At the End - a post-apocalyptic novel (The Road to Extinction, Book 1) (31 page)

I smiled up at Tortilla. “How does it look
out there?” I asked hoarsely.

Tortilla glanced out the tinted window.
“Like a world of fire . . . with monsters jumping out of the
flames. It’s not a world like it used to be.” He put a water bottle
to my lips and poured relief down my throat.

“Or maybe it’s the same,” I said, with a
slightly smoother voice. “It’s not like we never napalmed forests
before.”

“I guess that’s certain.” He leaned down to
my ear. “I love you.” He wore a face full of uncertainty, not about
his love for me, but about our future together.

I squeezed his hand. “I love you, too.” But
when I closed my eyes, I could feel sleep taking hold again.

When I woke up next, we were driving on a
smooth, paved road. I looked up. Tortilla was gazing out the window
with a look of reflection in his eyes. “What ya thinking about?” I
asked him.

He smiled down at me. “I was thinking about
how we met.”

“In sixth grade?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “How shy we both
were.”

“You’re still shy,” I said.

“At least I can get words out around you
now.” He grinned as he touched my hand. “Took a while, but I got
there.”

I laughed. “A while . . . it took
years.”

“Well, I’ve always heard that the tortoise
wins the race.” He stroked my fingers with his thumb. “I think it’s
true this time. If we became friends earlier, and started dating in
junior high or something, who knows, we probably would have broken
up a month later and never talked again.”

I had thought about that a dozen times the
last few days and fell upon the same conclusion.

“I guess I was meant to accidentally trip
and grab your boob,” he said.

“And I guess I was meant to throw my
applesauce in your face.”

We both laughed hard, remembering the
incident that assured my relentless silence towards him for the
next couple of years.

“We’re on highway 2 now,” he informed me.
“They haven’t attacked us in a half hour or so, we lost them before
we came to the blacktop.”

Burnhammer glanced down at me. “We should be
there in under an hour.”

I nodded at her as I slowly sat up with the
help of Tortilla. Every muscle felt stiff, especially my midback
and neck. When the jeep came to a roadblock of dead cars, the
driver simply went off road, hurtling around the obstacle. I stared
at the passing trees. A brilliant blue sky hung above the sea of
green. The day was warm and pleasant. The air from the open windows
allowed for deep, peaceful breaths.

“How did we get out of the jeep? How did we
survive?”

“Not all of us did . . .” Burnhammer said,
pain thick in her voice. “The helmets probably lessened most of the
impact that would have crushed our skulls in, and when we flipped,
I had caught myself, ready to recover. I pulled you two from the
wreckage, along with Private Paola.” She pointed to the unconscious
woman lying in the seat in front of us. “No one from the first jeep
made it. Lieutenant Laffrado . . . Sergeant Goldward . . . even the
two scientists. Most from our jeep didn’t make it, including
Sergeant Loritz. Eleven in total fell. There are only ten of us
left, twelve with you two. Hopefully that’s enough to do what we
need to do.” She rotated her tense jaw from side to side and it
cracked with the most gruesome sound imaginable.

I hung my head. “I’m sorry about your
comrades.”

“Don’t worry, I plan on avenging their
deaths,” she said. “We’ll show these alion bastards what we’re made
of soon enough.”

A HOOAH echoed in the jeep.

Every time the soldiers said the battle cry
made me feel like yelling my own cry, but I didn’t think they would
appreciate it since I wasn’t really one of them.

The hour went by, and Paola had woken
halfway through, complaining of severe aches in her back. We
eventually pulled off the highway, taking a left on to Foothill
Boulevard, then another left at Oak Grove Drive. We drove past
several signs with JPL in bold red font. There were too many
buildings, and none of us had a clue where such a classified
project would be located, though my guess had been near a runway. A
few of the soldiers agreed, including Sergeant Henderson, who had
taken over command of the platoon, or more precisely, incorporated
the three soldiers from 1st squad into the 3rd squad.

The only problem, the directory we found
pointed out five runways. “This one looks like it’s the largest,
sir,” Burnhammer said. She directed a finger to the fourth one on
the map.

