Now it was Bill’s turn to spend evenings cracking the books to learn about the different aircraft.
The first morning was spent covering aspects of the Caribou and putting the Probies into simulators and having them do simple actions, such as start up, take off, a short flight, and landing. The harder simulations, such as engine failures or fire, would come later.
After a quick lunch at the airfield cafe with Meri, who was going through firearms training, Bill was back at the airfield, ready to fly.
As he was doing his first pre-flight with the instructor, the smell on the flight line brought back the memory of the first time he had pre-flighted. He was fourteen years old and “the Colonel” was teaching him how to fly in an old, battered single-engine Cessna. “The Colonel” was walking him through the pre-flight, making sure he had the checklist and followed it accurately. “If you don’t have the checklist, you might forget something. And if you forget something, you might die. Never pre-flight without a checklist,” “the Colonel” admonished.
Four years later Bill had his commercial pilot’s license with single-engine, multi-engine, and water certifications, along with his instrument flight rating. These came in handy when he started school in Seattle, as he was able to finagle a part-time flying job with an airline that flew seaplanes out of Lake Union. Even then he’d known the certifications would come in handy for applying to the Corps.
Pre-flight done, the instructor and Bill boarded the Caribou through the lowered ramp in the plane’s tail. Walking up through the body, the two set their rifles and packs into storage spaces behind the cockpit. They then entered the cockpit. The instructor took the pilot’s seat and gestured Bill into the co-pilot’s seat to his right.
The instructor walked them through the start-up checklist, with first the port engine starting and revving with a whine, and then the starboard engine. Bill watched as each engine started, just in case a fire broke out.
After getting clearance to take off, circle, and do a touch and go, the instructor taxied the plane to the end of the runway, ran up the engines, and began the takeoff roll.
“Keep your hands on the yoke and follow my lead,” he told Bill.
Bill did as he was told, and as the instructor pulled the yoke back to take off, Bill could feel it move in his hands.
Soon they were circling around the field, and then the instructor lined up the twin-engine plane on the runway and brought it in for a landing, walking Bill through all the steps. Immediately upon landing he upthrottled the plane and told Bill to take it back into the air. Bill did so. It was little more difficult than any other plane he had flown before, mainly because it was also bigger than any of them.
The instructor continued to walk Bill through the flying. They did several more touch and goes before he was satisfied that Bill had the basics well in hand.
At one point the instructor pointed at what appeared to be a small convoy of trucks lined up on the apron. These included fuel and regular cargo trucks. “Looks like a survey’s about to get replenished. See them all lined up at the Survey Gate?”
Looking down, Bill could see the trucks and what he assumed was the gate—a simple affair that looked exactly like a giant gate—one big enough to drive a C-123 through.
“Let’s wrap this up. Set this bird on the ground, and don’t bend anything,” he said, sitting back and crossing his arms over his chest, leaving Bill on his own.
Bill managed to get the plane back on the ground without bending anything and taxied it to the parking ramp. It took him a bit, but he finally figured out how to turn the plane around so it was on the apron facing the runway and ready to fly again.
The instructor held out his hand to Bill and said, “Great first flight. Let’s complete the post-flight.”
Once the post-flight inspection was complete, the instructor told Bill he was done flying for the day, but to check with the head instructor to see what he could do until the end of the workday. He found the head instructor in the simulator room next to the cafe and told him what the flight instructor had said.
“Take some time to read up on flight and cargo characteristics. It’ll come in handy for tomorrow’s simulations,” Bill was told. He dug his flight manual from his pack and sat down on one of the easy chairs scattered around the airfield’s waiting room and began to read.
He was deeply engrossed in reading about overcoming engine failure when he heard the bustle of others moving around. Looking at his chronograph, he realized it was quitting time. Soon he was walking down the road toward the main part of the base and meeting up with Meri in front of the shooting range.
On his second day of flight training, things went horribly wrong.
