“Wennda—” he began.
She put a hand to his cheek and shook her head.
A wave of grief washed over him that nearly buckled his knees. He felt gutpunched.
“Doing the right thing feels lousy,” he said.
“Doing what we want would feel worse.”
“It still feels lousy.” He shook his head bitterly. “We’re not people who could sit on a beach while the world burns, anyhow.”
“Maybe there’s a world where we are.”
“It isn’t this one.”
“No.” She shook her head again. “This is the one where duty wins.”
From the cockpit Broben slapped the metal right above the painting of her face. “For the love of God!” he yelled. “Kiss her, already!”
Farley turned back to her. Tears brewed in her eyes and she smiled the most burdened smile he would ever see. “Time,” she said.
They held each other close and closed their eyes and kissed. The promised moment finally fulfilled. The whole world halting. Warm wind on the crater floor. Insistent engines growling. Their artificial world dissolving. I want more time.
He leaned back and looked at her and fixed her firmly in his heart. “I’ll never forget you, Wennda,” he said.
She took his hand and kissed his fingers and then set them over her heart. Then they let each other go and turned to shape their separate paths. Goodbye. Goodbye.
Farley glanced at the sky. He held a hand up to Jerry and started running.
Broben pulled his head back into the cockpit and slid the window shut. “Thank Christ,” he muttered.
Everett reached out to hoist Farley on board. For a moment just before he stepped up into the hatch Farley let his hand linger on the thin metal hull.
THIRTY-NINE
Farley skidded in a congealed mess on the deck. Bright red blood was splashed all over the main compartment. The smell was unbelievable.
Near a bulkhead Yone was pulling on a smartsuit one of the crew had given him as he warily eyed a spidery repair drone that seemed to be manning the right waist gun.
Farley accepted this without question and hurried past Shorty at his table. There was blood all over the radio room floor. He moved carefully over the bomb bay catwalk and saw blood splashed on the bomb doors. It looked like a cow had been butchered in the lower pit.
Broben was already preflighting in the copilot seat. “Left throttle at fifty percent,” Farley said as he climbed into his left-hand seat and reached for his headset. “I want—”
He stopped. Glanced around.
“Captain?” Broben said. He was already walking the left throttle forward, and One and Two were smoothly revving up.
Farley shook his head. Something felt different. He’d sensed it the moment he sat down. But he couldn’t place it and there sure as hell wasn’t time to hash it out. “I want your hand on the brake,” he finished. “When I say now, release it and give her full right throttle.”
“Release the brake, full right throttle, roger,” said Broben.
Farley checked the props and cowlings on Number One and Number Two. Not a hint of smoke or oil. Wen had done a hell of a repair job. Or someone had, anyway.
Through the window he saw Wennda and Sten running toward the rising cone that ringed the well. He craned his head and saw the Typhon. Seven o’clock high and coming hard around into its strafing dive.
“Top gunner to pilot,” came Wen’s voice.
“I see it,” Farley snapped. “Everybody quiet.”
The distant wedge of living weapon grew with frightening speed. The wings cupped and went rigid and the Typhon came even faster. A thin beam of bright green light stabbed out from one curled wing and held steady on the fuselage.
“Joe?” said Broben.
Farley could make out features now. The curved raked wings, the sweptback head, the pinioning patches of eyes. You hate me, don’t you, you son of a bitch. The green targeting beam held steady as the mythic Fury plummeted. You hate my airplane. Something bulged from beneath the Typhon’s right wing. Nothing ever hit you back before, and you don’t like it one damn bit.
The extrusion lit up white from deep within the bore.
Farley gave the bomber hard left rudder. “Now,” he said.
Broben released the brake and the bomber wheeled left and rolled forward in a narrowing turn as the right throttle came up to full.
White light bleached the world. The ground behind them erupted into dust. The blast wave lurched the bomber forward. The Typhon streaked overhead and arced away.
“We need to be in the air before it comes around again,” said Farley. And pray like hell there’s nothing in the way, Captain Midnight, because this is your runway now.
“Speed eighty-five,” said Broben.
Farley glanced at him in disbelief and then checked the gauge himself. Eighty-five. “How much did Wen hotrod this thing?” he asked. “She’s driving like a Cadillac.”
“Shit,” said Broben. “Wait till you fly her.”
A few seconds later Broben called out one fifteen. “One fifteen, roger,” Farley said, and pulled back on the yoke.
Fata Morgana regained the sky.
The instant she was back in her element and Broben brought her wheels up Farley understood that he was leaving with a lot more bomber than he’d arrived with. She climbed faster. Her engines ran smoother, cooler, quieter. But the more important difference wasn’t something that the gauges showed. It was something he felt. A difference in the metal body that his brain controlled. He didn’t muscle her, he didn’t even steer her, really. He suggested. The Morgana he had flown here had been a dependable draft horse. Now she was a thoroughbred.
In the top turret Wen tracked the Typhon with the twin .50s as it banked right, climbing skyward like a rocket-powered mockingbird. He reported this to the captain and the B-17 immediately banked left.
“That thing’s gonna have another go at us,” Farley announced. “I’m heading for the canyon to cut down its options. Things are probably going to get hairy, so everybody stay sharp.”
Wen patted the metal beneath the plexiglas blister. “Don’t you embarrass me, now, girl,” he said.
“So you got a plan?” Broben asked as fissure walls shot by on either side and the Morgana flew into twilight.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” said Farley, and thumbed the mike. “Everybody listen up. That thing’s going to come in high and behind. We’re going to hang a U and head right down its throat. Everybody strap in, tie down, and hold on.” He eased the aircraft close to the right-hand cliff wall streaking by. “Call in when you get a sighting. Martin, it’s your turn in the barrel.”
“Roger that, captain,” Martin responded from the belly turret. “What do you need me to do?”
“I want you to shoot the son of a bitch in two,” said Farley. He banked a tight left in the steep corridor of jagged canyon. Broben nervously watched the cliff face blurring by. Pilot training hadn’t covered hairpinning a bomber in a friggin hallway.
Farley looked at Broben as he told Martin, “Be ready and be quick.”
“Nine o’clock high,” came Everett’s voice. “Holy gosh it’s fast.”
Farley gripped the wheel and brought them around tight and noted as they lined up on the fissure that the bomber was squarely in the center of the canyon. She had turned with tons of room to spare.