Death Orbit (32 page)

Because they were so close to the water, the SMH Guardsmen had been called on to save many foundering boats and dozens people stuck in flooded areas. But the ranks were now stretched extremely thin. Of the 200 or so civilian troopers, more than two-thirds were currently off on rescue missions, and the rest were at the Chatham barracks, exhausted, hungry, dirty, tired, and in many cases, uncertain about the fates of their families and loved ones.

When the call was finally answered and it turned out to be a report that several people had seen a “huge thing with wings” drop out of the sky up near Bassing Harbor, the number of guardsmen available to go check it out was small. And the enthusiasm among those who could go was pretty far down the scale, too.

But this was understandable; the report didn’t make a whole lot of sense. What was this “thing with wings” these people had seen? An airplane? What would an airplane be doing, flying around in this weather? The winds outside were gusting at 120 miles an hour, the rain was coming down at a rate of an inch every 10 minutes. Why would anyone fly through such conditions?

There were no answers to these questions, only a follow-up report from the local police force over in Chatham Port that a “huge silver flying craft” had been seen cutting through the stormclouds, its wings on fire and its wheels down. An explosion was heard by people near the small village of South Neponset and two witnesses said they saw something fall into the woods about a mile away.

This put the possible crash site just 11 miles from the Home Guard barracks. Sense of duty and the vicinity of the incident finally compelled a squad of six very weary troopers to jump into their ancient APC and investigate.

It would turn out to be a long journey. It took them nearly a half hour just to find a fordable entrance to Route 28, the thoroughfare which would bring them up to the scene of the reported crash. They wound up crossing a marsh on the edge of Oyster Pond and proceeding through a series of flooded bogs which somehow supported the weight of APC, gaining the highway six miles south of their base.

Then it took them two more hours just to travel four miles north. By the time they reached the village of South Neponset, it was growing dark, though the truth was, in the wind and rain, it was already difficult to tell the difference between night and day.

The troopers picked up the local fire chief at his house and with him now squeezed into the old military vehicle they headed up the road that led to the woods behind the small village. The only conversation during this trip was centered on the severity of the weather and the fact that they were probably on a wild goose chase, a sentiment with which the fire chief of South Neponset heartily agreed.

They finally reached the high point of the woods, a small lookout post which at one time had served as a fire watchtower. From this vantage point, the Guardsmen had the ability to see the village below, the miles of swamped cranberry bogs, the roaring ocean, and the western part of the woods. To their astonishment, down in a hollow about a mile and a half from this position, they could see outline of an enormous silver craft resting among the thick pines.

Whether it was the weather or their exhaustion or the never-ending intensity of the storm, they would never know, but at first, none of the guardsmen or the fire chief wanted to go down to the wreck. It just seemed too strange, too eerie down there. The wreck was glowing with an odd orange light; and clouds of smoke and steam were covering the surrounding areas with a disturbing, yellowish fog. The craft itself didn’t look like an airplane. It seemed too big, too streamlined to be any kind of aircraft they were familiar with.

Though they felt foolish at the time, the Guardsmen wondered openly if this thing down in the woods was even of earthly origin. After all, what kind of an airplane
could
possible fly in this weather? And what kind of a pilot would want to if he could?

But finally a sense of duty prevailed—and a bit of morbid curiosity, too. The guardsmen drove the APC to the point closest to the wreck, a gully which looked down on a raging stream, which in turn ran into the hollow where craft had come down. From here they climbed down on ropes and chains, finally reaching the overflowing stream bed and eventually the northern end of the hollow itself.

It was quite dark by this time and the rain and wind had not let up. Using powerful lights, the six guardsmen and the fire chief inched their way along the overflowing stream’s ridge, finally reaching a thicket of pines all of whose tops had been sheared off.

Once through these trees, they came upon an odd, open area, a swath of land where the trees had not only been knocked down but seemingly vaporized. Beyond this lay the wreckage of the strange craft.

The guardsmen had their weapons out now; even the fire chief had drawn a small pistol. They crept through the yellow fog, trying to make out the lines of the enormous craft. It was silver in color and its power plants seemed gigantic. It had come down on its belly after lopping off about a half mile’s worth of trees, and as a result, its wings were bent in very bizarre contortions. Its extremely sharp nose, also battered and punctured, lay in the raging stream. An incredible stink of burnt rubber and some kind of fuel was thick in the air.

