Storm Over Saturn (11 page)

It was cramped quarters, and awkward now with Hunter, Zoloff, and the fin man fighting for elbow room. Hunter hauled back and was about to fire a punch at the swimmer, but there was no need. The man fainted dead away even before Hunter threw the punch.

"Bravo!" Zoloff yelled. He studied the man soaking and crumpled in the corner. "Should one of us take his costume off, then put it on, in hopes of fooling any guards we meet along the way?"

Hunter looked at Zoloff, then at the unconscious fin man, then back at Zoloff.

"That won't be necessary," he said.

They stole out into the adjacent corridor. It was lit by torches that smelled of wax and oil. The floor was flat in both directions, giving no indication which way was up or down. So they just stopped and listened. To their right, they heard music. Distant, discordant. And with a lot of bass. This told Hunter it was coming from somewhere above them. To their left, they could hear mechanical noises and groaning. The dungeon had to be that way.

They began running. And running. And running… Finally, the hallway started to curve downward. The sound of machinery got louder, the air, cooler.

They came to an intersection of hallways; Hunter skidded to a stop just before the two tunnels met. They both peeked around one corner and saw two prison cells, with six guards out in front of each.
Maybe we should have taken the fin man's costume
, Hunter thought.

He needed a moment to dream up a plan here. How were he and the feisty but elderly doctor going to take on a dozen of the walking trash cans?

Zoloff had no such inclination to wait, though. He stepped out from behind the corner, let out a great scream, and started running headlong down the hallway.

"Damn," Hunter said, springing to his feet and quickly finding himself on the doctor's heels. So much for getting a strategy together.

The soldiers saw them coming now; they had about fifty feet separating them. They aligned themselves at twelve abreast, spears up and ready. The doctor never hesitated. He left his feet ten paces in front of them, and with remarkable agility, laid out half the guards with a perfect running block. They went down again like dominos.

Those not hit by the initial blow were thrown off then-feet by those who were. In seconds, the doctor was wrestling with all twelve of them, at the same time yelling to Hunter, "Don't worry about me… I've got them covered. Save the others!"

It sounded crazy, but Zoloff was right. He'd bowled over all of the guards, and they were now engaged in a massive slow-motion wrestling match with him. Hunter body-slammed a couple of the soldiers on the periphery of the action and then turned his attention to the first prison cell.

Annie was within. She was lying straight as a board on a small bunk. Hunter called to her, but she could not hear him. She was obviously still under some kind of hypnotic spell. She wasn't going to be much help in her own rescue.

The cell door was locked. Hunter looked back at the mass of sprawled arms and legs on the floor and knew it would be impossible for him to find which guard had the keys. And while Zoloff was still remarkably holding his own, that might change at any moment. But how could he get into the cell to rescue Annie?

His mind went back to when he first landed in this weird place—how the rocket ship's door nearly came off in his hand. And later when the tin men's spears had gone through the fuselage. And how these so-called soldiers were so easy to defeat—when there wasn't an unlimited supply of them, that is.

That's probably when it finally sank in what this place was all about. It wasn't about armies, or prisoners, or observatories, or castles in the sky. It was about weakling soldiers, damsels in distress, and worlds to be saved. It was Adventure Land! A place custom-made for heroes.

So he looked back at the cell's bars and thought,
What the hell
? He put his hands on them and with all his strength began to pull on them. They parted like rubber.

Hunter was soon inside. Annie was still out of it, eyes wide open, looking into space. Hunter tried to revive her, but no amount of gentle shaking would do the trick.

He tried to lift her off the bunk, but she was literally stiff, so much so he could never have gotten her through the space he'd created in the bent bars. What's worse, outside he heard indications that the tin men might be turning the tide in the battle against the doctor.

Time was running out. He had to get Annie up and moving. So he did what he thought any hero would do: he kissed her, long and hard on the lips. She woke right away, took one look at him, and jumped off the bed. She was quickly glued to his side once again.

He carried her out of the cell just as a few of the wimpy soldiers were getting their footing back. Holding Annie with one arm, Hunter began punching the recovering soldiers with the other. Between these blows and a revived Zoloff, they were able to knock over the lot of them again.

"Time to go!" Zoloff announced. Annie squeezed Hunter, showing her full agreement.

But Hunter stopped them both in their tracks. "Aren't you forgetting someone?" he asked.

