Marooned 1.4

Phillip

Commercial aircraft might not be the military. But chain of command is almost as important. And as a suit who hasn’t been in an airline cockpit in years; I wasn’t directly in line to take command. Especially since the cabin crew were responsible for evacuating passengers. So when the senior flight attendant came to me and said she didn’t feel comfortable evacuating passengers in these conditions I was surprised. Of course, to my regret, I overruled her. She was one of the first down the slide and the wolves had dragged her off before we could even think of rescuing her.

The cockpit had been sectioned off for a reason. Post 9/11 rules meant the cockpit could only be opened from inside. A massive tree branch had broken through the windscreen and speared both pilots. Both men were dead long before we could break our way inside. And with snow falling in from the upper boughs it was cold enough inside that it was one of the few places we felt comfortable storing the bodies we had managed to recover.

And then one of my pressganged aides came running from the front of the plane screaming that mushrooms were eating our dead. After scrambling to the cockpit I opened the jury rigged latch and saw a handful of cat sized creatures with latte coloured flesh, the build of a small monkey sans tail, and heads like giant mushrooms. The flesh of our deceased had somehow turned into goop and the hands of these things were shovelling the goop into what looked like gills lining the underside of their heads. It was one of the most disgusting sights I had ever seen. I kicked one of them and It crumbled inward. A cloud of brownish dust blasted out from the gills. My eyes started to burn and my skin began to itch. Luckily the creatures were scrambling back out of the plane into the trees.

I immediately began stripping and began heading for a restroom; hoping water would wash off the toxin. And then suddenly I woke up with my entire body feeling numb. The surgeon and corporal Meacham were standing over me. Mr. Singh, British surgeons don’t use doctor as a title, said, “Major Reynolds; I have no way to test if the creatures have done any lasting harm. You appear physically hale apart from a rash. BP and heartrate are normal. I would like to do a cognitive test just in case. Can you please tell me your full name, the date and who Is currently the Prime Minister.”

“Mr. Singh. I’ve been out of the RAF1 for nearly two decades. My name is Phillip Reynolds.” I answered the rest of his questions.

He then said. “The rash seems to be fading incredibly quickly. Whatever the spores are they seem to be relatively harmless.”

“They were dissolving the cadavers very quickly.” I croaked out,

“Maybe their appendages contain more concentrated forms of the toxin. If they’re scavengers they might use the dust cloud to scare off other predators while they feed.”

Meacham came up to me. “The mushroom things were out of the cockpit by the time I arrived . They haven’t returned. Are we just going to leave the bodies there?” He asked.

“Where else are we going to put them? If we’re not rescued in the next few days we’ll have figure out something more permanent. Just keep a watch on the door for now.”

“We’ve got other things we need to worry about. Once we clear the cargo hold we should have enough food for a few more days. After that we can go hunting. It’s not the season for it; but I don’t think anyone will be picky.”

I was taking a break from leading the front of the plane. A million different complaints had come my way. People refusing to hand over their food. People wanting to cut in line for triage. People who absolutely needed some vital item from the cargo bay we couldn’t access. And most of all people asking how long until we’d get rescued and if the airline was going to pay for their ruined holidays.

The flight attendants were already being worked near to death. Seeing this one of the children, Melissa, decided to intervene. She actually seemed to enjoy telling people to piss off and despite her age she had absolutely no tolerance for bullshit. She was a dream to work with.

“Yes ma’am. You can stay at any five star resort in the world for free. The offer is only valid for tonight. So you’ll want to be quick in helping us repair the plane.”

“No sir. We’re not going to pay you to replace your water bottle. If you want to sue the airline I’m sure the judge will award you a couple bucks in damages.”

Thankfully I only had to intervene when a nonce tried to get handsy with her. He was on the ground with his hands around his bollocks by the time the air marshal had come to drag him away. But I had to authorise tying him to a chair with some of the makeshift rope we had woven. The air marshal was obviously uncomfortable being a yank on a British flight in such an awkward circumstance. But we all had to make do and hope we weren’t arrested for false imprisonment when this was all over.

Afterwards came the planning for the next op. Getting the cargo pallets out of the hold without pallet loaders was going to be a nightmare. If we weren’t under siege it would have been manageable. But if wishes were horses the wolves would be very well fed.

The current plan was to wrap our jury rigged ropes around cargo containers and then use a tug of war to pull them out. We just needed to keep the wolves away long enough to get the pallets out of the hold and stacked as a barrier so we could work without worry.

