Omega Days (Volume 1) - By John L. Campbell Page 0,50

nineteen-thousand feet. It was a comfortable aircraft to fly, but despite the relaxed look on Vlad’s unfortunately-shaped face, it – like all helicopters – required constant control and correction, especially during combat operations. No one was shooting at him, but he was flying low over an urban area, and a mistake could put him and his crew on the ground in seconds. He had no desire to be down there.

“Get some, fuckers,” his gunner said, letting off short bursts.

Vlad’s co-pilot, an American (he was the only Russian) looked out the right window. “There’s more up the block, RJ. Coming around that school bus.”

Between bursts the gunner grunted, “Got it.”

Groundhog-7, the call sign for Vlad’s Blackhawk, was circling Thomas Jefferson High School in the suburbs of Fresno, the streets and buildings passing one-hundred feet beneath them. A late summer evening was coming on, the sky a riot of streaking pink clouds and skies fading through blue into navy and purple, a ten knot wind coming in from the distant Pacific. Vlad held a steady orbit as his gunner – he had only one, who shifted back and forth between the port and starboard weapons as needed – provided cover for the operation below. Groundhog-7 was the only bird assigned, the only one which could be spared. They actually had more aircraft than pilots, which was why Air Lieutenant Yurish had been given command of this ship.

“RJ,” the co-pilot said, a second lieutenant named Conroy, “you missed all the freaks and just lit up the bus.”

“It ain’t as easy as it looks,” RJ replied.

The co-pilot snorted. “Hell, didn’t you play video games?”

“You’re welcome to pop back here and take over the trigger, el-tee. I’ll sit up front and help the Mad Russian fly this pig.”

“Nyet!” Vladimir barked. “This is complex machinery and it requires more than a grammar school education, RJ. Lieutenant Conroy has already discovered this, much to his dismay.”

“Copy that,” RJ said, laughing. Conroy grinned as Vlad watched his instruments and kept the bird in a perfect, lazy right hand circle. The fenced football field of Thomas Jefferson was being used as a refugee collection point, and a single company of National Guardsmen was trying to maintain its perimeter, handle the civilians at the gate and protect the growing line of them stretching out well into the high school’s parking lot. It was a slow process, made so because every refugee had to be checked for bites before being allowed to enter. Those bitten were escorted off by MPs, and Vlad tried not to speculate on what happened to them. It was necessary, though. The same type of operation had been tried up and down the coast, and failure to check for bites, letting the infected inside the perimeter, had ended in disaster.

“Got a side street with lots of targets,” RJ called.

Vlad slowed and hovered for a moment while the gunner chopped into them, and then resumed his orbit.

Trucks waited in a row on the fifty yard line, and they would serve as transportation to get the refugees to Lemoore. Naval Air Station Lemoore was a much more secure facility, Vlad’s assigned base since the crisis began, and could handle the mass of fleeing civilians. At least it would put more secure fencing between them and the freaks, as the Americans had taken to calling them. The problem below was immediately obvious. A thousand people wandered and waited on the football field, with close to a thousand more lined up at the gates. There were only twenty trucks.

RJ was switching out ammo boxes in the back, and Conroy was on the radio relaying the status of the operation back to base. As twilight fell and a deepening gloom fell over the streets, the only way to distinguish live refugees from the dead was the speed of their movement. The National Guard had erected generator powered lights on the field – the only source of illumination in this part of blacked-out Fresno – and loudspeakers blared a repeating message that all civilians should immediately make their way to the high school. It was working to some extent, as fleeing people raced through the streets from all directions, almost exclusively on foot since the roads were blocked by fields of abandoned cars. The problems was that the dead were drawn not only to the running figures, but to the sound of the loudspeakers as well.

The gunner’s M240 woke up as he unleashed long lines of tracer ammo down into the gloom. Several