**
General Brad Jonz, my father, came in to the mess hall, once again startling the other soldiers. Maybe these surprise appearances were his way of keeping his soldiers on their toes.
“Follow me team,” he said.
Back in the training facility, he led us to the RMD-driven Covert vehicle. We strapped ourselves into the seats. Martina was beside me as navigator.
“Double-check the food provisions Doug,” I said.
He looked back into our limited storage space. There were thousands of military issue energy packs. Food sustenance for weeks with no taste whatsoever. It was brutal.
The podium started rising in the air, with us and the Covert lifted up high, ascending to the reality of the Earth surface above. I could see my father standing in the middle of the training facility floor, shrinking away as we rose; his shoulders square and his back straight. His face emotionless but watching intently, like a good soldier. Above us the circular dome opened; first just cracks of brilliant daylight shone in through the opening panels, then full blown brilliant sunlight beat on us as the Covert rose out the hatch and into the openness of Earth's atmosphere. Before us for the first time, we could clearly see the expanse of the high plateau where the Earth dome was constructed. At the back of us was the dome. In front of us was the vast expanse of mountains and God knows what else beyond that. I could feel my heart pumping, not really so much faster or harder than usual, but intensely. I felt as if I was just born, as if I was leaving the womb.
“You are now outside the protection of the dome,” the information system voice stated.
“Shields up,” I said a little too loud and everyone chuckled.
“Shields up Captain,” Martina said.
I flew the Covert manually, well above the mountains, but low enough to enjoy the breathtaking scenery. At first my crew was apprehensive but we became more and more confident as we realized how the simulations and real flight were virtually identical. In no time I found myself diving and climbing in the air to the tentative enjoyment of the crew. As excitement grew we started running drills of what we'd do in case of attack. We felt cohesive as a group and it built our confidence.
“What’s that over there?” Martina asked.
The mountains rose and fell across the horizon, jutting up to the heavens beyond the few wispy clouds of the day and dropping into beautiful valleys between peaks. It was all covered in an oxygen-producing green blanket of trees that stimulated the senses.
Martina was pointing to a particularly extreme drop from one of the highest mountaintops. No greenery grew on this cliff. For hundreds of feet until the valley below, bare rock proudly exposed itself. Cascading down the middle of this awesome sight was foaming and churning water hurtling violently and powerfully to a lake below. Surrounded by majestic trees the lake swirled and twisted, releasing its ever flowing water into the arms of a river that ran its way back and forth between the mountains in the distance. The mist from all this aquatic activity rose coolly in the air, floating off as if to bolster the wispy clouds that danced around the peaks. Doug and Andy craned their necks from the back seat to look over our shoulders.
I looked at Stoneman, and even the king of cynicism was blown away.
“Man, go down a bit over that,” he said.
I descended over the waterfall, with the cliff beside us. Beads of moisture formed on the Covert’s windshield from the mist, another detail to remind us we had left the world of simulation. From this angle you could see the river winding through the valleys, dropping off in some areas with the white-capped beauty of rapids.
“Wouldn’t you like to go for a boat ride down there?” Doug asked.
“That wouldn’t be too safe Dimwit,” Andy said. “How do you think your head would feel if you smashed it against some of those rocks? ”
“Wouldn’t bother you Stoneman, your head is harder than those crumbly rocks,” I said.
Martina and Doug laughed, and even Stoneman had a half smile.
“Enough kidding around, let’s head to the destination coordinates,” Andy said.
“Destination coordinates straight ahead Captain, within view,” Martina said.
“I’ll go low and cruise around the area in slow circles,” I said. “Martina, you monitor the radar. Doug, Andy, bird’s eye view boys. Tell me if you see any disturbance in the landscape.”
I cruised in a slow circle around the area.
“Look, right there,” said Doug.
We saw on the ground an area where the trees had been violently blown away. In the middle was a crater with the charred remains of equipment, people, or both. Whatever was there lay in an unceremonious funeral plot of blackened indistinguishable remains.
“There’s a high concentration of these attack sights over on this mountain side, and look, it's perfect for direct launching to the Earth dome.” Martina said.
“I’m going to go hover near ground level,” I said.
I stopped the Covert directly over the sight, hovering; and slowly dropped the vehicle towards ground level. As we got closer the violence and carnage of this particular mountainside stood in stark contrast to the beauty around it.
“Well, those bastards certainly got what was coming to them,” Andy said.
The violence of the blasts had eradicated the form of whatever was hit in the various missile-ravaged sites; so you couldn't see any bodies or even the equipment they used—just charred remains—dormant piles of past aggressions. They lay ominously scattered throughout the mountainside.
I suddenly heard a loud explosion. Before any of us had a chance to say anything the side of the Covert was hit. I felt my whole body shake violently as the blast rocked the vehicle. I had trouble holding on to the controls. I held tight and pulled the joystick back quickly, hoping to climb quickly in to the sky towards safety, but right away I realized that the Covert was not reacting the same way. It did climb up away into safety but there was definitely something wrong—I could feel it.
“Crap, what the hell!” I said.
“Aren’t the shields up?” Andy said.
“Shields are up, we’re not dead!” Martina answered.
"I don't know," I said, shaking the joystick. "It's not reacting properly. There's a delay."
“Rapid Molecular Displacement system is malfunctioning,” the information system voice said.
“What?” Andy said. “What’s going on?”
The Covert started dipping and weaving on its own.
"It's getting worse," I said. "I'm losing control."
“What da hell are ya doing?” Andy said.
“Shut up!” I said.
“What can I do to help?” Martina said.
“Pull back on the controls as hard as you can,” I said.
