Pie-In-The-Sky [Chapter 23]

I've started posting the chapters of Resolution 786. I'll post each successive chapter roughly every 3 or 4 days. Here's Chapter 23:


The helicopter blades noisily slapped air and dust at the hard roads and the sun-baked fields. The earth and the asphalt pushed back angrily, billowing the dusted air into treetops in big, swirling clouds. “What do you have for us, Doc?” shouted the tired captain over the loud, pulsing thuds of the helicopter engine.

Hueghlomm was sitting across from him in the open cabin. “Neutron beam emitter coupled with a gamma detector,” he shouted.

“About as useful as tits on a boar,” said the tired captain.

Adam realized that he owed this battle hardened infantry commander a better explanation. “We’ll focus a neutron beam onto the roads that your convoys travel. We’ll capture the resulting gamma emissions using a high-purity germanium spectrometer. Based on the gamma signatures, we should be able to tell if it’s plain old road that we’re looking at or if there might be something more dangerous under the surface.”

“So how the hell do we deploy your little phasers?” asked the tired captain, unconvinced, yelling over the engine noise and rushing air.

“We’ll mount the neutron source and the spectrometer on the bottom of a low-flying scout helicopter,” said Hueghlomm.

“It sounds pie-in-the-sky.”

“It beats losing more men and limbs, sir.”

“Fuckin’, aye,” said the tired captain, staring out the dust blown cabin door. He gazed down, watching the white powdered roads passing below. Groups of little brown children ran and waved at the helicopter as it slapped and thumped its way over their homes and villages, falling forward through the cloudless sky.

“Fuckin’, aye,” muttered the tired captain.