Part VII – Fightin' on the Jet plane II
At the business class part of the plane, Thompson and Rogers were brought to sit there, surrounded by four youmas and Kunzite. The CO could realize that something went wrong from what he had expected. One of the monsters brought a book to Kunzite, he looked at it, and Thompson's face again and again. He was trying to compare the portrait with the disguising Thompson. In fact, the actual minister was quite fatter than Thompson, and he was unable to increase his weight in 30 minutes.
"You're not like in the portrait." Kunzite said and took Thompson's fake mustached off. "Seems you've lost some weight, Mr. Grimes."
"Er….he's been sick." Rogers said.
"Yes, a virus. Haven't eat for weeks, Runny nose, infected ears, mustache falls off." Thompson tried to act.
"Who exactly are you?"
Now Thompson comprehended that his plan had gone completely awry, so he removed his entire no longer useful disguise off. But he still had the secondary plan. Kunzite had never seen his men, although he had encountered with the almost-full-team A-216 two days before (Except Mitchell, who had to take care of the Sailor Soldiers) He was able to lie about his exact manpower aboard, this time he would tell them that only himself and Rogers were the special force up here.
"We're a couple of freelance lone ranger type. We're hired by the Japanese government to deal with you guys."
"Alright, we had to bail out." Kunzite said to his monsters. "I can't use my personal gate in the airplane, so we've to bail as soon as we're out of radar range, go to the luggage area and get all parachutes. For you freelance, unless you have wings, you're dead."
But this incident didn't slip away from Connor's eyes. He had been behind the curtain that separated between him and the first class sector. He had seen and had heard everything the youmas had said. Now it was time to go back to his teammates.
Before Connor could make it back, however, one of the youmas opened the curtain and came into the aft passenger sector, forced Connor to hide behind a seat. The wrench was still in his hand, ready to attack.
As the youma passed Connor's seat, the XO (Executive officer, meant the second-in-command in the US Army) of the A-216 special force team popped out and hit the monster with the wrench. With such a power, it went out cold almost immediately, even before its body hit the floor. However, Connor couldn't take a risk by letting the monster's body hit the floor or its comrades would hear the noise and huddle here, so he held its body, and dragged it back to the belly cargo area.
"What's going on, sir?" Westernhagen asked.
"Colonel and Rogers are in trouble, captured in the business class. Defort, try to send a message to them to go to the restroom. I'll pick the youma off as much as I can. The rest of you, after we cleared our two captured members, assault the sector. No firefighting there or the cabin will depressurize and then….The end."
"Yes, sir." Everybody replied.
After Connor climbed back up, Defort, the intelligent radio operator of the team started his mission. He knew pretty well about this 747-400, so he chose to use a little maintenance tunnel underneath the business class sector to get the nearest position to his CO and engineer without exposing himself to the youmas.
Defort pulled the tunnel's cover off and crawled into the tunnel. Inside, he could hear several footsteps, youmas, he thought. It had only a thin floor that separated him and the monsters above, any voice could be heard above. He slowly crawled on his back to Thompson and Rogers's seats, although he knew nothing about their positions, he could follow their noise anyway.
The Radioman stopped crawling after he heard Rogers's voice above him. Vocal message wasn't a good idea as everybody would know that somebody else was in the plane, so Defort decided to use a tapping or better known in the Morse code. The code was intelligible only among the special-trained users, including the entire A-216 team.
On the business class seat, Thompson and Rogers were thinking about how to escape from this situation. Their hands were cuffed, making any operation more difficult. But Thompson could hear Defort's code quite clearly.
"Rogers, listen. It's tapping." Thompson whispered. "I think it is the Morse code."
"Sir, I think it sounds like something broken in hydraulic unit." Rogers whispered.
"I'm sure it's Morse code." Thompson replied as he tried to listen and interpret the tapping noise.
"It's Defort, go…..to…..the…..Lavatory."
"Sir, I went there before we left." Rogers said.
"Connor had a plan in his head, we've to follow him. OK, we'll reply him."
Thompson tapped his foot in Morse code back to Defort, while he and Rogers started singing a song to cover the message. This was a double-edged as their singing drew Kunzite and his monsters' attention. They walked back to him to ask what happened.
"Alright, what's up here?" Kunzite said.
"Not much, we're gonna die anyway, so singing is the thing we want to do before swimming in the ocean."
"I want to go to the toilet. You guys parked the plane just 3 minutes, not enough for me to go there. Come on, I'm feeling not very good, please." Rogers said.
"OK." Kunzite replied before turned to his monster. "You take them to the toilet, the rest of you stay here."
