His heart drummed in his ears while his hands worked with training-honed instincts.
Smacking a goose at this speed would shatter the windscreen, could even kill a pilot.
The plane groaned at the abrupt ascent, then leveled, hummed again. Damn, that had been close. His pulse started to slow—
Whoomp.
His brain barked the answer in sync with Quade's affirmation.
"Bird strike in the number-one engine."
Death for a jet engine. And hopefully only one engine, with no explosion.
Caution lights flooded his control panel, an engine-fire alert. The landing strip grew closer, a stretch in a region as flat as any desert. But was it near enough?
Bo slammed aside memories of last year's desert crash landing quicker than he cut the fuel to the engine with a jerk of the fire handle. "Roger, fuel cut, beginning boldface checklist for engine shutdown."
Voices popped through the headset. Commands. Updates. The cargo plane shuddered through the air with the drag and pull of power adjustments to the remaining engines to compensate for the diminished thrust on the left. Protocol and division of labor was crucial for getting their butts on the ground in one piece. From here on out as copilot he would talk and Quade, in the aircraft commander's seat, would fly. No more evaluation, but plenty more scowling.
"Minot tower," Bo barked into the mike on his headset. "This is Moose zero-one, leveling off, present heading. We just took a bird strike and we've shut down an engine."
"Roger, zero-one," tower answered. "Are you declaring an emergency?"
Bo rocked the microphone button down for private inner-phone. "Colonel, are you ready to declare?"
Lean and impassive, Quade hesitated, then nodded. "I think she's flying okay, but yes, let's go ahead and declare."
No surprise. Quade was a conservative aviator to the end. Not a bad thing right now.
Bo thumbed the mike button up for open-air frequency. "Roger, tower, I am declaring an emergency at this time."
"Copy, zero-one, are you able to switch frequencies or are your hands full?"
"Zero-one will accept a frequency change."
Chatter from other aircraft faded as he brought up the new frequency reserved for emergency personnel—the fire chief, command post, flight surgeon's office, maintenance and the supervisor of flying. In spite of his resolve, memories whispered through. During last year's crash landing there'd been no help, no friendly faces waiting for them on the ground as they descended their crippled craft into enemy territory. A missile hit, not a bird, had nailed them because of a flight-plan leak from one of their own.
"Moose zero-one, reporting up, three-two-two-dot-two."
Command Post responded, "Moose zero-one, Minot Command Post. Hotel Conference initiated—" Emergency personnel were up and listening. "Moose zero-one, souls on board and fuel remaining?"
"Four souls and 35,000 pounds."
"Copy four and thirty-five K. What's your plan?"
"We're going to do a controllability check and then a straight-in approach for landing."
Bo continued the radio calls while Quade slowed the cargo plane in midair to ensure it would be controllable at landing speed. At least in the air they could bail out. And there sure as hell was plenty of level, empty and totally treeless countryside for them to ditch.
Tag and Mako thundered up the stairwell into the cockpit and strapped into the two instructor seats behind the pilots, higher in the craft being safer in an emergency-landing situation.
"Gentlemen—" Quade's near-whisper calls had the damnedest way of booming "—
everyone locked down tight?"
"Roger," the answer echoed in triplicate.
"Excellent. Once we land, no hesitation, haul ass out and as far away from the plane as possible." In case the plane blew. The unspoken possibility clouded the air with a noxious threat. "Now let's get this baby down in a way that doesn't feature us in the six-o'clock news."