Henderson examined the map with a critical
eye. “I would have to agree with you there,” she said. From a large
pocket, she pulled out a PocketPad, powered by the sun, and jotted
down the directions to the runway.

Her assistant, Sergeant Geisler, was behind
the wheel, awaiting our return. We all climbed back into the jeep.
“Find where we’re going?” he asked.

“Think so. Take the next right,” she told
him.

The maze of roads led us to a long black
tarmac at the base of a giant hill. Geisler busted through a
chain-link gate, heading for a massive hangar far in the distance.
The tarmac was flat and without a bump to be found. It didn’t even
feel like a regular road at all, but something special, something
probably made specifically for what we were searching to find.

Geisler stopped at a normal-sized door in
the hangar. Soldiers, including a grumbling Paola, took position
all around the vehicle, securing the immediate ground, then the
perimeter.

Henderson led Tortilla and me, along with a
couple of soldiers, into the locked hangar. The sergeant made easy
work of the door with the same automatic shotgun Burnhammer had
given Tortilla before we left on our suicide mission.

Henderson kicked the door; it swung
wide.

My heart sank in disappointment. There was
nothing within the hangar but an empty slab of gray concrete.

“Dammit,” Burnhammer cursed.

“Sweep the interior,” Henderson ordered.

The soldiers fanned out in pairs. Tortilla
and I stayed close to Burnhammer. She had given me another of the
same machine gun. I held it up, ready to fire. Tortilla also held
one, but his was across his chest as we sped along the bare
walls.

I glanced at the door as a soldier ran in to
the hangar and whispered in Henderson’s ear. When we returned to
her, all the soldiers reported the same: there was nothing in the
building; it had all probably been taken or destroyed somehow.

“Well, we may not have wasted all of our
time,” Henderson said. “Fox says she found what looks to be a door
built into the hill. It could be a bunker. We’ll take a look and
find out.” At that, she raced out the door, following Corporal
Fox.

Fox led the way to a small camouflage door
built into the hillside, almost mistakable for rock, except for the
large rust spots that gave away the door when standing close enough
to it. “I couldn’t get it open, sir. I thought your shotgun might
help.”

“With these door-blastin’ rounds, I’d be
surprised if it held.” She waved us back a step. The door handle
busted in with one try. The door hid a narrow, unlit passageway,
descending every couple of steps with a short flight of stairs.

The soldiers switched on the headlamps built
into their helmets. I couldn’t find my switch until Burnhammer
pointed to my left temple. I nodded a thank you to her.

Without Henderson commanding it, the
Stalkers went silent. Tortilla and I breathed noisily. He didn’t
say anything though, and neither did I, but I wanted to hold his
hand for comfort. The space didn’t allow for that. I didn’t think
Henderson would approve either.

The passage wound back and forth, steadily
descending the entire way. At last, our luck turned for the better.
We entered an enormous room that still had auxiliary lights. Strips
of little lights lined the floor and the ceiling.

Everyone gasped when we saw what hid inside.
I was completely shocked.

Row upon row of sleek white fighter planes
lay before us. The triangular shape of the planes resembled that of
stealth fighters, only much smaller in its build. USAF SQ-1
Whitedragon was etched into the right side of the planes, barely
visible.

“There must be a hundred of these,” Geisler
commented.

“At least,” Fox agreed.

“There’s a console over there.” Henderson
pointed to the left. Upon closer inspection, there were a couple
consoles, and four large flat screens built into the wall.

Geisler located the button that supposedly
turned on the power. “It’s dead.” He broke open a panel under one
of the consoles and started working on fixing the power. A moment
later, he pressed the button again; this time lights turned on all
over.

The room was much bigger than I had thought.
Three larger planes, also resembling stealth fighters, sat at the
far end. They looked as if they could be manned, and that renewed
my hope that we really could rescue Jelly and Penelope.

Computers booted up as displays came to
life. A few soldiers began to type away.

“Sergeant, there is a list of the planes,”
Geisler said, waving his commander over. “Only they’re not just
aircrafts, they’re spacecrafts. These are the unmanned fighters . .
. there are so many.”

“Does it give an inventory?” Henderson
asked.

