Wings of Steele - Destination Unknown (Book 1) (77 page)

Lisa
didn't know much about flying or airplanes, but it seemed abundantly
obvious
to her, this hulking, vicious looking thing, was not from her
planet. Light glowed from what appeared to be the cockpit and
further down the hull, an open doorway. Curious, she cautiously
ventured a little closer. A woman appeared in that doorway at the
top of a short boarding ramp, waving and calling to her in a strange
language. Lisa's legs seemed to turn to stone. It's just a bad
dream. I'll wake up soon, she thought.

Fritz
butt her in the thigh with his head. "Go, Lisa!"

She
whirled around. "Stop that! Dogs can't talk!" He grabbed
her
by
the sleeve of her coat and dragged her along. She fought but he
refused to release her.

■ ■ ■

Jack
slid to a stop in the driveway between two houses as the Blazer
slid
to a stop in the street right in front of him. He saw the muzzle
flash out the driver's window and flattened himself against one of
the houses, mashing his left arm. He felt a flash of pain and saw
stars. "Ow," he breathed. "That
really
hurt..." Lights were coming on in neighboring houses. The
Colombian swung the door wide and took another shot. Jack dropped to
the snow and heard the slug strike the garage behind him with a
hollow
thwunck
.
He wanted to fire back but his vision wasn't clear. He squeezed off
two blind shots, flattening the front tire and breaking the back,
side window of the Blazer. The Colombian froze in place and snapped
off another shot, striking the wall near Jack's head. "C'mon
guys..." he groaned, blinking away the stars. He squeezed off a
shot that hit the snow at the foot of the driveway with a great
hiss. Great shooting, Jack, he thought, no driveway is safe with you
around.

Jack's
vision began to clear enough to see the Colombian advancing
up
the driveway. "Give up, Mr. Steele..." hissed the voice.

A
mass of rapid, neon blue streaks, passed through the falling snow,
striking
the Blazer. It exploded in a giant fireball, breaking windows in
both the houses on either side of the driveway. Then, except for the
burning Blazer, there was silence once more. Jack blinked hard,
trying to erase the image of the flash.

Half
blinded again, he searched the driveway for the Colombian with
his
limited vision. He pointed the blaster at the advancing shadow.

"Jack!"
Brian's voice was a strained whisper.

Jack
lowered the blaster. "Yeah... I'm here." He began to see
and
got
to his feet, the driver of the Blazer lay just in front of him,
naked, blackened and smoking.

"Come
on!" insisted Brian with a wave.

Jack
started down the driveway, "I don't know what you guys are
whispering
about,
I've heard
tanks
make less noise." He joined Brian at the foot of the driveway
and they ran across the street past the burning Blazer and into the
park. "If that didn't wake these people, nothing will."
The four men headed back to the Invader as lights came on all over
the neighborhood. There was a siren in the distance somewhere.

"Get
us off the ground, Bri," prompted Jack as he dropped himself
into
a
passenger seat.

"Give
him a hand," Paul told Mike. "I'm going to take a look at
Jack's
arm." Mike and Brian headed to the cockpit and Alité
sealed the Invader's exterior door.

Lisa,
silent and wide-eyed, sat opposite Jack as Paul helped him off
with
his bomber jacket. She watched as her brother grit his teeth and
winced. Fritz climbed into the seat beside her and watched too.

There
was a temporary whine and some vibration as the generators
spun
up to full power to supply the anti-grav system. Lisa's eyes grew
wide. "What's that?"

"We're
taking off," answered Alité. She handed a medical kit to
Paul.

Lisa
glanced at her then back at Jack and Paul. "What'd she say?"

“
Taking
off..." said Fritz, annunciating slowly.

Lisa
jumped and glanced at the dog. He looked back at her, his head
cocked
to one side in a curious fashion. "Please," she pleaded,
"someone tell me what's going on..." She stared at Jack's
artificial eye, as black as polished onyx.

Jack
took a deep breath as Paul cut and peeled away his bloody shirt
sleeve.
"Lisa, meet Commander Paul Smiley of the cruiser Freedom.
Formerly of the US Navy." Paul nodded as he continued his
inspection of Jack's wound. "You know Brian," continued
Jack, "the other guy is Lieutenant Mike Warren, also formerly
of the US Navy. He's Paul's wingman." Jack sucked air as Paul
cleaned the wound.

"Looks
worse than it is," commented Paul.

Jack's
eyes watered as he nodded. "To you maybe."

"Stop
being a baby, Jack, it's just a scratch." Paul smiled. "A
big
scratch
,
but still... just a scratch."

Jack
managed a weak smile. "Ha, look, I'm laughin'. OW, take it
easy
will ya?" Alité sat down next to him and held his hand.
Jack glanced at her and saw the worry. "I'm Ok," he told
her.

"Who
is she, Jack?"

"Sorry,
sis, this is Princess Alité Steele. My wife." He turned
to
Alité. "Sweetheart, this is my sister, Lisa Steele."

