John Nance - 16 Souls

The quiet but intense scramble of control room personnel moving in their appointed trajectories began instantly, yet Paul Butterfield’s attention was on the phone number he had to dial next — the one that would presumably grab the full attention of Regal’s CEO. That Doug Nielsen was the very last human whose attention he wanted tonight was an understatement of epic proportions, and he girded himself for the experience while ticking off the one positive in all of this: The ‘Can’t Leave’ explanation to his wife was no longer a fib.

Seven Months before — January 21 st

Mountaineer 2612

Michelle Whittier had come back to consciousness slowly, the scene around her as incomprehensible as the muddled dreams of a drunk. She was in the cockpit — a cockpit — but it was very cold, and there was a wild appearance to it with papers and debris strewn everywhere, including the glareshield. Worse, there was the noise of a slipstream, but no panel lights. And the cacophonous roar of their twin turboprop engines, where was that?

She tried to raise her head and lean forward, but her right shoulder protested with a cascade of severe pain, and she gasped as she tried to relax back to her original position. Her head hurt, too. She turned her head to the right, trying to make out the face of the copilot who was leaning forward and draped over the controls.

What the hell happened? She wondered, trying to make sense of being apparently airborne with no lights and no engines after… what?

Am I dead? But there was pain, and maybe that meant no. Nothing made sense.

No panel lights! Just a glow… emergency lights overhead.

Yet, there was a glow outside somewhere to the left in her peripheral vision, and braving the new flash of searing pain in her shoulder Michelle forced her head part way to the left, her mind unable to comprehend why a row of lighted airliner windows seemed to be stationary there, where the left wing should be. Were they flying formation with someone? Why?

The pain stabbed at her again and she felt herself drifting back to unconsciousness, relaxing to let it overwhelm her. Take her. Whatever nightmare this was, it wasn’t anywhere she wanted to be. Oblivion was clearly better.

But it was so cold, and what sounded like voices from the cabin behind brought her back enough consciousness to spark her to try. She was captain after all, wasn’t she? Shouldn’t she deal with whatever this was?

Once more she forced her body forward and upright, accepting the screaming pain and finding it not as unbearable as she’d first thought. Her right shoulder, she figured. Something had happened to hurt her right shoulder.

Again she looked left, this time turning her body part way around to get her eyes squarely on what was out there.

The windows of an airliner were now unmistakable. A big airliner of some sort, with faces in the lighted cabin, some staring back at her. She let her eyes move forward and down, seeing the left engine nacelle of the Beech she’d been flying. But there was no buzzing noise of a turboprop, no indication of a propeller, and… no left wing.

She could feel the 1900 moving, bouncing and twisting in whatever wind this was, as if they were sitting on a larger airliner’s wing — as if that were possible.

Must still be a dream.

There were more voices from behind her, and Michelle forced herself to accept the massive protest from her shoulder as she swiveled to the right to peer through the cockpit door to where the cabin should be.

In the glow of the emergency lights she could see the cabin was a godawful mess as well, with belongings strewn everywhere, the floor covered in spilled briefcases and coats. There were passengers there, too — several of them awake and looking back at her in wide-eyed, stunned silence.

How many… she wondered, not remembering the number they’d had aboard.

Painfully she turned back forward, her eyes resting on the copilot’s limp form again. This time she tried to get her right arm to move, to touch him, to shake him — anything. But it refused to work.

She tried to call his name but couldn’t remember it. Was this the same flight that had started in… where? Denver?

What the hell is his name? she thought, struggling to reorder her mind. The fuselage suddenly lurched as if rolling left. Just a little, but a sharp, startling movement nonetheless. She looked past the copilot’s slumped form and through his side window, straining to see the 1900’s right wing. It was there, okay, but it was riding up and down on the river of air streaming by. How could that happen, she wondered?

No engine power, no propeller, but our right wing is flying.

Motion in the right seat caught her eye. Just a small movement, but something to indicate he was still alive. She heard him moan.

Luke!

“Luke?” she called out loud, startled at the raspy, guttural voice that had come from her. “Luke? Can you hear me?”

An arm moved, then moved again, accompanied by a low noise of some sort she couldn’t quite make out. And without warning the copilot sat bolt upright, his head snapping around to her, eyes wild with fright.

“Luke!”

He was staring at her uncomprehending, blinking in the shadowy light, his head jerking left and right as he tried like she had to force sense out of an insane situation.

“Where are we?” he gasped.

“I… I don’t know for sure. It… I think we’ve been hit by a bigger aircraft, and… and we’re on his wing.”

“We were hit? Oh, God! What are… what…”

He was struggling to look over her through the left pilot’s side at the airliner windows beyond.

“Our left wing’s gone, Luke. The props, too.”

“Our engines?” Shock, she figured, was fully engulfing him. She watched the younger man glance forward then, his hands moved ever so slightly toward the control yoke as a scream erupted from her. “NO!”

He looked over, totally confused. “Maybe we can pull up!”

“NO!” she said again, shooting her left hand out at him, the gesture falling short but getting his attention. In the space of a split second she had understood exactly what he wanted to do. The control cables would still be connected from the control yoke to the elevators in the rear, if the tail was still there. One hard pull on the yoke and the broken airplane would leap free of the bigger bird to certain death.

‘Why?” Luke managed.

“Our left wing is gone. We have to stay here.”

“Here?”

“We’re… Luke, listen to me. My right shoulder is bad hurt. We can’t fly. If we get shaken loose, we’re dead. Don’t touch that yoke.”

“Okay.”

“Are you hurt?”

He was shaking his head side to side.

“Okay… unstrap and carefully go back and check on our people. If the fuselage starts to tip, get back up here.”

It sounded stupid, she knew, but what else made sense? What was holding them on here anyway? Maybe their tail was hanging out over the back of whatever wing this was. She couldn’t tell.

“What are we going to do?” he asked again, his voice a pleading shriek.

“Check on the passengers. Now! That’s what you’re going to do.”

He nodded for an inordinate number of seconds before responding, fear tightening around his throat, inwardly grateful for direction as he released his seat belt and scrambled through the cockpit door to the small cabin behind them.

She was alone again, and the desire to verbally bind with someone outside was growing like an explosion, driving her to search the cockpit for options. The radios were obviously gone since the engines were no longer producing electrical power, but there had to be some battery power. And her phone… where was her phone? Hadn’t she been using her phone?