Ever have one of those… weeks?
"Hey Rexy boy."
Max braced himself as Flight Captain, Lieutenant Ronald Jennings, "Cap'n Ron" according to his call sign, greeted his junior flight mechanic with a thump on the back. "Hey, Cap, he nodded back while giving his left shoulder a roll, trying to work out the pain. "We'll be another hour or so for fueling," the Master Sergeant said as he followed the pilot up the nose ramp of the C-5B Galaxy, holding out his clipboard. "Otherwise we're ready to button up Hannah here and fly."
Hannah was the nickname given to this particular C-5B. The Lockheed Galaxy was a super cargo aircraft stretching some 247 feet long, stood over 65 feet high at the tail, and could transport over 700,000 Lbs of whatever you could stuff into her. She was a monster of an aircraft with a big appetite for cargo, and an even bigger one for fuel.
"That's good to know Rex, good to know," Cap'n Ron acknowledged, taking the clipboard and calling out to the rest of the flight crew to gather around.
Flight Lieutenant and co-pilot: Judy Higgins, call sign "Dorothy (as in the Wizard of Oz.)"
Payload Master: Chief Master Sergeant Kale Summers, "Q-Ball."
Junior Payload Master #1: Senior Master Sergeant Jesse Goldstein, call sign "Rabbit."
Flight Mechanic: Chief Master Sergeant Hugo Duncan, call sign "Torque."
And then there was Max.
Junior Flight Mechanic: Master Sergeant Max Rex… call sign "T-Rex"
"Ok kiddies, listen up…" Cap'n Ron sighed as he looked over the load sheet. "We're heavy today, but most of this, and our passengers, will be off loaded in Honolulu…"
"Oh please say we have a few days stay before the return trip," Jesse half begged, half pleaded. "I really could use some time to work on my tan."
"Girl, I hear that," Hugo chuckled as they quickly bumped fists. "The sun, the surf, the p…"
"Finish that sentence, I dare you…" Dorothy interjected, shooting the African-American a killing glance.
"Sorry kiddies, but it looks as if we are on a turn and burn," Ron shook his head slowly. "From Hawaii, we are heading east to Saudi Arabia with 'Special' cargo…" He then paused for a moment before dropping the ten ton wrecking ball. "We're looking at a round trip time of eight days… We are doing it without a relief crew, and we are going to be short one JPM." With blank looks and astonished faces gapping back at him, Ron quickly finished with, "Junior Payload Master, Mongo, just came down with appendicitis… sorry T-Rex, but you'll be picking up the slack."
"Say what," Q-Ball demanded.
"But Cap, I have a date this Friday!" Dorothy whimpered.
"Shee-it, eight days cooped up in this bird, with you bunch of yo-yos and no back-up crew," Torque crossed his massive black arms over his beefy chest. "That ain't happinen."
"Awh man, I'm going to miss my twenty first birthday party," Rabbit suddenly looked sick. "My mom even invited all the relatives! God, she's going to kill me…"
"And what do you have to say about all this?"
Blinking, Max suddenly became aware that the flight commander was eyeing him, waiting for a complaint of some kind. "I've got nothing better to do," he finally said with a shrug.
"Good man T-Rex, That's why I like flying with you," and again, Cap'n Ron slammed his hand into Max's back with a loud thump. "Now the rest of you have…" he took a moment to scan his watch, "One hour to make calls and clear your schedules, we lift off in 17:30 hours… that is all."
The night fight to Hickam Air Force base was uneventful and rather relaxing once everyone stopped griping about the mission and got down to business. Once at Hickam, Q-Ball, Rabbit, and Rex oversaw the off loading and reloading of cargo, while Dorothy got permission to sneak into town and scrounge up some nonmilitary provisions for the next leg of the trip. Sure, the government had spent billions of dollars to streamline the military into a fast response killing machine, but one quickly got tired of MRE's on long flights. So everyone in the flight crew shelled out thirty bucks apiece and sent Dorothy off with a shopping list.
