Nordin: Accompaniment: 2

Chapter 2

In close to an hour they were approaching Manhattan. They had made a radio call to the flight service station that served as control tower in off hours. This was more for anyone who might be eavesdropping then because the rather casual airport there needed any warning.

Even their archaic aircraft had enough navigation equipment to guide them right to the runway. Or it would have had prior to the military ripping all the electronic landing systems out of the airport. This was supposed to make it harder for rebels to use the airport. What it had done is make all the commercial flights leave, leaving the airport to the Resistance and a very few corporate flights.

The pilot, she strongly suspected, could fly the approach to the runway blindfolded. But he always insisted in taking bearings from several navaids, cross checking their position. He always asked her to help with landmarks and setting the radios. She at first had thought this was patronizing her, getting the little girl to help just like a big person. Later she began to see it was part of the rituals he surrounded himself with.

They had been descending, crossing over the river one last time, skirting the town to the south. She saw the landing lights and beacon of the airport up ahead to their right. Suddenly, she realized she had forgotten one of her speeches. She swallowed, and turned around.

“Can I have your attention, please? We’ll be landing in a few minutes. Please make sure your seatbelts are tight and don’t move around until we are on the ground and I say it’s OK. Manhattan was settled by colonists who came from free territory. They were sponsored by people from Boston. They gave up their homes to come here to make a statement in support of freedom for all people. The university here was one of the first in the nation to admit women. The town continues that progressive tradition now and is a place of support for us.

We’re going to be on the ground for just a few minutes. Please, everyone should use the bathroom here, we have a long flight ahead and it is better if we reserve the toilet in the plane for emergencies. There should be someone on the ground to direct you to the bathroom. Do not wander off and do not talk to strangers. It is very important that you do not wander off.”

She turned around. Was she scaring people? But if she didn’t emphasize security people would do the most amazing things. It was so hard for them not to just do whatever a person in a uniform told them to do.

The plane turned right and landed on the shorter North-South runway and quickly taxied off the runway onto the tarmac. They bounced towards an old stone hanger with the words “Manhattan Municipal Airport illuminated by several individual lights that splashed a weak light on the faded script. She heard one or two comments on the “quaint” and “little” airport. She was glad the pilot only spoke English.

He parked the plane by the gas pumps, shut down the engines and got out to see to refueling. She climbed out of her co-pilot seat, fished out her flashlight and got out first. Turning she pointed her flashlight at the steps to help the passengers see. The first down the steps stopped at the bottom to look around and to exclaim about how dark it was. Others backed up behind them, but eventually they were moving in a line across the tarmac, passing by the front of the hanger. She opened a small door and stood back to let them go into the tiny flight office. A narrow corridor was framed by the hanger wall on one side and a counter on the other. “Bathroom in back,” called out the agent behind the counter. People busied themselves with getting in and out of the one-person bathroom.

She talked with the agent. No reports of low Guardians. No weather concerns, but he hadn’t received any updates. When the pilot came in this became an issue. The agent refused to budge.

“Come on, man, it’s July in Kansas. Warm nights and wind from the southwest. Who cares if it is 75 or 85?”

The pilot looked at the agent like he wanted to kill him but said nothing. She stepped in, they had this fight every trip. The pilot wanted accurate data, the agent wanted to sit there and look romantic for the female passengers. The truth was they could fly without the data. The truth was that the agent’s cell leaders had told him a dozen times to get the data.

Eventually she became aware that one of the passengers, a shy young man in his 20’s, was now standing beside her.

“Something about weather?” He evidently knew a little English to understand the pilot’s question. “Because,” he went on, “I’ve got a dataport.” He reached into his pocked and brought out a tiny computer, unfolding its screen. He punched a few buttons, bringing up a weather map and forecast for western Kansas and eastern Colorado.

She took the precious computer, laid it on the cracked Formica counter-top and looked at the pilot.

He leaned over, putting both hands on the counter top, and looked at the bright, shiny dataport. He’d heard of these. The screen detail was amazing, the resolution must be 20 times what he’d ever seen. For a second he just marveled at the computer but didn’t notice the content of the map.

“Ah, I can bring up the forecasted conditions, if he wants.”

She translated for the pilot, and, the spell broken, he quickly absorbed the current conditions over their flight path. He nodded. She told the passenger OK, and he reached in, his hand passing a few inches under the pilot’s nose. “Sorry,” he said softly. He hit a few buttons and the map changed. “This is the conditions expected at about 4am. Figure that’s when we should be crossing into Colorado.”