Father looked at daughter, and daughter looked back.

"Your boyfriend," Hunter had to remind them. "I thought he was locked up here, too."

They all turned back toward the second cell. Once again, Hunter quickly parted the pliable bars. Lying on a bed inside, stiff as a board, apparently suffering from the same hypnotic spell was a tall, dark, and handsome man, approximately Hunter's age.

"Please, we must revive him!" Zoloff said, suddenly up to speed again.

Hunter laughed. "Don't look at me."

Annie timidly left his side, walked quickly into the cell, and planted a kiss on the sleeping man that lasted no more than a tenth of a second. The man leaped off the bed, hugged Annie, hugged Zoloff, and shook hands heartily with Hunter.

"Buck Gordon, at your service!" he said with a bow.

Then he took a look at the guards who were recovering yet again—and suddenly bounded from the cell. Hunter, Annie, and Zoloff started off after him.

"Maybe he knows the way out!" Hunter cried.

"Or he's running away," Annie replied. "
Again
…"

They ran. And ran. And ran…

At points along the way they actually lost sight of Annie's husband-in-waiting. The corridors were murky and winding, with only a few odd torches available to light the way. They were also covered with great swatches of torn, dingy silklike material, held together by long pieces of silver twine, remnants, no doubt, of the palace's former glory. Between the dirty silk's ghostly flowing and the darkness in the hallways, it was impossible to determine if they were running up or down. Every so often they would hear the unmistakable clanking of the tin soldiers in pursuit. But with just a little more effort, those sounds were quickly left behind.

Finally they reached a ramp of sorts that went nearly straight down. At the end of it was a huge door built not into the wall but into the floor. They all skidded to halt in front of it.

"I heard them talk about this door," Buck said. "As a way out, in case anything happened up above."

It seemed a little too pat for Hunter. But then again, what didn't in this crazy place?

He studied the handle on the hatch. It looked old and elaborate and immovable. Yet when Annie simply reached down and gave it a twist, it opened easily.

Everyone stepped back and let Hunter actually pull the door open. As soon as he did, he was hit with a great burst of air. It stunned them all. Hunter instinctively moved the others back. Then he took a look at what was beyond the door. The simple answer was: nothing.

They were looking down through a cloud to the rough terrain of the strange little moon about a half mile below.

"Damn," Hunter breathed. "This place does ride on the clouds!"

At that instant, they heard the unmistakable clanking of the palace soldiers coming toward them.

"We're trapped!" Zoloff cried.

Hunter was still looking down through the hatch at the ground below. This was weird. He'd seen just this type of thing at least once before.

"They'll kill us all this time!" Annie cried. But Hunter didn't think so. He figured it was about 2,000 feet to the ground, maybe less. And what was the most heroic thing he could do at the moment?

"Get some of that stuff off the wall!" he yelled to the others. "Some of those cords, too!"

Hunter wasn't really sure how to make a parachute. But how hard could it be? Lots of fabric, lots of cord to serve as the control lines, lots of time before the plodding soldiers finally tracked them down.

They all worked quickly, gathering the silk and attaching the cords. They soon had two huge things that looked like parachutes, sort of.

That's when they heard the soldiers at the top of the ramp. The clanking was at first loud but quickly became almost deafening. There were hundreds of the metal men coming at them now. Hunter didn't hesitate. He put Zoloff and Buck together under one chute and with little ceremony, pushed them through the opening.

Then he grabbed Annie and stepped into the abyss himself.

The two parachutes worked like a charm, of course. They rode the gentle air currents, expertly spiraling to the ground below. Zoloff and Buck came down in a bit of a heap; luckily, a soft meadow was their landing pad. Hunter and Annie came in standing up. As soon as their feet hit the ground, the silk chute fell down around them, covering them. Annie took the opportunity to plant a passionate, tongue-lashing kiss on Hunter that ended only when the chute finally passed over them and blew away.

Hunter tried to stay cool, but it was not an easy thing to do with such a gorgeous girl in his arms. He looked back up at the aerial palace. Never did he think he'd find a floating city here. They moved down the meadow to a grove of trees. It gave them both cover and shade. They sat down and got their heads together.

