BlackWatch

"Pilot, move us away from the cloud, head towards the desalinization plant by the airport. There may be an attempt there."

She looked down at the ruins of the city as the pilot began the turn, then it was as if time stopped for a moment. Her eyes wavered, the ground seemed to turn from a solid to a plasma within the span of one heartbeat, then the earth gave up a violent shudder. Smoke began pouring from cracks that seemed to materialize out of nowhere, then she looked down on lava erupting from within the cracks, lava that appeared without warning, radiating from somewhere deep within the earth -- like slow-moving cracks across a window.

Radiation alarms flashed, warning alarms sounded and the air-car slammed into impossible turbulence.

"Climb!" she shouted. "Thermal currents! Climb faster!"

+++++

Thorsten Weblen-son and his men seemed beyond shock -- the second detonation had been unexpected, and he didn't know where it had come from, but the seismic activity was completely unexpected. Then the sound...?

A low rumble, so low he felt it in his bones, so intense he thought it was affecting his heartbeat, then the air pressure changed and it became hard to breathe.

The pavement cracking, parts of the street ahead bending -- bending, goddamnit! -- then steam pouring out of the fissures. One opened up in front of him and two of his team stumbled, fell inside. They rest ran to the edge and tried to look inside -- but it was almost like fire leapt up and licked at them...then a wave of molten earth hissed from the crack and began bubbling down the street, and they had to backtrack, run a few blocks inland to get around the lava, but he saw another flow ahead, and more to the east so they turned and headed towards the beach. They were a mile from the airport when he heard the Justinian on the COMM-link.

"Commander! Situation report!"

"Justinian! You are alive! Where are you?"

"Over the sea. There is volcanic activity near the mountains, but it seems to lessen to the south. Where are you?"

"Moving to higher ground, but I don't know where we are. The visibility here is impossible, and our NAV systems are unreliable."

"We lost power, but we're airborne, heading for the airport. Do you think you can meet me there, before the sun rises?"

"Yes, Justinian, we will make the attempt. If we can get our bearings... If not, we will have to seek shelter."

"Understood, and good luck."

He turned and looked seaward, saw her air car about a mile away and closing with their position on the beach.

"Can you get a lock?" he turned and asked one of his men. The man had a shoulder launched surface to air missile launcher and held it up to the sky.

"Positive lock, Commander."

"Take her out, but disarm the warhead."

Seconds later the missile leapt from the launcher and streaked towards the Justinian's air car; it jinked and dove towards the sea but this was a First Republic launcher, and escape was impossible. The disarmed missile hit the Justinian's air car beneath the exhaust ports, and they watched ejection seats blossom from the tumbling wreckage.

They were too low, he saw, for the chutes to arm and open, and he watched them slam into the water perhaps 500 meters from where they stood.

They'd not have to contend with the Justinian again, and perhaps not the Commandant or her troops! He looked at the sea, then at his watch. 'So much to do,' he thought. 'We might just make it out of here after all!'

"Snowbird 2, Streetsweeper, Songbird is down. Repeat, Songbird is down."

"Roger. Ascertain if she can still sing."

"Snowbird 2 understood, out." Well, that part had gone easily enough, Weblen-son thought. Now it was time for the fun part. He looked to the east, for the first hint of sunrise. They'd come from the east too, he knew, but now he'd have to try and get the Justinian.

His lieutenant looked at him. "Ready, sir? Or would you like to leave her?"

"No, I don't think so. She may be able to talk." He turned towards the smoke coming from, presumably, where the Justinian's air-car had slammed into the water and he sighed. "Well, let's go see if she made it."

+++++

Austin Stormgren sat in the jump-seat behind his brother and another pilot in the cockpit of a remarkably old Boeing airliner, a 737-500, as Jamie called it. The poor thing was slower than molasses, capable of about one-tenth the Mach 10 speed the latest SCRAM-jet shuttles could achieve. Both the BlackWatch and high-ranking Social-Continental operatives normally used high speed shuttles to cover long distances, and this thing felt like a trolley car. And the cockpit smelled like nothing Austin had ever run into in his life. Coffee and body-odor stood out, but Jamie said the real stench came from tobacco. Tobacco! That stuff was legendary! But despite its slow speed, this old bird had one special trick up her sleeve that made her unique in all the world -- and uniquely suited to this mission.

