Part 1 – Saving the World With Your Best Friend
It was another beautiful day at sea as Johnny Sanderson and Roger Brown made their way to save the world. Again.
The sea glimmered that bizarre navy-yellow shade that made it feel like a scene from a cheesy jigsaw image. Gulls were nowhere to be seen, they were much too far from land, but beautiful big eagles could be spotted dotted here and there on the sides of the various gray behemoths that bopped in the ocean swell.
Johnny fist bumped Roger as they strode purposefully forward. Roger moved from a fist bump to a powerful hand clasp and both men – powerful, regal almost – smiled joyfully. People ran all around them, clearing the decks. A siren was sounding, but it was distant to Johnny’s ears. It was hard to focus on anything but his best buddy and their Bone, no doubt anxiously waiting for them to climb aboard.
“Fine day to save the world old buddy!” Roger shouted, as they continued towards the jet. It would have been impossible to hear him were they not already wearing their headphones
“Roger, roger!” Johnny responded. They both laughed. It was a wonderful joke.
The B-One Lancer was being well looked after, a crew of perhaps twenty around it adding the finishing touches. A BL23 loader sat underneath the central bomb bay, young men and women with ladders tightening notches and typing commands. They looked nervous, fearful even but the two pilots ignored them all. The jet’s ladder sat open, welcoming them.
“After you friend!” Roger called, gesturing with his hand for Johnny to go before him. Johnny nodded his thanks, grateful that he and Roger had found such comradeship. The world was a wonderful place. Taking a deep breath and one last glance at the seas around him, Johnny began to climb up and into the ship’s belly, the light of the evening being obscured by the jet’s sheer size and jet black paint finish.
At the top of the ladder, a serious face lay waiting for him. It was a strong face, Johnny thought. A nice face. Offensive Systems Officer Daryl O’Hanlon offered Johnny a hand and hoisted him the last few steps into the belly of the ship. A ship within a ship, Johnny thought, amused at the idea and not for the first time.
“Lieutenant O’Hanlon! A beautiful day. How are we doing?”
“All systems ready Captain, we’re just waiting for the payload to be secured. He stood to attention as Johnny moved past him and there was a flurry of movement as a young woman seated at a bright computer terminal on his left did likewise.
“Sir. We’ve confirmed our escorts will be joining us over…”
“Lieutenant Bowerson! I didn’t realise you would be on our crew today!” Roger was at the top of the ladder now, beaming at their little crew. O’Hanlon moved to help him up, but Roger shook his head, and threw himself up into a very impressive squat from the top of the ladder. Johnny felt like applauding.
“Sir.” Bowerson nodded, still at attention. Her red hair was invisible underneath the full face helmet she wore. “I…”
Johnny smiled reassuringly at her. “Yes, I know Bowerson, escorts confirmed 45 minutes from the border. Very good.”
He couldn’t tell, but it seemed like Bowerson was taken aback by Johnny and Roger for some reason. She wasn’t usually part of their flight crew – poor Edgar had been arrested just over an hour ago, so she was a late stand in – but he had heard good things. Even still, something told Johnny a short speech might be in order.
“Men.” He saw Roger nod appreciatively. It was a strong start to a speech. He made a mental note to thank his good friend. “It is the honour of our lives to carry out this sort of mission. A mission to save the world. And I wouldn’t do it with anyone else by my side.”
With that, Johnny turned and made his way into the cockpit. Yes, a strong finish to the speech as well.
Roger clambered into the cockpit a moment later, and the two men began to run through the checklist of things to do before they saved the world. As they worked, Roger whispered quietly to him.
“It would be nice if Edgar was here as well.”
“Yes, poor Edgar. I hope he’s alright.”
“Poor man. Don’t know what came over him.”
“Well, we’ll just have to do him proud, am I right?
“Roger, Johnny.”
“Johnny, Roger – nice to meet you!” The two men laughed again.
Chatter came over the radio at the exact moment there was a solid thump from below them indicating the payload had been secured. The chatter in his headset confirmed it and a shaky voice came across stutteringly.
“Captain Sanderson, you… you’re cleared for immediate take off. We are now at Defcon Two. Repeat, say again… we are now at Defcon Two.”
“Roger Control! Defcon Two. Takeoff checks complete. Let’s get this baby off the ground.” He grinned at Roger. “Yehaw partner!”
With that, they hit the thrusters, letting them build for a few seconds.
“Crew, ready for take off?” The excitement was almost overwhelming. Dear God but Johnny loved his job.
“Sir.”
“Sir.”
Johnny smiled. The back room crew, as he sometimes thought of them, could be awfully dull sometimes. But they were wonderful in their own way, sitting at their computer screens like a couple of kids on Christmas morning.
Two aircrew waved frantically in front of them and Johnny released the breaks, throwing almost 130,000kg of Betty forward. The G’s acted in opposition, pushing Johnny deeper into his seat and in less than five seconds they were in the air, having dropped nearly ten feet towards the ocean as she came off the runway. Then it was up, up, up and away (as the song went).
