Omega Days (Volume 1)

THIRTY-FIVE



Airborne



It was a matter of mathematics now. The two General Electric 701c turboshaft engines put out 1,890 horsepower each, pushing the Blackhawk along at one-hundred-seventy mph. When he left Lemoore, the three-hundred-sixty gallon internal tank was at fifty-percent, giving him a maximum range of one-hundred-eighty miles, including his emergency reserve. At this speed, with the G.E.s giving him three-quarters of a mile for every gallon consumed and a twenty knot crosswind coming in from the west, he had a little over an hour left in the air.

Vladimir kept the aircraft at a one thousand foot altitude, so when the fuel ran out he wouldn’t have far to fall. The manuals called it a forced autorotation landing. Helicopter pilots called it crashing.

He knew the tank farms at San Jose’s airport had burned, so he didn’t bother going there. Instead he flew further north, heading for San Francisco. The world passed beneath him like a stage empty of actors, occupied only by props and silent backgrounds, a theater devoid of life. He spoke to the empty cockpit, taking on both sides of the conversation.

“God, it is Vladimir.”

“So now you speak to me. Where have you been?”

“I would ask the same question of you, God. Have you seen what has become of your world, your children?”

“Of course, Vladimir. Now what is it you wanted?”

“I need a full tank of fuel, and I need to take a piss.”

“Oh, Vladimirovich, ever the comedian. But the joke is on you, comrade. No fuel. But piss, we have plenty. Here it comes.”

The Blackhawk flew into the rain, fat drops scattering across the windscreen, blown quickly away by the rush of air and rotor blades. The cockpit’s weather radar showed a green mass covering the entire Bay Area, though at one-thousand feet the outside world simply looked gray and dark. Patches of distant lightning promised turbulence.

“That is not what I had in mind.” Vlad followed 101 north, the dead city of San Mateo passing to his left, the highway below a ribbon of vehicles frozen in place.

San Francisco International appeared in the gloom ahead, an open expanse of green crossed with paved strips, its terminals, hangars and tower without lights, acres of cars in parking lots stretching outward from the buildings. Aircraft of all sizes, most of them commercial, stood in lines on runways and approaches. There was wreckage, too, and for a moment Vlad envisioned the horror of the walking dead attacking passengers on airborne jets, biting and feeding upon people safely buckled into their seats. He saw their numbers steadily expanding as they worked their way forward, defenseless passengers unable to escape. They would force the cockpit door, come stumbling in upon the pilots, and the plane would go down-

-as that one had, now nothing more than a burnt tail jutting out of the space where SF International’s fuel tanks had been. There were other wrecks as well, some on the field, some which had crashed into and burned down the terminal. Vlad circled slowly, looking for a fuel truck. He found none.

The Blackhawk’s fuel gauge floated one tick above the red zone.

Vladimir put the airport behind him and headed north towards the city, checking his navigation coordinates and keeping to the bay side coastline. Homes and businesses slid beneath him, and ahead the tall, darkened buildings of San Francisco resembled a cemetery in the rain. He banked right, out over the bay, and headed east.

His alternate landing and refueling sites listed San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland International, Oakland’s Coast Guard Island, and Travis Air Force Base to the northeast. He knew from the briefings that Travis had been overrun, but it didn’t really matter. He didn’t have the fuel to reach it. He’d be able to check Oakland, and that would be that.

The bay was a sheet of slate, cold and unfriendly, waiting to swallow the helicopter. He passed over an oil tanker, adrift and without lights, and several minutes later saw a pair of dark shapes surface side by side, plumes of water vapor erupting from their spouts before mighty tails appeared and propelled them back under.

Even in the rain, Vladimir could see that Oakland International was a total loss. The Blackhawk crossed over from water to land and he simply flew straight across. There was no need to circle the blackened airport. It looked like a war zone.

A red warning light began to glow on his console, accompanied by a low electronic tone. He was into his reserves, only minutes left now. Vladimir descended, banked left and headed up the channel between Oakland and Alameda. His navigation indicated that Coast Guard Island was directly ahead.

“God, it is Vladimir.”

“You again. What do you want now?”

“A fuel truck and a safe place to land.”

“Sorry, fresh out of both. How about some piss?”

Coast Guard Island sat alone in the channel, accessed by a single bridge as the only way in and out, and was shaped roughly like a kidney. A wharf ran along its left side, and the majority of the island was covered in large, flat buildings, tree-lined roads, parking lots and parade grounds, but no airfield. A helicopter pad sat at the bottom tip, and Vlad slowed and dropped, hovering at a hundred feet while he took it all in.

The red light was now flashing, and the tone turned to a steady beep as the fuel needle sank into the red.

There were no choppers on the pad, but no wreckage either. The base didn’t have a tank farm; fuel would be delivered to aircraft with tanker trucks. None were in view, but a brick building stood to one side of the pad, four garage doors set in its face. The fuel trucks might be in there. Or they might not.

Again, it didn’t matter. The area below was awash with the dead. Vlad could tell by their numbers that Coast Guard Island, like Lemoore, had been used as a refugee collection point. But it had fallen too, and now served to pack a high number of the creatures in a very small area.

There were seven rounds left in Vladimir’s automatic. He wouldn’t make it to any fuel trucks, wouldn’t be able to safely take the time required to fill his tanks. He’d never make it out of the cockpit. He climbed and put the island behind him, moving north again.

“Thanks for the piss.”

“You’re welcome.”

Now the warning light was flashing like a strobe, and had been joined by half a dozen others, his cockpit lighting up like a Broadway show as urgent buzzers screamed that his turbines were running on vapors. NAS Alameda, the abandoned naval facility occupying the northern half of the island, was ahead and to his left. There would be no hope of fuel or anything else, but at least it had clear, wide open spaces. As the Blackhawk descended and crossed its fence line, old barracks, administrative buildings and hangars blurring by, Vlad experienced a small measure of relief to see that there weren’t any corpses wandering across the airfield.

Not yet, anyway.

Groundhog-7’s wheels touched down on the center of a runway where weeds were growing up through cracks in the cement, so long untended that the sun had bleached away the tall, painted numbers indicating the runway designation. Vlad shut it all off, and sat listening to the turbines winding down, the blades slowing overhead. Then he unbuckled and walked hunched over, back past his gunner’s body. Once his boots hit the concrete, he had a long, satisfying piss.

The rain continued unabated. Seven bullets, a pint of water in a plastic bottle, and a granola bar in the chest pocket of his flight suit. He lit a cigarette and cupped it in one hand, shielding it from the wind as he sat down in the open doorway, next to the empty machinegun.

He blew smoke into the rain. “Thanks again, God.” And this time he meant it.