Memories 2 - Ohio

  I had stationed myself in the cockpit of our C295S. We were a few minutes out from Cincinnati International, we had begun to pass lower over the edge of the city and were coming in lower to land.

  The reports I was getting weren’t good. The cordon had been pushed back by around 7km in the last 9 hours the animals were somehow still getting reinforcements. Even though the sky had cleared of the multicolour that had heralded their arrival, parts of the containment had been breached and although reinforcements were rapidly pouring in the breaches were ending up with multiple units being caught with their flanks exposed.

  The US had brought in multiple batteries of AAA and I could see distant flak and streams of tracers going up into the air around the east side of the city.

  Then a black cloud started to rise ahead of us. It moved like a flock of birds, almost like liquid, it climbed up to be level in altitude with us, then began towards us. I turned to the pilot.

  “Can you avoid that?”

  The pilot and copilot were already sweating. The copilot grabbed the intercom microphone and immediately shouted into it.

  “Brace! Brace! Evasive action!”

  I immediately made sure I was buckled in properly behind the pilot and held onto the station I was sitting at as the pilot dipped us down towards the ground. I could feel my stomach pushed back as we gained speed. Unfortunately, the cloud was much faster and crashed into us less than 20 seconds after we started building up speed.

  Glass shattered in front of me and three small pigeon-like forms rocketed themselves through the glass, half splattered as others splattered themselves entirely on the cockpit window, forming a green soup which started to slide off due to the speed. Through the now roaring wind coming in through the window, a few more of the pigeon-like creatures made it into the cockpit through the broken window. Two splattered on the wall to my right, three impacted the copilot and he immediately slumped forward.

  Then the red warning lights started on the dashboard, the pilot cursed and immediately began pulling up. As we started to level out, my eyes widened as I saw the other C295S scream past us in a slow spin around its axis, a small amount of fire spilling from both engines and the whole fuselage peppered with impact craters.

  I watched in horror as the other plane careened into the top of a nearby high-rise. It barreled through a couple of the outer walls and sheared off a wing, which was now caught in the side of the building. Then, the main fuselage tilted down and fell straight towards the ground 60 metres below.

  As if that wasn’t bad enough, part of the swarm of pigeons made towards it.

  I turned to the pilot and yelled over the wind.

  “Can you get us down?”

  He coughed and a small amount of blood splattered on the instruments ahead of him.

  “Can do, sir. Took a bit of a hit, but I will get you down safe. 2 minutes out.”

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  That wasn’t good. I quickly tapped into the squad coms.

  “Gold 4 This is Gold 1 over.”

  “Gold 1, Gold 4, go ahead.”

  “2 times casualties, 1 KIA, in cockpit get up here on touchdown and stabilise wounded for medevac, out.”

  “Gold 4 copies, out.”

  Switching to the platoon net.

  “Pub actual, This is Gold actual. What is your status?”

  “Pub actual respond. This is Gold actual. What is your status?”

  “Bravo actual respond?”

  “Anyone in bird 2, this is Gold. Actual response: What is your status?”

  There was no response I decided to address the other Squad leaders.

  “This is Gold actual Bird 2 is down hard status of Bravo, Pub, Clown and Troll is unknown. However, we have a job to do. I’ll continue to hail them, but they went down hard. Stick to the plan, support the 1st, then after they are stable, we can move into the city and try clearing up to bird 2. Copy?”

  A positive response came, but was certainly subdued slightly at my words. It was killing me not just say we would charge in there to check on them, but that would be the height of stupidity.

  I saw the runway come into sight and then a large amount of scrabbling became apparent to my ears; then the cockpit window was obscured as those pigeons passed by again.

  The pilot cursed and then, as he spat a bit more blood out, said.

  “Other engine is dead, we are down to glide.”

  Looking ahead, I saw multiple streams of tracers arc up into the large swarm and then a vapour trail struck up into them and proceeded to envelop the middle of the swarm in an explosion.

  The pilot then got on the radio with the ATC for the runway to be cleared and ensure the proper emergency procedures were in place. Once he was done, he handed me the intercom microphone and I quickly spoke into it.

  “Brace for impact, this could be a rough landing.”

  We hit the tarmac hard and the pilot was struggling to get us slowed down. Some of his control surfaces must have been damaged. The man was groaning in pain as the plane juddered, obviously shaking up his injuries.

  Eventually, as we moved down the runway, the plane came to a halt. I patted the man on the shoulder and he gave me a wry smile.

  “Told you I’d get us down.”

  He then slumped to the side. I put my hand to his neck to check for a pulse and found a faint one. I immediately tapped into the coms.

  “Harper, get up here now!”

  30 seconds later, the squad's medic Harper ‘Sawbones’ Carver, pushed past me and started working to stabilise the pilot.

  I left him to it, pulling off the headset attached to the console and slipping on my helmet and climbed down into the hold. Everyone looked to be ok if a bit jostled by the rough landing. I felt a thud and a shift in the angle the plane was sitting at, then we started moving and I tripped mid-step.

  Sitri grabbed my arm from where she was still strapped in and pulled me towards her, allowing me to grab the cargo webbing hanging off the wall before I managed to go sprawling.

  I looked down to where she was pinned against my chest due to how I’d been forced to grab the webbing. I quickly took a step to the right while grabbing the webbing further along so as not to fall and moved down the row to not be crowding her into an awkward position.

  There were already accusations from other officers outside the ARW that she had a more unprofessional relationship with me to be in her position as my second in command due to her young age at only 28; others spoke of a lack of competence. Turning back towards her, I said.

  “Thank you, Sitri you saved me a large amount of embarrassment.”

  She nodded her head, I guess catching me must have required some effort since she had a bit of red tinging her cheeks.

  Beside her, Gold 5 Alina or ‘Sideshow’ elbowed her in the ribs with a smug grin plastered on her face. Sitri turned and gave her a death glare, to which she raised her hands in surrender. I had no clue what that interaction was supposed to mean.