RICOCHET
Blaine L. Pardoe
Lieutenant David “Grumpy” Covington, knew something was up the moment he came into the pilot briefing room aboard the USS Nimitz. Since the war had broken out, he had been in and out of the room many times before going on strikes against Chinese-held Taiwan. This time was different. Usually the room was cramped and tense. The tension remained but there was only one other pilot in the room, Lieutenant Walter “Werewolf” Kraaier. Whereas David’s call sign stemmed from his scowl, Werewolf’s came from his perpetual five o’clock shadow. Glancing over at Werewolf, he saw the man’s jaw locked and his muscles tensed.
Commander Holmes stood at the front of the room, gesturing to the seat next to Kraaier. Sweat stained Holmes’s armpits far more than usual, a testament to the warmth in the briefing room. Covington slid into the seat, noting the beads of sweat on the brow of the air operations officer standing in front of him.
This isn’t just the AC not keeping the room cool—he’s nervous. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him like this before.
“Gentlemen,” Holmes said slowly. “I’m not going to sugarcoat this. As you are well aware, as of two hours ago, there’s been a nuclear detonation over Pearl Harbor. Honolulu’s destroyed, and there’s nothing left of our naval and air bases there.”
Rumors of the attack had spread throughout the ship, and they had been at general quarters ever since. This was the first that he had heard confirmation of the devastation though. The Chinese assault on Taiwan had been sudden and swift. At the onset of the invasion, they had destroyed Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines in a preemptive strike—as well as Kadena Air Base on Okinawa and three airfields the US used in Japan. A wave of missile strikes had neutralized Big Navy, the forward naval base on Guam. In a matter of a few hours, the ability of the United States to honor its commitments to defend Taiwan had been effectively hamstrung.
Everything in the Pacific seemed to be turning to shit and fast. The North Koreans, no doubt at the prodding of the Chinese, had crossed the DMZ and had seized half of Seoul. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the new allies of the Chinese, the Russians, had begun to position troops and transports in the Bering Straits—clearly locking their gaze on Alaska. Not since 1941 had the United States been caught so flatfooted on so many fronts. While America reeled under the sudden and violent shift of power in the region, China had fired missiles, artillery, and rockets into Taiwan, covering their massive assault fleet’s invasion.
The invasion had been vicious for two days or so, before the weight of China’s numbers overwhelmed the tiny republic. Sabotage by deeply planted Chinese agents further enabled the aggressors. Parts of Taiwan still clung to their freedom, if only by their fingernails.
With the Army preparing for an invasion in Alaska and coping with a North Korean assault, and the Air Force losing so many aircraft and air fields, it had fallen to the Navy to assist the beleaguered nation. Hypersonic missiles had taken out the USS Gerald Ford and three cruisers, leaving the Nimitz alone as the only carrier within distance of the island. There had been an attack by Chinese jets three days ago, but US naval aviators had shot them down—one by Covington himself in his first real dogfight. Word was the Navy had been assembling a task force at Pearl—but now Pearl and that task force were gone in a nuclear strike . . .
. . . a nuclear strike!
No one had expected China to use nukes in its opening salvo. In a cold calculating way, it made sense. Covington’s years at the Academy had taught him that to hold strategic initiative, bold strikes to disable the enemy were almost textbook. The use of nuclear weapons was unprecedented though.
Just like the Japanese in 1941, the Chinese have awakened a slumbering giant. Hopefully we can set aside our differences and unite against this threat.
In the meantime, defiant Taiwan fought to hold onto the tiny pockets of the island still under its control. China was paying dearly for every meter of ground taken.
Commander Holmes continued. “Your F-18s normally aren’t equipped for a nuclear exchange. Covington, you have experience piloting FB-111s. We’ve rigged the nuclear arming switch from those aircraft to your F-18 airframe. We’ve adjusted the weapons mount as well and have armed you with a B61 nuclear weapon. Kraaier, your mission will be to ensure Covington gets to his target unmolested. Your designation for this operation is Sledgehammer Strike.” He paused for a moment. “Gentlemen, you two are going to be delivering the first nuclear attack by the United States since Nagasaki. By order of the Commander in Chief, you will avenge what they did to us at Pearl.”
His words were far from arrogant—they were solemn.
