The beams cut the night, touched the bomber, converged. Too far away. Hardly hot. But warming, warming. Every microsecond brought the sleek black interceptor closer, and the wand of light grew deadlier.
And then the other beam jumped upward from the bomber’s tail. Swords of light crossed in the night. And the shrieking Vampyre impaled itself upon the glowing stake.
Reynolds was watching his infrared when it died. The mere touch of the enemy laser had been too much for the system’s delicate opticals. But he didn’t need it now. He could see the bomber, ahead and below, outlined in the flashes.
There were alarms ringing, clamoring, slamming at his ears. He ignored them. It was too late now. Too late to pull away and up. Too late to shake the lasers.
Now there was only time to find a victim.
Reynolds’ eyes were fixed on the bomber, and it grew larger by the microsecond. His hand was on the missile stud, waiting, waiting. The warheads were armed. The computers were locked, tracking.
The Alfie loomed large and larger in the eyeslit. And he saw its laser slicing through the dark. And around him, he could feel the Vampyre shake and shudder.
And he fired.
Four and five were flaming arrows in the night, climbing down at the Alfie. It seemed, almost, like they were sliding down the laser path that the Vampyre had burned.
Reynolds, briefly, saw his plane as the others must have seen it. Black and ominous, howling from the stormclouds down at them, lasers afire, draped in lightning, spitting missiles. Exhilaration! Glorydeath! He held the vision tightly.
The Alfie laser was off him, suddenly. Too late. The alarms still rang. His control was gone.
The Vampyre was burning, crippled. But from the flames the laser still licked out.
The bomber burned one missile from the sky. But the other was climbing up a jet. And the Vampyre’s fangs now had a bite to them.
And then the night itself took flame.
Reynolds saw the fireball spread over the forest, and something like relief washed over him, and he shuddered. And then the sweat came back, in a rushing flood.
He watched the woods come up at him, and he thought briefly of ejecting. But he was too low and too fast and it was hopeless. He tried to capture his vision again. And he wondered if he’d get a medal.
But the vision was elusive, and the medal didn’t seem to matter now.
Suddenly all he could think about was Anne. And his cheeks were wet. And it wasn’t sweat.
He screamed.
And the Vampyre hit the trees at Mach 1.4.
THERE WERE CIRCLES under Warren’s eyes, and an ache in his voice. But he continued to read.
“…in Newark, New Jersey, local police are engaged in pitched street battles with the Special Urban Units. City officials in Newark, elected by the A.L.F., mobilized the police when the S.U.U. attempted to arrest them…
“…latest announcement from S.U.U. headquarters says that Douglass Brown and six other leading A.L.F. figures died while attempting to escape from confinement. The attempted escape came during a surprise attack by Community Defense Militiamen on the jail where Brown and the others were imprisoned, the release says…
“…both the Community Defense Militia and the Liberty Troopers have been mobilized from coast-to-coast by their leaders, and have taken to the streets. The Liberty Troopers are assisting the Special Urban Units in their campaign against the Community Defenders…
“…President Hartmann has called out the National Guard…
“…riots and looting reported in New York, Washington, and Detroit, and numerous smaller cities…
“…in Chicago is a smoldering ruin. Mitchell Grinstein is reported dead, as well as other top A.L.F. leaders. A firebombing has destroyed a wing of the new Police Headquarters…Loop reported in flames…bands of armed men moving from the ghetto sections into the Near North…
“…Community Defenders in California charge that they had nothing to do with original attack…have demanded that the bodies be produced and identified…mass burial, already ordered…
“…bombing of Governor’s mansion in Sacramento…
“…Liberty Alliance has called all citizens to take up arms, and wipe out the A.L.F…. that an attempted revolution is in progress…this was the plan all along, Alliance charges…California attack a signal…
“…A.L.F. charges that California attack was Hartmann ploy…cites Reichstag fire…
“…Governor Horne of Michigan has been assassinated…
“…national curfew imposed by S.U.U…. has called on all citizensto return to their homes…still out in one hour will be shot on sight…
“…A.L.F. reports that Senator Jackson Edwards of New Jersey was dragged from his police sanctuary in Newark and shot by Liberty Troopers…
“…martial law declared…
“…reports that last bandit plane has been shot down…
“…Army has been mobilized…
“…Hartmann has declared death penalty for any who aid so-called revolutionaries…
“…alleges…
“…charges…
“…reports…”
IN KENTUCKY, a forest was burning. But no one came to put it out.
There were bigger fires elsewhere.
George R. R. Martin
George R. R. Martin’s varied output is divided between horror, fantasy, and science fiction and has earned him multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards as well as a Bram Stoker Award from the Horror Writers Association. His science fiction novels include Dying of the Light and, with Lisa Tuttle, Windhaven. Martin has written some of the best novella-length science fiction in the past two decades, including the award-winning “Sandkings,” and “Nightflyers,” which was adapted for the screen in 1987. Much of his best writing is collected in A Song for Lya, Songs of Stars and Shadows, Sandkings, Songs the Dead Men Sing, Tuf Voyaging, and Portraits of His Children. His horror novels include the period vampire masterpiece Fevre Dream and The Armageddon Rag, an evocative glimpse at the dark side of the sixties counterculture considered one of the top rock ’n’ roll novels of all time. A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings are the first two novels in his epic Song of Ice and Fire series. Martin has written for a number of television series, including the new Twilight Zone series, and edited fifteen volumes of the Wild Cards series of shared-world anthologies.
TO THE STORMING GULF
Gregory Benford
TURKEY
TROUBLE. KNEW THERE’D BE trouble and plenty of it if we left the reactor too soon.
But do they listen to me? No, not to old Turkey. He’s just a dried-up corn husk of a man now, they think, one of those Bunren men who been on the welfare a generation or two and no damn use to anybody.
Only it’s simple plain farm supports I was drawing all this time, not any kind of horse-ass welfare. So much they know. Can’t blame a man just ’cause he comes up cash-short sometimes. I like to sit and read and think more than some people I could mention, and so I took the money.
Still, Mr. Ackerman and all think I got no sense to take government dole and live without a lick of farming, so when I talk they never listen. Don’t even seem to hear.
It was his idea, getting into the reactor at McIntosh. Now that was a good one, I got to give him that much.
When the fallout started coming down and the skimpy few stations on the radio were saying to get to deep shelter, it was Mr. Ackerman who thought about the big central core at McIntosh. The reactor itself had been shut down automatically when the war started, so there was nobody there. Mr. Ackerman figured a building made to keep radioactivity in will also keep it out. So he got together the families, the Nelsons and Bunrens and Pollacks and all, cousins and aunts and anybody we could reach in the measly hours we had before the fallout arrived.