Through the tear shaped windows in front of him, Johnny could see other planes taking off, though they likely had different destinations. He could hear their chatter too. Everything was happening at once today – it really felt like Christmas.
“Captain Sanderson.”
This was a new voice. He glanced at Roger who pulled a wide eyed face. Johnny broke into a wide grin.
“Yes sir?”
“This is Admiral Higgens. Gentlemen. It is an honour to be giving you these orders from the President directly.” He paused dramatically, just as the plane began to level off, the engines rolling back slightly as Betty began to emerge from the cloud cover. “You have been given clearance the targeting of Moscow, Russia with your payload. Under no circumstances, are you to turn around until your mission is completed. Am. I Under. Stood?” Each punctuation like a caricature of every sergeant major. The two pilots barked the expected response.
“Sir, yes sir!”
“Around 15 minutes from the national borders at which you’ll cross, you will receive an escort out of Powidz Base in Poland. I say again, do not under any circumstances listen to the commands of European or NATO specific powers.”
“Yes sir.”
“This will be an important day men. They will make films of you in years to come. Good luck. Over and out.”
The line cut, Admiral Higgens likely moving on to make a similar call to the other bombers they had spied leaving from seperate aircraft carriers..
“He seemed nice!” Roger said. “A bit serious maybe.”
Johnny agreed.
“Lieutenant O’Hanlon. Operation Rattlesnake has been given a green light. Please prepare accordingly.”
There was a pause. An intake of breath on O’Hanlon’s microphone. Another pause. Johnny and Roger looked at each other.
“Yes sir.”
“That’s the spirit.” It wasn’t entirely the spirit though, if Johnny were quite honest. Roger tsked quietly beside him, obviously in agreement. “It’s certainly a nice thing to be able to save the world with your best friend, Roger.”
“It sure is Johnny! It sure is.”
Part 2 – The Tragic Death of Crew Member O’Hanlon Over Poland
The weather was breathtaking above the clouds. When Johnny said this to people, sometimes they would look at him funny. The more rude people would actually say something like “But, that’s not the weather really is it? It’s more the scenery, because you’re above the clouds. Isn’t that right Johnny?” As fate would have it, such a conversation had actually just taken place between Captain Johnny Sanderson and Lieutenant O’Hanlon, with O’Hanlon playing the part of the ruder person – obviously. That thought came into Johnny’s head unbidden as he was trying to enjoy the weather outside, and it made him mad at O’Hanlon.
“Isn’t the weather out there beautiful?” Roger asked. He had turned the microphone off and spoke loudly across to Johnny.
“It sure is Roger old boy.”
They were still at their peak altitude, just above 36,000 feet and everything was a soft navy shade with a hint of red lingering in the sky. The sun had disappeared. Everything was peaceful. Everything, except the radio chatter.
“Please USAF plane, land immediately.”
“US Pilots! I flew with you many times in the Iraq! I beg…”
“Crossing European soil will be considered…”
“Captain Sanderson.” The Admiral again, interrupting with a priority channel. “You are to drop to black out altitude immediately and initiate defensive jamming. Do not respond to any friendly hails that are not USAF coded. Is that understood.”
“Yes sir, dropping to black out altitude now.” He nodded to Roger, his wonderful copilot. The plane began to descend immediately. “Sir, have our other planes had difficulties?”
“Affirmative.”
“They haven’t been…?” Bowerson cut across.
“You have your orders. Admiral Higgens over and out.”
With that he was gone.
“Hey, Johnny, do you know what would be nice? If we get to do this more often.” Roger said, still adjusting the altitude dial in the auto-pilot system and scanning the clouds below for significant weather patterns. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”
Johnny, managing his own controls agreed. “That would be swell Roger.”
“You think we’ll get more operations like this after this one?”
“Do I? Roger this is just the start of all the exciting things we’ll get to do! Everything up until now has just been practise, eh?”
Roger seemed happy.
“Lieutenant Bowerson! Please initiate defensive jamming immediately.”
Frustratingly, there was another pause in the response and Johnny scowled slightly. Beside him, Roger tsked again. He was about to demand Bowerson respond when she finally spoke.
“Yes sir.”
“Thank you Bowerson.” That was a relief. The Lieutenant had a multitude of jobs to do during the flight and what Johnny had asked her to do, she likely hadn’t anticipated having to begin until they were nearly through Europe. He would give her the benefit of the doubt.
Before they had even reached their new cruising altitude – bombing altitude – a voice came over their US Air Force frequency. A female voice, with a soft English accent.
“USAF craft. This is RAF Base Scampton, please respond.” Johnny looked at Roger, who smiled back at him. They ignored the message. “USAF craft, if you do not respond you will be shot down. We will not allow you to cross British borders. Repeat, you will be shot down. Respond.”
“Sound angry.” Johnny whispered to Roger and both men chuckled. Then Johnny noticed the channel was open, meaning the back room crew could hear the chatter. He turned it off immediately.
