The Weapon - Apocalypse - part 21
By Diana the Valkyrie
Flying and boasting, flying and drinking, flying and women 


Rammer:

Ask any pilot, he'd tell you he joined the Air Force to fly. And not just to
fly cropdusters and Cessnas; the name of the game is military jets. There's
nothing like the kick in the back as you cut in the afterburners and drill a
hole in the sky. Flying and boasting, flying and drinking, flying and women.
But always flying, high and fast, loud and clear. High and fast, like the
booze and the women.

We trained hard, we were the best. We scored consistently high in the war
games, we boasted that we could thread a needle at mach 2, from 50,000 feet.
We practised dogfighting each other, and sometimes when The Weapon flew over,
we'd rise to meet her and see if we could take her, too. And she was a good
sport, she was always willing for a rumble. And occasionally, she'd join use
for a party afterwards. I never saw her drunk, though.

Of course, we never got near her. That wasn't because we weren't the cream, it
was because she just had more manoeverability than our planes; more speed and
height, too. I always expected, when we scrambled to intercept her, that I'd
be landing with a handful of mud on my canopy. But it was very good practice
for us; if you train against someone that good, then when you meet the real
enemy, it's a piece of cake.

Most of the pilots didn't care about world events. Hey, if we get asked to
bomb someone, we'll do it, ours is not to reason why. We're just the low men
in the chain of command. Yes sir, no sir, can do! Of course, we all knew that
tinpot little countries couldn't be trusted with Weapons of Mass Destruction;
who knows when some mad dictator might get control and start handing them out
to terrorists. We kept seeing articles about what might happen if smallpox got
loose in the world today, and we all knew about the anthrax deaths. And when
the United Nations finally passed a resolution demanding that Freedonia hand
over any and all WMD's, and Freedonia kept giving them the runaround, you can
be sure that we knew that we had right on our side when we were sent out to
compel their disarmament, "by whatever means necessary" as the resolution
said.

When our squadron was loaded up on a carrier (the USS Constitution) and sent
out into the Pacific, along with a couple of large battleships, a few cruisers
and a flotilla of destroyers, we knew that we wouldn't actually have much to
do. I mean, some poxy little island out in the Pacific? Don't make me laugh.
We'd show up, they'd back down, game over.

Of course, no-one told us Freedonia's side of the story.

We got a transport to Pearl, and we flew off Whiteman to land on the carrier;
we met it about a thousand miles out from the target, which was some new
island in the South Pacific; formed from the eruption of a recent volcano, I
guessed. Our task was to maintain air cover for the marines, who would splash
ashore and secure all military installations. The ceebees would then build an
airbase on the island itself, freeing up the carrier for other duties, and
we'd soon have the whole island safe and secure under the protection of Uncle
Sam. There was a rumour that there was a major oilfield there, too, but I
don't see how; oilfields and volcanos don't mix. Still, if there was an
oilfield there, it would be best to make sure that the existing dictatorship
didn't blow it up, that would be a terrible ecological disaster.

Everything went fine until we were 200 miles from the island. Obviously, real
countries claim territorial waters around their coasts out to a limit of 200
miles, but it was absurd that this tiny dot in the middle of the Pacific
should do the same. Nevertheless, it was when we were 200 miles from target
that things started to come unglued.

Unless you're actually flying, there isn't that much for an airman to do on a
carrier, so we spent a lot of time out on deck, catapulting stones at the
seabirds that flock round a fleet. Good practice on airborne targets. So I had
a front row seat at the ball game.

She arrived at mach three. I heard that we didn't spot her with radar, her
cross-section is just too small, and we didn't eyeball her until she was only
20 miles away. At that speed, you cover 20 miles in half a minute. Even if our
combat air patrols had been warned by radar, they couldn't have vectored on to
her, she was just moving too fast. And by the time people were at action
stations to man the guns, she was too close to be fired on. Because she didn't
slow down below mach three until she came in to land.

The deceleration must have been savage. I figured she must have pulled a
hundred negative g's with that stunt. By the time anyone was ready to fire,
she was standing on the deck of the flagship carrier, being stared at by about
a thousand men who were torn between being scared and being horny.

Scared, because we had some idea of what we were facing. Horny, because she
was drop-dead gorgeous, in a costume that didn't leave you guessing about what
she had.

And she just stood there, in the middle of the carrier deck, arms folded,
waiting. Waiting for what? I didn't know; no-one else knew either. The brass
were running around like headless chickens, this wasn't in any of the manuals,
we didn't have a procedure to cover "Female flies in at mach 3 and stands on
carrier deck", or "Weapon of Mass Destruction on flight deck". So, I figured,
what the hell, and I strolled up to say hi.

"Rammer to Weapon, do you read me?"