She had been the sole flying test bed for a next-generation electro-optical camouflage system when the First Secession War broke out. Austin didn't understand it -- basically sensors read light from the relevant angle and realigned molecules in a crystalline substrate applied to the surface features of the aircraft -- and like a chameleon, the aircraft -- from a distance at least -- for all intents and purposes disappeared from view. The illusion broke down rapidly when you got within a quarter mile or so of the aircraft, but with Jamie's plan that would be enough. Or so they hoped.

He leaned forward and looked out the cockpit window: he could see the wing flexing but it looked weird. They were miles above the desert floor but even in the early dawn light he could see desert features on top of the wing. The image shimmered and adjusted as the aircraft flew over a small mountain range; the wing looked more like a pile of boulders for a moment, then shimmered again into something new. He watched as Jamie looked at a screen full of radar data coming from who-only-knew -- probably Davos, for all Austin knew -- then spoke into the intercom.

"Target entering atmosphere. We should pick them up on their bleed, say within ten minutes, and expect landing another ten minutes after that."

"Roger that," came the metallic reply.

"I got time to pee?" Austin asked.

"Yeah. Fuck, I need to drain the main vein too. Jennie, take the airplane."

"My airplane," the co-pilot said.

"Come on," Jamie said as he crawled and contorted his way out of the left-hand seat. "Fuck, feels good to stretch for a second. Ah!"

They walked back into the cramped aisle by the forward galley and the main entry; Jamie opened the bi-fold door to the tiny restroom and fired away, talking all the while about what a funky airplane the 737 was, how solidly built it was and how easy it was to fly, then he backed out and motioned: "Your turn."

"Not much on privacy, are you?"

"No such thing, living inside a fucking rock, but you get used to it. Anyway, you'd better get used to it, too, at least if you're serious about making it onto The Emissary. There aren't that many open slots left, you know."

"I'll make it." Austin leaned into the room and held his nose while he pee'd. He popped out after thirty seconds and gasped for air. "My God in Heaven! It really stinks in there!"

"Yeah? Seventy year old crap'll do it every time. Remember, this bird ain't no spring chicken." He patted a wall affectionately, looked around at the interior, at the men gathered in the rear.

"You seem to take everything so calmly, Jamie. How do you do it?"

"Hm-m? Hell, I don't know, kid. Just the way it's been, I guess. When you fly, you stay calm or you screw the pooch every time. You get killed, fast. And speaking of which, you're gonna need to be thinking pretty quick on your feet in about ten minutes. You'd better go back there, get with the ground team and ready to roll."

"Yeah, right." Austin turned, looked at the commandos huddled in the rear of the aircraft. Fifty men against whatever thousands the Social-Continental party could muster. Would they be enough? Would Weblen-son really be able to neutralize so many, so quickly? "Well, good luck Jamie."

"Me? Shit, Ace, I'm gonna be sittin' up front reading some vintage porn while you're out there kicking ass. I may have big brass balls up here in the big, blue sky, but put me on the ground and I grow chicken feathers every time."

They looked at each other for a moment, then shook hands. It was an awkward moment, in a relationship that had been nothing but a brief series of awkward moments.

"Right. Well, take care, brother."

"I'll try to keep a couple of cold ones ready."

"Cold ones?"

James slapped his brother's back. "Later, Ace, later. I've got to go do some of that flying shit right now." He turned and walked back into the cockpit but hesitated a moment, turned and looked at his little brother one more time. He swallowed hard, tried to keep from tearing up while he watched the kid walk back to the other men.

"What a crazy, fucked up world!" he said, almost to himself. He turned and shut the cockpit door behind him.

+++++

Tribonian Bergtor-son led his small team -- and the people they'd picked-up over the past couple of hours -- through the Institutes buildings; he was looking for Misogi Kibata, the silver-haired exchange cadet from the Asiana confederation. The girl's father was part of Asiana's mission to the BlackWatch; it would do no good at all at this late date to lose the girl -- even if she had known the risks. Besides, he'd heard a rumor she had a crush on Aurelius/Austin. That couldn't hurt. And if he could get her onto The Emissary? Goodness! What concessions could he wring from Asiana for that

His radio crackled.

"Streetsweeper-3 to lead, we're with Snowbird and we have her."

"Lead to three, good work. Proceed to pick-up."

