On the Retreat - pt. 4

Part one here: http://swanindustries.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/on-retreat.html

Part two here: http://swanindustries.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/on-retreat-pt-2.html

Part three here: http://swanindustries.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/on-retreat-pt-3.html

By Jack Swan

But after a few hours and a few breaks – and, crucially, breakfast – our moods began to improve. Ethel was talking again, recovered from her trauma. Trace had transitioned from uncharacteristic teary eyes to her more usual sulkiness, and two hours after the blast she was healthily swearing like a sailor. “Motherfucking eye” was about as polite as she got about the issue; every now and then you would hear her string expletives together in the most interesting of combinations.

We hadn’t heard any more detonations, seen any more werms, or indeed, noticed anything out of the ordinary for a normal camping holiday. The only strange sight was when my clock read ‘7am’ – as I mentioned, simply getting up at ten was a stunning feat of initiative for us. We began to joke and laugh, and comment on the incredible stories we’d have to tell. Maybe we’d even get interviewed on telly for fighting off part of the werm invasion on our own! Of course, our parents would naturally shower us with love and worry and relief when they found we were safe – that’s just what mums do, even for the eternally obstinate Trace. All in all, it looked like we’d simply have a happily uneventful journey home and be back “in time for tea”.

But just as those words left my mouth, the sound of thundering jet engines began to rise over the landscape once again.

My pace dropped and I looked sharply upwards, searching for the black dot ahead of the sound. Only this sound was different: there was no even roar, rather, a hacking cough, diseased and damaged. When I saw the jet, I wasn’t surprised – behind it trailed a churning plume of bright yellow flame, which turned to choking black clouds. The jet itself flew slow and low, its wings wobbling. Then, suddenly, as it passed over a cottage, it began to pitch. I watched with fascinated horror as it succumbed to a helpless roll and begin to arc towards the earth.

Then, as it gave its whooping stutter over our heads, I heard a piercing ‘bang’, like a balloon bursting. A curve of glass few away from the spiralling jet and, seconds later, a yellow pillar rocketed from the cockpit. Atop the rocket was a black figure, shot up, out – sideways; the spin of the aircraft had pushed the ejector seat out parallel to the ground. I watched the pilot’s chair drop away and then the figure continue on sideways in his bright green flightsuit – that is, until he was wrenched sideways as his drogue ‘chute pulled out behind him. Within the second his main shoot opened like a great white petal too.

“Should we...?” Ethel began.

“Yes,” I answered, without hesitation. I grabbed onto the straps of my backpack and in spite of it being both lumpy and heavy I began to run off down the road and towards the falling pilot, swaying beneath his parachute.

He disappeared behind a hedge; as we continued on to the gate, we felt the ground rumble and a throaty roar fill the air as the jet slammed into the ground. The stink of burning oil cut through the fresh morning air. One by one we vaulted the rusty gate. As my feet crashed into the soft earth on the other side I spied the pilot lying on the soil, parachute rising and falling slowly over the earth like a dying albatross, carried by the lifting wind. I trampled over rows of cabbages and slid down by the pilot.

It turned out the pilot was a she – blame my natural sexist assumptions for thinking a pilot would be a man. Her helmet was slightly dislodged, revealing tightly-drawn blonde hair; I couldn’t see her eyes under her black visor but it was clear she was wincing.

“Are you alright?” I asked, helplessly. She shook her head.

“I think – ah – think I’ve done something to my ankle.”

That’s when I felt Ethel’s hand on my shoulder. It wasn’t gruff, but it was firm, and she shoved me decisively aside. I was a little offended but I decided that if anyone knew what they were doing here it would be the aspiring doctor Ethel, and I would just make a useless fool of myself. (Which is always bad, especially front of military folk – they have the ability to summon an air of utterly despondent disappointment whenever they’re faced with a lack of competence and common sense.)

So I watched from the sidelines as Ethel diagnosed the pilot, running her hands over her leg until the pilot gave a gasp of pain. I could see it wasn’t pleasant for either of them but assumed it must have helped Ethel zero in on where the injury was, and exactly how bad it was too. “How did it happen – was it when you landed?” Ethel asked. The pilot nodded.

“Coming out sideways like that threw out my concentration... I guess I panicked and forgot the right way to land.”

Ethel smiled. “Don’t tell me the professionals can’t do it right – I’m just an amateur doctor helping you out, if you can’t do it properly and you’re meant to do it, then I haven’t got a hope of helping!”

The pilot grinned. “That’s the paratroopers you’re thinking of. Besides, you’re doing a good job.” Ethel allowed herself a shy look of happiness. Then she leant back from the pilot’s leg and turned to Logan and Trace.

“Right. Er... well, I lost my medical kit, it got slathered on. So we’ll have to improvise... Logan, Trace, could you cut the parachute off, and cut some bits off, and we’ll try and improvise a bandage. Several strips about a metre long, and we’ll work back from there. Ollie, do you mind breaking part of your tent? I’ll need the support rods to use as a splint.”

I shrugged. “Logan, are we sharing tents from now on?”

