Near Future 1: Awakening (24 page)

"Quickly now," he told them. They all rushed into the tunnel, the whole group hurrying as quickly as they could while having to move single file, everyone following Hernando. It seemed to take forever when they were all as frightened as they were. Finally, they reached the other end, coming to a stairwell, which they all climbed quickly until once more stopped by a door. They all held their breath as Hernando worked with the keys. Luckily it was the same key, so he got it unlocked easily.

Glancing out to ensure the coast was clear, Hernando once more gave instructions to the group. "We are only a few blocks away. Carla, you lead the rest since you should know the way. Miranda and I will stay in the back in case any of our friends show up."

No one argued. Carla hurried to the front and led them out the door. Some were looking pretty grim, but no one hesitated as they moved out of the exit.

Since the students were all athletes, they were all able to move at a rapid pace. They were almost to the airport when the ones in the lead all came to a halt. When Miranda and Hernando caught up, one of the others whispered, "They have several guards up ahead. We don't see how we can get past."

Once more, they appeared to be trapped!

#

As soon as he could get a look at them, Hernando turned to Miranda. He whispered, "I wish you had brought the dart gun and that other clip of darts. These guys are the elite of the local special forces. They consider themselves ninjas and I have no idea how we can get past them. However, they are honorable in their practices, just like the ninjas they have attempted to emulate. If we can convince them to let us go through, none of them will try to stop us."

Motioning to the group, Hernando had them all pull back a short distance. He desperately tried to think, but he just didn't see a way to pull it off. They surely wouldn't just let them go past, and there wasn't any other way to get to the airport.

Miranda looked at their group. She knew they were all really frightened. She was too, but she hated seeing the look of despair on their faces. She knew what she had to do; it was the only way, if she could pull it off.

Taking a big breath, Miranda turned to speak to the whole group. "I have an idea," she told them. "Do you trust me?" Everyone was in shock, but no one argued, not even Caitlyn, so Miranda said, "Hernando, I need you to come translate for me."

Stepping forward, the two approached the guards. "If I can defeat the four of you in hand-to-hand combat, no weapons, will you and your friends," she pointed to the barracks behind them, "let our group go through?"

Staring at Miranda in disbelief, Hernando translated what she said. The leader bowed and said, "On my honor." He went on to say something in his language which Hernando translated, "But you, little girl, should not do this. You cannot succeed."

Stepping forward, Miranda bowed to him in return and said, "On my honor." She handed all her weapons to Hernando, who couldn't believe what she was doing. He had thought of attempting the same thing, but he knew that there was no way he could do it, even with his special forces training. He held her close enough to see his face and looked intently at her. "You can't be serious. There is no way you can fight them."

"I know it looks impossible, but I believe I can. The one on the left is very nervous and will attack first, so I can take him out quickly. That will leave three, and I have fought that many before and won. The leader is the only one that will be difficult. Anyway, we have no choice." Stepping forward, Miranda bowed again and dropped deeply into her zone.

The leader nodded to the other three and they all stepped forward. Taking two quick breaths, Miranda slipped down even deeper. When the one to the left began to move, Miranda feinted to the right and then struck in a lightning fast move that temporarily disabled him. That brought the rest in.

Miranda could tell the leader was hanging back trying to get a feel for her moves. The others didn't think it was necessary, which showed their inexperience. So she concentrated on them first. She knew this one was for real and held nothing back. Using a kick to drive the second fighter back, she threw a three punch combination to the third and he was down. By this time the first one was back and she finished him off before the second one could get back in. Then the second one was moving back in, so she danced in to give him a combo move.
 

Within a few seconds, only the leader remained standing. Bowing to her in a much deeper bow this time, he attacked furiously, his hands and feet moving so fast they appeared as only a blur. Miranda managed to block most of the strikes, but some of them got through at least a little.
I'll feel those later
passed through her head, but Miranda didn't have time to think about it.

Just like in her previous experiences, it all seemed to click, and within seconds she was blocking everything. Then she began to land her own punches and kicks. Seeing a weakness in his defense, she exploited it to land a multiple combination of punches and kicks, ending with a leg sweep to take him down. He tried to recover with a roll, but she had anticipated that and moved into the roll to land more combinations, finally knocking him to the ground.

Miranda stepped back, waiting to see if he would rise and continue. Instead, he rose to his knees, saying one word in his language, almost in a whisper. Then he gestured with his arm, "On my honor," he said.

Miranda stood there as they all moved past. What Miranda didn't dare tell anyone was that she was on the very verge of one of her headaches. She breathed very deeply for a few moments, once more running her mental exercise of playing Julie's violin music in her head. Finally, when they were all past, she felt she could go on. Then bowing one last time, she followed the others. "What did he say?" she asked Hernando as she caught up to him.

"Master!" he said in a quiet voice. "And you are at that. I have never seen anyone move like you do, and I have trained with some of the best." Then he gave her a bow of his own.

Once past the guards, they easily gained entrance to the airport. Everyone rushed to the plane. Within moments, they were all safely on board the plane. Everyone, including Miranda, breathed a sigh of relief.

#

Quickly, however, their group found out they had another problem. A couple of collaborators with the coup had attempted to take over the plane. The air marshall had still been on board the plane, surprising the attackers. He had shot both of them, but not before both pilots had been injured. One of the pilots was only semi-conscious while the other one had his arm in a sling. Standing in the doorway of the cockpit, the pilot still mobile asked, "Does anyone have flight training? There's no way I can fly by myself with this arm."

When no one else said they could help, Miranda looked at Carla. "I thought you were Air Force."

"Paratrooper," she said. "I jump out of planes. Someone else had to do the driving."