The morning had been spent in classes and flight simulation, so Bill was glad to finally get in the Caribou after lunch.
After take-off, the instructor told Bill to get to altitude and fly toward the Salish Sea. Bill had brought the plane up to the specified altitude and was heading north toward Snoqualmie Pass when, without warning, the airplane jolted. To Bill, it felt like he was a ping-pong ball inside a tin can getting hit by a baseball bat. The yoke was wrenched out of his hands and the plane made a sudden lurch to the left and downward.
Before Bill could ask the instructor what was going on, he was drenched in a warm fluid. Grabbing the yoke wildly with one hand while clearing the fluid out with the other, he turned to the instructor. What he saw froze him in shock. It took several seconds for the shock to wear off and his brain to kick into overdrive. Pulling the yoke back and to the right to try and stabilize the ungainly bird, he keyed his radio.
“Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is Tango Zero Five declaring an in-flight emergency, over.”
Ground control came up immediately. “Tango Zero Five, state your emergency, over.”
“I think a prop blade just came through the cabin. I’ve got a runaway engine and the pilot’s been decapitated, over,” Bill practically yelled into the microphone, over the howl of the wind coming into the cockpit at more than 250 knots per hour.
“Roger Tango Zero Five. Engine out and no pilot. Your status? Over.”
“I think I’m okay. Stand by, over.”
Bill heard the control tower calling again but he concentrated on flying the plane. Bill killed the power to the port engine, leaving him with only the starboard engine, then wiped his sleeve across his face to remove as much of the pilot’s blood as possible.
Looking around, he could see the plane was stabilized in flight, but the controls were mushy. He didn’t see any signs of fire. Thank God for small miracles, he thought. His heart was beating so hard he thought his chest would explode. The adrenaline dump that the incident has caused left him hyper-aware and he felt everything was moving in slow motion. He could swear he could see the individual propeller blades of the starboard engine as they spun around at thousands of revolutions per minute.
“Tango Zero Five.”
“Go ahead Zero Five, over.”
“I’m stabilized, running on one engine. I think some hydraulics have been cut. Advise closest field, over.”
“Zero Five, can you RTB? Over.”
“Ah, roger that… I think. Over”
“Zero Five, you are first in line. Crash trucks standing by, over.”
“Roger that. Turning now, over.”
Bill gradually turned the plane around in a shallow bank until it was on a heading to Bowman Field.
As the plane lost altitude, Bill could feel the controls getting mushier. He could see the field in the distance.
“Tango Zero Five. Field in sight, over.”
“Copy, Zero Five. Field in sight. Tango Zero Six, can you do a fly by on Zero Five? Over”
“Tango Zero Six. Roger. We’ve got him in sight. Zero Six to Zero Five, you copy? Over.”
“Roger, Zero Six.”
Several more minutes passed as Bill continued to fly southward, losing altitude. He soon saw another Caribou flying in formation off his port wing.
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“Zero Six to Zero Five, over,” he heard on the radio.
“Go head Zero Six, over.”
“Zero Five, you’re missing a blade on the port prop, and there’s a gash in the cockpit. Other than that, you look stable from this side, over.”
“Copy, Zero Six. What about the rest? Over.”
“Stand by, we’ll do a fly around, over,” the pilot of Tango Zero Six said. She had the calming voice of one who had been there, done that, and it helped Bill calm down a bit.
Another minute passed.
“Zero Six to Zero Five, over.”
“Go ahead, over.”
“Zero Five, it looks like you’ve got some hydraulic fluid leaking down the bottom. Other than that, no visible damage, over.”
“Copy Zero Six. Hydraulic leak, no other damage,” Bill affirmed. He suspected that was what was causing the control problems.
As Bill approached the airfield, he deployed his landing gear. All lights indicated they were properly deployed, but he wasn’t very trusting of the plane at this point.
“Zero Six, Zero Five, over.”
“Go ahead, Five. Over.”