Outstanding. Now, why hadn't he heard from the birdmen?

+++++

Weblen-son pulled the Justinian through the surf, then up onto the beach. He looked at his watch, counted the minutes until sunrise. "Cutting it close," he said.

She was bleeding, bleeding badly, but he hadn't expected the sharks. He'd lost two men out there, two men when the brutes had appeared. The air car's pilot started screaming, then disappeared in a thrashing flurry of red foam, and Weblen-son had grabbed the Justinian and begun pulling her towards shore. The next attack was beat back with small arms fire, but the sharks learned fast and came up from underneath on their next run. Weblen-son and five of his men made it ashore with the Justinian, and two of them were firing at the circling fins even now. His medic and another squad had remained ashore and they were tending the Justinian now, while he coughed and heaved salt water and bile onto the sand.

+++++

Her eyes were closed tight and she could barely open them, so Sinn August-dottir drifted, still sitting, she assumed, in her air-car. Suddenly she was aware of pain, pain in her legs and she forced her eyes open, reached down and felt her flight suit had been cut away. She forced her eyes open, raised her head and saw there was a blood-soaked pressure dressing over the top of her right thigh, and now her forehead burned, She reached up, felt a deep cut there, felt blood oozing through a gauze pad hastily taped there, then she saw four other men were laying on the beach beside her, two wounded badly but still talking, two no longer talking, and she wondered how she got to the beach. Then she saw the horrible gashes on their thighs and arms and she remembered flashing teeth, gunfire, and Weblen-son pulling her through the water. She heard gunfire in the memory, primal fear, existential fear, and she tried to recall having felt that way before, ever, but she simply could not. There had been nothing like this to fear in decades, since before she was born, and she saw them clearly now -- the sharks that had come for her. The black eye, the huge open mouth, the serrated teeth. Great White. She remembered the image from a memory, a book perhaps, or a movie, and she saw the shark in her mind's eye and compared that to the animal in the water.

"Yes, it was a Great White," she said gently.

"Three of 'em, Justinian," one of the wounded men said. "Hey doc, she's up!"

A medic was by her side now, sticking a syringe full of morphine into her other thigh. The world began to swim and shimmer as rolling waves of warmth carried into softness, and she could just barely make out what the men are saying...

"She's lost a lot of blood, Commander."

"We don't have time for this; we've got to get moving!"

"Moving?" the Justinian said through a shifting purple haze, "Moving where, Commander?"

"To the airport, Justinian. The hospitals were attacked not long ago, and the streets are no longer safe. There is an aid station at the airport, and we've been told to report there."

"What...? Why there...?" she tried to speak, instinctively knew something was wrong but her body wasn't responding anymore. An orderly leaned over and put an oxygen mask over her face...but the gas smelled odd, metallic...then she felt her body falling, falling like a leaf onto a broad, fast running current... 'I remember water,' she thought -- as the last ragged vestiges of consciousness reached out for her, before she was pulled up into the light. "I remember water," she said, but her mind was closing now, her breathing too slow, almost shallow when she saw the rolling black eye again. She tried to fight now but nothing worked -- and she knew she was doomed.

"We've got to hurry," Weblen-son told his medic. His men gather and put her on a stretcher, and are walking through the sand towards ground transports when a huge, ripping sonic boom tore through the sky high overhead. Weblen-son looked up, saw the Commandant's SCRAM-jet shuttle re-entering the atmosphere high over the city, then begin its wide, arcing turn to bleed-off energy out over the sea. He wasn't a pilot, not a real pilot, anyway, but he knew with the wind blowing from the sea to the land that the shuttle would land heading west, that it would line up for the approach to LAX over the city, and he knew they were running out of time.

"Alright, that's it...they're here! We're got to make a run for it, or we're staying here for the duration." He looked at the fiery re-entry one last time while his men loaded into the trucks, while he did the math. "We've got about ten minutes to get to the rendezvous."

With the Justinian's stretcher secured in the back of the transporter he clambered in, but he paused and looked at his dead men on the beach -- then out to sea, remembering. He shook his head and climbed in, put on his seat belt as the pilot pulled back on the stick; the truck crawled up into the grim, smoke-filled sky, and he looked at the arcing gray smoke trail of shuttle -- now out over Catalina Island -- as it turned to the east.

