Los Angeles, California

Johnny really should've known better. Anytime Chet asked him to do anything with him they wound up in trouble. But it seems innocent enough at the time. Chet had decided to tackle his fear of flying by taking flying lessons. And he'd gotten far enough along that he was allowed to take a passenger with him. And naturally, the Phantom chose his Pigeon. Johnny went along with it. Because a) he really didn't believe Chet was actually taking lessons in the first place, and b) if he was taking the lessons, maybe there would be some pretty girls hang around the airport.

Johnny was not wrong about the pretty girls. Unfortunately with his usual luck, none of them seem particularly interested. As he discovered, Chet was indeed taking flying lessons. The plane they went up in was a Beechcraft turboprop. It was a nice plane, and Johnny actually was impressed with it. The instructor was a grizzled old man. He looked like he been around for a hundred years. That made Johnny a bit nervous. But the man did seem to know what he was doing.

Johnny was impressed with Chet's abilities. Of course, he would never tell his friend that. It would ruin their relationship. They flew for a while, and everything was fine. The weather was beautiful. Johnny found he was truly enjoying himself. It was not until they were headed back to the airport towards the end of the lesson that trouble reared its ugly head. One of the engines in the twin engine plane began to sputter and cut out. Johnny immediately became concerned. The instructor took over flying the plane. Everything happened very, very quickly after that. Too quickly.

Obscurely. Johnny remembered that the Instructor had introduced himself as Ed. He stared at the back of Ed's head. The man valiantly fought the controls. He desperately tried to fly the plane. It was a losing battle. Chet turned his head to look at Johnny and their eyes met. Both men were horrified, because they realized this was not going to end well. They were about to crash.

~51~

Ed did the best he could. But there was no way to bring them down gently. He landed the plane in a remote area trying his best to avoid as many large outcroppings of rocks and trees as possible. It was a testament to his skill that, he managed to keep the plane from cartwheeling. As it was both wings stayed intact although he landing gear broke, and the nose impacted some heavy brush, sending some of the taller, stiffer plants in through windshield. In the grand scheme of things. It could have been much worse. They could have all been killed. Unfortunately, Ed did not survive the crash. Nothing seemed to have struck the man directly, but they figured later that it was possible the shock of the crash had simply been too much for his heart.

Johnny open his eyes. And immediately knew something was wrong. In a big way. For one thing, airplanes beyond in the air, not on the ground. In pieces. For another, his favorite shirt had a tear in it. And staring at the rip, he realized, he had a few tears in him as well. He frowned as a few more things clicked in place in his foggy thoughts. He was fairly sure he was staring out the windshield, but he was sitting sideways. Sort of. That definitely was wrong.

His head hurt—a lot. There seemed to be something itchy and sticky running down the side of his head. Which was probably less than good. Somehow nothing made sense. He had the vague idea he should be doing something, but he had no idea what. Along with the pain, he felt light-headed and dizzy. His memory seemed to be playing games with him, and the scene around him seemed to make less and less sense the longer he stared around him. Nothing much registered with him. Maybe he should just sleep for a little while and when he woke up things would be all better. Armed with his new plan, Johnny smiled and drifted off….

~51~

Chet shifted uncomfortably as he began to regain his senses. He felt the immediate sensation of being trapped. Panicked, his eyes flew open, and as he stared at the broken windshield of the plane and the invading branches, he had to force himself to breathe normally. The last thing he needed was to throw himself into a full-blown anxiety attack. He had been prone to them since Vietnam, though he was good at hiding them normally.

After a few moments he felt calmer and began to methodically take stock of his situation. He did an assessment of his medical condition. Somehow, except for some cuts and bruises, and the fact that he might have messed up his right knee and banged up some ribs on his left side, since that was the seat he was still in as pilot, though Ed had taken the controls during the last part of the flight. This plane was equipped with dual controls, since it was a specially equipped trainer. By reflex he checked to see if the emergency beacon was functioning. He was relieved when he saw that it was. He also looked at the radio on the console, and ruefully discovered that it was smashed beyond repair. He shook his head. It figured.

Chet realized he was not jammed in place but that it was going to take a bit of maneuvering to get himself free. He was more concerned for Ed and Johnny. He glanced over at Ed, and it took only one look to see that the old man was dead. Chet sighed sadly. The instructor had been a good friend that Chet had known for years. He had met him in Vietnam when the man had been in charge of the fixed wing division on the transport ship Chet had been assigned to for a while.

