The Feminist Queendom Charlie’s War 33

© Beverly Taff

List of Characters.

Charlie Sage Maths and electronics genius.
Shirley Sage Charlies elderly mother
Chloe Charlie’s one time early school friend.
Josephine Flint Surgeon and associate of Chloe’s.
Mrs Jane Anston Director of Anston Aerospace.
Ronnie Garage mechanic at top of lane
Pauline Garage owner, Ronnie’s sister.
Briony Pauline’s teenaged daughter.
Billy Pauline’s middle son.
Abigail (Abby) Pauline’s youngest daughter.
‘Poppy’ Charlie’s little micro-runabout.
‘Doris’ The armoured mobile home.
‘Lady’ Chloe’s Sports Car.
Dawn Charlie’s armoured spaceship.
Colonel Wilson Vindictive misanthropist doctor.
Margaret Thomas ‘Failed’ police security guard.

Chapter 33

Margaret took a deep breath before speaking into the mike.

“Hello Australian air traffic control this is Police Sergeant Margaret Thomas. Which Air Traffic control station are you?”

“This is Perth, Western Australia. We’re the main regional traffic control. What is your destination?”

“The nearest airport where we can meet an armed reception committee.”

“Why?”

“Don’t ask stupid questions. I’m a federal police officer and I have arrested over twenty armed criminals who have kidnapped four Australian minors. I need a secure place to land, preferably a military base somewhere near Port Hedland. That is my present federal secondment.”

“We would recommend, Perth Airport.”

Margaret turned to Charlie who shook his head.

“It could be a bloodbath. They’ll be worrying about collateral damage and all bloody sorts. Besides, the sooner we get to land this plane, the better. Tell them Hedland’s a better bet and to have plenty of armed troops on hand. Explain to them that while we’re flying above stall speed, we’re safe, but once we lose lift from the plane’s wings, there’s no knowing what the fuselage will do. While they’re at it, ask if they’ve got any bloody military aircraft to hand. They can explain the situation and possibly transmit some video from their cameras to reveal the situation.”

“Good idea,” Margaret agreed, and she promptly relayed the information.

The message was answered immediately by a different voice for now things were moving rapidly.

“Spaceship Dawn, this RAAF station Learmonth. What is your position and situation?”

Charlie felt a wave of relief wash over him as Margaret answered the military interrogation immediately while Charlie passed her their exact position and situation.

The response gave Charlie hope when they learned that top priority had been accorded to any information pertaining to a craft called ‘Dawn’

After confirming their identity and location Charlie felt a surge of relief as he recognised Chloe’s voice. Dawn had been patched into a military network and Chloe had been given priority to speak to her husband.

“Charlie is that you?”

“Yes.”

“Can I speak to the kids?”

“No. At the moment I have them in my control, but I cannot speak to them.”

“Are they safe?”

“No. They were kidnapped, definitely by that lunatic Doctor/Colonel Wilson. She smuggled them onto a private jet and was trying to get them to Diego Garcia. We stopped them by capturing the plane they were on but they’re still inside the plane.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You’ll see when those planes arrive from Learmonth. Apparently, they’ve got cameras and you’ll see how we captured Colonel Wilson ‘s plane; and his squad of gangsters.”

Suddenly, their conversation was interrupted by another voice as the two fighters despatched to escort them broke in on the same frequency. By now they had been fully briefed and used the now accepted moniker, ‘Dawn’.

“Spaceship Dawn! Spaceship Dawn, are your receiving me?”

Charlie debated returning the mike to Margaret in case the people calling deemed a male voice to be an antagonist. In the end, he felt that whoever was calling would at least realise they were not belligerents. He replied instead of Margaret.
“Station calling Spaceship Dawn, identify yourself.”

“This is RAAF jet number zero, two, eight accompanied by zero, two, nine. How do you read me?”

“Loud and clear. Where are you?”

“We have you on radar and we’re approaching from your southeast. We’ll have you on visual in about five minutes. What is your condition?”

“My condition is safe and satisfactory, the damage I have sustained is slight and does not affect my performance. I am still ‘spaceworthy’, however, the aircraft I have attached in tow may not even be airworthy!”

There was an exchange between the pilots as they digested Charlie’s words. On hearing them, Margaret interrupted somewhat irritably.

“Listen ladies, this is Sergeant Margaret Thomas here and you can quit making remarks about dumb men. Just you wait until you can see the situation, then you can perhaps, say something sensible.”

The air fell silent as the pilots realised they had been overheard and no more was heard until the Australian fighter jets had visual. Then there was a crude expletive as the pilots realised the truth. There really was a small airliner caught by the hook of what appeared to be a flying Cornish Pastie.

