Kelly watched as the two MP’s, rifles at the ready, walked in with purpose; with young Bailey, trying not to look too much like he was hiding behind them. With his chrome eyes fixed on the Colonel, Kelly said unblinkingly, “Col Waterman, you WILL take me to see my Brothers now.”
“I am sorry Sir, but that is impossible. I have orders … and they do not include taking you to see anybody. In fact I have exceeded my orders already, by trying to be friendly.”
Kelly could tell that the Colonel was now beginning to have trouble controlling himself. Waterman had hoped to have the situation well in hand already, or at least before his superiors arrived. Kelly wanted the same, but while Kelly still had time, the colonel now felt that he did not.
“Sergeant,” the colonel barked to the lead MP. ”Take this man … this … take our visitor to the brig, and stay with him. In fact, escort him with one of the jeep mounted fifties. I want no mistakes Sergeant.”
“Sir,” Lieutenant Bailey said meekly, “we don’t have a brig, at the moment sir.”
“What, what do you mean, we don’t have a brig? Of course we have a brig.”
“But Sir, last month you told the guys from plot fifty-one that they could put all their new computer stuff in there until they get their new labs put together. Sir, it’s full, floor to ceiling.”
Kelly knew he had to do something soon. He didn’t want to get himself locked up, at least not without options.
Colonel Waterman turned his head in the direction of a commotion outside his office. “Sir,” an MP yelled, throwing the door open against an unsuspecting Lieutenant Bailey, “the disc is moving Sir.”
Waterman reached to his waist for his Colt. He flicked the safety off and pulled back the slide in the same motion. Pointing the piece at Kelly’s chest he bellowed, “Stop whatever it is you are doing, NOW!”
As the vibrations from the gravity drive increased, loose objects on the colonel’s desk began to dance about; the windows began to rattle, and suddenly one of the panes behind Waterman shattered, causing everyone but Kelly to duck their heads.
“I warn you, I will shoot,” Waterman again bellowed, holding the forty-five at arm’s length, still pointing directly at Kelly’s sternum. The Colonel then watched in amazement as Kelly set himself in the chair that had been offered earlier. As Kelly slowly lowered himself, Waterman could now see through the door held open by a cringing Lieutenant Bailey. Beyond the door he could see the two jeeps he had ordered to guard his office. Looking between the jeeps he could see the disc, hovering in the hangar doorway, and he suddenly realized he was staring down the barrels of all six of the Brownings.
ESCAPE
Lieutenant Bailey never knew if his Colonel ever saw the flashes, or heard the roar of the fifties. All he knew for sure was that Waterman’s head suddenly seemed to disappear as his body was driven back against the window that had just shattered, coming to rest hanging half outside the building. The MP standing next to him, along with the two that had stood behind Kelly, were now just a jumble of bloody body parts lying in what now seemed like a way-too-small office. The Lieutenant began to gasp for breath as he fought to keep what little composure he had left. Kelly turned toward the crying young man, who was now holding the open door against himself with one hand and squeezing his crotch with the other.
“Lieutenant Bailey,” Kelly said softly but with firmness, “hit the deck, now.”
As Kelly rolled out of the chair onto all fours, the Lieutenant slid down the wall and covered his eyes with both hands, hiding his fear and his tears. An instant later the sound of fifty calibers filled the hangar as the disc fired the remaining store of its precious ammunition. The jeep mounted fifties fired at the disc until the soldiers manning them were either cut to pieces or knocked down by the disc’s now wildly pulsing gravity waves. Kelly reached over and pulled Bailey toward him as one of the jeeps was driven nearly all the way through the office wall.
Kelly could tell the young man was nearly senseless. As the sound of gunfire tapered to a few stray shots every second or two, he took the Lieutenant’s chin with his fingers and turned his face so they were no more than half a foot from one another.
“Lieutenant,” Kelly whispered, “what is your first name?”
“K_K_K Kenneth,” he stuttered, his eyes shut tightly.
