When Allied Pilots Raced Through Storms and Secrets to Stop the V-2 Threat, Each Strike Against Hidden Launch Sites Felt Like Grabbing Seconds from a Doomsday Clock
The clock didn’t tick like an ordinary clock.
It lived on a brick wall in a windowless operations room somewhere in southern England, bolted high enough that no one could pretend not to see it. Its face was plain, its hands black, its numbers bold. But the second hand moved in a way that made men swallow hard—smooth, relentless, almost smug.
Beneath it hung a board filled with colored pins and tight handwriting. A thin line of string ran between coastal points and inland forests, then across the Channel toward cities that weren’t spoken aloud in this room. Next to the board stood Flight Lieutenant Daniel Mercer, his cap tucked under his arm, trying not to stare at the clock as if it might stare back.
No one called it “the doomsday clock” in any official memo. No one would. But that’s what the crews called it anyway, because every time the hand swept past the twelve, someone somewhere would ask the same question:
“How many minutes until the next one?”
And the worst part was that no one could answer with certainty.
At the far end of the room, Wing Commander Evelyn Hart—intelligence, sharp-eyed, always too calm—lifted a folder and tapped it twice on the table like a judge calling court to order.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, “we’re going to talk about something that doesn’t behave like anything you’ve fought before.”
The room quieted. The men, still damp from the morning’s mist, leaned in.
Hart slid a photograph across the table. Grainy. A smear of pale concrete in a clearing. A narrow path cut through trees. Something like a ramp, something like scaffolding, something like a ghost pretending to be solid.
“This,” she said, “is one of their launch points.”
Someone at the back gave a low whistle.
Mercer’s throat tightened. He’d been flying sorties for months—bridges, rail yards, depots—targets that could be explained in a sentence. This… this looked like an idea more than a place.
“They don’t need an airfield,” Hart continued. “They don’t need to meet you in the sky. They build, they hide, they fire, and then the sky does the rest.”
She paused just long enough for the meaning to settle.
“And they’re doing it again.”
A pencil scratched on a notepad. Someone’s boot shifted. Mercer felt every small sound like a ripple on a still pond.
Hart nodded to the sergeant by the wall. The sergeant pulled a cloth off a smaller board. Underneath was a map marked with circles—red, yellow, red again—each one roughly the size of a coin.
“These are the suspected sites,” Hart said. “Some are real. Some are decoys. All of them are urgent.”
She pointed at the clock. Its second hand slid forward, unbothered.
“We’re not chasing a plane,” she said. “We’re chasing time.”
1. The Briefing That Didn’t End
Outside, the airfield smelled like cold metal and wet grass. Engines coughed in the distance, warming up like beasts shaking off sleep. Mercer walked with his squadron toward the dispersal huts, his boots making dull prints in the mud.
His navigator, Corporal “Pip” Hensley, kept close. Pip had an odd talent: he could make even fear sound like a joke told under a breath.
“So,” Pip said, “we’re hunting invisible ramps in the world’s largest hedge.”
Mercer didn’t smile, but the corner of his mouth tried.
“You saw the photos,” Mercer replied. “They’re not invisible. Just… tucked away.”
“Ah,” Pip said, solemn. “Like the last biscuit in the tin when the sergeant’s looking.”
They reached their hut. The door was plastered with a hand-drawn sign: NO HEROICS, JUST RESULTS.
Inside, the pilots sat on benches while ground crew checked papers. Tea steamed in chipped mugs. A radio muttered softly in the corner.
Mercer tried to focus on the mission notes, but his mind kept returning to that clock on the wall. The doomsday clock. The way it moved like it had somewhere to be.
A young pilot named Rowan—fresh-faced, hair too neat—leaned over.
“Flight Lieutenant,” Rowan asked quietly, “is it true they’ve no warning?”
Mercer hesitated. He chose his words the way a man chooses steps across thin ice.
“It’s true they’re quick,” Mercer said. “And it’s true we’re doing something about it.”
Rowan swallowed. “My sister’s in London.”
Mercer’s reply stayed in his throat for a moment, heavy.
“Then we’ll fly like she’s our sister too,” he said.
Rowan nodded, but his eyes stayed troubled, fixed on something beyond the hut, beyond the airfield, beyond the sea.
Hart entered without knocking. She carried another folder—thicker, angrier. The room straightened as if pulled by strings.
