Chapter 12 (1/2)

Chapter 12: Major Travas’s Battle

The 27th day of the fourth month

It was just as the surveillance ca to take photos in secret

A box in an aeroplane flying over the Lutoni River exploded

There were almost no sparks, and no smoke But the powerful explosion sent tiny shards ofeverywhere Most of the shrapnel hit the metal parts of the cockpit

The bits that did not hit the cockpit parts were driven into the people nearby

Captain Barnett, who had opened the lid, took the brunt of the ie hole was blown in his stomach, and the bottom half of his face was destroyed

Without even a chance to scream, he went from man to corpse

The shrapnel also hit Master Sergeant Lod, who sat on the right side of the cockpit, opposite from Barnett

Shrapnel dug into the back of his neck all the way up to his head, leavingblood everywhere

“Ah…?”

Eyes wide open, completely unaware of what had happened to him, Lod died four seconds after the captain

“AAAAARGH!”

The only ht creho had the time to scream was Second Lieutenant Klee

The shrapnel had struck his left shoulder and elbow, tearing through flesh and blood and rendering his arm permanently useless

One small piece of metal, meanwhile, hit the left side of his neck and severed his carotid artery

“What—” The explosion drew Major Travas’s attention from theto the cockpit

And he spotted Captain Barnett’s corpse, Master Sergeant Lod’s sluht crew

“Major! Come quickly! Koff!”

Second Lieutenant Klee was calling for hi from his neck like a fountain

Major Travas undid his seat belt and rushed across the aeroplane He passed by the two corpses and went all the way up to the pilot’s seat

“Koff! Koff! The, controls, please, take, the, controls, koff… koff…”

His body drenched with blood, Klee tried to go on as he quivered

The aeroplane began to trereorse

Second Lieutenant Klee’s right ar off the controls—

“Whoa!”

At the same time, Major Travas slipped into Captain Barnett’s seat

His eyes fell on the captain’s controls before him The control wheel was shaped like the bottohtly in both hands

The treain as though nothing had ever happened

A droplet of sweat fell down the side of Major Travas’s face He turned to the person who should have been sitting at his right

There sat a young man whose entire future had been taken away from him

Major Travas took one hand off the yoke, pulled out the seat belts from under him, and attempted to fasten them

The effort would need both his hands Major Travas took his other hand off t

(adsbygoogle = adsbygoogle || [])push({});

he yoke

Several failed atteot the belts on and looked up, when he realized that the aeroplane was listing heavily to the left

“Whoa!”

He quickly put his hands back on the yoke and tilted the craft to the right

But he went too far

The aeroplane iht and fell into a sharp dive The world outside the windshi+eld tilted to the left

If not for the seat belts, Major Travas would have been flung out of his seat “Urgh…” he strained, trying to bring the aeroplane back to level position

“No…”

But eventually, he relaxed his grip Rather than try to fight the aeroplane, Major Travas allowed it to remain in its current position He was locked in an uncohtlessness

Then, he discovered the lever between the two seats, to the lower right of the yoke

He pushed and pulled the lever, then brought it to center position and slowly pulled it back to its original place The engine output sloeakened in response

“What next…?”

Slowly, very slowly, Major Travas turned the yoke back to the left

The aeroplane was continuing its descent All he could see before his eyes was the surface of the Lutoni, drawing ever closer

“There’s no rush… Don’t be hasty…”

Little by little, and very slowly, he returned the yoke to the left He made sure to push forward at the sa too much at once

The aeroplane slowly returned to level position

“Come on…come on…”

The Lutoni was almost upon him

In the span of only five seconds, the aeroplane lost almost all altitude and returned to level position

“Yes!”

Major Travas pulled on the yoke The surface of the Lutoni was close enough for him to make out every little refraction on the water

“I suppose just one read wasn’t quite enough for a full understanding,” he remarked with an almost-casual smile

The aeroplane shot up only seconds before it could strike the river like an arrow

The nose slowly pulled up before instantly rising, reducing the angle between the aeroplane and the river

The altitude also sharply fell

When the fuselage hit the surface with a deafening crash, it was almost parallel to the water

The aeroplane hit the river at over 300 kiloainst the surface, and hit the water again

The front of the propellers struck the water, bringing the aeroplane back into the air

Like a stone skipping across the river, the aeroplane rose and fell Twice, three times, then once more

After four bounces against the Lutoni, the aeroplane lost energy It lost balance with massive sprays of water

Though the plane had only slightly tilted to the right, the tip of the right wing, its midsection, then its base was driven into the water, and the resultant drag snapped the hole

The engine roared a metal

The right wing, snapped at the base, flew backwards and s it co into the depths with steaine and propeller

The one-winged aeroplane listed about 40 degrees to the side and began sinking nose-first

Then it hit the mud underneath

The aeroplane slid a long way and finally reached the bank of the Lutoni

With its left wing sticking into the air, the aeroplane drove itself into the eastern bank

It lay on a gentle slope by an undergrowth The left propeller continued to spin, scattering grass into the air like a laer

The left side of the fuselage was pushed into the dirt bank, cushi+oning the aeroplane and slowing it to a full stop

The aeroplane lay tilting to the right, with its nose pointed slightly upwards Most of the fuselage was on land, but the tail was immersed in the river

The left, wing, which had been pointing into the air at the moment the aeroplane caround

The propeller hit the ground still spinning

It slashed aside all the grass below, then dug into the dirt underneath and finally stopped

The engine died in a puff of white sain filled with silence

The grass and dirt flying into the air rained upon the caed aeroplane and created yet new patterns

Major Travas regained consciousness that evening

Still strapped into his seat on the crashed aeroplane, he slowly began to move

It was the tips of his fingers at first, then the eyelids His glasses were gone

“Hm…?”

