THE SLIDE Part 4

Chapter 48: Dogfight

Fantasy: Forces of Mystery Collide

Recap

The vortex was not content with extricating trees, land, and vegetation; it went after water in the tables underground. In the tunnel below ground, riding the crest of the wave towards the center, Orca and Ra shuttered as the mighty vortex pulled at the solidity of the tunnel from above. Parts of the wave were removed out of the main feed as it was sucked forward even faster towards the center. The dragon’s glade, filled with mist, vibrated and evaporated section by section in clumps of molecules.

“What was that?” Farha stood alarmed and turned, looking towards where they had been.

“It looks to be a ghost image of us being diverted on a second wave into another tunnel,” Hrez said as he stepped into the small circle of the balloon’s sphere deck floor.

“I think you’re right,” Farha said.

“Right about what?” Nikos awakened and was alarmed. Sophia joined him.

Overhead, the tunnel was being pulled apart. Pieces of it were pulled up along with the water. The glade and the sphere were slammed upwards. Debris fell, while most of it flew up.

“What was that?” Maria asked as she arose in the din, squinting forward over the top of Ombolo’s torso in momentary glimpses of the disaster that lay ahead.

“A ghost image,” Sophia answered. Her mouth hung open in shock. “This is it.”

“Minutes before our death,” Farha found the words of truth tumbling out of her mouth by some unseen force.

Nothing. Nothing seemed to have happened.

“It must have been a mirage,” Hrez said, metaphorically scratching his head.

They crowded around two of the bronze-copper sphere’s portals and peered through the small viewing ports. And although the view was aft of their position, the tunnel appeared intact — awash with the waters of the wave. Ombolo’s tentacles seemed to be unscathed.

When they seemed satisfied, they turned away from the portals. The capsuled sphere faded, and the cedar forest and dragon’s breath returned in the perpetual twilight.

Zed, Tem, and a Scientist Depart

“See here, Lieutenant Tem,” Zed began, puffed full of self-importance. He used a pointer for his student-underling, Tem, and his attention to the super-computer-generated flight plan through the vortex to the becalmed eye at the center. Minute changes appeared on the screen every five to seven minutes. “This is based on feeds from six satellites,” Zed said.

The plane was a four-seater pilot in front, two passengers directly behind the pilot with navigation functions for either of the two passengers, and a small jump-seat in the rear, one of the Ninkla scientists. The cargo-hold and the second middle passenger seat were stuffed with equipment, including X-Ray Laser parts. This would be needed to stabilize the eye in orbit with the eye on the ground, purportedly. The scientist would repair the laser with replacement parts.

Tem began his climb into the pilot’s seat.

“Halt, Lieutenant Izem. You do not know how to pilot aircraft. I am versed in all aircraft. Out of my way!” Zed barked, and Tem acquiesced.

They each took their positions.

“Tem, you will monitor and double-check navigational changes and hopefully use your body to blend with the plane as you did once before should we encounter extraordinary hazards,” Zed barked his commands.

“Yes, sir.”

Zed seemed to be a good pilot, Tem thought. His choice to fly away from the vortex to gain altitude seemed sound.

Marie and Ouroboros

Marie had fixed a binocular to Ouroboros’ hardened scales and focused it to the maximum distance. She saw the full image of the vortex from the disturbance in space, the singular widening shaft of turbulence emanating from the massive destructive swathe on the ground. However, it was impossible to ascertain where the winds and debris began, and the ground ended because of the catastrophic blur. She felt its full power.

Prepare your mind, heart, body, and spirit, Marie, for collision soon and its chaos, Ouroboros put the thought and its sensation into her being.

Moments later, three seats appeared: one directly in front of her and one to each side. A gauze substance fluttered over depression in the she-drake’s back, alternately becoming a solid transparent canopy to fluttering gauze overhead.

Dogfight

Ouroboros popped out of time, claws extended. She ripped through the reinforced cloth fuselage of Zed’s plane, left the cockpit intact, and swung around and up. She climbed about one hundred fifty feet above the plane and dove straight down. Tem became the plane and banked to port as the she-drake descended, wings flapping, claws extended, aiming for Zed in the cockpit, but missed because of Tem’s deft maneuver.

“Get us out of here, get us back,” Zed shrieked as the wind howled through the cockpit, the cabin, and the plane. Tem dug his hands into the auxiliary backup navigational and pilot controls. He gunned the throttle and dove, passing the dragon on her way up.

As Tem adjusted the trajectory into an outgoing spiral, Zed armed himself with a handgun, an automatic short rifle, belts of ammunition slung around his torso and a flare gun. Tem continued to out-maneuver the dragon in the new flight path.

A hard-translucent canopy completely covered Marie as Ouroboros bore down on the plane and, in last resort, breathed fire.

They collided in a ball of flame. The flame ball fell through folds in space-time into and out of various realities. It fell through a fragmenting spiral of dragon’s breath and into a decimated cedar grove. As the now smoldering ball fell through the failing dragon’s breath spiral land, it merged with an intact cedar forest and stable dragon’s breath and was immersed in swamp water.

“I’m getting a sinking feeling,” Nikos said.

“I understand now,” Kuzma said. “We are merging with the selves of ours that were slated to die, to sacrifice themselves so at least the light side of us could complete our mission.”

“I feel some relief,” Hrez said. “But we are sinking into a great depth, so that death we avoided seems closer now.”

“As in — crushed to death?” Sophia wondered.

Maria nodded in a somber mood.

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I appreciate your continuing readership and applaud your taking the time to read this longer work in an era of shrinking stories. Bravo!

Rebecca Romanelli | Blaine Coleman | Spyder | DL Nemeril | May More | David Price | Dr. Mehmet Yildiz | Melanie J. | Joseph Lieungh | Camille Grady | madmess’s thoughts | Orla K. | Ravyne Hawke | Winston | Margie Willis | Noorain Ali | Lee David Tyrrell | Libby Shively McAvoy | Lady Dr. Gabriella Korosi | Ilis Trudie Palmer | Rip Parker