“This is not a normal target list,” she said. “We have new information. A prisoner transport was intercepted on the continent last night. One of the captives was an engineer. He talked.”
The room leaned forward again, as if they could physically pull the truth out of her.
“He claims,” Hart said, “that there’s a timetable. Not just ‘when ready.’ A timetable. They’re trying to fire in waves.”
Pip exhaled softly. “Lovely. Like a train schedule.”
Hart’s gaze flicked to him. “Exactly. And if we can identify the pattern, we can anticipate where the next wave will come from.”
Mercer watched her carefully. Hart spoke like a woman who’d made friends with urgency and stopped waiting for permission.
She opened the folder and spread several aerial recon photos across the table. These were clearer than the first. Each showed a different patch of countryside scarred by sudden geometry: a concrete slab where nothing else was straight, a road widened suspiciously, a forest edge cut back as if someone wanted a clean view of the sky.
“Your squadron will hit Site Cinder,” Hart said, tapping one photo. “Or what we think is Site Cinder. The location is near a village we’re not naming here. You’ll know the coordinates. You’ll strike fast. No lingering.”
“And if it’s a decoy?” Mercer asked.
Hart’s eyes didn’t blink. “Then you’ll have done your part. And you’ll come home. The second wave will hit the next site. We can’t afford perfection. We can only afford pressure.”
Mercer looked at the photo again. The clearing stared back like a blank eye.
“What about defenses?” someone asked.
Hart gave a small, humorless shrug. “They’ve placed guns where they expect you. Which means they’ve also placed guns where they don’t expect you. We have reports of camouflaged positions. Expect surprises.”
The room absorbed that in silence. Pilots had a special relationship with the word “surprise.” It was never pleasant.
Hart gathered the photos. “One more thing.”
She waited until every face was turned toward her.
“If you see a convoy—vehicles covered, moving toward a clearing—you have permission to divert. Within reason. Those convoys may carry the equipment that makes the launch possible.”
Mercer felt the weight of those words. Permission to divert. Permission to improvise. Permission to choose.
That was the heaviest kind of permission.
Hart’s voice softened, almost imperceptibly.
“The clock is already moving,” she said. “So must we.”
Then she left, and the hut felt colder after her absence.
2. A Sky Full of Weather and Doubt
They took off under a sky that couldn’t decide what it wanted to be. Cloud cover shifted like a curtain in a restless theater. Sunlight broke through in sharp beams and vanished again.
Mercer’s aircraft vibrated around him, alive with mechanical insistence. Pip called out headings, distances, small corrections that kept the plane aligned with invisible lines across the world.
The formation held tight. Two flights, staggered altitude, a plan built on assumptions that the weather enjoyed mocking.
Over the Channel, Mercer glimpsed the water far below—dark, chopped, indifferent. Boats might have been there. He didn’t look long enough to know.
As they approached the coast, radio chatter tightened. Brief, clipped. No one wasted words.
Pip adjusted his headset. “Incoming front,” he said. “Cloud thickening.”
Mercer saw it: a wall of gray, swallowing the horizon.
“Of course,” Mercer muttered.
“Better than flak,” Pip offered.
“Don’t tempt the universe,” Mercer replied.
They entered the cloud. The world vanished. The aircraft became a small island of gauges and breath. Mercer kept his hands steady, eyes flicking between instruments.
Somewhere in that gray, time seemed to slow. Or maybe it only felt that way because the doomsday clock wasn’t visible here to remind them of its pace.
Then—sudden brightness. They broke through the far side, and France lay beneath them like a secret spread too wide.
Fields. Hedges. Thin roads. Tiny villages tucked like cautious thoughts.
Pip leaned forward, peering down. “Two minutes to target area,” he said.
Mercer’s pulse tightened. He scanned the terrain, searching for the unnatural geometry Hart had described. Concrete in the wrong place. A road that looked too new. A clearing that didn’t belong.
“Do you see it?” Mercer asked.
Pip hesitated. “Possibly… there. Near the tree line.”
Mercer followed his finger.
At first, it was nothing. Just a light patch. Then Mercer’s eyes caught the shape—an angled strip that didn’t match the surrounding land.
“That’s it,” Mercer said.
The formation dipped slightly as they prepared to strike. Mercer could almost feel the earth below turning its face upward, waiting.
He thought of Rowan’s sister. He thought of cities under threat. He thought of the clock.
“Begin run,” he radioed.
