Flash Fire

Written by Zelda

 

                “Can we get home sometime today?!” Nosedive sighed, exasperated. “My GameBoy’s outta batteries!”

                “Well you should have brought extras.” Tanya wagged a finger at him.

                “Yeah, and there’s about three miles worth of cars in front of us that are gonna get home first.” Wildwing sighed from the Migrator’s driver’s seat. They had just pulled into what appeared to be a massive traffic jam, on one of the highways leading through a mountainous area that was going into California. Their game last night in Phoenix had warranted only a short trip, and they had to get back for a game tomorrow.

                Duke nonchalantly leaned back in his seat, folding his arms behind his head and putting his feet carefully up on the console. “I don’t understand why there’d be a traffic jam out here in the first place.” he yawned, closing his eyes. “You’d expect this in downtown L.A., not out here.”

                “Construction, maybe?” Mallory shrugged.

                “But they’d never close down the whole road.” Tanya shook her head. “Not without putting up signs or something, at least.”

                “You’re right.” Wildwing nodded. “It’s gotta be an accident or something up ahead.”

                “Want me to go check it out?” Zelda hopped up underneath the Migrator’s top hatch. “Might give us an estimate of our wait.”

                “Wouldja?” Wildwing pressed a button, and the hatch popped open. “Thanks.”

                “Be right back.” Zelda nodded, and with one flap shot right through the hatch. But she didn’t go soaring off over the sea of cars in front of them. Instead she landed again, right on the hood.

                “What’s wrong girl?” Grin leaned forward, calling up through the hatch.

                “It’s not an accident at all…” she replied, sniffing the air. “It’s a fire… I can smell it from here…”

                “A wildfire…” Wildwing leaned back. “That makes sense, I guess.”

                “Yeah.” Tanya nodded. “It’s been as dry as a tinderbox out here for weeks. That must be what’s blocking the road!”

                “Aww man, I wanna go home!!” Nosedive whined.

                Outside on the hood, Zelda stretched one wing and let it billow a bit in the wind. “We may not be going anywhere for quite a while.” she started. “The wind’s blowing right in our direction.”

                “Tanya, switch on to the local police and fire stations, that might give us some more info. I wonder if everyone’s alright up there…” Wildwing said.

                As Tanya started scanning through frequencies, Nosedive sighed and leaned back in his chair. They could be stuck here for hours if they had closed the road down! What a bummer.

                Zelda stayed out in the hood, watching the sky ahead of them, still sniffing. “It’s some distance ahead…” she spoke. “Because we can’t see the smoke from here. But it’s either on the road or very close… I can smell burning tar.”

                “Well, then that explains the closed road.” Grin shook his head.

                “This fire must have started really recently then.” Mallory said. “I mean, I don’t see fire crews or police anywhere. Even if the fire is way ahead of us, don’t you think they’d have people back here to turn the cars around or something?”

                “I agree.” Wildwing said. “Maybe we can help.”

                “We’re not firefighters Wing, I don’t even know if we’ve got that kind of gear on us, aside from some emergency extinguishers and stuff.” Tanya leaned up from the console.

                “Well I’m not talking about going in there just yet.” Wing shook his head. “But we should try to get these people out of here, and in case the authorities need backup or anything.”

                “That’s…. kinda a big undertaking Wing.” Mallory started. “What makes you think all these people are gonna listen to us and turn around?”

                “Well, if they’re anything like us, they’re tired of sitting here too. I’m pulling us over to the shoulder before we get boxed in.”

                As the Migrator started to back up and turn, Tanya managed to lock on to one emergency-frequency radio station.

                “---right across the roadway, those cars won’t get through, we need highway patrol out to those people.” one man’s voice scratched to life.

                “Nearest station is twenty miles out, we’ve got all our cars on the way. What about putting the fire out?” another man responded.

                “We’re forty miles out, sent three trucks and a water tanker, ETA is half an hour, depending on whether we can get through that traffic.”

                “We’ll start clearing the road once we get out there. Let us know if there’s anything else we can do.”

                “Roger that, Ladder Company Three out.”

                “Won’t help.” Zelda’s voice came in muffled through the windshield.

                “They won’t get here soon enough?” Duke turned to her.

                “Only three firetrucks and a water tanker?” she looked back through the window. “That’s nothing. From the amount of smoke I’m smelling, this thing is either very big already, or growing fast. A flashfire.”