Most astonishing of all, there was a man sitting on the edge of one wing, his head down, crying uncontrollably.

The small party of seven men approached him carefully. When he finally peeked up at them, he seemed not at all surprised or impressed. Instead, he eyed their weapons and began pleading: “Shoot me. Please. Do it. I have failed terribly. My only recourse is to die…”

The guardsmen and the fire chief now lowered their weapons and drew closer. A first sergeant named Boutwell was the highest-ranking member of the group; he stepped forward, reaching a point about six feet off the crumpled wing and 10 feet from the weeping man.

“What’s going on here, pal?” Boutwell asked. “Are you okay?”

“I will never by okay,” the man on the wing answered in thickly accented broken English, not looking up. “I have failed. And failure means death. I have lost her, so I have lost myself. Please, then, shoot me and get it over with.”

“We ain’t going to shoot you,” Sergeant Boutwell replied. “So you knock that off.”

They all took another quick look around. It was amazing that the man had survived the crash. But a quick study of the cockpit showed that it had been designed to hold two.

“Was someone else with you?” Boutwell asked him. “Where are they?”

“‘They’ is a ‘she,’ and she is gone,” the man on the wing said, still not lifting his head, almost as if it was too heavy, so constant was his flow of tears.

“‘Gone’ as in dead?” the sergeant asked.

The man just shook his head. “No, ‘gone’ as in, she’s left the area. An hour ago. She’s gone and she’s left me behind…”

“What’s her name?” Boutwell asked, strictly for lack of a better question.

“She is the mistress of the stars,” the man replied with a shrill voice. “A goddess of the clouds. No woman could do what she did for me, or what she could do for you. And I have lost her. To this storm. To the rain. And this wind. You see, I don’t deserve to live. I have failed my king and my country—and the only woman I could have ever loved.”

Sergeant Boutwell looked back at his men and the fire chief and just shrugged. The last thing they expected to find down here was a pilot with a broken heart. Or one suffering from delusions.

“I’ll tell you what, pal,” Boutwell said finally, drawing a bit closer. “Why don’t we carry you out of here. Fix you up. Get you warm and dry and fed and bandaged—and then we’ll help you look for your lady friend. How’s that?”

For the first time the man looked up and the guardsmen were surprised to see that he had Asian features. His teary eyes were suddenly wide with expectation.

“You will help me do this?” he asked. “You will help me look for her?”

“Sure we will,” Boutwell said, giving the high sign to the others. “I mean, how far can she have gone?”

“She can move in very mysterious ways,” the pilot replied. “I will need all the help I can get.”

“Well, that’s what we do,” Boutwell replied with a weary sigh. “So come on, climb down off there, and we’ll get you fixed up.”

The pilot thought about this for a moment and finally did start to climb down off the wing. The wind was howling again now and the rain was coming down with new ferocity. The rest of the squad came forward and helped the man to the ground. He looked remarkably unhurt, considering the wreckage he’d been sitting on. And while the guardsmen and the fire chief were now more or less convinced that he was of this earth, he was still a strange-looking character.

“You look like you’re a long way from home,” the fire chief told him, passing him a thermos of water.

“I am,” the pilot said, drinking greedily from the flask until it was dry. “Very far.”

“So then,” the fire chief asked, taking the empty canteen back, “what’s your name?”

The pilot looked up at him and then studied the rest of the men. Overhead the storm continued to roar, the rain coming on in sheets.

Still the man managed a slight, but toothy smile.

“My name, believe it or not,” he replied, “is Prince Buddara Shingbang-shadzup-burin.”

The guardsmen and the fire chief all laughed.

“What the hell is that in English, pal?” Sergeant Boutwell asked him.

The pilot smiled again.

“Well,” he said, “my friends call me Budda-Budda…”

Midnight finally closed in on Cape Cod a few hours later—but again, it was still hard to tell day from night.

The storm was reaching new intensity. It had moved on-shore, and now its winds were blowing up to 140 miles an hour. The rain was coming down so fast it could not be measured. The thunder and lightning were simply incredible.

