Aurora - Blood Moon Tribute Pt. 10

"Who... what... why? Where is she going?"

"I've got a feeling she's heading back to that prison. On unfinished business."

"Just cos' Sook died." Beck blubbed. "Just cos' that stupid bitch doesn't want Sook showing her up."

Arm around her shoulders, Watson shepherded Beck back towards the tiny gaggle of stunned onlookers. Cassandra stepped up and took Beck's face in her hands. "Don't worry, Lady Rebekah. She'll be back."

Fists at her sides, Beck stamped her foot. "STOP CALLING ME LADY FUCKING REBEKAH!"

Cassandra threw her hands up. "Sorry... sorry."

"Come on, Moosh, she's only trying to be nice."

Face in her hands, Beck leant into Cassandra, weeping. Cassandra, at first, kept her hands well out of the way, then lay them cautiously on Beck's shoulders. "It's not me who needs looking after." Beck said thickly into Cassandra's chest. "It's that foul-tempered little shit-magnet. Oh, why Ally? Why?"

"Come on, La... Becky." Selene said, laying a hand on her shoulder. "She'll be okay. I just know she will."

Beck straightened and angrily smeared her eyes. "That's why she asked how long I thought it would take. To wake up the Stream."

"How long?" Watson asked.

"She said to make it one hour. I thought that sounded kinda slow."

"Then she'll be back." Watson said. "Just give her one hour. I'll bet you one week of rampant sex."

Cassandra raised her hand. "And I'll bet you two."

Selene did likewise. "I'll see you and raise you."

"Yeah... well..." Beck said, smearing her eyes, "I might just hold you to that."

"That's settled then." Watson nodded. "One hour and she'll be back, I promise. Now, let's go find the Stream."

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Rashiid stalked to and fro, smacking his palm, before a line of prostrate figures laid-out on the chamber floor. He was back in black fatigues, showing he meant business. His forces had fanned out, searching every square inch of the palace, turning it inside and upside down in search of his prize. Every available man, Rashiid's own revolutionary troops and those who'd just switched sides. Even the stewards, many of them undercover secret police, were busy pulling the palace apart. The building shook and dust fell from the ceiling, as the breaching team blew a hole in another unsuspecting wall, reducing the upper tiers to concrete Swiss Cheese. Rashiid checked his watch, then ran a hand through his sweat spiked hair.

Before him lay a score of assault troops, many of them officers, and members of lower ranks who'd been dragged at random from their squads. And Madam Doctor Inayat, whom, the new king was convinced, was behind his young wife's disappearance. Last but not least, the king's two helicopter pilots, an American and a local, who'd been found downstairs, carousing, girls on their laps and bottles in their hands. And why not? His nibs, their old boss, wasn't going anywhere, and the new top-dog hated helicopters.

"Every half hour." Rashiid growled. "Every half hour, one of you will die. Until my bride is found. As long as she's missing, I can only assume you are all filthy reactionaries, secretly working for my father. Which makes you responsible. And I tell you this. I will find my prize, she will be mine. I will not be denied a third time."

Scuffing boots and heavy breathing announced the arrival of another squad, by the sounds of them clearly in a hurry. Rashiid looked around, his face a portrait of expectation. "You have found her?"

The squad came to a halt and opened up, revealing two troopers with a third slung between them, his arms over their shoulders, head hanging low. His uniform had been reduced to tatters, ripped to shreds by the blast of a grenade, and he was dripping blood from countless shrapnel wounds. Rashiid stalked over as the bearers lowered their burden. "And what..." he demanded in a low, menacing tone, "...is the meaning of this?"

His buddies pulled back into the anonymity of the squad, leaving the wounded trooper on his knees, head lolling, mouth hanging open. Rashiid narrowed his eyes. "You!"

"Sire." the trooper said, then coughed.

"What happened?"

"Sire... the grenade."

"Damned fool! When I said blow up the helicopter, I didn't mean yourself along with it."

"Sire." the young man croaked. "It's gone."

"You mean it's destroyed?"

"No, Sire. It... it just flew away."

Rashiid looked at the youth like he had just sprouted horns. "What do you mean, 'it just flew away'?"

"Sire. When I opened the door. There was an old man inside. And three or four ladies. I did what you said, but-"

"Three or four ladies? Who were they? Was one of them Her Ladyship?"

"I beg you, Sire. It was only for an instant."