Light returned to his eyes, and his mind came back to life Major Travas slowly looked up

He saw ood enough to see properly

First, he glimpsed the completely shattered front windshi+eld

The windshi+eld frame, twisted and bent like a piece of wire

The yoke, stopped before him

His oo hands, covered in mud

The leather jacket he wore, and the seat belts crisscrossing over it

His right leg, drenched in blood from somewhere—or someone—he could not identify

And his left leg, twisted in a macabre direction

He took slow breaths, one after another

“Argh!”

And the pain struck fro pressed against it He also felt a dull ache in his right thigh

Then ca in theat his stomach

His senses flooded, Major Travas mumbled to himself

“Ah…I made it”

Major Travas continued to fight for his survival

His left ankle had been completely snapped It isted in an unnatural direction and would not move

As for his right leg, there was a several-centih frowas dyed a reddish-brown

His head hurt as well The right side of his head had been injured at so i had stopped and left a scab

First, Major Travas used the li—to slowly, very slowly, crawl out of his seat Lurching with dizziness and buroaned in pain as he moved

Groping through the tiny cockpit with his hands, Major Travas

The bodies of the creere still strapped securely to their seats

Major Travas pulled out a flight crew survival kit froh pouch

Inside the waterproof pouch were painkillers, sugar-and-grain ration bars, a s line and hooks, a small compass, waterproof candles, and a mirror

Major Travas sed soan to eat the rations

Before the painkillers kicked in, however, he cut open his pant leg and took a look at the wound on his thigh And he began to sew closed the wound, which had begun bleeding again because he moved

He used the fishi+ng line and the hook

With his bare fingers he pushed the tip of the hook into his skin to sew up the cut He ignored the pain so the stitches would be done properly,

Then, he used the multipurpose knife to take apart the pipe frame of his seat He slowly unscrewed the bolts that had been so tightly affixed to the pipes

He assembled the pieces into a U-shape and put the new creation on his left ankle He secured it tightly with a piece of seat belt

Thanks to the er buony

All he had left to deal as the dizziness and the headache He ignored the aching until the painkillers finally kicked in

Major Travas investigated the aeroplane interior

His biggest concern was the possibility of a fuel leak; but to his relief, the fuel tank was heavily reinforced and had escaped unhar had already all disappeared into the river

Major Travas opened the metal box at the back of the plane Tooden boxes were still inside

Major Travas picked up one of theht shake

He could not tell as inside fro the lid, and slung the box out the open hatch on the right side of the fuselage He ducked

The box landed on the grass and rolled away The lid opened

There was no explosion

Major Travas crawled outside

And he slowly ate the lunch el sandwich and dried apple slices He used soh and drank the rest

His stomach tried to reject the food several ti himself to finish the meal

Afterwards, he cli, and went up to the top of the fuselage He surveyed the area

Ahead of the nose were the plains of the buffer zone and the distant horizon

There was nomoved, not even animals

Behind the aeroplane was the ever- orange streak against the water’s surface

Soon the sun would set and complete darkness would fall upon the world And with the darkness would come the cold

Major Travas returned to the cockpit and gathered up the leather jackets from the bodies He brushed the dried blood off them

He laid two of the jackets on the floor of the aeroplane, wore one, and spread the last one over his legs He also used his trenchcoat as a makeshi+ft blanket

As soon as the sun set, the world went black

Major Travas closed his eyes and ended his day

The next day The 28th of the fourth month

Major Travas awoke from his sleep, which had been interrupted countless times by the cold and pain

Day was dawning

For breakfast, Major Travas ate the lunch eant Lod The food would raise his falling body temperature

The pain in his ankle and the throbbing headache continued, but Major Travas did not take any painkillers

Instead, he thought

He sat in the middle of the aeroplane and contemplated He asked one question after another

What had happened the previous day? Captain Barnett’s lunchbox had exploded The flight creere killed

Why? Someone must have put a bo from the presence of shrapnel

For what purpose? To cause the aeroplane to crash If the flight creere dead, the aeroplane would crash

Then why did the culprit want to cause such a thing?

There was only one answer The culprit’s mission was to assassinate Major Travas

Major Travas recalled the conversation from the previous day and realized that Captain Barnett’s actions had saved his life

Barnett had gotten his lunch much earlier than scheduled The explosion happened when he opened the box, which was supposed to be opened at lunchtime