She turned to face me, and smiled. "Weapon to Rammer, what's a nice boy like
you doing on a ship like this?" and she stepped forward and hugged me.
Suddenly, I realised that I probably hadn't made a very smart career move. I
tried to get free of her, but she kept her arms round me until she'd finished
the hug, and then she stepped back and said, "So, where's the bar?"

"Uh. Weapon, the US Navy is dry." She looked round at the ocean around us.
"Looks wet to me. No, I'm kidding, I need to speak to the captain, we have to
evacuate the boat, it's going to sink."

I looked at her. "Ship, it's a ship. It's sinking?"

"No, I didn't say it's sinking. I said it's going to sink. So, which way is
the captain of this boat?"

I pointed to the island, and showed her where the bridge was. "I can't see
where you're pointing, Rammer. Tell you what, you take flight leader position,
I'll follow." So I walked ahead of her, up into "Officer Country". I figured,
if she had something important to tell the Captain, I'd better not get in the
way of that. So, I led; she trailed behind me. I didn't look back to see if
she was following, and I couldn't hear her footsteps, but that's to be
expected with someone who doesn't walk when she can fly instead.

The door to the bridge was dogged shut, of course, since we were at action
stations. I knocked politely. The Weapon gently pushed me to one side, and
ploughed through the door like it was made of balsa wood. I followed her
through.

The hubbub on the bridge trailed away to silence as everyone eyeballed the
uninvited visitor. She stood there, hands on hips, staring back at them. I had
the feeling that the staring contest would last for ever, so I interrupted.
"Captain, she says that the ship is going to sink."

Captain Richards frowned. "I haven't had any damage reports." "That's because
I haven't done any damage to your boat yet," said the Weapon. "Captain, I want
you to get everyone off this boat, because I'm going to sink it."

There was a long silence, interrupted by a call from the below-deck hangar.
"Hangar to Bridge, damage report." Captain Richards frowned, and took the
call. He listened for half a minute, then hung up. "Every single aircraft on
this ship has had its optical fibre cut to the tail assmebly," he said. I
tried to think when she could have done that, it must have been while we were
going through Officer Country, she must have quickly flown down to the hangar
and crippled all our aircraft. Or maybe she'd just focussed some beam at the
cables, and messed up the glass that carries the signals. Without the tail
controls, the airplane would be impossible to fly. I guessed that the damage
could be repaired, but until it was, we were an aircraft carrier without
aircraft, apart from the ones currently up doing CAP, and I guessed she'd
cripple each of those when it landed.

She fluffed up her hair, and stretched. "Captain, evacuate this boat, now. I'm
going to make a big hole in the hull, it'll sink within an hour."

"You can't do that," he said.

She just looked at him. "Just watch me. I can tear your boat apart like tissue 
paper."

"You can't do that, for two reasons. First, this is a nuclear powered ship,
and if you sink it, it'll pollute a large area of the ocean for many many
years. Secondly, our intelligence on you says that you don't kill people. So,
I'm not going to evacuate this ship, and you won't sink it because so many
sailors would drown."

I couldn't believe my ears. He was using his own men as a human shield!

She blinked. And her voice dropped pitch, went very quiet and sounded very
dangerous. "Captain, hear this. I will find out what you most desire, and I 
will make sure that you never, ever, get it, unless you do as I say. Now, 
evacuate this ship."

He shook his head. "Fuck you," he said, and very deliberately turned his back
on her.

I looked at her face; I thought she'd get very angry at this. She stood there,
her fists clenched, and her face went very red. I sort of expected laser beams
to sizzle out of her eyes through the air and cut him in half. Then she turned
on her heel and stomped out.

I looked at the officers on the bridge, realised that there wasn't any place
for me there, and turned and followed her out. Whatever it was she planned,
maybe I could persuade her not to do it. I felt that I stood as much chance as
a straw in a hurricane, but I didn't have anything better to do, and at least
she was on speaking terms with me.

"Rammer to Weapon, slow down, I want to talk to you." She turned and waited
for me, then she pushed me into a nearby cabin. She slowly sat down on the
deck, and put her hands over her face. She looked very small, and very
vulnerable, and I could see her shoulders shaking. Then she looked up at me.
"I made a real dog's breakfast out of that, didn't I?" She was crying. "I've
let down my babies, I've let down my friends and I've let down Duncan."
"Duncan?" "My Wielder. That bloody captain is probably laughing at me right
now."

I hunkered down next to her, and touched her arm. "You remember the first time
we were dogfighting, and you had a baby on your back so you couldn't pull more
than a couple of g's, and I did an Immelmann and got around behind you, and you
didn't even see me there until I yelled "Dugga dugga dugga", and I got you
bang to rights?"