"But did you see her? Her Ladyship?"

"No My Lord... yes... I'm sorry My Lord, I couldn't be sure. But I dropped the grenade, just like you said."

"DID YOU SEE HER OR NOT? BY THE BEARD OF THE HERALD, TELL ME!"

"I beg you Sire, I just don't know."

Rashiid clenched his jaw. "But you dropped the grenade? Without making sure?"

"It was dark, Your Highness."

"WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?"

All around, those troops not lying flat on the ground began slowly backing away.

"Your Majesty... Your Majesty. Sire, have mercy, I was only doing my job."

Rashiid unholstered his Glock, then on second thoughts put it away. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Let me get this straight. You went to the roof?"

"As you comm-"

Rashiid raised his hand. "You went to the roof. The helicopter was there. You opened the door. You saw people inside... three or four old men-"

"One old man, My Liege. Three or four young ladies."

"One old man and some women. And you dropped the grenade. Yes?"

"Yes, My Liege. On the floor."

"Then you were blown up, and the helicopter flew away."

"Sire. I give you my word."

Rashiid snapped his fingers. "Captain!"

An officer broke out of a nearby huddle and hurried over. "Sire?"

"Send someone up to check on the helicopter. This idiot is obviously concussed... too slow in getting away. I want them to confirm there's nothing left but smoking wreckage."

The captain despatched a runner, while Rashiid slumped onto the throne and sat, leg slung over an armrest, chin on his fist. When the wounded trooper fell, groaning, onto the floor, Rashiid roused himself, walked over and kicked him upright. "Nobody said you could rest yet, soldier. Show some backbone in front of your king."

Moments later a runner returned and whispered in the captain's ear, as Rashiid leant forward, elbows on knees. "Well?"

The captain's expression was sufficient reply. He shook his head. "Gone, your Majesty."

Rashiid heaved a sigh. Getting to his feet, he unholstered his pistol. The bleeding youth looked up as Rashiid approached and a muzzle flash lit up the room. He'd let the cursed helicopter get away- now even his youthful good looks couldn't save him. The youth remained upright for a second or two, quivering, until Rashiid planted a boot in his face and kicked him over. Pistol in hand, Rashiid pulled up in front the prostrate helicopter pilots. "You!" he said, nudging the local. "Who was flying that infernal machine?"

"My Liege," the pilot told the floor, "I do not know of any other pilots on the island."

His body jerked as a round punched through his head and carried on into the floor.

"You." Rashiid nudged the American.

The tall, handsome, clean-cut bleacher pushed up on his knees. "This is FUCKING insane! I am an American citi-"

The troops behind him jumped out of the way, dodging the back-blast of blood and brain matter and, somewhere in its midst, a partially-spent round. The body hit the floor, already dead, and a big, shining pool of blood crept out from beneath. Rashiid holstered his Glock. "Now," he said, with barely contained rage, "someone get me a helicopter." Fists clenched, he took a deep breath. "I SAID SOMEONE GET ME A FUCKING HELICOPTER!"

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Apart from takeoff and landing- sadly the two most critical manoeuvres- flying this thing was a breeze. And Beck had thoughtfully fired up the map display, on a fifth flatscreen, in the centre of the instrument panel. The city of Ab Aldafra was already creeping into oblivion, the little black helicopter icon now crawling like a fly over empty tan monochrome. The moon was dipping steadily towards the western horizon, and to her left, Ally could see the airglow of approaching day through the Night Vision Goggles. Still pitch dark outside the goggles of course, but it seemed like such a portent. Or maybe a warning.

Ally upped the range. There, on the map, she saw haphazard polygon, shaded pink. Restricted area. And right in the middle of the empty desert, a place she knew so well, a circle in red, a prohibited area. The Naval Prison. The rest of the gang was probably pissed to the max, she knew, Beck especially, but to not go and look, just in case, seemed like such a waste of stolen resources. She settled down, her legs still quaking but her body otherwise relaxed, watching the grainy green landscape roll by.

And it was actually quite pretty now she looked. Dunes heaped like waves all the way to the horizon, with a long, narrow ribbon of road converging slowly from the left. When she reached it the streetlights were out, but under moonlight bright as lime sunshine, the poles cast long thin shadows over the ground. The one road into, and one road out of the prison. The symbolism was impossible to ignore.