For the next thirty minutes, Holmes went over the strike plans. Covington was numb, drinking in the details but at times feeling as if he were having an out-of-body experience. Their target was Fuzhou just off the coast. Covington would deliver the nuclear payload while Kraaier would cover him. After a coordinated attack on Fuzhou Airbase with cruise missiles and ECM and armed drones and decoys to neutralize and confuse Chinese air defenses and interceptors, Covington and Kraaier would go in together, coming in low, then break north some twenty miles off the coast and head for their target. A low-altitude airburst with Wuta Tower as the designated target, would obliterate the city. On paper, it was simple enough, but Covington doubted the Chinese would allow it to be a cake walk. Commander Holmes clearly felt the same way. “They have to be expecting us to retaliate after Pearl. You should anticipate an aggressive air defense, even after we shape the battlefield. Coming in low will help, but to deliver your payload, you’re going to need to climb to avoid any surviving SAMs and enemy fighters.” The words were not just cautionary, they spoke for the need to be fast and agile.
When they were dismissed, Kraaier came over to him. “This is some serious end-of-the-world shit.”
“It’s a hell of a responsibility,” Covington responded, running his hand back through his cropped blonde hair, already slick with sweat.
“Ya think? You always were the master of understatement,” Werewolf replied, shaking his head as he marched out of the room.
Covington’s takeoff from the carrier was almost routine, though he could feel some handling changes with his F/A-18F Super Hornet’s slightly sluggish tanks to the unusual payload slung under him. Covington formed up on Werewolf’s right with Werewolf slightly in the lead. The sky was bright blue, no hint of clouds except on the far western horizon.
They hung low, below one thousand feet. As he glanced out of the side of his cramped cockpit, Covington saw the ocean was almost a blur at that altitude—only the occasional white cap was visible. Covington twisted his head to crack his neck. It was then that he realized just how tense his muscles were.
Of course I’m tense. I’ve got a 340 kiloton nuke under me.
He tried not to think about the mission’s implications. Millions of people were going to die if they were successful with their strike. Many would die instantly, but those who lingered would suffer far more from radiation sickness. The only thing that kept his focus was the knowledge that the Chinese had started this—they dropped a nuke on Pearl Harbor. How many innocent people died in that blast? How many of his fellow Academy graduates had perished in that explosion? They upped the ante and deserve what they are going to get.
Toggling his radio channel, he spoke. “Comms check Werewolf.”
“I read you five-by-five, Grumpy.”
Covington could hear the tension in his wingman’s voice.
“Same here,” he replied. “Stay sharp. We’re ten minutes out from Waypoint Alpha. They won’t pick us up for a while still—if at all. And even if they do, it’ll take a while for them to scramble intercepts.”
“Roger that.”
For ten minutes neither man said anything. Covington thought about his family back home in Valparaiso. His dad was a Navy man. He would be proud of this mission, especially in retribution for the loss of Pearl.
His mother, however, would feel very differently. She would quote the Bible to him, warning him against mass slaughter. In his mind he could hear her words, “Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else.” Mom always believed the world to be a better place than it really was.
A squelching sound came into his ears. “CVAN-68 is declaring an emergency. Repeat—CVAN-68 is declaring an emergency! Sledgehammer Strike leader, respond on tactical three.”
The Nimitz! Hearing their code name made him instantly start to sweat. Covington switched to the air boss’s channel. “This is Sledgehammer Strike group, Grumpy calling—go CVAN-68.”
“This is Zeus,” the air boss, Commander Sheryl Hart, replied. “Grumpy, be advised, we have been hit by missiles . . . most likely hypersonics. We are unable to recover aircraft. The task force is turning about. Aircraft landing will be impossible. You will need to intercept with us and eject near the ships for recovery.” Beyond her voice, he could hear panic, warning alarms, and terror.
“Roger,” Covington said. It had to be bad if the ship was unable to recover aircraft.
“Be advised we are transferring air control to the Spruance.”
He gulped his breath at those words.
They are abandoning ship!
Suddenly, Werewolf’s voice cut in. “What in the hell is that?”
Several miles out, there was a white light. A nuclear burst would have blinded him, but this seemed very different. It was slow like a long wall of light. It rushed right at them.
“Werewolf, emergency climb!” he barked, pulling back on his joystick and throttling the engines. Maybe we can clear it.
“Roger, Grumpy,” came back the strained voice of his wingman.
The g-forces pushing him back and down were impossible to ignore as the F-18 angled skyward. He watched his rate of climb, his airspeed, mentally calculating the g’s he was feeling as well as assessing the performance of the fighter. A darting glance showed the wall of light rising as it got closer.
Shit! We aren’t going to beat it.
“Bank hard and around, maybe we can outrun it,” he said, angling hard to starboard.
Werewolf’s voice came back—filled with stunned wonder. “Who or what is that?” His wingman screamed—not in terror, but in agony.
Everything went bright white, and Covington’s consciousness disappeared . . .
