by Joe Nobody
At the last possible moment, Dusty yanked the nose up, barely clearing the top of the strand. Like a rollercoaster cresting a high hump, he then pushed her back down as soon as he’d cleared the tree line. The Thrush’s dive was such an abrupt change in direction that Dusty thought his stomach was going to come out his nose.
Almost instantaneous with the dive, he banked the small plane hard. He watched in horror as his wingtip approached the ground so close that the waist-high grass below parted in the wake of air as he passed.
Standing almost vertical on its side, the Thrust turned hard. Dusty was pressed down and down in his seat, the G-Force compressing his spin. And then he was in.
The trees and hill were like the rim of a giant soup bowl, the open, flat area of the field in the middle. Keeping the plane in a constant turn, Dusty began circling laps around the edge of the bowl – hugging the forest’s edge while hopefully hidden from the birds of prey above.
Colonel Chamberlin checked his fuel, mentally calculating how much time they had before heading back to the base. Taylor, as usual, was right on his wing.
It was the captain’s voice that signaled the first indication that something was amiss. A simple radio chirp of “One, where did he go?”
Without answering, Chamberlin pointed the nose of the fighter slightly downward in order to provide a clear view of the air in front and below. There was no sign of the little crop duster and its stubborn pilot.
Knowing it was impossible for the plane to have simply disappeared, the two jet pilots slowed their speed and began a systematic search for a bright yellow, moving target. In moments, they passed over where the Commander should have been.
“Two, did he land?”
“One, it was awful quick if he did. Maybe you scared him so bad he crashed.”
“Two, there would be some smoke – wouldn’t there?”
“One, who knows? I don’t see him though.”
A tinge of panic began to rise in the colonel’s mind – visions of Taylor and him being the laughingstock of the Air Force if they couldn’t rein in a little prop-job. “Two,” the colonel broadcasted, “You split north, I’ll take the south. Low and slow, 20-mile sweep.”
“Roger, One. Breaking right.”
Separating would double the amount of air space they could search and provide different angles of sight.
Three minutes later, they met up again, no need to transmit their failure. Chamberlin was becoming angry, partly out of embarrassment. Most of his ire, however, was directed at the pilot who was eluding them.
“Two, maybe he did a 180 on us and headed back east. Let’s backtrack 30 miles and then sweep forward.”
“Roger, One – on your lead.”
For 10 minutes, the sophisticated, all-powerful cats searched for the defenseless mouse. The effort produced nothing but a growing frustration and dwindling fuel. Chamberlin’s voice developed an edge. “Two, I read 18 minutes to bingo fuel.”
“One, concur - 18 is about it.”
The lead pilot’s thoughts changed to how in the hell he was going to explain losing the target - his mind trying to reconcile what they had done wrong, if anything. When that didn’t pan out, he began mentally creating excuses while contemplating the imaginative spin that would be necessary in his report. Taylor might come through this unscathed, but his career was over.
His wingman saved the day. “One, got him,” sounded the excited voice. “Bearing 040, angels 20 or less. He’s flying laps down in that woods. I would’ve never seen him, but the sun flashed off his glass.”
Even with Taylor’s direction, the lead pilot couldn’t find Dusty. Not wanting to take the chance of another Houdini-like escape, Chamberlin transmitted, “Two – you’ve got the lead, my angle is bad.”
Dusty was flying to save his life – the most difficult piloting he’d ever attempted. The soup bowl he was hiding in didn’t have enough diameter to ever straighten the Thrush’s course. Pulling a constant, highly banked turn required all of his attention and skills – one minor distraction would result in his smashing head-on into a thick canopy of trees at 115 mph.
In addition to the difficult flying, it hadn’t occurred to him that there was no way to know how long he’d have to stay in the pattern. He couldn’t afford to scan the surrounding sky, yet the concept of looping the racetrack for even a single minute after the jets had given up and left, didn’t sit well. Every moment he circled was dangerous flying.
