Defiant (an Ell Donsaii story #9) (3 page)

Ell turned to him, hands on her hips. “Steve,” she grinned, “my
mother
doesn’t nag this much! Take it as a given that
I’m
going to go somewhere on this chopper. Shan’s a big boy, he can decide for himself whether he wants to go or not.” She turned to Shan, “I’m gonna take it up for a little ride to make sure everything’s working. That way you can see how it works and decide if you want to go for a ride too, OK?”

Shan nodded numbly. He’d always pictured himself as the daredevil of his family. He’d be the one who would have to talk his wife into doing exciting stuff. But a little helicopter she’d designed herself and that the guys in the D5R machine shop built for her? Could his new wife be completely out of her mind?

Ell went over to the SUV and pulled on some coverall type pants and a jacket then turned to Barrett, “Toss me my brain bucket.”

Barrett actually handed her the helmet and she pulled it on, right over her HUD. She pushed the little ‘copter around to the other side of the SUV so the spectators would be protected from any accident. Straddling the seat she twisted the throttle a little then lifted and pulled back on the handlebars while looking at the rotors in the front duct. There were two rotors inside the duct and they began slowly counter rotating. She gradually sped them up; apparently feeling for vibration which would suggest something was out of balance. Then she pushed the handlebars forward while looking back over her shoulder at the back fan. It spun up smoothly as well. Centering the handlebars front to back she lifted and all four fans spun up. The two side ducts had single rotors in them, turning clockwise on the right and counterclockwise on the left. She twisted the throttle a little more and air began blowing out much harder. The lightweight craft lifted off the ground before it had thrown up very much dust.

Staying close to the ground, Ell flew it off about a hundred yards away, then lifted into the air about twenty feet. She made some little circles and figure eights, then flew back over closer to the SUV and landed. As the rotors spun down, she lifted her visor, grinned at Shan and said, “You ready to go out to an island?”

Shan looked over at Steve, “have you tried this out?”

Steve rolled his eyes and shook his head.

Shan frowned at Ell, “Are you sure it can lift both of us?”

“Yup,” she patted the frame. “High strength carbon fiber. It’ll be even lighter when we can make it out of graphend, but for now this is pretty good stuff. The motors back in my barn that’re driving the fans put out a total of 500 horsepower so it’s actually
way
overpowered.”

“What happens if the rotors come apart, do we have ‘chutes?”

“If the rotors come apart our
biggest
problem would be shrapnel but that should be contained in the ducts. Fragments could fly out above or below the ducts, but that’s one of the reasons there are screens top and bottom over the ducts, though the top ones also keep the fans from sucking stuff in. So, the rotor shouldn’t hit us, but we would go down, so we won’t fly very high. We’d fall right into the Aegean out there. Water’s pretty warm, about 75
^o
F so we’ll be OK for quite a while. We’ll just call Steve to rent a boat and come out after us.”

“Do we wear life vests?”

Ell slapped her jacket, “This thing is flotation Kevlar so you ain’t goin’ down unless you take it off.”

Shan looked over at Steve who shook his head in frustration, then back at Ell who beamed unrepentantly.

She said, “You gonna be a fuddy duddy, or you gonna climb on the bitch seat and
live
a little?”

Shan shook his head woefully, “I’ll bet I’m gonna regret this. You got a helmet and Kevlar suit for me?”

Ell pointed at the SUV, but when Shan turned Barrett was already standing behind him with a helmet and suit his size. A few minutes after that Shan was sitting on the back seat behind Ell. There were a couple of hand grips and Ell’s slender waist to hold onto. “What, no seat belt?”

“I thought about it, but it seems like you’d want to be able to bail out. Motorcycles don’t have seat belts either. So grab hold and let’s go for a ride.” She turned her head and leaned back to look at him, “Or you
could
sit this one out.” She reached out and adjusted the mounting for the handlebars so they weren’t so close to her.

Shan sighed, “Have you ever flown this thing before today?”

