Book 2: Chapter 114: Black Hawk Down
Book 2: Chapter 114: Black Hawk Down
Dan called it in immediately using his emergency radio, but he didn’t dare return to the stadium just yet. Instead, he fixed his gaze on the blurry point in the distance where the aircraft had crashed. He could see small flickers beyond the curtain of rain, where fire fended off the darkness. That couldn’t be good. This much rain should smother even a gasoline fire, yet it was only growing brighter.
“Your report is confirmed, Mr. Newman,” his radio barked into his earbud. “We have a downed aircraft near your location. Other volunteers are en route; please move to check for survivors and provide assistance. Proceed with caution.”
Dan blinked inside a distant office building, keeping himself facing the distant glow. He clicked his transmitter and asked, “Who the hell was flying around in this mess?”
“Unknown. We are getting very little information on our end, but several other volunteers reported seeing the crash. Again, proceed with caution. The craft could contain hostiles.”
Dan let out a string of curses as he blinked to the next window he could see. He had no eyes on the crash site. Between the rain, the wind, and the blinding flashes of lightning, he could barely make out entire buildings. Each time the world strobed, the buildings would shake and the windows rattled. There was a constant, pounding roar of water and wind that couldn’t help but draw Dan’s attention.
He glanced down at the street, noticing with dismay that the water level was encroaching on the ground floor of several buildings. His next blink took him almost an entire block, catching sight of a building’s reflective windows as lightning raked the sky. One last jump took him to the far side of a building overlooking the crash site. Dan immediately sent out his veil, mapping the building as he sprinted across it. As soon as he found a window facing the other side, he willed himself beside it and looked down.
In front of the office building was a parking lot, followed by a street, then another parking lot, and more office buildings. The aircraft had plowed horizontally through several of these buildings, before exiting into the parking lot and, judging by the broken pavement, skipping like a stone. The craft had terminated inside some kind of art piece, or memorial. What had been a series of standing stones was little more than rubble, with several of the heavy pillars laying on what was left of the flyer.
Also, pretty much everything was on fire. The office buildings, the parking lot, what was left of the stone structure and all of the aircraft. There was a bright red trail perfectly illustrating the path the plane had taken in its calamitous descent. The plane itself, or what little Dan could see of it, was an odd beast. It was shaped like an oval, kind of a flat, smooth, elongated disc, though he could see what might have once been a wing jutting out of its side. The craft was about as long as a truck, but only as tall as the cab.
Dan knew what this was.
“Central, be advised,” Dan spoke into his radio as his veil darted down the building and began stretching towards the downed plane. “The aircraft is a Lockheed RI-99 ‘Peregrine’. It’s badly damaged and on fire. I have no eyes on the SPEAR Team.”
He waited for them to process the news as he examined what was left of the aircraft often used by SPEAR Teams for rapid insertion in certain terrain. He hadn’t realized that ‘the ocean’ was one of those types of terrain, but he supposed it made sense. Hurricane Victor had originated slightly off-coast, and the assault teams needed something quick and stealthy to get there.
Though, something had apparently gone wrong. Dan had a flash of memory—tiny shadows clashing in the sky—and forcefully repressed his desire to look up. His second desire was to flee. Whatever had downed the craft might come looking for survivors. That wish was chased away with similar alacrity. The Peregrine was a tough design, and SPEAR Team members wouldn’t die to something so mundane as gravity. His veil finally crossed the distance between himself and the craft, and slipped inside.
“Repeat last transmission,” a new voice demanded over his radio. “You have a Peregrine at your location?”
“You heard me right, I’m looking at a downed Peregrine,” Dan replied absently, as his veil probed the aircraft’s insides. Whatever its hull was made of, it wasn’t anything Dan recognized. Even with the crash and the fire, it remained mostly intact. It was getting awfully warm, though. Dan could feel the walls slowly melting. The inside must be scorching hot.
“Your file indicates sensory abilities,” his radio pressed urgently. “Can you confirm any survivors?”
“Wait one,” Dan replied. His veil slipped thin threads through the destroyed innards of the Peregrine. Information flooded into his mind, metal, silicon, unknown, unknown, unknown, linen— Life! His veil rebounded twice more as it found clothing, then live flesh. Two were stirring, if slowly. One seemed unconscious, lying almost perfectly still.