When Covington jerked awake, he floated in an unending white void. His aircraft was gone, but he could still feel the contour of his ejection seat under his butt. The air was cool, he could feel it on his cheeks. There was no source to the bright whiteness, yet it was everywhere. There was no smell, it was as if he were in a white void.
I’m dead . . . that’s it!
Looking down, his body was still in his flight gear. He removed his mask, and the air felt fresh in his lungs.
I’m breathing, maybe I’m not dead. What in the hell was that?
His mind tried to process what he assumed he had collided with.
Was it a tidal wave from a nuclear blast?
It was impossible to know for sure. All he could tell was that his F-18 was no longer around him.
Then he saw it, a figure. It was dark in the distance, a bit greenish. Starting as a tiny dot, it moved closer to him in the whiteness. Its arms were extended, like a scarecrow—or perhaps Jesus on the cross, though he could not see anything behind the arms.
It was a flight suit, sans the helmet. Rivulets of blood soaked the dull green flight suit maroon. As it grew and got closer, he made it out. The face was that of his wingman, but was horribly disfigured. It looked as if someone had removed his skin and was wearing it, floating in the void closer to him. It drifted close enough that he could smell the stench of rotting flesh as if it were a breath coming from the ghostlike apparition wearing the skin of his wingman. The arms moved down, but not humanlike—more like a marionette.
Panic set in. A part of him wanted to move, but couldn’t. Paralysis gripped him and fought every muscle he tried to flex. As the bloody visage of Walter Kraaier got closer, he could see that the skin sagged in the cheeks. There was something behind it, something glowing blue. Through the eye holes of Kraaier’s flesh, he saw some kind of shimmering blue energy.
It paused in front of him, its arms moving awkwardly down to its side as the bright blue eyes glared at him. “What are you?” he managed.
“I am Huapigui,” a voice said in a low growl through the lifeless lips of his wingman.
“What have you done to my wingman?”
“I am borrowing his skin to provide me a form you would be familiar with,” the floating image said.
“You killed him?” A cocktail of shock, anger, rage, and fear overwhelmed him all at once.
“His destiny was to die before finishing his mission. You were to be successful. A decision had to be made. He has already gone onto the afterlife. You, however, still possess a chance.”
A chance? A chance to what?
“Where is this?”
“You are at the end of time, the only safe place for us to speak.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It is my role to protect my people. If I had not interceded, you would have dropped your infernal weapon. It would set into motion a chain of events that would be unstoppable, even for me. My people would respond with brute force, as would yours and others. The air would burn and millions of souls would perish. I seek to avert that from happening.”
Covington didn’t trust the flesh-wearing apparition, but it was his only link to reality. “So you prevented me from dropping my bomb.”
“No, I pulled you out of time. I lack the power to interfere more than I already have. The future still may unfold, but I seek to prevent it.”
“How?”
“I will send you back before all of this. If you do not make this flight, do not ignite the world, then we are all saved.”
“Someone else will fly the mission if I don’t. You’re just prolonging the inevitable.”
“That may or may not be the case. I only see your role in these matters David Covington. Killing you would be easy, but I see a role for you in this game being played. Sending you back, is something I can do . . . something I am compelled to do.”
“How can you do that?” He felt his heart pounding in his ears.
“I am divine. My people have been under my protection for centuries.” There was a hint of pride in the specter’s voice.
This must be some kind of Chinese ghost. What if this is all a ruse? How can I trust it—it’s wearing Werewolf’s skin?
“I don’t believe you,” he finally managed to spit out.
“I do not require your belief, only your willingness to attempt to avert what your bombing will set in motion. I can tell you are not a heartless murderer. There is guilt in you, a fear of what you have been asked to do. I ask only for your permission to try and save the world.” The meat suit continued to drip thick drizzles of coagulating blood onto Kraaier’s flight gear as it drifted in front of him.
Huapigui was right about him not wanting to complete the attack. Covington didn’t know how he’d cope with the guilt of causing millions of deaths. It was a nagging silent thought that had torn into him since getting his strike orders.
“How do you know that my going back will change anything?”
“How can it not?” the skin-wearing spirit replied.
What are my options? It could keep me here forever for all I know. Maybe I can change the game somehow. For long minutes he said nothing as he wrestled with his thoughts.
“What say you, David Covington?” Huapigui asked.
He nodded quickly. “This is insane. But so is being here. You’re probably nothing more than some fragment of a nightmare in my head. I may already be dead—maybe this is my purgatory. If it will get me out of here, then I will do it.
His wingman’s grizzly skin face cracked a disturbing smile. “So shall it be!”
