Down Jersey Drive-shaft

Chapter Twenty Seven: A Crash Course in Doomsday

BANG!

Third punch to the console where the toggle switch sits, and the wing straightens out in a shrill howl. The snap it generates shoves Milkman hard right. Benny pulls the stick back into his gut til his back cries. Plummeting at a twisting thirty degree angle. Not good.

"Lift!" Teeth grind. Arms are tighter than bowstrings pulled taut. Fingers lose feeling. "Lift, darn it!"

Milkman wobbles like a slow spun top. She angles up, but there's the river, churning and welcoming all who enter.

Feet push against the floor of the cockpit til they go numb. Benny doesn't want to meet his Maker yet. Pull. Pull. PULL!

POP! Milkman slams it bottom on the water, skidding like a kid on skates for the first time. Resistance is unbelievable. Benny guns the engine, wobbles the stick to straighten her out. But the popping continues over his head. RIP! There goes the hatch, shredded off as if by a giant hand. Wind and ice cold water creep in. Milkman leans. If it had wheels, this episode would already be over. But the legs folded over the bottom act like hydrofoils. Nit quite as good, but enough to keep the plane afloat. Benny keeps wiping water from his visor. He's soaked. But one more pull, and the terrible dragging sensation ends.

We have liftoff.

Propeller makes hollow, sloshing sounds as it flings off water. But now Benny sees sky coming at him, sweet, perfect sky. He takes a good two minutes to survey the area, get his bearings, feel glad to be alive.

First thing in his wet line of sight? The ungodly antenna, finger discs curled as if it's taking hold of the atmosphere. Now that survival is over, the anger of a warrior is free to take hold.

Got, what, eight rockets left? Yeah. Mama's hungry? Well, let's not disappoint her. Open wide, big girl!

In quick succession, HVAR's flutter free on wiggly trails. Only one misses. Seven plumes of destruction kiss the antenna, four at various fingers, three along the twisted wrist.

"Woohoo!" Milkman flies close by as a squawk comes through the radio.

"Benny? Is that you over Pea Patch?"

"Crank!" Sweet God, thank you! "It's me, out of ammo and worse for wear but man is it great to hear--"

"I'm with Roy and three others. We're at Fort Mott studying this thing Motherville made. Oh no."

"Oh no what?" Bad enough the possibility of prying ears killed the reunion, but now...

He sees the object of worry, and knows, simply knows it's what his doll was speaking of. The antenna, in all of it's ugliness, remains. Not a crack in the frame, or even a scratch on the paint, if it is indeed painted.

"I fired at it, Crank. Seven booms, dead on and nothing! I'm spent here. Gonna land at the fort and put our heads together on this one."

"Where are Corporal Wilkes and the others? Did you get them?"

Shoot! Crank on the brain and Motherville's cockroach ubiquity clogged his thinking. "Right! We got them, and an LSM with tanks coming your way. Guess it could dock at the Fort's pier. But they've got Slick trouble."

"Benny, you have to get them here. We need the tanks so we can storm the island and take it back. Have them dock over there and we'll take the road Motherville constructed."

Sigh. No ammunition. Out of rockets. Seems at every turn moving the war ahead rests on the shoulders of the Brown Bear.

"Right. You're right. I'm on my way. Haskins out." He switches frequency. "Turner? This is Haskins. You guys evade the Slicks, over?"