Memories of the future. An eyewitness notes
Шрифт:
“It’s a Spiral, Alex, shrinking into a point.”
(a conversation fragment)
Chapter 1
“She lived under the Sun, in a place abounding with bright stars.”
V. Vysotsky
A piercing howl of the falling jet fighter broke the silence of the desert; the aircraft crashed, raising a plume of dust and smoke. Its forebode nuzzled into the sand, with engines still turning by inertia before falling silent forever. In the sky above the crashed aircraft, a parachute canopy was seen. A pilot’s figure was hanging somewhat awkwardly on the cords without motion.
On approaching the land surface, the canopy swayed in the hot air and speeded up its descent. Hardly had the pilot’s body touched the ground, when it dragged him off across a sandy dune slope, hastened by the wind, towards remains of the abandoned town walls. The pilot had crawled along the ground like a floppy doll for some time before the canopy fastened onto a fixture sticking out of the sand and fell off sharply. The world seemed to have come to a halt again. A minute had passed before the pilot moved slowly, clumsily sat down, unfastened a pressure helmet and threw it aside. A shock of blond hair swept over the shoulders. Then her fingers began to glide on the clasps, releasing her from the straps. She examined herself and groaned in pain. The torn suit began to slowly darken in the area of her stomach.
The instruction prohibited to stay long at the place of crash.
Having unfastened an emergency set, she rose and slowly went off, pressing her palm against the wound.
A long while ago, it used to be a small lovely town with fountains and squares sunk in greenery and surrounded with thick woods. Now only dry tree trunks, half-covered with sand, and remains of structures reminded of the past.
Following the global warming, woods gave way to deserts with their stinging winds and dust storms. Life had long forsaken this place… Pieces of stone walls and some iron structures poked out of sand dunes.
Although the midday heat slackened a bit, the dust-filled air burnt the lungs. With her feet raking up the sand, she toiled along what used to be called a street. She had to get as far as possible from the smoking aircraft before she could fix up the wound. She gave a farewell look at the wreckage of her combat aircraft she had already become one with.
Ragged rifts were seen all over the aircraft body. Over there, in the warped metal pile, Eol, her Artificial Intelligence friend and navigator was left. His body was not fit for relocation, and so she was unable to save him. The navigator was obviously damaged or shattered as he failed to response to her calls.
There is a first time for everything. She had never believed the worst before, but now it happened to her. She was knocked down. She was wounded. And still she could not escape the feeling that the whole thing was unreal.
Her arms still remembered the hand wheel jarring before catapulting.
She was playing back in her head the fight details: the aircraft shaking under shell attacks, emergency mode lights flashing on the control panel, a smell of burning wiring.
Her worn outdated multi-purpose fighter was finished off by a missile from one of the enemy military groups deployed in the quarantine zone of the Wastelands. The flight had already accomplished the combat mission on ground targets and was proceeding towards the turning point, when suddenly the radar displayed missiles on pursuit course. Then the fighter shook up a few times, and everything changed. She even managed to divert the out-of-control fighter and retrace its course. The once obedient hand wheel was now trembling and raging in her arms, the engines capacity dropped sharply. At a critical height close to the ground surface, she had to catapult from her doomed "brother in arms".
Now her task was to reach an old radio tower located in the east. She knew that a reconnaissance unit was still operating in that area and hence a life-support shelter was supposed to be there, but she did not know for sure where it was. Then the “Red Wolves” squadron operator
would track her down and send help to the navigator Eol. That’s how things were meant to be according to the instruction, but in reality this is usually not the case.
The situation was aggravated by her bleeding wound and dizziness after hard landing.
It was forbidden to use in-flight safety belts in the Wastelands, since their ion radiation was easily detected by patrol drones, which reduced chances for survival to zero. Now she had to find a safe place. And the main thing was not to panic.
Having summoned up all her strength, she headed to the north-east, where in two hundred meters the town ruins boundary ended up. The sand-colored flight suit with heat control function effectively protected the pilot against overheat in the Sun or overcooling at high altitude. This time, the system was working sustainably, preventing body dehydration. A multi-purpose communicator on her left hand sent a slight vibration signal. She looked at the display. The Communicator’s Artificial Intelligence showed the body health condition: decreased bioenergy potential, light wound in the stomach area. In the opinion of the “Personal Physician”, she could sustain high physical activity for some forty minutes.
“That will be enough,” she decided, “outside the town I will find a sheltered place and heal the wound. And then we’ll see. I’d better steer away from the walls”.
GMA or genetically modified animals, dwelling in this place, attacked silently, in packs and usually from behind.
Pilots normally fit out their standard flight suits with complete emergency sets by themselves. But with her it was a different story. She never really though all these "indispensable devices" were any use, especially, taking into account their huge weight, which only hindered movement. For that reason, most of her emergency set was simply missing.
To distract herself from monotonous motion, she began recalling all staff in her possession: soft water bottles fit into the rear of her suit close to the kidneys; flexible electric battery inside the rear part of the suit, that was presumably charged and securely embraced her back, protecting the spinal cord; however medical capsules for a multipurpose injector built in the suit were missing, as well as a nutrient gel, which she never took along. The pistol inside the pants holster with ammunition was there!
Having reached the town boundary, she looked around watchfully for any motion or danger. Everything seemed to be stiff, only the aircraft body was emitting smoke two kilometers behind. Suddenly, she saw two fresh deep dents on the plane sand surface, which meant that someone had been there not long ago and watched her from that point.
The girl grew wary. Having followed the direction of movement, she detected a two-fold trace going off the side and then abruptly turning towards the north-east. Judging by the distance between the traces, that was a huge animal moving in big leaps.