Karl's Last Flight, part 20
(c)2006, Basil Sands
He let out a sigh of relief.
It was over. The mission was finally over.
Now he had to get Esther to the ground. He wasn't even sure if she was still alive. It had been more than an hour since she was shot. The pressure may have caused her to bleed out.
Due to the tight confines of this cockpit, he couldn't look back to see her condition.
He called out her name, "Esther? Esther, can you hear me?"
No response.
Then another alarm sounded. This one sounded different from the others he had heard. It was an urgent high pitched rhythmic buzz, like an eighty decible bumble bee warning him to stay away from the honey.
He looked at the panel and saw a light flashing. The fuel gauge showed he was nearly out of gas.
He gained altitude, to give himself more time to find a place to land. There was a sputtering roar. Then the sound of wind.
"Man! Those gauges don't give you a lot of time do they." He thought to himself.
The thought of ejecting had crossed his mind, but he knew that Esther would not have a chance of surviving if he did that. He would have to try to land it.
He scanned the ground beneath him for a long level spot at which he could attempt a crash landing.
Spotting what looked like a long, straight, fairly smooth stretch ahead in the darkness, he worked the controls to descend.
He brought the craft down, gradually, trying not to gain any speed.
Once he was within 50 meters of the ground, he pulled back slowing the plane as much as possible. Without the engine pressing hydraulics through the craft, every movement took all of the strength he could muster.
Lining it up on the smoothest path he could find, he lowered the silent jet to the ground, using the last bit muscle he had left.
"Brace yourself Esther!" He shouted.
Holding his breath he counted down the seconds to impact.
"Five, four, three, two, one….."
The massive plane slammed hard into the desert surface. Grinding violently against rocks and sand. Sparks showering upward off the belly of the ship. The inertial force dragged it a long way, before it lurched to halt. Smoke trailed from the half buried underside. The exposed part of the jet raised from the hard ground like it had grown from this spot, a monument of violence planted here by ancient war gods.
Karl raised the canopy off the cockpit, unlatched his belt and leapt out onto the air intake.
"Esther? Esther! Please be alive."
He reached in to her, pressing his fingers onto her neck, feeling desperately for a pulse.
She was alive. Her heart was beating. She was breathing. There was still hope.
Blood had stained her clothes and dried across her face, but she was alive.
He unbuckled the straps that held her safely in the seat and lifted her limp body out onto the wing.
"Oh, God help me keep her alive. Don't let me fall in love with this woman only to lose her. Please God, I beg you, let her live."
Karl climbed down and was reaching up to move her off the wing to a safer place underneath, that would protect her from the coming heat of the sun.
There was a scuffling noise behind him. Startled, he spun around, exhausted, still ready to fight yet another assailant.
"Freeze!" shouted a strong voice. "Move and your dead!"
The voice was in English.
"Put your hands on top of your head and get down on your knees!"
There was a rapid translation in Farsi.
Karl did as he was told. As the speaker approached, Karl saw that it was an American. He saw the black shadow of a familiar emblem centered on the man's peculiarly shaped cap. The man was a United States Marine.
Stunned from everything that had happened, Karl looked up to the young man pointing a rifle at him.
"Semper Fi." He said, then collapsed face down into the dust.
Click a link below to go to the next chapter or a previous one
rate
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 1