Chapter 5
Jonnie drifted up out of a pit of black pain. He tried to orient himself. The drone motors were like shouting anger in his ears. His arms were hanging down into a gap in the floor plating. Blood had run along the sleeves and dried.
With a start of alarm he thought of Zzt and reached for the revolver. It was gone, the lanyard snapped in the blast. The blast! Zzt was also gone and so was the Mark 32. And so was anything that would let this ancient monster be located on a screen.
He lifted himself up with considerable effort. He was still tied with the safety line. He found it very hard to think connectedly, and he wondered for a bit why he was tied to the line. His back hurt, one more pain in a confused welter of it. He realized the safety line had pulled him back inside.
It was awfully hard to think, and he recognized that he was getting worse, not better. He was nauseated. Hunger. It must be that he was nauseated from hunger.
He got to his knees. The drone was no longer rolling. That was a relief. He turned and then stared.
Through the door, bright tendrils of mist and fog were curling in. It was a storm. He was flying through a storm.
Wait. It was light out there. Daylight. Well-advanced daylight.
How long had he been out? It must be hours.
He spun on his knees, thinking to see the gas canisters dropping gas. He had no way to tell that. Were they already past Scotland? Had the drone already done part of its work?
He got to the door and tried to spot a brighter area in the storm that might tell him where the sun was. It was too thick. He wasn't thinking well; he realized he had reverted to being a mountain man. There were compasses in the plane. He opened the door and saw the havoc Zzt had made with the radio smashup. It distracted him. Then he realized he had opened the door to look at the compasses and did so. When he leaned over it felt like somebody was hitting his skull with a sledge hammer. He felt for the compress on his head. It was still there. No, the compasses. Look at the compasses.
He was heading southeast. The course to Scotland would have curved over like that. He couldn't be sure. He went back to the door and tried to look down. He nearly fell. He couldn't see anything down there. All rain and mist.
Then he remembered the ship had gas ports in the bottom. He crawled painfully to the floor plate he had removed and looked past the motor housings. No daylight was coming up.
His air mask seemed to be suffocating him. He recalled it had been askew when he woke.
Of course! The drone had dropped no gas yet. He'd be dead.
Well, he wasn't dead. Pretty well on the way to it with this head, but he wasn't dead. Therefore the drone had not yet dropped gas.
Chapter 6
Not until then had Jonnie thought about what was going to happen to himself. He had a feeling that it didn't really matter. He knew his head was staved in. He had lost an awful lot of blood. But he ought to make a gesture, some rudimentary effort, just to say he had. Say to whom? He was out of radio contact. The drone was wave-neutralized to any screen. There was not the slightest chance of the drone being seen visually in this storm. Down under him would be sea or an even less friendly mountainside if the blast disabled his plane. Battle planes were pretty well armored, but firing his own guns in an enclosed space, plus the mines, plus the fuel of the drone, was going to make a pretty big bang.
His jet backpacks were gone. He rummaged about in the back of the plane. Must remember not to lean forward. That's what blacked him out. A brief moment of hope. A life raft. He pulled it out. The automatic inflation cartridges were long since duds. It had a little manual pump. He started to pump it up. Orange colored. Some tinsel on it. Then he realized he was being stupid. If he inflated it he couldn't get it back in the plane. He knew the plane would sink. He wouldn't be able to get it out. The wind was tugging at the half-inflated raft. A wave of blackness came over him and the door draft casually flicked it out of his hands. It went away into the storm. Gone. It had all been a waste of time.
He got into the plane. He had some blankets. He had been hurt in the earlier crash; the map case had not been enough. So he padded his knees and the windscreen with blankets.
He realized he had not checked for loose objects. They were deadly. He took the blankets away and looked in the rear of the plane behind him. Littered! A backward jolt of the plane would have made them into projectiles.
Wearily he got out and began to chuck things out through the door. Clip after clip of assault rifle ammunition. A shovel, whatever that was doing here. A sample pick. Odds and ends. He snugged down the cable ladder and ore net equipment of the plane. He put the food bag and his own pouch under the seat.
More nauseated than ever, he got back in the seat and restored the blanket cushions. He wrapped the oversized security belts around him twice and up so they would keep his head from snapping forward.
All set.
He reached out for the gun controls and put them on “Full Barrage,”
“Flame,” and “Ready.” They were aimed at that box of blasting caps.
Was the drone tilting or was he just dizzy? He couldn't tell with his dazed senses. He looked at the climb indicator of the plane. Yes! The drone was tilting, the door behind him lower now. Something had upset the coordinates. The magnetic fields of the limpet mines? But whatever it was trying correct, it was pointing its door down!
That meant if he shot backward and fired he would be shooting himself toward the sea or the mountains.
He better not delay.
He kicked off the magnetic grips. The plane started to slide backward to the door.
Hastily he hit his starter buttons. The plane was sliding backward faster.
He slammed his fist into the gun-firing button.
The battle plane fired full blast.
But the result was far more than just gun recoil.
Before his eyes the whole interior of the drone flashed a violent orange and green.
The battle plane was catapulted backward into space like a projectile!
The shock of sudden motion almost tore his head apart.
He could still see, still register. The drone looked like an old rocket missile must have looked. It was soaring upward as though the door was the jet!
Jonnie's hands fumbled over the battle plane console.
He punched in coordinates to arrest his backward descent.
With a jolt the plane slowed its rocketing, downward plunge.
But something else was happening. There was no response from the right balance motor.
In a slow roll, the plane began to rotate in the sky. The roll became faster.
The left balance motor could not hold it by itself.
Jonnie frantically battered the console keys.
The plane was now cartwheeling through the storm!
Chapter 7
Badly shaken and feeling very ill, Jonnie tried to control the plane. There was a thin spot in the storm.
It was extremely hard to think. If he shut off the left balance motor, maybe the stricken ship would stop rolling. He managed it. Then he realized the guns must still be firing. He got a wad of blanket out of his vision and reached up to push the firing button off. And as he did he saw it.
The drone!
Almost straight at him it was tumbling out of the sky. Spent flames were licking out of the doorway and a vast plume of smoke was trailing behind it.
It was going to hit him if he didn't move.
His hands hit the console. He felt the plane move.
The drone went by so close the plane tumbled again in the air rush.