Waves curled into white caps, crashing in on themselves and rolling to the quiet beach where they faded one after another under a cloud-filled night. Those clouds added a new sound to the steady onslaught of breakers: the pitter-patter of a light rain on the grassy dunes as well as the patio pavers outside the Stones' beach house.
The drizzle dripped on the roof, rolled along gutters, and filled the darkness with a constant dribble that helped mask Nina and Gordon's footsteps as they crept toward the sliding glass door separating the rear patio from the kitchen.
The pair moved silently, speaking with gestures and intuition, but they moved with urgency: the lone exterior guard walked a loop around the beach house and-if his timing held true-he would return to the patio within three minutes.
Nina held a silenced nine millimeter pistol, knelt alongside an Adirondack chair, and covered Gordon as he used a screw driver to bypass the rudimentary latch securing the door.
Knox succeeded in undoing the lock and the two slipped inside. Nina softly slid the glass door closed behind them then followed Knox across the kitchen.
The kitchen opened to the living room where a television screen flickered a frozen image reading "end of broadcast day". An armed man snored on the couch.
The square-shaped living room not only linked to the kitchen, but also linked to two short halls on opposite sides.
Nina held her gun with both hands and pointed the barrel at the sleeping guard's head, prepared to pull the trigger if he stirred. She nodded to Gordon who took advantage of her cover and traversed the living room toward the hall leading off to the southwest. When he arrived there, he leveled his Desert Eagle at the slumbering sentry's noggin' and motioned Nina to join him, which she did.
Knox peered around the corner. He saw an empty chair outside of a closed bedroom door. With Nina watching his back (and watching the sleeping guard), Gordon turned the unlocked knob. He opened the door slowly and stepped into the pitch black master bedroom.
He first noticed bars on the windows that had not been there last summer when he had been Trevor's guest for a Fourth of July celebration. Gordon realized those bars kept Ashley and her family inside.
Before he stepped toward the bed, his survival instincts kicked in and he pivoted about. Someone lunged at him from behind the door brandishing a vase or something.
Gordon grabbed the weapon before it could strike. Despite the darkness, he saw that it was Ashley who attacked him but her frazzled hair and seemingly crazed disposition caused him to second guess his eyes. This was not the sophisticated, classy woman he left behind at the estate before disappearing. "Ashley, it's me," he whispered. "Gordon?" Nina peeked inside the room and said, "We got to move." "We're taking you and JB out of here," Gordon explained. "No time for your things." Before Gordon finished his explanation he realized something to be terrible wrong. "What?" "They took him. My son…they took him away."
This served as yet another twist on Gordon's perspective of the situation. Who would take her son? Why? What purpose would it serve? Yet he had no time to find those answers.
"Okay, let's go then," he simplified.
"My father…he's in the other room, get him, too."
Ashley grabbed a pile of clothes from a cedar trunk. Gordon led the trio along the hall to the sleeping guard in the living room. He next hustled Ashley to the kitchen area. Nina waited until they were clear and then crossed behind the quiet guard on the couch toward the far hall.
Before she turned the corner there, a hard chop from strong hands came down on her wrist, knocking free her pistol. The short, gray-haired man named Tucker stepped out from his ambush position and reached for the pistol tucked in his shoulder harness.
In a flash, she twisted his wrist and sent the automatic to the carpet.
The guard on the couch stirred.
Tucker did not hesitate. He smacked Nina in the cheek with a left jab then used a front snap kick to send her backwards stumbling over an easy chair near the sofa. As she leapt to her feet, she saw Tucker retrieving his gun and the stunned-but-now-awake guard on the sofa coming to his senses.
She abandoned the mission and bolted for the kitchen. A pistol round whizzed by her shoulder and exploded plaster from a wall above an oil painting of a lighthouse. More rounds pursued as she joined Gordon and Ashley as they scrambled across the patio toward the beach.
Knox needed no explanation. He hurried Ashley with one hand and leveled his gun toward the open sliding door with the other firing several cannon-like blasts toward the two guards, forcing them away from the kitchen for the moment.
