Kevin Miller - Declared Hostile

WHAM! A dazzling bolt materialized and then disappeared in front of him. A flash of heat from the main stump cast off jagged saplings of electricity. Oh, God, please! Even wearing his nomex gloves, Wilson was losing the feeling in his fingertips from the bitter cold. His ears, wracked with pain from the booming lightning bolts, were painfully cold. He felt he could reach out and touch the lightning, but he didn’t dare. His working arm and leg were drawn inward, in fear and because of the cold.

Wilson sensed he was climbing. He then realized he was caught in the cycle of the storm, caught inside a giant washing machine of charged particles, ice, and speeding air molecules. Wilson was in the middle of them as they shot up through the storm. Once the spinning started again, he vomited. The vomit went up into the storm with him, as had everything else.

Let death come , Wilson thought. Surrounded by the rumbling of the unpredictable evil that would hit him the next time, he was freezing. As he drifted in and out of consciousness, he could see the frost on his vest and gloved hand. He knew he could not last much longer.

Down . A hailstone smashed into his bare head, then another. Cold . Breaking the relative silence of flowing air, ice particles beat on the parachute — and Wilson. A booming crack sounded behind him. Further away but damn close! Wilson hung in his straps in misery. Beyond caring, he waited for the end to come.

Rain. Another deafening rifle shot next to him turned night into day. Tingling. Drenched, cold skin. Pain — everywhere. Weakness. Resignation.

A light . A point of light someplace below. Wilson picked up a slow rotation. There’s water . He saw a dark land underneath. Venezeula… his enemy, his foreign enemy. Wilson checked for his .45 pistol and was relieved that he had it. Rain, instead of hail, beat on his body. Warmer. Out of the washing machine. Another crack behind, then one in front. From the light, Wilson could detect trees below, a forest. Another spin. There’s the coastline again . So close to safety. What hit me?

Wilson licked at the rivulets of water flowing down his face. He was thirsty. With luck, he would have time to drink from his canteen before the soldiers showed up. He could drink three canteens.

Wilson scanned for vehicle lights below. None . He saw a settlement in the distance, and, using the line of storms to the east as a reference, he determined the settlement was northwest. A smaller one was located to the southeast. A bolt illuminated the ground. About 1,000 feet to go . Wilson deployed his seat pan which fell away with a painful jolt. Four-line release. He found it on the risers. Who knows what the surface winds are , he thought, but it doesn’t matter. He pulled the release.

Lighting was striking all around Wilson, and one bolt exploded into a treetop below. He knew he was falling at seventeen feet per second. He would hit the ground hard, as if he had jumped off the roof of a one-story building. Proper body position, bend the knees, eyes forward, hands on risers. Five-point contact.

The lightning lit up the ground below, and Wilson could see he was heading into a forest that covered rolling terrain. He made out a ridgeline to the south and, maybe, a small clearing to the east. Now he was concerned about getting caught up in one of the trees. The dark had returned, along with a light rain, and Wilson knew he would go into a tree in seconds. He put his good leg against the other one as best he could. With his right hand, he pulled his elbow in tight and protected his neck. He felt the seat pan hit something.

Here it comes .

Branches ripped and clawed at him as he fell through the tree, and Wilson cried in pain as a branch pried his good arm away from his body. His body jerked to a halt as the parachute caught up in the tree. Then, with twigs tearing at his face, he continued down, pulled by his own weight, until he crashed in a heap on the muddy ground.

Wilson lay there for a few seconds to collect his wits. In excruciating pain, he rolled onto his good leg as he undid his Koch fittings. He felt for his canteen in his g-suit pocket. The pocket was open, the canteen gone — most likely lost in the violence of the ejection. He was exhausted, but he had to have water. He kept a small flask in his vest and retrieved it.

Then the sky opened up, and a band of rain beat down on the trees and foliage. Even under the canopy of tree branches Wilson was soaked again by the deluge, but unlike nature’s washing machine minutes ago, it provided warm water. Using a nearby fern branch as a funnel, Wilson pulled the tip to his mouth and drank his fill of fresh rainwater and then refilled his flask. Grateful to be alive, he sat there in the pouring rain, fingers feeling the mud of solid ground, and tried to regain his bearings.

Wilson looked at his watch: 2035. Thirty-five minutes had elapsed since he had rolled in on Runway 28R. He then realized that, at that very moment, the President was speaking to the nation. Mary. Are you watching? I need you, baby.

Wilson felt again for his radio, and with dread confirmed that it, too, was really gone. Pain returned, and pushed into every part of his body. He couldn’t walk, but his .45 was firmly attached to his chest. Would he fight if they came upon him? The steady rain, even the bolts of lightning coming down around him, gave him a reprieve from capture for the moment. He sat under the tree breathing, thinking, recovering.

He was an American fighting man. His duty now was to evade.

Hours later, after the world had watched the President of the United States speak about his surprise attack on the Bolivarian Republic, Hernandez made a report to Caracas.

The directed energy weapon seemed to have worked the way the Russians had said it would. But it required a radar handoff to track multiple targets, and the Americans had delivered effects on them the AMV controllers had never seen. The runways at San Ramón were cut in several places and would be out of action for some time. It could be weeks until construction crews could clear debris and fill the deep craters. They had paid a high price with the loss of two Vipers to American sweep fighters — and before the Vipers could even attempt a missile shot on the attackers. On the bright side, the Russians had night vision goggles and were able to acquire and track one airplane and disable it. Gunners firing barrage AAA into the air then managed to shoot it down with several eyewitnesses on the coast. An hour ago, a piece of wreckage was found, the wing on an American F-18 with the number 301 on a flap surface. Hernandez had mobilized search helicopters with Bolivarian Army commandos and armed patrol boats to find the pilot, whether he was dead or alive. There was no indication yet of an American rescue attempt, but intercepted American communications revealed they thought the pilot was able to get out of the stricken aircraft. Hernandez promised his leadership that he would find the pilot before they did. An American pilot would be an invaluable prize for the Bolivarian Republic — and a bargaining chip for Hernandez.

After the attack on San Ramón, the Americans hit Río Salta with no fighter opposition, the port suffering moderate damage. Because they could expect the Americans to return tomorrow night, he would truck the Vipers at San Ramón to dispersal fields and have the Flankers out of Caracas fly barrier combat air patrols to defend the capital. Not counting air-to-ground close air support aircraft and high performance trainers. He could maybe get 15 fighter aircraft into the air.