“Three survivors,” Dan reported back, “and I don’t feel any dead bodies. I can’t speak for their health, though. There’s a lot of fire down there. Can we confirm that these are friendlies?” He’d jumped to the assumption that they were from the Galveston SPEAR Team, but it was probably better to check.
“Confirmed, Volunteer Newman. SPEAR Team Beta’s craft was brought down through enemy action. Your priority is their safe retrieval. You have backup on the way, but I implore you to do whatever you can to preserve their lives, without endangering your own.”
Well, rescuing people was pretty much Dan’s job. He hadn’t expected it to be the local wet team, but that was the hand he’d been dealt. He glanced to the sky, noting that the lightning had only increased. His brain had shifted the noise into the background, but he now realized that there was a constant rumbling coming from the sky, as thunder rattled the city. Between the light show and the rain, it was impossible to make out anything useful.
“Fuck it,” Dan said. He’d just have to hope nothing hostile came looking for these men. Dan tried to take note of the direction of the wind, then realized how pointless that would be. The rain was practically horizontal at this point, but it was whipping every which way at completely unpredictable intervals. The storm would not be cooperative.
He glanced back at the parking lot. The fires were spreading and, as he peered deeper past the obscuring rain, he realized it was being carried along atop the floodwaters. Lines of burning fuel drifted down the street, brushing against doors and windows and cars. The parking lot where the Peregrine had fallen was not yet flooded, but the rising water, now thoroughly mixed with the fuel and very much on fire, crept steadily forward.
“Okay,” Dan said, bouncing on his heels and limbering up. “Okay.”
His veil tagged the now moving SPEAR Team members. He could feel them struggling with straps and harnesses, unbuckling themselves from their seats as quickly as possible. But they were running out of time. The hull was dripping like candlewax, carried away in the rain. The air inside the craft must be searing hot.
Dan checked that he was wearing his vest, tightened the hood of his jacket, then fell into a crouch. He leaned forward, bracing himself, then willed a change of scenery. He clamped his hand tight around the heavy stone beside which he appeared. The howling wind nearly tore him into the sky, but he wrapped himself tight around the pillar as his veil quickly bored into the Peregrine’s walls. He’d been too far away to do much, but now he was only yards away from the craft.
The heat was staggering. He couldn’t even look directly at it; it was like putting his face in a bonfire. The storm did nothing to stifle the flames, and barely blunted their effects. Dan switched gears, directing his veil into spilled fuel. With spiteful glee he ripped the flames out of existence over and over. As soon as a reasonable path was clear, he directed his veil to the side of the craft and ripped a hole in it. He felt the officers flinch as the presumably soundproof hull was breached, and the storm made itself known.
Dan kept a careful eye on their firearms as he bear-crawled forward, fighting against the wind. Rain steamed off the surface of the Peregrine, still boiling hot but rapidly cooling. The ground around it was no different. Dan hadn’t managed to remove every trace of fire, but the area immediately outside the aircraft, at least, was safe.
Dan cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted to be heard above the storm. “Ho there! Y’all alive in there!?”
He knew the answer, of course, but just stepping into a room with armed and trained wet-work officers unannounced seemed like a good way to get dead.
“I saw the crash,” he bellowed. “I’m a volunteer, tasked with helping you out. Please don’t shoot me!”
Dan scrambled within sight of the entrance, coming in at an angle so that they could see him from inside. He waggled his orange vest and laminated ID, then waved his arms like a tarmac marshaller. From inside, a man in dark armor struggled to his feet and regarded Dan with a concussed stare.
“Volunteer?” the man mumbled, his eyes blearily roaming Dan’s vest.
“Can I approach?” Dan shouted back.
The man swayed, clutched his head for a moment, and looked around himself. Clarity crept back into his gaze, and he urgently waved Dan forward before striding towards the rear of the plane where his companions lay. One was still feebly unbelting himself, but the other was unmoving. Dan took the queue for what it was, and willed himself to the entrance of the downed Peregrine.