Thompson's plan to get somebody to the toilet was successful. He could guess what his men planned to do. Rogers was taken to the toilet at the aft sector, accompanied by a monster, which its overall strength was down to 4 from original 6.
"Er…excuse me. I can't do anything inside when I'm cuffed." Rogers said. When he saw that the monster grew hesitate, he started persuading. "Oh, C'mon, What am I gonna do, flush myself down the toilet?"
The rather stupid or inexperienced captor inserted the key into the handcuff and twisted it to release Rogers's hands. Then Rogers went into the restroom and closed the door.
Inside the lavatory, Rogers grew impatient when he saw nobody inside. He had thought that when the door was opened, one of his teammate would go out and take down the captor. But his impatience quickly faded out as the floor near his feet was pushed out, revealed Defort's face.
Defort, who was small compared to the rest of the team, although he was 6' (180 cm) but his slim body made him the ideal tunnel crawler. He jostled through the little makeshift manhole up to Rogers with another wrench, before opened the toilet door and charged at the unsuspecting monster. Defort hit it with the wrench, knocked it out as the third score of the day.
As the only hostile in the aft section was eliminated, and overall strength of the Dark Kingdom on the plane was only 3. The team began the full frontal assault. Defort gave a signal to awaiting Mitchell, to let him pass the message to the rest of the team. Shortly after, all of the A-216 members began crawling up from the cargo area. Everybody was fully-armed, although Thompson himself had insisted on 'no-firing' policy as blowing a hole in the plane would depressurize the entire cabin.
The A-216 team, fully armed with Assault Rifles and Heavy Machineguns, advanced slowly and stealthy toward the business class. Lowe, Adams, Defort, Intel and Mitchell were on the portside walkway, while Connor, Bacon, Vostrikov, Westernhagen and Rogers were on the starboard.
However, Connor didn't want to storm the position, starting a firefight and blow the whole plane up. They just took covers and waited the hostiles to be panic about missing men and started looking for them. That was work, Kunzite grew impatient about his missing youmas, they were already out of radar range, but everybody he had sent to get the parachutes never came back. He ordered all his remaining monsters to find the missing, while himself went back to the pilot's cabin and took an only parachute inside.
But when the monsters opened the starboard walkway curtain, they were hit in the face by Westernhagen's gunstock. Before Kunzite could react, the rest of the team rushed into the business class and pointed their weapons at him, as had happened in the first encounter.
"Ain't you boring at being captured twice in a week?" Rogers said.
"Last time we met, I'd escaped away." Kunzite replied. "Now I've a parachute, and I'll blow this plane into pieces. Unless you've wings, you're dead."
The thing that Kunzite didn't suspect was Thompson's position. Before Kunzite went into the pilot cabin, Thompson was sitting next to the window. But after he came out, the captive was sitting next to the walkway. Before Kunzite could notice that Thompson had switched his position, Thompson used all strength he had in charging to Shitennou's body, causing him to fell down from his feet. Then the rest of the team rushed forward, trying to capture him. However, Kunzite had one advantage over the A-216 team, he had supernatural powers. Kunzite summoned an energy boomerang and threw it at a window, breaking it and causing depressurization, sucking everything inside out of the broken window.
While the A-216 members tried hastily to hold something, the Shitennou just let it go, he let the air sucked him out of the broken window. He had a parachute, and survival chance was still high.
By the way, Thompson and his team had faced such an incident twice before in their firstly missions. They knew that they had to go to the pilot cabin and try to dive the aircraft down below than 5,000 ft MSL. The A-216 pilot, Charlie Adams, climbed seat by seat to the pilot cabin, shut the door and turned off the autopilot.
"Alright, Hold on!" Adams yelled through the cabin door before pushed the yoke forward.
As Adams pitched the aircraft, the attitude indicator began turning backward as fanatically as he wanted to get to 5,000 ft as fast as possible before any of his teammates would be hypoxia, or worse, sucked out of the plane (Contrary to Hollywood myth, the loss of window won't cause an explosive decompression, but it was still possible to be sucked out of the aircraft if stay too near the window). When the indicator showed that they were at 5,100 ft, Adams pulled the yoke back to level the plane, which wasn't an easy job for such a big, fat 747 aircraft.
Thompson, Intel, and Connor came inside the pilot cabin as they wanted to examine and control the situation. Adams could smoothly control the plane now, as he had flown 747s from time to time. Thompson gave him a hand by sitting as the co-pilot, although he had no experience with jumbo jets, he had flown only single-engine aircrafts.
"Is anybody ok?" Adams asked.
