Their destination was about forty miles ahead. They were going to have to creep to it, but the two pilots were the kind of men who kept flying even when the vibration shook the fillings out of their teeth, and unless the ’copter went down hard and fast, they intended to reach the appointed place. It wasn’t all bravery; where else were they going to set down, out here in this nightmare world?
“Take her,” Garrett told Neilsen, and he went back to check on his passengers. He found the cabin in shambles, a Marine dead with a broken neck, the alien boy with a broken left arm and shoulder and probably more. The alien was being supported between the man with the baseball cap and the Hispanic woman. The President was all right, though he was sucking on a cylinder of oxygen through a plastic mask. Derryman and the general were ashen-faced, and from the way Winslett’s eyes darted around, he looked ready to squeeze himself out the broken window. The other man, whom he’d heard was a televangelist of some fame, was sitting in his seat with his eyes shut looking like he was communing with Jesus. The second Marine was okay, he was twenty-three years old and a tough little fireplug of a guy and thought everybody in the world would die before it was his turn, so his attitude carried him through.
Garrett opened a compartment and slid the med kit out. A packet of pain pills was in there amid items such as antiseptic hand cleanser, a roll of elastic bandages, scissors, and insect bite swabs. The alien shook his head—no, no, he didn’t want to ingest chemicals—but the man and the woman convinced him, and he swallowed two with a cup of water. Winslett asked for a couple, though it didn’t appear he was injured anywhere, and Garrett complied. When Garrett asked the President if he needed any, he got back a “Hell, no, just fly this fucker.”
Garrett decided he could help the boy—what looked like a boy—a little further, and he quickly fashioned a sling out of the elastic bandages. He didn’t know whether the alien would be in more discomfort with the sling than without it, but at least that broken arm wouldn’t be dangling. “Let’s try this out,” he said, and to the man with the baseball cap: “Help me with this. Easy with his arm…easy, easy.”
They got Ethan’s arm into the sling. The breath hissed out from between Ethan’s teeth. The pain was severe but he would deal with it, as long as he could hold onto consciousness. It occurred to him how much of the human life involved pain; it was part of their existence, either physical pain or pain of the soul. They were strong, to inhabit such fragile bodies; to be sure, they were stronger than their bodies, for those who appeared to be weak could be the strongest in will and heart. That was why he was attracted to this body, because the boy had fought so hard to live. Now, though, Ethan realized quite certainly that the damage this body had sustained was severe, and he was running out of time. He could keep injured systems going, injured lungs breathing, and the heart pumping blood through dead tissues, but he could not repair the fractures; his left arm was useless.
And there was another thing, alarming even to him.
“They’re coming again,” he said, to anyone who would listen.
“How many?” Dave asked.
“The other four. And…the Gorgon ships are coming in too, very fast. The Cyphers will be here in…they’re here now,” he said. “Two on each side.”
With a start of terror, Jefferson tore his curtain aside to look out. There was no movement in the dark, no lights, nothing. The helicopter juddered along on its southwesterly course.
“Let me go!” Ethan told Dave and the pilot. “Let me get to a window! They’re about to open—”
The warships opened fire.
But it was not the Cyphers who began firing, it was the Gorgons, and their targets were the Cypher ships. Suddenly hundreds of burning blue streaks came from the clouds and hit the Cyphers on both sides of the helicopter. Blue explosions and bursts of shimmering flame shot up. An instant later hundreds of red streaks showed the return fire from the Cyphers, and caught in the midst of the battle was Marine One.
Fiery red spheres and bolts of blue lightning crisscrossed the sky. Blasts echoed through the night, which was no longer dark. Clearly seen in the leaping light of the explosions were the massive Cypher ships, but the Gorgons were up in the clouds and out of sight. Neilsen was dancing the Kestrel through the turbulence of alien fire. Through the window that Jefferson had uncurtained, Ethan saw a red sphere that had missed its original target coming right at the helicopter. It was going to cut them in two. He had an instant to react, and in that instant he shattered the window glass outward with the thrust of an index finger and with the twist of his hand turned the sphere aside so it sizzled past just above the helicopter’s tail rotor.
“Land it! Land it!” Derryman was shouting, but there was no place to land down there.
Some of the spheres and energy bolts were hitting the earth beneath them, punching blackened craters into the ground, and throwing into the air slabs of rock the size of trucks. Hillsides either convulsed or collapsed and storms of dust plumed up. Though terrified, Jefferson was transfixed by the sight of the hundreds of glowing trails and spears of alien firepower; the battle held a mesmerizing beauty, like the most gaudy and expensive fireworks show that had ever blazed the night over New Eden. The sight of pieces of a Cypher warship burning with blue fire and spinning down two thousand feet to the ground broke the spell, but still Jefferson was held in awe.
Suddenly the remaining three Cypher ships levitated themselves straight up into the clouds, moving silently and with a speed that made mockery of any earthly aircraft. The battle continued with bursts of flame back and forth, but the crippled helicopter was out of the line of fire. Neilsen put the landing gear down and headed them toward the ground, their destination only a few miles away.
Garrett had done all he could. He returned to the cockpit, while Dave helped Ethan into a seat and buckled him up.
“Hang on!” Dave had to shout over the shriek of the engines through the broken windows. He knew it was a weak statement, but he had no idea what else to say; Ethan was sweating and shivering and obviously in a lot of pain, so—
“Yes I am,” the peacekeeper answered, “but I will hang on.”
Dave and Olivia both buckled up. The Kestrel shuddered and groaned as it neared the ground, stirring up whirlwinds of dust. Jefferson thought that there was no way this busted bird could get back to the White Mansion; whenever and wherever this thing touched down, that was where they were planted for a long time to come unless there was another ’copter or a plane they could use. But he didn’t want to think about that right now. He was part of the team, and he wasn’t giving up on Ethan.
“Touchdown coming up!” Garrett said over the intercom, which had been cranked to full volume. “Don’t know how we’ll land, so brace yourselves!”
The Kestrel went in, its rotors blowing dust in all directions. The pilot showed his mettle by touching down with hardly a thump.
“Easy-peasey,” Garrett said, with what was maybe an audible exhalation of breath. “Right on target, Mr. President.”
The engines were cut, the rotors whined down, the exit door was opened and the stairs lowered. First out into the dusty dark was the remaining soldier, who scanned all around through a pair of night-
vision goggles and then took up a position where he could open fire on any threat. Before anyone else descended the stairs, Dave paused to retrieve the dead Marine’s rifle and slide the pistol into the waistband of his jeans. Derryman, pale and shaken from the flight, started to protest but Beale said, “Tell Corporal Suarez this man is coming off the ’copter armed, and I’ve given my approval.” The President’s facial tic had returned, and he too was shaky, but his voice was surprisingly strong. Derryman went off to obey the command, and Winslett followed him.