“Kenneth, look at me,” Kelly said, shaking him lightly until Bailey opened his eyes, “I’m going to ask you some questions, and if you answer me quickly and truthfully, you may just get out of here alive, do you understand me?”
The young man trembled as he shook his head yes with a single nod.
“Good … now, Kenneth, is the other disc being kept in a cave or bunker in the direction I pointed to earlier?”
Bailey nodded again.
“Are the bodies stored in the same place?”
Another nod came in the affirmative.
“How do I get in?”
This question couldn’t be answered with a simple nod of the head. Kelly pulled the young man down and covered him as a few more stray rounds came through the wall of the office, then, pulling his face back up, “Son, the quicker you give me answers, the quicker I can get out of here and the quicker they will stop shooting in this direction. Now, how do I get in the bunker?”
Bailey fought to control himself, wiping both eyes at once with his hands. “If the d_doors aren’t open when you get there, th_then y_you won’t get in. The bunker is hardened. It’s made to withstand an atomic blast.”
“Lieutenant Bailey,” Kelly said, tightening his grip on the young man’s chin, “surely there is a way to open the doors if they are closed when I get there.”
“Y_Yes.”
“Well?”
“Pass code … y_you’ll need th_the pass code.”
“Kenneth,” Kelly shook him again, “I am getting real tired of having to wring this information out of you.” Pulling the Lieutenants face closer until they were nose to nose, he said sternly, “Give me the code and tell me how to use it, now.”
“OK … OK, I’m just scared Sir. I don’t want to die, Sir.”
“Kenneth!” Kelly nearly yelled.
“OK, OK, th_there is a b_box mounted to the right of the door. The Colonel has a key to the padlock. Inside the box you punch the numbers on the number thing … I don’t know what it’s called … Sir … it’s got numbers on it and you …,”
“I understand Kenneth, is that all I need to know?”
“Well Sir, once you’re inside; the big red button closes the door … and the big green one opens it again.”
“Thank you Lieutenant,” Kelly said letting go of Bailey’s chin, and as he started to move away he turned back to the young man, “Oh, one more thing.”
“Yes Sir? What’s that, Sir?”
“The code Lieutenant.”
“It’s tw_twelve-se_seven-nineteen-forty-one, Sir.”
“Pearl Harbor Day,” Kelly said, “clever, but not very secure.” Then before turning away again, “You drive, don’t you Kenneth?”
“Yes Sir.”
“And the Colonel has, or had, a staff car?”
“Yes Sir.”
“OK, then when I leave this room I want you to wait until the shooting dies down, then get to that car and start driving. Drive south and don’t stop until you hit Yuma, got that?” The young man’s lower lip was still trembling, “Got that?” he asked again and got a short head nod for an answer.
Kelly left the Lieutenant lying on the floor and made his way on hands and knees to the front of the colonel’s desk. Without raising himself, he felt in the right front corner of the center drawer. ‘Right where everybody tosses there keys,’ he thought. And there they were: a key ring with about ten or twelve to choose from. He would waste some time going through them one at a time, but, that would be better than trying to shoot the lock open and possibly damaging the number pad inside.
As Kelly made his way past the Lieutenant ag
ain, he told him to keep his head down a little while longer. The shooting was about to start again when he left the hangar.
The front end of the bent and broken jeep was fully through the wall where Bailey had been seated before Kelly pulled him away. He climbed over the collapsed front windshield and into the passenger compartment. Peering up over the short driver’s side door he could see that his disc had moved to a position no more than twenty feet from him. It sat there, humming, wobbling slightly; waiting for him. The gravity pulses, which had now stopped, had apparently cleared the hangar of any soldiers that had been brave enough to enter once the shooting started. Outside, however, he could see some activity as men were pulling what looked like, a two inch gun into a position that would give it a clear shot at the disc.
Kelly looked up at the swivel mounted fifty-caliber Browning over the rear of the jeep. It would be useless. One of the soldiers had been firing when the gravity pulses hit, and one of the cartridge casings had found its way, in the melee, back into the slide. It was jammed there. Kelly may have gotten it out, but, he would have put himself in a completely exposed position. He decided his best hope was to get to the safety of the cockpit, and then move the disc out of the canon’s line-of-fire.