Unfortunately in his current position, Chet could not turn enough to check on Johnny, since he had been seated directly behind Chet. He struggled with his harness. And finally got free. He then carefully worked his way out of his seat, hissing in pain when the control panel pushed into his chest as he finally pulled himself free. He quickly massaged his aching chest and realized with some satisfaction that while he may have cracked a few ribs, none were broken. His knee was indeed very sore but didn't seem to be broken. He let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

He turned towards Johnny, and gasped. Because one of his best friends was badly hurt. There was a bad gash on his head that looked as if it might still be bleeding. He was pale, almost ashen and twisted at an odd angle in his seat because the back part of the plane had not fared as well as the front. They must have hit some sort of obstruction coming in, because the back of the plane had broken partially in half and canted the fuselage to port. John's seat had come unbolted, and one of the loose bolts had flown up and dug a furrow into his scalp. Chet was no expert, but that was how it looked to him, considering there were several loose bolts littering the floor.

He looked around for a first aid kit, knowing from his conversations with Ed that there would always be a survival kit in any plane he flew. Gratefully, he discovered a fairly extensive kit inside a footlocker filled with MREs, water, two canteens, water purification tablets, a pot, a roll of plastic bags, a roll of duct tape, four flannel jackets, four survival blankets, two K-Bar survival knives, a folding Pulaski tool*, a folding shovel, a waterproof box of matches, two tarps, four Maglites, a compass, extra batteries and a 25' coil of rope. He blessed Ed for the supplies which had just made it much more likely they would survive this crash. He knew from Ed's stories that he had been a POW in Korea and that he never had really gotten over the experience, that he never felt really safe anywhere. He had likely felt the need to be prepared for anything, which would certainly explain the footlocker. Because as Chet thought about it, he realized he had seen that footlocker in every plane Ed had taken him up in, as well as in Ed's office at the airport. He shook his head sadly, the enormity of his friend's sacrifice truly hitting him for the first time. He opened one of the thermal blankets and spread it over the old man's body temporarily. He would bury him properly as soon as he could, since he had no idea how long they would be here. They could move him as soon as rescuers arrived.

He moved back beside Johnny with the first aid kit and set to work assessing the damage and bandaging his head and arm. He wasn't sure how much time had passed since the crash, but some of the blood had dried on John's wounds and on his own cuts, so it had to be a while. He also absently realized that the shadows had shifted subtly since just before the crash, so he figured it had to be several hours at least. And that scared him, because it meant that his friend had been unconscious for a long time. Even more troubling, Chet knew that some of what he was doing in the process of cleaning his wounds and bandaging them had to hurt, and Gage hadn't eve twitched. That was really bad news.

Chet realized that to do any kind of real assessment, he was going to have to get Johnny out of the seat and lying on a flat surface. He looked ruefully around at the littered fuselage. There wasn't much to work with in the way of flat surfaces, but it was better than nothing. To be on the safe side, he retrieved on of the tarps from the footlocker and spread it out on the floor of the plane, after moving aside as many of the shards of plexiglass and metal as he could.

He then tackled Gage's harness, bracing him into his seat as well as he could so that he wouldn't fall to the floor because of the odd angle he was sitting in. Once he was loose, Chet gently lowered him onto the tarp, grateful for the tremendous upper body strength he possessed thanks to years of wrestling fully charged fire hose. There were not many things that didn't move when Chet Kelly wanted them to move.

He began checking Johnny over, grateful for the rudimentary first aid courses he had taken over the years, and for the exposure to some of the more advanced techniques he had picked up just from watching John and Roy work since they had been at 51s. He was also happy that Ed had had the foresight to keep a well-stocked first aid kit on hand. It was quite complete, and up-to-date.

Chet had done a preliminary assessment before and done a basic bandaging. Now he did a more thorough check and cleaning. He also took the time to actually stitch the wounds. Johnny seemed to be deeply unconscious, which really worried Chet. He finished suturing his head wound and rechecked his eyes. His pupils were more sluggish than he would have liked, but he could only hope he would come around soon. He moved on and stitched the lacerations in his arm. There were three, although only one was of any consequence.

He tore open one of the thermal blankets and wrapped Johnny in it as best he could. He knew he needed to go out and look their situation over and set up camp. They were not likely going to be able to stay in the plane for very long. Already the fuselage was showing signs of stress fractures, and it would not do to be sleeping inside the plane and have it split apart on them in the middle of the night.

Chet was nothing if not practical. Vietnam had taught him that. He was hoping that rescue would show up soon, but he was not counting on anything. For one thing, they were in a remote area, and there were mountains around. He had no idea if the emergency beacon was actually transmitting or not. If it was, fantastic. If not, then, they would be missed soon enough, and someone would come looking. But either way, for a while, they were on their own. And with John out for the count at the moment, Chet was it. He had nobody to depend on but himself. Well, if his sister was to be believed, he might have a little help…

He glanced heavenward. "God, I know we don't talk much, and I know you know what a mess I'm in. A break would be good here, huh?" He paused and thought about it. "I mean, if You could, at least for John anyway. He's a good guy who's helped a lotta people. Me, well, Ma always says we aren't supposed to ask for ourselves, so I won't, but you know anyway." He sighed and shook his head and then continued checking out the area.

~TBC~