Learning To Fly Read online

  “I’ll watch for you.”

  “Who was that?” Shawna asked.

  “A friend. We have to stop and pick him up on the way.”

  31

  Franklin bounded up the ramp, noticed the two other people sitting behind the cockpit, and stuck out his hand.

  “Hi, I’m Franklin, Kendra’s friend.”

  The other man took his hand and smiled.

  “I’m Moses, Kendra’s father.”

  “Nice to meet you, sir,” and turning to Shawna, “You must be her mother. The resemblance is obvious.”

  “Yes, I’m Shawna, and I think I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “You good flying us back?” Franklin yelled up toward the cockpit.

  “Just strap in and hold on. I got us this far,” Kendra yelled back.

  “So, are you the guy she’s been hanging out with?” Moses asked.

  “Yeah...guess you could say that.”

  “Anything more than just hanging out?”

  “Uh...not really.”

  “Honey, is this the time for that? The poor boy would be blushing if he wasn’t black,” Shawna said.

  “She’s my daughter. Just looking after her interests.”

  “We’ve behaved, sir, just going to the gym and shooting hoops, mostly.”

  “Shooting hoops, and getting involved with alien stuff, looks like it.”

  “Well, that just kind of happened, ever since I met Walter.”

  “Walter’s an alien?”

  “Oh no, he’s just a normal dude, a little cranky sometimes. That’s how he got his powers. An alien zapped him by accident and now he’s like Superman or something.”

  “Great, so you hang out with Walter and Walter gets involved with aliens, and now my daughter is flying this contraption.”

  “There’s a bit more to it than that, but yeah...we’ll fill you in completely when we get to the house.”

  “The house?”

  “Yeah, the good alien lady has this house, or had...she died. Anyway, there are a couple bad dudes trying to take over the earth and there was this nice lady who was against them. The bad ones killed her and now there are a few of us at the house using the ships she had stored there to try to stop the bad aliens. And we have Walter on our side.”

  “Okay, that’s a bit hard to wrap my head around. If I wasn’t sitting in this thing right now.”

  “Seems like a bit much, but you saw what we’re up against.”

  “I saw them on TV. How many people do you have with you?”

  “Not counting Walter, twenty.”

  “Twenty people and an old superhero against thousands with the fate of the world at stake. This sounds like a comic book.”

  “You all strapped in? I think I’ve lost them and I’m headed down to the house,” Kendra yelled from the cockpit.

  Five minutes later, they were in the house and Kendra was back on the computer, checking in on the others. She was only getting scattered communication, but some of what she caught between the static indicated that they were coming back after having no success. They showed up in three groups, in only three ships. When everyone came in from the hangar, Kendra looked across the group and shook her head.

  “Is this everyone?” she asked.

  “Everyone that made it,” Morrison said, “We lost Reynolds and Kingsley.”

  “Lost them?”

  “Yeah, they’re gone. It happened so fast. Reynolds must have already been damaged because one of those gunships blew him up in one shot, shields and all. He never had a chance. Kingsley...he got out and his pod took a direct hit. There was nothing left. We couldn’t touch those ships. Never even made a dent in the shields. Lost every ship but the three we came back in, and those are barely holding together.”

  “Great, two dead, our fighters out of action...what other kind of ships are down in that hangar?” Franklin asked.

  “Just transports, and they’re not armed. Can’t see what good those will do us,” Kendra said.

  “So, what does that leave us now?” Curtis asked.

  Walter stood up, clenching and unclenching his fists.

  “You still have me.”

  Cat Mixon was getting bored. Anything she wanted to rob was hers for the taking, and Walter didn’t even seem to be trying to stop her. She remembered what he said about the threat they were facing, and she remembered the video he had given her. It sure looked convincing, but what if he was just trying to stop her? She had hit a few more bank vaults, taken a few high priced museum exhibits, and was now on the way back to her warehouse with an armored car. She would wait until she got there to crack it open and see what was inside.

  She didn’t think she would get bored, but she was. The challenge was gone, and she had more cash on hand than she could ever spend in a lifetime. Well, maybe not, depending on how high she set her sights. She could always buy off some politicians, go after some real power like she had heard about others doing back in the day, back when a gangster could have a whole city in his back pocket. Yeah, that sounded good, but who was she fooling? She had power, real power, and now she was bored. As she neared the city, she flew over the formations of mechanized soldiers and gunships and did a double take. Was this part of the threat Walter had warned her about?

  She dropped the armored car and flew as fast as she could back to her warehouse and entered the basement. She found two of her people standing by a television, transfixed by the images on the screen.

  “Hey boss,” one of them said when she walked in.

  “Hey Mike,” she said, looking at the TV, “I just saw that, flew right over it on the way here.”

  “Guy on the TV says they’re attacking several cities all over the world. They move in, kill anything that tries to stop them, and then they surround the city. So far, there hasn’t been any message or anything.”

  “There’s a group of them heading here too,” she said, “I just saw them a few minutes ago, not far from the city.”

  “What you figure this is?”

