Return of Sky Ghost (35 page)

Hunter turned in his cockpit and saw first one, then two, then four Japanese SuperZeroes coming down out of the clouds at him. They’d been cruising high above, waiting for him to run out of ammo. Now they were going finish him off.

Or so they thought.

He hit the throttle and shot ahead of the four fighters. But these were the stripped-down, faster version of the SuperZeroes, the so-called F/U-machines. They could get up to 1,200 mph in bursts, and at this low altitude, and with Hunter’s dwindling fuel situation, he was loath to go to 100 percent on his own engines. If he did, he’d be out of fuel in a matter of seconds, rather than minutes.

So he did the next best thing: He went even lower, two of the ’Zeroes right on his tail. They opened up with cannons at 300 feet out. Hunter just let his psyche take over. He began twisting the airplane this way and that, getting it out of the way of everything being shot at him. The lines of fiery streaks going by were almost blinding. But not one enemy round hit his Z-3/15.

He was back over the water now—and down to twenty-five feet. The ’Zeroes were still with him, their pilots shooting wildly as he zigged and zagged mere inches above the water’s surface. He turned sharp left and headed directly in toward the beach. He could see the last of Asten’s men falling back through the woods and up the hill toward the farmhouse. The ’Zeroes turned with him, their sights set on his very vulnerable tail. At the very last instant, Hunter yanked the control stick and put the
Stiletto
on its tail. The ’Zeroes could not mimic this maneuver. Before them now was a wall of burning wreckage: the last two SuperKates Hunter had shot down. The ’Zero pilots tried to peel off, but they were going way too fast. Both went into the wreckage full force, slamming into a pair of hapless landing craft chugging toward the beach. Everything inside of 500 feet went up in one big ball of fire and smoke and metal.

Meanwhile, Hunter turned over at 150 feet. The two other ’Zeroes were on his tail in a second. But that was OK. That’s how he’d planned it. He streaked over the hill where Asten’s men were falling back. He was so low, his tail was actually ripping off treetops. Greedy for a kill, the ’Zeroes went right down to the deck with him, the lesson their colleagues had just learned the hard way apparently having little impression on them.

Hunter turned hard right, as a steep hill was coming up. The ’Zeroes were firing madly at him, but could find no place to hit on his speedy white jet. He went even lower, the ’Zeroes followed. At the exact right moment, he pulled back on his stick and was soon looking straight up into the cloudy sky. Neither ’Zero could match such a radical maneuver. They saw the hill coming, but there was nothing they could do. One actually turned into the other, colliding with it and creating a massive ball of fire and metal that went cartwheeling over the hill and across the frozen bogs.

Four enemy airplanes, four dead ducks. And Hunter had done it all without firing a shot. But he had paid in a different way. He looked at his fuel gauge and felt his heart drop. The wild ride had sucked almost 100 gallons of fuel from his reserve tank. He now had twenty-five left—or about one minute of flying time. For what it was worth, this ride was coming to an end.

He started looking for a soft place to set down simply because the only good targets for a kamikaze dive—one of the warships offshore—were so far away, he wasn’t sure he could reach them. He flew back around one last time over the farmhouse and saw Asten’s men fighting the mass of Japanese soldiers which were now moving up the east road and toward the farmhouse.

Hunter’s throat got thick with emotion. The STS guys were brave and loyal—but soon they were all going to be dead. They were fighting without quarter, taking a massive toll of enemy soldiers before giving up a yard, but it was simply a question of numbers and ammunition. The three tanks on the beach had been set afire by their own crewmen. Out of ammo, out of gas, they’d abandoned them, very reluctantly he supposed. The other tanks were firing point-blank into the approaching Japanese soldiers as they climbed the cold and bloody hill, but it was just a matter of time before their ammo ran out too.

Now going less than sixty knots, Hunter could see some of the STS soldiers up on the front porch of the farmhouse itself, firing madly back at the swarm of Japanese troops. There was a man down there on the porch with them. He was not dressed as a soldier, though he had a helmet on. He was motioning for the soldiers to come inside the farmhouse. Hunter let out a grim laugh. As if the thin walls of the tiny cottage would actually offer some protection from the guns of the oncoming mass of enemy soldiers!