In the end, his predicament didn’t matter; the gray streak of the two warplanes flashing in front of him at treetop level signaled his scheme had failed. In a way, Dusty was relieved.
Timing it just right, he straightened out the Thrush and rose from his hide. He was exhausted, scared, and tired of the whole encounter. The first priority was to find a place to land the damned plane and wait for the authorities.
A few minutes later, Dusty spied a farm lane that wasn’t lined with utility poles – about as good a spot as he could hope for in the rural countryside. He adjusted his course and prepared to set the Thrush down. It soon became clear that he’d noticed the spot too late – the approach was just bad. Keeping low, he decided to circle around rather than make a mistake that would end his life.
“One, he’s trying to hide again,” announced Captain Taylor, completely misunderstanding Dusty’s maneuver.
“I see it. I’m sending this guy a message. I’m going to make sure he knows I don’t like his little games. Switching to cannon.”
Chamberlin’s broadcast seemed to take his wingman by surprise, “One… sir?”
Grunting, the flight leader said, “Two, just a warning shot. I want to see that plane on the ground before we head back to Kelly.”
The M61A1 Vulcan mini-gun installed in each fighter’s nose had been designed to crack the hulls of Soviet era battle tanks. Capable of firing 100 rounds per second, the weapon was so powerful its recoil could actually slow the Falcon’s air speed.
When Chamberlin activated the cannon, the display projected onto his canopy changed to bright green crosshairs surrounded by various sighting data. He aligned his aircraft to fire in front of the target, adjusting for the speed and angle of both planes. He squeezed the trigger.
Sounding more like a buzz saw than a gun, a virtual rope of 20mm lead shells exited the 6-barrel mini-gun.
Dusty had it all lined up with good altitude and speed. He was barely 10 feet off the ground when the earth exploded less than 100 yards in front of his plane. Geysers of soil, rock, and vegetation erupted into the air, quickly followed by the flash of the warplanes as they passed overhead.
Somehow, he managed to get the Thrush on the ground, pings and thumps of the debris striking the front of the plane as he passed through the grey cloud of residue raised by the attack.
After he was sure the landing was successful, Dusty started screaming at the circling aircraft, “Why are you shooting at me? I landed, damn it!” It didn’t matter that they couldn’t hear him; the small relief seemed worth the effort.
Shutting down the engine and still angry, Dusty pulled back the canopy and climbed out onto the wing. He reached back, pulling the A&M backpack from behind the seat.
Deciding to make for a nearby tree line, Dusty started walking across the pasture between his landing spot and the woods. He hadn’t traveled more than 30 steps when the two fighters flew over his head so low he physically ducked. His ears rang from the noise generated by their passing engines.
“Good gawd! I set it down, damn it! So what now? Are you going to make me aviator road kill, too?” he screamed.
Something snapped inside the gunsmith from West Texas. Some limit of injustice or fear or outrage was crossed with the low pass of the warplanes. Taking a knee in the open field, Dusty unzipped the backpack and removed the rail gun.
The battery was next, followed by the canister of ball bearings, and then his earplugs. He assembled the gun quickly. Leaving the power at the same 05% setting as had been used in Mitch’s la
b, Dusty smiled when the LED glowed green.
He’d hunted his share of fowl, the experience initially causing him to lead the circling aircraft by too great a distance. His mind returned to thoughts of Mitch’s instruments and the readings showing the gun’s projectile moving near the speed of light. He modified his aim, bringing the sites much closer to the nose of the lead fighter.
He pulled the trigger.
The shot’s thunder seemed less intense in the open spaces. Dusty thought he saw the mysterious black line, but it was difficult to be sure.
The most powerful explosive devised by man, the splitting of an atom, expands at roughly 9 kilometers per second, creating an atmospheric overpressure traveling at the speed of sound. Despite a diameter of less than an inch, the doorway opened by Dusty’s shot expanded at the speed of light, or 41,000 times faster. At that velocity, the blast wave created by the dimensional pipe was devastating. A thin wedge of air, with a density greater than chromium steel, slammed head-on into the F16. Like a giant knife, it sliced through the skin of the aircraft, severing metal, hoses and wiring in its wake.
