The Far Side of the Sun

The Far Side of the Sun

December

Heidi Stillwell winced as the shrill throbbing cadence of her alarm clock penetrated the early morning fog, causing her to bolt upright even as she became aware of a deep pain resonating somewhere behind her right eye. She tried to rub five hours of sleep from her eyes, tried to connect with the realities of the day ahead, but she knew that without a shower – and about two liters of strong, black coffee – the effort was doomed to fail.

"First things first," she said to the empty room. "Coffee."

She padded to the little kitchenette in these spartan quarters and slapped a pod into the funky looking automated coffee thinga-ma-whozit and hit "BREW" as she slipped a cup under the spout, then off she went to the head and flipped on the shower. She brushed her teeth as the water warmed up, then stepped under the water while she continued brushing, all the while trying to concentrate on the day ahead.

0400 now, be at the line shack by 0440 for pre-flight briefing, pre-flight walk-around at 0515 – or close to it – then about 15 minutes to enter frequencies into the radios and cross check against her flight plan. Maybe ten minutes for engine start and taxi to the active, putting me airborne by 0545 latest. First airborne re-fueling would probably be somewhere over Lake Erie, most likely just north of Cleveland, the second west and north of Chicago. If the weather-Gods cooperated she'd zip on in to Mountain Home Air Force Base in time for lunch, do a quick de-brief then make it to the base clinic in time to see a few patients.

Stillwell was an U.S. Air Force Academy graduate; she had gone to medical school at Duke after graduation, and after gaining her M.D. did her internship and residency in Family Practice at military facilities in San Antonio. She continuing her duty obligation in the Air Force as a Flight Surgeon, and moved to Idaho, to Mountain Home Air Force Base after completing her residence. One of the perks of that posting was continuing flight time, for, or so the theory went anyway, you had to be a pilot in order to become a Flight Surgeon, and as Heidi Stillwell loved flying more than just about anything else in the world, this wasn't a burdensome duty. In fact, she lived for these intermittent proficiency checks, and grabbed every opportunity she could to rack up more hours.

She'd learned to fly as soon as her feet could reach the rudder pedals, or so her father had always liked to say, and because he had been an Air Force pilot, he had started her flying "in earnest" when she was ten years old. He had left the military when she was still very young and started flying for Delta, and so Heidi ended up with her pilot's license before she had even considered getting a permit to drive a car. To this day, she still hated automobiles: they were simply too slow...

Heidi Stillwell had always been on the far side of smart, too, and this she inherited from her mother. Her IQ had consistently been measured over the years at 160 or better. Einstein territory, in other words, and she had tended to intimidate most of her teachers in high school, let alone the few boys who dared talk to her. Still, she had run into the same glass ceilings her mother had, and everywhere she turned: male teachers rarely acknowledged her intelligence and often all but ignored her in the classroom; Academy classmates brushed her aside as a noisome nuisance, and even now the pilots in her wing ignored her, probably, she assumed, because she hadn't seen combat. Yet. But it was always funny to her how nice they were when time rolled around for the bi-annual flight physicals. Funny too, she thought, how quiet these men became when she checked them for hernias.

It probably hadn't helped that she'd conscientiously ignored the jocks and their cheerleaders all through high school. Further, to the amusement of her classmates, she spent almost all her free time pushing an old red and white Cessna 150 through the skies around of Atlanta, Georgia, and these kids just couldn't relate to that kind of seriousness, not in the age of video games, anyway. When she received her appointment to the Academy, she already had more than seven hundred hours of flight time, and was licensed to fly multi-engine aircraft under instrument flight rules, a rare accomplishment for one so young. Let alone, heaven forbid, a girl. She had never considered that her classmates were envious, and that some almost in awe of her accomplishments. Still, it became a point of contention for her father, if only because he wanted her to be a well-rounded kid, and well rounded girls had boyfriends, didn't they? He was concerned, he told her, because he felt she'd never really find true happiness in life until she was surrounded by friends and her own family. Going it alone wasn't going to bring happiness into her life, he said over and over.

But the way things were going? No friends? Only her studies, and flying?

When she graduated from high school, he doubted she'd even held hands with anyone. Ever.

And on her fifteenth birthday, Heidi Stillwell's mother passed away. Cancer. A vicious ovarian cancer, a malignant monster that had taken her mother in less than a year, and the experience defined Heidi Stillwell's life in many ways, but most of all the journey to death she made with her mother informed her choice to become a physician, and her outlook on life, in every way conceivable.