  “Damn aliens trying to take over the world, just like Walter warned me.”

  “Walter warned you about this?”

  “Yeah, said the guy who gave me my powers is behind it.”

  “What you gonna do?”

  “That’s just the rub, Mike. What do I do? I’m no hero. Hell, you know the life I’ve led, but these dudes are attacking our planet. It’s not like something you can remain neutral about.”

  “You think there’s anything you can do about it?”

  “Well, I don’t have these powers for nothing.”

  Mike walked into the basement room of Mixon’s warehouse and only found Salazar staring at a computer.

  “Where’s your boss?” he asked Salazar.

  “Mike...the other Mike, said she left a couple hours ago. Something about another armored car.”

  “And you don’t know where she went?”

  “No. I just got here. Mike just said she took off in a bit of a hurry and said something about an armored car. She has a habit of bringing those things in here and emptying the cash, as if she needs any more money.”

  “If you see her, let her know I want to have a word with her.”

  Mike went into Mixon’s office to sit down and wait, only to find Jack waiting there for him.

  “Hi Mike, I was hoping you’d stop by.”

  “Yeah, what’s up?”

  “I don’t know. We might have a problem.”

  “What problem could we have at this point?”

  “It might be nothing, but several fighters tried to interfere with our operations. I staged a small diversion in space and it held them back for a while, but they showed up and tried to take down our drop ships. Luckily the gunships were too strong for them and most of them were destroyed.”

  “It sounds like you dealt with the problem.”

  “The fighters looked like Versk fighters.”

  “Versk? We haven’t had any problems with the Versk in over a hund
red years.”

  “That girl was a Versk.”

  “And she’s dead.”

  “Well, she stashed some fighters somewhere and now there are people who know how to fly them. They don’t appear to be a match for our gunships, but we don’t know what else she might have hidden away on this planet, or if there are more people to man them.”

  “Do we have any idea where she might have hidden them?”

  “We have an idea. Most of their fighters were destroyed, but the gunships in England tagged one of them and let it go. I tracked it to a location not far from here. Here is the location,” he said, handing him a small chip, “Try to get some intel on the location and see what might be going on there. If at all possible, put a stop to it. And you might want to take this.”

  He handed him a small pistol.

  “What good is this going to do me?”

  “If Walter is there, it will disable him for a while. It will kill or wound a normal human. If you can eliminate the threat, that would be best. If not, report back to me and we’ll divert a couple units there to take them out. Either way, we must not take any chances. We’re too close. Most of the cities are surrounded. All that awaits are the remaining cities in this country and then we can make our demands.”

  “Okay, I’ll head out there and scope things out. I’ll let you know what I find.”

  Mixon found the mechanized infantry units a couple miles closer to the city than when she had seen them before and the gunships were still flying close overhead. She made a quick assessment of the numbers and figured the infantry had to be close to a hundred thousand with five hundred of those imposing looking gunships.

  “I don’t figure they counted on facing someone like me,” she said to herself as she flew toward them, “Maybe Walter will show up. The two of us should be able to make quick work of these.”

  She flew toward the nearest formation and found that indeed she could make quick work of them. She was among them swinging both fists and disabling each with one punch, knocking the heads clear off most or reducing others to a quivering mass of twisted metal. She hardly took notice of the humans inside each suit. She had taken out over a hundred when one of the gunships turned a turret toward her and opened fire. She never saw the shot coming until she felt a sharp kick and was thrown back two hundred yards, knocked cold.

  Walter was flying five hundred feet above, looking for a weakness, when he observed this. Not even hesitating, he flew up higher and then came down with as much speed as he could manage, scooped Mixon up, and darted back up into the sky before the gunships could fire on him. He was back at the house a minute later, walking in and laying her down on a couch on the side of the large conference room.

  “Is that who I think it is?” Franklin asked.

  “Yep, in the flesh,” Walter replied.

  “Why’d you bring her here? She needs to go to jail.”

  “Yeah, and the jail won’t be able to hold her once she wakes up. She was trying to help. We can figure out her fate when this is all over.”

  “Do you really think she’s going to try to help us?”

  “That’s what it looked like out there. We’ll just have to have a talk with her when she wakes up. How long was I out when they hit me with that thing?”

  “A couple hours at least. Man, I don’t like this, but you’re the boss, Gramps. Whatever.”

  Kendra walked in to the room a minute later, saw Mixon lying on the couch, and shot Walter a look.

  “Is that who I think it is?”

  “That’s what Franklin just asked me, and the answer is yes. The gunship got her when she was taking out the soldiers. She probably got a hundred of them before it got her.”

  “Small dent, there must be a hundred thousand, and that’s just the ones here. We’re almost out of fighters and those things can knock you and her out. I don’t know what else we have.”

  “We’ll figure something out. They have to be controlled from somewhere. If we find—“

  He never finished his sentence before he was knocked ten feet across the room and fell unconscious. Mike was standing in the doorway with the small pistol still extended.

  “You people really should have more security at the entrances,” he said, still holding the pistol out.