The strange thing was, it almost seemed like the storm was swirling right above the Nauset Heights section of Cape Cod. Here the wind blew hardest and the rain fell as it were a solid sheet of water. The tides were running so high, some of the waves were crashing above the Nauset cliffs, very high above the beach. It was as if the elements had decided to converge above the tiny strip of elevated land not even a mile long. It was almost as if the tempest had decided to settle here.

Somehow, the tiny farmhouse close to the edge of the cliffs was surviving the fierce battering, though many of its roof shingles had blown off and its chimney was gone. It looked dark, cold, soaked through, and, at first glance, long-ago abandoned. Just at the stroke of midnight, a tremendous crack of lightning lit up the sky above the house. The sonic shock wave from a simultaneous crash of thunder shook the farmhouse down to its foundation. The rain was now a waterfall. The wind sounded like a chorus of thousands, crying in anguish all at once. Off in the distance, an animal was screaming in shrill horror.

Another bolt of lightning, another crack of thunder. The wind rose to an inconceivable gale.

And, at that moment, up the road came Chloe.

Dominique greeted her at the door.

They had a brief, hushed conversation in which the name Hawk Hunter was repeated many times. From the sounds of it, it seemed like the two women had known each other for years. The truth was, this was the first time they’d ever met.

Dominique led Chloe inside, where it might have appeared warm and safe and dry. But the living room was not such a homey place at the moment. There was too much weirdness, too much anxiety, the air thick with the aura of too many lost souls. Frost was still on the couch, nearly catatonic with his realization that he’d actually seen the ghost of Mike Fitzgerald. The four girls, still terrified, still mute, sitting at the table, looking as lost as ever. Kurjan, the one who was probably the sanest one of them all, was keeping watch near the largest window, staring out at the storm, a massive handgun in his lap.

And upstairs, on the bed, still in his wet flight suit, still wearing his soggy boots and cracked goggles, was Yaz, still unconscious.

Chloe stood briefly in front of the fireplace and warmed her hands. Then she turned and asked an odd question.

“Is Hunter still in space?”

Dominique looked at Frost, who looked over at Kurjan, who in turn looked back at Dominique.

“Yes, we believe so,” Dominique told her.

A slight smile spread across Chloe’s face.

“I really don’t know why I’m here,” she began to explain. “I’ve come so far and have gone through many, many things. But I do know that something deep inside me led me here. Something I just can’t explain.”

“Join the club…” Kurjan moaned from the window.

Dominique took Chloe by the hand and led her into the kitchen, where a pot of tea brewing. The people in the living room went back to what they were doing. Kurjan especially, checking the clip in his hand cannon for the thousandth time, ready for anything.

He might have dozed off, though, because the next time he saw Dominique and Chloe, they were going up the stairs to the second floor, candles and matches in hand. Kurjan heard them walk across the ceiling, stopping briefly in front of the door leading to the master bedroom, and then proceeding down the short hallway to one of the smaller bedrooms. The squeak in the door told Kurjan they’d gone into the southeast bedroom, the tiniest of them all, but the only one to have a large picture window-sized skylight.

Kurjan maintained his vigil for another half hour, enduring every crash of thunder and every bolt of lightning, and wondering if the storm was ever going to stop. Maybe in this spooky new world, storms rise up and stay forever, he thought. Like the great red-spot hurricane on Jupiter, maybe the storms on earth would now rage for thousands of years.

Sometime around 2
A.M.
, Kurjan went upstairs to check on Yaz. His friend was still alive, but still deep in a strange kind of coma. Oddly, Kurjan had seen Yaz like this before. During the campaign in the South Pacific against the Asian Mercenary Cult the year before, Yaz had been exposed to a holographic hypnotic device that had knocked him out for the duration of the war. When he finally woke up, he was healthy, fairly normal, but still drunk with the psychic images that had played in his head while he was unconscious. One of these visions actually guided a search party that had been looking for Hawk Hunter after he’d crash-landed on a deserted Pacific island shortly after the end of the campaign. Yaz told the search party exactly where to look and the Wingman was eventually rescued. It was still one of the strangest things Kurjan had ever witnessed.