She smiled through her tears, and looked across at me. "Yes, that taught me
that you don't carry babies when you're going into a dogfight. But what's that
got to do with this?" "Oh, nothing. I was just remembering. It was the only
time I ever got you." She pulled me off balance, I started to topple over
towards her, and she wrestled me to the ground, and kissed me. I didn't resist
too much. Not that it would have done any good if I had. "Dugga dugga dugga",
she said. And then she sighed, and got off me.

"Well," she said, "I have to do something. I can't just let them invade
Freedonia." "You're going to sink the ship?" "No," she sighed. "Because you
can't?" "Because I won't. If I start killing you boys, that would make me no
better than you are. There's got to be another way. Got to be!"

She sat there, thinking. I looked at her, and wondered if I could wrestle her
to the ground and kiss her, like she had me. I thought, well, if she wants me
to, then I can, and if she doesn't want me to, then I can't. She looked up at
me. "Don't", she said. Oh, I thought. Oh well. I can dream, can't I? "I like
your new costume, is that the Freedonia pilots uniform?" She looked great; it
was very figure hugging, and as one who had hugged that figure quite recently,
I knew that it was a good figure to hug. "No, it's my old Pretty Flamingo
outfit ... oh! Oh, I know what to do. Of course!"

She jumped up, and took my hand. "Come on, Rammer. Let's fly!" She pulled me
along after her, I didn't really have a choice.

We got out onto the flight deck. The CAP had landed, so she let go my hand,
and turned around once, treating us all to a demonstration of how to cripple
eight aircraft by messing up the optical fibers that carried the control
signals to the tail assembly. Then she took my hand and started running down
the flight deck, dragging me behind her; I was forced to run to keep up. We
ran the whole length of the deck, and when we reached the end, she just dived
off into the air, still dragging me along behind. Then she put an arm round my
waist, and we curved up into the sky. It was just like a take-off from a
carrier should be, except that I've seen her before, she usually just took off
vertically. So it was all for show.

Flying without an airplane is even more exhilirating than flying with one. I
reckoned that after today's events, I would be court martialed out of the
military and the closest I'd get to flying would be as a passenger in an air
bus. Especially after what happened next.

She came at the carrier from the stern, and slowed right down as she passed
over it. They were firing up at us, and I thought my hour had come, but she
had some sort of shield underneath us, and the bullets and missiles didn't
seem to do any damage. And if I hadn't actually seen what happened next, I
might not have believed it.

She scooped the ship out of the water.

I have no idea how she did it, and it's really only a guess that she did. But
when a ship weighing 100,000 tons quietly lifts itself out of the water, rises
into the air to a height of a couple of hundred feet, and then follows where
she flies, it's a pretty good bet that she was the cause.

The guys on the ship must have thought so too, because they had the sense to
stop firing at her. Think about it - either they couldn't do any damage, in
which case it was a waste of ammo, or else they could, in which case, the ship
wouldn't survive the drop back into the water. I mean, I'm not sure what
happens when you drop a carrier a couple of hundred feet into the water, but I
do know that the designers wouldn't have considered that to be a hazard they
need worry about.

"Er," I said. "Rammer to Weapon, report status please." She turned her head
and smiled at me. I wondered what would happen if I tried to steal a kiss.
"Don't", she said. So I didn't. "I used to do this all the time for Pretty
Flamingo, it was our main business, flying VLCCs around the world." "But a
carrier?" "The big VLCCs are half a million tons, and they were no trouble. As
long as no-one does anything stupid, like jump off the ship, everything will
be fine." "So where are we going, back to Pearl?" "No," she grinned, "The East
Coast."

I felt the wind in my face, I guessed we had a several thousand miles to
cover, and we were doing around 400 knots. I turned my head to face her. "So
what am I here for?" "Rammer, sweetie, just enjoy the ride. And I thought
maybe we could have a little talk, you know? Maybe I can find out why you
people want to stick your noses into our island?"

"It's the WMD, you see." "WMD?" "Weapons of Mass Destruction," I explained.
She gave me a hard look, her eyes narrowed. "You mean me, right?" "Er. Yes."
"So you think I'm dangerous." "Well, aren't you?" "Yes. Very. You're like
children paying with matches and gasoline. How do I convince you guys to just
leave us alone?" I shook my head. "I don't know. I don't think you can. As
long as one rogue state has the capacity to kill millions, we won't give up."

She sighed. "Rammer, look at me. No, don't look at me, what I look like isn't
relevant, I know I look like a cute girl, but I'm not actually human, not
remotely. But do you think I'd do a thing like that?" I didn't need to think
about it; she could have sunk that ship with all hands, and left the sailors
to get on lifeboats as best they could. Probably, only a small minority would
have drowned. But she wasn't willing to accept even a few deaths. "No, I know
you wouldn't. But that's not the point, I'm not the one that makes the
decisions." "Yes, I know. It's the President. I know that guy's predecessor,
you know?" "You did?" I believed her. "Yes, he was a cutie." She told me the
story about the refugees from Ramanmari, and how she'd traded a major victory
in the War on Drugs, for a place for them to live, in America.