With all this in mind, consider that at 29 years young Heidi Stillwell had in fact shown almost zero interest in men (or women too, for that matter), and while she had (once) kissed a boy at a high school dance (and enjoyed it too, for some odd reason), that was the extent of her intimate interpersonal relationships. She was, in other words, somewhat lacking in experience when it came to these matters, yet lately this had been causing her to lose more than a little sleep. It just wasn't right, she told herself. At least that's what the little voice in the back of her head kept saying...only now, after almost thirty years ignoring her father...she was beginning to listen.

+++++

The pre-flight briefing mentioned a fast moving line of storms coming up the Ohio River Valley, and Stillwell noted the center of the low on her chart, as well as the storm's anticipated velocity vectors. She might need to alter her flight-plan once airborne to divert north around some of the cells, but at the moment the MET officer projected the line would get pushed east before it hit the Great Lakes. If so...she was golden, but being ever the realist she did the math in the comfort of the line shack and worked out the frequencies and courses she would need to divert north, and ahead of the storm, if it did in the end push north to the lakes.

Her flight suit on and helmet in hand, she made her way out to flight line and the F-15 Eagle she would fly out to Idaho; a crew chief in a bright orange vest was standing by next to the cockpit to help get her strapped in, hooked up and on her way. Stillwell climbed the ladder and plopped into the seat, then woke up the electrical bus, checked battery status, entered navigational TACAN and tower/departure COMMS frequencies on the radios, and positioned her charts on the holder strapped to her left thigh, then signaled the chief she was ready for engine starts.

She looked at the ground crew arrayed around the Eagle to make sure none were standing too close to an engine intake, then when the chief signaled, she started engine one. She watched pressures build, monitored fuel flows and checked in with the tower, then the chief signaled she was clear to start two. That done, she scanned her gauges one by one and when everything appeared nominal she saluted the chief and lowered the canopy.

"Eagle 3-2-3, we're all lit up and ready to go," she told the tower.

"Roger 3-2-3. You're clear to taxi to 2-7 right. Hold short for the C-5 on final."

"3-2-3."

She advanced the throttles, released the brakes and made a smooth right turn onto the taxiway. She pumped brakes to check hydraulic pressure, watched gauges as she taxied, and while occasionally looking around for any sort of ground traffic that might become a conflict. Everything felt good, and the rush of pushing the Eagle out to the runway was, as always, exhilarating.

"3-2-3, holding short," she said as her Eagle braked to a stop well back from the runway. She finished her checklists and made sure the frequency for departure control was up on COMMS 2, then she looked over her right shoulder as the truly huge C-5 transport floated over the threshold and flared for touchdown. She could see at least three more sets of C-5 landing lights strung out in the distance on final, and though she had to hold for about a minute to let the huge aircraft's wake turbulence settle down, she was anxious to get the show on the road.

"3-2-3, clear to taxi to position and hold."

"3-2-3, roger." She advance the throttles and turned onto the runway, then set her brakes and began her engine run-up. She paused just short of "full military power", or full afterburners, and watched her engine gauges carefully.

"3-2-3, clear for takeoff."

"3-2-3." She rechecked the throttles were all the way to their stops and could almost feel the air outside the Eagle as the power ripped through the air like man-made thunder. Indeed, she knew from experience that the Eagle's scream could be felt more than ten miles away at this setting. Watching the instruments carefully now, she released the brakes and felt the full weight of the jet's thrust push her back into the seat. Watching her speed build in the heads-up-display, she pulled back on the stick at a hundred and sixty three knots and felt her stomach sink as the Eagle left the ground, raising the landing gears just as the aircraft left the ground. At four hundred feet above ground level and climbing fast, and at a hundred and ninety knots indicated, she throttled back and raised the flaps a notch, then switched to departure control.

"Dover departure, Eagle 3-2-3 passing one thousand on 2-7-0."

"Roger 3-2-3, squawk 1-4-3-4, turn right heading 3-4-5, clear to flight level 2-2-0, and expedite."

"3-2-3, 1-4-3-4, 3-4-5, and 2-2-0." She banked the F-15 into a gentle right turn, then set her transponder to 1434 and squawked ident, then pulled back sharply on the stick to take the aircraft rapidly up to 22,000 feet. She was, she understood, skirting along the airways frequented by commercial aircraft traversing the Boston-New York-Washington, D.C. corridor, and knew air traffic control would want to get her up and over traffic descending into D.C. in a hurry.