“Jesus Christ! Look at that Debbie!”

“Fuck me, it looks like two insects mating in flight.”

Margaret and Charlie exchanged smiles as they listened to the incredulous pilots. Then Margaret revelled in the delight of the put-down as Charlie stifled a silent chuckle.

“As I told you ladies, we’ve got an airliner hooked up to us, and it’s under arrest. Now let’s have less of the theatrical language while you direct me to Learmonth airbase and promise me there are sufficient soldiers to detain these terrorists.”

The fighter pilot’s answer was still laced with disbelief as she stared at the conjoined craft.

“How the hell did you do that?”

“Don’t ask.” Margaret replied. “Just give us a course for Learmonth and confirm you’ve got sufficient troops for the reception committee. The troops in this plane are crack special forces.”

“Your course is one, oh, seven degrees true, and your distance is one hundred and ten miles.”

“That’s better,” Margaret scolded them, “now let’s try and keep this professional when we deliver these criminals!”

Having been suitably censured, the two sky jockettes fell in either side of the Dawn and kept their counsel until Charlie re-opened the dialogue.

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“Now ladies, are you able to make out anything of the condition inside the plane?”

“We can see two people in the cockpit.”

“Is anybody moving around in the cabin space?” Charlie asked.

“There are faces in the cabin windows, but they all seem to be seated.”

“Yes, that’s the sensible thing to do. If the move around they might upset the balance and slip off the hook. Can you not contact them by radio?”

“They’ve just signalled their radios are out because their engines are dead. That hook thing you’ve got apparently damaged the batteries. Their emergency EPIRB is working, that’s what alerted us. Firstly, Diego Garcia told us they were investigating, and we assumed they had it under control.”

“They lied.” Charlie replied.

“We know that now, after the federal government advised us.”

“You’ve been too bloody slow all around!” Margaret complained. “There’ll be questions about this when it’s all sorted. Nobody told the Hammersley Police about the seriousness of the danger; we were totally unprepared.”

“Well, that’s water under the bridge for now, the question is how are you going to land that mess?”

“Can you instruct their pilot to lower his wheels. They should be able to crank them down manually on a small plane like that.”

Charlie and Margaret watched the fighter pilot make a sign for undercarriage then waited as both jets flew underneath to check. Seconds later one of them advised Charlie.

“Their undercarriage is extending. It’s very slow but they’re managing it.”

“Good; that’s a step. I hope to land the plane like a normal landing, but you’ll have to reduce your speed to stay back with us. I want you to give me some idea of approach height of their wheels. I can’t judge from above them.”

“Got that. You’ve fifty miles to go, that’s the Australian coast ahead. Learmonth Airbase is the other side of the peninsular. They are monitoring our communications. You can check with them what preparations they have in place.”

“Thank you, stay with me to touch down.”

“You’ve got our promise on that.”

“Thank you. My intention is to make a few low-level circuits of the field to judge my approach height and speed. The slower I can go, the better but I cannot risk a ‘dead-weight’ landing. Ideally, I should approach just exactly as the plane would normally land to avoid as much load on the hook as possible. I’ll talk to the tower now.”

“Go ahead Dawn, we’re both listening. Your wheels are almost down.”

“Hello Learmonth tower, this is Spaceship Dawn; come in.”

“Dawn, this is Learmonth.”

“I need the landing specifications for this plane. Mainly the ideal landing speed.”

“Already ahead of you pilot. The touchdown speed is one fifty knots. And line up the orange lights for approach. The green lights are for high performance jets, too steep for that plane but I don’t have any figures for your spaceship.”

“I don’t need any. Ordinarily, my ship does a vertical landing.

My biggest problem is the amount of wing-lift I can sustain on the approach. If my speed is too low, there is insufficient wing-lift, and the main spar of this craft might become too stressed over my hook. Then it might buckle.

If my speed is too high, when the wheels touch, the plane might be too light and bounce off the hook. I have no idea how well the hook is embedded into the main spar. So, wish me luck.

Thanks for the figures. I’ll try a dummy run first and you can tell me if it’s within limits.”

“Hello Dawn, this is fighter-pilot just to confirm, the plane’s landing wheels appear to be down and locked, the pilot has just given me a thumbs-up on that.”

“Thanks missy. Stay with me for the inspection circuit, I’ll take it wide and steady.”

“That’s a promise Dawn. We’ll stay with you.”