It took her almost three hours to fill out the list.
After Dorothy returned and the new "special" cargo had been stored, the C-5 Galaxy was once again airborne.
"Max…MAX… Wake the hell up!"
"Huh, what" the Master Sergeant snapped out of his slumber and nearly collided with Jesse as he sat up quickly.
"Come on," she sounded anxious as she began to back out of bunk room two. "Get the lead out T-Rex, we've got trouble!"
Just as he was about to ask, the whole room suddenly dropped three feet, leaving Rabbit floating in mid air for a scant second. Instantly Max was up and in time to catch the girl just as the room sprang back up to meet her, using his own body to cushion her fall. "It's ok, I've gotcha…" he said as the two of them rolled to a stop against the outer bulkhead wall.
"umm, thanks," Rabbit blushed as she came to rest atop the shirtless Master Sergeant's chest.
"Anytime…" he responded warmly.
It was no secret that Jesse had a crush on Max, and while she was rather impressed with his lightning reflexes and the washboard chest he was sporting, Rabbit was quickly reminded why she had awaken him so roughly when the plane did another sudden dip and slight slide to the right. "Come on, Max," she snapped as she climbed to her feet, "We've flown into a bad storm and the turbulence has shifted the cargo." She was at the door in no time and only paused to call over her shoulder, "We need your help locking down the load, so let's go!"
Scrambling to his feet, Max took a moment to untie the sleeves if his coveralls from around his waist, before slipping them on and zipping up his Nomex flight uniform. Though still questioning what the hell was going on, he was out the door and heading to the forward ladder that descended to the cargo deck. Fortunately, said ladder was right next to the cockpit and as he passed, he could hear some of what was happening.
"Fuck! The chop is getting heavier to starboard," Dorothy grunted as she helped Cap'n Ron fight the controls.
"More power to number two engine," the flight commander snapped, "We have to keep her from rolling over…"
"This ain't no ordinary thunder bumper, guys," Torque called while doing something to the circuit breaker panel to his right. "Ok, radar should be comin back up…"
"About fuckin' time…" Dorothy started to say, only to become strangely quiet. "Ron…"
"I see it…" the commander acknowledged in the same hushed tone.
"Sweet Jesus," Torque voice wavered…
Max wanted to hear the rest, but he was already down the steps and onto the cargo deck. "Rabbit, Q-Ball?" he called when his feet hit the floor. One look around him and Max felt a chill run up his spine. The cavernous bay of the C-5 was almost big enough to hold an impromptu football game inside its walls. The plane was simply huge, so much so, that one could stand at the nose and watch the plane flex while in flight. That in itself was always a bit unsettling, yet in a storm, with the lights flickering, it became downright scary.
"Max… over here!"
Shaking his head, Max ran along the port side of the cargo bay until he came to the three vehicles that sat in a line down the center of the plane. Sitting between two Semi sized MRAPs, he found the two loadmasters struggling with the much smaller Humvee that they were transporting. The M-998 troop transport had somehow popped loose, and in the turbulence of the storm, had rolled up onto its side against the C-5's starboard bulkhead. "Shit on me," Max exclaimed as he rushed over to help.
"We've got to roll it back onto its wheels," Q-Ball cried as he and Rabbit fought to right the truck. "It's throwing the plane's weight off balance..."
"No shit," Max barked as he slammed his shoulder into the truck.
Together all three of them strained against the hummer, yet with the way it was sitting, it just wouldn't move. "Crap on a stick, we need Torque down here," Rabbit whimpered when the truck settled back on its side.
"He's busy," Max shot back, "something's wrong with the radar… so no help there!"
"Damn it," Q-Ball yelled out and kicked at the Hummer in frustration. "We'd need a miracle…"
And one happened.