“They’ll have a job finding us, eh?” Roger was right. They were in fact already mostly past the UK, now veering south east just over Nottingham. The cloud cover was perfect though at 27,000 feet. They were essentially invisible, thanks to a fortunate blend bulbous dark clouds and some extremely expensive US military jamming software.
The voice came back. It sounded desperate now.
“USAF craft. You can’t carry out this mission. It will.”
What ‘it’ would though, in the eyes of Ms. Base Scampton, Johnny would never know. He’d switched frequency.
They continued to fly in comfortable silence, but for the hum of the Bone’s engines. Occasionally Bowerson would message up to the cockpit that such and such a plane had come within their outside proximity; never more than 30 miles though. Commercial flights all over the world were now in the process of finding the nearest emergency landing sites they could, leaving the skies worldwide almost entirely free of planes for the first time in 100 years. Almost free.
Even after they crossed into the North Sea, veering first north and then south again, Johnny felt a thrill of excitement hearing how close the planes were to discovering them. It was like an epic game of hide and seek.
Near Gdansk, their luck ran out. They had been bouncing between 25,000 and 29,000 feet for hours, using cloud cover and their radar jamming. It was here that the clouds ran out of cloud cover and some cute eyed pilot had spotted them. Even with the undoubtable unprecedented manpower to search out their little ship, Johnny was shocked at their luck.
“RDAF F-16 Falcons approaching from north, north west. Closing at 40 miles sir. Someone definitely picked us up.” Bowerson, cheerful as ever.
“Blast.” Roger said, although he still seemed well tempered. And darn it, Johnny wasn’t going to be a Debbie Downer either.
“Can we jam their lock-on Bowerson?” Johnny asked.
“No sir.”
“Roger old boy. Are our real friends far away?” Roger tapped something on one of the screens. He turned with a smile and shook his head.
“No sir.”
It was amazing how much more pleasant to the ears Roger’s declaration was than Bowersons had been. A good man, Roger. A great man even.
“Excellent! Would you be so kind as to give them a call.” Johnny then turned the radio to the open NATO frequency and as expected, heard a chorus of breathy, desperate voices. He wondered if the other little birds which had taken off from their gray armada – those Leviathans of the sea – were enduring the same rigmarole.
“Please come in. Jesus men, don’t you know what this will do? We don’t want to have to destroy your ship but we will.” His voice was accented. Belgium maybe? There was other chatter still coming in thick and fast also; a quick scan through the different frequencies showed Johnny there were at least fifteen, maybe more, channels hailing Betty and her crew. He understood of course. It was sad but he and his very good buddy Roger (oh and O’Mahony I suppose and Bowerson of course) had a job to do and that was that. Ipso Facto. There was a very small, very scared part of his brain that heard the universal cries, heard them and really understood. That part of him was petrified. But it was smothered a little more when Roger laughed heartily beside him. He just sounded so confident.
“Do you hear this my friend?” His co-pilot turned to look at him. “Can you believe it? I wonder if the others are getting the same attention!”
The voice of the F-16 pilot behind them was still talking, gradually going from pleading to angry. Threatening even.
“We are giving you a 10 second countdown, then we will shoot you down.” Well, that certainly wouldn’t be conducive to a successful mission. He glanced at Roger again, who spoke into his headset on a different channel. Paused. Then wavered a hand around in the air.
Nearly.
“Seven. Six. Five.”
The young man, Johnny decided, had to be a thespian in his spare time. A ten countdown was so very dramatic. An old fashioned WWE ‘three count’ would, he thought, be more than sufficient.
“Four. Three. Two.” Everything was going to be fine, Johnny knew. His good buddy Roger was there beside him. Johnny asked the question again, using just his eyebrows and Roger shook his head, never losing that smile.
“O’Mahoney prepare the Angels.”
“Yes sir.”
“One.” A pause. “Fuck you for making us do this!”
Almost immediately a chorus of alarms sounded throughout the cockpit and a warning popped up on his navigation screen. It wasn’t a particularly reassuring message.
Missile locked.
“Deploy flares!” With that, Johnny disengaged autopilot and dropped Betty as quickly as he could, still taking time to enjoy the lights show the Angel Flares created as they shot through the sky behind them. There really was no guarantee they were going to be okay of course. Flares didn’t always work. Occasionally a hungry and particularly well trained missile would sneak through the flares and go after the big meal.
A series of explosions slammed the ship, violently throwing the crew backwards and forwards. Betty dropped like a rock for a second, then caught herself. Roger was cheering in the seat beside him.
Johnny kept the plane descending – the crews likely knew that the USAF ship would have countermeasures and were no doubt already lining up for another run. He also started bringing the plane towards the nearest city on their radar. Somewhere called Malmo. If the fighter jets knew what Johnny, Roger and their merry band of adventurers were really hauling they might hold off lighting the plane up. Only Johnny had no idea if blowing their jet would actually set off their payload.
“Bowerson, how are we doing at scrambling that lock?”