The aircraft descended. The target grew. Details sharpened. Mercer saw nets—camouflage draped over something metallic. He saw a narrow road with tire tracks too fresh to ignore.
Then the ground erupted with angry flashes.
“Defenses!” someone shouted over the radio.
Mercer saw bursts of smoke and light rising from the perimeter. Not a wall of fire, but enough to make the sky feel smaller.
“Steady,” Mercer said, mostly to himself.
Pip’s voice went tight. “Wind shift—adjust.”
Mercer corrected, lined up, committed.
Seconds stretched.
Then he released.
The aircraft kicked slightly as the load dropped away. Mercer pulled up hard, feeling the g-force press him into the seat. His vision narrowed at the edges.
Below, the clearing blossomed with smoke and debris—messy, sudden, definitive.
But as Mercer banked, he saw something that made his stomach drop.
A second clearing, half-hidden, farther into the trees. A suspiciously straight line cutting through foliage. Another slab. Another ramp.
“Pip,” Mercer said sharply. “Was that on the photo?”
Pip stared, then shook his head. “No—no, that’s—”
The radio erupted with overlapping voices.
“Target secondary!”
“I see movement—vehicles!”
“Convoy near the south road!”
Mercer’s aircraft shuddered as something passed nearby, too close to ignore. He tightened his jaw.
Hart’s words echoed: We can’t afford perfection. We can only afford pressure.
Mercer made a decision.
“Divert to secondary,” he said. “Now.”
Pip’s eyes widened. “We weren’t assigned—”
“We are now,” Mercer replied.
They turned back into the danger, chasing the possibility that they’d struck the wrong eye of the beast.
3. The Convoy That Didn’t Want to Be Seen
The secondary clearing was better hidden, the camouflage more careful. That alone made it feel more real.
Mercer descended again. He saw vehicles tucked beneath netting—dark shapes, angular, patient. He saw men moving like ants, too small to identify but too purposeful to ignore.
Then something else—on the road leading away, a line of trucks. A convoy, exactly as Hart had warned.
“Pip, mark that convoy,” Mercer said.
Pip worked quickly, scribbling coordinates, feeding them to the radio.
“Control, this is Mercer,” Mercer transmitted. “Convoy sighted south of target. Requesting relay to second wave.”
Static. Then: “Acknowledged. Relay in progress.”
The convoy accelerated—an almost human response, as if it knew it had been noticed.
Mercer’s breath fogged his oxygen mask. He didn’t like the feeling that the ground could react. It meant the enemy wasn’t just hiding. They were listening.
He started his run on the secondary clearing. This time, the defenses were sharper. Smoke puffs dotted the air around them. The aircraft jolted, rattling bones.
“Hold it,” Mercer muttered. “Hold it…”
Pip’s knuckles were white. “Ten seconds,” he said.
Mercer held course until his instincts screamed. Then he released again and pulled up.
As he climbed, he saw the convoy split—half turning into a forest lane, half continuing on the main road.
“They’re scattering,” Pip said.
“They’re adapting,” Mercer replied.
The clearing below churned with smoke and confusion. A piece of netting lifted and fell like a dying flag.
Mercer wanted to believe it was enough. He wanted to believe the clock had slowed.
But the clock didn’t care what he wanted.
4. The Second Hand Keeps Moving
Back in England, the operations room smelled of stale coffee and worry. Hart stood beneath the clock, listening to reports as if she could hear hidden meaning between the words.
When Mercer’s squadron returned, the debriefing lasted longer than the flight. Maps were spread. Photographs compared. Aerial footage replayed until the reel threatened to wear through.
Hart listened to Mercer describe the second clearing, the convoy, the sudden scatter.
“Two ramps,” Mercer said. “First one looked like bait. Second one looked… active.”
Hart’s jaw tightened. “That matches the engineer’s claim,” she said. “They’re building redundancies. If one site is compromised, another can fire.”
Mercer leaned forward. “Then we have to keep hitting them.”
Hart’s eyes flicked upward, briefly, to the clock.
“We are,” she said. “We will. But listen carefully: our window is shrinking.”
She pointed to a report on the table. It was thin, but it felt heavy.
“Intercepts indicate they’ve improved their mobility. Launch equipment is moving faster. They’re using roads we didn’t know existed. They’re disguising transport as farm traffic.”
Pip frowned. “You’re telling me a doomsday device is being hauled around like potatoes?”
Hart’s mouth twitched—almost a smile, almost not.
