Raptor Aces

  My heart leaps out toward my lost dream. If only I hadn’t screwed up my life – if only I could earn a place among those heroes!

  Bekar maneuvers his body in sync with the fighters. His hand grasps an imaginary control stick, his foot presses an invisible rudder pedal as his wheelchair becomes a fighting machine of the sky. His face is hard and determined, his eyes stab the distance like a bird of prey’s. This is the face he showed the enemy. Thank heaven he’s on our side.

  All is throbbing airplane motors, heat, and exaltation.

  Then everything abruptly calms. The fighters swoop back to altitude and resume their patrol. The big planes land and taxi away. The paratroopers gather up their silk and trot off the airstrip. The crowd in the grandstands grows silent, and the men around me became thoughtful. Time seems suspended in the bright, warm afternoon.

  What will happen next – what could possibly top this magnificent display? We exchange expectant glances, light cigarettes, munch the last of our chocolate bars.

  Then a solitary transport plane appears in the east. It moves with stately, unhurried grace, demanding that the whole world adjust to its rhythm. Fighter planes take up position on its flanks.

  We all watch with stunned disbelief as the aircraft draws nearer. I’ve seen the plane many times in newsreels, everybody has, but never have I expected to see it for real. A collective gasp shoots through the multitude.

  “It can’t be,” Bekar murmurs.

  But it is. The Magleiter’s black and white personal aircraft is coming in for a landing! An electric thrill shoots through the crowd. People try to surge down from the bleachers, but a large contingent of security troops appears to hold them back.

  The Great Leader’s plane is on final approach to the runway now, dropping from the sky like God himself. The fighter escort breaks off and heads back to altitude.

  “Oh man, this is incredible!” Bekar cries. “Help me stand up, will you, Dytran?”

  I assist him out of the wheelchair and give him his crutches. All around us, others are doing the same. Every man who can get to his feet is standing at attention with as much soldierly bearing as he can muster. I give my uniform tunic a hurried inspection, adjusting the belt and brushing away a tiny piece of lint. I straighten my cap.

  The Magleiter’s plane is taxing to a stop now. A delegation of Party big shots and military brass rushes out to greet him. The crowd in the grandstands holds its breath. The tension is almost unbearable ...

  Then the door of the airplane opens and the Great Leader emerges. A thunderous roar bursts from the crowd like a sexual climax.

  HAIL! HAIL!

  Growing in power, arms outthrust.

  HAIL! HAIL!

  A kind of madness seems to take hold of the people. They transform into something akin to wild animals. Nothing rational exists in their cries.

  Those in my group also yell HAIL! at the top of our lungs. But our shouts are less hysterical, less like a primitive beast roaring for blood. Perhaps it is because we’ve already seen enough blood. The military band starts playing the national anthem, but it can scarcely be heard over the tumult.

  Despite the lines of security troops standing shoulder to shoulder, each man gripping the belts of the ones beside him, a frenzied group of women breaks free and tries to charge onto the landing strip. Members of the band drop their instruments and rush to intercept them.

  “Damn,” Bekar says, “I wish the girls would chase after me like that!”

  The men closest to us laugh. The joke quickly circulates throughout the ranks. It breaks the tension, preparing us for whatever is going to happen next.

  The Magleiter is walking with his entourage now. Somebody presents him with a large bouquet of roses. He cradles the flowers in one arm and thrusts the other arm aloft in recognition of the thunderous ovation.

  Somebody shoves a pair of binoculars into my hands, and I train them on the Magleiter’s face. It is warm and smiling, brimming with confidence – the very spirit of our nation. The Magleiter seems to fairly drift over the ground toward the review stand, borne along by the cheers of the multitude. The lesser men trail behind him like sparrows following a mighty eagle.

  The binoculars disappear from my hands and move on down the line.

  A burst of patriotic love seizes my heart, all my cares vanish. The Magleiter is going to mount the review stand and speak to us. I will listen to his voice in person. If only Stilikan could be here!

