The Everlark Family: Book 3

Chapter 59 Emergency

There were only five days left till I would see Bree and the twins. It would be one of the greatest reunions!
Of course Cade and I were flying today. It was ten at night, or possibly a little past ten. We were just burning some fuel. The commander ordered us to take them for a fly. It was completely dark, but when you looked down below there was the lights of the camp down below us. It gave me a little more comfort for flying at night. Although my eyes are almost giving into sleeping, I force them open as hard as I can. Its a challenge. Cade yawns, "We've passed up everything.. Wanna turn back around?"
"Nah the engine is still half way full, lets push it to a quarter." I reply. He shakes his head, "I think we should land now.."
"Why? Why are so anxious to get off?" I ask. He shakes his head and looks out the window.
"Isn't it peaceful at night?" he asks. "Its such a nice view!"
I nod, "But you know whats better?"
He lowers his eyebrow waiting for an answer. "You know seeing our wives and my twins!"
"Yeah, seeing our little baby girl! I might cry" he laughs. I agree with him. I continue flying and looking at the nice site. "Mellark fly her back in, its getting late." The commander speaks from the intercom. "Copy that" I glide the jet. I look over my shoulder--Cades asleep. I laugh to myself and find my way closer to the runway.
As I do I notice something went off; like a massive switch. I look down and gasp, "Cade!"
"W-what?!" he snorts. "Wow, what happened?" his eyes are big in amazement.
"I think the power went out" I stutter. I look to the right of the gears, "We're not on the radar anymore.. Its blank"
"Did someone hijack us?" Cade asks sleepily. I shake my head, "Couldn't have, if so the jet would've crashed by now.. Great, we can't see anything. " and we couldn't. The power was out, probably from the storm. But the pitch dark ground made it absolutely impossible to land.
"What now?" Cade shudders. I shrug and hold down the button to my earpiece, "Commander? Commander do you copy?.." theres nothing but silence, "Its out.. the intercom is out"
"The last time the power went out it lasted two days, remember?"
"Hell no, I'm not waiting a whole two days to land this jet. We'll crash before the sun comes up, the fuel is already decreasing rapidly."
"I'm not crashing" he demands, "How longer can we wait?", I shrug, "Couple hours at the most.. I doubt we'll get past one though"
We sit there for a minute sitting in the dark with pure silence. "Commander, commander? Do you copy?" I sigh, "Its dead, its gone."
Cade scratches his head, "I told you we should've landed earlier."
I ignore him, "Prepare for an emergency landing" I flip switches left and right, watching the fuel dwindle.
"What if we crash?"
"Not on my watch.. I'll find a way" I say determinedly. I lower the throttle and control the plane downward. Cade gets strapped in as I focus on where to land. I huff frustratedly, "I don't know about this. For all I know I could be landing in a lake."
Cade hangs onto the bottom seat as if he were hanging on for his life. "Wait! I see something, a fire!" Cade exclaims raising from his chair. I raise from my chair too, "Where?!"
Cade points directly to the spot. Phew! Finally some light, but the only trouble is I'd have to get down far enough within a short matter of time which is nearly impossible but its the only option. "We might loose oxygen going this far down and in the amount of speed"
Cade nods and grabs his oxygen mask along with myself. We look at each other, not sure if we should make this move or not. He nods and with that the nose goes almost straight down. I clench my teeth hoping not to hit anyone at that bonfire, but also hoping we don't damage ourselves or even the jet.

(meanwhile on the ground.. Soldiers shoot up from the ground exclaiming "Jet straight ahead!" and push everyone out of the way frantically)

I try my best to level the jet out before we crash land onto the rugged ground. I shudder at the fact that my life was almost taken last time I crashed, but surprisingly I'm not hurt. Just thrown around (probably bruised badly) by the crash. Cade and I clung to anything and got thrashed in return, but were safe and not injured other than the bruises. The jet leans to its left wing thats sunk into the dirt. The tail barely missed the bonfire.
Cade and I look at each other and laugh from relief. Then what drones out our laughter is the sound of army men running to our rescue. They pry open the door and throw all sorts of questions at us: what were you thinking? and are you alright? But we assure them we're fine.
Once I step out I take a long stare at the damage of the jet: its bad!
"You sure you're alright?" One asks. We both nod, "Yes" we say rather annoyed. "What are you doing out here?" I ask.
"We belong to the army, uh--"
"Mellark, Captain Mellark" I reply.
"Right, Captain, we are staying out here for a week for a survival test" he replies, "And you were?"
"We were flying to burn off some fuel when we were getting ready to land the power shut off and the lights on the runway weren't on.. Nothing was even visible.. Thats until my buddy saw your fire and we had no choice but to try to land." I explain.
"You barely missed the fire, you're pretty lucky" he says. Cade and I nod. "Sorry if we disturbed your, uh camping drill" I say. He shakes his head, "No its alright. I'm the night guarder so it was a good thing I saw you coming so I could alert everyone."
"We better be going" Cade whispers.
"Have you heard anything about the power outage?" a big burly man probably in his fifties stomps in saying. They all turn to him and salute, "No Commander Holt"
"And you two?" he asks referring to us.
"As you can see Sir we're from the Air Force and Marines, and our plane crashed from the outage, Sir" I explain.
He huffs, "Well the power will be out for the night thats for sure. I'm guessing you need somewhere to sleep, correct?"
Cade and I nod. He sighs, "Okay everyone go back to sleep" he announces, "And you two will stay in the extra tent all the way down there.. We'll have to do something with that jet, but in the meantime get to sleep... You know if this power weren't out for a whole night I'd let you roam around, but I'll cut you some slack."
"Thank you Sir" we both smile. He rolls his eyes, "March!"
So we end up staying in the last tent. Its far from fire and its pitch black, but we're thankful. Of course Cade and I can't stop laughing over tonight, but soon it gets late and we find ourselves asleep. I fall asleep with the thought of Bree in my mind..