David Golemon - Event

Derry heard the distress call made by Vampire as his wingman plummeted to the sea. He thumbed the safety release for his Sidewinder missiles, but he couldn't get a lock. He was about to pull away from the craft to his front and try to eye the new assault coming up his back when his own Tomcat was thrown forward as if it were a toy. The tail section was pushed down and the nose went straight up. The twin vertical stabilizers were sheared away as if they were made of eggshell. In the split second before the cockpit was engulfed in flames, Derringer saw the second ship as it rammed him. The F-14 Tomcat disintegrated into a million pieces as the force of the impact, combined with its speed, pulled the plane apart. The wreckage scattered into the wind and pieces of debris fell smoking to a watery grave below.

Another strange light, this time bluish in color, shot forward from the second saucer and engulfed the first. The two ships were now encased in a giant silver-blue sphere.

We've lost contact with the two bandits, sir."

Harris made no comment. He watched as the single blip of one of his fighters suddenly lit the screen. It was losing altitude fast.

"Sir, Range Rider Two has declared an emergency, both engines are out," the radio operator called, finally hearing the distress calls from Ryan.

"Where in the hell is Range Rider lead?" Harris asked.

"Only Rider Two is on the scope, sir. Our Alert One aircraft are almost to the intercept point."

"Nothing on the two targets?" Harris asked.

"No, sir. They have gone completely off the scope. Shiloh verifies also."

Silence filled the Combat Direction Center as Harris moved for the bridge phone, but placed it back in its cradle when he heard the announcement to launch rescue choppers. Harris stood in silence. His hand moved to his chin and he closed his eyes. "What in the hell just happened?"

The Tomcat was falling too damn fast, Ryan thought. He had tried to ignite his engines twice with no luck. His panel was still brightly lit, but for reasons he couldn't understand, the big GE engines wouldn't fire. There was nothing left for the bird to do but fall from the sky.

"That's it, Henry, we gotta go, man, punch out now!" Ryan flipped a switch and allowed juice from the onboard generator to warm up his weapons system. Ai least this works. He instantly selected the Phoenix on his control stick and received an intermittent target lock. Ryan pulled the trigger and was satisfied as the large Phoenix shot off the Tomcat's centerline launch rail.

Henry Chavez grabbed for the yellow-striped handle over his seat and swallowed hard. "Eject! Eject! Eject!" he cried three times, and closed his eyes.

The canopy separated with a loud bang as Chavez pulled the handle. The force of the ejection shot him out of the jet at over a hundred miles an hour. The blast sheet that deployed when the handle was pulled down covered his helmet and head, so Ensign Chavez never saw the piece of debris that killed him. A chunk of aluminum housing from the destroyed Range Rider One stuck him in his visor-covered face, the debris sinking straight to the back of his skull.

Ryan's mind was spinning as his chute deployed and his ejection seat separated. He was fiercely concentrating on his own survival. He tried to turn and finally caught sight of the Phoenix's contrail through the sky and watched as he saw the long-range missile strike the second saucer, sending pieces flying off its aft quarter. The saucer lost altitude but quickly recovered, and it and the first saucer disappeared into the clouds on a northeasterly heading.

Now as Ryan looked about, he knew Derry was gone. Distant splashes in the water showed him where his commander's remains were striking the sea. The sky was now clear except for the two chutes that settled lazily for the sea. Ryan watched as Chavez's chute swung back and forth in big hitching motions. Ryan looked closer and saw Chavez's arms hanging loosely at his sides. The lieutenant closed his eyes a moment, knowing in his heart what the uncontrolled chute meant.

Augustus Simpson Tilly had been on this desert since the end of the Korean War. Buck, his mule, had been with him for a third of that time, and they had both become something of a legend in these parts, along with the mountains he prospected. The locals referred to him as Crazy Gus or Old Nut Case, depending on their age. The old man knew they called him those things and didn't really care. He heard the whispers and the not-too-quiet laughter that followed him in the Broken Cactus Bar and Grill in Chato's Crawl, just down the road from Apache Junction. Julie Dawes, the owner of the bar, would shush them, then buy Gus a beer and tell him they didn't know any better. But Gus knew deep down they did. He knew how he looked to others: old, grizzled, dirty, and every year of his life chiseled onto a face that had seen the worst in others.

Gus had lived through the Chosin Reservoir in Korea, a long and forgotten valley that most history books try to skip over. It was one of those moments that would haunt the army and Marines forever. Gus had had to live through strapping the bodies of his best friends to the sides of tanks just to get them out of that frozen valley of death. He watched as men, his men, perished in the cold and snow. It had been a bloody, grim time, and after seeing what mankind was capable of doing to one another, he chose the company of Buck. And the reason way he now lived in the desert wasn't just for chasing the legend of a lost gold mine and all its riches. He was there just to be warm. He lamented the scorching heat to those that would listen, but inside it warmed him in places that he thought the sun could never reach again because of those freezing, desperate days in Korea. The desert had become his closest friend for the last fifty years, his shelter from a world he had found was better off without him.

He and Buck had been walking since sunup to get to the base of the mountains before midday. He wanted to start digging at a new site he had discovered the week before. He had told Buck the site showed some promise.

Without warning, the wind suddenly sprang up with a vengeance from the south. Sand pummeled the old man and his mule like a solid wall of speeding needles. The mule bucked and kicked; the braying of the animal was lost in the sudden fury of the wind and blowing sand. Gus quickly pulled his red bandanna up over his mouth and nose, then pulled at the leather reins, trying to steady the animal while holding his time-battered, brown fedora on his head with the other.

"Whoa there, Buck, settle down, it's only a little blow," he shouted, but the wind kidnapped his voice.

The mule's instincts were telling it this was anything but a natural windstorm, and deep down the old man knew it too. The temperature had dropped at least ten degrees and there hadn't been so much as a whisper of breeze just a moment before. Gus Tilly had lived by these mountains all of his adult life and this had never happened before, not like this. And besides, he knew Buck wasn't afraid of much, but this bizarre weather change was scaring the senses out of his friend.

The pots, pans, and other necessities of the old prospector rattled as Buck tried to shed himself of the weight of the loaded pack. As Gus desperately tried to calm him, a great roar filled the ears of both man and animal. The old man lowered himself to the ground as the very air above him ripped apart and something passed by with an ear-shattering roar. He was covered by condensed vapor brought down from the white clouds above, and then another roar, not unlike the first, tore the sky. As suddenly as it had begun, the wind died and the sand settled. The old man looked at the sky and then at the mule as Buck stepped uneasily as he looked around at the now quiet desert, sniffing the air. His ears flicked.