D. MacHale - Storm

“SYLO,” Kent said in a soft whisper.

The trucks rumbled slowly along the road that crossed the dirt track headed toward… what? A white wall of fog? They were definitely military transport trucks, but there was no way to know what they were carrying. People? Weapons? The Ruby?

“Attention!” came an amplified voice. “Stay clear of the convoy.”

The hair went up on the back of my neck. I looked at Tori.

Was I hearing right?

She looked as shocked as I felt.

“No way,” Kent said, equally stunned.

“Who is that?” Olivia cried. “Where is he? Is he talking to us?”

I went into brain lock. I couldn’t accept what was happening or begin to try to understand it.

“Where did that come from?” Jon asked, near panic.

His answer came quickly. A flying plane that didn’t look large enough to carry a pilot appeared in the sky beyond the convoy. It skimmed the treetops, headed our way.

“Repeat. Do not approach the convoy,” the amplified voice warned.

“What do I do?” Kent asked, looking very much like a deer caught in the headlights.

I couldn’t think. I was useless.

“Don’t move,” Tori demanded. “That thing could be armed.”

“So we just sit and wait to be wasted?” Kent whined.

“If that thing wants to waste us,” Tori said, “driving away now won’t stop it.”

The drone plane had a bulbous nose, stubby wings, and twin propellers. Fixed beneath the wings were machine guns.

It was headed straight for us.

“It’s got us,” Kent whined. “We’re going to die right here.”

“Don’t move!” Tori demanded. “Or we’re definitely dead.”

The drone cleared the trees and swooped down into the airspace over the dirt track. Its nose was lined up directly with our grill.

“This is your last warning,” the voice boomed. “Do not approach the convoy.”

“We’re not!” Kent screamed.

The drone was nearly on us. Tori leaned forward and grabbed my shoulder. At any second it was going to fire its machine guns.

“I can’t believe it,” Olivia said with resignation. “We’ve come so far.”

The drone fired. The clatter of its guns was deafening. I tensed up—but it wasn’t necessary. The drone wasn’t targeting us. It continued firing as it passed overhead. We all spun to see the real target.

A black Air Force plane was hovering a few hundred yards behind us.

It had been flying in total silence, like a silent snake stalking its prey. We hadn’t even heard the music of its engines. The plane was no more than three feet off of the ground. Seeing it was a shock that made my stomach fall. Was it headed for the convoy? Or had it been after us?

Either way, its journey was over. The heavy machine gun fire from the drone craft ripped into the black skin of the plane, tearing it apart. The plane must have been crippled quickly, because there was no attempt to fire back.

Olivia covered her ears, and the rest of us followed. It was that loud.

The drone hovered over the doomed black plane, relentlessly pulverizing it with a steady stream of bullets. The black plane shuddered, as if trying its best to stay in the air. Its last gasp of life was to dip one wing to the dirt, then bank as if trying to get away. The drone would have none of that. The attack continued until the black plane dropped to the ground and crashed, kicking up a cloud of brown dirt.

That didn’t stop the drone. It continued to fire, shredding the plane. The black predator was long dead, but the drone continued pounding it with a vengeance. As it hovered in place, it drifted into a turn to reveal a SYLO logo on its belly.

Tori said, “If it hits the fuel tank it’ll—”

Boom!

The black plane exploded into a massive fireball, just like the plane back in Portland that Kent and Olivia rammed.

“Get down!” I screamed.

We ducked down for whatever protection the seats could provide. The burning cloud of debris spread quickly, and the orange flames licked past us. I winced, hoping that our own fuel tank wouldn’t ignite. Though we were inside the Explorer I could feel the wave of heat surge by above us.

It was over as quickly as it began.

I cautiously peeked back over the seat to see the drone circling over its kill, or at least over the crater where the plane had been. Satisfied that its prey had been obliterated, it lifted into the air.

I held my breath, fearing that it would come for us next, but the drone flew skyward and took off after the convoy. The last of the trucks had rolled onto the road that crossed the dirt track as the first in line reached the fog bank and was swallowed up by the smoke. The rest of the convoy followed, each truck disappearing in turn as it entered the mysterious, swirling curtain.

Something was definitely in there, beyond the fog.

The echo of the machine guns rang in my ears. We had just witnessed something shocking. Fort Knox was alive. There was no way to know whether it was the kind of safe haven Mr. Hartman’s son told him about, but the army base was definitely occupied… and protected.

But that wasn’t what shocked us.

It was the voice that came from the drone.

I looked to Tori and asked, “Am I wrong?”

Tori looked pale. “I don’t think so.”

“Wrong about what?” Jon asked, confused. “What do you think is in there?”

“It can’t be,” Kent said. He was thinking the same thing we were.

“Can’t be what?” Jon demanded to know. “What are you all talking about?”

“The voice,” Olivia said, sounding sick. “Either it was a recording… or Captain Granger is alive.”

The voice.

It was the voice of SYLO.

I’d heard it too many times in my dreams. Or my nightmares. It was precise and emotionless, with a hint of a Southern accent. It was the voice of the man who had invaded my home and trashed our lives. I’d seen the guy coldly gun down unarmed men who tried to escape from his clutches. I watched as he ordered a missile to be fired from a warship that destroyed the town ferry and turned back those who were protesting his occupation of Pemberwick Island.

I listened while he discussed hunting down Tori and I… with my parents.

Worst of all, I had been on the wrong end of a vicious helicopter attack on the camp of rebels who were plotting to take back the island from him. It was an attack that killed Tori’s father.

But Granger had been killed too. I saw it. He had chased us across the ocean on a Navy gunship and pounded us with machine gun fire as we skirted our way through the battle between the SYLO Navy and the Air Force planes. To escape, we had made a suicide run between two burning warships as they collapsed on one another.

We made it out.

Granger didn’t.

We’d seen his gunship explode.

I could accept that Feit was healed by some miracle medicine, but Granger? How could a medicine, no matter how magical, heal a man who had been incinerated?

I felt as though someone had grabbed hold of my gut and was twisting without mercy. Granger was the face of SYLO. He was calling the shots. Literally. His death had been minor payback for the misery he’d caused, but at least it had been payback. Hearing his voice brutally ripped open old wounds and ignited a rage in me that had been simmering for weeks.

“It was a recording,” Kent declared hopefully. “It had to be. The guy has a scary voice. They probably recorded a bunch of warnings like that and use them whenever they want to intimidate somebody.”

“It sure as hell intimidated me,” Jon said, shaky. “And I never met the guy.”

“Could he be alive?” Tori asked the group, though she was looking at me.

They were all looking at me.