If she was doing her job right, the fighter jets would be struggling to get a solid lock on the ship. That the ‘Missile locked’ warning was going on and off repeatedly, only ever lasting for a second before falling off, seemed either a sign she was doing her job well or that the pilots were not that good.
“Working so far sir!” Her voice wavered slightly. What was wrong with this crew today? Apart from Roger, of course.
“Good girl, that’s the spirit! O’Mahoney, you enjoying the ride?”
He didn’t answer, and Johnny didn’t have time to prod him further as one of the ‘Missile Locked’ warnings didn’t go out.
“Oh dear.”
“Incoming!” Bowerson screamed. Johnny pulled the yoke to his right hard, sending the left wing careering into the air wildly. The missile soared past so close that Johnny swore he felt the vibrations.
“Yeehaw cowboy!” Roger roared beside him, slapping him hard on the shoulder. “Amazing flying! Not that I’m sure it was all you! Good job Bowerson! Woo!”
Bowereson came through the mike, sounding slightly chirpier now. “Thank you sir!” That was Roger, always the people’s person.
Orange light ahead lit the whole cockpit and the clouds around them. A second later, impact blasts rattled Betty again hard as chatter came in thick and fast over the radio. Johnny could see on the radar a multitude of other planes had arrived – the ones Roger had spoken to a few minutes ago. These F18 Eagles had taken off from a US Base in Poland a few hours earlier, with the intention being escort Betty into Russian airspace, but nobody expected the Goddamn Europens to take such a hissy fit. Johnny, Roger and the others – they were doing this for them.
The radio chatter consisted mostly of confirmation of kills; the Euro jets obviously hadn’t been anticipating a direct attack by their allies. Not that it was really an attack, Johnny reasoned. It was akin to an older brother beating up his younger siblings in order to toughen them up.
Johnny was about to bring the plane back to their intended cruising altitude when a voice came through the headphones.
“Sir?” O’Mahoney a-fricking-gain! With a pained expression of assured friendliness, he turned around in his seat and looked back at where he knew O’Mahoney was sat, likely scanning ahead for cloud cover at their drop off point. To his surprise though, O’Mahoney was standing in the doorway of the cockpit. He shouldn’t have been there. More surprising though was the gun in his hands.
“We are not starting a nuclear fucking war sir. Step away from the controls. I’ll crash this bitch if I have to.” The man looked so serious. The Admiral would probably laugh at him. Roger, were he given a bit more time, would no doubt come up with a pithy nickname to label O’Mahoney with. The Cowardly Irish or something. A glance over O’Mahoney’s shoulder showed Bowerson looking from man to man, alarmed. That was good news at least, that she wasn’t in on this game. Oh, O’Mahoney.
“Say, Roger! O’Mahoney looks like he’s pulling an Edgar.”
Roger hadn’t even turned around; he was still checking instruments and flicking switches. He still had a big old smile on his face.
“O’Mahoney you’re not acting out are you?”
O’Mahoney’s eyes were incredibly wide. Perhaps the poor man was just having a bit of a breakdown. His gun hand seemed stable enough though; he used his hips to lean against the side of the cabin, his feet spread to support himself, two hands on the weapon.
The gun itself wasn’t a surprise. They all had them on board, apparently so they could shoot as many people as they could if they happened to crash land in Syria or Belgium or somewhere terrible and overflowing with terrorists. Johnny’s own gun though was in his jacket, hung on the back of the cockpit door. He didn’t know where old Roger’s was. Bowerson though…
“Bowerson, would you be so kind as to talk our brother in arms down?” Johnny rolled his head slightly to the side to see better down the corridor to where Bowerson sat. She recoiled as he appeared fully into her field of vision and didn’t speak. She may not be helping O’Mahoney but neither was she exactly being their fucking knight in shining armour.
“Bowerson, you know this is wrong. Jesus, those were U.S. jets shooting down European planes? What the fuck is even happening?”
His voice rose sharply at the end of the sentence. Definitely losing it slightly. Poor soul. Beside him, Roger had started humming slightly. Johnny recognised the song – any soldier would. The words echoed around in his head while he contemplated poor O’Mahoney in front of him.
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.
A great song.
“Captain, if you don’t start dropping this plane’s altitude right now, I swear to God I’ll put a bullet in your face.”
Johnny was proud of the young Lieutenant. No ten count with him, just a straightforward threat with immediate and everlasting consequences. He did as the Lieutenant had said, turning back to his controls.
“Hearing that Roger?” Roger gave a deliberate thumbs up but continued his humming, which grew louder.
He hath loosed the faithful lightning of his terrible swift sword…
“That’s a Roger from Roger! I have bad news though O’Mahoney. This won’t work though I’m afraid.” Roger, while raising his thumbs up, had revealed his own flight pistol. “You see, if our fighter jets see us going to land, they’ll shoot us down.” Already, one of the pilots was radioing to enquire why they were dropping altitude. “And…”
“I told you Captain,” O’Mahoney interrupted, “I don’t give a singular shit about us making it. I just won’t let you drop a fucking nuke on innocent people. We’re not even at fucking war!” He seemed more comfortable now, probably because he thought Johnny really was going to land the plane.