A wave of vertigo washed over him, complete with a ripple of heat and a dizziness that made him swallow the bile in his mouth. Covington’s cockpit suddenly was around him, an alarm blaring in his ear. Struggling to focus, he saw a familiar sight in the distance—the Nimitz!
“. . . repeat, you are violating restricted air space. Divert immediately or you will be fired upon,” the terse voice of air-boss Commander Hart commanded.
This is impossible . . . the Nimitz was abandoned!
“Negative Zeus, this is Grumpy.” His eyes darted to the warning lights, and he saw he was low on fuel.
How is this possible? That ghost somehow put me here. And if that’s the Nimitz, then I have gone back in time.
“I don’t know who you are, but if you don’t divert away from us, we will shoot you down. This is our last warning.” Commander Hart’s words offered little solace to his confusion.
He juked the joystick over, banking away from his flight path toward the Nimitz.
“Zeus, be advised, I am low on fuel.” His eyes drifted down, and he saw that the B61 was still on the belly of his F-18. “I am also carrying nuclear ordinance.”
While there was no chance of the bomb detonating—it had not been armed yet—the loss of such a weapon was not something the Navy was likely to support.
For a few seconds, there was no response. He continued to put distance away from the task force surrounding the carrier, watching the remaining fuel dwindle even further. A soft landing in a jet on the churning ocean was not likely survivable, and he wanted to live. Best to punch out now. His left hand drifted down to the ejection ring between his legs.
With a stern pull, the canopy blew off, and a wall of air slapped his face as the ejection seat cleared the aircraft. The jerking of the chute was hard, the straps cutting into his crotch as he watched his jet angle over and splash into the ocean.
After long hours of interrogation, all Lieutenant Covington had left was frustration and exhaustion. “I told you, I don’t know how this Huapigui did it—but it somehow sent me back in time.” Despite two bottles of water, his mouth was parched. Licking his dried lips, he could still taste the sea salt.
“We heard you the first dozen times,” the Nimitz’s intelligence officer said. “That doesn’t make it any more believable. So, Mr. Manchurian Candidate, why don’t you tell us who you really are?”
The reference was lost on him. He tipped his head back and rolled his sleep-deprived eyes. He had been questioned for hours after being rescued from the East China Sea. He had been allowed to dry off, but his skin now had grit from the sea salt in his joints. “You saw my aircraft, you’ve checked my fingerprints—I am Lieutenant David Covington, serial number N567222.”
The ship’s grim-faced XO shook his head from across the table. “Sorry but we already have one. He’s in the next room until we sort this out.”
It was a strange feeling, knowing that his past self was still on the ship—in the next room. They had not told him much other than the date and time. He was aboard the Nimitz before it was attacked, a full eighteen hours before Pearl Harbor was blasted by a Chinese nuke. Despite that, no one was willing to accept what he had to say. The lack of food and sleep was gnawing at the edges of his nerves, as it was intended to do.
“Look,” he said in exasperation. “I don’t know how I came back, but I can tell you what is going to happen. The Chinese will attack Pearl Harbor in a few hours, and you’re going to send me and Lieutenant Kraaier to drop nukes on the Chinese coast. You’ve got to warn the people at the base and Honolulu that they are targets. Get the fleet out of the harbor before it’s too late.”
The intelligence officer rubbed his hand back through his short-cropped hair. “Is that what your handlers want, us to move the fleet out of the protection of Pearl? Why? Do you have subs out there waiting to sink them?”
“I don’t have any handlers,” Covington fired back. “I’m a member of VFA-22 damn it! If you don’t listen to me, it will lead to nuclear war. Millions are going to die, including a lot of people on this ship.” He had relayed the story of the Nimitz sinking, which had gone over like a lead balloon with the men interrogating him.
“Look,” the ship’s XO said coolly. “Even if we did believe you, the Navy won’t act on the word of someone who claims he has magically been sent back in time by some Chinese ghost. Topping that off, we don’t believe you.”
“You have to. If you send me on that mission, the war will escalate,” he pleaded. He knew that the executive officer was probably right.
“That isn’t your concern,” the XO assured him. Before he could speak, the XO nodded to the intelligence officer, and they left the room.
Long minutes passed as he was left with the room’s dull silence and his own dark thoughts. He could feel the cameras there, watching him. They were outside, no doubt coming up with some strategy to break him.
I’m already broken—I’ve told them everything. They just refuse to believe it.
Maybe this was what Huapigui wanted, his frustration and despair. Perhaps this was all some sort of twisted prank—an attempt to drive him insane. He knew nothing about the skin-wearing apparition, only that it had somehow sent him back in time.
