Wolfgang Riebe, no longer simply recruit or soldier, but now formally a private, held Leah’s hand while the engines of the helicopter spun up. She still held the lowest enlisted rank, soldier, but didn’t seem to mind. She seemed happier than ever now that she had agreed to marry Wolfgang, all their former difficulties forgotten.
Wolfgang wanted to feel happy, but he knew that few aircraft remained in the combined army and that for a reason. The aliens shot every flying thing out of the sky.
Also, his last experience riding in a military vehicle had not turned out well. He would have a scar for the rest of his life and he still had frequent headaches.
Perhaps sensing his discomfort, perhaps just caught up in the moment, Leah squeezed his arm tightly, smiled at him, and laid her head on his shoulder. He freed his arm and put it around her. They were as close to each other as their seat harnesses would allow.
The lights went off.
“We fly in the dark,” one of the pilots called back. “No flashlights, radios, phones, or anything electronic.”
As if anyone still had a functioning phone. The charge on Wolfgang’s had died weeks earlier and he finally tossed it in a trash can.
“We don’t know what the Hrwang can detect, so everything must be turned off,” the pilot continued.
“What about the noise? From the blades?” Sergeant Goetze asked, pointing over his head. “Can’t they hear you?”
The pilot shrugged.
“We’re still alive,” he said.
“How do you navigate?” Wolfgang asked.
“With our eyes, Private,” the pilot, Second Lieutenant Bahnk, replied and he turned back to his checklist. The primary pilot, First Lieutenant Frauberg, spoke softly, reading from his clipboard, and Wolfgang gave up trying to listen. He sat back, leaned over and kissed Leah on the top of her head.
“It will be alright,” she whispered.
“It will,” he replied.
The whine overhead turned to a whup-whupping and the aircraft vibrated. Wolfgang realized belatedly that he’d never flown in a helicopter before. Although omnipresent in life, he’d never had a reason to fly in one for work, and joyriding in them was simply too expensive. A hundred euros for a fifteen minute ride around Neuschwanstein was ridiculous. He and his wife had hiked instead.
The helicopter left the ground and Leah’s grip on him tightened. He held his own breath for a minute, but he couldn’t hold it the entire flight. He released the air slowly and focused on his breathing, focused on the woman next to him, and focused on the sounds of the rotors as they sliced the air and provided lift.
They were airborne.
No one spoke.
The aircraft jerked and shuddered as it flew, and when it dropped suddenly, Leah let out a yelp. It quickly rose back up again, flying through turbulence, and Wolfgang felt a little like he was on a roller coaster.
He didn’t like roller coasters.
He continued to try to focus on the hypnotizing sounds of the blades and noticed immediately when they slowed down. The helicopter began to descend and Sergeant Goetze swore.
They landed.
“What’s going on?” the sergeant yelled at the pilots.
“Just trying to stay alive,” Lieutenant Frauberg yelled back into the troop area.
“You stay alive by being fast,” Goetze screamed back.
The lieutenant may have had many fewer years of service than the sergeant, but the tone of his voice meant he brooked no nonsense.
“You stay alive, Sergeant, by not being noticed. Leave the flying to us. We’re still alive.”
Goetze smacked the empty seat next to him but said nothing else.
Wolfgang squeezed Leah’s hand to reassure her and she squeezed back three times. It almost made him cry. His wife used to do that. Three squeezes, one for each word, meant, “I love you.” Marrying again was going to be a challenge.
He watched the pilots, who watched the skies above them intently. Bahnk pointed at something and Frauberg peered in that direction, but after a moment or two they returned to scanning everything.
The rotor turned lazily in idle, the motor disengaged, and Wolfgang listened to it while he waited.
And waited.
His arms felt hot and sweaty, a headache began behind his scar, and his neck felt stiff. The waiting grew unbearable.
He thought about the concept of waiting. He remembered waiting for his wife to get dressed or to come out to the car after dropping their daughter off at a babysitter’s and saying goodbye a hundred times. He remembered waiting outside of a public restroom which his daughter went into by herself. He waited forever, finally growing concerned enough he asked a woman walking past if she would go in and check on the girl.
His daughter had just been dawdling.
Thinking about waiting made the waiting worse, so he turned his attention back to the sound of the rotor.
The motor finally engaged, the rotors spun up again, and they were airborne once more.
At first it felt good to be flying again, but then it dawned on Wolfgang that they were safer on the ground. In the air, they were vulnerable. That’s when they could be detected. It came with relief when they landed again.
Goetze swore vehemently.
“How many times are we going to do this, Lieutenant?” he shouted, saying the officer’s rank with as much sarcasm as he could muster.
“We fly about ten minutes, then we land. The aliens seem to be able to detect an aircraft in flight within thirty minutes.”
“Then we fly twenty.”
“Ten.”
The lieutenant ignored the sergeant’s next comment.
Leah pulled Wolfgang’s head close to her face and whispered in his ear.
“What happens if the aliens detect us?” she asked.
Her breath tickled and her lips brushing against his ear made him forget the danger they were in.
They traded positions and his mouth moved to her ear. Her hair, limp and sweaty, still felt soft against his face and her nearness filled him with desire.
“We run,” he whispered to her then stuck his tongue out.
“Ewww,” she cried, pulling away, and earned a shushing from Goetze and one of the pilots.
She playfully pushed against his arm.
He held her tighter and knew he wanted to marry her. He had doubts at times, just as he’d had with his deceased wife, but only time could tell. Just like this helicopter ride, he needed to strap in and see where it took him. He put his arm back around her and the helicopter lifted off once again.
Seconds in flight felt like minutes.
The aircraft landed again and Wolfgang studied the dim outline of the two pilots scanning the skies to determine if enemy aircraft flew in them. Dim instrumentation lights, the ones that couldn’t be turned off, were shaded by taped bits of cardboard and silhouetted the two men. Their furtive glances made Wolfgang feel like an injured gazelle and the aliens the lone leopard lying in the tall grass. He banished that image.
A creaking of a seat or harness as someone shifted, a quiet cough to clear a throat, a sigh. The darkness and tension amplified every sound.
Someone began tapping the floor and Goetze swore harshly. The tapping stopped.
Four torturous hops later and the pilots declared the six soldiers must exit.
“Show me our location,” Goetze commanded the officers and handed them his map with a red light shining on it. Second Lieutenant Bahnk consulted his own map, then showed Goetze the location on the sergeant’s.
Goetze swore again.
“This is not the drop off point!”
“It’s as far as we’re going, Sergeant.”
“You’re killing us!”
“The aliens are killing us, not me. This is as far as this bird goes. In ten minutes it takes off and begins a return to our hiding place.
Whether you or your people are on board or not at that point is not my concern. Sergeant.”
Frauberg spat Goetze’s rank at him with venom.
The hate in Goetze’s eyes, enhanced by the red light, scared Wolfgang. He understood how a man let himself get driven to the point that he fragged his own officer.
Ten minutes later, Goetze’s squad, with all their equipment, stood under trees and watched the helicopter leave in the night. Buried quickly in the clouds, with no lights, it was invisible before the sounds of the blades died away.
“Godspeed,” Wolfgang wished the pilots mentally, then turned to Sergeant Goetze, who asked him to look at the map.
Goetze pointed to a spot.
“You remember where we’re going?” he asked.
“Naturally.”
“This is where they were supposed to insert us. This is where we are.”
Wolfgang shook his head. They were many kilometers, too many kilometers, short of their goal. Wolfgang and his tiny squad found themselves in the heart of the Ammergau Alps.
92