Battle Angel (Immortal City 3)
The radarman looked at the screen. “We do not have a location on Cooper. Repeat, do not have Cooper’s location, Captain.”
“How incompetent can you people be!” the captain growled.
Maddy grabbed the nearest crewman. “Tell me what’s happening!”
“Miss, we need you to calm down,” he said, guiding her to a chair.
“We have lost all contact with the aircraft,” the crewman at the radio announced.
He reached forward out the clear board and grasped the miniature plane that represented Tom’s jet. Slowly, mournfully, he turned the jet over, signifying it was lost. The room was silent. Maddy stood stock-still and quiet, her breathing coming quick, her eyes wide and wild.
“Did Cooper eject, Goddammit?” the captain asked.
“Sir, we don’t know.”
A soft cry escaped Maddy’s lips.
“Well, you better find out,” the captain said. “And quick. The navy’s lost too many good men already, and there’s no way in hell we’re ready to mourn our best one.”
• • •
The smoldering wreckage of Tom’s jet floated on the water, rolling with the waves. The aircraft had broken into hundreds of pieces, splintered into clusters of multimillionaire-dollar junk, smoldering flotsam in the ocean. Flames burned in the oil slick on top of the water, a strange sight to see. Their flickering fire lit the sea, giving it an eerie orange glow against a backdrop of endless black water and twilight sky as night approached. A chunk of the jet’s stealth steel skin bobbed in the current. Through the char of the fire, some stenciled words were visible: FIRST LIEUTENANT THOMAS COOPER. The only identifying piece from the shattered plane.
A tangled white parachute drifted on top of the water some distance away. Tom’s unconscious body floated face down next to it, caught in the ropes. Lifeless.
Suddenly, with a gasp, the pilot came to consciousness. He rolled over onto his back and immediately started ripping his helmet off. Tom’s chest heaved as he choked, his body grappling with the water in his lungs. He kept coughing and coughing, the seawater burning as it streamed out of his throat and nostrils, until finally he felt he could breathe. Tom began extricating himself from the parachute ropes, which could drag a man down to the depths with surprising force. It would be far better to die in an explosion than to drown slowly, Tom thought grimly. At least an explosion would be instant. Drowning, you would have far too long to suffer as the water slowly entered your lungs, searing through your body with unbearable pain, bringing on the darkness, excruciatingly inevitable. Finally, the pilot broke free of the knotted parachute and started swimming, strong strokes, away from the dangerous snare. He sparked the waterproof flare attached to his vest. It burned bright white in the dwindling light as he held it up.
His head. It felt as if a hammer were raining on it in steady blows. And it felt strangely warm. Reaching up, he felt a huge swell, and blood pouring out. He must have been struck on his head during the ejection. Blood kept streaming down his face and neck, turning the water crimson.
Using his flare to light the sea, Tom scanned the waters for telltale signs of a shark: a dorsal fin knifing through the waves, an eerie black shadow rising from below to strike. The sharks would smell his blood soon enough, and then they would come to feed. He unsheathed the knife he kept inside his flight suit and saw the blade’s jagged edge shine in the reflection of the flames. The sharks wouldn’t get an easy meal out of him. He would take some with him if it came to that.
Pulling back his life vest, Tom checked the emergency locator transponder. Where a steady blue flash should have been transmitting, it was blank. Dark. Broken. Tom cursed under his breath. Night was falling. How would his men find him?
Tom listened for a rescue helicopter, dying to hear the steady thrum of its rotor blades across the sea. The sound of safety.
But none came.
From the corner of his eye, Tom saw some movement, causing him to twist around quickly with a startle, expecting to meet a shark. But it was merely a gull skimming across the water, unworried, heading to its next destination as darkness fell.
He chuckled at the absurdity of his response, blood still streaming down his face from his head wound. It hurt to laugh, and he began choking again.
The currents drew him away from the plane’s wreckage and out into the pitch-black sea. He rolled with each swell that passed, his only light the flare. And the flare would not last forever. He had fifteen minutes, maybe.
He struggled to stay awake. It was suicide to give into the darkness out here in these waters. He needed to keep conscious. He knew he had a concussion, and if he went out now, it could be hours until he awoke again. By then it would certainly be too late, with his emergency transponder not working. And with the demons liable to attack again at any moment.
He splashed his face with the cool seawater. And then he even took to slapping himself.
But the darkness was so warm, so inviting. Why not just close your eyes? Just for a moment. He knew he shouldn’t; they always told you not to when you hit your head. But just for one teensy second, he told himself, then you could wake up again. How could it hurt? Just a little nap. The warm darkness rushed into his field of vision, until all was black again.
• • •
A luminous image of Maddy’s face rose in the front of his mind, but soon it turned to wisps, then nothing. Tom opened his eyes—or was he still dreaming?—and looked down into the depths below. A calm, blue-green light shone. An enormous whale, peaceful and silent in the deep, slowly drifted underneath him. A leviathan. Tom wanted to follow it. He knew it had something to tell him. It had something to say that was more important than anything up here, on the Earth’s surface. He thought he could hear beautiful music emanating up from below. There were voices, too. Were they calling him? They sounded as if they’d been waiting for him.
He could just follow the voices . . . just slip right down to the depths. It’d be so easy. Effortless, even. Why not?
• • •
The same blue glow crept back behind the black walls of his eyelids again. Opening his eyes, Tom saw two wings. Wings spread wide, the moon just behind them as the seawater lapped and splashed.