"Yes, we're all fine." Connor replied.
"Haneda tower, this is flight 112 come in." Thompson said to the radio.
"This is flight 112, what's your situation, over?"
"This is A-216 Special force team. We've secured the airplane, with 2 monsters in the belly luggage sector. The rest of them were sucked out of the window, including Kunzite. You'd find him swimming in the Pacific Ocean if he hasn't used his personal dimensional gate." Thompson reported. "I and my pilot are bringing this fat lady home."
"Sucked out of the window? Is there any hole in the airplane?"
"Yes, we've got one, Kunzite broke the window to escape, and he had a parachute. Don't worry, we're at 4,900 feet. You've got to clear the runway ASAP, we're coming in."
"Roger, flight 112 we're clearing the runway." The tower answered. "Have you had any flying experience, Colonel?"
"Paper airplanes, does that count?" Thompson said in sense of humor. "For my pilot, he's the best."
In the battlefield, peace didn't stay long, so with the A-216. The aircraft violently shook once, before the alarm went off. Several warning lights raced to illuminate like a Christmas tree. Everybody tried to figure out what had going on.
"What the hell is that!?" Rogers said through the door. "Answer me, man."
"Er….looks like we've lost the vertical stabilizer." Adams said. "All hydraulics is toasted too. I can't control the plane."
"This make me think of Japan Airlines flight 123 in '85." Thompson said. "They suffered hydraulic failure and crashed into the mountain, 520 but 4 perished. And now we're facing the same problem as they did. But we're Special Force, we can do everything."
Although hated to bring his team into danger, Thompson himself thrived on adventure and the adrenaline-rush of life-threatening situation. He enjoyed every challenge that was thrown against him or his men. Thompson even smiled when in danger, as his cool-headiness in life-threatening incident saved his own life and other for several times, such as in 1988 while Thompson was still a 2nd lieutenant, his New York-L.A. 747 plane was hijacked but he managed to single-handedly overpower 5 hijackers and saved 500 passengers aboard, Thompson later was awarded with Legion of Merit Medal.
Without hydraulics, the aircraft began to fly 'uphill and downhill' or official name, phugoid cycle. Adams realized that he couldn't control the aircraft via the yoke, but he had trained with this situation before with the simulator, and knew that their only control was the engine. The Jackal tried to play with the engine control to keep the plane leveled.
"Haneda Tower, this is Flight 112, hydraulics is toasted, and vertical stabilizer has gone away. We're coming in hot. You've to clear everybody out of the airport area." Thompson said. "Charlie, can you control this?"
"Roughly, sir. But this plane is still in control." Adams replied. "Intel, how much fuel we've got left?"
"10 minutes 40 seconds if we keep flying like this." Intel said. "We'll be at Haneda Airport in 10 minutes."
"That means we've 40 seconds of fuel for nonsensical flying." Adams said. "We should have at least 1 hour in case this plane goes mad and become uncontrollable."
For 747s, using of engine to control the aircraft instead of yoke was quite difficult, especially speed controlling. However, it wasn't beyond the gifted Adams. He glanced at the altimeter and compass to make sure that his plane was in right direction. As the hydraulics had gone, autopilot was absolutely useless.
With Adams's superb controlling, 10 minutes later everybody in the pilot cabin could see a line of concrete way in front of them. It was nothing more than Haneda International airport. All the planes those already on the runway had been brought away. At the end of the runway, several Japanese emergency units were awaiting, their emergency lights were on to tell whoever saw it 'We're on duty'.
"Haneda Tower, this is Flight 112 we're coming in hot, and will land on Runway 34, you can authorize or not, but we're gonna land on it anyway." Adams said.
"Flight 112 this is Haneda Tower, Roger on landing."
"Charlie, be calm. You can make it, just follow your instinct." Thompson said.
"There will be 15 of survival chance." Intel said.
The A-216's aircraft was sinking at 700 feet per minute and flying at 180 knots on approach to the runway, too fast for safe landing, which require 140 knots and 300 feet per minute. As they were unable to control speed independently from sink rate, all the members in the passenger cabin were told to sit and fasten seat belt and try the best to make a safe landing.
Shortly after, the team could feel that the plane landed on the ground, rather heavily, but not brutal enough to damage landing gears at 158 knots and 315 feet per minute. The plane was dropped a little like a car with flattened wheels, before popped back up again. Adams quickly pulled all the throttle control back as much as he could before pedal on the brake. The plane went slower and slower while the speed indicator was turning backward toward 0 knots. Then the plane stopped at the end of the runway, only 200 meters from Tokyo bay.