Hunter was over the farmhouse, over the next hill, and heading south away from it all. He had to get serious about where to set down. The frozen waters of Falkland Sound were always a possibility, though, once immersed, the Z-3/15 would most likely sink like a stone. A field with high grass might do—the longer the grass, the more he might be able to cushion the blow. Trouble was, there
was
no high grass on the Falklands, at least none that he could see. It was always so damn cold here, few things made it over a couple of inches in length. If only he could find …

Suddenly, his body was vibrating again….

Damn!!
He swung around and saw three more ’Zeroes on his tail. In a heartbeat, bullets were zipping by him like fireflies. They were so close he imagined he could smell the cordite smoke. He looked at his fuel gauge. It simply read
Empty.
He was now officially flying on fumes. There’d be no fancy maneuvering now. No escape at all.

This time,
he
was the dead duck.

Well,
he thought,
so this is the way I’ll go. Quick, maybe painful, but at least airborne.

Still, he did not want to go so gently. His survival instinct took over. He yanked back on the throttle, at the same time banging the flaps and exposing his landing gear. All this proved the equivalent of hitting the brakes. The Z-3/15 seemed to come to a stop in midair. The change was so dramatic, Hunter whacked his head mightily on the control panel. It was like hitting the windshield in a car accident. Even with his helmet on, the impact on his cranium was so severe, he literally saw stars. Constellations. An entire galaxy of them swirling in front of his dazed eyes.

Two of the ’Zeroes fell for it though. They overshot him by a factor of ten, and were suddenly so out of position only a long, slow, hard climb and turn could put them back in their former dominant positions.

But the third ’Zero had hit the brakes at the same time as he had. Now this plane began pumping bullets into the air. As soon as the first barrage went by Hunter’s canopy, he heard the faintest of warning buzzers emit from his control panel. He looked down at the fuel gauge and saw it was blinking red. He ran out of gas two seconds later.

The third ’Zero was right on his ass now. Hunter couldn’t zig; he couldn’t zag. He couldn’t do anything at all. It was only a question of seconds before the enemy’s bullets found him.

It has been a short life in this world,
he thought,
and a damn strange one.

Then he actually closed his eyes and waited for the final blow to come.

But it never did….

Suddenly the ’Zero was no longer shooting at him. He spun around and saw the enemy plane was no longer there. What happened? It was as if it had simply disappeared. He shook his head, trying to clear it, but to no avail. His vision was blurry, his lips were bleeding. The bumps growing out of his forehead from his double whack felt the size of baseballs. Were they making him hallucinate as well?

He turned again, and now he saw the ’Zero was definitely gone. Instead there were three other airplanes in its place. Not ’Zeroes. Not Kates. But American Air Corps Mustang-5s!

Hunter couldn’t believe it. Was this a dream? A nonsensical vision that happened at the moment of death? Hunter blinked and made sure he was still among the living. He was. A second later, one Mustang roared by him and he saw a very familiar face looking back at him. The person was waving at him.

It was Sara!

She wagged her wings at him and then was off like a shot, the two other Mustangs right on her heels. They disappeared quickly into the clouds overhead. Hunter just shook his head again.

Did that
really
happen?

He didn’t know—but one thing was for sure: the ’Zeroes were gone, and as dazed as he was, he knew he suddenly had a new lease on life. He had to take advantage of it.

He looked frantically for something below him that was flatter than scrub hills. He was totally gliding now, and the Z-3/15 wasn’t an airplane that liked flying without power. Finally he was able to finesse it up and over one last hill—and on the other side he saw something soft. Very soft.

It was a muddy swamp, one that was about five miles from farmhouse hill and maybe half a mile from Falkland Sound. It was big enough and wet enough, and do or die, this was where he was coming down. He lowered his flaps again, locked his landing gear in place, and even raised his canopy, doing anything he could to slow the plane down.

Somehow he succeeded in getting the aircraft into an almost floating mode. Nose up, ass down, he was just ten feet above the ground. He leaned on the stick for a microsecond, then pulled back on it as hard as he possibly could. He hit the mud an instant later.

