FIVE YEARS AGO

In stormy weather at night, a light duty military aircraft flew reconnaissance near the border of the Etatsunien, a member country of the CoC. The storm worsened and the pilot struggled to control his aircraft. On board, the pilot, a young, twenty year-old Luc Coquin, and his reconnaissance mission specialist, a young Bastian Skateur knew they were in trouble. The aircraft with UEN markings pitched violently in the wind. UEN aircraft were high-tech vehicles with lots of automated controls so that even a minimal crew of two could fly it. They looked more like flying saucers than metal birds with wings. However, they still were not immune to the forces of mother nature.

“I can’t get us out of this storm! It got bad all of the sudden!” Luc yelled back over his shoulder to Bastian who sat in front of a large radar screen collecting surveillance information from inside the borders of the Etatsunien.

“You can’t put us down here, we’ve crossed over the border and way into Etatsunien air space! You’ve got to get us out!” Bastian yelled back.

“The wind is blowing us in is what’s happening! I’m not putting us down, we’re going down!” Luc fought with the controls of the aircraft. Yellow warning lights flashed in front of him.

Their aircraft rocked up and down as the storm, maybe it was a tornado, tossed it around. As it lost altitude, Luc tried to hold it together so that they would survive the inevitable crash landing. Yellow warning lights turned into red alert lights, but Luc could not do anything about them. Alarms sounded as the aircraft crossed non-viable flying conditions indicating that the ground approached fast and airspeed died off rapidly.

Luc found an open field of farmland to crash land onto and put the aircraft down on its belly. When it hit the ground, a small explosion of dirt and mud flew into the air ahead of it as it skidded through the field tearing up crops in its wake. The sound of twisting metal mixed with the sounds of the storm. When the smoking craft slid to a stop, it left a deep scar on the land.

Not long after the crash landing, two men arrived at the crash site with barking dogs. They carried hunting rifles and dressed in plainclothes overalls over blue collared shirts. They were scruffy men, but not evil men. With lights mounted to their hats, they examined the crash debris and shouted at each other about what they found. They scrambled to find any survivors. One of them found a bent hatch and pried it open gaining access to the inside. The dogs went in first. Inside, the men stopped when they saw survivors in the beams of their flashlights. Luc and Bastian had survived the violent crash, but both had been knocked unconscious.

When Luc regained his senses, he found himself lying on a mattress which itself lay on the ground of a plain, empty room. The one window in the room allowed light to pass through, but the glass was frosted so that no one could see out or in. Judging the amount of light coming through the window, Luc surmised it was day.

Luc sat up with a start and reached for his gun in its usual place holstered in his waistband, but he did not find it there. In fact, his uniform was gone, too! Someone changed him into a fresh set of civilian clothes. Realizing that he was for the most part unhurt, Luc scanned the room and saw Bastian against the other wall of the room lying on his own mattress.

We must have survived the crash, Luc thought, but where are we?

Luc made his way over to Bastian who continued to sleep. Luc shook Bastian trying to wake him.

“Bastian! Hey Bastian! Wake up, pal, it’s me Luc.”

Bastian gradually regained consciousness and when he opened his eyes after a several seconds, he looked up at Luc, who hovered over him with his back to the window so that sunlight shone from behind him. The bright sun behind Luc caused a halo of yellow light to surround him.

Bastian recognized Luc and said, “If this is heaven, I don’t know what all the fuss was about trying to get here. I should have had more fun when I was alive.”

“Bastian, we’re not dead!” Luc tried to convince Bastian of that fact. “We’ve alive! We survived the crash.”

Bastian sat up.

“Oh, really? Then you’re not an angel who’s come back to haunt me?”

“No, I’m no angel!”

“You can say that again!”

“Why you!”

Even in dire situations, Bastian and Luc still got on each other’s nerves.

Before Luc could return Bastian’s insult, they heard a knock on the door! They jumped a bit startled by the knock, but steeled themselves for whoever was going to come through that door. But first, they heard a voice from outside the door.

“Ah heard all this ruckus coming from up here. Ah figger’d you two were finally awake.”

The door swung open. Luc and Bastian prepared for a fight! But instead of an imposing, scary man with brass knuckles, the man who walked through the door looked middle-aged wearing a dress shirt minus the tie and wool slacks with full grain leather shoes. He spoke first to the startled Luc and Bastian.

“Howdy, boys. The name’s Johnson. Taylor Johnson, Esquire. I’m an attorney and I understand you two are goin’ to need one.”

“Where are we?” demanded Luc in his sternest voice.

“Why do we need an attorney?” asked Bastian out of curiosity.

“Ah see you two have a lot of questions!” said Taylor Johnson. “Well, let me start by askin’ you boys what your names are and where you come from?”

“I’m Luc Coquin, pilot for the UEN.” Luc still sounded stern.

“I’m Bastian Skateur, information systems specialist for the UEN.” Bastian was not nervous at all.

“Well, that’s nice. Now that we know each other, Ah’ll answer your question first Mr. Pilot. You two crash landed in a soybean field several miles inside the border of the Etatsunien. The local farmers there found you two and passed you through to this ‘safe house’ here where you’ve been unconscious for two days.”

“Come to think of it, I am pretty hungry,” Bastian said. “Is there something to eat around here?”

“Quiet, Bastian!” commanded Luc. “We may be talking to the enemy here.”

“Enemy? Me?” Taylor Johnson was confused. “No, you have it all wrong my friend! We’re not your enemy. We’re here to help you.”

“Help us with what?” Luc was suspicious.

“Why, help you with your request for asylum, naturally.” Taylor Johnson said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “That’s why you need an attorney to answer Mr. Specialist’s question next.”

“We’re not seeking asylum.” Luc was adamant about that.

“You’re not?” Now Taylor Johnson was even more confused. “Then why did you fly over from the UEN and land here in the Etatsunien? Didn’t you boys risk life and limb to escape the tyranny of the UEN for the freedom of the Etatsunien?”

“No!” insisted Luc. “We were flying a recon mission when a storm popped up all of the sudden and forced us down way past the border. We just want to go back to the UEN.”

“Yeah, what he said!” agreed Bastian. He had been listening the whole time, but couldn’t get a word in edgewise until now.

“Well, this changes everythin’ now doesn’t it? You boys don’t want to defect, is that right?” asked Taylor Johnson.

“No!” Luc was emphatic.

“He means ‘yes’.” Bastian corrected Luc’s use of grammar.

“Well, that does pose a problem. Ya see, when you crash landed, the local farmers who found you thought that you two wanted to defect to the Etatsunien. Although where you come from, the standard of living is high, but the UEN suppresses any and all political opposition and there is no right to free speech or freedom of assembly or the right to due process under the law. So they passed you two onto this ‘Underground Railroad’ of sorts to keep you in hiding from your ‘friends’ who came lookin’ for you.”

“Underground Railroad?” Bastian had never heard of it before. “We call it the Metro where we’re from.”

“Well, if you want to go back we’ll have to figure out a way to get you back without you spillin’ the beans on those of us who work to help your fellow citizens to defect here and make a new life for themselves. Let me see what we can do for you. You boys are going to have to stay here for a little while until we get this all figger’d out, ya hear?”

“All right, Mac. Just tell us what we got to do to get back home.” Luc’s mind was set on returning home.

“Um, will you be feeding us while we’re here?” Bastian thought not about political tyranny, but about his stomach which was way more important to him.

Taylor Johnson turned and left the room and closed the door behind him. He did not bother to answer Bastian’s question about mealtimes here at the safe house. However, it was safe to assume that they did not starve.