His truth is marching on…
“Indeed! But if you’d let me finish, I would explain my friend. We would get blown up. And even if we didn’t – if somehow, our European partners didn’t blast us out of the sky the first chance they got and we were arrested, it wouldn’t do any good. Do you know why?” Johnny guessed that the Irishman did, but he didn’t give him the chance to answer; he was enjoying this. Maybe he was a thespian after all. “It wouldn’t make one fucking bit of difference, because there are so many other planes in the sky right now all going to do the. So you be the hero on Betty here all you want son.”
From beside him, Roger suddenly burst into loud, crazily loud song. “GLORY, GLORY HALLELUJAH!”
Johnny used the distraction and sent the plane into a plummet, causing O’Mahoney to stumble forward towards them. The man was clearly deranged, for he had begun firing his gun almost immediately. Johnny counted four shots and didn’t have time to even check if he himself had been hit. Undoing his seatbelt, he trusted Roger to save the plane and made to leap at their rogue offensive systems operator. Just before he tackled him off the back of their seats, there were three more gunshots, these coming from Roger’s pistol. The angle looked good. Roger really was wonderful.
Johnny and O’Mahoney were of a similar build, both tall and powerful. Johnny’s increased age had leant him more weight, meaning that while the young Lieutenant might beat him in a foot race, Johnny was able to take him to the ground, the plane’s descending angle meaning they fell at an angle. There was no sign of his gun, and the young man grunted hard as they landed on the narrow raised section that marked the doorway of the cockpit.
Johnny began to throttle the young man with his good arm, his left hand searching for the pistol. The violence of the plane’s movements must have thrown it around and it did the same with both men as they slid back toward the pilot seats. The movement brought the majority of Johnny’s weight off and O’Mahoney was able to throw a punch, but there was surprisngly little behind it. It did though, succeed in busting Johnny’s lip. He just smiled at the Lieutenant as Betty righted herself, Roger no doubt having engaged the autopilot. O’Mahoney was, Johnny had noticed, bleeding through his flight jacket in three places.
“He got you.”
There was still defiance in the Irishman’s eyes however and the moment of satisfaction with a frantic headbutt from O’Mahoney that immediately sent a spasm of warm blood shooting from Johnny’s nose. He smiled at the damage he’d done and the image infuriated Johnny. He leapt at the man again, this time going for his face. He slammed O’Mahoney’s head against the ground with both hands hard and immediately slid his thumbs around to the man’s eyes. Even bleeding out as he was with three bullet wounds, the Lieutenant grunted and twisted away from him. Johnny slid a hand down O’Mahoney’s jacket, feeling almost erotic as he did it, searching for the holes. He found one and slid as many fingers in as he could. O’Mahoney screamed, pain and desperation rife in it. He bucked wildly. Johnny slammed his head against the metal ground again and again. Again. And again, until O’Mahoney’s resistance started to diminish, his body starting to feel sluggish. Then he bore both thumbs straight down into his eyes, forcing the eyelids back and feeling a satisfying pop – first in his right side, then the left – as he pushed down. The screams turned wild, then immediately resorted to a choking moan.
“I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps: His day is marching on.” Roger sang on faintly.
Johnny looked up from the grotesqurie of the young O’Mahoney on the floor. Bowerson still sat where she was, her face blank as though she’d just tuned out of the disturbing show she’d been watching. Johnny smiled at her encouragingly, then raised his bloody hands and gave her a double thumbs up.
Her eyes widened and he noticed a small puddle pooling around her feet. He smiled back to Roger. “I think Bowerson had an accident Roger!”
Part 3 – Moscow and an Interlude Away from the Heroes
Johnny remembered how in the early days of his illustrious career (which was clearly still on an upwards trajectory) he’d been blown away that it was still possible, at tens of thousands of feet above sea level, to listen to the radio. It did strike him as peculiar that this was what impressed him rather than being in a metal box flying at over 600 miles per hour at an altitude technically closer to the stratosphere than the ground.
Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody trumpeted out now through the otherwise quiet plane. O’Mahoney’s body had finally stopped twitching, which was good because he had shot Roger [twice] in exchange of fire. Not that Roger seemed to mind the holes in his left buttock and left lung respectively. He explained to Johnny, wheezingly, that he thought the bullet had lodged in one of his ribs while trying to leave, and in his femur while the first bullet had been doing something similar.
“My… bones saved the world… Ha!”
Their escorts had dropped away at the Admiral’s orders a few minutes ago, as once again Betty began to drop altitude in the run up to their drop zone.
“Bowerson! Time to drop zone?” He could see the E.T.A. on his own readout, but it was nice to make people feel important, and he had a feeling she needed that little boost.
“About fifteen minutes sir.”
