. Then the radio board on the panel on her right would buzz and light up a bit, and then stop, and then buzz and she could hear an indistinct voice. Then came the sounds of a small exchange of explosions, some short blasts outside, and then nothing.

There was a short period that she decided was the sound of “cleaning up the evidence.” Then the torturous silence returned.

She knew, again, that she had lost some students and friends. She wondered if Mickey or her husband were among them.

She had been wondering where David was. He had not been dispatched in the general mustering out of forces. So he should have been somewhere in the complex.

She was fairly confident that he was alright, since the blackguard would have brought him to harrow her. That would only be, of course, if he had known he had her son. But, since David
would have asked about her, she was sure that her son was somewhere unharmed.

Her gravest concern was with the welfare of her husband and other son.

Then, she thought, what if they killed David without knowing who he was? Or if they just hurt him and he was in the complex, just injured and needing her help.

Damn this villain.

She would happily die if she could end his existence on this world. But she knew from experience that, even that would be temporary.

Damn him.

The panel buzzed.

It was starting again.

Damn.

The sounds of fighting began just as they had been before, but they seemed to swell in a way that was different.

The battle sounded bigger, as though this was less one sided than previous ones had been.

After a couple of rather resounding explosion just outside the base, the saucer before her lifted off to join the fray.

As it cleared the bay, Maria heard, “Mom!”

A half dozen people joined her in the hanger and began to loose her bindings. David kissed her as she struggled to get her arms free and hug him.

“It was all Hank!” David said.

“I saw what was going to happen and got as many people into the shelter,” The large man told her, “I knew David was at special risk.”

She wrapped her arms around the surprised Prophet, “Thank you for saving us all.”

“Ah, I wish I could have helped more, but there wasn’t time,” He stuttered.

“We’ve got to go, Mom,” David told her, “Hank said he saw them coming back in about another minute.”

They all started to move out of the room, then Maria looked back.

“They’ll come looking for me,” She said, knowing that would put the others in jeopardy.

“No, they won’t,” Hank said, then, seeing the concern on her face, continued, “Von Gogh, do your stuff!”

A small girl raised her hand and there was Maria standing, fully bound, against the pillar.

As the group left the hanger, Hank said, “That form will stand there for a couple of hours and they never even check it.”

As they huddled on the sides of the doorway, the saucer returned to the hanger bay.

Now the little band moved to a point of safety.

Maria held her son close as they moved away from the danger.

 

© 2005 by C. Wayne Owens

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