Storm and Fire Chapter Fifteen

Chapter 15
Point A to Point B

Paul stared at the unconscious body of the pilot. He looked like he hit his head hard; he wouldn’t be awake for hours. Paul tried to shake him awake anyway, in this weather the airship would crash if it wasn’t steered. This was really weird weather for around this area! Paul decided to wait around and see if the pilot woke up. The area around was dry, and it looked like there would be no town for miles. Paul made sure the refrigerator that was in the cabin had supplies in it. It didn’t.
Paul looked around a bit more. In the upper levels there were a few packages and mail. Was this airship mainly used to deliver mail? There were also very long ropes. Strangely enough, there were quite a few weapons around. It looked like there were hundreds, maybe thousands of guns. There was even more ammunition. Paul wondered why it was taking all that to Yakima.
He decided to stockpile supplies for when the airship crashed. Guns could defend against any bandits and possibly hunt. He grabbed a few knifes for the meat and gutting the animals, and even attacking bandits. He found the captain had a hidden stash of candy, which Paul decided to take. It was food, after all! There was even a bit of bread.
The ground loomed even closer. Even with floating, it seemed like the decent was fast. The ridge ahead looked like it would not be good to crash into; while crashing with an airship wouldn’t be too bad, crashing and then falling down a cliff would. Paul started becoming more and more afraid.
It looked like he would crash into the ridge after all. There wasn’t anything but to hope for the best. However, in these moments of despair Paul got an idea. He had been watching the pilot steer the craft, he even remembered some of the controls. He went up to pilot’s seat and pushed the pilot a bit away.
He gritted his teeth and grabbed the steering wheel, which was several feet in diameter, similar to a ship’s. It seemed to control only direction, and a throttle seemed to control speed, and another control stick controlled height. There was a valley between the ridge in front of him and another. He tried turning the large wheel in that direction. It worked and the airship began to turn toward the valley. Paul was overjoyed.
After a while of going through the valley, Paul noticed the ship was still descending at an alarming rate. Paul decided to try the elevation control stick, and hoped it did what he thought it did. The pilot seemed to use it whenever the airship was getting to low. He hoped that connection was right, and it didn’t do something like releasing air from the air cells. Paul gripped the control stick, worried that it wouldn’t work, and pushed up to its top setting.
Instantly there was the roaring of engines burning. The airship began to rise steadily. The roaring was loud, and it seemed to be putting stress on the airship. There was the sound of metal creaking, and the airship seemed to be tilting forward. Oh, great, Paul thought, now the propellers will just be pushing the whole craft downwards!
Paul pulled the altitude control stick back to rest position. The roaring sound immediately stopped. This didn’t seem to do much to the tilting; the craft was still tipping forward. Even worse, the whole craft was about to crash into the valley wall. Paul thought that if he turned away from it, the back end of the craft would crash into it. Then he realized that when he tried to make the airship go upward, the back end went up!
Paul pushed the altitude control stick to full. The roaring sound came back and the craft tilted forward. Now Paul turned away while moving forward. The back end of the craft was tilted up enough to miss the top of the valley wall by a few meters. The airship pulled out of the valley into a flat plain. At the far end was a river, and behind that were several hills. The entire land around was shades of brown, orange, and yellow. By the river was a bit of green, but not much.
As Paul’s airship got closer to the river he saw there was a town on it. It was, large, too! Paul thought it was Yakima. However, on a closer look, the buildings looked burned and no one was living there. It looked like the bandits were stronger in this area than he thought. If the bandits could destroy a city the size of Yakima, it meant they were a real threat. Paul was surprised he hadn’t heard of any conflicts with them yet. He was sure in the future the two sides would clash, civilization and anarchy. He hoped to be a help to civilization when that time came.
The city was probably Ellensburg. It was between Yakima and Wenatchee, and was about this large. It wasn’t quite as big, probably explaining why it wasn’t around now. Paul had been there once. The sight of it the way it was now brought tears to his eyes in a way that hadn’t happened since he first saw the world destroyed at the start of the war. Yakima must be beyond the hills.
Going over the hills, Paul saw a massive expanse of green. It was like the last plain except that this one was covered with farms and had a much larger river. This must be Yakima! The town looked thriving. There were people and even a large amount of cars crowding the streets. There were even taller buildings than in Wenatchee. Yakima must have its own government.
Paul soon spotted the landing area, which was located in the center of the city. He began guiding the airship to the landing area and saw that there were people ready to help with the landing. They seemed to be confused by something. Then Paul realized they probably needed to pull the airship down by ropes. He knew where they were! Quickly he rushed to the upper room and threw the ropes down. It was hard to lift them because they were heavy, and he had to frequently make adjustments in the control room, but soon the airship was coming down fast and before Paul even had a chance to realize he had succeeded, the airship had hit the ground.
The door swung open and he was greeted by a few people who wore the same uniforms as the pilot and the people who took him to the airport in Wenatchee. They had smiles on their faces, even though the unconscious body of the pilot was in their view.
“Congratulations! You have passed the exam!” said a person who seemed to be the boss.
“What?” said Paul, “What did I do?”
“You haven’t realized yet? The exam was to fly the airship to here, Yakima.”
“But how?! The pilot went unconscious, it couldn’t have been faked! And what if I did crash and die? You don’t care about losing an airship?!”
A woman stepped up from behind Paul. “That’s why I was here,” she said, “I was in a hidden compartment in the airship, observing your piloting skills. I was ready in case anything went wrong.”
“Fine, but what about the pilot? He was unconscious!”
“That was faked too. We gave him a pill that would make him unconscious partway through the flight. He timed it so that he took the airship through turbulence just as it was taking effect. It was to cause panic in you that is regularly experienced by airship pilots and a good pilot needs to be able to handle stress. Don’t worry about him, he should wake up soon.”
Paul nodded, a bit angry to be tricked, but also very glad to have passed the exam. The boss said, “Well then, you have passed the exam. Do you want the job?”
Paul thought for a second, and realized that piloting the airship was actually rather fun. “Yes,” he said, “I’ll take the job.”