The adventure now seemed complete. Buck was rescued, and Annie was safe. Hunter thought it was time to get to the business of his being here. He pulled Zoloff aside and explained how he'd learned about this place and how it was important that he complete his mission. Zoloff could only shake his head though. Such things still did not compute. Hunter retrieved the Mad Russian's image again and once more asked Zoloff if he had ever seen or heard of the man.

Try as he might, the good doctor just could not reply.

The disappointment must have shown on Hunter's face, because Zoloff asked him, "Your visit here has not been a success then?"

Hunter looked over at Annie, who was reluctantly gravitating toward Buck.

Hunter just sighed. "It wasn't a total failure," he said. "I guess…"

Zoloff did know where the ticket booth was, though, the place Hunter had to go to get on the next ride. Lucky for him, it was just over the next hill. Hunter shook hands with Buck and Zoloff, then he turned to Annie. Of the entire adventure, she looked the most beautiful at that moment. He gave her a very platonic hug. Still she managed to slip a note in his pocket and give him a peck on his cheek in return.

Then he bid them good-bye. They went one way, and he went the other. It was only after he was sure he was out of sight that he reached into his pocket and took out Annie's note.

It read, "Next time, take me with you."

Hunter found the ticket booth just where Zoloff said it would be: over the hill and atop a small rise not a half mile away.

He had trudged up the side of the rise to find a lush valley on the other side. It seemed very inviting. Green grass, swaying trees, sparkling rivers flowing through it. On a whim, he blinked his eyes, but the valley was still there when he opened them again.

At the top of the rise he found a small hut, just big enough for him to fit inside. It was built with the same fake wood. It had the same noisy planks. Above the door was a hand-painted sign in Russian:
Dobro pozalovat
v
Dom Uzasov. Tvoiy strashnü prazdnik cranet pravdoi. Otkroi
—
esli osmelishsya
! According to the quadtrol, it read: 

Welcome to the House of Horrors, Where Your Worst Fears Come True. Enter Only If You Dare
.

"Sounds promising," Hunter whispered to himself.

Inside the hut he found the same kind of ancient personal computer. He went through the ritual of turning on the PC and getting it to accept his English-language password. A prompt told him to insert his ticket. He did as instructed, the ticket quickly returning to him with a second hole punched in it. The picture on the back was even more faded now. But if anything, the Russian looked even more insane.

He made his way through the security walls, filling in the final fields just as he had done the first time, by typing in his name and stating his hobby was flying.

But before he pushed the Enter button, he turned and looked back into the valley from which he'd just come. This strange place. A moon that was not really a moon, orbiting an enormous planet that really wasn't there. He'd been warned to expect weird things down here, but some things he encountered weren't exactly that weird.

True, this particular moon was a place custom-made for heroes. A world of altered reality, activated, he guessed, after hundreds of years of lying dormant. But there were some startlingly familiar images here as well. A city that floated on clouds. Armies that marched endlessly in its streets. An emperor who in the end didn't have a clue. It was practically a blueprint for the current Fourth Empire, if written by a child.

Was there a connection? Or was it just a coincidence?

Hunter didn't know, and at the moment, he didn't have the time to even think about it. He had to get going.

He returned to the computer and paused for just one more moment. Reaching inside his pocket, he took out Annie's note and read it again.

Maybe next time, he
would
take her with him, he thought. Then he pushed the Enter button.

It was snowing.

Blowing, freezing, with heavy sleet, rain, ice. All in the dead of night.

Hunter was suddenly frozen to the bone. His flight suit soaked through. Icicles hanging from his nose.

Someone ran up to him, appearing like magic out of the blizzard. Hunter could hardly see their face.

"Can you fly this thing?" this person was screaming at him.

Hunter was suddenly aware of more people rushing around him. They all seemed confused, anxious, panicky. He realized he was on an airfield. There were flying machines everywhere he looked. Not rocket ships, or Star-crashers, or spacecraft of any kind. These were airplanes. With jet engines, propellers. Run by aviation fuel and dependent on the movement of air around them to fly. Hunter knew all this because in his former life—or make that in
one
of his former lives—he'd flown vehicles like this. He was a fighter pilot back then. One of the best, maybe the best ever.

They used to call him the Wingman.

Of that, at least, he was sure.

But that was then, and this was now—and he'd been suddenly thrust into this incredibly realistic horror ride. And he was standing on a taxiway, in the frozen wind, watching many of these airplanes scrambling to get into the air. And this person was in his face. He was just a kid, and he was wearing a cold-weather parka that said United States Air Force on it. Sergeant stripes ran down his arm.

