Sonic Assault
This story is my entry for the Soaring Twenties Social Club monthly symposium. This month’s theme is “Flight”.
A skinny brown-cloaked figure screamed across the rocky desert on the ancient speeder bike, its tailfins glowing with the heat. Grifton pushed the speeder into high gear, skimming the desert surface and slammed on the brakes, twisting the rear of the speeder around to come to a stop in front of the dull gray metal door in the side of the cliff—the side of a massive mesa, one of many dotting the desert. He paused at the door to look up into the sky.
High up in the clear blue, thousands of glowing meteors fell plummeting straight down twisting and firing their engines in a cloud of sand and dust just before they hit the ground. One of the war machines came speeding toward him high overhead, plasma guns pulsing, probing the outpost’s defenses, and the trumpet screaming its deadly, brain-shattering sound wave. Grifton covered his ears and threw himself through the door before the war machine could get close enough.
The outpost’s narrow corridors were a hive of activity, people everywhere, the usually clean floors covered in dust. Grifton started to head up to the observation level when his foot struck a huddled pile of cloth on the floor. The pile groaned and Grifton lifted the man’s cloak, recognizing the face of his cousin, Nybro, and the tell-tale signs of sonic brain damage. He gently covered Nybro’s face and head and continued on through the crowded halls up to where he knew the general would be.
“Grifton, what news from Derna?”
General Volga was lean, wiry, tough-looking like he’s been left out in the sun for years, with a neat gray beard and intense eyes. He was standing leaning on the long table in the observation room, bright light streaming through the windows behind him. A dozen sets of eyes turned to look at Grifton.
“Derna was destroyed, sir.”
The general struck the table. “Dammit. That leaves Acroma, Mechili, and us. We’ll have to hold them here to keep them in the canyon, keep them from going south. Keep them here and wait for the wind,” he said to himself more than to the room. He sighed. “There’ll be no surviving today, not for us in this room or for the remains of the corps in Tobruk. Distribute the rest of the cannons and man every tower along the ridgeline. If Acroma and Mechili got the message, they’ll do the same. Go.”
Volga strode across the room to Grifton as the captains of the guard streamed out of the room. Volga took Grifton by the arm, gently but firmly. “Up on the wall for us, son.” Grifton looked surprised. “We must lead by example, son. I can’t leave you down here and expect others to go up on the wall instead. As much as I would like to leave you behind, send you down with the women and children, your mother and sister, I can’t. Not today. I know you understand.”
“Yes, father,” Grifton said, his voice wavering but determined.
“Good. Now, to the armory.”
They went deeper into the cliff, away from the face and the bright light of the observation room’s windows, but higher toward the top of the cliff, what everyone called the wall. A steady stream of men accompanied them, all with grim faces, determined and sure.
The armory was a large room filled with cylindrical cannons stacked as pyramids all over the entire room. The shorter, six feet long, could be handled by two men. The longer nine-footers required three.
General Volga selected a six-footer, taking a missile bag and handing one to Grifton. Together they lifted the cannon and proceeded across the armory and up the long passage to the surface. A line of grunting men followed them, sand rasping underfoot, cloaks swishing, metal glinting dully in the low yellow light.
The soldier stationed at the exit threw open the trapdoor and Grifton cast down his eyes at the sudden bright light. The general and Grifton exited the tunnel and, marching straight through the thorny tunok bushes, proceeded to the edge of the cliff as the wind whipped around them and the war machines whined in the distance. Volga flicked the latch on the underside of the cannon and the stand fell down with a clang. The cannon, one end on the ground, the other pointed up and out into the desert beyond, was poised and ready.
General Volga issued orders to the men of the corps coming up behind them, directing them along the wall between the two towers on either side—one standing right over the center of Tobruk, the other positioned five hundred yards down the cliff.
Grifton kneeled at the back of the cannon, ready to shift the heavy awkward weapon as best as he could. They were not designed to be moved once in the firing position but small adjustments could be made, though he knew that it would be useless. They would not be able to aim the cannons at the flying war machines, could not even hope of hitting one. They were but a distraction to delay the invaders and give them something to shoot at in order to keep them near the canyon and give the gunners in the towers a chance to fire their tracker rockets which had a chance of hitting.