Again she translated, and the pilot studied the map, still not saying anything. The pilot looked at the passenger. “Winds aloft? About 5am? At the Front Range?”

She translated, and the passenger hurried to help. She saw the agent get up out of his chair and pose in the doorway, murmuring at one of the women as she squeezed past to go outside.

After the pilot had studied the map, he thanked the passenger in Expanso and walked out of the building back toward the plane.

She also thanked him, and reminded him to turn off his dataport and place it in the metal box they had at the back of the plane so the automatic signals would be muffled so no one could detect that they were out here. He looked embarrassed and assured her he would.

Back in the cockpit, the pilot tried to remember the numbers for wind and pressure, he should have written them down. For a moment in the office he’d been overcome with longing. The screen was so bright, so sharp, the vast array of information so intoxicating, that he’d felt that he was about to fall into the screen, swim into the world of saturated colors inside the machine. His cockpit instruments looked clunky to him, like a child’s toy compared to that dataport. He looked through the windshield into the dark space and breathed heavily for a moment.

Juanita had stepped outside of the florescent-lit office and was letting her eyes adjust to the dim tarmac, lit by pools of light from several light stands. She caught a movement to her left, headlights coming on the divided highway at the edge of the airport. It slowed, and she tensed up. It turned on to the approach road.

She turned around, opened up the door, leaned in and shouted, “Everyone! On to the airplane now. Please, get back on now, it’s urgent – someone is coming!”

A few people had drifted back towards the airplane already, some were having smokes on the tarmac, but there were still a few inside the flight station. She clapped her hands. “Now! Get on the airplane, hurry, I’m not joking! We don’t want to be all over the place when they come!”

They all looked blankly at her, and for a second no one moved. One of the local mechanics had come from the far door to the hanger into the flight station. He jumped in and got the passengers moving.

Juanita moved back outside the door. The access road was long, and the vehicle was still well away from them, they might get everyone to the plane at least. But if this was military … well, she could probably still talk themselves out of trouble, but god, if someone did something crazy…. They knew there was a risk using this airport, Ft. Riley was just to the west and it was still active. Once a Guardian had even landed there. Maybe making the flight service call was not a good idea after all.

She cupped her hands and shouted towards the airplane. By the dim lights she could make out figures and just barely see faces.

People weren’t moving. She was starting to panic. Was everyone here? She turned around and two of the passengers were coming out of the flight station, agitated and looking around.

“What’s going on?” one of them said.

“Come on, get on the plane please. This could be trouble, get on the plane NOW!”

Should she go to the plane, had the pilot heard? Should she go find the person farthest from the plane and bring them in?

The tall kid with the dataport, William, she thought his name was, came bounding out of the hanger. He’d left the flight office, probably to look at the planes in the hanger. She could kill him for that, except he was now moving at a rapid trot to the plane, a serious look on his face. He looked at her, serious and focused. “Get them on board, tell the pilot!” she called to him. He nodded and sped into a run toward their craft.

She started back to the flight office. By now four of the passengers had come out of the office, as had the mechanic. “Is there anyone left?”

“No that’s it,” he called back.

She motioned to the passengers to speed up, waited for the last one to get even with her and turned to follow them towred the plane.

“What’s going on?” It was Jaka.

“Visitors.”

“Well, who is it?” he looked at the approaching headlights.

“Not now, just get in the plane.” She didn’t want to say military, it might be police, it might be some other agency. It could be nothing.

“We’re not doing anything wrong, here. Be good to dialog with the police or whoever.”

“Please, not now, we don’t want to get in any conversations.”

He’d come to a stop twenty feet from the plane and was looking at the lights. She remembered, he was an aid to some member of the European Parliament. In the meetings before the trip, he’d always been disagreeing with her, always implying that once people knew his connections that they would grant everyone on the trip special favors.

“They could detain us, and we don’t want that. We don’t want to answer questions and we don’t want them finding the supplies we have in the cargo. Now, please get on the plane.” She continued to edge towards the plane.

“Come on, they’re almost here.” It was William from over by the plane. He raised his voice “Juanita, just you two left.” She could hear a whistling sound that meant that one prop had been started up.

Juanita moved toward the plane. Jaka realized he was all alone on the tarmac, and turned and walked toward the plane.

William was standing at the passenger doorway, holding the door. Jaka went by him and climbed up into the plane. She nodded at William, and he jumped up into the plane. She came up behind them, pulled the door shut. As she did, she heard the prop on the far side of the plane wind up towards full power.

They started to back up, twisting around away from the gas pump. She climbed over the center console, and fell into her right-hand seat.