  “And you shouldn’t just barge in here uninvited and start shooting,” Curtis said, entering the room from another door. “You’re outnumbered, and that little popgun just knocks people out. Come on Franklin, you and I can take him.”

  Curtis took three more steps and Mike fired again, hitting him in the middle of the chest. He fell on the spot, a smoking hole in his chest, and breathed his last.

  Franklin started toward Mike. “Why you little...”

  “It’s not worth it,” Kendra said, restraining him, “He has us outgunned.”

  “For now, but he’ll pay for that,” Franklin muttered through clenched teeth, “He’ll pay.”

  32

  Cassandra McCormick had spent the whole day cleaning the house and was still not quite pleased.

  “Mike honey, can you keep the dogs off the kitchen floor? I just mopped it for the third time,” she said to her husband.

  “Okay, I’ll put them in the bedroom. Just give me a sec.”

  A moment later, the dogs safely in the bedroom, he wheeled in the living room and parked his wheelchair next to the couch where she was sitting, leaning over and giving her a peck on the cheek.

  “The house looks great. I’m sure everything will be fine.”

  “Yeah,” she replied, “but your writer friend is bringing his wife, and he said she’s a real clean freak.”

  “It looks fine. You’ve worked your butt off all day. The house looks great. What time is everyone coming?”

  “We said 7:00, but I haven’t heard back from Christy. I’ve tried her cell and her landline, no answer. It’s not like her to not return calls.”

  “She has a landline, a young girl like her?”

  “Yeah, can you believe it? Anyway, she hasn’t called me back, and she hasn’t answered her phone for two days. I don’t know what to make of that.”

  “I’ve got to run to the store. I can swing by and check on her. She’s in the old house out on Tranquility?”

  “Yeah, the old farm house. You can stop and check on her? I’d appreciate it. I can just finish up here while you’re gone.”

  “The house looks fine. I’ll be off, then. Just let me get my legs.”

  “You left them right there by the closet. Don’t be too long.”

  Mike found his two prosthetic legs and his crutches, took a minute attaching them, and then went to his car, modified to be driven with hand controls for the gas and brake. He stopped at the store, made his couple purchases, and then headed down Tranquility Pike toward Christy’s house. Five minutes later he arrived at her house and parked out front next to her car. He took his crutches and made his way to her front porch, ringing her doorbell but not hearing a ring inside. He knocked, waited a minute, and knocked again. Still no answer. He went back toward his car, thinking to grab his phone and try her number again. Her car was there, so why wasn’t she answering the door?

  On his way to the car, he noticed a light from the back yard that he had never noticed the other times he had been there. It was weird, like a patch in the back yard that wasn’t the same color. It took him a few minutes to walk around back, and when he did, what he saw stopped him in his tracks. There was a large opening in the back yard that lead into a tunnel disappearing underground. The opening looked to be at least twenty yards across.

  He approached the opening, what looked like a door that slid back under the grass, and saw that the tunnel was huge and had a gradual downward slope. Something in the back of his mind wasn’t too sure he should be going in there, but his curiosity got the better of him and he walked slowly down the slope. After about two hundred yards, he came into a large hangar full of craft like nothing he had ever seen before.

  “What the...Air Fo
rce doesn’t have anything like this,” he said to himself. He walked slowly past each one, convinced more each moment that he was looking at spacecraft, until he came to the other side of the hangar and saw an elevator. He pushed the button, but nothing happened, so he searched until he found a door that opened onto a stairwell.

  “Great, stairs. Why can’t that elevator be working?”

  Then he walked back to the elevator, noticing something he hadn’t seen before. There was a panel next to the button. He walked closer, and the panel lit up, scanning his face. It turned green and the elevator button beeped.

  “Darn thing knows who I am? That’s weird.”

  He pressed the elevator button, and it opened. He got in, pressed the next floor above him, and waited.

  Franklin walked over to Curtis’ body and grabbed his hands.

  “Wanna give me a hand here?” he asked Kendra.

  Kendra came over and grabbed his feet and they started moving the body.

  Mike pointed the pistol toward them and said, “Leave him where he lies as a warning to the rest of you.”

  “You know, you’re a right bastard,” Fiona said.

  “Oh, I do assure you, my birth was legitimate.”

  “Oh, stop your gob, you infernal bugger,” Morrison said.

  Kendra dropped Curtis’ feet and walked back to the computer she had been sitting at. Mike saw the screens and realized what Kendra was doing.

  “Wait a minute. Just what do you think you’re doing there?”

  “Sitting back down in my seat, if you don’t mind,” Kendra said.

  “What’s on those screens? You’re the one who’s been coordinating these attacks against my forces?”

  “Your forces? What do you expect us to do? Sit still and let you just take over?”

  “I was expecting you to see what you’re up against and make wiser decisions.”

  “I was hoping you would do the same.”

  “Are you delusional? I see what we’re up against, or what we were up against. Most of your fighters are gone, and if you had more, where would you find more pilots on short notice. They are no match for us, and your two heroes are currently incapacitated. You have lost. There is only one thing I must do to ensure our victory.”