Free The Battle for Houston...The Aftermath by T. I. Wade Page B

thirty…”
    “She’s stalling!”
shouted Martie.
    “Let her Martie, twenty feet, Martie, ten…”
and Martie’s Super Tweet hit the asphalt hard as it fell the last few feet out of the sky and she began to apply brakes.
    “You have flames behind you, Martie! Blow the engine extinguishers! Martie use the brakes and open the canopy. Martie get out! Martie get out now girl!”
shouted Sally.
    Martie pulled her release and stood up; now, adrenalin taking over, she jumped onto the left wing as her cockpit was engulfed in flames and she jumped down to the side of the asphalt, rolling as she hit.
    “Run, Martie, run!”
shouted Sally in her radio knowing that Martie couldn’t hear her anymore; she was detached from the aircraft.
    Sally circled as slow as the aircraft could as Martie, now a dark shape on the ground rose to her feet and began to sprint. Sally knew she was fast and she watched as the distance widened between her friend and the aircraft which was going to explode at any second, and still had armaments aboard.
    She then noticed a Super Tweet landing a mile further south of the burning aircraft. It had its full landing lights on and was dropping fast.
    “
Puff!”
come in on my landing lights south of the fire,” ordered General Patterson
    Then the area lit up as Martie’s aircraft fire-balled and blew a sprinting Martie over hard as the blast hit her yards from the aircraft.
    “She’s fifty yards east of the aircraft; I think she had enough time to get clear!”
shouted Sally.
    Her aircraft turned and she banked over the stopped aircraft. It was her old one, the twin-seat General Patterson was flying, and she saw a dark shape run towards where Martie had fallen.
    There was silence on the airways, and Sally with tears welling in her eyes waited with the rest for word from the ground. She looked over to the north and saw the mess they had made of the convoy. There was a line of fires from horizon to horizon and the ground was flat.
    “I got her, I got her” stated General Patterson into his radio back at the aircraft, a few minutes later as “
Puff
” could be seen with full lights going into land half a mile behind the general’s aircraft. “She’s unconscious but breathing.” Carlos I need help, get over here with a medical bag; she needs two of us to get her into your aircraft. AC-130s commence your attacks at will, stay low and blast anything you see. Commander of
Blue Moon
; take over air command until further notice. Out.”
    Preston, co-pilot of
Blue Moon
got a slap of encouragement on the back from the engineer behind as his commander began giving orders. They were five miles away to the north at the end of the convoy and still thirty miles from the downed aircraft. Carlos must have pushed his throttles to the limit and he had watched “Puff” on his radar scope go straight over the convoy.
    The captain shouted orders into the radio system to turn on all instruments to control their altitude above ground and all aircraft not to go below 300 feet. There were few hills or rises that high in the area. He then ordered all weapons to test as they turned eastwards and headed towards the end of the area where there were fires.
    “Gunships, we are going in a mile south of the highway, in a line; stagger your distance between a mile and two miles. Gun controllers, if anybody sees a missile launch I want that area hit with the 105-mm. Shout missile launch, and pilots dip fifty to a hundred feet. Engineers shout out height above ground continuously. Let’s do one full run, and then break to the right on my command.”
    They went in low and fast, the Gunships’ machine guns and howitzers began shooting into and between the flames on both highways a mile to their north. With such heavy weaponry, a mile distance was nothing.
    “There is more damage on the southern highway; gunners aim more towards the northern asphalt strip,” stated
Blue Moon’s
commander.
    At 250 miles an hour, it took twelve