Gravity Wars: Nova Strike, page 5
He stared at her.
As Dawnstar watched him, she could see the realization enter his eyes. She expected him to start cursing her, pleading with her, or asking her all sorts of useless questions. Instead, he turned away and looked elsewhere. Soon, he scanned the sky and sea. He did not bother looking at her again, although he did look at Huber once.
“Well,” Dawnstar said.
Even then, he didn’t turn to her.
“Aren’t you going to ask me?” she said, piqued by his lack of curiosity.
He looked at her then. There was nothing on his face, no recrimination, no question, no nothing. It was as if he had already figured it out. Did he have that quick a grasp of things?
“Are you John Steele?” she asked.
“What if I am?”
“It has saved your life so far. Maybe it will more.”
“Oh, so now I should lie in case I’m not?” he asked.
“I don’t get the feeling you’re going to lie to me.”
“I’m not,” he said.
Dawnstar felt a mental jolt. This was strange. She believed him, and that was stupid. He was just a pup. He hardly knew anything, yet he spoke as if his words had weight and finality. What was going on? He was just a trashy kid, the son of a great man. He was probably a punk.
She scowled and turned away.
He grunted and kept looking around.
The salt-spraying helicopter came down even lower, edging toward them, whipping up the water. It wasn’t a tiny helicopter. It wasn’t the biggest they made, either. It was sleek and bigger than seemed right. A sliding door opened to reveal a truly giant woman in combat gear glaring at them.
Dawnstar stood up in the pod, and she propped up a yet unconscious Huber.
“Why did you save him?” John shouted over the whomp of the rotors.
“Why not him?” Dawnstar shouted back.
“This was a setup from the beginning, wasn’t it?”
“You’re a smart boy, are you?”
“That’s why I have this duty. It’s my punishment training.”
“You don’t have to worry about that anymore, Colonel’s son. There won’t be any more training duty for you after this.”
The time for talking was almost over as the helicopter delicately edged closer yet.
John still didn’t shout recriminations at her. Instead, he seemed more intense. Then, he got his feet under him.
“Don’t think of diving over the side,” Dawnstar shouted.
“That would be stupid,” he shouted.
Dawnstar turned away to help Huber into the helicopter. She must have psychically felt the splash, as she certainly couldn’t have heard it. Maybe it was the sudden movement of the pod. She whipped around.
The fool had leaped into the water. He was kicking now, barely keeping his head above the rotor-caused choppy waves.
“You idiot,” she said under her breath.
Dawnstar didn’t know why, but she let Huber go and dove cleanly after the fool, swimming like a mermaid. She reached him almost at once.
“Leave me alone,” he shouted, getting water in his mouth. “What do you care if I escape or drown?”
“Because,” she shouted. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe she should use the stiletto and just stick it through his ribs. He was too much trouble. But he had just dived overboard, even though his hands were tied. What kind of fool was he?
“What were you thinking?” she shouted.
“That I would swim to shore.”
“What shore? You couldn’t swim far with your hands tied behind your back.”
“I won’t know unless I try,” he shouted.
“That’s a stupid answer.”
By now, Zog had stepped out of the helo into the escape pod and hauled Huber to her chest. She lifted him up over her head as if she was doing a military press. Others in the helo leaned out and hauled him in.
“Well,” Dawnstar shouted. “Are you going to board before the others arrive?”
“I don’t want to board,” John shouted.
“Sorry, but that’s the price for living.”
He stared at her. They were at kissing distance in the water.
“Fine,” he said.
“Throw me a line,” Dawnstar shouted. Then she motioned with an arm to show them what she meant, as they likely couldn’t hear her.
Zog climbed back into the helicopter and tossed a line. Dawnstar hooked it to the zip ties. She hung onto the line as Zog hauled them both into the helicopter. The process must have nearly torn his shoulders from their sockets. He didn’t complain, although he grunted several times. Finally, they both landed wet in the helicopter.