“Can you confirm landing gear status? Over.”
Several seconds passed before Bill heard, “Zero Five all landing gear deployed and looks locked, over.”
“Roger, Six. Thanks.”
Bill then addressed the control tower. “Tango Zero Five on final, over.”
Bill concentrated on getting the plane on the ground. As he came in on final approach, he could see crash trucks scattered on either side of the runway. By now the adrenaline had caused his eyesight to narrow, so the closer he got to touching down, the less peripheral vision he had until he no longer saw the trucks, only the rubber-streaked concrete runway.
The Dehavilland DHC-4 Caribou was designed to stop with two engines by running the props in reverse. Bill knew if he attempted that he would probably roll the bird, so instead, he throttled back the remaining engine and feathered the prop when the plane touched the ground. Glad I was reading about this shit last night, he thought as the plane slowed, gently applying the brakes.
Only now did Bill notice how tightly he was gripping the yoke. He attempted to release it, but his hands were frozen. It took several attempts before he could get his blood-covered hands free from the now sticky yoke. By then, the plane had stopped rolling. Bill could hear the sirens as the crash trucks approached.
He shut down the remaining engine, unbuckled from his seat, took one look at the decapitated, blood-soaked body of the instructor, and promptly vomited all over the floor of the cockpit.
Bill was taken to the base hospital for evaluation, both physical and mental. Fortunately, he had suffered no physical injuries, but they decided to keep him overnight, regardless. After showering and being given a mild sedative, a counselor came to his room to help him deal with the post-traumatic stress disorder that was sure to develop.
Later that evening Meri came by. She didn’t say much, just hugged Bill and told him how happy she was that he was okay. She stayed by his bed until he finally faded out to sleep.
The next morning, after breakfast in bed, Bill was discharged and told to report to an accident review board at Bowman Field. He was also ordered by the attending physician to check in with the counselor weekly for therapy. “It’s a common practice in the Corps,” the physician said. “We get a lot of trauma cases and deaths every year. We treat the whole person, not just the physical injuries. So, don’t miss the appointments.”
Bill was given a ride to the airport. As they approached the airfield, he could see a line of Caribous parked on the apron.
“They’ve all been grounded until they discover what the problem was,” the driver said.
Tango Zero Five was at the end of the apron, with a number of mechanics climbing all over it. Bill could clearly see the port engine with its missing propeller blade. The blade was no longer embedded in the cockpit.
Bill was dropped off at the entrance to the ready room and told: “They’re waiting for you inside.”
Entering the room, he saw several older Explorers sitting at a table in the front. On the opposite side of the table was a lone chair. Upon seeing him, the two men and one woman rose and gestured for him to come in.
The woman walked around the table as Bill approached. “Tango Zero Six,” she said, extending her hand.
Bill was swept with emotion. Here was the one person who was there with him in the sky, watching over him as he struggled to fly, and land, the damaged plane. He couldn’t answer, as a lump had developed in his throat. He could only shake her hand and nod.
Once they were all seated, the older man, sitting in the middle, said to Bill “That was one hell of a flying job yesterday, son.”
By now, Bill’s voice had returned. “Thank you, sir.”
“As you’re probably aware, this is an accident review board. Our job is to find out what happened so we can prevent it from happening again. If we can’t prevent it, we want to know how to deal with it. Now, we’re not here to place blame on you. You did an exemplary job. What we want to know is exactly what happened. So, can you take it from the top?”
Bill did, beginning with the original pre-flight inspection through the final moment of landing. The only thing he left out was his final action, which added to the cockpit’s slurry mess. Several times he was redirected to immediately before and after the propeller came into the cockpit.
“We know we’re pushing you here, son, but we’ve got to have all the facts.”
Finally, after several hours, the grilling was done, and they broke for lunch. Tango Zero Six, whose real name was Janet Babbitt, asked Bill to join her for lunch in the airfield’s cafe.