'This is going to be close,' he said to himself, then realized he hadn't heard from StreetSweeper for far too long -- and wondered what had gone wrong.

+++++

"There it is!"

James Stormgren craned his head to the right, looked out past the co-pilot's pointing finger. The SCRAM-jet was trailing a thick white vortex of condensation, the fiery residue from re-entry, and it appeared to be turning on the base leg of it's approach while still over the sea. He looked down at the shiny domes that covered the remnants of Palm Springs, then at the threat receivers on the instrument panel: everything was still 'all quiet' -- until the radio came to life:

"Angel One, LA Center, clear to land, no other traffic, contact approach on one two two point five."

"Angel One to one two two point five," he heard the shuttle's pilot say.

Stormgren reached up, dialed in the new frequency and began jamming the ground radar, looked out over the left wing and saw the Commandant's shuttle begin it's turn onto final. He poured on throttle and began climbing for the intercept; by the time they were over the eastern limits of the city's ruins he had the 'invisible' 737 tucked in behind, and just a little above, the shiny white dart-shaped shuttle.

And so far no radar contact, no warble from the threat receiver.

He backed off a little, moved a little left, then he saw another shimmer in the air.

His father, in the F35. The last real First Republic fighter, the fighter his father had flown once upon a time. He looked at the shuttle and a part of him hated to destroy such a beautiful machine, let alone the men and women inside, and a part of him hoped the other pilot would be able to control the shuttle and somehow bring her down intact. He wondered if he'd be able to in similar circumstances.

Probably not, he told himself. The shuttle was little more than a falling brick now, an unpowered glider with no way to evade a hostile enemy.

'Murder,' he thought. 'This is little more than murder...'

He could see a huge white desalinization plant off to the southwest, the coast and sea sparkling beyond; almost dead ahead he could see the remnants of huge explosions drifting in the still morning air, apparently large fires were still burning down there in the city, probably out of control now, the heat out of control too.

"Five hundred," the automated voice of the flight computer chimed as the runway grew near.

"Missile armed," he heard his father say, and he knew that almost instantly threat receivers on the shuttle would go off, that they'd initiate countermeasures.

"Center, Angel One, we've got missile warnings up here..."

"Angel One, nothing on radar. It must be ground based..."

"Two hundred, minimums," the voice of the 737s flight computer said.

"Fox one!" Thomas Stormgren said, yet the command was almost whispered. The Sidewinder leapt from its wing mounted rail and crossed the two hundred meters to the Commandant's shuttle in a millisecond; before, probably, the other pilot had time to react to his threat receiver. The missile slammed into the left engine pod; fan blades and a huge orange blossom of fire erupted from the wing and left side of the fuselage; the shuttle began rolling drunkenly to the right as it's pilot struggled to control the resultant asymmetry.

The shuttle crossed the runway threshold nose down and left wing up; the right wingtip struck the ground and the shuttle began cart-wheeling -- before disappearing inside a roiling black cloud alive with orange flame. When the pressurized, almost empty hydrogen tank ruptured, a concussive explosion ripped across the airport, breaking glass for miles around.

Stormgren chopped the throttle, flared the 737 and touched down on the adjacent runway; he didn't use reverse thrust now, didn't want to call attention to their arrival and alert whatever ground forces were stationed at the airport, so the jet rolled out slowly to the end of the runway, and he saw the old coast highway, and the beach beyond. He turned the jet, aimed it right back down the runway, then cut power to the number one engine on the left wing as the jet rolled to a stop. He heard doors opening in the cabin, men shouting as they clambered down emergency webbing; he saw his brother running away from the aircraft to help establish a defensive perimeter and felt a little surge of adrenalin-fueled pride as he watched his father overhead, keeping a lookout.

"There!" his co-pilot sang out, pointing toward the old main terminal complex a mile away. "Trucks!"

Yes! And no one pursuing! The plan might work after all!

He looked the far end of the runway -- to the wreckage burning uncontrollably there -- yet so far not one fire truck, or other emergency vehicle, was responding. What the hell was going on?

Now two groups of trucks approached; one on the ground from the terminal and the other from the air. The air truck landed in a cloud of dust; men boiled out and joined the others already on the ground. He saw a stretcher being off-loaded from the air-truck, a couple of wounded Social-Continental troops being helped by commandos when the first truck from the terminal arrived.