We grunted and groaned as Martina and I both pulled back on our controls. We were slowing the descent, but we were fighting a losing battle. The Covert was dropping down the side of the mountainside. I could feel the underside of the vehicle brushing against the trees. I looked over at Martina and could see the veins in her hands as she strained with all her might. Briefly, I looked her straight in the eyes, determination written all over her face while I felt the Covert smashing into tree trunks. The trees were being severed and flying over the windshield, the branches rustling violently over the fuselage of the Covert. With each tree, our speed decreased with a violent jerk.
“Rapid Molecular Displacement system is malfunctioning,” the information system voice said.
We smashed one large tree in half, and its splinters showered all over the windshield—and we came to a stop, flopping awkwardly off the side of a newly created giant tree stump. We all fell on top of each other on the driver’s side of the Covert, then the vehicle slid off and started sliding backwards. Everyone was moaning and grunting in harmony as we slid down the mountainside. It must've been fifty feet before we stopped in the valley.
“Rapid Molecular Displacement system is malfunctioning,” the
information system voice said.
“Shut da hell up!” Andy yelled.
I touched the de-activate sensor to turn off the RMD system and open the doors. When the doors opened, we all clamoured out.
“What the hell was that?” Andy said. “State of the god damn art—my ass!” he said, waving his arms and walking back and forth as if he had to pee. “State of the art, first attack, and what happens? The whole system goes belly up. Give me a god damn old-fashioned hover craft any day—at least we know what da hell it can do. What the god da—“
“Are you finished yet?” I asked.
“Finished! Finished! That thing, that thing is useless.”
“Agreed.”
He stared at me dumbly, panting like some sort of lost Earth animal.
Martina looked up at the line of trees we had so seriously and raggedly pruned--leaving a scar across the pristine mountain valley. We were deep in a mountain valley with peaks rising above us on all sides. Evergreens filled the view--and provided the cushion we needed to break our fall.
Martina said, “Thank God for those trees guys. They slowed us down. We sliced them down one at a time and it slowed us down—saved our lives. Stoneman, count your lucky stars. We’re alive!”
“Count my, count my—what?”
“We’ve got to get this thing repaired quickly or get out of here,” Doug said.
“You’re right Doug,” I said. “We’re sitting ducks here. We traveled some distance since we were hit, but they’ve got to be looking for us—and from the looks of the carnage we created in the trees—they'll be able to find us--and now the vehicle’s in an open clearing. You’re right Doug.”
Martina was the first to get back in the Covert and see whether the information system was responding. I climbed in too.
“Try and call Earth base.”
The Covert's dash screen was black--no power.
"No response," Martina said as she tried tapping on the corners to activate some of the craft's modules.
"Tap the right corner--telecommunications" I said.
"I know, I know Jonz--whadaya think I'm doing?!"
Light taps turned into hard slaps as we tried to get some response from the dash controls.
"It's dead man!" I said.
"I can move the doors--some of the basic features," Martina said.
We were getting some limited response from the vehicle. We were able to open and close the doors. After slapping the screen controls for a while; we got some signs of life out of the information system. We were able to switch from defence to attack modes; but that was it. We could change modes yet do nothing within the modes. Of course, the basic dilemma was that the vehicle was just not moving at all. It was not responding to any attempts to get it to move, or even hover.
“The vehicle isn’t responding Captain. We better lock it up and get ourselves away from here. I’m sure the terrorists will find us soon—it’s broad Earth daylight, and the sun is shining clearly.”
“You’re right Martina,” I said. “Let’s get out of these RMD uniforms and into regular ones.”
We changed quickly, shoving energy packs into our knapsacks and taking the survival packs and guides. I fleetingly wondered whether the series of needles we received really would immunize us from dangers in our new environment, certainly not the human dangers. Hopefully the positioning system on the Covert was still operational, which meant that surely the Earth dome dispatch would be sending someone despite the fact that we hadn't been able to make a distress call.
“On the other side of this mountain, didn’t we have some attack sites? Did any of you notice while we were coming over?” I said.
“Ya gotta be kidding, right?” Andy said.
“Whataya mean?”
“I mean you expect me to notice what details were on the mountainside. Damn, I was just praying we wouldn’t smash into a million pieces running into it.”
“I think I saw something,” Martina said. “Why, what're you thinking?”
“The nearest mountain, the one the Covert had unceremoniously slid down, is dense with vegetation; huge trees all over except for where the vehicle had ripped a crease in the middle.” I turned to face the other direction. “There was that bomb site we hovered over. There were a lot of military items around the fringes of the destroyed area."
"The terrorists must have weapons there--good chance some are not destroyed," Martina said.
"Exactly!" I said, "If we could get some weapons--we need something. We’re too vulnerable out here."
"Tell me about it," Andy said, looking around.
"Here in this valley, look up there," I pointed up a cliff face towering over us, "This sheer cliff facing us, nearly devoid of any vegetation or trees. There are some areas that looked promising as cover. I saw one little plateau about one hundred feet up with some cracks in the cliff, hopefully some good place for shelter. Our new-fangled guns are ALL controlled by the RMD-driven information system. With it malfunctioning, we're defenceless.”
"You saying we should go try and get some weapons and come back?" Martina said.
"Don't they test this crap properly?!" Andy said, "Everything depends on it."
"Looks like we're testing it now," I said.
"Arrogant sons-of-bitches," Andy muttered.
Some big birds cried loudly as they flapped their wings and took off in unison from the meadow. We all stared in awe. It was a beautiful sight. A chill went up my spine as I wondered what other wildlife was waiting for us deep in the woods. We had all heard stories of the animals down on Earth, but they seemed more like legend than any biological fact. We stood at the side of the Covert.
Martina clapped her hands. “Let’s get going then. This ain't no sight-seeing tour."