“I’m telling you,” she said, “that they’re hiding urgency behind normality. And it’s working.”
Mercer rubbed his temples. “So what’s next?”
Hart opened another folder. Inside were fresh photos—new angles, new shadows, new suspicious geometry.
“Next,” she said, “we hit the sites closer to the coast. We think they’re staging there to reduce travel time.”
Mercer’s stomach tightened.
“Closer to the coast means heavier defenses,” he said.
Hart nodded. “Yes.”
“Which means higher risk.”
“Yes.”
Mercer held her gaze. “And the clock?”
Hart looked up again. This time she didn’t hide it.
“The clock,” she said softly, “doesn’t wait for bravery. It waits for mistakes.”
The room went quiet.
Outside, in the distance, another engine started. The sound floated in like a promise.
5. A Message No One Wanted
That evening, Mercer walked alone along the edge of the airfield. The sunset was bruised purple, the clouds layered like old bandages. He could hear laughter from a nearby hut—forced, hungry laughter, the kind men used to prove they were still men.
He stopped near the fence line, watching ground crew move beneath floodlights.
A courier approached, holding an envelope.
“Flight Lieutenant Mercer?” the courier asked.
Mercer nodded.
The envelope was plain. No return address. Only his name.
He opened it carefully.
Inside was a short note written in cramped, hurried ink.
They move the ramps at night. Look for the lights that shouldn’t be there. If you strike only concrete, you strike yesterday.
No signature.
Mercer stared at the words until they blurred slightly.
He read it again. Then again.
Behind him, footsteps approached. Hart.
“You received something,” she said, not asking.
Mercer handed her the note.
Hart read it, expression unreadable, then folded it with great care—like it might cut her.
“Where did this come from?” Mercer asked.
Hart’s eyes narrowed. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”
Mercer watched her face, trying to find a crack.
“Could it be a trap?” he asked.
“It could be,” Hart replied. “Or it could be someone trying to help us from the other side of the Channel. Either way, it changes nothing.”
Mercer frowned. “It changes plenty. If it’s true, then we’re always late.”
Hart looked toward the darkening horizon, where the sea hid everything it carried.
“Then,” she said, “we learn how to be early.”
Mercer felt a chill that had nothing to do with weather.
“How?”
Hart’s gaze returned to him, sharp as a needle.
“We find the pattern,” she said. “We don’t wait for them to be ready. We catch them in the act of becoming ready.”
Mercer imagined flying over forests at night, searching for “lights that shouldn’t be there.” It sounded like superstition. It also sounded exactly like the kind of thing that might work.
He took a breath. “When do we go?”
Hart’s answer came without hesitation.
“Before the clock reaches the next hour,” she said.
6. Night Sortie
The night flight was different. The sky felt lower, closer, as if darkness had weight. The aircraft lights were dimmed. Radios were quieter. Every instruction came soft, as if loud words might alert the earth.
Pip adjusted his charts, then looked up.
“You believe the note?” he asked.
Mercer’s fingers tightened on the controls. “I believe we can’t afford to ignore it.”
Pip nodded slowly. “Right. Lights that shouldn’t be there.”
They crossed the Channel under cloud cover. No moon. No comfort.
Then, over the coast, Mercer saw it.
Not a floodlight. Not a city glow. A thin, deliberate streak—like a needle of brightness sliding briefly through trees.
“Pip,” Mercer whispered.
“I see it,” Pip breathed. “That’s… that’s not normal.”
Mercer banked slightly. The streak vanished, then returned, then vanished again—as if someone below was signaling without meaning to.
He descended carefully, staying above the darkest band of cloud.
The clearing emerged beneath them, faintly visible. Not the same as before. This one looked newer. Raw earth. Freshly cut trees. A ramp partially assembled, like a skeleton.
And there—vehicles moving. A convoy arriving.
Mercer’s heartbeat became a drum.
“This is it,” he said.
Pip’s voice went tight. “We’re early.”
Mercer almost laughed at the absurdity. Early. Like they were guests at a party no one wanted.
Defenses erupted almost immediately, but less coordinated—like men on the ground were scrambling, not prepared to be interrupted mid-task.
Mercer began his run, hands steady through sheer force of will.
He released. Pulled up.
Below, the clearing flared with smoke and disorder. Vehicles scattered into trees, but there were too many, too concentrated.
Mercer circled once, just enough to confirm the ramp’s angle had been broken, the neat geometry turned to chaos.
