Barrows lifted the bags and set them in the back seat of the Humvee. Faber stood zipped up in his coat talking to his old friend and colleague for several years, Dr. Hank Little. "Are you sure you don't want to go, Hank?"
"I'll be fine here," Hank responded. "I've got a little cleaning up to do in the office, getting files and schematics in order, that sort of thing." An awkward silence hung over them for a moment. "What are we going to do now, Lewis?"
Faber shook his head. "I don't know. I'm forty-eight years old. What can a guy like me do starting from scratch this late in the game? Go to Japan and build toy dog robots?"
"With the experiences of actual dogs?" Little laughed.
A laugh slipped from Faber. "It'll wake you up every night howling and tear up the furniture."
The walkie talkie on Barrows's belt chirped to life with staticy chatter. "Roger that," the private called back into it. He turned his attention to the two scientists. "They've almost finished loading the plane, sir. You should get down there before they take off without you."
"I'm coming." Lewis Faber shook his friend's hands. "I'll see you back in California."
"I'll get to work designing that schnauzer," Hank quipped.
Faber climbed into the Humvee. Barrows sat behind the steering wheel and turned the ignition. The large truck bounced down the road to the airfield below. They finally pulled up next to an Embraer 120 Brasilia twin prop plane. Due to the terrain, smaller aircraft had to be used to bring in and take out personnell, materials, and supplies. The Legionaire prototype and all the equipment used to create and maintain it will be flown to Anchorage, where it will be collected and moved all at once to a large cargo plane and flown back to a storage facility somewhere in Arizona or New Mexico.
The sky was growing grey and dark as Faber said goodbye to his assistant for the past six months and climbed into the plane. "It's going to alright to fly, isn't it?" he asked the pilots as they finished their pre-flight inspections.
"Don't worry," the first said to him. "We'll keep ahead of the storm the whole way."
The co-pilot chimed in, "Besides, if things get too rough, we'll divert to Fairbanks."
The twin engines popped to life, and the plane began its thumping journey down the runway. It bounced into the air; and, in seconds, they were pierceing the tree tops and sailing over the Alaskan wilds. As they flew on, the sky grew darker and darker around them. The wind became fierce and pounded the side of the plane. "We're going to redirect to Fairbanks," the pilot said, leaning his head back to look at Faber. "We'll settle in at Ft.Wainwright until this blows over." He turned back around as the co-pilot handed him a clipboard. He read it, handed back to the co-pilot, and then began to slowly direct the plane to the right.
The co-pilot unbuckled his seat belt so that he could turn around and face Faber. "Don't let this worry you, doc. The system just moved in a little faster than expected. We've flown in worse weather, so you shouldn't get too nervous over this."
As though on cue, a bolt of lightening arced across the sky and blasted into the right engine. "Holy fuck!" the pilot shouted. With the momentum already moving in that direction, the plane began to sink fast to the right. The propeller broke free and spun into the cockpit, tearing into the hull and the pilot. The co-pilot was flung out of his seat and across and over. He missed the blades, but landed on his head against the side. His eye almost drooped out of socket as he couldn't quite get his senses back. The sound of metal being rended in twain vibrated through the plane's hull. Once again the plane tilted. The co-pilot slid across the floor before momentarily being bounced up into the air. He landed on the crates. His hands instinctively clasped onto the netting that help the boxes in place.
Faber worked up enough courage to try and see what was happening through the cockpit window. He tried not to acknowledge the torn corpse of the pilot before him. As another bolt light up the sky, Faber saw that they had sunk below the treeline. Crashing into age old trees, the plane bucked and cracked. The saftey lines on the cargo broke under the pressure. The plane gave a huge buck and sent the co-pilot and crates smashing into the roof. They all came down with a crash, except for the co-pilot. His body fell limp to the ground. Faber's head smacked against the hull behind him.
When he came to, Faber sat still strapped into his chair. His entire body ached. The plane was still. As he reached to unfasten his saftey harness, a sharp pain set his body on fire. It was probably a broken rib. Faber then noticed the wet sensation down his left side. He looked at his hand. It was engulfed in red. Through the pain he slid the harness off and stood. His body did not have the strength to keep him up, and he collapsed to the floor. The plane shimmied a bit. It hadn't landed on even ground yet. He could still be in a tree or on the side of a cliff. He couldn't know for certain. On top of that, he's obviously lost a great deal of blood. There's no telling how much internal damage he'd sustained either.
In the soft glow of the cabin lights that only know Faber could recognize were blinking eratically, he saw the metal surface of the Legionaire prototype. Painfully, he pulled himself across the floor. Using up all the engery he could, he cleared the surfact of the prototype to reveal its maintainence hatch. He opened it and began the boot up procedure as the wind howled outside and the plane began to teeter back and forth. Doctor Faber, frantic now as his life seems to be quickly approaching its end, typed in a code and with a raspy voice commanded, "Override priority protocols. Access Faber, Lewis C."
The next morning
The general saluted the officer who briskly walked into his office. "Sir," the younger man said, "the missing plane has been found. There were no survivors."
"Damn shame," the general muttered.
"Sir, the Legionaire unit was activated."
"What condition is it in?"
"Unsure, sir. It's missing."
