The Last Mission Of The Seventh Cavalry
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“And I say we stay here,” Sarge said, “until we have a better idea of what’s happened to us.”
“Well, I vote for heading north until we come to a big city and civilization. Then we can get back to our own time.”
“This army unit is not a democracy.” Sarge stood and took a step toward Lojab. “We don’t vote on what we want to do; we follow orders.”
“What are we?” Lojab said. “A bunch of lap dogs, lying around, waiting for you to tell us when to eat, when to sleep, and when to go take a piss?”
Sarge looked around at the others as they watched him intently. “I wouldn’t call any of my soldiers lap dogs, Lojab, but yes, everyone is going to wait until I decide what to do. And that includes you.”
“Fuck this shit.” Lojab stormed off toward Trevor and the other two crewmen from the C-130.
Behind Sarge, Sparks barked like a dog.
“Down, boy,” Kawalski said. “Be good and I’ll let you sit in Apache’s lap.”
* * * * *The next morning, Kawalski walked with Liada, down by the river. His rifle was across his back, and he carried his helmet by the chin strap.
“Liada,” he said.
She looked up at him.
“Those men are foot soldiers.” He pointed toward a group of men working on a raft.
“Yes.”
“And those are horse soldiers.”
She watched the four men ride by. “Yes.”
“The horse men in the scarlet capes…” He tried to explain with his hands, as he’d seen Autumn do. He plucked a red flower from a bush and fluttered it over his shoulder.
She laughed. “Carthage sons of, um, big peoples.”
“Ah,” Kawalski said, “the aristocracy.” He slipped the flower into her hair, over her ear. “Okay, we have the foot soldiers.” He held his hand out flat, at about waist height. “Then the horse soldiers.” He raised his hand a bit. “The sons of Carthage.” He held his hand a little higher. “Then comes Rocrainium,” his hand went higher, “the boss.”
Liada wrinkled her brow.
“Who is up here, on top?”
Liada stared at Kawalski for a moment, then her face brightened. “Big boss?”
“Yes, who is the big boss?”
“Hannibal is.”
“Hannibal?”
“Yes,” she said.
Kawalski put on his helmet and touched the comm switch. “Anybody out there?”
Several people answered.
“Apache?”
“Yeah.”
“Sarge?” Kawalski asked.
“Yes, what’s up?”
“Ballentine?”
“I’m here,” Karina answered.
“As hard as it is for me to say this, Ballentine,” Kawalski said, “you were right.”
“About what? I’m right about so many things, I’ve forgotten most of them.”
Someone laughed.
“Remember that four-star general we saw on the big black warhorse?”
“Yeah?”
“I know his name.”
“Really?” Karina said.
“How do you know?” Sarge asked.
“Come to me,” Kawalski said to Liada.
She came close to him, and he put his arm around her, pulling her even closer until her lips were almost touching his.
“Who is the big boss?” Kawalski pointed to the mic in his helmet.
“Hannibal,” she whispered into the mic. She looked up, into his eyes, keeping her lips close to his.
He tilted his helmet up.
“I knew it,” Karina said.
“Where are you, Kawalski?” Sarge said.
“Hannibal is going to cross the Rhone,” Karina said. “Then he’s going over the Alps. Right, Kawalski?”
Kawalski pulled off his helmet and let if fall to the ground.
“Who is the big boss?” Kawalski whispered.
“Hannibal.” Liada’s warm breath brushed his lips.
“Hannibal?” He drew out the last syllable.
“Hanni…”
“Ask her when Hannibal’s going to cross the river.” Sarge’s voice came from the speakers inside Kawalski’s helmet where it lay on the ground, but it was too faint for Kawalski to hear. “Kawalski?”
“I think his comm went dead,” Karina said.
“Either that, or he’s trying to get something more from Liada,” Sarge said.
“Yeah.” Autumn giggled. “Probably that.”
Chapter Thirteen
Sergeant Alexander sipped his coffee and watched Sparks unfold the solar panels and plug in his charger to recharge the batteries for the Dragonfly.
“You know what I’ve been thinking about?” Sparks asked.
Sarge looked at Sparks and raised an eyebrow.
“We know the satellites are still up there, right?”
“Yes, because your GPS unit picks them up. That’s one of the reasons I think we’re in some kind of a sink hole.”
“You know what else might be up there?”
Sarge looked up at the sky. “What?”
“The space station.”
“Hey, you’re right. Can we contact them?”
“I don’t know what frequencies they use, but I’ve been broadcasting on all of them.”
“If we could contact them and tell them where we are, they could tell us where the nearest city is.”
“Maybe.” Sparks stared at the sky for a moment. “I might be able to rig up a strobe light and point it straight up. As the space station orbits the Earth, they see the whole surface every few days.”
“What good would that do?”
“I think I can set the strobe to blink Morse Code, maybe something like ‘S.O.S. Contact 121.5.’ If they happen to see the blinking light, they’ll figure out it’s sending Morse Code.”