“Why did you bring him?” Zog shouted.
“He’s Colonel Steele’s son,” Dawnstar said.
“I don’t know what that means,” Zog said.
“Livia Drusus will want him.”
“You don’t know that. Throw him back, Dawnstar. Wait, I’ll do it.”
“No,” Dawnstar said, as she scrambled up.
John lay on the floor, possibly twisting at the pain to his shoulders. What had the giant woman called the ensign? It was Dawnstar. That was the woman’s real name?
“I said I’m throwing him in.” Zog reached for him. Then she cried out and snatched her hand away, with blood welling in the meaty part.
“You cut me,” Zog said.
“I said no,” Dawnstar said, as she held the stiletto. “This is my ops, and it’s going to be run my way. You’re just here to make sure everything goes as planned. Well, this is part of my plan.”
“That’s a lie,” Zog said.
“You want me to cut you again?” Dawnstar asked.
The bodyguard’s eyes burned with hatred. “I won’t forget this.”
“Good,” Dawnstar said. “I don’t want to have to teach you a second time.”
With that, the helicopters lifted upward. The one carrying them sped away while the other two headed in the opposite direction, possibly to do battle against the approaching five. The two were going to cover their escape.
Everyone hunkered down, even John Steele, forced by Zog. The ultra-modern helicopter engaged its jets, speeding low and fast over the Persian Gulf to who knew where.
-9-
John’s shoulders throbbed with agony as he sat in his seat, the helicopter slowing down from its ferocious getaway. He had seen distant explosions, likely missiles launched by the two helicopters at the others.
How had all this happened? Why had Huber, the ensign, and he been in an escape pod? The ensign was beautiful and confident, and she had protected him from the grotesque giant, who might have been the most muscular person John had ever seen.
Then it hit him. These were Livia Drusus’ agents. They had kidnapped Huber. Did that mean everything leading up to it had been a plan, a plot? Had they set Huber up? Why would they want him, John Steele? No, that didn’t matter. That wasn’t the point.
John had tried to escape and dive away. The woman had thought him recklessly brave for doing that, just like everybody else did. But John did things for a calculated reason. That was how he was similar to Charles XII of Sweden.
He was training himself. It was partly predicated on the old saying: “As a man thinks, so is he.” Thus, he was trying to train himself to be the ultimate warrior. Not the ultimate soldier. John thought of himself as a warrior with a sword in his hand.
Well, he didn’t have a sword, he didn’t have a gun, but they hadn’t taken the knife in his boot. Earlier, he decided on a smaller knife that would hide better than one whose handle stuck up, making it more noticeable. The point wasn’t to make people notice that he had a knife. The point was to have a weapon that he could use when they weren’t expecting him to have one.
There was an old saying: “Where they expect you to go unarmed, there you should be armed.” His dad had believed in that explicitly. John did as well.
Now, he worked on making himself as comfortable as possible. That meant diminishing the pain in his shoulders.
He asked for water and accepted it, even though the brute pushed the glass against his mouth too hard. He asked for food and received a few bites of a chocolate bar. That wasn’t good nutrition, but something was better than nothing.
He wasn’t too proud to ask for stuff. He needed energy if he was going to free Huber and get out of this mess. Could he do that?
Normally people could not get out of such a situation as this. But one thing John Steele was not, and that was a fatalist, someone who would shrug his shoulders and say the odds were too high against him.
He had discerned this about Charles XII. The worse the odds, the crazier the path, the more the king had thrown himself into it as if to test himself and his army against impossible odds. Sure, it had cost the king the war against Russia and others in the end. But that wasn’t the point here. The point was a role model, and here was the Ivan Blagojevich problem all over again.
John waited and mentally planned.
Soon, the helicopter hovered at sea so they transported onto a mid-sized pontoon plane, about half the size of a large commercial jet. They took off in the plane. John had counted the people who boarded, an easy count: There were the pilots, Huber, Dawnstar, the mammoth Zog, and himself. These were better odds than he’d expected, and better than in the helicopter.