The creeping little icon- signifying Ally and her harebrained adventure- crossed the boundary into the bombing range. And its live-fire airspace, patrolled by fully armed gunships flown by trigger-happy pilots. Still, it was late, and night training ops were meant to end at a civilised hour that that still left plenty of time to hit the bar in the officer's mess. The Big Sky theory was on her side in any event, but Ally hunched her shoulders another degree and inched the altitude down another few feet.

Some sort of complex appeared on the nose- a few squat buildings, with a dozen odd, angular blocks strewn all over the road. As she got closer, Ally realised she was looking at the entry to the bombing range, a checkpoint, that had been recently and thoroughly clobbered. Fire flickered in one of the buildings while smoke curled out of the roof and debris lay scattered all around. Jinking left to give it a wide berth, Ally saw bodies on the ground. Lying down in defensive positions she hoped, though, by the looks of it, they were more probably all dead.

Ally whacked the stick over and rolled into a steep turn. What she was doing wasn't just reckless, it was insane. It was suicide. Wasting her life for some busted young English lifer and a handful of other human jetsam. What fucking difference would it make? What would they care, if she wound up in a smoking crater on their behalf?

Halfway round, an opposing force pushed the stick back, and the turn reversed, until the nose was pointing back down the road to certain ruin. Ally's vision, already colour-distorted, blurred with tears. 'What do you think you're doing?' she demanded in a strained whisper. This wasn't the real her. That ballsy alter ego was just a façade, used to paper-over the unbearable grief of losing her mother. Rickety scaffolding she'd had to throw up, to shore up a man too broken by his loss to carry on. Yet, try as she might, and as much as she wished, she was just too weak to break the shackles of the self-imposed lie. Because she wasn't a fearless ball-breaker. She was a small, frightened woman, in a dangerous foreign land, in a big, lethal machine she didn't know how to operate. Flying low-level at night into a prohibited area. It wasn't heroic. It was clear and present stupidity and it was going to get her killed.

A flash lit up the horizon, right on the nose. The angry red circle on the moving map display had just crept inside the twenty-five mile range-ring. One orbit, she thought. Blow the girls a kiss goodbye and get the fuck out of there. She took an oath, then and there, to not so much as scuff the ground. To land would be recklessness bordering on the criminal and her loved-ones were all waiting at the airport. They too were threatened by this idiocy, by having to hold on the ground while she had her fun. Well it was over. One quick flyby and she was getting the fuck out of there. Calling it quits. Going back home.

And with that set in concrete, Ally sat back to rehearse the approach.

Twenty to run. 8 minutes.

The Naval Prison reared over the horizon, an isolated, incongruous human edifice in the midst of empty wilderness, all lit up like a fair ground, a smeared, pixelated dollop of bright white making chicken-wire in the lenses. Ally looked under the goggles, then quickly looked back- it was black as pitch outside. To try and fly unaided would most likely end in some unintentional earth-moving. The dreaded CFIT... controlled flight into terrain... stories told to frighten young pilots.

When she reached it, the prison perimeter was littered with vehicles, several buses among them, parked in the haphazard, 'me-first' manner of locals. Ally shrank back from another bright flash, and as the toxic dazzle receded, pinpointed a watchtower at ground zero. A fight was going on, just icing on the cake, and another excellent reason to give it a miss. Glancing at the landing gear panel, she dropped the undercarriage, waiting for the three green lights, then rolled into a wide, low orbit of the prison. Blacked-out choppers circling low-level at night... all strictly routine.

Ally circled the water supply, three huge, concrete tanks on a neighbouring hillock, slightly higher than the prison. The hilltop had been levelled, and a broad, gravelled parking bay graded on the backside, where water trucks held, waiting their turn to decant their payload. The pad was deserted, out of sight of the prison 300 meters away. The pressing demands of landing this beast shouldered Ally's doubting aside, as she set up on a low, slow downwind, then rolled onto base, speed coming back, her body so tense her right leg was bouncing. Tongue out, she set up on a long, flat final, still slowing down, waiting for the lift to fall out of the bottom. She felt it coming and eased up on the lever, catching the right yaw before it could develop. The chopper touched down, nose high, and skidding right across the pad, before coming to rest in a cloud of white dust just meters from a precipice. For a moment Ally sat, heavy breathing, feet on the brakes, right leg jumping.

