JB calmly pointed out, "It's father, mommy. He took the ship."
Jon, Stanton, Lori, and the rest of the bridge crew heard the boy's words over the commotion. His voice had a way about it.
"Wow, um JB, what are you saying?" Jon asked with a tone that suggested a newfound respect for the child. The lack of defenses at The Order's complex made him believe that- perhaps — the eight year old boy had, in fact, killed off Voggoth's minions. Ashley answered, "We both fell asleep. Sometime early this morning…I don't know…we woke up and Trevor was gone." "What do you mean gone? He couldn't even move before!" "Jon, wait," Lori interrupted. "Could he have stowed away on that scout ship?" Stanton said, "It left about an hour ago. Depends on the last time you folks saw him tucked in."
Jon shook his head. "There's no way he could make it into a hangar area unseen. Not with all the…all the…" Jon stopped himself. Under normal circumstances security guards, technicians, and pilots would certainly have spied an intruder in the hangar bays. In contrast, with his current skeleton crew it would be more likely that no one would be the wiser. "Brett, which bay did Scout Seven depart from?" A pause. An answer: "Level Four Bay Two." "Brett, call up the security cameras form Level Four Bay Two."
Before the words left Jon's lips a monitor on the console presented what the motion sensitive cameras had recorded outside the entranceway to Bay Two. After a second of searching, the grainy image showed a figure dressed in a short sleeve gray shirt, black sweat pants, and sneakers shamble from the hallway and into the hangar area.
"Oh Christ."
"What the Hell is he up to?" Stanton grumbled. "Now, I remember thinking that he wasn't even going to wake up, let alone go off for a ride. He come to his senses or something?"
Jorgie told them in a voice wavering on the brink of tears, "He wants to get away. He wants to run from the bad dreams."
"But he can't," Lori Brewer, the former counselor, broke in. "He's trying to run away but he can't run away from himself. He needs help, Jon. But in some ways this is a good sign."
Jon burst, "A good sign? What kind of shrink-shit is that?"
"Jon, listen. On some level he knew how to find his way to the hangar bay and stow away onboard an Eagle and if that's him at the controls now then he's remembered how to fly it. On some level Trevor Stone is still in there, covered up by layer after layer of all the bad images in his head. The stuff those things put inside of him. If someone can get through to him…I mean, maybe he can still be saved. That is, if he doesn't become suicidal."
Ashley gasped, "Suicidal?"
"Sooner or later he's going to find that he can't run away from who he is and all the things he's done. At that point…" she left the blank unfilled.
Woody Ross interrupted, "Scout Four has crossed the tambourine line and is headed for Connecticut. She'll be out of our range soon."
"All ahead full," Brewer commanded. "We have to catch her."
Stanton warned, "General, no matter how many false reports your Captain friend sends, sooner or later the Philipan is going to see us for herself. Then she's going to intercept us and that's probably all she wrote."
Ashley had the answer, "Jon, a battleship can't bring Trevor back."
Jon Brewer looked at Ashley. Her eyes showed a deep sadness that stretched to her very soul. In the old days he had seen this woman as shallow and self-serving. Like his wife, Jon figured Ashley to be a materialistic daddy's girl.
No more. As Armageddon had changed him, and Trevor, and people like Reverend Johnny and Garrett McAllister, so too had it changed Ashley Trump. She knew she did not hold Trevor's heart but yet she understood that heart. She understood his importance.
And now she stood on the bridge and spoke a simple truth: her husband could not be saved by the military strength, advanced technology, or even the arcane powers at his disposal. If anything could clear his crazed mind it would be something far more personal.
Ashley explained, "I'll need Rick Hauser and his transport. A doctor for the pilot if he's injured and for Trevor. Myself and my son, too. We'll go after him."
Jon tried to object even though he knew it the right thing to do. Stanton saw the General's mouth begin to express that objection and cut him off, "General, the closer we get to shore the more likely Hoth is going to float out here and kick the crap out of us. He'll do it, too. But he might not pay a transport any attention. They could follow Scout Four."
Jon, frustrated, asked, "But where is he going?"
Lori answered, "Anywhere. He's just running, Jon."
Stanton told them, "He can't go too much further. The way he's bookin' and how far he's gone, well now, he's going to have to stop to fill up the tanks soon, assuming he’s in a right enough mind to do that."
General Brewer nodded to Ashley and told her, "Okay, go. Take Eagle One."
Ashley led JB by the hand toward the exit. Before she left, she turned and spoke to the General. He could have sworn he saw a glimmer of a tear in her eye as she added the one last thing she would need.
"Oh and one more thing, Jon. We'll need someone…we'll need a good soldier. I think…I think that Captain Forest would be…it would be good of her to come along."
– The high speed booster rockets onboard Eagle One closed the distance with Scout Four fast. Hauser dropped low, nearly skimming the ocean top as he punched across the tambourine line. After penetrating the airspace around Connecticut, he rose to cruising altitude but could not locate Scout Four on radar.
Panic gripped all those onboard until a radio transmission from the ship's original pilot went out in search of assistance, reporting he had been attacked by a crazed man and rendered unconscious, awakening to find his ship in the middle of a mountainous wilderness.
Hauser's voice announced to the passenger compartment, "We have a location on Scout Four. She's landed in the Catskills. We'll be there in fifteen minutes. Sit tight."
Ashley let out a heavy exhale, the only sound in the passenger compartment other than the distant hum of the engines. Her son sat quiet by her side on one of the bench seats. In the row behind her waited two medics with first aid equipment. Nina sat in the row ahead running a cloth over the metal of an assault rifle. At her feet rested a black and gray Norwegian Elkhound named Odin, or so Nina had informed.
Ashley studied Nina's profile, watching those sapphire eyes staring intently at the cloth and the rifle. Ashley knew exactly who Odin was. She had been with Richard when he had picked the dog up from the breeder to join Tyr at the Stone family home. And now that dog lived with, worked with, and traveled with Nina Forest. The same way Trevor's heart lived with the woman.
What made her so special? How had she stolen Richard's heart from Ashley?
No, that isn't quite right.
Nina Forest would never have stolen Richard's heart from Ashley. But Trevor? Ashley had never actually held Trevor's heart, so it was not hers to lose.
Certainly Nina Forest offered all the beauty a man might desire, although with a rough edge and in the package of a shy person. She looked to be a woman ten years younger, one might even think her more a 'girl' than a 'lady'. Yet she seemed unapproachable. More so, she appeared unconcerned with anything other than battle: the curls of her hair wasted in a ponytail, her body slender but seemingly made of rock like a marble statue. There seemed very little warmth.
Ashley knew Forest to be a devoted soldier. Perhaps there lay the answer. The Lords of Armageddon had given Trevor a mission, with no room for compromise and no opportunity for respite. Indeed, it may be that no other person in the world could ever understand Trevor as Nina could, and no one could ever know Nina as did Trevor. They were reflections of one another.