“Yes, sir. There are 221 SQ-1s. It also
lists three SF-1s.”

“Those must be the big boys in the back.”
She glanced back at the spaceships with desire in her eyes. “Are
they manned fighters?”

“Looks that way, sir,” Geisler answered. “I
think the SQ-1s are controlled from these four consoles alone.”

“Four consoles for over 200 ships,” she
said, stunned. “Can you operate them?”

“I think so,” he replied. “The system looks
like it was designed so grade-schoolers could do the job.”

“My kind of engineering. Nice and simple,”
she said, grinning. “But how the hell do we get them out of here?
We must be 30 meters under the surface.”

“Oh, right,” Geisler said. After a second of
typing, he pressed a combination of buttons on the console.

The ground started to shake. Then suddenly,
the entire floor was ascending to the surface, and as we climbed,
the concrete ceiling parted from its center.

“Is that the ceiling of the hangar?”
Tortilla asked, surprised.

“I think so,” Burnhammer responded.

When the floor ceased moving, we were even
with the ground, exactly where we had started at in the hangar. The
exit to the jeep was now right behind us.

“That’s some crazy shit,” Henderson said.
She wasted no time. “Guylas, Paola, and Corporal Mu, you’ll stay
behind with Geisler and fly these babies. We’ll take one of the
manned ships and attempt to succeed at this ludicrous mission of
ours.”

A wave of, “Yes, sir,” filled the room.

Before anyone took a step, a panicky voice
came over the radio clipped at Henderson’s waist. She snatched it
up, raising it to her ear.

“Lieutenant Laffrado, please come in,” the
voice said.

“This is Sergeant Henderson, who am I
talking to?”

“This is Private Albores at Mount Baldy. I’m
looking for Lieutenant Laffrado; I have an urgent message for
him.”

“Lieutenant Laffrado was killed in an ambush
soon after we left the compound. I have taken over his command.
What is the message?”

“No one told me about the ambush. I’m sorry,
Sergeant Henderson. We had an attack of our own, but we wiped out
what they threw at us. Can you confirm your identification
code?”

Enraged, she waved the radio in the air.
“Goddammit, what do you need my code for?”

After a short silence the private said,
“It’s procedure when a command is exchanged. Please, sir, your
code.”

She sighed. “Hotel, India, November, Delta,
Uniform.”

“Confirmed, Sergeant Henderson. I’m being
told you’ve been field promoted to second lieutenant. Sorry it’s
not under better circumstances . . .”

“Me too, private. What’s the message?”

“Message reads: two civilians trapped on the
spaceship above North America. They are awake and have a locator
beacon tuned so that we can find them. They are looking forward to
seeing some friendly, non-furry faces.”

“Two civvies onboard a spaceship . . .”
Henderson said to us.

“Did they give their names?” I asked, hope
growing in my heart.

“Did the civvies give their names,
private?”

“They did, sir. Darrel Reid and Penelope
Whitestone.”

“Tho—those are our friends!” I screamed with
joy. “We have to rescue them, we have to.” I turned to Tortilla and
hugged him.

He squeezed me hard. “I knew it . . . I knew
they were alive!”

The Stalkers stared at us, speechless.

Henderson frowned. “I’m sorry, Maggy, but we
have a mission to fulfill. We don’t have the time, resources, or
the intel to pull off a rescue mission.”

I was taken aback by her words. “But they’re
our friends . . .”

“Sir, what would you like me to relay to
them?” Albores asked.

Henderson held down the button, about to
give her decline, when Burnhammer stepped forward.

“Sir, I believe I can do it.”

Henderson eyed the corporal. “Alone? Are you
melted?”

“No, sir. Not alone . . . with these two.”
Burnhammer pointed at Tortilla and me. “There are three of the big
ships, we can take one of those. If they have a locator beacon, it
might be as easy as pick n’ go.”

“It might be as hard as a thousand automated
weapons blowing you to smithereens.”

“I would like to take the chance, sir.”

Henderson weighed the options in silence.
Her face scrunched as she decided upon what course to take. “Do me
a favor?”

“What’s that, sir?” Burnhammer asked.

“Do some damage while you’re at it.”