Flight

Riley Edwards

Dr. Birkenstock

Creative Writing

2 May 2014

Jet Wash

“Russell,” the flight attendant said, “do you remember if anyone has a peanut allergy on this flight?” “Not sure Mary,” I said, “ask over the intercom.” I was a pilot for a 737 that usually flew round trips from New York to Miami, or at least I used to be. The U.S had just gone into war and we were running low on the amount of fighter pilots. America was beginning to draft pilots for the war against North Korea, and not-so-luckily for me, I saved an entire plane of people by landing my aircraft in a canal down in Santa Barbara, where I used to fly, after my aircraft had an engine malfunction. This event put me on the top of the list for “Guys who fly but don’t kill.”

December 13th, 2029, that’s when I arrived for my first day of training at the air force base. They began teaching us all the physics involved in flight, but most of us already knew all of this stuff. There were about fifteen guys in my “class”. About three weeks into classes they partnered us with a fellow pilot and we took to the skies. My partner, Tate Wheeler, was assigned to be my co-pilot and ultimately manage our weapons. The Squad leader, Captain Sachs, gave everyone a paintbrush and a few basic colors and said, “Pick a name for your jet and pick one for yourself.” Tate and I tossed ideas back and forth and finally agreed on “Freedom” since we agreed it was ironic given that we were forced into the war. Tate chose “Wildcat” to be his flight name, I decided on “Solo” because of Han Solo the pilot from star wars.

A couple of weeks went by and people had gotten used to referring to each other by their call-signs. Nobody wanted to use real names because we were all really just hoping this was some sort of bad dream. We were being deployed the next day on a mission to drop missiles on a small island where the North Korean military had set up an air base. It was around 1,800 miles west of Hawaii which was where our squad was stationed. I went back to the base’s bunk room and went to sleep early. I figured they would only keep us for one or two more missions after tomorrow and then I could go back to living my quiet life as an airline pilot, minus the crash landing in a canal.

Wildcat and I were ready had just taken off. We were flying approximately 50,00ft in the air and wouldn’t be at the target for around an hour. The flight of this plane was much harder to maneuver than my 737. However there was an amazing feeling of freedom being able to zip around in any direction including upside down, rather than just flying straight to a destination. After fiddling with the controls for a little bit, we were roughly a half hour away from our target. Right after impressing wildcat with a barrel roll, I saw a burst of light out of the corner of my eye. I though it was the sun at first, then the Panther, another jet, Came hurdling towards ours spinning uncontrollably. The Panther had lost a wing after getting hit with a North Korean anti air missile. The tumbling fighter whipped past the Freedom and caused us to go into a tailspin. The jet wash current brought on by the other plane caused us to spin equally out of control and we were stuck. We hurdled toward the water at an alarming rate. The communications were damaged and I try to get Wildcats attention. I felt like I was in limbo; we were trapped in the Freedom and nothing was in my control. This easy mission any group of beginners could do went south in a split second. The blank stare of the ocean was rapidly approaching and I motioned for Wildcat to eject as I was going to. He couldn’t understand me, I couldn’t understand anything either because the pressure was dropping so fast the blood was rushing to my brain like a rocket into space. I slammed the eject button and flew out of the Freedom’s cabin.

            At a pace that felt like forever compared to free falling from the sky, I floated down in the bright green parachute that spread across the sky. I landed into the water and it was freezing cold, I felt my lungs shrink almost instantly. I swam over to the portion of my seat that was to be used as a flotation device. It looked twice my size until I got closer and saw that it was merely half my size. I hugged it as I gasped for breath and shivered. After a moment of I realized that I could find Wildcat by his enormous green parachute floating in the water. I balance on my floating chair only to look around and see nothing. Wildcat was dead, he went down with the ship. I don’t know if it his eject wasn’t working or if he didn’t know how to but it didn’t matter he was dead, and I was alone.

            I clung to the small seat and floated, I couldn’t see a single thing in the distance. It was nightfall and despite everything that just happened I could still admire the stars. The ocean was calm; there was slight current that continued to push the seat west according to my compass, however that may have been damaged. After about a day of hopelessly floating I fell asleep for the first time. The fact that falling asleep was so hard made it all the more real that this was not a dream, it wasn’t just something I could wake up from and be home so why did I even want to sleep so bad.

            I woke up and the sun was just creeping over the horizon, it was still dark but the ocean light up from the sun like it was on fire. I began fidgeting with the seat until I realized it wasn’t bobbing up and down anymore, it was still. I put my hand out and felt the warm sand just like back home. I stood up in a blaze of excitement and ran toward along the shore. I saw a flag in the distance and as I stepped closer one by one I began seeing familiar colors, some red and white, the sun was starting to get higher and at this point it was right in my eyes. I covered it using my hand and as I moved closer I saw just the blue of the flag. Red, White, and Blue were all I needed to see. I full on sprinted, I didn’t even care what it was, the city, the base, the airport it didn’t matter. I made it to the flag and looked up at it, as a sign of hope, until I really looked at it. There weren’t fifty little stars there was just one big one. I dropped to my knees; everything was taken from me. I lost my hope, my freedom, and any chance of getting back home. I looked up at the North Korean flag and realized that it became a sign for something new, failure. I looked into the forest and I looked back at the water, I was Solo.