The kids were on the wing with their arsenal of improvised artillery. Marshal Jones had his gun at the ready in case some of the wolves got too close. Most of them seemed to be sleeping after finishing off their earlier meals. But I was too nervous to take any needless risks

My closest experience with real combat was flying Harriers over the Balkans in the 90s. And that was a walk in the park compared to the risks we were taking here. But I couldn’t send men down in good conscience without volunteering myself as well. Of course at that point I still thought I had a family to get back to. All the evidence was pointing towards us being in some sort of hell frozen over; but I was complete denial. And I sincerely wanted to see my kids again.

Meacham was first in line at the ropes. He was halfway down when one of the wolves appeared out of the trees and started pacing towards the aircraft. I ordered the marine to hold steady until the wolf reached the wing. At that point the people manning the wing started lighting their ammo on fire and letting loose. Most of it fell short. But the young girl from South Africa managed a direct hit on the snout with what looked like a shoe filled with burning paper. The wolf suddenly charged forward when another two missiles hit its flank. At that point it backed off. Meacham then lowered himself to the height of the cargo door and opened it up.

The rest of us then rappelled down to ground level. There were around two dozen of us. A team of amateur rugby who had managed to organise a game with a tiny league in America, a small family of Americans who were in South Africa on a hunting safari and a few other athletes older than eighteen who were willing to risk their lives. It was winter in South Africa so we had scavenged a few pieces of cold weather gear. But none of it was designed for use in the snow.

We wrapped our improvised ropes around one of the cargo pallets and the group of us pulled as hard as we could. The rope snapped and the pain in my hands was excruciating. “I think we need a thicker rope boet,” a burly man with a South African accent cried as he shook his hands in pain.

Suddenly a voice called down from the plane. “Try wrapping the rope around a couple of tree branches and use it as a pulley system.” The voice itself turned out to be an engineer who was watching what we were doing from his seat and had come to help. It still took two more hours due to a thicker rope needing to be woven and a too thin tree branch snapping. And it wasn’t nearly as efficient as the block and tackle systems used on sailing ships. But some grease we managed to get the job done.

Luckily, one saint among us had filled a few plastic water bottles with snow. I’d have killed for a good hot cuppa; but the fresh water was still ambrosia. As we were working we saw tiny motes drifting up from the snow. At close glance they seemed to resemble small insects. But they were made of ice. Most only lasted seconds before melting. But the record was two minutes for a something that looked like a small humming bird. A few keen eyes spotted similar absurdities. On the trees there were small wooden squirrels with pine needle fur. They were so well camouflaged it looked like they were being created and absorbed from the wood of the trees themselves. One person even claimed she saw a fox made of snow.

The flesh and blood wolves stayed away. And no other dangerous creatures appeared. Still; we were very careful to stay close the plane. We had no idea how many wolves or other dangers were waiting to pounce on an unsuspecting victim.

After the first container was dragged out of the plane two of our volunteers attached ropes to each piece of luggage to be dragged up to the plane for further sorting. The rest of us managed to drag two more pallets out of the cargo hold before night started falling. As the last person to reenter the plane I looked out at the darkening sky when the true horror of our situation hit me. Just above the peak of one mountain was a normal looking greyish white moon. And above the peak of another mountain was a smaller red moon across from a much brighter blue one. I broke down crying. There was no way I could keep lying to myself. We weren’t on the same planet as Kansas anymore. And I had no way to return to my family.

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1 The RAF or Royal Air Force is an order of warriors in the United Kingdom trained in using artifice similar to the plane that bore the Maroons to our world.

Appendix 1.b

At this point it might be best to note the various nationalities among the Maroons. The vast majority of the Maroons speak English as a common language regardless of background. In many ways it is similar to Low Imperial in our world.

The Americans, British and South Africans are the most common. Each of these being a federation containing multiple member states and peoples. The United Kingdom includes the English, the Scottish, the Welsh and some, but not all, of the Irish. The most commonly used demonym for the nation as a whole being ‘British’; but many prefer to use the demonym of their ethnicity instead.

The South Africans include South African English (who are independent from the British English), Afrikaaners, Xhosa, Zulu, Coloureds (though some Americans view this term as an insult towards certain ethnicities; in South Africa it refers to groups of people who are descended from mixed backgrounds. The most common among the Maroons are the Cape Coloureds who live in the region where the plane carrying the Maroons originated) and many others.

The Americans are a complex mix of peoples. They divide themselves based on skin colour and language; but among these are subgroups that also take pride in their ancestors coming from differing regions of their world and pride in each member state (of which there are fifty) they live in.

Along with these major nationalities are smatterings of Indians, Chinese, Turkish, Dutch, Israelis, Irish, Japanese and many others.