Pip exhaled shakily. “Tell me that mattered.”
Mercer swallowed. “It mattered.”
But as they turned for home, the radio crackled with a different kind of message—one that carried dread like a hidden passenger.
“Control to all flights,” the voice said. “Reports indicate an impact in the city. Time logged… twenty minutes ago.”
Mercer’s grip tightened.
“We were too late anyway,” Pip whispered.
Mercer stared ahead into darkness that suddenly felt personal.
“No,” Mercer said, voice low. “We were just not early enough.”
And somewhere in that brick room across the sea, the doomsday clock’s second hand kept moving—smooth, relentless, almost smug.
7. The Pattern in the Madness
The next days blurred into a cycle: briefings, flights, smoke, debriefings, restless sleep. The airfield became a machine that consumed men and produced sorties.
Hart worked like someone who had replaced fatigue with stubbornness. She pinned new photos, drew new strings on the map, shifted markers with quick, sharp motions.
Mercer watched her one evening as she stood alone beneath the clock, staring up at it as if willing it to stop.
“You don’t look away,” Mercer said.
Hart didn’t turn. “If I look away,” she said, “it will still be there when I look back.”
Mercer stepped closer. “We struck three sites in four days.”
“Yes.”
“We caught one during setup.”
“Yes.”
“And still…” Mercer gestured helplessly.
Hart finally turned. Her eyes looked tired in a way she never allowed anyone to see in daylight.
“Still, it happens,” she said. “Because we are not fighting a single place. We are fighting a system. A rhythm.”
Mercer frowned. “Then what’s the rhythm?”
Hart reached into her pocket and pulled out a small notebook. She opened it to a page filled with times—columns of them, annotated with tiny notes.
“Look,” she said.
Mercer leaned in.
Times of suspected launches. Times of observed convoys. Times of intercepted transmissions. None of it perfectly aligned—until Hart traced a finger down the column.
“They move equipment in the late afternoon,” she said. “They prepare at night. They attempt firing near dawn, when visibility changes and our patrol patterns shift.”
Mercer stared. “That’s… simple.”
Hart nodded. “Simple patterns are the hardest to see when you’re busy chasing chaos.”
Mercer looked at the clock again. Then back to Hart.
“So we fly when they move,” he said.
Hart’s mouth tightened. “We fly when they think we won’t.”
Pip, standing nearby, muttered, “So… never sleep again?”
Hart glanced at him. “Precisely.”
Despite himself, Mercer gave a short, dry laugh. It lasted only a moment. Then the weight returned.
“What about the note?” Mercer asked. “Who sent it?”
Hart’s eyes flickered. “No idea. But another message came.”
She handed Mercer a slip of paper.
The real sites smell of fresh-cut pine and hot metal. The decoys smell of paint.
Mercer stared.
Pip leaned in. “We’re receiving perfume advice now?”
Hart’s face didn’t soften. “We’re receiving a warning,” she said. “Someone is risking something to send these.”
Mercer folded the note carefully. “Or someone is steering us.”
Hart’s gaze sharpened. “That’s why we verify everything. We don’t trust. We test.”
Mercer nodded slowly.
Outside, a distant siren wailed—practice, routine, yet still capable of making the skin tighten.
Hart looked up at the clock one more time.
“Tomorrow,” she said, “we hit the chain.”
Mercer blinked. “The chain?”
Hart pointed at the map. A line of sites stretched like stepping stones from coast to inland.
“They can rebuild a ramp,” she said. “They can lay concrete again. But they can’t fire without transport, without fuel, without coordination. We strike the links. We don’t just strike the end.”
Mercer felt the plan settle into place like a lock turning.
“Understood,” he said.
Hart nodded. “Good. Get some rest. Whatever that means now.”
Mercer walked away, but the clock stayed in his mind—its second hand sweeping, smooth and merciless.
8. The Day the Sky Felt Crowded
The next mission launched before sunrise. The horizon was a thin gray line, and the air tasted like cold iron.
This time, they weren’t hunting one clearing. They were hunting movement—roads, bridges, intersections, forest lanes that could hide a convoy.
Mercer led his formation low over fields. Pip’s voice guided him with quick, precise calls.
“Crossroad ahead—watch for vehicles.”
Mercer scanned. At first, nothing. Then—
“Pip,” he said.
A line of trucks moved beneath them, covered in canvas. Not military obvious. Almost ordinary. Almost convincing.