He shrugged too. “We could fit, but it wouldn’t be comfortable.”

“That’s better than nothing,” Ethel said. “Right, get to it.”

But something struck me. “Wait, wait,” I said. “Thinking about it. If we’re going to have Miss, um...?”

“Samantha Rey,” the pilot said, “Flight Lieutenant Samantha Rey.”

“Miss, er, Lieutenant Rey with us, and we have to stay out for a night or more, how can we fit five people in two tents?”

We looked at each other, then Trace pointed out: “It would make sense to have someone on guard, really. So we could fit it in.”

We looked at each other, and found mutual agreement. So I whipped open my bag and began to search for my tent poles, while Logan and Trace set to work. Ethel turned back to Lieutenant Rey and, after very carefully prising off her boot, began to analyse swelling, blood flow, and sensation in the toes.

“So what’s your name?” Lieutenant Rey asked, between inspections.

“Ethel. Ethel Odili.” She smiled.

“Nice to meet you, Ethel. Quite an old-fashioned name, if you don’t mind me saying.”

“Meh... blame my parents,” she said, as I finally found the tent poles and groped them out.

“Ah. So, what are you four doing out here?” She nodded at the tent poles. “I’m guessing a camping holiday.”

“It was,” Ethel replied, “Until... well... until we got attacked by... by a werm.”

I noticed the Lieutenant’s eyes widen at the news, and she propped herself up a little higher. “There are werms? Here?”

“We only – well, they only saw one I was stuck in my tent at the time.”

“We haven’t seen any since,” I added, “Not this side of the river at least, but there were loads at the port. Obviously that’s been nuked now.” I paused. “What do you know about them?”

There was a silence as Lieutenant Rey considered. Then: “Well, I’m sure you can guess that my bird was taken down by them.”

“...Anything else?”

“Not that I can say.”

“Not even how they got you? Their flying things didn’t look good enough to take down jets...”

Lieutenant Rey considered again. “It was just over Ipswich,” she said, finally. “We were over there to mop up stragglers from the blast. It was pretty easy going until we got jumped by a squadron of our own. Or at least we thought they were ours; then we noticed the red cockpits, and the insane way they hunted us.”

I didn’t mention it, but the use of the word hunted gave me a bad omen. ‘How they fought’ would tell me there was a fight, ‘how they attacked’ would be enough to cause my concern that they had the element of surprise, but to hear that our own pilots were ‘hunted’ was a straightforward implication that the werms were the dominant predators, and we were the fearful prey.

Then again, I had another question: “How the hell do they have jets?”

Logan chimed in; well, ‘chimed’ might not be the best word, given his sombre tone. “You aren’t talking about subby’d jets, are you?”

Lieutenant Rey looked at Logan as Ethel collected the strips of parachute from Trace and instructed her to help me disassemble the tent poles. “‘Subby’ is an infantry term. Where’d you pick up groundhog slang from?”

“My dad,” Logan replied, a tad defensively. Rey grinned.

“He saw service?”

“Argentina!”

“Top lad, he must’ve been tough to survive that chaos.” Then she turned back to me. “You must know about the meatboxes – sorry, subbies, if you’re in the army.”

“Er... rings a bell...” I was hoping my answer wouldn’t trigger her military disdain for slow wits. If I did, though, it was imperceptible, hidden behind her sharp blue eyes revealed as she removed her helmet.

“Basically,” she said, accompanying her speech with sharp, measured hand gestures as all military folk use, “A werm will climb into a vehicle – they prefer ones with people still in them, they use them as biomass. Then they explode themselves, fill the whole cabin with Suelo. Then they use that to regrow themselves into an organic control system, with nerves and muscles instead of pneumatics, and a digestive system to provide fuel. The werms were lucky in South America – so many cars run on biodiesel that they could ferment their own ethanol from whatever they found and stick it straight into the engines of their subverted vehicles. Nasty stuff for infantry like your dad. Of course, we had great fun swooping in and blowing up their massive ethanol lakes behind the lines. Assuming they didn’t have meatbox jets up. Normally the werms would just take over jets left parked at airports after they overran them, but then they developed a bio-warhead thing that they packed into missiles. They fire them at a jet and just before impact they explode, spreading Suelo all over your craft while its flying, and it seeps into the joints and takes it over while you’re inside. All you can do is eject from the craft... if you realise it in time. Otherwise you get stuck inside.” She sighed heavily. “That’s why all the new jets are fitted with self-destruct charges.”

I wondered if Lieutenant Rey was telling us a little too much information that might be classified, but I didn’t care. Anything that helped us understand the werms more was appreciated, and to be fair, it was better knowing what strange powers of theirs to be afraid of, than to rely on rumours and hearsay. It didn’t make me feel any more optimistic about fighting the werms, but it would help focus on what to fear on.

Still, from Lieutenant Rey’s clipped phrases, I still got the stomach-twisting feeling that I was being told far from the whole story.

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Yo dudes, this is the last part of On the Retreat I have written up so far, I imagine I'll get round to writing more, especially if there is demand! Hope you've all enjoyed it so far!