“Flew version one, which was more like a helicopter, about twenty times. This quadcopter version is number two. I’ve been up in it a couple times before that little run I just made to check it out.” Excitedly she started pointing out its features. “The front and rear ducted fans counter rotate to eliminate gyroscopic effects and each duct has a 175 horsepower engine powering the fans through ports. The two smaller 75 horse ducts pivot.” She pushed and pulled on the handlebars to show them pivoting front to back. When they’re straight down they help lift and tilt us side to side. Pivot them back and they push us forward so we can fly faster than a typical helicopter. Pivot them forward and they become our brakes to slow us down. The ‘copter has a pretty high powered AI controlling all the fans so if I pass out and let go of the handlebars it will just slowly lower itself down to the ground and land in an empty space. Driving it is pretty easy. The twist throttle supplies a general level of power. Lift the handlebars and it goes up. Lower them and it drops. Turn them left or right to go those directions, and tilt them to ‘bank’ it. Push the handlebars forward to go forward and pull them back to slow down or reverse. The AI controls it all by speeding and slowing the fans and pivoting the two side ducts.

“Oh hell,” Shan sighed, “I guess I can’t drag this out any longer. Take me up and let’s check out the beaches.”

“You’ve got a ported snorkel in that zippered upper left front pocket… just in case we fall in the water.” The rotors started spinning up as Shan closed his visor. When the wheels got light Ell pushed on the handlebars to tilt the ‘copter slightly forward. With a little more lift on the handlebars the hoverbike lifted off the ground and began skimming forward, over the road, across the beach, and out towards the Aegean.

Ell lifted them a little higher and they sailed out over the tops of the waves at an altitude of about five feet.

Shan found it breathtaking, a lot like his first ride on a motorcycle. But better!

Once he felt comfortable, Ell lifted to about ten feet and made some exhilarating “S” turns, then turned up the speed as they headed northeast from Santorini. Despite the wind noise outside, with his HUD inside the helmet and noise cancellation from his AI he could still talk to Ell fairly easily. “How do we find an island out here?”

“Well, Allan’s leading me to Anydros by GPS but…” she lifted the handlebars and they rose to about thirty feet where they could easily see a little island that had actually just been coming up over the horizon. “There it is.” Then she dropped back down to just above the water.

Skimming along just above the water made it seem like they were going a lot faster. “How fast are we going?” Shan asked.

“Only about eighty. We could go faster, but if we crash at those speeds, even water will hit us pretty hard. It isn’t that far, so we should be there in about ten more minutes, even at this speed.”

As they arrived at Anydros, Ell curved around the south end and swept up the eastern coast of the mile long island. She turned in at a small cove with a beach on the far side and coasted in for a landing just beyond the sand. Flipping up her visor, she turned to Shan, eyes dancing. “Was that great or what?” She leapt off the seat and pulled off her helmet and her “Raquel” wig.

Shan dismounted and pulled off his helmet too, unable to keep the delight out of his eyes. “Yeah! That was great! When do
I
get to fly it?”

Peeling off her Kevlar suit Ell said, “Hmm, the first time, I think you should fly it from the back seat with your arms around me. That way I can help if you start getting out of control.” She lifted an eyebrow, “I
like
having your arms around me.” She started unbuttoning her shirt.

Thinking that she’d have a bikini under her clothes, Shan’s eyes widened when he saw she didn’t. “No swim suit?”

Ell raised her eyebrows, “Who needs a suit? This island is
deserted
! She plucked her snorkel and some goggles out of the pocket on her Kevlar suit, then loped gracefully across the sand into the waves.

Shan stared admiringly after her for a moment, then started digging for his own snorkel.

After playing in the waves a while and snorkeling under them to look at the sea life, they walked back out of the sea. Ell spun joyously around, swinging her arms and laughing. “This is beautiful!”

Shan nodded, “You are indeed.”

“No, you doofus,” Ell beamed at him, “I meant the island and the sea and the beach and being alone on it with you.”

“Well, that too.” Shan grinned at her. “I’m feeling hungry, how ‘bout we get around those gyros you put in my backpack?”

“Great idea!” Ell said, patting her flat stomach and turning to trot that way.

Shan dug out the sandwiches and the two collapsible cups, then felt around in the empty backpack. “Hey, did you put in any drinks? All that’s in this backpack are the gyros and a couple of empty cups.”

She patted his stomach, “Maybe we need to drink some of this here six-pack?’

Shan snorted, “We could get pretty thirsty out here with nothin’ but saltwater for 20 miles.”

