Cars 2 fanfiction (2)

North of the Chinese-North Korean border

1710 hours


Hunter’s HUD appeared and a notice came up from his navigation system that he was approaching the drop zone.
“Alright, Finn! Time to go to work!” Hunter said over the intercom as he opened the rear ramp. As the ramp opened with a hydraulic whir, a double door at the rear of the cabin slid open and Finn positioned himself on the rear ramp; the sound was deafening, the several hundred mile an hour winds coupled with the continuous screech of the engines drowned out most noise while the only light came from the cabin and navigation lights. Finn McMissile knew what needed to be done, he just felt nervous about doing it; driving out of a plane at 20,000 feet at just after 5 o’clock in the morning in cloudy weather did not seem ideal, but he put those thoughts aside and paid attention to orders.
Hunter looked at his HUD and a message indicated that the time for Finn to jump was now.
“Alright, Finn. Just so we’re clear; find and link up with agent SS, execute kill or capture on target Vladimir Rackanpinionov, disable the nuclear device and then get out while I provide air support.” Hunter said to Finn over the radio.
“Roger that.” Finn replied as he inched closer to the edge of the ramp and into the dark seemingly bottomless clouds below. He also knew that the chute secured to his roof was the only one he had, so there was no margin for error.
“Finn, we’ve reached the drop zone. Contact me to know you made it to the ground. Good luck, buddy; hope you’re not afraid of heights.” Hunter said.
Finn chuckled at that. “Sounds just like that plane, Dusty Crophopper, when he first raced…”
With that, Finn punched the accelerator and launched off the rear ramp. The screech of jet engines grew fainter and fainter as Finn fell nose first toward the Earth and the sound of rushing air drowned out all sounds, even his thoughts. Finn’s HUD on his mirror worked as an altimeter as he continued to fall, he monitored it closely, since he did not want to miscalculate at a time like this. The feeling of falling, the rush and frigid winds pounded the Aston Martin’s senses, but he steeled himself and was not about to let some cold air get through to him. Suddenly the altimeter bleeped, he was at 5,000 feet at terminal velocity.
“Already? I’ve only been falling for a few seconds, haven’t I?” Finn thought as the white clouds beneath him began to give way to a vast mountainous region below. After a few more seconds, the altimeter bleeped again, stating he was at 3,000 feet. Finn had a hunch that his foes might have anti-aircraft weapons handy so he wanted to wait as long as possible before pulling his chute. The altimeter bleeped again, 1,500 feet.
“Now or never!” Finn thought as he deployed his chute. A small white drag chute deployed and Finn leveled out now at 1,000 feet. Then the main grey chute deployed and Finn began to glide slowly down to the ground for the last 300 or so feet.
“What a ride that was…” Finn mumbled to himself as he neared a hilltop. Steering toward it, Finn aimed for a relatively clear area of the hill and descended toward it. Flying forwards at a steady speed, Finn’s wheels hit the ground. Letting himself roll for a second or two before applying the brakes, Finn stopped himself while the parachute floated silently to the ground. Unclipping the chute from his roof, Finn looked at his HUD and radioed Hunter, now ascending to 50,000 feet.
“Hunter, this is Finn McMissile; I’ve made it to the ground.” He stated clearly into the radio.
“Roger that, Finn. I can see you on the navigation screen now.” Hunter replied over his radio as he ascended. “Agent SS is here, I’m sending the coordinates now.”
Finn’s HUD showed a navigation download that showed his current location on the top of a hill about a mile from agent SS’s location.
“I see him; I’ll rendezvous with agent SS. I’ll keep the radio clear so this is goodbye for now.” Finn replied as he looked up into the clouds, knowing that his Gulfstream friend was up there somewhere.
“Copy that, McMissile. Out.” Hunter said and cut off his radio signal.
Alone and right where he should be, Finn started his engine and got moving. The sun was slowly beginning to come up, and visibility was improving. Weaving between trees too numerous to count, Finn made his way to where agent SS was said to be located. As Finn drove, his HUD indicated that there was a fair sized energy source ahead.
“An installation of some sort, perhaps?” Finn thought. No one would settle in an area this remote or mountainous. After about ten minutes, Finn’s HUD said that he was practically on top of agent SS, on the top of a ridge overlooking a several mile wide valley with what appeared to be an old hangar with what appeared to be a fairly new runway sitting in the center of the valley surrounded by dense green trees. This struck Finn as quite suspicious, if the hangar is abandoned then why have a new runway? As he looked through his camera, he could see the hangar looked decrepit, unused for some time. Finn was so absorbed in looking at the installation, he nearly jumped out of his chassis when he heard a close by voice say his name. Reacting instinctively, Finn revealed his twin machine guns on both his sides and aimed in the direction of the voice, only to see no one was there. Finn raised an eyebrow as a blue wave in the outline of a car appeared and then disappeared, revealing that a grey Impala SS was sitting there all along.
“A little high strung, are we?” the Impala asked as Finn put away his weapons “Allen Rubberburner, CIA.” he introduced.
“Finn McMissile, British Intelligence.” Finn replied with a trademark smile and got down to business “You’re on the same page as me about our Mr. Rackanpinionov?” Finn asked.
“Yeah, a shady kind of guy, you know? But I do find it odd that his VIN number doesn’t show on our records. You’d have to be the best of something to do that without being found.” Allen replied.
“Intelligence reported that Mr. Rackanpinionov designed and built a 7 megaton nuclear device which he intends to sell to North Korea, but he has to get it from here in China across the border.” Finn said, filling Allen in.
“That’s where we come in.” Allen said as he turned himself to face the direction of the installation along with Finn “My mission is to capture this lunatic if possible, disable the nuclear device and in a nutshell get out of here before too many hostiles show. Hunter which I saw dropped you off will cover us as we infiltrate the installation and get us out if we need him too, but your contact, Siddely is waiting for us now at Dandong, which is about 25 miles southwest of here. Once we get in the air, the Russian Air Force will back us up and the Chinese will let us leave without stopping us. The Russians will escort us to Khomutovo in Russia, we’ll be safe there.”
Finn nodded and replied “Right, then. We’re both on the same page it seems.”
Looking out and across the valley, Allen noticed rainclouds approaching from the north.
“Just our luck, a storm’s coming. That should give us a little bit of extra cover.” Allen commented and looked to Finn “Time to go see what there is down there… Let’s roll.” Said Allen as he started his engine with a rumble and Finn gave him a look of recognition.
“Is that General Motors LS3 engine I hear?” Finn asked.
“Yeah, it is. They don’t call me Super Sport for nothing!” Allen smiled as he started driving down the tree covered slope with Finn following behind. As the two cars slid more than drove down the hillside past countless trees, the sound of turboprop engines began to become more and more distinct through the trees. As Finn and Allen skidded to a halt at the base of the slope, a massive silhouette passed over the trees and the sound of four massive engines passed overhead and resonated harshly through the vicinity.
“That must have been a low pass, probably heading for that airport.” Finn said as Allen’s HUD scanned the aircraft through the trees and identified it.
“It’s an unmarked Y-8, a Chinese built transport aircraft. And you’re right; it’s heading in the same direction we are toward that airport.” Allen said as his HUD switched off.
“Maybe its carrying the nuclear device, or Vladimir Rackanpinionov.” Finn thought aloud, acting on his superb intuition.
“Well, we’re running out of time if we want to make a positive ID before whoever’s on that plane gets out of the open. Let’s move.” Allen said and he led Finn toward the installation, neither of which knowing what they’d see or face next.