The engines died with the turn of the knobs and the rotors began to slow. Ally killed the audio warnings, then looked around, searching the visible world for movement. She could almost hear the crickets cheeping outside. Shaking to the soles of her silk-slippered feet, she doused the electrics and sat, teetering on altogether different precipice. Just like Apollo, a vast unknown lay just beyond the door, another world, both undefined and unfit for fragile human existence. With the switches all off she lifted the helmet and raked her fingers through her sweat-damp hair, savouring the feel of merely breathing. Looking up, she pulled a bunch of circuit breakers- protection against joyriders- then popped her harness, raised the handle and opened the door.

Sporadic gunfire, and every now and then a loud explosion. Grenades maybe, her considered deduction, having gained recent experience in the subject. Ally slipped out of the cockpit and closed the door silently behind her, then darted, bent double, to the base of the nearest tank. A quick pause to look herself over- blood-stained silk shift with a length of flex tied around the waist, and not a stitch on underneath, with embroidered silk slippers to complete the ensemble. Hardly tactical. More 'Princess Tales' crossed with 'Survivor'.

Ally knew from harsh experience, that the going on the ground was always harder than it looked from the air. The desert no-man's land between the tanks and the prison- six or seven swimming pool's worth- was no exception. The ground was strewn with unseen obstacles, hard rubbish in the main- refrigerators, washing machines, sticks of broken furniture, charred mattresses, broken glass and heaps of bottles, crumbling mounds of construction debris. By the time she reached the prison wall, heart pounding and lathered in sweat, the fabric of her slip was clinging to her intimate contours. Back to the wall, Ally took a bead on the far-flung tanks. On the brink of admitting defeat, on the verge of making a run for it, she dipped her head, praying for something, anything, to give her a sign.

A flash of bright white light, and hot on its tails a deafening explosion, broke the thrall. Ally cringed, hands over her ears, at the same instant as a rifle hit the dirt beside her. Followed by a body, by the looks of it straight out of heaven, either that or the top of the ten-meter wall. The trooper hit the sand with a mighty thud, barely feet away, then struggled to sit, the wind knocked out of him. Ally raised her hands and eyes to the sky; it was a sign all right, but not the one she wanted. The Universe and its sense of humour again. She nudged the gasping trooper with her toe. "Sssst!"

The dazed young man's eyes rolled like pinballs in their sockets and eventually locked on. He raised his arm, now sporting an extra elbow, bent at 90 degrees below the standard-issue joint. "Ouch!" Ally grimaced, kicking his assault rifle out of harm's way. "That's gotta hurt."

The soldier fell back, still struggling for breath, and lay staring at the sky. Kneeling at his side, Ally unzipped his utility vest, then unbuttoned the black shirt beneath it. "You won't mind if I borrow these?" she whispered- a rhetorical courtesy because she was taking them anyway. "I'll bring 'em back, I promise."

Even in the moonshadow of the towering prison wall, Ally could see the lad was ashen, clinging to consciousness but quickly lapsing into shock. Bleeding ferociously, had she known, from two fractured femurs and badly broken pelvis. This beatific apparition bending over him, stealing his gear, could just go ahead and keep it. Where he was bound he wouldn't be needing any.

Pulling him up by the front of his shirt, Ally stripped him down to his undershirt, as gently as she could, being extra-careful with his damaged arm. Laying the young man down, Ally unhitched his belt and pulled it from beneath him, then spent a moment inspecting the accessories. She found a water bottle. Screwing the lid off, she downed half the contents without taking a breath, then wiped her mouth and looked at the trooper. "Sssst!" she whispered, then unstrapped his black Kevlar helmet and slipped it off. Lifting his head, she trickled the tepid liquid between the soldier's blue lips. He nodded his thanks, the last deliberate gesture he would make in this dimension, as she lay him back down.

When Ally tried to pulled his boot off, the trooper writhed in agony, barely conscious but groaning anyway. She tried with the other foot with similar results, and sat back on her haunches, briefly stymied. To punch someone in the head was one thing, but to inflict unnecessary pain on some poor bastard who was already broken. Ally rifled his vest. If she knew her war movies, he'd be carrying a field medical kit in one of the pockets and, sure enough, she found a little olive-drab pouch, embroidered with a cross in low relief. Unzipping the prize, she dumped its contents onto the sand, then ferreted out some small plastic syrettes. Battlefield painkiller, that had to be what the scribble said. Stabbing one, then another, through the tough black fabric into his thigh, she sat back with her head on a swivel while the drug did its stuff.