Into The Hands of God
A while ago I was hired to write a series of pieces set in an alternate historical setting where a wormhole allowed access to an Earth-like planet (Earth Secundus) during WWII. The project went quiet after an initial period of activity; this and a couple of unfinished pieces are all I have of it. The project may be ongoing somewhere, but I've heard nothing for years....
It is 1942. The Nazi steamroller has crushed France and most of mainland Europe, but has been deflected from its path by the Royal Air Force. Thwarted in his plan to invade Britain, Hitler now plans to subjugate Russia.
But first he must make himself master of Western Europe. Fearing that neutral Spain will allow Allied forces to land in her territory, Hitler orders his legions over the Pyrenees, intending to clear his flank before plunging into Russia in 1944 or 45. Conquering Spain will also gain him the technical resources of the European Rocket Corps, a multinational organization that sends missions to Secundus every year.
As the poorly-equipped Spanish army crumbled before the elite Panzer divisions, the Rocket Corps decided on a desperate gamble. Cramming everyone they possibly could into the last three rockets, they set up a simultaneous launch aimed at the wormhole.
It would be a most desperate crossing to Secundus, but the alternative was to surrender to the Nazis. So the best of Europe’s scientists and their dependents, skilled technicians and local workers, chose to cast their fate to the winds and hope for the best.
These last pioneers set out on their journey knowing that theirs might be the last ships out of Free Europe. Perhaps Nazi colonists would follow, or perhaps this terrible war would end civilization on Earth. The pioneers could not know what would befall.
All they could to was strive, and hope.
Sirens wailed across the base as the three vast cylinders ignited their warmup engines. Thin clouds of steam arose from the water-filled pits under the rockets, whipping over the blast deflectors in a gently thickening stormcloud.
The three colony rockets lay on launch sleds at the end of their angled takeoff rails. When the main drive ignited they would accelerate along the track, angling upward as they reached the end, the rocket-powered sled falling away and the strap-on boosters lifting the huge vessels towards the sky on the first stage of their journey to Terra Secundus.
Assuming they didn’t just burst into flames and explode, of course. It happened from time to time, and a hurried launch like this one was prone to disaster. Nobody had ever tried to launch three ships at once, but there simply wasn’t time for anything else.
“Tower signals we are clear for secondary ignition,” said Maurice Burnette, Chief Pilot of the third, British, rocket.
“Secondary ignition, acknowledged.” The speaker was Burnette’s copilot, an elderly gentleman by the name of Gerome Brown. Brown had flown Sopwith Camels against Von Richthofen and rocket-propelled Lightning fighters in the Battle of Britain. The thought of launching three vast rocket ships under artillery fire with hundreds of people aboard each didn’t seem to bother him.
Brown’s white moustache twitched in a slight, satisfied smile as the master control board lit up. Yellow-painted bulbs came on, showing all rockets live and ready. Outside, shell bursts threw up fountains of dirt and smoke as the final assault got underway.
“Pioneer One is launching,” Burnette said with a slight tremor in his voice. The first rocket’s boosters lit and, seconds later, her sled released its brakes. Steam blanketed everything for a second, then the winged cylinder hurtled out of the cloud, accelerating along her rail and angling skyward under the vast thrust of her drives. She climbed steadily into the dawning sky, her sled falling away with its fuel expended, then her enormous flank and dorsal boosters igniting to send her straight up on a tail of fire.
“They’re away, thank God,” Brown said. Burnette nodded, watching Pioneer Two, with a Spanish crew and a mix of Spanish and French colonists aboard, begin her run. A twin-engined German fighter-bomber dived towards the rocket ship, but did not fire. Seconds later, Pioneer Two was airborne and heading for Secundus.
“We are clear to launch,” Burnette said. “Go to sled drive ignition.”
“Sled drive firing,” Brown replied, one eye on the board and one on the perimeter fence. His voice never changed pitch as he added, “They’re through.”
Brunette glanced out of his cockpit window. Brown was right. Six-wheeled armored cars were racing across the base towards the control tower and the remaining rocket. Halftracks loaded with troops were just behind them.