"Can you?" he was screaming at Hunter.

"Can I what?" he finally screamed back.

"Fly this!" the kid yelled. He stepped to the side to reveal an aircraft directly in back of him. It was almost lost in the snow, but Hunter didn't have to see it to know what it was. He could
feel
its presence.

It was an F-16 jet fighter.

Some called it the Fighting Falcon. Others, the Viper. Take your pick. By whatever name, it was a kick-ass jet engine with an airplane built around it. It was small, light, could carry a shitload of bombs and missiles and still dogfight with a full rack. Yes, even blindfolded, Hunter would have known what it was. Way back when, a few lifetimes ago, he used to drive one of these babies.

The confusion around him increased threefold in just a matter of seconds. He turned back to the teenage sergeant.

"Yes, I can fly it," he told him. "I can fly the hell out of it!"

"Then, if I might be so bold, sir, I suggest that you strap in and get your ass going!"

"Going? Going where? What's happened?"

The kid seemed furious and on the verge of tears at the same time.

"The Soviets just wiped out half of Europe!" he yelled at Hunter through the torrent. "They launched thousands of Scud missiles with poison gas warheads—on fucking Christmas Eve! Now we've got to stop them before they wipe out the rest of it!"

With that, he ran off into the snow.

Hunter looked down at his hands and realized for the first time he was holding his crash helmet in one and a map case in the other. A huge airplane crossed in back of him. He recognized it immediately. It was a KC-135 in-flight refueling plane, a flying gas station that other planes could draw precious fuel from, while still in flight. It took off in a great explosion of exhaust and dirty-water spray. Right behind it was another one. Behind that, another one. To his right, on another slippery runway, two F-16s took off in tandem. Behind them, two more. Back on the main runway, a line of big planes with propellers and gun muzzles sticking out of their sides were waiting for their turn to take off.
Gunships
, Hunter thought.

He turned back to see two ground crew members standing beside the lone F-16, frantically beckoning to him. Hunter started running, putting on his crash helmet as he did so. He had to get going! Bounding up the access ladder, he literally jumped into the cockpit. The two drenched airmen strapped him in. He fired up the fighter's engine and felt a jolt of electricity surge through him. His entire body began vibrating. His hands automatically went to the side stick controller and the throttle. His feet to the control pedals.

And suddenly he didn't seem so insane anymore. He blinked—and when his eyes opened, everything was still there. The plane. The snow. The two airmen. No flash. Nothing.

Completing their task, one of the airmen smacked him twice on the top of his helmet and then disappeared down the ladder. The bubble top canopy came down with a thump. Hunter looked at his control panel and saw nothing but green lights. He knew this meant the plane was ready to fly.

Someone was trying to talk to him through the radio headphone in his helmet, but Hunter wasn't in the mood for conversation. He had places to go, things to do.

He looked over his shoulder and saw that the airstrip to his left was unoccupied. He gunned his engine, steered onto the hard tarmac, and a moment later went screaming down the runway.

This was
very
strange. Hunter really did feel like he was part of this machine. His hands seemed to be melded to its controls, his brain to its flight computer. He didn't even have to think about doing what he was doing. The F-16 was essentially the same flying machine he'd built back on Fools 6—from memory. If he didn't know how to drive this one, then he didn't deserve to draw another breath.

A flick of the stick, a push of the throttle, and he was airborne. The electricity rippling through his body turned into a lightning bolt. He hadn't felt this way in a very long time.

The airplane threw itself into the air. Hunter booted full throttle, which engaged the plane's afterburner and shot him forward with bone-crushing acceleration. He pushed back on the tail and was immediately going nearly straight up. In ten seconds he was already a mile high.

At thirty seconds he was passing through 25,000 feet. Only then did he level off and take a breath.

His ship's clock told him it was 0430 hours. There was nothing but darkness all around. He clicked on his cockpit light, unlatched his map case, and found a folder within marked Operations and Orders. He tore open this envelope; inside was a single piece of yellow paper. These were his orders. He was to connect with the large aerial convoy that had just left the airfield. He was to ride escort for it to Rota, Spain, and from there "engage in combat operations against any Soviet units found on continental Europe at the discretion of the local commander."