"He'd have listened to me, he wouldn't have attacked Freedonia, I'm sure of
it." "But he's not there any more. It's a new guy, and he's announced a policy
of zero tolerance for WMDs. And you're just a small piece of fluff caught in
the machinery." "Then maybe he needs to understand that he's not dealing with
a small piece of fluff, I'm The Weapon, Guardian of Humanity, and he does not
get to tell me what I can and cannot do. And if I'm in his machinery, then his
machine breaks, not me." I sighed. I could see a major collision of wills
here, and no matter how powerful she was, she was still just one against
millions.

"Look, Weapon, I'm sure your heart's in the right place ... " "I don't have a
heart." "Sure you do, you wouldn't kill those sailors." "No, I mean literally,
I don't have a heart. Or kidneys, or a liver, or any of that stuff. I'm not
human." "But you're holding me so close, I can feel your heart beating" "Uh,
that's not a heart, I just do that because Duncan says it feels strange to him
when we're cuddled up if I don't have a heartbeat." "Oh. OK, let me rephrase
that. I'm sure your motives are pure, but they just aren't going to trust
you." "Oh well," she said, "I guess I'm just going to have to win their trust.
Because you can't kill me, and I'm not going to leave the planet that I'm
supposed to guard."

I asked her about this "Guardian of Humanity" thing. I mean, why did she think
we needed guarding, we could do a pretty good job of looking after ourselves.
"No you can't," she said. And she told me about the war that splattered across
most of the galaxy, the two sides, each convinced of the righteousness and
justice of their cause, and how they were trying their best to drag everyone
else into the war on one side or the other. And how that would ruin the world
for millenia to come, and that our best chance was to stay neutral. "But to
stay neutral, you have to be able to fight, otherwise people just tread on
you." "We can fight!" She laughed. "Rammer, to fight, you need a weapon. And
you don't have any. Sweetie, if the Mazdas turned up tomorrow, parked in orbit
round the moon, and started dropping asteroids onto the planet, how exactly
would you fight them? And that's using practically no technology at all. You'd
roll over after the first one dropped, and that would already have killed
about three quarters of you."

"You could deal with that?" "Sure I could. Actually, I wouldn't let them get
as close as the moon, I'd warn them off at least 24 light-hours out, way
beyond the Oort cloud." "Would they let themselves be warned?" "As soon as
they see that there's a Weapon guarding the planet, that's me, you know?
They'd go look for easier targets. I can be very destructive, you see. I
break things, that's what I do, that's my thing, I enjoy it. And I don't just 
mean small stuff like this boat of yours."

It was actually 26 hours after lift-off, if that's what you call it when a
ship takes to the air, that I saw the Washington Monument, and began to
suspect what was about to happen.

She slowed down as we passed over the city, and reduced height. People must
have seen the aircraft carrier in the sky, and I tried to imagine the panic
that they must be feeling. She slowed some more, descended some more, and I
realised that she was actually on a glide path for landing.

She left the USS Constitution parked on Constitution Avenue.

I say "parked", it was a bit wider than your average car, so it blocked the
entire avenue. And you can't just hitch up a tow truck to a carrier and tow it
back to the sea. There was, as far as I could see, actually no way that it
could be moved, except by cutting it up into pieces, which could only be used
for scrap metal. And they couldn't just leave it there; you can't leave an
aircraft carrier blocking one of the main Washington thoroughfares.

She had just totally destroyed a five billion dollar carrier, without actually
doing it any damage. And, I guessed, Captain Richards would now be the
laughing-stock of the Navy, and wouldn't even be put in charge of a rubber
duck. Getting damaged or sunk by enemy action is bad enough, but at least it
shows you must have been in the thick of the fighting. Colliding with a
friendly ship, or with the land, was a court martial offence. Getting your
ship dumped in the road outside the White House, was probably a flogging
offence. Maybe even hanging. For sure, he would be an object of mirth for
ever. And his heart's desire, which was to make Admiral, had been taken away
from him, for ever.

And, of course, without air cover, the task force heading for Freedonia would
just have to steam back to Pearl.

"Weapon to Rammer - hey, it's been real fun, but I gotta go, I'll just take
you back to your boat." "Ship". "Strictly speaking, it's neither right now,
just a heap of useless iron. Anyway, it was nice flying with you again,
Rammer. Have a drink with the boys, and tell them to remember their old
sparring partner, The Weapon."