There was still fierce fighting going on around the perimeter as Brigadier Butler’s cobbled-together defense force battled to buy time for the launch. A tank – a Panzer III by the look of it – halted to fire its short 75mm gun but instead burst into flame as an antitank gun scored a hit. Machinegun fire swept defensive positions nearby, and the advance continued.
“Release sled brakes,” Burnette ordered, and Brown pulled the handle.
Nothing happened.
“The sled’s jammed!” Brown’s tone was emphatic rather than frightened.
“Tower, this is Pioneer Three. We’re hung up. We need a central release!” Burnette said into his radio mask. There was no reply.
“Sled motors increasing to full power. Should I abort?” Brown asked.
Brunette glanced at the advancing tanks and made his decision. “Ignite them all together. It might tear us free.”
“Or blow us to Kingdom Come…” Brown said with what sounded like a chuckle. He tripped all three switches. “Sled motors increasing to full power.”
Over the roar and blast of battle, Burnette heard the squeal of the sled as the rockets began dragging it along the rail. The launch track was beginning to buckle under the strain, but the brakes held.
“Tower! Anyone!” Burnette all but shouted into his mask. “Release the sled brakes!”
There was an electrical release switch in the tower, clearly marked. If anyone was still at their post over there, they could pull a single lever and send Pioneer Three on her way. But Burnette had seen troops entering the building, thought he heard gunfire on the radio.
He reached for the DOUSE handle, the emergency device that would kill the engines.
Brown slapped his hand away. “Dorsal booster ignition in five seconds. Flank boosters in seven…”
“You’ll blow us up!” Burnette snapped.
“Probably,” Brown agreed. He threw another switch. “Underwing engines activated.”
That was the most desperate part of all. The four big underwing engines were Pratt & Whitney turbojets used for cruising upon reaching Secundus. Without them they’d have no control over their landing place.
“Don’t worry, I can deadstick us in to a fairly reasonable landing,” Brown asserted. “I’ve done it often enough before…” He didn’t mention that his last deadstick landing had been in a biplane fighter in 1917 and had resulted in serious burns plus two broken legs.
The colony rocket was a third of the way along the launch rail, moving at a fast walking pace. The fighter-bomber was coming around again, and this time its nose cannon were chattering. A tank bounced and lurched across the shell-torn field, heading for the launch ramp. Metal squealed and popped as the boosters tried to rip the rocket apart.
“Tower! For God’s sake release the brakes!” Burnette shouted, and to his astonishment a voice answered.
“Go with God, whoever you are.”
The brakes released suddenly, sending the rocket surging forward. Burnette had just a second to register that the voice on the radio had a German accent, and to hear gunfire over the radio, then his world ended as 20mm cannon shells burst on the skin of the rocket and sent metal fragments slashing through the control area.
Burnette took the worst of it, falling dead at the controls as Brown twitched under multiple impacts. Shock muffled the pain for a second, during which time the rocket reached the end of the launch rail. At the same instant, the tank Brown had seen earlier rammed the base of the ramp, attempting to topple it.
The rocket cleared the ramp as it crashed sideways, causing the starboard wing to dip alarmingly. Reflexes sluggish with wound shock, Brown fought the controls, barely keeping the wingtip off the ground. The perimeter fence whipped by, and a stand of trees, as tracers raked the sky from below.
Brown fought off dizziness and dragged the nose up, sending the colony rocket into an ever-increasing climb. With all the engines lit, the rocket would soon be running out of fuel. He had to set it on a course for the wormhole before the thrust died away. And before he blacked out from blood loss.
Glancing at his wounds, Brown decided that they didn’t seem that bad, on the whole. His right arm and leg were bleeding freely from a number of surface cuts, and he had a burning pain on his cheek that suggested that something had ripped the skin through his mask. With the cabin punctured that was going to be a problem when they reached high altitude, but there wasn’t that much he could do about it.
Brown breathed deep from his oxygen mask, fighting tunnel vision and fading consciousness. The acceleration wasn’t any worse than he’d experienced flying rocket fighters, so maybe he’d lost more blood than he thought. He glanced across at Burnette, but there was no sign of life. A thick river of blood ran backwards across the steeply inclined cockpit.