World War Three…

The words suddenly popped into his head. Though he arrived in the seventy-third century suffering from near total amnesia, some of Hunter's memories had returned to him in bits and pieces, some coming hard, but others very easily. First and foremost, he knew he was an American. He knew he was a soldier, a pilot. Some kind of national hero. But he also knew that he'd fought in a great war as a young man, several lifetimes ago.

That conflict was called World War Three. And for some reason, here he was, fighting it again.

He headed east, out over the water, streaking above the snow clouds, the storm in full retreat behind him. A bare hint of the sunrise came off his airplane's nose. The sky above was clear, filled with chilly stars. His first job was to catch up with the hundreds of airplanes belonging to the massive convoy that had taken off before him. He figured he was about five minutes behind them at the most.

His orders gave two radio frequencies, both UHF, that the convoy of refueling tankers, jet fighters, and AC-130 gunships would be using during the long flight across the Atlantic. Getting a communication link going was essential if everyone wanted to make it to Spain in one piece. He punched the first frequency into his radio set, adjusted the volume, but heard nothing. He tried the second frequency, but again could find no chatter between the dozens of airplanes.

This was strange.

While he was sure that the air convoy would be flying under the cloak of radio silence for the majority of the 2,000-plus mile flight, with this many planes in the air, there were always a few last-minute radio calls back and forth. From air traffic control to the departing airplanes. From one plane to another. Or, at the very least, one last weather report. But all Hunter could hear in his helmet headphones was static.

He pushed his throttle ahead. The engine roared in response. He scanned the skies ahead of him. The planes in the air convoy would be flying without their navigation lights, but the sky was quickly getting bright, and he was surprised that he couldn't see at least a few silhouettes of the last few planes to take off. But even though he had tremendous eyesight, the sky in front of him held nothing but scattered clouds and fading stars.

Very strange…

He went up to 30,000 feet, a mile above the convoy's assigned altitude. Sometimes it was easier to find something in the air if you were looking down on it. Hunter scanned the huge expanse of sky before him again, still he could not yet see the tail end of the convoy. He read his orders again. They included his heading, altitude, and so on. He compared the numbers on the yellow sheet with what his navigation computer was telling him. Everything checked out. He was where he was supposed to be, at the right speed, going in the right direction. Yet from what he could see, he was the only one in this very big, empty sky.

He tried the radio again. Nothing on the first frequency.

Static on the second. He turned the UHF tuning knob through the entire range of frequencies the radio was able to receive. He heard nothing on any of them.

He checked his flying orders again, double checked them, then triple checked them. He was heading in the same direction as the hundred or so planes in the air convoy; they'd all received the same orders. The sky should at the very least have been filled with contrails, so many planes were supposed to be up here, but for as far as his eyes could see, his was the only aircraft.

This was getting very weird. He booted his throttles, and in an instant, doubled his speed. He felt a double sonic boom as he broke the sound barrier and was soon driving the F-16 at 1,000 mph-plus. He held this speed for exactly thirty seconds, which by his calculations, would have put him right where the air convoy's location should be.

But all this did was use up his extra fuel. The sky around him remained empty.

He was just about to consider turning around and returning to the base when his radio suddenly came alive with voices. It was immediately horrible. Screams of panic and fear were pouring out of his headphones. He could hear the sound of explosions, too, and of jet engines failing, airplanes going down, people dying.

It was obviously the convoy, and obviously it was in big trouble. The entire concept of radio silence was out the window as Hunter could hear dozens of voices in the cacophony. They were screaming altitudes and positions of other aircraft. He had no doubt what was happening: the convoy was under attack.

But where were they?

If nightmares are a conglomeration of a person's most acute fears, then Hunter was suddenly living a nightmare. The most helpless feeling any soldier can have is to hear his comrades dying and know there is nothing he can do about it. That's what was happening to Hunter now. He flew on and on, desperately looking for the convoy, but he still could not see them. He flew for another ten minutes, twenty, then thirty. He flew for more than an hour, and not once did the cries go away. If anything, they grew in intensity and desperation.

It was only when he met the sun that the voices began to fade away. They went out not with a bang but with a whimper. One last pilot, helpless as someone was shooting him down, leaving a message for his wife and kids that was cut off in midsentence. His voice was replaced by static, and then nothing at all.