It hasn’t helped at all! They won’t even warn Pearl that they will die. I haven’t prevented anything.
Exhaustion swept over him as he waited. David crossed his arms on the cold metal table, using them as a pillow. He lowered his head down and leaned forward. Every joint on him ached, either from the ejection or exhaustion. Sleep came fast and hard despite his desire to remain awake.
The klaxon sounded, jarring him awake. “General quarters, all hands, general quarters!” Sitting up, he realized he did not know how much time had passed. Shuffling through the jumble of his memoires from the events that had transpired, a sinking feeling hit his stomach. It’s Pearl . . . it has to be. The warning blared over the speakers again every five minutes for nearly an hour. Then he saw something unexpected as the door opened.
Stepping into the room was himself—David Covington—the version from this timeline. It was an eerie feeling, seeing himself standing before him. The other-David shut the door and seemed to study him with suspicion, a bit of awe, and a dose of something else—wonder.
“It’s happened, hasn’t it?” he asked his mirror image.
The other-David nodded, crossing his arms. “Word is Pearl just got nuked. No one knows how bad it is yet.”
“I do.” They refused to listen to me! Shaking his head he held back the tears of frustration. “It could have been averted.”
“How did you know?”
“I’m you,” he said glaring at the other-David. “I was sent back to try and change things. It looks like I failed.”
“How can I be sure you are really me?”
It was a valid question. David thought for a moment. “Back in third grade. The handlebars of your bike scraped the paint on Dad’s Pontiac, the blue one. You blamed Jimmy Bishop up the street for it.”
The words made the other-David step forward to him. “I never told anyone about that.”
“I know.”
“So what happens next?”
“You and Werewolf get the assignment to bomb the coast with nukes. They are probably outfitting your plane on the hangar deck right now.”
The words seemed to make the other David stagger for a moment—a gut punch only he could understand. “You’ll take off, and the Nimitz will be hit, and I assume, sunk. This ghost-thing will intercept you and Werewolf and send you back in time. You’ll become me.”
“This can’t happen, not this way,” his counterpart said. “If you are telling the truth, I—we can’t let this happen.”
“It’s like a bullet that’s already been fired,” he said grimly, with an icy resolve. “Everything is set in motion all over again.”
“I’m not going to spend eternity reliving this,” the other-David resolved. “If we can’t prevent it, maybe we can deflect that bullet. We can change what happens. We’re the only ones who can change history.”
“How?”
His other-self pulled out his survival knife. The two men looked at each other and grimly nodded in unison.
The executive officer of the Nimitz stood over the comingled gore of the room, looking down at the dead men sprawled on the floor. He was angry and frustrated. This day had not gone at all as he had envisioned. “I want that guard brought up on charges. He never should have let him in here, let alone with a weapon.”
The intel officer nodded. “Already done. Dereliction of duty. Jesus . . . I never expected this to happen. I mean this was strange enough as it was—how in the hell are we going to report this? They will lock us up as madmen.”
“I’ve briefed the captain. He’s ordered us to proceed with the strike. Covington’s being replaced with Howler. He lacks experience with the arming system, but the air boss is going to walk him through it.”
“Those bastards have to pay for what they did to Pearl.”
“They will,” he said. Suddenly the ship rocked and throbbed deeply, and the lights flickered off. A heartbeat later, another explosion tore through the ship, and in a flash, the two men died in a torrent of fire.
Shu gui, a spirit of water, rose through the whiteness of the void in front of the Huapigui. Her body was flowing, rippling with the purest of water, undulating and calming. They rarely spoke.
No doubt she will have harsh words for me.
Shu gui’s shimmery watery form hovered before him. “I assume you are proud of yourself.”
“After all of these centuries, I’m entitled to some fun.” Especially at the expense of our enemies.
“Millions will still die. What have you averted?”
“Millions of our people dying.”
“There were other ways, Huapigui. You simply could have killed the two Americans. Sending one back in time was not necessary.”
“But it was,” he insisted. He stirred under the American aviator’s dead skin he wore as his own. “Simple killing is easy. Making your enemies kill themselves in your name, that is something that requires finesse. Even you must admit, it was a masterstroke—a piece of art.”
“The Americans will strike back, you have seen it.”
“Not today,” he reminded her. “And by the time they do, our submarines will have set their coast ablaze.”
“All you have prolonged is the inevitable.”
“What I have done is what is best for our people,” he said with a grisly resolve.
“Perhaps. It is reckless to treat time as a child’s toy. You should not enjoy your interference so much.”
The dead man’s mouth grinned. “What fun is power if you do not savor its use, Shu gui?”