“Are we hit?” Wen called in Farley’s headphones.
The blunt barrel remained against the underside of his jaw but the pressure lessened. Farley carefully turned his head to see Yone standing in the pit behind him, holding a service .45. Broben slumped against the right window, crush hat fallen over half his face as if he were taking a nap.
“Flight engineer to pilot,” Wen said again. “Did we get hit?”
The top turret was behind and above them; Yone could hear Wen without a headset. “Tell him everything is fine,” he said.
Farley could not look away from Jerry’s lifeless body as he pressed his throat mike. “Pilot here,” he said tonelessly. “Everything’s fine.”
Yone brought the gun away just long enough to pull the headset from Broben’s head. Broben’s crush cap tumbled to the cockpit floor and Farley saw his friend’s slack features.
The gun pressed the soft underside of his jaw again. “Tell the men to stay where they are.”
Farley’s face was stone. “Stay at your posts,” he said.
Yone quickly slid the headset on. “Now turn on your lights and lower your wheels.”
“Go to hell.”
Yone looked genuinely upset. “I know how hard this is, captain. But I can land this aircraft without you if I must. I would much prefer if you did it. You have been very kind to me. Lights and wheels, please.”
Farley glared at the windshield. The pistol stayed on him as he leaned forward and watched his right hand flip on the landing lights and hit the left and right wheel switches. He sat back.
“Belly gunner to pilot. Captain, the wheels are lowering.”
The pistol barrel pressed. “Shorty and your flight engineer must go into the main compartment and close the door,” Yone said. “If it opens again, I will shoot whoever comes out.”
“Wen,” said Farley. “Go into the radio room and take Shorty into the main compartment. Shut the door behind you and keep it shut.”
“What’s going on, cap?” Shorty asked.
Wen ducked out of the top turret and looked down at Broben’s body and the gun trained on the captain. His nose was purple and his lip was split and scabbed from the beating he had taken not an hour ago. “I knew something wasn’t right about you soon as they tole me you was from the Redoubt,” he said. “I shoulda said something.”
“Go on, Wen,” said Farley.
Wen glared cold hate at Yone and then went across the bomb bay catwalk. In front of the radio room he stopped and looked back. Yone shook his head at him. Wen spat on the deck and went in.
“Tail gunner here,” said Francis. “Those bandits are back on us, five and seven o’clock, but they’re hanging back.”
“The landing gear’s down,” said Martin. “They think we’re surrendering.”
“Hell with that,” from Garrett. “I’ll give ’em a burst so they know better.”
“Now you must tell them,” Yone said.
Farley stared out at the horizon. “Pilot to crew,” he heard himself say. “Yone’s taken over the cockpit. He shot Lieutenant Broben. I’ve lowered the wheels to indicate our surrender. Do not fire on the enemy fighters.”
Instead of outraged voices there was only bewildered silence. Then Shorty said, “You’re joking, right, captain?”
Farley glanced at the .45 in the little man’s hand. At the body of his best friend sagged against the window. “Everyone stand down,” he said.
“Thank you,” said Yone. “I’m sorry, but I need you to tip your wings.”
Farley did as he was told.
A Messerschmitt came up to flank the bomber on the left. No one opened fire, and the fighter edged closer and drew alongside them. The goggled pilot studied the situation in the hijacked cockpit. Then he grinned broadly and saluted. He waggled his wings and moved ahead to take up shepherd position in front of the Morgana.
A shadow fell across the cockpit as another Bf 109 slid into place a hundred feet overhead. A third came alongside their right wing, and the lead fighter began a shallow dive. Farley followed. Far below was patchwork landscape crossed with roads. No hint of the fearsome weaponry unleashed in the air and on the ground behind them.
Farley’s eyes narrowed. What was it Yone had said?
I can land this aircraft without you if I must.
Farley’s knuckles went white on the control wheel. “That 109 on the crater floor,” he said.
Beside him Yone gave a small and haunted smile. “I could not get the engine started after I came through,” he said.
Another Messerschmitt drew up beside their left wing. The Morgana was bracketed by fighters now.
“I tried to make a life there,” Yone told Farley. “But they were never going to trust me. I would always be the stranger. Then one day I heard a sound I had not for two long years. And you landed right in front of me. I thought, God has given me a way back.”
Their escorts tightened their formation.
“I only meant to take a parachute and jump out once we were back. Even that was painful to consider. Because all of you had accepted me. The day you arrived you made me part of your crew. It would be a betrayal when I deserted. But I would be back where I belonged, and so would you. It was an honorable solution.”
Farley saw an airfield in the distance now. All his options narrowed to a point. His future a stockade or a bullet.
“So what changed?” His voice was thick.
“Everything,” Yone said. “Everything changed. Yesterday I was only a man trying to go home. Today I am a man chosen to bring back victory.”
“It’s just a bomber.”
Yone barked a laugh. “Your aircraft? That thinking is the reason why you missed your opportunity, captain. I was brought to that world so that I could be given something incredible. As you were brought for me to bring it back. Our paths have been set by a force much greater than ourselves.”
Farley glanced up at him with a look of wondering contempt. “You think God told you to do this?”
Yone was quiet so long that Farley thought he wasn’t going to answer. Then he pulled an object from a pocket and held it out. “Something like a god,” he said.
Beneath a gelatinous coating was an object the size of a quarter and shaped like a mushroom or a rounded top. It shimmered and blurred as if it were not entirely there.
Farley looked from the locus to Yone’s triumphant face. “What have you done?”
Yone looked puzzled. “I have found an end to this terrible war. A way to save millions of lives.”
“Yone. Listen to me. That thing’s not a god. It’s a weapon. An intelligent weapon. It’s using you to bring itself back. It’s making itself exist.”
Yone shook his head. “You see only enemies and loyalties. You would rather fight your war than yield to a power that brings peace. The power to prevent the future we have seen.”
A river roared in Farley’s ears. He closed his eyes. “You’ve just caused the future we saw. The thing that ends the world in fifty years is in your goddamn hand.”
“The thing that ends the war,” Yone corrected. He smiled at the dampered locus in his hand. “You think I have not—”
The Messerschmitt in front of them exploded.
Both men flinched, and then the Typhon slid by like a passing battleship. The mottled belly gashed and bleeding fluid, the torn lengths staple-stitched and puckered divots rough-patched. Spindly repair drones clung to its savaged underside like ticks, methodically repairing even as the insane machine flowed by.