                “Woooonderful.” Nosedive smacked his forehead.

                “That settles it.” Wildwing stood to face the rest of his team. “If the fire’s really growing that quickly, and moving towards us, then all of these people could be in danger. We need to get these cars turned around. The police won’t be here to help us for a long time.”

                “So what’s the plan?” Grin asked.

                “I’m gonna need some of you to stay back here, start turning back traffic right here where it’s just starting to build up. The rest of us are going to go up to the front, start getting people to use the shoulders or something to go back.” Wildwing nodded.

                “S’a good thing this is a one-way highway.” Nosedive remarked. “Or else we’d have another headache waiting for us on the other side of the block!”

                “Right.” His older brother agreed. “So let’s see…. I want you and Duke staying back here, the rest of us are going up. You two would be the best at talking people into turning around.”

                “Woohoo!” Dive was up and out of his seat. “Come on Dukester, time to go address our adoring public!”

                “Anything that’ll get us movin’ again, kid.” Duke waved to the rest of the team before he and Dive exited through the side hatch, and started to filter out into the growing maze of cars.

                Wildwing revved the Migrator’s engine and honked a little, causing Zelda to nearly leap off the hood with the noise. “Sorry girl!” he called. “Just wanna be a good driver and let everyone else know what we’re doing!”

                The cars along the road responded with a cacophony of honking of their own, and Zelda clapped her paws over her ears. As a few of them started to stray back off of the shoulder and clear the way, the Migrator moved along slowly, rumbling over the rough combination of gravel and field grass that was jarring enough to rattle even the Migrator’s suspension.

                “Tell us when you see smoke or something, kay Zel?” Mallory called up. She went into the back of the vehicle and started opening equipment hatches, checking around to see what they had on hand.

                “Anything heavy duty back there?” Wildwing asked, keeping his eyes on the road.

                “Hmm….” Mallory was rifling through things. “Got five fire extinguishers, all different sizes… umm, I think this is a fire-retardant blanket… Some containers of water here with the medical supplies…”

                “Our first aid stuff on board may help us out, if there’s anyone hurt up there.” Tanya nodded. “We have some special ointments and bandages for burns and such.”

                “Good. We’ve got the storage space on board this thing to be prepared. But you’re right, we’re not firefighters, we’re just here to get people out.”

                The Migrator rocked again, forcing Wildwing to proceed much slower than he would have hoped. He could start to hear car horns honking not just around him, but up ahead. Waving his hand to the dragon on the hood, he sent Zelda soaring off along the road, scouting out just what situation lay before them. Her comlink crackled over the radio in the dash.

                “See anything up there girl?” Tanya walked up, a first aid kit in hand. The com crackled again.

                “You guys need to get up here.” Zelda responded shortly. “There’s a lot of smoke, it’s not just tar from the highway. There are cars locked in up here, the fire is spreading across the road and these people have nowhere to go!”

                “If the fire gets to the gas tanks of those cars---“ Mallory started.

                “What about the people?” Grin asked, leaning forward in his seat.

                “They’re standing around! Some of them, I don’t think they want to leave! Others are running---“ she cut off for a moment. “There’s a lot of smoke, it’s blowing back this way, hard to see---“

                “We’ll be up there, pronto.” Wildwing nodded, turning to the others. “Okay, time for a change of plans. Tanya, you stay with the Migrator, we’re going to need it up there. But the rest of us are going to go on foot. Do we have any gas masks?”

                “No, but these’ll do.” Tanya passed out small wedge-shaped devices that she held in her hands. “They’re rebreathers, you can use these if you get caught in smoke. Careful though, they won’t protect your eyes, and they’ll only give you about fifteen minutes of air, tops.”

                “Only fifteen?” Mallory asked.

                “They weren’t made for this!” Tanya frowned in concern.

                “Come on guys, we’re wasting time.” Wildwing stood and pocketed his rebreather. “We’ll keep in eye contact for as long as we can, but if we get lost, we use our autotrackers on our coms. I want everyone staying together on this one, we work as a unit!” He and the other two Ducks grabbed the medical supplies and gear, and he led them out of the Migrator, quickly breaking into a run along the shoulder. Tanya sat down in the driver’s seat and revved the engine, starting along on the slow plod that Wildwing had left off. In the back of her mind, she was growing terribly worried. There was a plume of smoke that was now starting to make itself visible from up the road, its source hidden behind a hill. The team was in no way prepared to handle evacuation in the face of a natural disaster. They hadn’t done well with natural disasters themselves! And with the rapidly-changing nature of a forest fire, the situation could turn bad very fast. She had to get the Migrator up to the blockage as fast as she could. If the others were caught in the flames, the vehicle would be their only refuge.