Her voice still contained that ‘not really here in the moment with you sorry sir’ quality. He fought his frustration. Roger had been shot [twice] and you didn’t hear him complaining. Besides, the readout clearly read 17 minutes and 44 seconds which was in fact closer to twenty minutes. But he had a job to do.
“Roger, Bowerson.” Roger barked a laugh,smiling with glazed over eyes at Johnny.
Johnny radioed the Admiral.
“Sir, we’re 17 minutes out from target. Do we have a green light?”
Static, then a wave of painfully loud noise from wherever the Admiral was. Voices screamed distantly. There were sounds of machinery and… a siren.
“Roger Sanderson, you have a green light for target. Give them hell!”
“Understood, thank you sir. So our trouble over Poland didn’t alert anyone?”
More static followed by another burst of noise. Those were definitely screams. Possibly gunfire toot. And that siren.
“It did in fact alert all parties.” The Admiral seemed out of breath. “We’re having a hell of a time trying to sort that out at the minute.” He didn’t ask for specifics on what had happened. Nor did he elaborate on the fact that if all parties were alerted (i.e. the Ruskies) then surely they would be launching their own party poppers right back at them. And theirs would come with their own super fast jets; so what was the point of dropping them with planes now? But that thought was smothered again, as the Admiral came back again. “You men complete your mission and everything will be fine.”
“Yes sir, thank you sir.” Johnny paused, wondering if it would be impolite to inquire further but ultimately deciding it might be rude not to ask. “Sir, may I ask how the other missions have gone to date?”
An indistinguishable roar of sound came back and played through Betty’s crews ears for a few seconds. Then it went silent.
I guess that’s a solid no then.
“I’m hungry.” Roger said beside him, as Freddie Mercury trailed off.
Any way the wind…. Blows.
It was a valid point which suddenly seemed quite important to Johnny. He was hungry too.
“Roger that! Have you any snacks co-pilot?”
“There’s some in one of… the storage boxes in the back. Would you mind…?” Johnny stared at him for a second, before realising that his old friend wasn’t in peak physical condition. In fact, there was a surprising amount of blood pooled under Roger, some of it a sickly dark shade. Johnny kept forgetting the man had been shot [twice].
“No, no, you sit where you are Roger!” He paused a minute, hoping that Bowerson would get off her lazy ass and actually do something, but there was no luck. O’Mahoney certainly wouldn’t be jumping off the floor any time soon, although Johnny noticed the man’s chest did still rise and fall, if very slowly.
He unbuckled himself and stood with a barely restrained sigh, not bothering to avoid standing on O’Mahoney – not even really thinking about him. He walked over to the storage box, staring daggers at Bowerson the entire time. Perhaps he was being a little petulant but that didn’t change the fact that she was a lazy parker. Well he certainly wouldn’t be offering her any of his delicious – the key was already in the box so he turned it, intrigued – popcorn!
His mood brightened immediately and he turned to beam at Bowerson’s general direction. The pink bag (Sweet and Salty!) was almost full, though he imagined they weren’t the freshest. Both of these facts gave Johnny a wave of something like compassion (hey, it was nice to be nice!) and he walked over, proffering her the bag.
He tried his ‘You’ve been misbehaving and I’ve been misbehaving but hey there’s food to be eaten so let’s let bygones be bygones, eh?’ face.
She looked up at him with that vapid gaze, still sitting in her own piss.
“Popcorn?” He shook the bag in her face.
“No sir. Thank you sir.”
Johnny shrugged and walked back to the cockpit, skipping around the payload and this time pulling the door closed between the cockpit and the rest of the ship. It took a few slams as O’Mahoney’s head was still in the way.
“Johnny!” Roger sounded genuinely delighted to see him, which warmed his heart.
“Roger!” Johnny roared back. “How are we doing now?”
“Cruising at 20,000 feet and about…” He struggled to lean down to his left to read one of the dials. Johnny watched him. “Oh dear, is… that six… minutes to target? We’re behind, behind. Behind, behind like Bee Hives… Ha!” His laugh wheezed out, accompanied on its journey by a little bit of bloody phlegm.
“I got the popcorn.” He strapped in again, and placed the bag right on Roger’s lap after taking a few pieces for himself. “Okay, show time! Bowerson, we’re six minutes out, get those bay doors open and ready the device.”
He half expected to have to repeat himself, but the Lieutenant came back almost immediately. Surprisingly, she sounded almost like herself again. That little pep talk no doubt.
“Right away sir.”
Damn I’m a great boss.
“Moscow is looking well tonight!”
The city was indeed looking particularly beautiful. Johnny had been there once, years ago with some family. They had stayed in a hotel that had been in the process of closing down and was offering rooms at outrageously cheap prices, even considering the fact that there were only around three staff still working there at the time.
“Not for much longer.” Johnny laughed. Roger laughed with him, coughing blood onto the windscreen, not even attempting to cover his mouth. That was okay though – the man had been shot [twice!!] in service to his country. One couldn’t expect perfect decorum in such a situation. It did still annoy Johnny though, if he were being honest to God honest.