She held out her hand, “Well, let me see one of those cups.”

Shan handed her one of the collapsible cups and she popped it open and turned her back to him. He stared, wondering what she thought she was doing, but then he heard the distinctive sound of beer pouring.
She’s naked! Where is beer coming from?
Shan peered over her shoulder to see beer pouring into the cup from a spot in space about two inches in front of her belly button. It stopped for a moment, then resumed pouring from a spot just closer to her than it had been coming from, then paused again and began pouring from a little farther away. He snorted, “You’re using that single-ended port you put behind your belly button—for beer?”

Ell grinned at him, “Don’t you go acting all hoity-toity on me. I might just pour this beer of yours out in the sand.”

“Who’s pouring that beer in there for you? It must be what, six in the morning back in North Carolina?”

“Yep, you’re gonna need to thank Amy for gettin’ up so early, just to satisfy your thirst for alcoholic beverages.”

“Hah! You’re not going to have her pour
you
a drink?”

“Well, of course. As long as she’s already had to get up to pour one for you, pouring one for me too doesn’t seem like too much additional trouble does it?”

Shan laughed.

She held his beer out to him and plucked the other cup out of his hand. A moment later Coke started pouring into her cup.

They sat peacefully on a large smooth boulder at the water’s edge. Waves lapped at their feet while they ate their gyros. Shan sipped at his beer, looking out over the sea, glancing at the beautiful woman at his side. He thought about how, if someone had told him a few years earlier he might be doing this today, he would never have believed.

Ell turned to him and said, “You ready to try flying our little hoverbike yourself?”

“Yeah!”

Ell used her port to fill their cups with fresh water several times so they could splash the salt water off. Once the sun had dried them off, they put their clothes on and packed their trash back in the backpack. Shan straddled the hoverbike and Ell got on in front of him. Ell said, “I suggest you spool up the fans, staying short of where they’d lift us off. Then try moving the handlebars around to get the feel of what they do. In flight the AI
should
keep you from flipping the bike over or doing anything really dumb, but if you want to feel like you’re flying it, it’s good to have an idea what’s going to happen when you do things with the controller.”

Shan twisted the throttle grip a little and checked to make sure all the fans were turning. Tilting the handlebars side to side made the bike strain to tilt against its wheels. He pulled back and pushed forward and then leveled it. He lifted the handle bars to hear the fans all spin up, straining to lift off but unable to rise at the low throttle setting.

“All right, give it a little more throttle. “

Shan did and it lifted smoothly off the ground. “I didn’t think it would be so steady.”

“Trust me,” Ell laughed, “without the AI, it wouldn’t be. Give it more throttle, but lower the handlebars. It’ll be even steadier with lots of power available, but the AI reducing the power because the handlebars indicate you aren’t trying to lift very high.”

Shan gradually gave it more throttle while lowering the bars to keep the hoverbike about three to five feet off the ground.

“All right, take it down into the cove and let’s have you practice some circles and figure eights.”

“Why not right here?” Shan asked, though he did start skimming the hoverbike down across the beach to the water.

“If you wreck it here, you’ll land on something hard. I’d rather we bashed our delicate heads on the water.”

Out over the water, Ell had Shan practice banking to match the tightness of his turns so bike didn’t skid around the curve. For amusement, he did make a couple of turns without banking at all which—as long as he didn’t push forward on the handlebars and activate the pusher fans on the sides—had the effect of simply spinning the hoverbike while it continued coasting mostly in the same direction.

“That was fun!” Shan laughed after a while. “Shall we head back to Santorini?”

“Sure.”

Shan curved out and around the south end of the island, turning toward Santorini. “What the hell is that?”

A cloud of dirty yellow brown smoke hung over the island.

“Allan,” Ell said, “What’s happened at Santorini?”

“There has been a small eruption of the Thera volcano at Santorini with new lava flows emanating from the Nea Kameni island in the middle of the caldera. At present it does not appear to threaten the surrounding caldera islands. The only danger at present appears to be to a group of tourists who were hiking the small crater on Nea Kameni. They have been trapped between a pair of lava flows. Tour helicopters are attempting to pick them up at present, but there is not sufficient space for the helicopters to land.”