There were the war machines dancing in the air like a thousand fireflies, spewing gouts of plasma and blanketing the entire world with their deadly sound.
And then they came, dozens, hundreds, streaming toward Tobruk and toward Acroma and Mechili in the distance. Once enemies, they were now united in a common defense against he unknown invaders.
One machine flew faster than the others, firing wildly and trumpeting the high screaming sound, flying low to the ground across the clifftops. It looked like a metal wedge with tiny outgrowths that could barely be called wings, used only for steering as its thrusters were so powerful that it needed little lift to stay flying.
The Tobruks covered their ears as the war machine approached, dropping missile after missile into their cannons which fired thunk thunk thunk. Then the low crash from the tower, the delay, and the hissing of the rocket engine as it flew and buried itself in the cockpit of the angular metal war machine. Fire and twisted metal fell down, down out of sight.
The Tobruks cheered. Grifton punched the air but General Volga, grim, merely looked at Grifton, then back to the horizon and the approaching machines.
Two more came close, pouring plasma into the cliff face, throwing rocks and dust over the Tobruks and, passing to the left of Grifton, screamed their sound waves into the heads of the defenders as they passed overhead. He saw dozens of corpsmen fall clutching their heads. Some laid still. Others walked calmly to the cliff edge and stepped off.
Still the thunk thunk thunk of the cannons. Still the hiss crack of the tracker rockets. Still the cream of the machines’ trumpets.
Another war machine came in for a close pass, straight for Grifton and Volga. It fired its plasma burst at the tower, taking off the top and opening it to the sky and screamed toward them to pass right overhead. Grifton threw his hands over his ears, stuffing the end of his cloak inside.
Thunk. The cannon shook.
Grifton got up and saw his father was still holding the cannon, frozen in the same position he had been when firing one final shot at the enemy.
The war machine crashed fifty yards behind them on the clifftop but Grifton ignored it and everything else. He kneeled in front of his father, holding his face, shouting, staring, examining as if looking harder would make his father return his gaze, would make his father’s eyes refocus.
General Volga struggled to his feet and hobbled forward, his taut muscled body now oddly slack. Grifton grabbed him around the waist and hauled him back from the edge.
“No, no, we have to get inside. You’ll be fine. Just get inside. You’ll be fine, you’ll be fine.”
Grifton was babbling. He didn’t believe the things he said, he just filled the air, filled the time until the next flying death came for him.
And then it happened.
There arose a hum in the distance to the right, over the shattered tower of Tobruk, far away. A low hum. Nothing much to hear. It might have been a distant rocket or a war machine engine.
Then it grew louder, sounding like it was swirling and hissing, like it was alive, not machine-made. And it oscillated, lower and higher. And then it became an all-encompassing, earth-shattering, ear-splitting roar.
“The wind! The wind, father!”
But General Volga could not hear, wouldn’t have understood if he could, and there were few corpsmen left on the cliff who could. But it didn’t matter. The wind was coming. And with it came the storm and a new flying death—the revenge of the fallen. And the sky became black and everything was dark from the deepest depths at the bottom of the cliff all the way to the highest reaches of the sky and there was no escape for the war machines of the invaders although they tried to outrun the wind.
And Grifton, seized with ecstasy, elated at their victory, danced and shouted. “The wind, father! Look! Hear it! Aieee! The wind. The fools can’t outrun the wind! Aieee!”
And as the sand began to etch his skin, Grifton seized his father’s hand and leaped from the cliff into victorious oblivion.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, strictly a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance, perceived resemblance, or similarity to any other fictional works, to actual events or persons, living or dead, and any perceived slights of people, places, or organizations are products of the reader’s imagination. This fiction is the result of a partnership between a human writer and the character(s) he accessed with his creative subconscious as he raced through the story with them. No AI of any kind, generative or otherwise, was used in any way to write this story.