Chapter Ten: Touchdown
Dempsey jumped awake to the shaking and shoving of a familiar "friend". "Vake up dummkopf ve are going to land soon. I don't vant you ashleep vhen ve arrive because I'm not carrying you." He stretched his arms high above his head and let out a loud and obnoxious yawn, "Ah yea, yea, doc I'm up, I'm up geez. Man can't get enough sleep anymore these days. Stupid nightmares…" Richtofen's eyebrow seemed to perk up. So he is shtill having nightmares und memory flashbacks? It seems no matter how much Perk a Cola drinks I can give, he vill shtill continue to have these visions. Und he is not ze only one having zhem unfortunately. He shrugged the idea and worry away and left Dempsey and Nikolai to pack their bags to prepare for landing.
"Takeo, how are ve looking on fuel und landing gear?" "Very good doctor, we have made all the preparations needed for landing." "Good, ve are just barely hovering over Breslau now. Put your headgear on und prepare to follow my instructions for objective 20-1125, landing in Breslau." Takeo grabbed his helmet and gear while Richtofen sat down beside him in the man commanding pilot's seat, grabbing the microphone for the speakers in the back of the plane. "Attention all passengers, and Dempshey', ve are approaching our landing zone, please take your seat und fasten your seatbelts. Also, I hate you Dempshey', you stupid American shwine'. Zat is all." Dempsey just scoffed silently at him, Germans. Richtofen hung up the microphone and adjusted the plane for landing. He took a deep breath and looked around the control panel, there was just one more thing needed to start the landing process… turning off the auto-pilot. He had to admit it, it had been awhile since he last remembered anything during his years as a young Waffen-SS pilot back in the day, but he couldn't for the life of him bring back those memories for his time of need. He could only hope this plane was better in shape than it was in appearance. He took it slow and steady, reaching his hand across the panel towards the switch, sweat forming in the palms of his hands. One wrong move after he switched it off would send him and the rest of his crew plummeting towards the ground, and though they weren't but at least 500 feet off the ground barely hovering over, the fall would most certainly kill them.
He made up his mind and quickly flipped the switch down breathing in deeply and waited for a quick death. But it never came. He peeked open his eyes to see them still afloat in mid-air pushing through the fog that had crawled its way out of the underbelly of the steaming lake nearby. Oh zhank goddness for zat, I zought for sure ve vould be—His thoughts were interrupted by a blinking red light that had appeared above the first left engine gears. It was blinking red and flashing in his eyes and before he could flip the switch back on, the light stopped blinking and stayed its red color. A female voice was soon heard in Japanese: "警告：最適にエンジン故障。警告：最適にエンジン故障。…" Richtofen looked around strangely confused, "Vhat's going on Takeo, vhat is she saying?" "It is a warning, stating that one of the engines in failing. This voice will be on a continuous loop until the problem is fixed or it is silenced." Richtofen turned the voice off almost immediately hating the idea of even more voices talking to him in his head, and soon fell out of his seat. The entire plane began to shake, its belly growling like hungry tiger, and one of its left wing engines began to spark, first mildly, then rapidly, and soon it burst, sending vibrations throughout the whole plane. Takeo was next to get tossed out of his seat and somewhere in the distance you could hear Dempsey and Nikolai acquiring the same fate as the plane rapidly began to lower, diving down nose first and scorching the sky behind it with a bright orange-red color. After the main left engine burst, the propellers on the co-engine began to malfunction, giving the right engines of the plane the burden of attempting to carry it out, which it could not do. Now balancing on 250 feet above the ground Richtofen had to make a decision: try to land this thing in the empty road and hope that there's something there to stop them, or try to attempt to land a non-aquatic aircraft in the water and hope they wouldn't get trapped inside and drown. He liked the first option better anyways.