The sky was cloudless and quiet. Johnny had anticipated some sort of resistance. Radar wouldn’t be able to track them but he couldn’t fathom why the sky wasn’t full of fighter jets if they knew what was coming. No anti aircraft fire. No desperate messages on frequencies begging them to stop. Just, silence.
It was anticlimactic.
“Slowing to 450 miles per hour. Bowerson, are you ready?”
“Yes. Yes I am sir.”
“Mr Co. Pilot; are you ready?”
Roger’s head dropped to its left sharply, then rotated up slightly. His face was pale, his lips a shade of blue. He didn’t look good. Not that Johnny should be complaining, but his old friend didn’t smell great either. He thought maybe that Roger had shit himself. Oh Roger.
“Roger that!” He managed to whisper.
Johnny gave him a great big thumbs up, nails still stained red. Then he opened the bay doors at the back of the plane. The mechanical release started beeping and that made him feel better. It added a little pinaz to what was supposed to be a very exciting event. After a few seconds there was a longer beep, signifying the bay doors were open completely, then it stopped. The noise was still significant. Betty’s engines was amplified from the open plane and the roar of the wind was like somebody blowing directly into his ears, even with his headphones in.
“Bowerson! Three minutes!”
She didn’t respond.
“Bowerson, activate Fat Man now. Respond please.” He glanced at Roger, who was drooling down the front of his jacket, left eye twitching violently and his right eye almost closed. With a hearty sigh, he undid his belt again and stood up. O’Mahoney was moaning lightly on the floor again. Bracing himself against the wind, he pulled back the door and a blast of icy Moscow air hit him. The interior was now lit with dull yellow beams in rows the length of the back of the plane. A series of red cat eyes flashed in a square around the gaping hole at the back, from which he could see the navy sky behind them.
Bowerson was nowhere to be seen.
Johnny burst out laughing. It was a wonderful joke. Looking to his left and right, revealed nothing further. The only thing large enough to hide behind was the payload itself, and he walked around it, still laughing – half expecting her to leap up and shout “Gotcha!” But she didn’t. His laughter died down slightly and he became pensive. There really weren’t many places to hide back here. Glancing over at her terminal, he saw the damp stain on her seat and a slight puddle on the floor.
There was also a single damp footprint. It faced towards the rear of the plane. Towards the open air.
“Ha!” It was hard not to laugh. “Roger, you won’t believe this, Bowerson’s gone and thrown herself out of the plane!”
Roger came back over the radio (surprisingly, Johnny admitted to himself) with a faint snicker. Then a whispered instruction.
“90 seconds.” The man sure was a professional. Twice!
He grabbed the control lever that primed the missile and was rewarded with a series of flashing lights and beeps. This really was Bowerson’s job, but he knew enough to do the basics.
I wonder if she’s hit the ground yet.
Contemplating her fall from Betty (and how great would it have been if they’d called the plane Grace?) Johnny went through the motions. He really would be the man who saved the world. Amazing, really.
“Ready at the back!” Perhaps O’Mahoney could still hear him. The payload was huge but wrapped in the black parachute, it looked like someone had wrapped up a huge cigar in particularly bleak wrapping paper.
Got to be nearly time now.
“Roger, how are we doing for time?” All Johnny had to do now was pull a level and hope the bomb went out smoothly. If it didn’t, the shift in the 42 tonne missile would catastrophically and permanently offset the centre of gravity in the plane and they’d fall right after Bowerson. That wouldn’t be ideal. The thought prompted Johnny to do a quick scan of the track which led to the back of the plane, in case Bowerson had thought to block it. Sure enough, it looked like she had tried to jam her boot in one of the payloads narrow tracks. Likely it wouldn’t have achieved anything but just to be sure he lifted it and hurled it out after her.
“You forgot this!” He screamed with a sudden burst of fury immediately followed by overwhelming mirth. “Roger, it must be time to party now?” Even if they were a few seconds out, a boom this big wouldn’t make any difference.
A pause and then, “…Roger.”
Johnny pulled the switch and the payload breaks released, allowing her to run down the track and smoothly out of the back of the plane. He waved to it, smiling. Then he turned back towards the cockpit.
****
Lada was scrolling mindlessly, ignoring a pulled muscle in her neck and waiting for her final train of the day. Then, she was burnt away.
****
Alina squatted in front of Kirill, carefully wiping his food covered little face. For less than a millisecond, she saw a light that wouldn’t be describable in either of the two languages she knew. Then, she (and little Kirill) were burnt away.
****
Albert had decided he wasn’t going to speak to Valery again. That was it. As he stomped through the terraces, he caught a glimpse of what he thought was a firework. As he looked at it though, his eyes stopped working. Grayness, painful in its immediacy, overwhelmed him. He took a deep breath in to scream for his mum. Then, he was burnt away.