A small flashing light announced the approach of Eagle One from its holding pattern out over the Atlantic. It zoomed toward the shoreline fast.
Ashley stumbled on the sand but managed to hold on to the pile of clothes that would replace the shorts and t-shirt she had worn to bed. In response, Gordon reached to steady her pace, dropping his guard for an instant.
Three I.S. agents raced to the patio with weapons drawn. Before they could fire, Benjamin Trump tackled Tucker from behind, yelling some obscenity or another. The surprise hit bought the escaping trio a crucial two seconds; time enough for the transport to swivel about and hover two feet above the beach blowing sand and concentrating its blinding spotlights on the agents at the house. The side door slid open and there stood Odin the Norwegian Elkhound barking encouragement.
Nina jumped into the ship and took Ashley's hand to help her onboard.
Back at the house, Benjamin Trump suffered a solid punch on the chin, sending him unconscious but the former proprietor of the fourth largest fence company in Luzerne County had bought his daughter just enough time: if Tucker had fired his gun a moment sooner he would have hit his intended target, Ashley Trump. Instead, that bullet slammed into the lower back of Gordon Knox as he jumped into the passenger compartment of Eagle One. He grunted. Everything below his waist went numb. His upper arm strength managed to clutch the ship. "Gordon!" Ashley called as she saw an expression of bewilderment paint over his face. She frantically reached for his belt and, with Nina's help, they hauled him inside.
More bullets ricocheted off the ship but Nina closed the door, eliminating any threat from small arms. As she did, the ship banked and flew away from the beach into the rainy night.
Ashley lay on the floor of the compartment with Gordon's head on her lap. Nina broke out a first aid kit and examined the wound. Blood gushed from the small of his back.
Nina understood battlefield first aid and put that knowledge to work in slowing the bleeding with pad after pad of gauze and direct pressure. But she could not discern the seriousness of the injury.
He did not cry out but the contortions on his face suggested great pain. Nina injected him with morphine from the medical kit. Before Gordon drifted into unconsciousness he told them, "I can't feel my legs."
Ashley cradled his head and whispered, "I knew you'd come." He once seemed so scary but was now revealed to be, like her, a fragile human being. "Thank you."
Blood seeped from the bandages, no amount of field triage would suffice. He would need serious medical treatment soon. No exit wound meant the bullet remained inside.
Nina raced through a mental checklist of options as she pulled a blanket from a cabinet and helped Ashley wrap it around Gordon to stave off shock. He needed medical attention, but unlike her Dark Wolves companions Nina knew she could not simply drop him off at a hospital and expect nothing worse than internment. No, Internal Security-once they knew his location-would kill him. Nina turned her attention to Ashley. "You said they took your son. What do you mean?" "That bastard Brad Gannon and a Witiko ship took Jorgie away yesterday."
That explained Ashley's condition. The woman looked a far cry from the dignified first lady of The Empire. She had not slept or probably even ate in the time since her boy vanished.
A buzz on the intercom grabbed Nina's attention.
"We got a problem!"
She responded to Hauser's call by opening the interior bulkhead and joining him in the cockpit, leaving Ashley holding Gordon on the floor between two rows of seats.
Despite her background as a helicopter pilot, Nina had never learned to fly an Eagle. Nonetheless, the ship fascinated her. The roomy cockpit with redundant controls for pilot and co-pilot, the virtual reality goggles that created the illusion of actually being the ship…everything about the craft intrigued her.
She sat in the co-pilot's chair and asked, "What's the problem?"
Hauser, the pilot, told her, "The Chrysaor. She's coming down from the north. We can out run her but…" "Where are we?" Cape May now, heading south. We'll be over water in a minute. But I think…oh shit." Tones burst from the console. A flashing light warned of calamity. Hauser translated, "We've got incoming. Three. Damn it, heat lock and radar lock. Shit!"
Nina felt the transport accelerate. She saw an expression of grim determination on the pilot's face. The new thrust-from Eagle One's modified boosters-pushed her into the chair.