He slowly opened the driver’s side door and tried to step out. The door, however, had been bent in the previous action and as he was just reaching the point where it was open enough to crawl through, the hinge gave out with a mighty POP. He looked at the men moving the canon, who were now looking in the direction of the noise he had just sent their way. He saw one man pointing, yelling, fumbling with a rifle that was slung over his back. Another soldier began to climb onto another jeep to man yet another fifty-caliber machine-gun.
“Make a brake for it Kelly,” he told himself, “you are dead meat if you stay here.”
As he leapt from the front seat he heard the first rounds from the jeep and the lone soldier now peering down the barrel of his rifle. He could hear the sonic pops as the bullets passed on either side of him. He made a dive for the upper surface of the wing, sliding like superman nearly all the way to the cockpit. In this position, if he stood, even a little to enter the disc, he would put himself in someone’s crosshairs. As he thought it, the disc slewed so that the vertical stabilizer of the old F-eighty-six was between himself and the shooters, and as he listened to the bullets ricochet in all directions, he thought the canopy open and climbed inside. Slamming the canopy shut, he slewed the disc toward the men outside the hangar door and was surprised to see them all dive for cover. “They don’t know my guns are empty,” he whispered to himself, “that will give me a few extra seconds.”
As the disc moved through the hangar door he again began taking fire from another jeep mounted fifty and a couple of soldiers with rifles. Kelly watched the sparks fly as the bullets struck home, but the dents and scratches they were leaving were healing almost as soon as they appeared. As he moved a little farther out over the tarmac he could see a couple brave souls try to push one of the two-inch rounds into the breach of the canon. He knew that the disc could now handle the smaller arms he was up against, but this two-inch canon would surely do him some damage. As that worry, that fear, built in his mind, and with the fifty caliber and rifle rounds bouncing off the disc all around him, he concentrated. A gravity pulse left the disc and drove the two men to the ground. The pulse also suppressed the small arms fire for a moment. The two soldiers at the canon pulled themselves to their feet and again were trying frantically to close the breech. As a strafe of fifty caliber rounds slammed the canopy between him and his view of the canon, he jumped, his muscles tensing violently. The next gravity pulse left the disc instantly, not in its usual concentric ring pattern, but instead, in a concentrated column that rippled the air as it traveled directly at the canon. Kelly watched in a state of mixed horror and surprise as the two-inch gun was driven flat into the asphalt, as if made of soft lead. The two soldiers were dead before the shell in the breech and a dozen more in the metal shell crate, exploded, driving shrapnel in all directions. While these lightweight pieces of brass weren’t doing the disc any damage, they wreaked havoc with the men on the ground, effectively bringing the firefight to a halt.
Looking east by north, right through the walls of hangars three and four on the flight line, Kelly could see the glow of his Brothers in the distance. He had to get there, and quickly; but he still had to contend with the anti-aircraft guns, that were at the moment, being re-manned by soldiers who had been relieved of their posts when the alien had been enticed inside. He decided that his best shot was to stay as close to the ground as possible.
‘Surely,’ he thought, ‘they won’t fire at me while I’m so close to their own men and equipment.’
As he increased his speed along the flight line, they did fire, and in chorus. As he continued accelerating, he watched behind and to his right, as rounds passed just behind the disc and disappeared through the walls and windows of the hangars. The fourth building in line suddenly erupted in a huge fireball that was followed by what sounded like a Chinese New Year celebration. He could hear thousands of pops and saw another fireball that pushed the entire front of the building out from under the roof. The once, seventy foot tall structure sagged, hesitated, and finally collapsed to the ground.
His steady acceleration kept the gunners from ever getting the correct lead on him and as he passed the last hangar in line, he hooked a hard right to head for the hills, keeping that last hangar between himself and the big guns. They would be firing blind at him now.
As he gained a few feet of altitude and zagged a bit to make himself a little harder to hit, he felt a sharp pain in the back of his neck. He didn’t have to look … he knew what it was … the Daggers were back on him. As he thought his next move, he was late. The ground in front and under him suddenly erupted in small dirt geysers as tens of small, unguided rockets exploded all around him. They were all firing at once.