Brown tried the intercom, but there was no answer. He wasn’t going to be getting any help from elsewhere in the rocket ship. He would have to fly them to Secundus all by himself. Assuming he didn’t succumb to his injuries first.
His right foot was strangely numb, and that was ominous. By angling his head to see around the control column Brown could see that he was losing a great deal of blood from somewhere above his ankle. He couldn’t feel anything, just increasing coldness. That might be the altitude but somehow he doubted it.
The dorsal booster cut out. Brown reached for the handle, a supreme effort, and yanked it back. A wry smile twitched his moustache. Perhaps it would fall on some Nazi goon. Then the smile went away. Whoever had released the sled brakes had been no Nazi, but Brown was sure it’d been a German soldier.
He’d fought the Germans for three long years, back in his youth. Spared the hell of the trenches by volunteering for the Flying Corps, he’d been a knight of the air, trading obscene gestures and pistol shots with the enemy at first, then machinegun bullets as the air war grew ever more serious and sophisticated. But however violent the conflict he’d always respected his opponents, and the captured enemy pilots he’d met had been gentlemen – whatever their background. Friends who’d fallen into enemy hands said they’d been treated decently even by the ground troops they’d been calling artillery fire in on.
So where had it gone wrong? How had the decent people of Germany come to be ruled by Nazi madmen? Would they come to dominate all of Earth that way? Perhaps Secundus would be the only haven for civilization, at least until the Nazi rockets started landing.
It was hopeless. They’d come to Secundus too, and everything good would wither and die under the Swastika.
Brown’s eyes snapped open as the flank boosters cut out. He’d been drifting, almost unconscious. Now he yanked the booster release handle and jammed the control column with his knees. Wriggling awkwardly in his seat he was able to wrap a makeshift bandage around where he thought the worst of the bleeding was coming from.
It wasn’t hopeless. That unknown German soldier had found a way to resist the Nazis. He, Gerome Andrew Brown, aging fighter ace, would fly the fugitives to a place where they could build a new home. Where they would prepare to resist the forces of darkness wherever they arose – from Earth or from their own society. They would be vigilant, and they would remember what could happen if civilization let down its guard for a moment.
But first they had to get there, and that was Brown’s appointed task.
With the last of the power from the jets, Brown angled the rocket at the wormhole. There was nothing for it now but to hope for the best.
The wormhole was unimpressive; nothing more than a slight distortion of light and some strange radio effects. But as the battered rocket plane approached it, strange forces began to buffet Brown around in his seat. He clenched his teeth, feeling jagged metal in his wounds scraping on bone, and held the controls tight.
Just seconds now… just seconds.
Everything went black for a time; Brown didn’t know how long. When he was able to think coherently once more, the rocket plane was in a steep dive over a vast expanse of ocean. There was no sign of the two other rockets.
The area below looked nothing like anywhere Brown had seen on a map of Secundus, which suggested they’d come out of the wormhole far from the regions explored over the past eight years. There would be no rescue. Perhaps the wreckage of the colony rocket would never even be found.
There were numerous islands below, scattered amid a vast expanse of ocean. Brown levelled out and headed for the largest, which appeared to be a fair bit larger than mainland Britain. A forbidding mountain range rose steeply inland, but there was a wide coastal plain.
Sudden nausea wracked the pilot. He breathed deep, tried to focus. His head lolled back as consciousness all but fled. He licked dry lips and pushed the nose down, angling in towards the big island.
The colony rocket speared through a crystal-blue sky, leaving behind a contrail of wispy cloud. Bright sunlight glinted on the ripped and torn control surfaces, gleamed from the cracked cockpit, and warmed the dying pilot as he lined up a deadstick approach.
Brown knew he wasn’t going to set foot on Secundus, not alive anyway. But that wasn’t important. All he had to do was make sure the passengers got there safely.
He purged the fuel tanks for the jets, just in case enough kerosene was left to cause a fire. The sea raced up fast. Too fast. Brown levelled out, climbed a little to shed speed, and pointed the rocket at the beach.