From Dusty’s view on the ground, the lead warplane seemed to wobble in mid-air, almost as if it was suspended on puppet strings.
Chamberlin spied some sort of black streak flash in front of his aircraft, but before the image could register, the entire world of his cockpit went crazy.
Like an anchor had been dropped from the tail of his ship, the plane seemed to hesitate in mid-air, the jolt heaving him forward against his restraints. Then every alarm, light, and indicator on the dash started buzzing and blinking.
The stick went dead. The nose went up, and then down. The plane began spinning like a Frisbee.
The G-Force exerted against the colonel’s body was unlike any turn or dive he’d experienced in his 18 plus years of piloting jet aircraft. Quickly exceeding 10 times normal gravity, his head was pinned against the side of the canopy, his helmet weighing the same as 100 pounds, his body tipping the scales at over 2,000.
The force of the spin pulled all of the blood to one side of his torso, and his vision began to tunnel – a sign that his brain wasn’t receiving enough oxygen to function.
Adrenaline surged through the pilot’s system – his mind screaming that he was about to die. The hormone gave him super-human strength, and he needed it.
The effort to lift his one free arm was off the scale, tendons straining and ligaments being punished. Every muscle in his body protested the abuse, but he kept reaching. Visions of his wife and children filled his mind and made him even more determined to live.
His gloved hand finally closed around the ejection handle, relief surging through his brain. He heaved with the last bit of strength left in his body.
Small, explosive bolts detonated around the canopy. The bubble shaped glass flew away, pulled by the 500 mph slipstream racing past the aircraft.
Rocket motors ignited under the colonel’s seat, the effect eliciting even more pain for his already tortured frame. His perch essentially became an aircraft all its own, blasting away from the dying Falcon with spine compressing thrust.
And then everything was quiet.
The red and white stripes of the parachute’s fabric were the first thing his re-oxygenated brain registered – the colors beautiful, the air calm, the sensation of floating downward a comfort. It all began coming back to him.
His first priority was the chute, a quick glance assuring him that it had deployed properly. Next was his wingman, but a scan of the sky didn’t reveal Taylor’s plane. Despite his neck feeling like it was broken, Chamberlin kept pivoting his head in an effort to locate the other aircraft under his command.
On the third pass, he found Taylor – an identical red and white parachute drifting downward about a mile away. At least he got out, supposed the flight leader. I hope his ejection was clean.
A distant rumble drew his eye to the ground, a ball of black smoke rising into the air. That disturbance was quickly followed by another, almost identical sound. A second column of yellow flame and dark soot rose skyward. The green prairies of central Texas were now scarred with dark smears – the remains of both Falcons scattered across the landscape.
Dusty didn’t know how long he’d been standing with his mouth open. Searing pain in his lungs reminded him of the need to breathe. The realization that he’d just shot down two of the world’s most advanced fighter jets caused mental paralysis for some unknown period of time. Eventually he shook it off. Like a child who had just broken a neighbor’s window with a baseball, his instinct was to run. He desperately wanted to get away from the scene of the crime.
His hands were shaking so badly he couldn’t disassemble the rail gun. Instead, he stuffed it into the pack and began trekking back to the Thrush on weak legs, a mixture of guilt and fear filling his chest.
Doing the pre-flight checklist was calming – the structured routine bringing discipline back into his scrambled mind. The crop duster achieved wheels-up four minutes later.
The fact that he’d managed a take off without becoming a third crash site restored some of his confidence. As he gained altitude, the burning debris of his former nemesis came into view, but Dusty couldn’t look. He forced his attention on the route ahead and keeping his plane level.
It occurred to him that continuing to head west was folly. The military had stockpiles of aircraft. Visions of angry pilots, scrambling toward rows of waiting war machines filled his mind. He could almost see the need for revenge painted on their stoic faces, almost feel the bloodlust rushing through their veins.
