Kenji Nobu sat slumped in his seat in the passenger cabin of the 1969 DHC-6-200 Twin Otter, the aircraft still wobbling and buffeted by the roiling hot air expanding away from the massive fireball lifting in to the morning sky behind them. Rosa Jardine was at his side in the aisle of the cabin, trying to console him with one hand rubbing his shoulder and her other hand gripping the seat back in front of him. As the twin-propeller plane settled on a calm flight path, she reached down to pick up the PAB manual that had dropped on the floor in front of Kenji and placed the book in his lap, with the cover of the white star on stripes of blue and red face up. Kenji looked at the Proud Americans Brigade emblem on the manual cover, and winced in anger.

“What did I do to deserve this? I didn’t do anything wrong! I just lived quietly in the desert valley, not bothering anyone,” Kenji said angrily, his eyes sad but flashing.

“Some would say you were a traitor,” Jola Winters said across the aisle from Kenji, not sitting in a seat but resting on her mechanical legs folded under her, her three-toed feet gripping into the rubber cabin floor and the pincer of her metallic arm clamped onto the seat arm next to hear, keeping her steady as the plane pitched and rolled. The young boy sitting in the seat behind her was able wriggle out from under his Husky dog, Arfie, and released his seatbelt to lean over the top of the seat between them. He looked at Jola’s mechanical arms and legs, fascinated by the blinking red LEDs on them and the complex, robotic joints they were composed of.

Kenji looked across at the beautiful woman with dirty blonde hair and the wide, open smile, wearing a white jumpsuit, with the pant legs hiked up to clear the strange, crane-like movement of her robotic legs. Her eyes were clear and friendly, despite the accusation she just made to Kenji. She nodded at the PAB manual in his lap and continued, “You are actively involved in the California Independence Movement, and judging by those secret battleship plans you have concealed in that book, you are one of its leaders.”

Kenji responded to Jola as he opened the book again to the page that contained the fragile blueprints to the QuadriStar, “If I had known I would lose my paradise, then I would have nothing to do with the Movement or these plans!” He lifted the plans out of the book to be lit up by a shaft of morning sun shining through the battered plane’s cabin windows. While he studied the plans again, he said to Jola without looking at her, “And some would say that you are working for the President’s new spy agency, judging by the military technology that went into your arm and legs.”

“You’re right and wrong, there, old man,” Jola said laughingly, throwing back her hair and running her hand along each of her legs, finding the switch to turn them off, “Might as well save the batteries on them, I don’t know when I’ll be able to recharge them again.” The red LED lights blinked quickly then faded out on her legs, and she released and twisted her mechanical arm to pull it off. She powered it off as well, resting it on the seat next to her. She used her natural hand to steady her and said, “I did have a military role in the SEA War, but I have nothing to do with spy agency’s or the President.” She smiled at Theo, who was looking intently on the inert arm on the seat.

“So you say,” Kenji mumbled, squinting closely at the centre of the QuadriStar. “In your military career, did you come across anything like the battleship in these plans?”

“Nope. I was discharged over a year ago as a school teacher stationed on one of the bases in Guam. Or what was Guam, not much left of it now,” Jola said, her smile fading. “I should be more upset about witnessing a tactical nuke explosion here, but I saw my fair share nukes in the SEA War, even though I wasn’t on the front lines,” she said wistfully, waving the stump of her arm, “That’s how I got my bionics; a pretty good trade-off, I have to say.” Jola turned back to Theo, and answered his eager questions about her mechanical limbs.

Rosa Jardine stepped away from Kenji, seeing that he was preoccupied with the QuadriStar plans, and went back up to the rickety aircraft’s cockpit, to join the handsome young man in the pilot’s chair and the hulking older man in the co-pilot’s chair. She looked out the left-side window, to see the massive mushroom plume of smoke receding behind them and shivered involuntarily. She was wearing a yukata over her white shorts and t-shirt, and tightened the sash around her waist, and folded the wide sleeves around her, making the crane print on the fabric look like it was protecting itself. 

Hanyo Soon turned around to look at her, the look of concern in his eyes mirroring hers. “Don’t tell me you had anything to do with that?” he said, pointing his thumb back at the ominous cloud.

“I don’t know what I’m mixed up with, but I thought I knew my friend Leanna O’Regan, but now I see I didn’t have the foggiest clue what she was involved in,” Rosa said looking back out the front of the cockpit windshield, seeing the desert valley floor light up with bright yellow sunshine.

“Don’t act all innocent, princess,” Hanyo admonished her while grinning crookedly, “I think you know more about your involvement in the California Independence Movement.”

Rosa slapped the grinning young man’s shoulder, saying, “Don’t you start! The first I heard of this Movement was only a couple days ago! At least I think it was a couple days when we left Ojai, it’s all been a blur…”

“So, did you leave your husband in Ojai,” Hanyo asked Rosa, running his hand through his straight black, shoulder length hair. Skoaler snorted loudly in the seat beside him, and looked back at the unimpressed Rosa between them, rolling his eyes.

“I don’t have a husband. Well I did, we’re divorced. His names Lucretius Angelus, everyone calls him ‘Lucky’,” Rosa said quickly, and stopped herself.

“You didn’t take his name?” Hanyo asked and then looked over at Skoaler shaking his head at him.

“What? What? I can ask her that!” Seeing that Rosa was in no hurry to answer his question about Lucky, he instead said, “You know that I didn’t buy for a second that you were Nobu’s relative visiting from Japan when we first met back at the bar. And when those PAB snoops came in and started asking me questions about a woman on the run, I knew they were asking about you. So, let’s be honest with each other, what is your real story?”

Rosa bit her lip, and turned away from the cabin, annoyed and mumbling about “smuggler sleaze-bags.” Hanyo continued grinning and winked at Skoaler, who had tipped his cowboy hat forward and closed his eyes, folding his arms over his chest. Hanyo called back to Rosa, who had taken her seat in front of Kenji, and was scowling, looking out the window beside her, “You can find something to drink and eat in the back of the cabin. You might as well relax and take a load off, as we’ll be flying all morning. Next stop, Rosarito!”

*** This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. ***