A Time for Patriots

Patrick scanned out his window, but he knew he couldn’t get too distracted from flying the plane. “I didn’t see it,” he said. “I don’t have enough room to keep turning left, but I’ll loop around to the right and bring you right back to it on the same heading. Coming right.” He made a right turn away from the mountain, perhaps a bit more sharply than he intended…

… but Brad wasn’t ready for it, and when Patrick turned, Brad couldn’t stop it — he put his head between his legs, pulled the headset microphone away from his lips just in time, and threw up on the floor of the Cessna.

“Brad!” Patrick exclaimed, rolling wings level. “Are you all right?” His question was answered with another heave. “Brad?”

“I’m… I’m okay.” But he followed that announcement with a third heave.

Patrick and John pulled their overhead vents open all the way to let in as much fresh air as they could, but it was no use — the smell wafted up to the cockpit, and now it was everywhere, impossible to ignore. Patrick looked over at John, who was already starting to turn a little pale. “John…?”

“I think I’m done for a while too, Patrick,” he said uneasily.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” Brad said. “I should’ve eaten something. It’s all the turning, and looking sideways and downward, and the turbulence…”

“Don’t worry, Brad,” Patrick said. “Either it’s happened to every pilot, or it soon will. We’re heading back to base.” John radioed Rob Spara at the squadron to report that they were exiting the search grid and gave them their ETA back to base.

As they were approaching the traffic pattern, John looked and saw a group of about ten cars on either side of the road to the base. “What’s going on down there?” he asked.

Patrick looked himself. Two lines of individuals carrying signs were walking down the road toward the main entrance to the base. “Why, they look like protesters!” he exclaimed. “Looks like they’re going to demonstrate outside the base!”

“I hope they stay outside,” John said. There was really no outer gate to Joint Air Base Battle Mountain, just a light chain-link fence designed to keep out tumbleweeds, and a cattle guard on the road to keep out stray farm animals on the nearby open ranges. All of the base security was electronic, using laser, infrared, and millimeter-wave sensors for all-weather precision scanning, with responses made by unmanned and then manned vehicles. “I haven’t seen a protest march since the Vietnam years.”

Patrick made the landing, brought the plane back to the hangar, then helped clean out the back. Afterward, they checked in with Rob Spara and described what they saw, including the protesters outside the main gate. “Yeah, they warned us about that,” Rob said. “Base security said if it gets bigger they might have to escort folks in and out.” He turned to Brad. “You feel okay, Brad?”

“I’m much better,” Brad replied. He had a packet of cheese and peanut-butter crackers and a ginger ale. “I just needed to eat something. I didn’t really have breakfast. I was too excited.” He turned to Patrick. “Sorry for messing up the plane, Dad,” he repeated.

“Don’t be. It’s okay. Feel like giving it another try?”

“Yes!”

“Sure you want to push it, Brad?” Rob asked. “It’s not going to get any less bumpy out there.”

“I still want to go,” Brad said.

Rob looked at Brad carefully, then glanced at Patrick. But Patrick just put a hand on Brad’s shoulder. “He’s an adult and a senior member now, Rob,” he said with a smile. “He can make his own decisions.”

Rob hesitated. “I’d say airsickness is an ‘illness’ in the ‘IMSAFE’ checkoff that would ground you, Brad,” he said. “But I have a ground team in the field and no other crews to fly the 182.” He turned to John. “You feeling okay, John?”

“Yeah,” he replied. He too was munching on crackers and washing them down with ginger ale, both believed to be good nondrug remedies for airsickness. “I got a little green around the gills when the smell first hit, but I’m good now.”

Rob thought about it a little more, but he finally nodded. “Okay, guys,” he said, punching flight-release information into his computer. “You’re released. Make contact with the ground team and see if you steer them over to that sighting you made.” After Patrick got a bite to eat himself — with a bottle of ginger ale too, just in case — they refueled the plane, preflighted, loaded up, and were off.

But it was soon obvious that Brad’s stomach was not going to cooperate. They were on the downwind leg of the departure, still in the climb and not yet at pattern altitude, in smooth air, when Brad said, “I don’t feel so good again, Dad.”

Both air vents were already wide open. Patrick leveled off at about five hundred feet aboveground and reduced airspeed to smooth out the ride. “Try looking out the front window instead of the side window for a while, Brad,” John suggested.

“I tried that,” Brad said. “I think it’s sitting in the back. I feel all cooped up back here. I never got airsick when I sit in front or when I’m flying.”

John turned to look at Brad, and he saw how miserable he looked. “I think we better put it down, Patrick,” he said. “Brad’s not—” And at that moment they heard a loud PRRING! and felt a sharp metallic impact vibration from the left wing. “What was that? Did we hit a bird?”

“Didn’t feel like a bird,” Patrick said. “Back me up on altitude while I look, John.”

“Roger.”

Patrick searched the leading edge of the wing for the source of that noise. “I don’t see any—”

“I see a hole in the wing!” Brad said suddenly. “Out by the tip, just forward of the aileron! Fuel is coming out!”

Patrick saw it a moment later. “Now, how in heck did that happen?” he asked no one in particular. He turned the control wheel slightly, then scanned the instrument panel. “Everything feels okay, and the engine instruments look—” And at that instant they felt and heard another sharp rap on the airplane, this time from somewhere on the tail and rear fuselage. “What the hell…?”

“Hey, the back window is broken!” Brad exclaimed. They all turned and saw the rear Plexiglas window with numerous spiderweb-like cracks emanating from a deep round hole near the upper edge! “It looks like a bullet hole!” Brad said.

“Holy crap , I think someone’s shooting at us!” Patrick shouted. He mashed the microphone button: “Battle Mountain Tower, CAP Twenty-seven-twenty-two, declaring an emergency, requesting immediate landing clearance.”

“CAP Twenty-two, Battle Mountain tower, roger, cleared to land, any runway,” the tower controller responded immediately. “State fuel and souls on board and the nature of your emergency.”

“CAP Twenty-seven-twenty-two, three souls, four hours’ fuel on board,” Patrick replied as he banked steeply toward the northeast-southwest cross runway. “I think someone hit us with gunfire.”

There was a momentary pause; then: “CAP Twenty-two, say again ?”

“I think someone on the ground hit us with gunfire,” Patrick said. “They put a hole in our left wing and back window.”

“Roger,” the controller said, obviously trying to remain calm. “Do you require men and equipment?”

“Affirmative,” Patrick said. “I’m going to land on Runway zero-three. Advise any other aircraft to remain clear of the protesters outside the main gate — I think one of them might have a rifle.”

Outside the Main Gate to Joint Air Base Battle Mountain

A short time later

The appearance of the two squat remote-controlled Avenger air-defense armored vehicles inside the main gate of the air base, with their Sidewinder antiaircraft missile-launcher tubes and twenty-millimeter cannons aimed forward and elevated in a definitely menacing position, only served to enrage the protesters even more. The crowd of about thirty chanted, “Hey hey, ho ho, the killer robots have got to go!” and “Spy planes spy planes, what do you see? Innocent citizens living free! Spy planes spy planes go away, if you come back, you will pay!”

Just then they heard sirens behind them. A convoy of six Nevada Highway Patrol vehicles, sirens and lights on, moved slowly up the road to the main gate, led by a vehicle that somewhat resembled the armored vehicles inside the base. “This is the Nevada Highway Patrol,” a voice on a loudspeaker blared. “You are blocking a public thoroughfare without permission and interfering with freedom of travel.