“You ever see a satellite photo of Europe at night?”
“I know, there’s millions of lights, but if we’re in a hole of some kind, like you said, then there would be miles of darkness all around us. That way, our strobe light might stand out. And it would be much brighter than any campfire.”
“It’s a good idea, Sparks. You need somebody to help you with it?”
“No, I’ll just have to cannibalize some of our electronic gadgets to rig it up.”
* * * * *It was almost 2 a.m. on the third night after Sparks set up his strobe to blink Morse Code. Everything was quiet until the radio crackled to life.
“Hello.”
“Hello,” Sparks mumbled and pulled the blanket up over his head.
“Hello down there.” This was followed by a block of static. “Anybody home?”
“What?” Sparks threw back his blanket.
“Sparks!” Sarge yelled. “Someone’s on the radio.”
“Holy shit!” Sparks rolled out of bed and grabbed the mic. “Who is it?” He dropped the microphone, then picked it up. “Who’s there?”
“This is Commander Burbank on the Space Station, transmitting on 121.5.”
“Commander, this is Richard Sparks – I mean McAlister. How are you?”
“I’m fine, Richard. Where are you?”
“We’re right here, on the Rhone.”
“Give me the mic, Sparks,” Sarge said.
“Tell him what happened to us.” Sparks handed the mic over to Sarge.
“This is Sergeant Alexander of the Seventh Cavalry.”
“Seventh Cavalry?” Commander Burbank said. “Are you kidding me?”
“No, sir. We were on a combat mission over Afghanistan when our aircraft was hit and we bailed out. Somehow, we came down in France. Are you guys okay up there?”
“Yes,” the commander said, “at least so far. We lost communications, and when we saw the whole Earth was dark, we checked the recorded videos for the past twenty-four—”
“Wait a minute,” Sarge said into the mic, “the whole Earth is dark?”
“Yes, yours is the first man-made light we’ve seen in the past seven nights.”
“How can that be?” Sarge asked.
“Don’t you guys know what happened?”
“All we know is that our aircraft was ripped apart just when we were bailing out over Afghanistan. Ten minutes later, we came down in France, in two-eighteen BC.”
“What!?”
The other soldiers were awakened by the radio, and they came over to listen.
“Yes, Commander,” Sarge said, “at least that’s what we think, or else someone’s pulling an elaborate hoax on us. And no, we don’t know what happened.”
“Well, I doubt very seriously you’re in two-eighteen BC,” Commander Burbank said. “We have two video cameras pointed at the Earth that run all the time. After we lost communications, then saw the Earth was completely dark, we reviewed the videos. Seven days ago, there was a polar shift.”
“What does that mean?”
“The axis that runs through the center of the Earth shifted fifteen degrees. The North Pole is now in Greenland, and the South Pole is in the South Pacific Ocean, near New Zealand. As we watched the video, the surface of the Earth rippled from coast to coast on every continent, like a blanket being snapped from one end. Then giant tidal waves swept across all the oceans. The surface of the Earth was instantly rotated about four thousand miles.”
“Holy shit!” Sarge said.
“Every man-made structure on earth was completely destroyed. There might be someone alive somewhere, but you’re the only one we’ve had contact with.”
“Oh, my God!” Karina said. “Mom, Dad, Grandmother Walker…they’re gone? It’s not possible. All dead?”
“Hello, is that a female voice I hear?” Commander Burbank asked.
“Yes,” Sarge said. “That’s Private Karina Ballentine.
“Private Ballentine,” Burbank said, “we’re all grief-stricken up here, too. As we watched the replay, we saw all our homes and families disappear.”
“I don’t believe it,” Kady said. “My brothers and sisters, and my mom. They can’t be gone just because the poles shifted from one place to another.”
“What about airplanes?” Sparks leaned in close to the mic. “There must have been thousands of planes in the air.”
“Every aircraft under ten thousand feet was destroyed, as yours was.”
“But the airliners fly at thirty-five thousand feet. Wouldn’t they survive?”
“Probably, but now there’s no place for them to land. When those airliners began running low on fuel, they had to come down. Some might have ditched in the ocean or on rivers, but not many. A few people might survive a crash-landing, but then what?”
“Yes, I see what you mean,” Sarge said. “We came down by parachute, and with supplies and weapons, but they didn’t.”
Autumn leaned close to Sarge to speak into the mic. “Commander, what’s going to happen to you and your crew?”
“Is that another woman I hear?” Burbank asked.
“Yes, sir. I’m Private Autumn Eaglemoon.”
“How many people are in your unit?”
Autumn looked around at the others. Several were in tears, and all were in shock and disbelief. “Sixteen.”
“Well, Private Eaglemoon, in answer to your question, we have six months of food and water, so we have a little time to work on a plan. The two Russian escape pods are really our best hope, but with both NASA and the Russian Mission Control Center at Korolev gone, there’s no way to control where we come down. If the preprogrammed descent sequence doesn’t work, we might hit the Sahara Desert or the middle of the Pacific Ocean.”
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