“I can’t give you an advance insight, but let’s just say that you’re not to blame and everyone thinks you did one helluva job,” she said, taking a bite of her sandwich.
“Thanks,” Bill said. “Also, thanks for being there. If it wasn’t for you, I’d have probably continued freaking out.”
“Naw, you were doing fine,” she said with a wave of her hand.
That evening Bill met Meri for supper and then the two of them went for a long walk.
He told her everything he could remember about the incident, including how afraid he was and how he froze up. “If it wasn’t for Babbitt calming me down, I don’t know if I would have survived.”
“Well, you did. As a matter of fact, everyone’s talking about how great you handled it. I don’t think I could have done as well.”
Sleep didn’t come easily to Bill that night, and when it did, it didn’t last long. He woke up covered in sweat, his heart racing, and wiping his face to clear the instructor’s blood off it. Once he realized what he was doing, he stopped trying to clean blood that wasn’t there.
He finally managed to sleep but woke up feeling groggy when the alarm went off.
A quick breakfast with Meri, who picked up on his mood and didn’t push him, then off to the airfield for more classes.
Caribou flights were still canceled while the technicians went over them, looking to see if the same issue that affected Bill’s ‘bou was affecting them. The Probies were told it would be another day or two until they got back up into the air, so the afternoon was spent in more class and flight simulator time.
By suppertime, Bill was feeling a bit more human and interacted a bit more with everyone. He didn’t talk about the incident, and nobody asked. He was grateful for that.
When Bill reported to the airfield the next morning, he was sent to the same room where the accident review board had met. When he entered the room, he saw Janet Babbitt sitting at the table. On the table in front of her was a thick file folder. She gestured for him to close the door and join her.
Once seated, Janet slid the folder over to him and said, “This is in strictest confidentiality. Don’t discuss this with anyone, even your girlfriend. The only reason I’m showing it to you is because the review board, and Comma
ndant Lewis, think you deserve to know. Especially after what you’ve been through.”
Bill opened the folder and flipped through it, scanning through the report and photographs. After several minutes, he closed the folder, set it down, and said, “So, it was sabotage?”
Janet nodded. “Yep. Somebody deliberately removed the cotter pins on that prop. When the nuts finally let loose, the bolts sheared, and that’s what caused the prop to go flying.”
“Who would do something like that?” Bill was shocked.
“We’re not certain, but we think the Gaia Liberation Force.”
“The Gaia Firsters?”
Janet nodded. “It’s possible that they’ve got a mole on base. That or they snuck in. Either way, it complicates things.”
Bill was alarmed. He recalled his conversation with Commandant Lewis on the last day at Lewis Landing, where Lewis warned him of the threat posed by the GLA.
“What do we do, now?”
“Carry on as usual, but just be more vigilant. At least, if you see something, you’re armed and can take action.”
Bill didn’t want to shoot anyone. That was one of the reasons he worked so hard to join the Corps; to avoid getting swept up in the US’s ongoing War on Terror and all the killing that came with it.
Janet continued. “We’ve already changed the training protocols - from now on, all props will be checked during the pre-flight inspections. I know, it’s like closing the barn door after the horses got out, but we don’t want a repeat of that.”
“You okay to go back to flying Caribous?”
Bill nodded. “Yeah, just having nightmares. I think I’ll be all right, though.”
“Well, let’s give it a try. And don’t miss those meetings with the therapist. Trust me, it’s better to talk to them than to suffer PTSD long term.”
After Janet dismissed Bill, he reported to the head flight instructor who assigned him to Tango Zero Six for the remainder of his Caribou training.
The days that followed, like the weeks before, were pretty standard. Simulation and classes in the morning followed by flying in the afternoons. Soon Bill was type rated for the Caribou, then the Provider, then the 415, and finally the Monarch.
The Corps of Discovery Trilogy Box Set: Books 1-3: A multiverse series of alternate history Page 17