‘Why aren’t they using the guided GAR’s,’ he wondered. ‘Are they still trying to capture me with minimal damage?’
He doubted that. By the way they reacted when he left the hangar, he sensed that they were all told to stop him at any cost. Something had changed, but he was at a loss to figure what it was. And then the thought crossed his mind.
“Lieutenant Bailey,” he said aloud, “that little shit. He must have gotten on the horn to General Macon as soon as I left the hangar. ‘Nah,’ he thought, ‘nobody could have grown a pair that fast.’
Yet, it had to be. Bailey was the only person alive on the base that knew Colonel Waterman was dead … and now General Macon knew, which meant that the President knew. And the first thing that the President would have told Macon was, “If the disc can’t be captured, then make sure that there is no way it can fall into the wrong hands.”
Now, taking fire from behind and above, he knew he was in real trouble. Was there a way to use the gravity pulse against airborne targets? He would have to find out. If he was going to do battle in the air though, he needed altitude. As he thought up, the upper surface of his left wing took a direct hit, from either one of the small rockets or a lucky shot by one of the anti-aircraft guns. A jagged hole showed itself a few feet from the tip and Kelly could see desert floor through it. The disc wobbled and plummeted the short distance to the ground. He managed to stop the decent, but not before skipping several times against the somewhat soft desert sand. He watched as the left wing plowed through a hillock, sending dirt, sand and creosote bushes flying in all direction. The sand lingered in the hole torn in the wing and continued to stream out behind him as if he were leaking fluid.
With a hole in his wing, super-sonic flight was now out of the question. In fact, he figured anything above three hundred miles per hour would be a real challenge.
Another volley of the small, unguided missiles, made their way toward him. Again, he could feel them coming.
“Why aren’t
they using the GAR’s?” he wondered. “Can’t they see me on their scopes?”
“Brother,” Kelly said softly as he slowed the disc and watched the smoke trails of a dozen screaming rockets pass in front of him; exploding against the defenseless desert sand.
“Yes?” came the answer.
“Brother, they cannot see me with their radar?” Kelly questioned.
“They cannot,” his Brother answered in the same quiet voice. And even though Kelly could not see him, he knew he was smiling. “Since you no longer had use of your guns, the disc assimilated the hardware. And since the fuselage was replaced with the living material over a year ago, you can no longer be seen by their radio waves. Except for the human visual spectrum, you are invisible.”
“Oh, how I wish the sun was down,” Kelly whispered.”
“I cannot help you with that Brother,” was the reply.
Kelly started to chuckle, but suddenly felt the pressure at the back of his neck again. He stopped the disc dead in its tracks, then, still maintaining a horizontal attitude, he shot skyward with all the acceleration the disc could muster with its damaged wing. This sudden movement created such a vacuum at ground level that a few cubic yards of sand was sucked from its resting place on the desert floor. It boiled upward, roiling in the vortices created behind the disc, and as the lead F-one-oh-two flew through this unbreathable blend of air, plant life and silica, it inhaled the deadly mixture. The turbine faltered as the friction from the sand, almost instantly, raised the temperature of the bearings and races to well above the point of structural failure. A single turbine blade broke free from the hub and jammed itself into the engine sidewall, stopping it instantly. The sudden torque tore the engine from its mount, cracking the bulkhead behind the canopy. The Dagger folded in two and spread itself over the desert sand like a canister of napalm.
From his new position above, Kelly watched as the remaining Daggers turned away from the sand cloud and started their long circling maneuver to re-engage their enemy. He would use this time to his advantage. Following the two jets that had turned to the east, he calculated a spot to intercept them half way around their circle. At a distance of about a half mile, he magnified his vision on the two and, like with the canon, he concentrated the gravity drive into a point, then released it with what he thought was the proper lead. He could see the land, and then the jets through the moving pulse as its pressure wave distorted the path of the light, causing them to ripple like a mirage.