Delaware Bay was off her right wing-tip and she could just make out tankers and lighthouses down below in dawn's early light. As she cleaned the wing and checked the aircraft's lights she clenched her jaws and cleared her ears, then resumed scanning her instruments. She looked at clouds in the distance and tuned the Eagle's radar manually, checking functions and ranges.

"3-2-3, stand-by to copy information alpha."

"3-2-3, go ahead."

"3-2-3, advise you consider alternate flight plan. Weather your primary route deteriorating and with heavy icing reported; advise you declare alternate and check in with Plattsburgh."

"3-2-3, roger." She checked in with FSS and gave them her new plan, and declared it active. Passing over Philadelphia, she contacted Plattsburgh AFB in Vermont.

"Eagle 3-2-3, you are clear for Plattsburgh heading 3-5-5, climb and maintain flight level 3-8-0."

"Eagle 3-2-3, heading 3-5-5 to flight level 3-8-0." Turning right again, Stillwell began a gentle climb to 38,000 feet.

"Eagle 3-2-3, squawk 3-4-0-0. Your TACAN for the tanker is 2-4-4-point-7-5."

"3-2-3, squawking 3-4-0-0, tanker on 2-4-4-point-7-5."

New York City slipped by under thin overcast well off her right wing, and she could just make out Lake Champlain dead ahead, though it was still well over a hundred miles away. Dialing TACAN 2 to 244.75 she noted the KC-10 tanker was still out of range, but now off her left wing she saw towering cumulonimbus clouds, some topping out over 50,000 feet. And below? The white winter landscape was disappearing underneath a patchwork quilting of cloud, and more worrisome still, maybe twenty miles off her left wing she could make out cloud to cloud lightning. That could only mean "thundersnow" and, more than certainly, very heavy icing conditions. She dialed in the Hartford/Bradley FSS frequency and checked barometric pressure, then dialed some engine bleed air into the leading edges of the wings. She checked her fuel state, shook her head then called Plattsburgh.

"Plattsburgh, 3-2-3, any word on weather over the lakes?"

"3-2-3, Cleveland reporting heavy snow, visibility now two miles and dropping, winds southwest at 35 knots, repeat 3-5 knots, gusts to 5-5 knots."

"Plattsburgh, roger. Got a vector to the gas station?"

The controller chuckled. "If you got a crayon handy, advise when ready to copy."

"3-2-3, got a candy apple red handy. Fire away."

"Roger 3-2-3, turn left to 3-1-0, TACAN still 2-4-4-point-7-5. Your Exxon station will be orbiting at flight level 3-3-0. You'll tank number three, behind two B-2s heading back from the dark side of the moon. You should be able to hit him on COMMS in about ten minutes."

"3-2-3, got it, and thanks."

Stillwell had been flying by hand up to now, but she flipped on the autopilot and dialed in the heading, then hit the ALT HOLD mode when she hit 38,000. She slid her visor up and rubbed her eyes with the knuckles of her pointing fingers, took a deep breath and shook her head while she scrunched around in the seat, trying to find just the right spot to get rid of the hot spot on her tailbone.

"Man-o-man, wonder if there's a Starbuck's anywhere around here?" she said aloud...then...

A deep thud shuddered through the aircraft.

Hydraulic pressure falling...warning lights coming up now...

Audible alarms, then...fuel warning lights?

"WHAT THE FUCK!"

Something was stinging her eyes. Fuel vapor? She pulled off her oxygen mask, and – the vapors were overwhelming. She slapped the mask back over her face, then...

"Plattsburgh, 3-2-3, squawking 7700, declaring an emergency. Explosion, hydraulics and fuel gone, vapor in the cockpit."

"3-2-3, Plattsburgh, radar contact. Syracuse 1-2-5 miles bearing 3-3-5, Plattsburgh now 9-5 miles bearing 1-2-5."

"3-2-3, anything closer?"

"Lake Placid, but runway is closed with near zero visibility and three feet unplowed on the runway."

"Okay Plattsburgh, give me a vector to Lake Placid...uh, wait one..." She looked at the rearview mirrors lining the canopy arch above her head, saw a wall of flame erupt somewhere aft of the cockpit. "Plattsburgh, 3-2-3, fire on board and we're checkin' outta here..."