“Where are you taking us?” John asked Dawnstar.
“You’ll find out,” she said.
“We’re taking you to the Himalayas,” Zog said.
“The Director’s retreat?” asked John.
“Yes,” Zog said.
Dawnstar shot Zog a withering look. “Must you be such a moron?”
“You shut up,” the huge bodyguard said, pointing a finger at Dawnstar. “You don’t tell me what to do. I’ll break you in half.”
“Even if Livia Drusus gets angry for you trying?” Dawnstar asked.
The question put worry into Zog, but not much, although the giant woman faced forward.
The plane took off and climbed, and they headed, it seemed to John, toward the Himalayas, toward Tibet, Afghanistan. He pictured in his mind a map of the Persian Gulf and the Himalayas. They might fly over the old countries of Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan before they reached their destination.
Once more, John assessed the situation. His shoulders ached a little less than before. He had a knife hidden in his boot and the zip-tied wrists. Dawnstar was like a hawk. She watched him, watched everything. In other words, she noticed stuff.
Thus, he waited and waited, and finally, Dawnstar got up from her seat.
“Watch him, Zog. I’m going to the head.”
Zog just grunted, but she did turn and peer at John and Huber, who was still sleeping. John waited until Dawnstar entered the restroom and closed the hatch behind her.
John took a deep breath. This was it, his one chance. He had to take it now or forever rest in peace.
“Hey, that’s right, Zog,” John said. “You watch me good, just like Dawnstar told you to do. I bet you’re scared of her.”
“Shut up,” Zog said.
“Me, shut up. Hey, she told you to watch me. I’m just keeping you company while you’re watching me. You like how I look? People say I’m handsome. What do you think, Zog?”
“You’re an idiot.”
Then Zog deliberately turned away.
“No, no,” John said. “Dawnstar told you to watch me all the time. You better obey her, or I’ll tell her you didn’t and she’ll spank you.”
Zog turned to him with a snarl. “Shut up, you puny thing, or I’ll break your face and rip off your dick.”
John shut up then. She sounded dead serious. Zog didn’t look like a woman who made empty threats.
Zog laughed harshly. “That got to you, didn’t it? Little boy wants to keep his dick.”
Once again, Zog deliberately turned away and this time crossed her huge arms as if to signify finality.
John’s heart was beating fast. He worked to get his aching arms, or at least the zip-tied wrists, over his feet. He drew up his legs, trying to be as quiet as possible. He had to do this while Dawnstar was in the head.
John got his hands up and over. Oh, damn, but that hurt like iron brands pressing against his shoulders. He pulled free the knife, turned it around. His fingers were almost numb, but not too numb to work. He cut the zip-tie, and his arms swung free. He cried out softly because that hurt his injured shoulders something fierce.
Zog turned and then she snarled. “What? Where’d you get that knife, you stupid little man?”
She got up. So did John. She was seven and a half feet tall, towering over him, at least 300 pounds of bone and muscle, and she wore tough fabric. Then she snarled and smiled, and she drew a giant Bowie knife. It was like a Roman shortsword.
“Let’s fight, little man,” Zog said.
She lumbered toward him.
John let his arms drop as his face scrunched up with terror. Almost manufacturing tears as he pleaded and whimpered, sagging away. “Please, please don’t hurt me. I beg of you, anything. Please don’t hurt me. You’re way too big for me.”
Zog laughed, stepped closer, even as she lowered the shortsword and reached a huge paw for John.
He exploded at her. Of course, what he had said and done had been a sham. He had often thought to himself, “Why would I act defiantly when it’s better to disarm my opponent by having them think I’m an abject coward?”
All those thoughts vanished. Like spring steel, John launched himself at Zog, past the outthrust hand. He thrust that knife. It was a six-inch blade. He knew that to jab the blade into her breast, trying to search for her heart, would be a mistake. There was too much fatty tissue in her breast, and besides, it seemed improper.
