New World Disorder

Chapter Sixteen

Three hours later, Pope floated in space, somewhere between the Earth and the Moon. By holding his hand out at arm's length he could cover the whole world with a clenched fist. Below him, if that had any meaning in his current location, North America bathed in the Sun's light. Look where I am. Is this all a dream? I still don't know. I still don't know how I got to this little world, or why. His thoughts, as they so often did these days, drifted back to the Rally. Right now, I kind of hope it is all a dream. Otherwise my carelessness almost killed more people than 9/11.

He turned to face the Moon. It was larger than he had ever seen it. Like all kids growing up in the sixties, he had wanted to be an astronaut. This was closer than all but a very few had ever come. If this is a dream, maybe I should just let myself float away. I can't be the son, or brother, or friend that Oran's people deserve. If I just float away, I can stop pretending, stop lying to everyone. And maybe I'll never hurt people like that again.

He spun slowly, the giant Moon chasing the shrunken Earth across his field of vision. Think this through Old Man. Wallowing in self-pity is no good to anyone. Damned hormone driven teen angst!

Trying to throw off the funk, he pulled out of his spin and flew towards the Moon. He accelerated as fast as he could, pushing his speed, trying to find a limit. Two minutes later he was near the lunar surface. He felt he could still go faster. But I still don't think I'm ready to go playing too far from home. I might get lost and not be able to find my way back.

Delving into Oran's memories he came up with a distance between the Earth and Moon as around 240,000 miles. Pope figured he had gone half that distance in those two minutes. Might as well look around while I'm here.

He fell into a low orbit around the grey satellite. Passing near the Dark Side Watch Station Pope made himself invisible to the radar and other sensors with which the station was scanning the sky. The old soldier decided he was not yet ready to deal with the High Guard. As he left the dark side he was watching the Earth rise over the lunar mountains when a beam of concentrated x-rays slashed in front of him from below.

Old aerial combat reflexes kicking in, Pope rolled into an evasive maneuver, slowing down drastically. He saw a grey and silver diamond shape closing from below him at tremendous speed. What the hell!

He dodged as the object, easily the size of a tank or large helicopter, flashed past him. It was bristling with tentacles and had four large turrets, two above and two below. Pope dove for the lunar surface, hoping to lose it in the craggy mountains. It banked around and followed him. After a minute of playing tag he realized that the thing was as fast as him, at least as fast as he was able to go this close to the surface.

It fired a blast of plasma that just missed him. This was followed a moment later by a beam of microwaves. That hit him but was absorbed with no ill effects. Pope tried to maneuver around a tall rock spire, hoping to draw his pursuer into a crash. Instead the thing snagged the rock with a pair of tentacles and used them to slingshot around the spire, gaining enough speed to overtake the smaller man.

As the behemoth came abreast of Pope, it whipped out five appendages to wrap around him like an anaconda. The drone, for he could see there was no one on board, started squeezing. Arrgh! Fighting to break free, the old soldier found the arms were too strong.

He tried using his gravitational or magnetic manipulation powers, but the thing was too strong with too many arms. The constriction was increasingly painful. His ribs started to creak. It's stronger than you. Stop trying to out-wrestle it, he yelled at himself.

He pulsed his nimbus in all directions like he had the first time he used his powers. But it was not enough to force the tendrils loose. They just kept squeezing. Motes began to swim in front of Pope's eyes, a familiar precursor to unconsciousness.