Adams was so totally stressed with controlling the airplane that his body was totally hardened like a stone statue. His hands were gripping the throttle so hard that he might squeeze it into pieces. Thompson realized that he had to calm him down.
"Adams, that's OK, we made it." Thompson said. "You saved all of us, Lieutenant."
Upon hearing Thompson's word, Adams came back from stressing and looked around him, all of his teammates were still where they had been. The plane itself was still in one piece.
"Phew." Adams sighed and bumped his back to the backrest. "Sir, I request a two minute rest before get out of the plane, sir."
"Permission granted."
The A-216 members rested for two minutes to relieve all of stress and shock out of their heads before opened the main door. As soon as the door opened, all the team could see was a large group of Japanese emergency team that awaiting for them. When the Japanese could see the unscratched Special force, they jubilated and hugged each other in happiness, as they had never seen the successful without-hydraulics landing since tragic Flight 123. Lowe activated an emergency self-inhaled ramp to let his teammates slide down, and Thompson, as the CO, was the first, followed by the rest of the team.
The A-216 seemed to become local celebrities, as several Japanese from emergency units and passengers came and greeted them, some even asked for their autographs, before the units escorted them to the hangar, where the temporary operation HQ was. There General Heinemann came out and greeted the A-216 members.
"Welcome back, The A-Team." General greeted. "Looked like you've become National Heroes, aren't you?"
"Not really, sir." Thompson said. "This may cause us a trouble."
"Don't worry, Colonel, they won't tell anybody."
"Thank you, sir." Thompson said. "Guys, let's go back to the house."
………..
The A-216 House – 1721 hrs
The A-216 members took the rest as usual after the mission, and waiting for Dinner. But they didn't expect that the Sailor Soldiers would come with something special. When the ring rang again, Thompson walked to the door and opened it.
Makoto was standing in front of the house, but she had something in her hand, a white box. So Thompson opened the door to let her and her friends in.
"Good Evening, Makoto." Thompson greeted.
"Good Evening, Col. Thompson." Makoto greeted. "We've heard that you saved a plane and its passengers from the Dark Kingdom, so I've something special for your team."
Rogers, who was curious about Makoto's box, came alongside the rest of the team to the Kitchen, which part of it was the dining room. Makoto laid the box on the table and removed its cover, revealed a pound of brown chocolate cake.
"Wow, it looks so palatable." Adams said.
"I baked it." Makoto said, her face blushed a little.
"Makoto is a very good baker." Minako said. "Doctor, would you like to taste it?"
"Sure, I will."
Mitchell used a knife to cut a little piece from the cake, and took it into his mouth with a spoon. He used a few seconds to taste, but soon found out that it was one of the best. For him, he had never eaten anything so delicious before.
"It's very good." Mitchell said. "Better than anything I have eaten."
"Really?" Rogers said. "Then I'll eat the cake."
After Mitchell's initial tasting, everybody in the room cut the cake into several pieces, 15 pieces for each other, exclude Intel, of course. Because of its delicious, everybody ate it all in less than 10 minutes.
"Unfortunately, I'm an android." Intel said.
"That's OK, Intel. You can imagine how delicious it is." Adams said.
"Imagine? OK, I'll try." Intel said. "Hmm….I can taste it a little."
"It's very good, thanks so much, Makoto." Thompson said. "In return, you'll have a chance to dinner with us, all cooked by Lt. Bacon. Would you agree?"
"Yes!" Makoto replied.
The dinner was cooked by Bacon, of course, as none of his teammates could surpass him, with some assistance from who also excelled in cooking, Makoto. But Bacon still kept his food a secret, so Makoto could do only what he told her to do.
But something had gone wrong a little while the girl was slicing meat. She accidentally sliced her own finger. Blood trickled from the cut and dropped to the ground. Bacon and Mitchell hurled themselves to check if Makoto was alright.
"Just a skin cut, I'll bandage you." Mitchell said. The medic took a sticking plaster from his pocket and gently placed it on Makoto's finger.
"Mako-chan, are you alright?" Ami said. "You're bleeding."
"That's fine. Doctor dressed the cut for me."
Makoto walked back to help Bacon cooked the meal like the accident had never happen until finished. Then they brought all the food on the table, they were all covered so nobody would know what it was. The A-216 members had the same food from a big pot, but the Sailor Soldiers acquired in individual dishes.
"Alright, open it." Bacon said.