****
Aaron paused his thanks to his passengers mid speech. Sonja grasped his arm in a fervent, desperate grip and a heart rending sob. His heart rate began to accelerate rapidly and his mind instantly went to his grandchildren back home. There was no noise yet – the blast rose unimaginably high into the sky. A vibration built and built and a wall of flame moved towards them across the city. Then, he – they, were burnt away.
****
Marisha’s children were all dead. This one, terrible thought repeated in her head. They had gone to the city after a party at the house to celebrate the youngest’s – Alex – turning 21. She herself had dropped them to the train station. Now the city was in flames she could see, actually see, the fire blast sweep across the land. Living in the hills south east of the country, she had the perfect, terrible view of everything.
Then the blast hit and the wall she was standing at exploded inwards. The squeal of her dogs was overwhelmed by the roar of the explosion as they were all of them buried beneath tonnes of rubble. Her skin desperately burned, Marisha lay beneath the rubble. It wasn’t dark – the explosion was lighting the sky up as if it were the middle of the day. And she began to scream.
****
Part 4 – Landing the Plane a Hero
“You know, this popcorn just isn’t cutting it for me, how about you?” Johnny looked at Roger. He had stopped replying half an hour ago. His final action had made Johnny uncomfortable – when the explosion went off, Roger had screamed. Screamed as if his very soul were on fire. Then he’d slumped over, his terrified expression dissolving into a grotesque toothy smile. The smell, Johnny noted, had not improved.
He tried to hail the Admiral again. Nothing. Nothing from any channel. Johnny had an inkling that the nuclear missiles had something to do with it. The plane itself had been lucky to survive the blast, despite being tens of thousands of feet above and almost fifty miles away when it went off. The frisson Johnny felt as the bomb lit up the entire world, as far as he could see, was the most sincere feeling of awe he had felt since he was a child.
He had turned the plane slightly, so that he could see the orange mushroom cloud rise up in a never ending crest, creating layers upon layers of mushrooms every few seconds. The light from the moon was sucked into that explosion and everything left was either a poisonous orange and white, or the blackness of a land waiting to die. That blackness, gone soon after, was the only thing Johnny could remember having ever frightened him. Even O’Mahoney had stirred from his deathly slumber when the explosion eventually reached the plane, dull and foreboding even above the noise of the engines.
He (tried to) put it out of his mind.
O’Mahoney had gone back to not moving, and it was just him and Roger again.
“You know pal,” Johnny started, swallowing, trying not to look at the black land. “I’m not sure where we’re going to land this old girl.” As he flew, alone on a plane of the dead, more began to drop. He saw them fall on country after country and each time that blackness grew a little thicker. Poland, he was sure, had been incinerated.
It was so much worse than the orange and white which he stopped counting after the sixth blast. It had least had heat, and heat was alive.
“Won’t be in any of these countries anyway, eh Roger?”
The earth below Johnny was dying. Was dead even. It didn’t make sense not to just stay in the air. All over the world, the planes which had sallied forth on their special mission would still be buzzing through the sky. Lonely bugs, searching for a leaf to land amid a field of ash. No, a sea of ash.
“Hey Roger, pass the popcorn there.” The warning alerts from the fuel gauge was irritating him again. He held his hand out for Roger, but his friend continued to just lie there. “You know Roger, you get awfully quiet when you’ve been shot.” He helped himself to some of the popcorn. Outside, he thought he saw another flash in the distance – somewhere in Germany – and another needle of fear down his neck. He shook his head violently.
“Got to look on the bright side Roger, eh? No use getting down about every little thing! We just do what we can. Will we try some of the air bases again?” He tried. There was no answer. Nothing from the US bases, nor the UK bases. Nor any of those in the European allies. He even tried the Dutch, despite the fact that they had tried to shoot them down only a few hours ago. Nada.
The engines sputtered as he approached England. He dropped to just a few thousand feet, intent on bringing the plane down somewhere safe, but the cloud cover was intense. Even at 1,000 feet, he couldn’t see a thing. 900 feet. 800 feet.
“Roger, can you make anything out there? Oh just bloody answer me!” Roger did not. The engine clunked and stopped.
Visceral fear reignited itself in all its terrible glory inside Johnny’s heart as the plane continued to sink below 500 feet.
Can’t happen to me. Won’t happen to me.
He defied this end. He could picture himself still, medal in hand, Roger by his side, the crowds cheering their names. “John-ny! John-ny! John-ny!” Chanting his name anyway.
“Johnny…” Except, that sounded like it was coming from inside the plane. It was fucking O’Mahoney. Johnny tore off his seatbelt and in a rage, turned to face the crippled coward. He was laughing, or putting on a grotesque show of a laugh, his imploded eye sockets crinkled unpleasantly. “You’re going to die.” Johnny searched rapidly for Roger’s pistol, to finish the cowardly monstrosity (that would be a great hashtag, a desperate, distracted part of his brain volunteered) when he saw it.
Another flash, brighter somehow and much closer than any of the tens of others he had seen tonight. A tightness in his chest as he went to scream.
Then, he too was burnt away.
The End
By Ethan D. Loughrey