Godspeed

Doug Donnan

Executive Editor/OMNI-GENRE+MAGAZINE!

donnan.doug@yahoo.com

"Godspeed"

by

Doug Donnan

[ Midnight somewhere just along the outskirts of Benghazi ]

"Because, at this stage of the game, it's either us or them. That's why Lieutenant Grylls

said matter-of-factly.

"Yeh well still, if you ask me, I wish we weren't anywhere around this godforsaken place.

Benghazi...Schmengazi! Shootin' down our own Goddam planes? Hells Bells lieutenant,"

Sergeant Mossman blew out as he worked feverishly at the joysticks on the HEL MD's

compact LASEROP control panel. "if ya' ask me, seems like these damn free-flyin' war

birds up there got the right idea... blow everything to shit. That'll settle the damn score

once and fer' all."

"Well be advised sergeant," Grylls replied as he looked up at the HEL MD's cookie-dough-

camo painted turret housing. "Nobody, including yours truly, asked you...anything!

The HEL MD's eerie incandescent green laser light weapon swept across the inky black

night sky, a deadly beacon in search of the second renegade drone somewhere up above.

Time went by like a slowly receding shoreline wave. There was no sign of the JT15 by sight or

scope. Only silence and the repetitive, circuitous cricket-like whirr-clik, whirr-clik,

whirr-clik of the drone hunter's patiently oscillating laser pill-box. To it, time, was irrelevant.

*     *     *

"Well sir, we've been sweepin' this ol' fancy shmancy laser drone-dropper a full 360 all around

and about  for well over twenty minutes or so now," Mossman almost sighed as he tossed up

his hands in frustration from his HEL MD OP control seat. "If ya' ask me...I mean, from my

position in the belly of this beast, that damn second trailing rebel drone somehow gave us the slip.

No visual, no thermal image, no radar blip or bogey...no nuthin'. Poof! Adios...Gone."

"Yes, it's puzzling, that's for damn sure sergeant," Grylls replied as he stared up and all around

into the dark obsidian sky as if he were counting the myriad of shimmering, silver pixilated stars.

"Well sir, we got one of 'em anyways. Hell, one outa' two ain't bad lieutenant...right?" 

"Our assignment... our mission sergeant was to bring down both of those damn 'Drone-Runners'.

This kind of thing has been cropping up more and more lately. Drones goin' fully autonomous

and setting up their own little 'ways and means' committtees. Not just around here, but world-wide,

even in the good ol' U.S. of A. We have failed out here tonight sergeant. And failure is not an

option with those big 'Bird Dogs' at the pentagon. We'll have hell to pay for this... trust me." 

"Maybe that damn second drone is just in a wide circling escape and avoidance pattern sir or

maybe it will simply just run out of fuel and--"

"Shut this damn thing down sergeant," Grylls ordered as he did a tidy about-face and walked off

for the HEL MD's driver's cab. "Let's just get the hell outa' here."

"Roger that Lieutenant," from Mossman. "Romeo...Oscar...Golf...Echo...Romeo... that!"

Mossman went through the HEL MD's 'lights out/bedtime' shutdown procedure and then stepped

outside the now stationary pillbox turret. As he scrambled down the housing's little steel lean-to

ladder he hesitated for a second and took his own look all around the midnight sky of Benghazi.

"Got get 'em lil' buddy... Godspeed!" he whispered with a smile and a furtive little hand salute.        

_____ The End _____