Thus, he aimed underneath her ponderous breast, and thrust hard, and felt the blade slice through the tough fabric, past her ribs, past fatty tissue and coarse muscle.
Zog grunted explosively as John used his other hand, clutched her uniform to help him shove the six-inch blade as deep as it could go. Then he rotated the knife, twisting muscle and fat, even as the tip tickled her heart.
Zog hurled him away.
John flew across the aisle against one of the other seats, his back hitting it. He grunted painfully and slid to the deck.
His knife was in her. Zog staggered, panting, looking at him like some huge gorilla. She began to raise her huge shortsword, and then pain creased her grotesque face. The massive Bowie lowered, and incredibly, she sank to her knees.
John climbed up. He really didn’t want to kill, and yet, given the stakes, and what was happening, he felt he had no other choice. Therefore, he took three short, powerful steps, even though his body and shoulders ached, and he launched himself at her head. She tried to raise her hands to defend, but that didn’t happen in time.
John flew and grabbed her head like some obscene alien creature in one of those movies, and he twisted and jerked as hard as he could. It wasn’t like in the movies, where he could twist her head around and snap her neck. Instead, he wrenched her neck.
Zog cried out and fell forward even as he released and tumbled. That forward momentum, her great bulk hitting the deck, must have driven the blade that was already in her deeper, and it must have punctured her heart, causing her to vomit blood.
By that time, John rolled onto the other side of her. She began to writhe and hump in a grotesque fashion on the deck.
John hated it. He shook his head. This was no time to be squeamish. He was supposed to protect Huber at all costs. Should he run to the restroom hatch and knock out Dawnstar the minute she came out? No.
John searched Zog until he found a huge revolver, drawing it from the holster. She might have used this against him, but had considered him too puny of a threat. The revolver was heavy, a hand cannon, a monster weapon, bigger than an old-style Desert Eagle.
John hefted the revolver and thought about this. Damn, he wasn’t sure. He looked back at the restroom. Dawnstar was still in there. He’d better hurry.
He went to Huber and strapped the unconscious man into his seat.
Afterward, with the hand cannon, he hurried toward the hatch into the pilot chamber. John didn’t know how to fly a plane, and he didn’t trust the others to do what he wanted even if he held a gun to their heads. That meant emergency procedures.
He tried it, but the cockpit hatch was locked. He debated two precious seconds. Then John kicked the hatch with all his might, the hatch buckling. He kicked again, and the hatch flew open. The pilots turned in shock.
“What are you doing?” one shouted, no doubt seeing the big revolver.
“Land the plane,” John said, brandishing the hand cannon at them.
“You’ll kill us by doing that,” the copilot yelled. “There’s nowhere to land out here.”
“Set this bird down or die,” John said, realizing he was wasting time but not sure how to proceed.
The pilot’s eyes widened minutely as he stared past John.
John half turned to look back.
Dawnstar had emerged from the restroom, eyes blazing. “What the hell is going on?”
“We’re landing,” John shouted.
“You think that will save you?” she said, advancing down the aisle toward him.
This wasn’t working how he’d planned it would go. He had no choice now. He had to take drastic action. John faced the pilots again, raised the huge revolver so they cringed before him. He fired at the control panel. The sound of the discharge was deafening and the heavy weapon jerked up as smoke poured from the barrel. He fired three more times until smoke filled the cockpit.
The plane lurched wildly to the side.
John slammed against a bulkhead even as Dawnstar hurtled past him. That had been a piece of luck. Dropping the massive gun, John staggered as the plane nosed down and began to dive. By clawing at seats, he barely made it down, throwing himself in and buckling in tight.
By that time, the plane was out of control, descending fast.
“You fool!” raged Dawnstar, standing as she clutched a stewardess line with one hand and a corner with the other. “You killed us all.”