  Then an incredible thing happens. Suddenly, impossibly, the Great Leader veers away from the review stand and begins striding directly toward us. The flunkies jostle among themselves to keep up with him.

  An amazed gasp shoots through our ranks. I wrench myself to attention with enough force to nearly dislocate my spine. On both sides of me range the honored wounded, their faces proud and hard. I feel great pride myself, but also a sense of unworthiness to be included among them.

  The Magleiter arrives at the far end of our assemblage. He hands the flowers off to an aide and begins inspecting the honored wounded, looking into the eyes of each man as he moves slowly down the line. A pressure wave seems to precede him, heralding the approach of an unstoppable force. Cameramen in National News Service blazers hover around, recording his progress.

  I keep facing rigidly forward, but my eyes are glued to the Great Leader. As when I’d confronted the corpse of the slobe boy, I feel a huge turning point in my life approaching. My throat is bone dry, and my lips feel like paper. I fight the urge to run my tongue over them.

  Then the Magleiter is standing directly before me. He appears smaller and older than in the newsreels, worn down in service to our people, but still powerful and unyielding. His eyes bore into mine, piercing all the way to my soul.

  I am falling backwards into an abyss. Only the eyes hold me steady, offering me salvation. They enlarge until they dominate the universe. The Magleiter’s hand grips my shoulder.

  “Stand fast, young man,” he says. “The Fatherland needs you.”

  Then he is gone, moving down the line to the others. I feel my body trembling. My hands are cold as ice. In moments I am going to pass out. Bekar whispers harshly in my ear.

  “Breathe, for God’s sake!”

  How long have I been holding my breath? I blow out the suffocation and inhale deeply. Power surges through me. The fainting spell passes. I am a new person – reborn, cleansed of all my sins.

  I am no longer afraid.

  15. To the Reckoning

  One more time I sit inside a passenger coach, gazing out the window as our beautiful country rolls past. This is the final train ride of my journey. At the end of it lies the reckoning before the military tribunal. The prospect had frightened me before, but now I feel serene. Whatever happens, I will not cower.

  The Great Leader is in my dreams now, his stern, fatherly presence displacing the mutilated boys and the tree of execution. All night, I feel him watching over me. I sense the raging, swirling wind nearby, but he defends me from it.

  During the day, the knowledge of his existence gives me renewed purpose.

  The past weeks have been a time of unbearable loss, I would have welcomed death many times, but now I possess the strength to keep going. It was no accident that I was at the rally; there were simply too many ‘coincidences’ that had brought me face to face with the Magleiter.

  What if Bekar had been too ill to attend the funeral? What if Gyn had succeeded in talking him out of going to the rally – didn’t he say there’d been a ‘battle royal’ over the issue? What if the men, delighted with the chocolate and cigarettes, hadn’t insisted that we move to the front rank? Bekar had only been able to purchase the black market items at the last minute – what if he couldn’t?

  And why had the Great Leader put aside his heavy responsibilities and flown off to the rally? What inspiration motivated him?

  My rational mind tells me that this is all just super-charged emotion. But the Magleiter did not speak to my rationa
l mind; he probed deeper, to my very core. He seemed to know my innermost fears and longings. He told me to stand fast, and, by God, I will.

  He never did address the crowd. After reviewing the honored wounded, he entered an open car and left the airfield. Those in the grandstands had to content themselves with a glimpse of him driving past acknowledging their salutes. He flew all the way from the war front just to speak words of encouragement to me.

  And there is Gyn now, too ...

  ***

  I didn’t really need to accompany Bekar to his home. He’d hooked up with others from his town at the rally, and he could have ridden the train back with them. But it’s not much out of my way, I said, and I’m in no great haste. So, I prevailed upon him to visit for a day with me and Mama before we headed to his town.

  Naturally, I wanted to spend more time with him, but mostly I wanted to see Gyn. For all I knew, it might be a very long time before I looked upon a pretty girl again. Bekar easily guessed my motivations. He approached the subject indirectly, using our mutual admiration for Stilikan as an opening. He was a fighter ace; he knew all about stealthy approaches.