 

                Nosedive put a hand on his hip and swatted with the other, annoyed.

                “Come on people! Let’s go, you ain’t got all day here, you’ve gotta turn around!!!”

                “And they say people are sheep.” Duke yelled to him, barely audible over the car horns. “They aren’t too willing to be herded.”

                “Don’t you get it?!” Nosedive pounded on the hood of a station wagon, pointing to a rising plume of smoke in the distance. “THERE. IS. A. FIRE. Turn around and go back!!”

                And slowly, very slowly, there was some response along the growing line. At the end, cars were starting to back down the shoulder. There was an exit not too far back, Dive remembered, they were probably headed there. “Go on, go backwards, there’s gotta be a way around somewhere!” As the stationwagon started to reluctantly pull away, he met up with Duke in the space that it left behind. “What’s going on?”

                “Couldn’t hear too much over the coms, apparently things are worse than we thought right up where the smoke’s comin’ from.” Duke answered with a shrug.

                “Then we should get up there, don’tcha think?” Dike asked.

                “Not yet.” Duke shook his head. “Wildwing knows we’re back here, if he needs us then he’ll call. Besides, all of those cars up there will need somewhere to go. We’re the ones who are supposed to give them space, remember?”

                “Yeesh.” Nosedive rolled his eyes. “You and Wildwing both are no fun.”

                “Ain’t about fun, kid.” Duke corrected curtly. “This is about preventing one major barbeque. And trust me, the further you are from it, the better.” He started off again, wading through the crowd of cars to help direct them over to the shoulder.

                Rolling his eyes again and sighing, Nosedive relented to doing the same.

 

                They crested the hill to be shocked by what they saw. Several cars were crushed flat beneath a set of treetrunks that had fallen across the roadway, now burning well. The fire was advancing from the uphill pine forest, creeping across the roadway as if it were slowly eating away at the tar. And Zelda came swooping towards them through the plume of smoke, her big purple wings like a beacon lit by the fire below.

                “Zel!” Wildwing waved her down, as she landed on top of a car in front of them. “What’s the latest?”

                “Those squashed cars are evacuated, empty when I got here.” she answered, pointing to them. “I’m not sure if everyone got out okay, but I can’t find anyone injured. Looks like those trees just lost their bases, burned through, and fell on the road. The cars might have thought they could get by the fire.”

                “I’d say they were pushing their luck.” Mallory snorted.

                “What about all of these people?” Wildwing gestured to the moderate masses that were standing about, and the even larger number who were waiting in their cars, honking loudly.

                “I tried to get them to move away, not many of them would listen to me!” she replied, obviously frustrated. “They didn’t want to leave without their belongings. It was all I could do to get the cars nearest to the front to back off, but they won’t last if the gas tanks in those crushed cars go off.”

                “And they will.” Wildwing nodded. “Alright guys, those fire trucks’ll have no chance of getting through this traffic if we don’t clear these guys off, get them to turn around. Mallory and Grin, that’ll be your first priority. Try and clear out a lane in the middle if you can. Zel, you and I are going back to the front, get those cars to back off. If those tanks do go, you can fly, and I’ve got the armor. That’s good enough.”

                “Take a fire extinguisher, just in case.” Mallory handed a small canister to Wildwing.

                “And a first-aid kit.” Grin added, placing the handle of a case in Zelda’s jaws.

                “We’ll give you guys a ring the minute we need you.” Wildwing nodded to them. “Call us when the Migrator gets up this far, we may need it to help transport these people. Be safe!” And with that, he broke into a run, off down the hill and towards the burning cars.

                Spreading her wings again, Zelda rose back into the sky, soaring up on the heated air created by the fire. The smoke was now stretching far off into the sky. This fire hadn’t been burning for long, which meant that something this young wasn’t going to die down for quite a while yet.

 

                She hadn’t gotten more than thirty feet back into the air, when the first car exploded.

 

 

End of Part One

 

 

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