Miranda sighed, turning back to the pilot. "I have had advanced simulator training at school. I think maybe I can do it if you will tell me what to do. But I have never actually flown a plane, so you will have to help me." She wished Zeke's friend Joe was here. She knew he had done some real flying.

The pilot looked at her a moment, obviously very nervous. Finally he said, "Come show me what you can do. If you can pull it off, I guess that will have to do. It is much preferable to staying here. Please come to the cockpit."

Hernando assisted the pilot by slipping underneath his good arm and helping him back into the cockpit. He explained, "I can help with the radio since I can speak the local language."

Hernando grabbed the radio and immediately began speaking in the local dialect. Neither Miranda nor the pilot could understand, but they could tell he got more and more angry as he talked. Meanwhile Miranda was following the pilot's instructions, rushing through the plane's checklist. At a certain point, he explained to her how to start the plane's engines, and she was able to successfully start them. They began moving slowly forward onto the taxiway.

Hernando finally stopped talking on the radio and said angrily, "They will not give us clearance to take off. However, they freely admit that there is not any incoming traffic. No one would be crazy enough to land here right now!"

To that the pilot said, "I may lose my license, but at least we will be alive. Get us out of here."

Turning onto the runway and following the pilot's instructions, Miranda revved the engines to full, released the brakes and they shot down the runway. An army jeep came rushing onto the runway from the far end, quickly turning toward them. Knowing that to a jeep, the plane had to look huge, Miranda had no intention of turning aside and so didn't waver in their deadly game of chicken. Believing that the plane was about to hit them, the jeep swerved out of control. Fortunately, the plane lifted into the air just before the jeep reached them. No one in the jeep was even able to get a shot off toward the plane.

As they climbed into the sky, Miranda had Hernando call a Mayday, and it wasn't very long before they were being escorted on both sides by US jets. When the jet pilots learned that their pilot was injured and a student was flying, they were directed to a US military airport. Following the pilot's instructions, Miranda set the heading to get them there, and with great relief, turned on the autopilot. The flight was going to take a while, so the pilot was finally able to get some rest, his arm obviously causing him a lot of pain. He instructed them to let him know as soon as they began to approach the airport.

Miranda and Hernando remained in the cockpit. Curiosity finally getting the best of him, Hernando asked Miranda about herself. Finding out that she was in the Space Academy program, he asked if she was planning to go into space or was just looking for a good job in research.

Miranda smiled and answered, "Yes!" to which he laughed. Seeing the question in his eyes, she explained. "I really, really want to go into space. But I also think I would enjoy doing research."

 
Hernando nodded. "If I were a few years younger," he said, "I would want to be up there with you. Not for research, but maybe part of a space force."
 

Miranda knew that the man was barely a few years older than her. Maybe he would wind up in space. "Who knows?" she said. "If we both ever make it up there, come look me up." She held her hand out.

Hernando looked at her like she was crazy for a moment. Finally, he grinned and shook her hand.
Why not?
He would never have believed he would see anything like what he had seen in the last hour.

They sat there a moment in silence, Miranda thinking about her possible future, and she imagined that Hernando was thinking along similar lines. But when she had made that handshake, it had felt like she was talking about a very real near future, and that someday not that far away, that same handshake would indeed be completed in space. She had no idea where that feeling came from.

"I'm going to see if I can get us some food." Hernando told her. "Mind the store." He slipped out of the cockpit, closing the door behind him.

#

Caitlyn had finally stopped shaking after they were on board the airplane and safely in the air. She had known just how desperate her situation was, and this time her dad would not be able to bail her out. Just as everything was looking its worst, somehow miraculously they had been rescued. Suddenly everything looked very different to her. She had devoted so much of her time to playing soccer but suddenly it seemed unimportant. She realized that she really hadn't thought about what would happen after she finished school and she no longer had her soccer games. As good as she was, she knew she was not good enough to go pro.

As soon as she was able to move without feeling like she would fall, she went over to the girl on the shooting team, Crystal, who she knew fairly well. Crystal had been the one to untie her when they came rushing in to the arena after all the guards mysteriously collapsed. "I just wanted to tell you thank you for rescuing us. It was looking really, really bad for us before you guys showed up."

Crystal looked at her for a moment. She was just now gaining her own composure. Apparently Caitlyn didn't know what really had happened. "I wish I could take the credit. I really didn't do very much. All I did was untie you and a couple of the others. It was Miranda. She did it all. She was the one who convinced us that we had to do it, and she was the one who shot all the guards that were holding you. She was the one who used her sniper rifle to disable the army vehicles so they couldn't follow us. And you saw her fight those ninja guards. If it had been up to me and the rest of our team, I fear we would have snuck off and left you there, something I expect I would have regretted for the rest of my life."

When Caitlyn just stared at her, Crystal gave her a shake of her head. "I know you blamed Miranda for Zeke and gave her a hard time. But you owe her for so very much, possibly your life. I know I for one am going to try to find a way to be more like her. I don't want to ever let myself be in the position that I would choose the easy way out again, instead of doing what is obviously my duty." Tears in her eyes, Crystal turned away from Caitlyn, looking out the window of the plane.

Totally in shock, Caitlyn went back to sit with her team. Crystal was right. She owed Miranda so much after all she had done to her. How could she have been so stupid? She knew she had already messed the Zeke thing up on her own anyway. She had just been looking for someone to blame, and by taking it out on Miranda she didn't have to deal with her own underlying issues. But now, after what she had just been through, none of the petty things she had worried about were important compared to what Miranda had just done for them. She would have to start where she was and do her best to make amends.

After gathering her thoughts a moment, she turned to the girls on the soccer team, gesturing for their attention. "Girls, there is something I must tell you. We all owe a big debt to Miranda." They all stared at her as she went on, explaining what Crystal had told her.