Almost.
Mercer banked. “That’s them.”
Defenses opened up quickly—someone had been waiting, or someone was quick to react. The air around them became hostile in short bursts.
Mercer focused on the convoy. Not the idea of it. The reality. The wheels turning. The urgency disguised as routine.
He released his strike in a controlled pass—fast, clean, no lingering.
The trucks scattered, some veering into fields, others into tree cover. Dust rose. The orderly line became frantic fragments.
Mercer pulled up, heart pounding.
“Did we stop it?” Pip asked.
Mercer stared back. Smoke rose. Movement slowed.
“We slowed it,” Mercer said. “That may be the difference.”
Over the radio, other flights reported similar scenes—bridges struck, roads cratered, convoys scattered.
It felt like the sky had become crowded with purpose.
And for a brief moment, Mercer imagined the doomsday clock’s second hand faltering—just a twitch, just a hesitation.
But clocks didn’t hesitate. Only humans did.
9. The Twist No One Expected
They returned exhausted, faces drawn, hands still trembling from adrenaline.
Hart met Mercer at the debriefing table with an expression that made his stomach tighten.
“What?” Mercer asked immediately.
Hart placed a photograph down. It was from reconnaissance—taken hours after their strike.
The image showed the convoy area.
And beyond it, in the distance, a clearing.
A ramp.
A different ramp.
Mercer stared. “How—”
Hart’s voice was quiet, controlled. “They weren’t transporting the launch equipment.”
Pip blinked. “Then what was in the trucks?”
Hart tapped the photo again. “Decoy materials. Paint. Canvas. Poles. Enough to make us chase shadows while the real equipment moved elsewhere.”
Mercer felt a slow cold spread through him.
“The note,” he said.
Hart’s eyes hardened. “Yes.”
Mercer looked up. “So someone is steering us.”
Hart’s jaw tightened. “Or someone is trying to help but is wrong.”
Mercer shook his head. “The second note—paint smell—”
Hart cut him off gently, but firmly. “Doesn’t matter. We can’t rely on anonymous whispers.”
Mercer leaned forward. “Then what do we rely on?”
Hart’s gaze moved to the clock on the wall.
“We rely on observation,” she said. “And on the fact that their system—no matter how clever—still has limits.”
Mercer swallowed. “What limits?”
Hart slid another report forward. This one had a single line underlined.
Fuel storage concentrated near coastal depots due to transport constraints.
Hart tapped the line. “They can move ramps. They can move crews. But they need fuel. And they can’t hide fuel as easily as they hide canvas.”
Mercer’s eyes narrowed. “So we hit the fuel.”
Hart nodded. “We hit the fuel.”
Pip muttered, “At last. Something that doesn’t pretend to be potatoes.”
Hart didn’t smile.
“Tonight,” she said. “Before they adapt again.”
Mercer stared at the clock. The second hand swept forward, smooth, relentless.
He felt the race tighten.
10. The Strike That Felt Like Holding Breath
Night again. Cloud again. The airfield lights dimmed. Engines whispered awake.
Mercer flew with a tight formation toward the coast. The target wasn’t a ramp this time. It was a depot—hidden near rail lines, disguised with careful camouflage, guarded by men who knew exactly what it meant.
As they approached, Mercer’s hands felt steady in a way that surprised him. Not because he was unafraid, but because fear had become familiar—a roommate that stopped introducing itself.
Pip called out final corrections.
Then the depot appeared: a cluster of low structures, shadowed, too neat to be innocent.
Defenses opened up immediately—brighter, heavier than before. The sky flashed with angry bursts.
Mercer held course, jaw clenched, eyes fixed.
Release.
Pull up.
The aircraft surged, climbing hard. Mercer glanced back.
A bloom of smoke and flame rolled upward. Not pretty. Not triumphant. Just… consequential. Like a door closing.
Over the radio, other pilots reported similar results.
“Depot hit.”
“Secondary storage struck.”
“Rail spur disabled.”
Mercer exhaled a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
On the return flight, the air felt slightly different—still cold, still dangerous, but less mocking.
When they landed, Mercer’s legs felt heavy stepping onto the tarmac. Ground crew swarmed, checking damage, slapping shoulders, offering brief grins.
Hart was waiting.
She didn’t speak immediately. She looked at Mercer the way a person looks at a match after striking it—relieved it lit, worried it might burn out too soon.
“Any word?” Mercer asked.