The heat was intense, but fading fast. Dry, scorching air billowed out of the craft’s innards as Dan forced himself inside. His quick glance told him the obvious: the plane was ruined. The interior was unrecognizable, save perhaps for the seats. The concussed officer staggered to his conscious partner, who was weakly struggling in a net of crash webbing. The final member of the team lay slumped in their seat; the only sign of life was the slow rise and fall of their chest.
“Help Jordan,” the concussed man ordered in an electronic rasp. He must be real bad off, because he didn’t seem to realize that Dan had no idea who ‘Jordan’ was. Dan ignored the order, strode towards the trapped officer, and ripped most of the crash webbing into t-space. The man grunted as his arms were suddenly free, and he shakily sat up.
Dan continued to the last of the SPEAR Team, followed by his concussed companion. They checked over the injured officer, who lay limp in what Dan now realized was the pilot’s seat. The conscious SPEAR member gently laid a finger on the other’s wrist.
Checking a pulse? No. After only a second, he withdrew his hand, turned his arm over so that his own wrist faced the ceiling, and looked down. A screen lit up across his forearm, displaying vital signs. The officer swayed as he took them in. The once-trapped member of the trio managed to find his feet and joined them by the unconscious pilot.
“Vitals are weak,” the concussed one said. “She’s unconscious… but I don’t see any injuries. I don’t understand.”
“Natural bullshit,” the other growled. He reached down for the straps holding the pilot in place and gave a feeble tug. His grip wasn’t what he thought it was, as it immediately slipped out of his hands and he fell backwards. “Shit!”
“I got it,” Dan said, grasping the strap. His veil snipped it, and he gently unhooked the pilot. “Can she be moved?”
“Should be okay. I’ll do it. I can—” The concussed officer made as if to hold his teammate, but paused, and lurched to the side. He pitched over and the sounds of wet, miserable vomiting filled the aircraft. The man’s helmet was still on, and Dan cringed at what must be going on beneath it.
Dan looked away. He gently lifted the unconscious pilot and tested her weight. The armor wasn’t half as heavy as he expected, and it would honestly be helpful to be heavier with the wind as it was. He shifted towards the hole he’d made in the craft and glanced outside. The water was rapidly approaching, and the flames had spread across it.
“Gentlemen, we need to leave!” he called behind him.
He felt more than heard the two come beside him and look outside. There were some muttered curses between the pair, as Dan scouted for a way inside the office building. He found a door and pointed his chin towards it.
“Can you make that distance in this storm?” he asked them.
“We’ll have to,” one replied, sounding grim.
The procession was a stumbling, slippery, concussed mess, but they made it without being set on fire or hit by flying debris. Dan led the way even with the extra weight. It was obvious to him that the two SPEAR members were in bad shape. They were unable to stand in the wind, and resorted to a sort of army crawl. Dan ripped the lock out of the door, placed his burden safely inside, and went back for the others. He dragged them to safety, one by one, before collapsing beside them, wet, windblown, and spent. The door remained open, flapping violently in the wind. None of them felt up to closing it.
They took a few minutes to catch their breath, before the less-concussed one spoke up.
“We need to report in,” he said. “Our radios were fried in the storm. I’ll need to use yours.”
Dan dutifully passed it over, and the man began speaking coded gibberish into it. Dan left him to it, moving to relock the door. He barely managed to push it shut, replacing the bolt, before the clouds lit up once more in a series of violent flash bombs that outlined the sky. Dan twisted away with a curse, eyes burning. Thunder struck an instant later, louder than artillery. The windows instantly cracked, then shattered into powder, while the door came clean off its hinges.
Dan shouted in alarm, backpedaling furiously as he was suddenly pummeled by the hurricane. He heard the SPEAR members cursing behind him, and one managed to find his feet.
“The hell happened?” the man called.
Dan shielded his face from the storm as he stared heavenward. The wind changed directions. He saw it, he felt it, as the rain lessened, then shifted. Droplets swirled in the air and began to rise. He watched black clouds, lit by lightning, as a swirling hole was punched through the ceiling of the sky. Someone floated in the eye of the storm, a strong posture and billowing cape the only details Dan could make out at this distance.
Beside him, one of the officers let out a quiet, horrified, “Shit.”
“You were fighting that?” Dan asked, just as quietly.
“No,” the man said, his voice horribly grim. “We weren’t.”