Slowly, painfully, he reached forward one last time, lowered the flaps and deployed the air brakes. Then, as warm blackness enfolded him he pulled back on the control column, lifted Pioneer Three’s face to the sky, and let go of the controls.
As Gerome Brown slumped back in his seat, his last thought was that that he had done all that mortal man was capable of. Now he gave the fate of hundreds of colonists into the hands of God.
* * *
The nose of the colony rocket Pioneer Three was above the high water mark, even at high tide. Already the colonists were hacking lumps off the hull to roof their makeshift shelters. Tools were in short supply and there was little food. Their desperate escape had led them to an island paradise, but the colonists were going to have a tough time surviving all the same.
Alex Levinn, a tubby rocketry engineer from Bristol, was among the party assigned to break into the locked control area. Now, as they prepared to bury the two pilots, he gazed over the pistol – a Webley .455 – he had taken from Brown’s flight suit holster. They’d taken everything they could from the wreck, and this handgun was more than a souvenir, it was one of the few firearms they possessed. A symbol of authority, the tool of tyranny or the means to defend the fledgling colony? That depended very much on who wielded it.
Levinn knew he didn’t want to be the one who did, but for now he’d hang onto the handgun. Just until he was sure he was giving it to someone worthy.
The last shovelfuls of dirt were scattered on the two graves, and grateful colonists stepped forward to hang little tokens of respect on the wooden crosses they’d made to mark the site. As the last of them turned away, Levinn saw again the scene in the cockpit; the smashed instruments and pools of stinking blood. Burnette almost cut in half by a cannon shell, and Brown ripped to bloody shreds yet lying peacefully in his seat as if enjoying a Sunday afternoon snooze.
How Brown had remained alive long enough to land them was a mystery. Levinn privately believed that the pilot was dead when the rocket began skipping across the bay to settle on the beach. Others wanted to believe that Brown had lived long enough to make a perfect touchdown and to see their new home through the cockpit glass. Levinn didn’t agree with them, much as he wanted to, but if his theory that the dying pilot had set up the approach then just let go of the controls were true, there was one great unanswered question.
The one-use explosive door release had been triggered after the crashlanding. Everyone knew that – nobody could have missed the noise of the bolts blowing out. But if the pilot was already dead…
Then who had opened the doors for them?
It is 1942. The Nazi steamroller has crushed France and most of mainland Europe, but has been deflected from its path by the Royal Air Force. Thwarted in his plan to invade Britain, Hitler now plans to subjugate Russia.
But first he must make himself master of Western Europe. Fearing that neutral Spain will allow Allied forces to land in her territory, Hitler orders his legions over the Pyrenees, intending to clear his flank before plunging into Russia in 1944 or 45. Conquering Spain will also gain him the technical resources of the European Rocket Corps, a multinational organization that sends missions to Secundus every year.
As the poorly-equipped Spanish army crumbled before the elite Panzer divisions, the Rocket Corps decided on a desperate gamble. Cramming everyone they possibly could into the last three rockets, they set up a simultaneous launch aimed at the wormhole.
It would be a most desperate crossing to Secundus, but the alternative was to surrender to the Nazis. So the best of Europe’s scientists and their dependents, skilled technicians and local workers, chose to cast their fate to the winds and hope for the best.
These last pioneers set out on their journey knowing that theirs might be the last ships out of Free Europe. Perhaps Nazi colonists would follow, or perhaps this terrible war would end civilization on Earth. The pioneers could not know what would befall.
All they could to was strive, and hope.
Sirens wailed across the base as the three vast cylinders ignited their warmup engines. Thin clouds of steam arose from the water-filled pits under the rockets, whipping over the blast deflectors in a gently thickening stormcloud.
The three colony rockets lay on launch sleds at the end of their angled takeoff rails. When the main drive ignited they would accelerate along the track, angling upward as they reached the end, the rocket-powered sled falling away and the strap-on boosters lifting the huge vessels towards the sky on the first stage of their journey to Terra Secundus.
Assuming they didn’t just burst into flames and explode, of course. It happened from time to time, and a hurried launch like this one was prone to disaster. Nobody had ever tried to launch three ships at once, but there simply wasn’t time for anything else.
