The dust cloud told Rainbow the soldiers were coming. She sat and watched as it got closer.
When the truck eventually pulled up, four UTA soldiers got out. Also, to her surprise, Soarin’.
“Where’s the plane?” he asked.
In response, Rainbow pointed down the length of the runway, where the MiG lay against the far fenceline.
She got in the truck with the five of them and they drove over there. Soarin’ examined the situation and said, “It seems pretty trashed. I don’t think it’ll fly again.”
“You didn’t even look at it,” said one of the soldiers.
“Are you the expert here?” said Soarin’.
“I’m the one in charge.”
“Fine.” Soarin’ turned to get a closer look at the plane. “Rainbow, give me some help.”
The two of them crawled under the jet to examine the landing gear.
“What the hell?” he whispered, barely audible. “Why didn’t you run?”
Rainbow did her best not to glance at the soldiers, all standing over by the truck. “I told you already.”
“I didn’t-!” Soarin’ paused, getting control of his voice. He resumed, in a whisper. “I didn’t fucking break your jet for you to just sit here. I didn’t expect you to make it back to Manatada, but even ejecting would have gotten you away from the UTA.”
Rainbow’s jaw dropped. “You did this on purpose!?”
Soarin’ gave her a look, but didn’t reply.
Rainbow swallowed. “Well, I appreciate that you want to help me to escape. Thank you. But it’s like I told you: not without everyone.”
“Yeah, I’m beginning to see that,” he muttered. He closed his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “Okay. Follow my lead.”
Before Rainbow could ask, Soarin’ got out from under the plane. “Don’t bother, it’s toast,” he called. “The landing was wrong and the main gear is cracked. I don’t want to think what that might have done to the fuselage, not to mention the dead engine. It’s not worth fixing.”
“Why should I believe you?” said the guy who was apparently in charge.
Soarin’ gestured to the plane. “You want to take a look for yourself? It’s got dirt and debris stuffed up into the wheel wells, if the engine wasn’t dead when it landed, it could have ingested more, there’s no telling what kind of damage was done to the intake and radome. It won’t fly, and we don’t have the parts to fix it.”
He hadn’t actually examined it that closely, though Rainbow could believe the MiG was done. It might have been able to be fixed, but not by one guy with no supplies in the middle of Africa.
“Anyway,” said Soarin’, “While we’re here, we can pick up that Cessna we left behind when we evacuated.”
“What are you talking about?” said the soldier. Rainbow wondered, too.
“That old propeller plane in the back of hangar four,” said Soarin’. “What, you think I was just keeping it around for decoration?”
“Nobody said it could fly,” the soldier protested.
“Nobody asked. At any rate, we didn’t have the pilots to get it out of here when we took everything else. It isn't good for much, but it’s better than not having another plane.”
Rainbow had a vision of herself flying a Cessna 172 into combat. More like a nightmare.
They started to load back into the truck. Soarin’ said, “Aren’t you going to burn it? You don’t want anyone else getting their hands on it.”
“You said it couldn’t fly.”
“That doesn’t mean the Freedom Army doesn’t have better supplies than us,” said Soarin’. It’s cheap insurance.”
Rainbow, for her part, didn’t want to see the jet destroyed if there was still some small chance of fixing it. The Fishbed had seen a lot with her, and probably a lot more with Angels. But, per Soarin’s instruction, she said, “That makes sense. I could probably arm up the bombs. If you stand back and shoot it, that might do it.”
The other three soldiers, faced with the prospect of setting off a large explosion, quickly agreed to the plan, trumping their so-called leader. Though, he too seemed to like the idea.
Rainbow climbed into the cockpit and armed the weapons. She took a moment, her fingers tracing over the instrument panel. It was too bad. Not that the jet was a person to be saved, but it had served her loyally.
She got out and loaded up in the truck. They drove a couple hundred yards away and stopped. The four UTA soldiers aimed their AK-47’s and unloaded.
Nothing happened. At least, not at first. When each of them had finished firing their first magazine, Rainbow saw flames start licking the airplane.
“Well, that’s probably good enough,” said Soarin’.
“But we wanted it to explode!” protested one of the soldiers.
“If your boss is okay with you wasting the ammo.” Soarin’ gestured to the in-charge soldier.
The man glared at him and waved to the others. “That’s good enough.”
They continued over to the hangar. The dingy Cessna in the back had to be towed out with the truck.
“First, we’ll need gas,” said Soarin’. The truck pulled the plane over to the pumps where AvGas and vehicle fuel were dispensed, separate from the jet fuel.
The engine cover was still off the Cessna, but if Soarin’ said it was flyable, Rainbow believed him. Though she still wondered what he was playing at. Rainbow stood by, doing her best not to betray anything, but having no idea what she should, or shouldn’t, be doing.
“Don’t think you can just fly away,” said the leading soldier as Soarin’ stretched out the fuel hose.
“I’m only putting twenty gallons in the tanks,” said Soarin. “You guys have seen us fueling the planes before.”
Rainbow kept her mouth shut. The Cessna’s wing tanks held twenty gallons, each. The small piston-propeller plane was a lot more fuel efficient than an afterburning jet. In fact, if Soarin’ managed to fill it up, it could travel more than five hundred miles.