Once Charlie had a good visual on the airbase he made two circuits of the field at a five-mile radius then a two-mile radius. This was as tight and as slow as the fighters could go without adopting vertical landing mode, which they intended to do during the final approach. Finally, he went out to ten miles and started his approach. As he lined up on the orange lights, one of the fighters followed directly behind the jetliner and reported an important message.

“Your jet-liner is too low Charlie she’s seeing orange and red. Come up a bit.”

“Thanks,” Charlie replied as he increased altitude and started to notice a second line of orange.”

“How’s that jet-pilot?”

“She’s right on the correct glide path and seeing single orange. I’m directly behind her at the same altitude. How does that fit with your view?”

“I see the lower orange and a half disc of the second orange, I’ll keep that unless you tell me otherwise. Five miles to touch-down and about ten metres high above the glide path. That’s the distance between my cockpit and the prisoner.”

“Good, keep it at that.”

Charlie kept focusing tight on the light arrangement then blinked momentarily as the green lights appeared then disappeared.

“Those were green lights! What was that? He panicked slightly.”

“Ignore them! Stay with the orange! One mile to go! You’re right on the button!”

Charlie’s knuckles were white with tension as the ground seemed to be approaching frighteningly fast,. The jet pilot’s voice reassured him.

“Your approach is good, your touching - - - now!”

Even through the skeg-hook, felt the sudden rumble of rubber on tarmac. It was now a matter of keeping the hook embedded whilst pulling back gently on the hook. Margaret was already pre-positioned in the viewpoint watching the hook like a hawk while calling up the situation.

“Hook is still secure, it’s embedded.”

“With this information, Charlie eased back but increased the lift. The hook ripped up into the main wing-spar whilst sawing further down the back of the fuselage.”

“Careful Charlie!!” You’re ripping the fuselage like a can-opener!”

Charlie was worried. The compromise between reducing the ground speed while yet sawing farther into the hull of the fuselage was proving trickier than she anticipated.

He eased off on the lift and felt the plane begin to shake violently as the wheels began to imprint heavily and the tarmac. Margaret let out a squeal of concern as she watched the plough-share hook emerge from the front of the main spar so that only a few feet of aluminium box girder bridged the hook to keep the main-spar intact; and that box section was buckling as she watched. Her only relief was that the plane had definitely reduced speed. She had no idea by how much, but she reported what she could see to Charlie.

“The speed is down a lot Charlie, but the girder thing is looking badly bent. The skin is beginning to split along the spine of the fuselage ahead of the wing as well. It gets wider with every bump of the wheels.”

“I’m down to ninety knots, - no eighty, now. How’s that spilt?”

“It’s still opening up. Can you slow it down a bit faster?

“No chance!” Charlie replied. “If we snap the main spar then there’s no knowing where the wings will break nor how they’ll dig the engines into the ground. “We’re down to sixty knots.”

Before Margaret could respond with a sit-rep, there was a tearing grinding sound and Margaret watched in fascinated horror as the plane gave a violent lurch and the main spar box girder gave a grinding groan. Margaret watched the broken spar start to separate and the hook ripped free as Dawn, now freed of the weight, leapt upwards before Charlie could haul back on the speed.

Over the radio, Charlie heard the escorting jet pilot report.

“The starboard landing wheels have collapsed.”

“Thank god there’s no fuel!” Was Charlie’s abiding thought as he saw the plane’s upward tilting nose swerve violently to starboard before disappearing from view.

Now free of the burden, Dawn responded as precisely as a humming bird when Charlie yanked back hard to turn short around and inspect the wreck. Poor Margaret was jammed hard against the front of the inspection chamber and bruised her shoulder badly.

“Oow! Dammit Charlie! That hurt.”

“Sorry Marge!”

“Oh, it’s okay. I don’t think anything’s broken. But next time, warn me!”

“Can you close the viewing port, I’m going to land?”

Margaret struggled with the crank and dogs then emerged wincing from the bay. She found Charlie closing down the engines and preparing to open the airtight door to the cargo bay.

“Bugger me!” Margaret cursed more with relief than anger. “Thank you for flying with Humpty-Dumpty airlines. Every landing a walk-away!”

“Never mind us, we are walking!” Charlie frowned, “let’s see what our prisoner is like.”

“Well, I don’t see any smoke, that’s always a good sign!” Margaret opined.

They emerged shakily from the Spaceship and on realising that there was no sign of fire, Charlie was set to dash into the plane and find his kids. It took Margaret all her strength to restrain him.

“Not yet Charlie. There’s still a platoon of bloody armed troops in there. There’s no knowing what’s going on.”

Her words proved prophetic.

ooo000ooo