Alité
smiled and extended her hand. "Nice to meet you."

Lisa's
eyes were wide with disbelief as she took Alité's hand. "Um,
I,
uh..." she closed her mouth. She didn't know what to say or who
to look at. The woman's eyes kept changing colors, and Jack's
artificial eye gave her chills. There were just too many things to
accept and digest, and Lisa was having a difficult time wading
through it all. "Ok wait..." she took a cleansing breath
and continued. "Let me just take a stab at this..." She
pointed at Alité. "She's not from around here. Am I
right?"

FT.
MYERS, FLORIDA:
HOME
AT LAST – SORT OF...

Brian
had taken the Invader up into the clouds and headed south at
a
leisurely pace. By the time they passed over Kentucky, they were out
of the cloud cover and so was Lisa. It took Jack that long to
outline the events of the past year and how things came to be. Lisa
listened to most of it in intense silence, only stopping her brother
on occasion to clarify something. When he finished, Lisa leaned back
in her seat and looked down at Fritz who had fallen asleep across
her lap. Her fingers stroked his left ear and her thumb ran back and
forth along the steel skull cap that covered the right side of the
Shepherd’s head. When she looked back up she was smiling.
"Wow," she breathed. "It's all too weird. Like a
sci-fi movie, y'know? Fact being stranger than fiction?" She
shook her head, as if trying to clear away the disbelief. "Boy,
I sure would've liked to have seen some of it."

Paul
had found a temporary translator disc in the medical kit and
taped
it behind Lisa's left ear. When Jack and Paul had returned to the
cockpit, Lisa and Alité were sitting alone talking girl talk.

Jack
had pulled a fresh tunic from the crew locker and stood
between
Brian and Mike at the controls while he buttoned it and pinned his
rank pips to its collar. "Any problems?" he asked.

Mike
shook his head. "Not really. Had a couple of nosy Air Force
birds,
probably from Langley, but they couldn't keep the pace."

Jack
looked out through the cockpit perspex. The Invader had flown
back
into cloud cover over southern Georgia, and beads of moisture raced
across the windscreen. Mike and Brian were flying on imaging
instruments. "We're clear of the mountains," said Jack.
"Why don't we drop below the clouds..." Without answering,
Mike adjusted the craft and it began a gentle descent. As they
dropped free of the greyness, rain slashed across the sky, pelting
the Invader and creating a familiar noise. The pilots glanced at one
another and smiled little smiles, the kind one makes when
remembering something pleasant.

"Sounds
nice," said Paul. It was funny about the little things. How
much
you could miss them.

The
heavy overcast soon gave way to broken cloud and the rain
stopped
abruptly. Stars were visible in the holes of the clouds, but the sky
would soon begin to lighten in the east. "How do you want to do
this, Jack?" asked Brian.

Steele
pinched his lower lip. "Approach low over the Gulf, drop
me,
Lisa and the dog on the beach and come back for us after dark."

Paul
shrugged. "A good a plan as any, what time do you want for
pickup?"

"Hmmm,
how about ten o'clock?"

"Too
many people still awake," corrected Brian. "How about
midnight?"

Jack
nodded. "Ok, sounds good."

"MacDill
Air Force Base just picked us up," announced Mike.

"Swing
out over the water, drop below five hundred feet," instructed
Paul.
The Invader banked hard and dropped four thousand feet in a matter
of a few seconds, the distant lights of Tampa disappearing below the
horizon. Brian followed the terrain at two hundred feet until he
reached the water where he swung back south to follow the coastline.

The
Captain in the shrimp boat below almost fell overboard as the
Invader
passed directly overhead. "Bobby! Bobby! Get the camera! Get
the camera! Quick!"

The
first mate looked up lethargically from his chores. "Why?
What'd
you
see Jim?"

The
Captain searched the empty sky down along the coastline, the
same
way he would do for the rest of his life. "Nothing... forget
it."

Streetlights
flickered off and winked back on along the beach as the
Invader
passed, but very few people were awake to notice. The sky in the
east was beginning to lighten. "Slow down, Bri," coached
Jack, "I can't see..." Brian eased the throttles back and
cut the engines, using the anti-grav to continue cruising.
"There...!" pointed Jack. "The surf shop! Slow down,
the house is only a few blocks..."

Brian
eased back the power and the ship slowed, dropping to less
than
a hundred feet. "We've got company coming," announced
Mike. "A Coast Guard boat's got us on radar and there's a
couple of F16s nosing our way..."

"Find
it fast," added Paul.

"There
it is," said Brian. He angled the ship over the beach.

"Lisa!"
called Jack. "You've got about thirty seconds, we're here!"

"Already?"

"Yep."
He slung the blaster rig over his shoulder and pulled on his
uniform
jacket to cover it. He decided not to wear the bomber jacket because
of the bloody hole in its left sleeve. He grabbed a comm unit and
clipped it on his ear.