Hart nodded slowly. “Intercepts suggest confusion on their side. Delays. Arguments. Scrambling.”
Mercer’s chest loosened.
“Does that mean—”
Hart raised a hand. “It means we stole time.”
Mercer swallowed. “How much?”
Hart looked past him, toward the operations room, toward the clock.
“Hours,” she said. “Maybe a day.”
Mercer let that sink in. Hours. A day. In ordinary life, small things. Here, everything.
Pip exhaled loudly. “A day sounds like a holiday.”
Hart’s eyes softened just a fraction.
“Don’t spend it all at once,” she said.
11. The Clock and the Human Hand
Later, Mercer found himself back in the operations room. The air was stale, the lamps harsh, the map crowded with new strings.
Hart stood beneath the doomsday clock, her arms folded, staring at the board.
Mercer joined her, looking up at the clock.
It was still moving. Of course it was.
“You ever want to smash it?” Mercer asked quietly.
Hart glanced at him. “Every day.”
Mercer nodded. “But you don’t.”
Hart’s gaze returned to the clock. “Because it’s honest,” she said. “It doesn’t pretend. It doesn’t comfort. It just tells you what time costs.”
Mercer watched the second hand sweep.
“What if we can’t stop it?” he asked, the question slipping out before he could catch it.
Hart didn’t answer immediately. When she did, her voice was softer than Mercer expected.
“Then we keep flying anyway,” she said. “Because the act of trying changes the shape of the outcome.”
Mercer stared at her.
“You sound like you believe that,” he said.
Hart’s mouth tightened. “I have to.”
A courier entered—another envelope. Hart took it, opened it, and read.
Her expression changed—just slightly, but Mercer saw it.
“What?” Mercer asked.
Hart handed him the note.
The one who writes to you is not your friend. Watch the man who smiles at the wrong time.
Mercer’s stomach dropped.
Pip leaned over Mercer’s shoulder, read it, then made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a cough.
“Well,” Pip said, “that’s cheerful.”
Mercer looked around the room. Officers, clerks, pilots—faces tired, faces focused, faces trying to look normal.
“Who?” Mercer whispered.
Hart took the note back. “Exactly,” she said. “Who?”
Mercer felt the race tighten again, but now it wasn’t only against rockets and ramps and time.
It was against uncertainty inside their own walls.
And the doomsday clock, indifferent as ever, kept ticking.
12. Dawn Without Answers
The next morning, the sky was strangely clear. Crisp. Bright. Almost innocent.
Mercer stood by his aircraft, watching the horizon. Pip fiddled with his gear, unusually quiet.
“You thinking about the note?” Pip asked finally.
Mercer nodded. “Yes.”
Pip frowned. “Do we trust any of it?”
Mercer looked at the plane—metal, bolts, scars from past flights. Real things. Tangible things.
“We trust what we can verify,” Mercer said. “And we fly.”
Pip let out a breath. “Right. Flying. Much simpler than spies.”
Across the airfield, Rowan walked toward his aircraft, face set, jaw tight.
Mercer approached him. “How’s your sister?” Mercer asked.
Rowan blinked, surprised by the question. “No new word,” he said. “Which… I suppose is something.”
Mercer nodded. “It’s something.”
Rowan swallowed. “Flight Lieutenant… do you think this ends?”
Mercer looked toward the operations room in the distance. He imagined the clock.
“I think,” Mercer said carefully, “that endings are made of small delays and stubborn people.”
Rowan nodded slowly. “Then let’s be stubborn.”
They climbed into their aircraft.
Engines started.
Propellers turned.
The sky waited, vast and unfeeling.
As Mercer taxied toward the runway, he thought of time as something physical—something you could steal, drop, lose, or claw back.
He thought of Hart beneath the clock, refusing to look away.
He thought of anonymous notes, of hidden hands, of false convoys and real depots.
He thought of the doomsday clock’s second hand, sliding forward, as if to say: Catch me if you can.
Mercer pushed the throttle forward.
The aircraft surged.
The ground fell away.
And once again, Allied pilots rose into the sky—not to chase glory, not to chase certainty, but to chase seconds.
Seconds that might mean a quiet night somewhere.
Seconds that might mean a family waking to an ordinary morning.
Seconds that might mean the difference between fear and relief, between inevitability and interruption.
Above them, the sky looked endless.
Below them, the clock kept moving.
And between those two truths, they flew.