Just as Kale kicked the truck, the C-5 hit a thrust pocket in the storm and dropped ten thousand feet in seconds. The world inside the plane went weightless. Rabbit yelped when the floor beneath her once again dropped away, only this time she wasn't the only one left hanging in the air. With an odd metallic groan, the humvee lifted a foot off the deck and bobbed before the three astonished crew members.
While Max and Jesse grasped for anything still secured to the deck, thinking quickly, Q-Ball planted his feet against the airframe behind him and shoved with all his might. Not that he needed to. Silently the hummer rotated in mid-space and righted itself. Yet just as it became level with the floor, gravity kicked back in. In the blink of an eye, the three went from 0, to plus 5 G's as the aircraft fought to regain altitude. Everything not already tied down, slammed into the deck and was held pinned to the floor by an excess of gravity.
To Max, it felt like a 400 pound man had suddenly jumped on his back and was holding him to the ground. Thankfully it didn't last long and soon both he and Jesse were back on their feet. Q-Ball, on the other hand, hadn't fared so well. Kale had been floating 4 feet over the deck when gravity struck, and on his way down, he had slammed his head into the hummer's steal hide, ripping a huge gash out of his forehead.
"Oh god, oh god, oh god…" Rabbit groaned and suddenly looked sick.
"Christ almighty," he cursed as he held his hand over the gash in his scalp while blood flowed freely down his face and dripped off his chin.
"Jesse," Max had to give the girl a gentle shake to snap her back to the problems at hand. "Help Kale up to the flight deck… Now!"
"huh" she gave him a blank look.
"Q-Ball, Upstairs, Bandage head, Now!" he barked as he gave her a push toward their injured crewmate.
"What about the Hummer," Kale asked when Jesse, as if in a trance, shuffled over and helped him up.
"I'll lock it down," Max was already grabbing several spare straps. "You need medical attention, now go!"
While Jesse and Kale headed off, Max got to work. Quickly he secured the first strap over the axel of the Hummer's driver side front tire and ratcheted it down as tight as possible. The other three straps quickly followed, one over each of the trucks independent drive axels, until he fully believed that only God himself would be able to move the hummer from its resting spot.
He was just testing the last of the ratcheting cargo straps when there came the sound of an explosion and all the lights in the cargo hold died. "Crap…" Max sighed as he sat perfectly still in the dark, waiting. He had flown through thunderstorms before and had recognized the unique sound of a lightning strike. All he could do now was wait until Torque reset the breakers… But the lights didn't come back on.
A cold pit began to form in his belly as one by one, the red emergency lights began to flicker on. If a C-5's cargo bay was a scary place during a storm with the lights on, it became hell at 20 thousand feet with the lights off. And now, with the entire plane bathed in a red glow, the comparison to Lucifer's fiery home was complete. Slowly Max began to pick his way back to the ladder. While the emergency light helped, they were located along the walls of the cargo deck and not overhead. This meant that everything was awash in thick shadows and one needed to be careful where one stepped or risk injury.
Now the interesting thing about the C-5 Galaxy is the lack of view ports. For the most part they had tiny round portholes at or near each of her six crew service doors, but nothing else, so little or no ambient light ever made its way into the plane while in flight. Yet as Max made his way back to the ladder, he caught sight of light outside the port side viewing window. As he got close to the ladder and the little window near it, he could see that the light had a flickering yellow and orange glow to it.
Stepping up to the ladder, Max suddenly became acutely aware that, except for the thrum of the engines, that plane was deathly quiet and wasn't being buffeted by the storm any longer. The other thing that he discovered was that the C-5 was listing slightly to port. Curiosity gently grabbed hold of the Junior Flight Mechanic, and he found himself inexplicably drawn to the little round window.
Outside the plane the world had changed. The rain had cleared and the stars shown high above. Far away he could see the full moon's light reflecting off what looked like an ancient Greek city made of clouds…
And to his left, the inboard number three engine was engulfed by flames.