He quickly grabbed the microphone again, "Ve blew both of our left engines so I'm going to try und land zhis zing on the open road. Dempshey', open ze cargo doors und climb around ze bottom of ze plane after attaching a harness and parachute, just in case, und see if you can pop ze tire on ze plane so vhen ve land ze metal bars vill be able to dig into ze ground und shtaple us from further moving. Nikolai, go into ze ozer hangar und find a remote switch zat vill turn ze power off in the back of ze plane to preserve ze power for ze cockpit, hurry both of you!" Without question they both sprinted towards their mission while both Richtofen and Takeo made sure the cargo doors stayed open so Dempsey could quickly return inside after getting rid of the tires. Though he had to admit it, those tires were going to be tough to pop. He'd need a pretty strong blade to get into those bad-boys, maybe even a gun to try to pierce its thick hide. Whatever the case, he just had to bite down on his lip and hold back the urge to lock him outside of the plane and leave him to die.
Nikolai drunkenly and stupidly stumbled around the room in confusion, what the hell does a switch look like and where would it be? It's not like he knew anything about switches. Now… if I were switch, where would I hide? He looked around, his vision blurry, hands shaky, and mouth twitchy as he pushed aside boxes and crates of extra supplies brought with them on the trip. He heard glass brake in one of the crates and decided this time he'd let his curiosity get the best of him. He popped it open and stared at its contents in awe and wonder. Oh my god… its vodka! There were at least six dozen crates of bottles stacked up on top of each other, give or take a few that he accidently broke while pushing the box aside, and it was heaven in a boxed sized wonderland. Sure they were plummeting to their deaths and any minute now he'd feel the pounding sensation of the hard crash and probably feel the burning of his skin from explosions all around him, but the burn he wanted to feel right now was the alcohol sliding down his throat and the drunk never leaving his eyes. He grabbed a crate and slid it out, busting one of the bottles from its holder and slid down the wall with a smug smile on his face, "Ah, this will be fun time! I'll call it, 'Happy-fun-Nikolai-drinking-time!" He burped a few times and began to sing the Russian victory theme song, spewing vodka and spit every lyric he sung.
Dempsey could now taste his own blood as he gripped fiercely at the bowie knife between his teeth. Why did he have to be the one to risk life and limb just to get rid of a tire? Why can't the crazy doc' do his own dirty work? It's not like he'd die er' anything. He always seems to find a way out of trouble. He shifted as his parachute slid back and forth from his weight and the leather gloves he got from the overhead compartment came in handy, considering his sweaty hands, although it didn't stop him from being able to feel the cold metal on the wheel railing. As much as he dared himself not to look down, his curious mind had to put him at ease to the fact he was wearing a parachute, and when was the next time he was going to ride on the outside underbelly of a plane? He slowly moved his head down and peeked his eyes open. The ground had gotten a lot closer than he had anticipated. "Oh shit, yeah, let's get this done," he mumbled to himself. It wouldn't be long before the plane would crash-land on the open road, and he did not want to be under the plane for that. Good time for parachute, bad time for American pancake. He jabbed his knife as hard as he could into the wheel and twisted and turned with all his might. Slowly, the gash expanded and air rushed out, popping in his face nearly giving him a heart attack and making him go deaf. "Ah, holy shit, yeah that hurt!" He grabbed his knife and crawled back up the ladder across the bottom of the plane and grabbed his walky to radio Richtofen, "Yo sauerkraut, open the cargo doors I'm done," all he heard was static, "Uh, hey doc', ya there, I said I'm done," still nothing, "Come on dammit this isn't funny!" "Hahaha oh Dempshey' it's so cute vhen you shcream', vhat's ze magic vord?" He stayed quiet, "Come on, vhat is it, I know you know it?" He mumbled something inaudible, "I'm sorry vhat vas zat?" "I said please, geez." "Hmm, alright Yankee Doodle I'll let you in, but only because you said please und you did your job." He rolled his eyes as the doors came alive, the plane consuming him and closing back up soon to follow. Dempsey met two of his comrades in the cockpit, "Uh, where the hell is Nikolai? I thought you told him to do his job and rendezvous back here?" "I did dummkopf, but you know him, he's alvays doing somezing wrong. I call him drunken und 'special', if you know vhat I mean. But I suppose he can't help it, he's just so adorable sometimes I can't even yell at him und—" "Yeah yeah, alright I'm going to go find him before he drowns in his own saliva."