“Tower signals we are clear for secondary ignition,” said Maurice Burnette, Chief Pilot of the third, British, rocket.
“Secondary ignition, acknowledged.” The speaker was Burnette’s copilot, an elderly gentleman by the name of Gerome Brown. Brown had flown Sopwith Camels against Von Richthofen and rocket-propelled Lightning fighters in the Battle of Britain. The thought of launching three vast rocket ships under artillery fire with hundreds of people aboard each didn’t seem to bother him.
Brown’s white moustache twitched in a slight, satisfied smile as the master control board lit up. Yellow-painted bulbs came on, showing all rockets live and ready. Outside, shell bursts threw up fountains of dirt and smoke as the final assault got underway.
“Pioneer One is launching,” Burnette said with a slight tremor in his voice. The first rocket’s boosters lit and, seconds later, her sled released its brakes. Steam blanketed everything for a second, then the winged cylinder hurtled out of the cloud, accelerating along her rail and angling skyward under the vast thrust of her drives. She climbed steadily into the dawning sky, her sled falling away with its fuel expended, then her enormous flank and dorsal boosters igniting to send her straight up on a tail of fire.
“They’re away, thank God,” Brown said. Burnette nodded, watching Pioneer Two, with a Spanish crew and a mix of Spanish and French colonists aboard, begin her run. A twin-engined German fighter-bomber dived towards the rocket ship, but did not fire. Seconds later, Pioneer Two was airborne and heading for Secundus.
“We are clear to launch,” Burnette said. “Go to sled drive ignition.”
“Sled drive firing,” Brown replied, one eye on the board and one on the perimeter fence. His voice never changed pitch as he added, “They’re through.”
Brunette glanced out of his cockpit window. Brown was right. Six-wheeled armored cars were racing across the base towards the control tower and the remaining rocket. Halftracks loaded with troops were just behind them.
There was still fierce fighting going on around the perimeter as Brigadier Butler’s cobbled-together defense force battled to buy time for the launch. A tank – a Panzer III by the look of it – halted to fire its short 75mm gun but instead burst into flame as an antitank gun scored a hit. Machinegun fire swept defensive positions nearby, and the advance continued.
“Release sled brakes,” Burnette ordered, and Brown pulled the handle.
Nothing happened.
“The sled’s jammed!” Brown’s tone was emphatic rather than frightened.
“Tower, this is Pioneer Three. We’re hung up. We need a central release!” Burnette said into his radio mask. There was no reply.
“Sled motors increasing to full power. Should I abort?” Brown asked.
Brunette glanced at the advancing tanks and made his decision. “Ignite them all together. It might tear us free.”
“Or blow us to Kingdom Come…” Brown said with what sounded like a chuckle. He tripped all three switches. “Sled motors increasing to full power.”
Over the roar and blast of battle, Burnette heard the squeal of the sled as the rockets began dragging it along the rail. The launch track was beginning to buckle under the strain, but the brakes held.
“Tower! Anyone!” Burnette all but shouted into his mask. “Release the sled brakes!”
There was an electrical release switch in the tower, clearly marked. If anyone was still at their post over there, they could pull a single lever and send Pioneer Three on her way. But Burnette had seen troops entering the building, thought he heard gunfire on the radio.
He reached for the DOUSE handle, the emergency device that would kill the engines.
Brown slapped his hand away. “Dorsal booster ignition in five seconds. Flank boosters in seven…”
“You’ll blow us up!” Burnette snapped.
“Probably,” Brown agreed. He threw another switch. “Underwing engines activated.”
That was the most desperate part of all. The four big underwing engines were Pratt & Whitney turbojets used for cruising upon reaching Secundus. Without them they’d have no control over their landing place.
“Don’t worry, I can deadstick us in to a fairly reasonable landing,” Brown asserted. “I’ve done it often enough before…” He didn’t mention that his last deadstick landing had been in a biplane fighter in 1917 and had resulted in serious burns plus two broken legs.
The colony rocket was a third of the way along the launch rail, moving at a fast walking pace. The fighter-bomber was coming around again, and this time its nose cannon were chattering. A tank bounced and lurched across the shell-torn field, heading for the launch ramp. Metal squealed and popped as the boosters tried to rip the rocket apart.