When the Sailor Soldiers opened the covers, their eyes opened wide in surprise, as the food was their favorite, Meatloaf for Makoto, Curry rice for Minako, Sweet soup for Usagi, Fugu for Rei, and Sandwiches for Ami, which he put several healthy ingredients into them to increased overall nutrient to meet body's requirements. They didn't believe that Bacon, who they had known for only a few days, would know about their favorite food.
"How do you know about our favorite food?" Minako asked.
"Er…..Our Intelligence report told us." Bacon said. "You may feel uncomfortable that we know about you too much, but we have to do to help you."
"That's alright Mr. Bacon, you and your friends are good men." Ami said.
"Ami, I've heard that you love reading so much, so you can borrow my books anytime." Westernhagen said.
"Thanks so much, Mr. Westernhagen." Ami replied.
After a wonderful meal, the Sailor soldiers had to go back to their house for resting, so they said goodbye to Thompson and his A-216 before left the house. The team then came back to clean up their kitchen.
While Mitchell was cleaning the table, he saw something on it, a white handkerchief. He wondered who this thing belonged to, as none of his teammates use this kind. The doctor examined the handkerchief closely and then saw a name embroidered to it 'Makoto Kino'.
"Sir!" Mitchell called. "We've a lost thing here."
"What?" Thompson asked.
"This, sir." Mitchell replied and showed Thompson the handkerchief.
"OK, then you, Charlie, Philip, go to her apartment and return this thing to her." Thompson said.
"Yes, sir."
Adams and Rogers broke off the cleaning and rushed to the GMC van that parked beside the house. They jumped into it quickly and streaked the van off, heading to Makoto's apartment.
Only 5 minutes after departed from the house, the van arrived at the apartment. Adams and Rogers parked the van in front of the building and then jumped off and rushed inside.
"Charlie, which room does she live?" Rogers asked.
"Room 412, 4th floor." Adams replied.
They used the elevator to go up to the destination. As it was late night, most of the apartment inhabitants had already fallen asleep. Adams and Rogers expected for quick returning and then go back home because they were rather tired. But when Adams was walking out of the elevator, he saw a man doing something with a door, lockpicking. The Jackal then quickly held Rogers, who was about to get out of the elevator back inside.
"What's wrong, man?" Rogers asked.
"I see a man, lockpicking a door."
"Oh c'mon, he may forget his key and trying to get into his own room!"
"But THAT is Makoto's room."
"What?"
"He may be the burglar that I saw in a newspaper." Adams said. "We've to do something, although Makoto is strong and good at fighting, but she's still a girl, anything can happen."
"So what will you do?"
"Just follow me."
Adams retreated to stairs beside the elevator and walked upstairs as quiet as possible. Rogers, who still wondered about Adams's plan, reluctantly followed. When he reached upstairs, Rogers found that Adams was standing exactly a floor above Makoto's room.
As the apartment had a long open balcony, Adams could use it as his advantage. The Jackal pulled a rope from his pocket and tied it to a balcony's concrete pillar. He looked at stunning Rogers and shook his face to call him there.
Rogers didn't know that to do but followed Adams. He tied his own rope to another pillar and then climbed off the balcony. They waited for a while to make sure that the man was still there, and he actually was.
Before the man could notice that there was a Special Force out there, Adams and Rogers quickly rappelled from the 5th floor to the 4th and threw themselves into the 4th floor balcony, shoved the man from his feet. The Jackal quickly got on the top and tied the man's hand with a plastic handcuff. The man struggled a lot to escape, but Adams could overpower him with the training.
"You've the right to remain silent. Anything you say may be used against you in a court. You've the right to an attorney. If you can't afford an attorney, we'll provide one for ya." Rogers said.
While Adams was tying the man's hands, the captive bawled a lot, caused the entire floor's inhabitants to open their doors to see what was going on, including Makoto as well.
"Hello, Makoto." Adams greeted.
"Hello, Lt. Adams. What are you doing here?" Makoto, in pajamas, asked.
"Er….you forgot this handkerchief at our house, so we come and return it to you." Rogers said and gave Makoto her handkerchief.
"Thank you." Makoto replied.
"OK, that's it. We'll leave this guy here and let the security do the rest. Charlie, let's go home. Good night, Mako-chan." Rogers said.
Rogers and Adams didn't stay for long. They quickly leaped for the elevator and rode it down to the 1st floor before extracted safely from the area. Although Adams didn't want to extract too quick, but as there was nothing more to do there, he didn't see why he had to stay there.
For the A-216 members, this was one of unforgettable memories, as they had improved relationship between them and the Sailors. However, the Dark Kingdom was planning a new plan out there, unless it was destroyed, the Team had to continue their struggle.
…………………..