Dempsey headed off to the storage facility where Richtofen had sent him to do one simple task, to flip a switch. That shouldn't even be hard for poor Nikolai, unless something got him. Nah there wouldn't be any zombies on here… would there? Picking up the pace he jogged to the room and opened the door, "Nikolai, Nikolai, where the hell are you, you drunken retard?" He tapped his foot against different crates knocking them over in attempt to scare him out or find him on the floor. He succeeded in both, sure enough, out popped the Russian, "Ah, hey, hey, you didn't need to scare shit out of me eh? You crazy capitalist…" He sipped from his almost empty drink and Dempsey's eyes widened, "Dammit Nikolai I thought we put you on a strict three to four bottles a day at least! Not fucken' fifteen, Jesus man! You're going to give yourself alcohol poisoning!" At this Nikolai proceeded to laugh hysterically, "Hahahaha you are funny American, hahaha. I can't get alcohol poisoning. I am immune to finest drink in the world…" He took another sip before Dempsey slapped it away from his hand, "Dammit man you had one thing, one simple fucken thing to do, find the switch and rendezvous back at the cockpit! You couldn't do one simple thing, just one thing, which might save our lives!?" Nikolai literally growled at him, shaking his fist angrily, "Do not scold me like mother, I am not child! I love vodka more than any of your petty lives and my reflexes aren't that great, so give me brake eh, because right now you are giving me headache." He rubbed his head awhile longer while Dempsey helped him off the ground, wobbling a little to gain back his balance.
Richtofen switched the auto-pilot back off and turn the heating and cooling duct down to reduce energy use and Takeo flipped the switches for pressurization. Everything was all coming down to the two men in the cockpit. The plane's engines were failing and they'd already reached 100 feet within 15 minutes, if he didn't land this thing soon they'd fly over their projected LZ and crash into a nearby city. He snatched up the mic and cleared his throat, "Dempsey, Nikolai if you can hear me I need you to fly zat switch now. Ve are running out of time here!" Back in the storage room even Dempsey was having a hard time finding this switch, where the hell could one switch hide in here anyway? He grabbed his walky, "Gotta gemme' some more time doc', we can't fucken find the switch! Where the hell is it?!"Richtofen yanked at his collar and coughed something profane, "Calm down Yankee Doodle everyzing vill be fine und dandy if you just use your damn eyes!" He slammed the walky down and hummed to the static coming from the speaker. "Son of a bitch, damn, get off your lazy ass and help me find the switch Nikki'!" Nikolai jumped up at the sound of his hated nickname, "I told you never to call me that, you filthy capitalist pig!" He leaped towards him and was tripped by a pile of supply crates. He flipped onto the floor and laid there, too lazy to get up. Dempsey chuckled and continued to search for the sneaky switch.
"Takeo how are our fuel levels doing give me some stats?" Takeo turned to look at the gauge when the plane began to rapidly nose dive towards the ground, "None, we have no more fuel doctor!" Because of the rapid descend their bodies flew up towards the ceiling of the cockpit clashing their backs harshly against it. When they returned to the ground Richtofen crawled over to the mic as quickly as he could, but Dempsey beat him to the walky instead, "What the fuck was that doc' we're diving!?" "Obviously, I need you to hit zat switch dummkopf!" Dempsey quickly looked around, sweat pouring down the side of his face, his nails digging into his palms. As he continued to search, he began to fall over and slid around the plane along with the now unconscious Nikolai. His back slammed against the wall harshly and luckily, he landed right next to the unlucky switch, "Gotcha you bitch!" He flipped it down and attempted to glide towards his walky, "Ah… *gasp* I got the switch, now what?" Richtofen narrowed his eyes, "Prepare for landing…"
He yanked up on the controls and as the plane went dead and powered off, the belly slammed into the gravel and assfault, stapling itself firmly. It dragged with a screeching roar, its metal sparking fires along the way, the left wing exploding on impact, and the cargo doors opening instantly. Dempsey tried to hold on but noticed the knocked out Nikolai sliding outside, "Dammit, you better thank me for this later Nikki'." He pounced on top of him and tuck-and-rolled outside into the dust. The planes growls halted along with its movements… and the metal beast was no more.
(警告：最適にエンジン故障。警告：最適にエンジン故障。:1: Warning: Engine failure optimal(repeat) ::)