“But if it makes you feel better, somebody can ride with us,” Soarin’ added.
That was enough to cause an argument, one that the leader won. While the fuel was still pumping, Soarin’ said, “Come over here and I’ll show you the plane.”
Rainbow stood near the truck. It was parked in front of the plane, rope still tied to the front landing gear. Two other soldiers leaned on the back of the truck. The last one was around front, probably chewing khat or something. Rainbow walked over and leaned on the side of the truck bed. The two soldiers near her carried their AK-47’s across their bodies loosely. She didn’t meet their eyes. They seemed more interested in what was going on at the plane.
Soarin’ was doing a walkaround, pointing to a few things. The leading soldier followed him. They came around the tail and started back towards the front.
Just then, there was a distant explosion. That would be the bombs cooking off in the fire.
With the distraction, Soarin’ suddenly grabbed the back of the soldier’s head and smashed it against the Cessna’s wing spar. His left hand swept down to grab the AK-47 and twisted it up, firing point blank into it’s owner’s torso.
The two soldiers nearest to Rainbow turned back around from the explosion to address the much closer threat, raising their weapons. Soarin’ tugged the rifle loose and hit the pavement, rolling under the plane. It didn’t look like the maneuver was going to buy him much time, the distance was just too short.
Instinctively, Rainbow reacted, striking out with a side kick into the nearest man. She wasn’t prepared and weeks on substandard food had cost her some strength, but it was still enough force to knock him sideways into the other one. Neither went down, but both stumbled and started to turn towards her.
Soarin’ completed his roll and came up on one knee, holding the rifle against his left shoulder and supporting the foregrip with his mangled right hand. He fired a long, fully automatic burst that hit both soldiers.
The fourth member of the UTA came around the front of the truck, raising his weapon, but he was too slow and brain-addled, and Soarin’ got him, too.
There was deep silence for a long moment
Soarin’ straightened up. He made a quick sweep, kicking weapons away from dead fingers. One of the rifles the soldiers had carried had been damaged by his bullets.
The fuel pump started to overfill the tanks and Rainbow automatically shut it off. It seemed to natural, like she hadn’t just brought nothing to a gunfight.
“You could have warned me,” she said. Soarin’ didn’t hear, and Rainbow realized his ears were probably ringing. She repeated herself, louder.
“I would have, if I’d had time or if I’d even had the plan in mind,” he said. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
“We need to go back.”
Soarin’ stopped, looking at her like she’d just told him the Wonderbolts were now flying hot air balloons. “Are you out of your mind? We were just handed this golden opportunity to get away. We can go to South Africa. We can go to that place you talked about out east. We could be back in civilization tonight.”
“Not. Without. Everyone.” Rainbow crossed her arms.
“If we get away, we can tell the authorities where they are,” Soarin’ pointed out.
“Do you think they would actually do something?” said Rainbow. “Who has the power to mount a rescue mission deep into warlord territory? How long would it take? Would the UTA move everyone before help could arrive?”
“You can’t save everyone!”
“Why not!? Have you ever tried?”
Soarin’ reacted as if punched. He looked down at the AK-47 in his hands. Several long seconds passed. He didn’t put the rifle down down, but shifted it to rest under his left arm. He raised his right hand. “I told you I was shot. I didn’t say that I did it myself.”
“Wait, what!?”
“When they took me, I decided I wasn’t going to fight for the UTA. I wouldn’t kill for them. So I took myself out of action. And since then, I’ve been helping everyone to survive. You think this ancient equipment stays up by itself?”
“Why-”
“I had forgotten that, why I was still here.” He took a deep breath and let it out. “You’re right. This is about more than just us.”
He turned, raising the rifle to rest on his shoulder. “Come on, let’s stage the scene.”
Bewildered, but willing to follow advice, Rainbow helped him untie the rope and push the Cessna back. After that, they filled the truck’s fuel tank from the other pump and went over the bodies to remove weapons and anything of value.
Rainbow found the package of khat. Soarin’ bit off a couple of pieces and spat the ends into the tall grass. He then dropped the three gnawed pieces near the soldiers who didn’t already have some nearby.
Soarin’ stepped back to look at the scene. “So they stopped to fill up the truck, decided to have a khat break, and got ambushed.”
“You think that will hold up?”
Soarin’ shrugged. “Better than nothing. Anyway, let’s get out of here.”
Soarin’ gave her a crash course in how to use an AK-47. It was pretty simple. He then showed her a panel that came loose in the interior of the plane, allowing access to the hollow tail boom. They hid the three undamaged rifles and the extra magazines in there.
The two of them loaded up and put on the dusty headsets they found. The Cessna’s engine coughed, but it did run. It was the same plane Rainbow had been learning to fly at school, and Soarin’ let her have control. It was slightly surreal to be operating from a quiet airfield, no radios, no other traffic.
They got airborne and Rainbow turned west for the small airport at Katange. Soarin’ opened the window and threw the soldiers’ valuables out.
“You know,” she said, “you shoot pretty well for a guy with no trigger finger.”
Soarin’ smiled. It looked as if it was the first time he had done so since she’d first met him at that air show so many years ago.
He turned to look out the windshield, back to business. “We’ve got a few minutes before we get there. Let’s get our story straight.”