“Tower! For God’s sake release the brakes!” Burnette shouted, and to his astonishment a voice answered.
“Go with God, whoever you are.”
The brakes released suddenly, sending the rocket surging forward. Burnette had just a second to register that the voice on the radio had a German accent, and to hear gunfire over the radio, then his world ended as 20mm cannon shells burst on the skin of the rocket and sent metal fragments slashing through the control area.
Burnette took the worst of it, falling dead at the controls as Brown twitched under multiple impacts. Shock muffled the pain for a second, during which time the rocket reached the end of the launch rail. At the same instant, the tank Brown had seen earlier rammed the base of the ramp, attempting to topple it.
The rocket cleared the ramp as it crashed sideways, causing the starboard wing to dip alarmingly. Reflexes sluggish with wound shock, Brown fought the controls, barely keeping the wingtip off the ground. The perimeter fence whipped by, and a stand of trees, as tracers raked the sky from below.
Brown fought off dizziness and dragged the nose up, sending the colony rocket into an ever-increasing climb. With all the engines lit, the rocket would soon be running out of fuel. He had to set it on a course for the wormhole before the thrust died away. And before he blacked out from blood loss.
Glancing at his wounds, Brown decided that they didn’t seem that bad, on the whole. His right arm and leg were bleeding freely from a number of surface cuts, and he had a burning pain on his cheek that suggested that something had ripped the skin through his mask. With the cabin punctured that was going to be a problem when they reached high altitude, but there wasn’t that much he could do about it.
Brown breathed deep from his oxygen mask, fighting tunnel vision and fading consciousness. The acceleration wasn’t any worse than he’d experienced flying rocket fighters, so maybe he’d lost more blood than he thought. He glanced across at Burnette, but there was no sign of life. A thick river of blood ran backwards across the steeply inclined cockpit.
Brown tried the intercom, but there was no answer. He wasn’t going to be getting any help from elsewhere in the rocket ship. He would have to fly them to Secundus all by himself. Assuming he didn’t succumb to his injuries first.
His right foot was strangely numb, and that was ominous. By angling his head to see around the control column Brown could see that he was losing a great deal of blood from somewhere above his ankle. He couldn’t feel anything, just increasing coldness. That might be the altitude but somehow he doubted it.
The dorsal booster cut out. Brown reached for the handle, a supreme effort, and yanked it back. A wry smile twitched his moustache. Perhaps it would fall on some Nazi goon. Then the smile went away. Whoever had released the sled brakes had been no Nazi, but Brown was sure it’d been a German soldier.
He’d fought the Germans for three long years, back in his youth. Spared the hell of the trenches by volunteering for the Flying Corps, he’d been a knight of the air, trading obscene gestures and pistol shots with the enemy at first, then machinegun bullets as the air war grew ever more serious and sophisticated. But however violent the conflict he’d always respected his opponents, and the captured enemy pilots he’d met had been gentlemen – whatever their background. Friends who’d fallen into enemy hands said they’d been treated decently even by the ground troops they’d been calling artillery fire in on.
So where had it gone wrong? How had the decent people of Germany come to be ruled by Nazi madmen? Would they come to dominate all of Earth that way? Perhaps Secundus would be the only haven for civilization, at least until the Nazi rockets started landing.
It was hopeless. They’d come to Secundus too, and everything good would wither and die under the Swastika.
Brown’s eyes snapped open as the flank boosters cut out. He’d been drifting, almost unconscious. Now he yanked the booster release handle and jammed the control column with his knees. Wriggling awkwardly in his seat he was able to wrap a makeshift bandage around where he thought the worst of the bleeding was coming from.
It wasn’t hopeless. That unknown German soldier had found a way to resist the Nazis. He, Gerome Andrew Brown, aging fighter ace, would fly the fugitives to a place where they could build a new home. Where they would prepare to resist the forces of darkness wherever they arose – from Earth or from their own society. They would be vigilant, and they would remember what could happen if civilization let down its guard for a moment.