And with those hard, fateful words, Heidi Stillwell reached above her head and pulled the ejection loop. The F-15s canopy ripped free of the aircraft as a small rocket under her seat blasted her clear of the burning Eagle. The winter air at 38,000 feet was minus 60 degrees Celsius, and she slammed her helmet visor shut as her tearing eyes began to freeze. The kneeboard attached to her left thigh ripped away and slammed into her chest and neck before vanishing in the slipstream, and she was aware of an intense burning sensation somewhere under her chin before a lack of oxygen made her world grow very dim indeed...

+++++

Heidi Stillwell fell earthward for almost two minutes, before her seat separated and the parachute deployed, yet she was completely unaware of these two lifesaving events. The air grew marginally warmer as she entered cloud, but soon her body was coated with snow and ice, yet even so her eyes opened, barely, and she noted she was deep inside a thunderstorm when a concussive rumble of thunder shook through the very core of her being. Her knees pulled up instinctively when a spider's tracery of lightning ripped through the cloud, seemingly no more than a few meters away, then she put her hand on her neck, pulled it up to her eyes only to find deep red blood on her gloved hand.

She slowly shook her head, scrunched her eyes. Flexing her fingers, then her feet, she tried to perform a quick neurological exam as she drifted downward through the cloud. When she was almost sure her spine was intact she began to look down, and every now and then she thought she glimpsed pine trees, though they still appeared to be quite far below, perhaps another two to three thousand feet.

Next she felt for the rescue radio clipped to the left strap of her 'chutes shoulder harness, and while she patted the device reassuringly she dared not touch it until she was on the ground. Then, not fifty meters away she saw the ragged amber-gray rocks of a sheer cliff slipping by, then trees reaching up to pluck her from the sky. Next, she felt her body ensnared by tree limbs, then she was aware of tumbling through forest canopies, bouncing over rocks, then arcing through the air once again before the earth reached up for her one last time.

+++++

The man and the boy had been stalking a small group of deer since dawn. The weather was awful – cold, very cold – but there had been some sun out early, and it appeared the herd was a large one. Then, not an hour after sunrise, a brutal wind had come, and not long after a void of howling snow had enveloped their world. Still, they pushed on through the snow, their crude snowshoes keeping them from sinking into waist deep drifts as they attempted to follow the deer.

This had been, surely, one of the worst winters in memory, and though the autumn harvest had been completed not all that long ago, already the village's stocks of food were running perilously low. It would be a tough winter indeed if the men were not able to take a few deer from time to time, and now, luckily, this herd of deer had made a fatal mistake: they had turned toward the cliff – toward what the locals called Stone Mountain – and now were effectively boxed in.

The man looked at the tracks and pointed them out to the boy.

"See that? You move off to the right, and be ready. I'll follow the creek. We'll have 'em, then."

"Alright, Paw..."

Then an explosion, high overhead.

"Paw? Was that – thunder?"

The man looked skyward. "I don't think so, boy."

He saw a faint yellow glow in the clouds, then through a break in the storm he glimpsed a massive ball of fire. Huge chunks of something up there arced away from the fireball, then the fire gave way to thick black smoke and he could see smaller pieces of whatever it was up there floating downward. Downward, towards him and his son.

"Come over here, boy. Stand close to this tree."

They watched as smoking bits of Eagle 3-2-3 plummeted earthward, then saw a huge orange flower open in the sky and begin drifting down. He saw the orange flower was above the smoking embers, and falling much more slowly, and he wondered what it was.

'Could it be one of the silver birds?' he said to himself. One of the silver birds that occasionally flew over the valley?

"What did you say, Paw?"

"I wonder if it's one of the silver birds?"

The boy stood away from the tree and looked up at the sky, then another wall of snow roared in and everything up in the sky dissolved into the howling maelstrom.

Still, the two looked skyward.

Then a huge, burning mass of metal crashed through the trees and came to rest not a hundred feet away, and a downpour of smaller smoldering bits came raining through the forest moments later. The man grabbed the boy and pinned him protectively against the nearest tree just as a huge metal cylinder slammed into the earth – where they had been standing just moments before.

And whatever it was, the metal was blisteringly hot. Hissing snow began melting all around the glowing metal, and little gouts of fire formed when some sort of foul smelling liquid spurted from inside the glowing heap.