  “Stilikan was the finest man I ever knew,” Bekar said. “He was more like a brother to me than a commander. All of us felt that way about him.”

  “Yes ... he was great,” I said.

  “And let me tell you this, Dytran, you’re cut from the same cloth.”

  I couldn’t have felt more honored if he’d presented me with a gold medal. A melancholy smile moved onto my face. Bekar’s grin was mischievous, however. He poked an elbow into my ribs.

  “Who knows?” he said. “If things work out with Gyn, maybe we’ll be brothers, too, huh?”

  He must have enjoyed watching me blush. My complexion is so fair that it’s quite easy to see the red.

  We catch Gyn at a bad time, though. We’ve only been in the house long enough to drink half a glass of beer when she returns from her shift at the military hospital. She looks tense and exhausted; drops of blood splatter her uniform.

  “Did you boys enjoy your little romp?” she says by way of greeting.

  Her voice holds a sarcastic edge.

  “That’s right, Sis,” Bekar replies.

  She eyes me with the same odd mixture of reproach and interest that she showed the first time we met. I chide myself for wearing my Yuliac uniform. It seems to be the focus of her disapproval.

  “If you’ll excuse me a minute,” she says, “I need to clean up.”

  She leaves the room. Bekar rolls his eyes and shakes his head.

  “All hail the conquering heroes, eh, Dytran?” he says.

  We finish our beer and begin another. I check my watch. The next train east will be leaving soon. I’d considered taking the later one so as to maximize my visit, but that doesn’t seem like a good idea any longer.

  Gyn returns wearing a lovely pastel summer dress. She seems like a whole other woman now – someone you want to wrap your arms around and draw in close. Her face still bears its serious expression, though. She must have witnessed something very tragic at the hospital. I know how things like that can prey on a person’s mind.

  She tries to lighten up in the course of our discussion, but my visit remains tense and awkward. I am glad when the time comes for me to leave. I grip Bekar’s hand in farewell.

  “Good luck at the hearing,” he says. “You’ll be in my thoughts, always.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’ll walk with you to the station,” Gyn says.

  She turns to fetch her handbag. Bekar grins and shoots me a thumbs up.

  The train station is only a few blocks away, I wish it was much farther. I wish that I could think of something to say to this beautiful girl. But we just walk along in silence until we reach a tiny park near the station. The patch of green looks bright and wholesome, accented by Gyn’s summer dress. She pauses.

  “So, what happened at the rally?” she asks.

  I grope for words that can describe my experience.

  “It was wonderful, Gyn. The Magleiter himself appeared. He reviewed the honored wounded. He spoke personally to me!”

  I expect some expression of amazement, or at least a bit of surprise. But Gyn only nods gravely.

  “I don’t think it’s true,” she says.

  “W-what’s not true?”

  “Any of it.” She looks down and smoothes her dress. “I mean, if we really were the ‘master race’ wouldn’t we have won the war already? But it’s dragging on and on.”

  I am too stunned to reply. Gyn looks up into my face.

  “I’d rather not go inside the train station,” she says. “I want to remember you out here.”

  “All right, Gyn. Thanks for coming with me.”

  She kisses me on the cheek. I can see a tear running down her own.

  “I meant what I said last time, Dytran. Watch out for yourself.”

  “I will.”

  Then she presses her lips to mine. Her body flows up against me, a perfect fit. Impossible joy and longing surge in my heart ...

  Then I am alone, floating into the train station. I don’t stop floating for a long time.

  ***

  I arrive the next morning a few hours before I have to report myself in. I occupy the time with desultory wandering. First, a visit to my high school, which is closed now until the fall. I should be returning then to complete my studies, but who knows where I’ll be come autumn?