But first they had to get there, and that was Brown’s appointed task.
With the last of the power from the jets, Brown angled the rocket at the wormhole. There was nothing for it now but to hope for the best.
The wormhole was unimpressive; nothing more than a slight distortion of light and some strange radio effects. But as the battered rocket plane approached it, strange forces began to buffet Brown around in his seat. He clenched his teeth, feeling jagged metal in his wounds scraping on bone, and held the controls tight.
Just seconds now… just seconds.
Everything went black for a time; Brown didn’t know how long. When he was able to think coherently once more, the rocket plane was in a steep dive over a vast expanse of ocean. There was no sign of the two other rockets.
The area below looked nothing like anywhere Brown had seen on a map of Secundus, which suggested they’d come out of the wormhole far from the regions explored over the past eight years. There would be no rescue. Perhaps the wreckage of the colony rocket would never even be found.
There were numerous islands below, scattered amid a vast expanse of ocean. Brown levelled out and headed for the largest, which appeared to be a fair bit larger than mainland Britain. A forbidding mountain range rose steeply inland, but there was a wide coastal plain.
Sudden nausea wracked the pilot. He breathed deep, tried to focus. His head lolled back as consciousness all but fled. He licked dry lips and pushed the nose down, angling in towards the big island.
The colony rocket speared through a crystal-blue sky, leaving behind a contrail of wispy cloud. Bright sunlight glinted on the ripped and torn control surfaces, gleamed from the cracked cockpit, and warmed the dying pilot as he lined up a deadstick approach.
Brown knew he wasn’t going to set foot on Secundus, not alive anyway. But that wasn’t important. All he had to do was make sure the passengers got there safely.
He purged the fuel tanks for the jets, just in case enough kerosene was left to cause a fire. The sea raced up fast. Too fast. Brown levelled out, climbed a little to shed speed, and pointed the rocket at the beach.
Slowly, painfully, he reached forward one last time, lowered the flaps and deployed the air brakes. Then, as warm blackness enfolded him he pulled back on the control column, lifted Pioneer Three’s face to the sky, and let go of the controls.
As Gerome Brown slumped back in his seat, his last thought was that that he had done all that mortal man was capable of. Now he gave the fate of hundreds of colonists into the hands of God.
* * *
The nose of the colony rocket Pioneer Three was above the high water mark, even at high tide. Already the colonists were hacking lumps off the hull to roof their makeshift shelters. Tools were in short supply and there was little food. Their desperate escape had led them to an island paradise, but the colonists were going to have a tough time surviving all the same.
Alex Levinn, a tubby rocketry engineer from Bristol, was among the party assigned to break into the locked control area. Now, as they prepared to bury the two pilots, he gazed over the pistol – a Webley .455 – he had taken from Brown’s flight suit holster. They’d taken everything they could from the wreck, and this handgun was more than a souvenir, it was one of the few firearms they possessed. A symbol of authority, the tool of tyranny or the means to defend the fledgling colony? That depended very much on who wielded it.
Levinn knew he didn’t want to be the one who did, but for now he’d hang onto the handgun. Just until he was sure he was giving it to someone worthy.
The last shovelfuls of dirt were scattered on the two graves, and grateful colonists stepped forward to hang little tokens of respect on the wooden crosses they’d made to mark the site. As the last of them turned away, Levinn saw again the scene in the cockpit; the smashed instruments and pools of stinking blood. Burnette almost cut in half by a cannon shell, and Brown ripped to bloody shreds yet lying peacefully in his seat as if enjoying a Sunday afternoon snooze.
How Brown had remained alive long enough to land them was a mystery. Levinn privately believed that the pilot was dead when the rocket began skipping across the bay to settle on the beach. Others wanted to believe that Brown had lived long enough to make a perfect touchdown and to see their new home through the cockpit glass. Levinn didn’t agree with them, much as he wanted to, but if his theory that the dying pilot had set up the approach then just let go of the controls were true, there was one great unanswered question.
The one-use explosive door release had been triggered after the crashlanding. Everyone knew that – nobody could have missed the noise of the bolts blowing out. But if the pilot was already dead…
Then who had opened the doors for them?