"Hold on…activating counter measures. Chaff away!"
A burst of radar-inhibiting particles dropped from Eagle One's undercarriage, fooling the first of the incoming missiles. It veered away, eventually landing in a long-abandoned coastal neighborhood.
Nina slipped on the duplicate pair of navigation goggles to follow the action. The view astounded her: she saw a night-vision enhanced image of the space in front of the Eagle and, as she turned her head, saw the area all around, including the glint of fire coming from two more inbound missiles.
A symbol on the goggles' display blinked 'heat defeat' as Hauser activated another counter-measure. Flares fell from the craft, pulling the heat seeker into the water below as the New Jersey coastline faded behind. One more… Nina saw the missile zoom closer…closer. The warning chimes blared. Hauser grunted. More chaff. More countermeasures. BAM!
The Eagle rocked side to side as the warhead hit high on the spine of the ship throwing Nina from her chair. Her goggles fell off. She saw a thunderstorm of sparks and electrical bolts engulf the pilot's side. Flames shot out from the side panels. Hauser slumped in his restraints.
She scrambled over, pulled an emergency fire extinguisher, and doused flames. Then she shook his body while also feeling for a pulse, which she found, but Hauser remained unconscious.
Nina sat on her knees on the grating between the two seats. Beyond the thin windshield she saw only darkness as the fast-moving craft began to descend toward the harsh waters of the Atlantic. The Eagle would be torn to pieces on impact.
She gazed at the empty co-pilot's chair. The controls there appeared undamaged. But who would fly the ship?
I will.
Her palms grew sweaty; her heart beat hard as adrenaline pumped into her veins.
Nina cautiously returned to the chair, unsure of how or why she felt she could conjure such a miracle. Yet as she fixed the goggles over her head…as she gazed at the control panel and took hold of the sticks on either arm of the chair…things appeared, just a little, familiar.
For the first few seconds she gently maneuvered the pistol-grip sticks. Her feet worked the pedals to stabilize altitude. Each action rocked the craft clumsily, but the ship did steady.
How can I do this? This is not possible!
She gauged at the altimeter: fifty feet, practically skimming the Atlantic, certainly under the radar net cast by the pursuing Chrysaor. No doubt that dreadnought would soon launch fighters for a detailed search.
Still, Nina faced more immediate concerns. She managed to steady the transport and keep it on course, but could she change that course? If not they would be easy to find, regardless of darkness or altitude.
With full fuel tanks range would not be a problem, but where to go? And they had to go somewhere. While the damage from the missile strike appeared contained, Gordon required medical attention that would not attract Internal Security.
She first thought of Shep. The Southern Command Headquarters lay to the southwest of their position. She could fly them across Delaware Bay and be there in a short time. With Ashley's testimony No.
That's the first place they would look. Ashley would not have the opportunity to testify before the public, a judge, the press, or whatever. Nina doubted they could make it into Annapolis air space. The conspiracy surrounding the apparent assassination of Trevor Stone stretched from the new President to the aliens known as The Order and throughout the Internal Security apparatus. Such a conspiracy had the means to defend itself. She envisioned mobile Internal Security Anti-Air batteries sent to the Highland Beach coast with orders to shoot any incoming transports on sight. If that were not enough, certainly Captain Kaufman would order her jets to sweep the area between the Eagle's last known position and the coast.
Her head swirled, not from the enhanced night vision of the goggles but from the scope of the task before her. Ashley's son kidnapped, Gordon Knox dying, and Trevor Stone…alive?
Maybe.
They needed to hide where Gordon could be looked after and where she could contact people who could expose the conspirators and knock Evan Godfrey from his perch.
Nina pulled off the goggles and consulted a small monitor screen displaying an electronic map. Her hands and feet wobbled but held the craft on course a few meters above the ocean. Rain drops splashed on the windshield that seemed pointed at a wall of black.
