Cadre

By T. Whitman Bilderback

In the not-too-distant future, two men crash their ultralight flyer during a severe storm. They soon encounter Cavendish, an interpreter for the government. Cavendish tells them that they have crash-landed in the middle of a government reserve, and that they will be detained if they are caught.

Cavendish is injured, but his wound is peculiar. The two men, Wes Madson and Clark Tuttle, decide to give the wounded man help, and agree to move him in the hopes of finding someone with medical experience.

The wounded man tells his rescuers the story of the military's development of large grasshoppers, or locusts, which would devour the crops and food sources of the enemy. The creatures were large - up to one meter high and two meters long – and didn't stop at eating test vegetation. These creatures also devoured humans. This development didn't stop the military's research into developing the Carapachi - grasshopper soldiers.

The two men discover that Cavendish was also a product of the military's experiment. He was created as a member of the "Cadre de Carapachi", intended to be a liaison between humans and the Carapachi.

The two men discover that the Cadre may be much more human than they realize, in this science fiction novella by T. Whitman Bilderback, "Cadre".

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sardis County Sentinel Press
• Release date: Mar 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9781507061985

T. Whitman Bilderback

T. Whitman Bilderback is retired, and lives in Tennessee.  He spent over forty years as a TV repairman.  He served in the United States Navy as a Petty Officer 2nd Class, also called Electronics Technician 2nd Class, on what was then called a “kiddie cruise”.  Mr. Bilderback is the father of author T. M. Bilderback, proving that the writing gene runs in the family.

Book preview

Copyright 2014 by T. Whitman Bilderback

All rights reserved.

Cover design by Christi L. Bilderback

Cover photo licensed through Can Stock Photo © Can Stock Photo Inc. / gorbovoi81

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Copyright Information

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Footnotes

About The Author

Other stories by T. Whitman Bilderback

1

WES MADSON KNEW THAT he and his friend Clark Tuttle were in a serious situation.

They were in Wes's solar powered ultralight in what had begun as a delightful, if illegal, adventure. Then, out of nowhere, a summer thunderstorm of huge proportions had overtaken them. They were being literally blown across the sky. At first Wes had tried to outrun the storm, but it was moving across the land so swiftly that the small plane didn't have a chance in the desperate race. Wes tried to change course so as to fly across the storm, but the wind would alternately lift the windward wing and cause them to bank steeply or thrust them downward at an alarming speed. There was no escaping the severe turbulence.

The little craft was strictly low tech. It was powered by a super conductor electric motor which derived its energy from batteries charged by solar fiber material that covered the wings and the rear fuselage. The motor drove the push propeller and, through servo links, the vertical lift props under each wing. The most modern technology used on the plane were the ferro-antimatter batteries called Auntie Ems. The two-seater plane was an energy hog, especially if both seats were occupied, so the small but powerful, comparatively lightweight batteries were a must.  The pilot and one passenger sat side by side on a bench seat, but if the pilot alone was flying, he could slide the controls to the center of the seat, keeping a balanced trim.

The entire front area of the ultralight was open to the elements. In fact, if the flyers wanted to, they could remove their feet from the pedals or footrests and be their own landing gear. The plane had small wheels mounted on downward facing stubs with built in shock absorbers. With the vertical lift props plus the very low landing speed, wheeled gear was usually not needed. In a brisk wind, the craft could face the wind and actually fly backwards in relation to the ground. In a storm such as the one that had them in its grip, the plane had almost no directional control, and the occupants had no protection from the driving rain and hail.

Visibility was extremely limited. No landmarks were discernible, but Wes was sure that they had been blown many kilometers from home. The plane had no modern communication equipment whatsoever, and both Wes and Clark had left their satellite phones at home to avoid tracking. Clark had worried that something might happen at home and Jill, his wife, might need to reach him. Wes, who had no permanent attachments to any woman, had convinced Clark that they would definitely be home by suppertime. All sats had automatic tracking signals that Gov could use to locate any citizen anytime, and if the person being checked was flying, that fact would instantly be obvious to the tracker.

The only flying that was permissible for an individual was in a Gov approved flying vehicle that was locked into Rackair. Rackair had been developed to handle the increase in air traffic that happened after antimatter propulsion systems had made flying routine for the masses. The air control system had divided all airspace into ten meter cubes and computers automatically guided each craft through the system, keeping each one separate from others by at least ten cubic meters. The lowest block was reserved for hovercraft, which had their own separate system called Rackcar. All hovercraft were restricted to the lower ten meter grid unless they were inside a parking garage. This restriction was not really necessary, as most hovercraft could rise no higher than two meters. Both Rackair and Rackcar systems were coordinated when a fly-ve was taking off or landing. It all made for very safe, and to Wes, very boring travel. But right then, Wes wished he was in a rack-connected craft. 

They had been engulfed in the storm for at least an hour when Clark shouted a warning. Wes had been unable to understand what his friend had shouted due to all the noise, but seconds later he could see on his right a huge tree heading right for them.  He realized, just before crashing, that the tree wasn't moving, beyond violently swaying in the gale. It was the wind-driven airplane that was blowing sideways to the tree.  Suddenly, a large branch pierced the right wing, and the plane was impaled, suspended in the air by one wing. The big push propeller continued to rotate for a time, hitting against another limb, but before a dazed Wes could think to shut it off, the propeller and the motor it was attached to tore loose from behind him and plummeted to the ground.

The men hung there, buckled in, afraid to unhook or do anything that might send them and their plane to the earth below. About thirty minutes later, which seemed a lot longer, the storm began to abate. They could now see that they were in the top of a large pine tree, some sixty feet in the air. The branches in the top were covered with pine needles, but the trunk below them was devoid of any foliage or small branches.  The forest floor was likewise lacking any leafy growth. They thought it peculiar, and Clark guessed that maybe there had been a forest fire that had not reached the crowns of the tallest trees. The next consideration was how to get down.

There was on board a small collection of tools and supplies. Included was a fifty foot nylon rope which was used to tie the plane down on the rare occasions when it had to be left outdoors overnight. Clark unbuckled his harness and reached for the same branch that pierced the wing. He swung out of the plane and stood on a limb a few feet below. The movement caused the plane to shift position so that the damaged wing was almost vertical and the fuselage was down sideways. Clark grabbed a rail that ran along the bottom of the plane and held tight to steady it.

Wes, take a wrench and unfasten my seat harness. Then unhook and get yours loose. Then pass them to me and I'll see if I can use them to tie the plane to the tree to keep it from falling. Then maybe we can get down and see what we can do to salvage the situation. But be careful, man, Clark warned. 

Wes couldn't reach any of the bolts holding the harnesses, or the tools, while he was still belted in. He would soon be forty years old, and it was difficult for him to unbuckle, hanging sideways, but he did it by first pulling up to the framework to take his weight off the belt. He unbuckled from the harness and pulled the canvas tool bag from its place under the seat and found the wrench that would work. Then he was able to free the harnesses and pass them to Clark, who immediately hooked them together and used them to secure the little plane to the tree.  Wes grabbed the rope and made his way to the limb that Clark stood on. They knotted the rope to the limb and Clark started down the tree. Even as high as they were, the trunk was at least a foot in diameter, and the larger branches were not spaced regularly enough to climb down without a rope.

After Clark reached the ground, having to drop several feet from the bottom end of