He turned south, choosing that direction for no specific reason.
The desire to flee quickly evaporated, suddenly replaced by the need to hide. “I need to think and gather my wits,” he mumbled to no one. “I feel like a big, fat target up here.”
A sort of calm came over him, the cold hand of self-preservation finally coming to grips with the panic attempting to take control of his being. For the second time in the last 30 minutes, Dusty began looking for someplace to land his plane.
The landscape below the low flying Thrush was mostly rural, obviously utilized for agriculture. The occasional farmhouse passed by, a campground, a small settlement in the distance.
The sun would be down in a few hours, and Dusty knew finding a suitable spot after dark would be next to impossible.
While he covered the miles, he tried to anticipate what the authorities would do next. Someone would realize the fighters had crashed within minutes, if not seconds. Their last known position was probably already displaying on a computer screen somewhere.
There was also a high probability that some local rancher or passerby was reporting the exact position of the wreckage. The area below was sparsely populated, but not deserted.
He assumed local sheriff’s departments would be the first responders – federal officials soon behind. It wouldn’t be shocking to learn that additional fighter aircraft had been launched to complete the mission. Perhaps military investigators, medical teams, and pilot recovery units would respond as well.
Regardless of the authorities’ reaction, Dusty needed to get out of the air and become invisible, find a spot where he could conceal the Thrush from both ground and airborne searchers. That wasn’t an easy ticket to punch.
Thoughts of landing next to a wooded area and covering his plane with limbs and branches were dismissed. He didn’t have an axe or saw and most anything he scavenged from the ground would be devoid of foliage. Besides, the effort would take a lot of greenery to cover the plane’s bright yellow paint job.
A small, unmanned regional airport might be equipped with hangars – covered parking for airplanes. They might be unlocked. They might not be visited by the local police. His plane might not be discovered by another pilot coming or going. Too many, far too many “mights.”
Luck was with him as he flew over a small knoll and spotted a large, isolated barn. There had been several such structures beneath his wings,
but all had been close by the owners’ homes. This particular example sat all alone in the middle of a relatively flat tract of wheat or barley.
Banking to circle the barn, Dusty first checked for nearby structures, but didn’t see any other sign of civilization. His next lap was to see if any utility lines or fencing might be in the way. On the third pass, he landed the Thrush and rolled close to the barn.
The old building showed weathered, gray colored, wood plank under a rusted metal roof. It was a two- story affair, a small swing door leading to what was likely a hayloft at one point in time. The main entrance was a doublewide opening, originally built extra wide, so tractors, implements, and other machinery could easily fit inside. From the outside, the growth of weeds around the threshold indicated the barn hadn’t been used in some time.
Dusty shut down the Thrush’s engine and dismounted, the still-assembled rail gun poking out of the A&M pack slung on his shoulder. He approached cautiously, peeking through the numerous cracks between the rustic planks.
The inside appeared to be absolutely empty, and that was a relief. Dusty had been in his share of old barns, many of which served as storage for junk equipment and unwanted machinery. Whoever owned this property evidently didn’t need to store anything inside.
His first attempt at opening the door added to the mounting evidence that the structure was rarely used or visited. The hinges were rusted stiff, protesting with loud screeches as he forced them open. A quick glance confirmed what he’d seen from the outside – a barren, hard-packed, dirt floor was the only thing inside.
He then stepped off the width of the entrance – relieved there would be at least a foot of clearance for each wing. Ten minutes later, the Thrush’s propeller was blowing dust and cobwebs all around the interior of its new makeshift hangar.
Dusty stayed in the cockpit until the air settled, making a mental note to measure the opposite door just in case the barn’s builders didn’t construct it the same size as the one he’d just driven through. He cursed himself for not thinking of that potential problem sooner – a sure sign of his fatigue. Turning the plane around inside would be back breaking work, if it could even be done at all.