She scanned the map and considered. As she reached a conclusion, the bulkhead to the cockpit slid open and Ashley walked in. The first lady of The Empire rushed to Hauser. "What hit us?" "A missile." Hauser stirred. "Rich looks like he'll be okay," Ashley said. "But Gordon needs help, fast." "I know." Ashley knelt alongside Nina in the co-pilot's chair. "How long have you been flying these?" Nina said, "As far as I know, today is the first time." Ashley’s eyes bulged. Nina went on, "I've thought of somewhere for us to go; someone for us to meet up with." "Can you trust this person?"
Nina thought about the days she had spent fighting the Hivvans in North Carolina. She thought about Mutants taking hostages, about clearing Wilmington at the head of a massive Hunter-Killer team, and about meeting Denise for the first time. She thought about other things, too. Things that once held promise only to turn to disappointment.
"I hope so."
– Dawn came but with no fanfare; a ceiling of gray clouds remained stuck overhead in a gloomy quilt, turning the sun from bright to dull like light hidden behind curtains. The rain still fell but with little enthusiasm; nothing more than a soft drizzle sprinkling into puddles remaining from the night's more impressive downpours.
Jim Brock crossed the living room of his small home, careful not to wake the sleeping baby in the first bedroom or the teenager in the second.
His biological clock did not allow him to sleep in, not on a day that promised a lot of activity. The Wrightsville Beach Community Club had scheduled a cleanup along the south beaches in the morning and Jim planned to attend a luncheon of 'Concerned Citizens' to discuss the changing political landscape and, of course, to celebrate the end of the war.
On top of that came the needs of an eight-month-old daughter as well as a fourteen-year-old boy, and Jim had promised his wife a Friday night break from diaper changes so she could attend practice with the newly formed Wilmington Oratorio Society.
As hectic as his scheduled sounded it did qualify as a "normal life," the idea of which once seemed a fantasy in a world where aliens occupied most of the globe, monsters lurked in the swamps to the south, and where a young man had crowned himself Emperor and sent his armies marching off to re-conquer the world.
Brock had often told his day care kids in the old world and his students in the new one that two wrongs did not make a right. That and the usual, ‘the ends do not justify the means.'
Thoughts of Emperors and Empires drifted through his mind as he examined the front page of the North Carolina Reporter. He read the Reporter and not the Wilmington News because he found the latter to be far too militaristic.
Brock shook his head in disappointment as he sipped hot tea at the breakfast counter and glanced over the stories on the front page.
FUGITIVES AT LARGE; REWARD OFFERED. SECRETARY'S DEATH LINKED TO DISGRUNTLED MILITARY AND INTELLIGENCE OPERATIVES. PRESIDENT ASSURES NATION SECURE. FINANCIAL MARKETS WAVER IN CONCERN OVER POLITICAL STABILITY.
"Some people just don't know how to live without war," he thought between sips.
A series of soft thuds interrupted his musings over headlines, politics, and conspiracies. He realized those thuds came from his front door. Knocks, actually.
Brock set his mug on the counter top and gazed at the door curiously. He knew the people of Wrightsville Beach liked to attack the day early, but so soon after dawn?
Nonetheless, he stepped from the kitchen, crossed the living room, and opened the front door. Outside, the rain splashed intermittently on the long sidewalk curving through a landscaped lawn with a stone garden and a small but well-trimmed dogwood tree.
In his doorway stood a woman covered in drizzle, her curly blond hair matted flat and a waterlogged ponytail drooping behind to her shoulder blades. She wore a soldier's uniform and carried a rifle.
The sound of a visitor stirred Jim's wife awake. The petite brunette drifted into the living room tying a powder blue robe while trying to suppress a yawn. She squinted and, when seeing a soldier, asked in a voice one part annoyance and one part fear: "What is this, Jim?"
Brock stared at the blue eyes he had once found very mysterious. Yet what surprised him most of all was not her appearance at his front door, but how her shoulders slumped and how those mysterious blue eyes struggled to stay awake. He recalled her to be a confident, strong woman but on that morning in the rain at his door step she appeared anything but. "Nina?" The woman at the door muttered humbly, "Hello, Jim."