  I stand a while in the courtyard, gazing up at my old, third-story dormitory room – the one I vacated so as to reside at the airbase barracks with my Raptor Aces comrades. I think of the naïve, idealistic first year student who once lived up there. He’d been so convinced that he knew everything important about life. He was a fool.

  Then a walk along the winding little streets, so much like the ones of my home town – a tavern for a glass of beer, a small café for lunch. Conversation in the tavern is boisterous, in the café quiet and subdued. The rhythm of everyday life. I am already a stranger to it.

  I pass through the gate of the airbase with fifteen minutes to spare.

  I feel myself already confined, as if I am in a labor camp working away the time until my draft notice arrives. But maybe that won’t be too bad. If the war is still going on, perhaps I can volunteer early for service in an anti-partisan unit. I’ll spend my days in the dark eastern forests stalking the bastards who murdered my brother ...

  Our barracks has been cleared of wounded men. Only Bel remains, sprawled on his cot amid a clutter of reading material, studying a book. He glances up as I enter.

  “Dytran!”

  He fairly bounds across the room and seizes my hand. “Good to see you, boy!”

  “Thanks, Bel,” I say with more than a little surprise. “It’s good to see you again, too.”

  He steps back and places his hands on his hips.

  “You’re a changed man, Dye,” he says. “Something’s happened to you – something good, I think.”

  I gesture noncommittally.

  “Found a girlfriend, huh?” he says.

  “Well ...”

  Beltran laughs. “All right, I get it. You can tell me about her later.”

  This is a Bel I’ve almost never seen before – relaxed and friendly, confident in himself. The quiet, resentful, borderline insolent person who’d been my deputy commander for the past year is absent.

  But then the moment passes. Bel turns somber.

  “You’ve got some time to get ready,” he says. “We have to report to the new wing commander in an hour.”

  “New wing commander?” I say. “What happened to the old one?”

  “He’s out, along with many of the senior officers,” Bel says. “Heads have rolled since the air raid.”

  “But he was only in charge of our training squadrons,” I say. “He had nothing to do with base defense.”

  Bel shrugs. “Who can say? I told you he was going soft.”

  This news unsettles me. The ol
d wing commander was a known quantity, a man with a reputation for fairness. This new commander could be anybody. If our prospects were dreary before, what are they like now?

  I glance down at the jumble of reading material on Bel’s cot. The usual things – aircraft manuals, flight instructions, tracts on racial theory – and a Youth League pamphlet: Our Flag and Our Nation.

  “Where’d you get this?” I ask.

  “Oh, a troop of the little snots marched past here yesterday,” Bel says. “The leader gave me that. He said I looked depressed and could use a ‘positive message.’”

  I open the pamphlet:

  The black ground of the National Salvation Party banner represents the darkness of ignorance and racial defilement that plagued our nation when the Party was founded.

  The red, stylized eagle represents courage, virtue, and the pure blood of the master race.

  The eagle spreads a white diamond of enlightenment and racial purity wherever it flies.

  NSP banner

  After seizing power, the Magleiter adapted the NSP banner for our national flag.

  The long stripe in the middle represents him.

  The top stripe represents the original founder of the NSP, who was martyred by enemies of the Party.

  National flag

  The lower stripe represents the co-founder of the NSP who has retired from active service to become the Party’s chief philosopher ....

  Bel chuckles.

  “I like that ‘martyred by enemies of the Party’ routine,” he says. “The Magleiter knocked the guy off, all right, and a good job of it, too.”

  I glance uneasily about the room. “That’s not the official line.”

  “Whatever,” Bel says. “At least the ‘chief philosopher’ had enough sense to quit while he was ahead. Did you see that moron in the last newsreel? He looked like a fish with its guts pulled out!”

  I do not want to continue this discussion. My sensibilities have been elevated above such vulgarities.

  “Yes, well ... I’d better get ready,” I say.

  My rational mind knows that Bel’s comments are most likely true. But the hidden part of me, the part the Magleiter touched, believes anything the Great Leader chooses to say. I do not try to explain this to Bel. He would not understand.