It was messy, and it was smelly, but it was damn soft, and it took the full weight of the empty Z-3/15, thank God. Hunter was thrown forward as the plane came to a sudden stop. Once again, he whacked his head on the console, then was whiplashed back into his seat. His knees buckled and cracked in unison. His right elbow was instantly crushed.

But he was down, and he was alive. That was all that mattered.

He sat there for a long moment, trying to catch his breath. A few seconds ago, he’d been sweating and flying. Now he was standing still, covered with mud—and still sweating.

He finally managed to climb out of the Z-3/15 and half walk, half swim to the edge of the mud pond. Reaching the shore, he dragged himself up on fairly dry land, and collapsed. He was suddenly very cold. He closed his eyes for a second and tried to think.
What just happened?
Had he really seen Air Corps Mustang-5s? Or had it been an illusion? Was that really Sara that had streaked by him? Or was this yet another punch line in this long-running cosmic joke?

He heard a low rumbling sound. He opened his eyes and there were more airplanes above him. Not ’Zeroes or friendly fighters, but bombers. B-17/36s and B-24/52s. There were eighteen of them. Flying right over him in a prebombing chevron formation.

They were the bombers from Xwo Mountain. He could tell just by looking up at them. Why were they here? What kind of message could have possibly gotten through to them?

Hunter somehow found the strength to get on his feet and scramble up the next hill. From here he could see the bomber formation turn sharply and begin a long slow turn over West Falkland. The biggest question now was not how or why, but what.

What were the bombers going to do?

He got his answer a few seconds later. They began breaking into combat formation, the flock of Mustang-5s riding on their flanks. Two by two the huge bombers screamed down from 5,000 feet. Hunter’s breath caught in his throat. They were going to bomb the Japanese on farmhouse hill. But this was crazy! Hunter knew there was no way the bombers could hit the invaders without hitting the defenders as well. He let out a scream as the first of the flying monsters swooped in and began dropping their loads of firebombs on farmhouse hill, right where Asten’s men had been fighting a minute before.

The whole horizon lit up in flames and smoke. Two more bombers came in; they too dropped their loads on farmhouse hill. Again a wall of flame rose up five miles away. Hunter let out another long, agonizing scream. Two more bombers came in. Then two more, and two more.

He watched, tears in his bleary eyes, as the bombers unloaded tons of firebombs on Tin Can beach, the east road, and especially on the hill where the farmhouse was. In seconds, this whole section of West Falkland had been turned into a forest of flames and black smoke.

It was over in less than a minute. Eighteen bombers, thousands of pounds of firebombs. Their work done, the bombers formed up again and quickly turned northwest. Hunter could just barely hear the scream of their engines as they roared away, over the horizon, going back to from where they came.

He just stood there, looking up into the smoke-filled sky. The world suddenly became very quiet. Only the crackling of the flame could be heard, five miles away.

A terrible mistake had been made. The last he’d seen of Asten’s men, they’d been retreating right into the farmhouse itself. And judging from the flames leaping into the sky, Hunter knew there was absolutely no chance the farmhouse—or anyone inside—could have survived.

I
T TOOK HUNTER NEARLY
four hours to walk the five miles to farmhouse hill.

His legs were not broken, but they felt like they were. His right elbow was throbbing with pain, but he hardly noticed it. He’d whacked his head with such force, his helmet had two dents in it, one in the front, one in the back. He was still suffering from a five-star case of woozy.

He was covered with smelly, sticky mud. Never before in his life could he remember being in worse need of a bath.

When he finally topped the next hill over from the farmhouse, he had a real desire not to look.
Just keep your eyes closed and keep on walking,
he told himself. Past the devastation he knew was there, through the burned-out woods, out onto Tin Can beach. Eyes closed, just keep on walking, right into the water, and maybe swim his way back to South America.

At least then he would get his bath.

But he never was one for denial. He knew his eyes would have to see the truth eventually. So why not now?

Besides, maybe it all had been a illusion….

So he finally staggered to the top of the next hill and opened his weary, dazed, muddy eyes.