The pilot had backed the plane around a half circle, using the left hand prop in trust reverse mode and applying breaks to the right-hand main wheel. By the time she was in her seat, he’d killed the reverse thrust, was moving them forward and flying through the engine start procedure for the right-hand prop.

The vehicle had come onto the airport now, had pulled up onto the tarmac and turned to park in front of the flight service office. A man had gotten out of the driver’s side. He stood by the car, looking at the plane. He was backlit from the hanger sign lights, but his military uniform was unmistakable.

The pilot grunted. “I think I know him, it’s the mechanic’s brother.”

Juanita said nothing. There was still a few seconds when the soldier could gesture for them to stop, use his car to cut them off or maybe even shoot them. It might be the mechanic’s brother but that could mean the soldier was going through the motions of a patrol and really didn’t want to see them, or that the mechanic was a source for the military or something else. She didn’t want to find out.

They taxied at a fast pace out to the south end of the runway, and without pause or asking for clearance, the pilot swung them onto the runway, applied full power and had them accelerating quickly.

From the trip journal of Robert Covington

Well, we had our first brush with the reality of the war. A little thing really, a soldier got to close for comfort. I know Juanita wouldn’t have wanted us to talk to him, was worried about how some of the younger, less experienced people would react, and rightly so.

That young fellow William came through in spades though. Was cool, helped everyone on the plane, practically lifted my wife on. I saw how he just fell in supporting Juanita, acting as a loyal and proactive assistant. He’s such a shy guy, but he was very poised in that little emergency.

I felt a little shudder go through me when we saw the soldier, and my dear Alicia and I looked at each other and we knew we were both wondering if this was the time. We’ve talked about how if this is the time for a trip to go bad, the time when someone gets killed, then we hope it is us and not some of these young people with their whole lives ahead of them. We know it is wrong to court martyrdom, and we don’t want it, but we’ve lived our lives and I can think of no better way to go then to step forward to give up what little time we have left on this earth for someone else. If this should come, I can only hope our courage will not fail us.

But, I know we were both very glad when we made our little escape.

From the trip journal of BoJa Ckandson

I don’t think Juanita handled that very well. We have a right, guaranteed by the 19^th universal convention on rights on non-combatants to be here and to go where we wish. The resistance has been granted belligerent status by the European Parliament and the United Nations, and I’d be surprised if any solder would want, on his own, to court the issues that interfering with a representative of that parliament would bring.

It would have been a good time to take the measure of the military here, and really give a message to the rank and file that what they do here is being watched. Hustling us away like that was pretty destructive of us making our point. I’ll have to find a time to take Juanita aside and try to educate her to some of the politics of all this. She’s inexperienced, has probably never been out of the United States.

From the trip journal of William Synder

I hope I didn’t offend anyone back at the flight station. That pilot looked a little miffed when he left, even though he did say thanks. I was just trying to be helpful, but I’m afraid I looked like I was bragging. Gosh, it had never occurred to me that the government could track us by the signals, or the content of what I was looking at, but they’re right. I was thinking of giving the dataport to someone here, but I’d better ask if that’s OK.

It’s so hard to know what to do. I want to help, but we were told that is an arrogant assumption that we have anything to help them with. We must have heard a thousand times that we are here to learn, to listen, not to talk and help. But they need help. It seems silly not to give some things to them, we’d hardly miss it, and it could actually save lives. Back at orientation, I’d asked about giving them the dataport, and they really came down on me about it.

It must be nice to be a doctor, everybody talks about the doctors who abandoned their cushy lives to work with the poor in the villages. That sort of help from us is OK, I guess. Nobody seems to need engineers. Don’t they have bridges to build, roads, or have weapons to fix? Somebody should figure out how to jam the Guardians.

And then the soldiers. God, I hope no one knew how frightened I was. I was waiting for Juanita to ream me for going off by myself, but I was listening. I was keeping track of where people were, and I knew that it was getting time to go. I wasn’t lost, but no one will believe that if she says anything. I don’t know what I’d do if she went after me, arguing about it sounds so weak. I’d just have to apologize.

And then, god, I just froze, stood there like a dummy when she called out the warning. I hope in all the mess no one noticed that. Jaka is standing there, just daring the soldiers to come at us, and I’m hiding at the plane.

I wanted to sit up next to the cockpit so I could see the pilots work, but I didn’t get there first, and now I’m back here in the middle. Maybe on the return flight. I’d love to talk to the pilot, but since I don’t speak English, I guess that isn’t going to happen.