tracks around you and can walk you in from here."
" Good Lord… "
Captain Brian Rhemus was the best of the best, the guy every major airline puts forward as their poster child for professionalism, competence, and courage. With more hours in this type of airliner than ninety percent of his colleagues, Rhemus was the man you wanted in the seat as often as FAA personnel rules would allow. In the end it didn't matter. It was all too sudden to imagine. Certainly too sudden to do anything about.
The captain fought back the multiplicity of failures with every trick and technique in his senior aviator's tool bag. Still, the situation unraveled faster than the pace of his already racing mind and heart could track with. No more words were broadcast from Rhemus to the tower. The furious nature of the chair he occupied allowed none in these last, heroic attempts to save those he was entrusted to protect.
Alarms screeched in the small space occupied by Rhemus and the copilot as the Airbus 310 lost every tracking, guidance, and control system it had, even multiple redundancies built in for these very circumstances. Transformed into a flying rock, 2132 hit hard, very hard, ambling another five city blocks as entire sections of the fuselage came apart with helpless human cargo attached to each spiraling chunk. The blast of heat and explosive energy spread everywhere, slicing its way pitilessly through the busy city space.
When the black box was finally recovered SEA Control's last transmission revealed their frantic attempts at guiding the wayward plane in from over twenty miles away.
"American 2132, please repeat. We have you losing altitude over Seattle core. 2132. 2132 please respond. 2132 …"
The shocked hush from the tower resonated more like a vacant, soundless scream of despair as the electronic signature of the inbound plane vanished off their scopes.
Gone.
Zeb looked on the carnage in dismay.
An initial wave of first responders began appearing on scene, navigating the formidable, disorganized barriers of aluminum, steel, and flame in search of casualties. The disdainful work of triage—choosing who would live and who would not—became their primary, sordid task. By day's end these selfless rescuers would join the grieving themselves, a number of their brethren lost in the battle against injury and death.
Utterly powerless.
Dalton hated this feeling with every single fiber of his being. Though personally spared the primary concussion of the plane's entrance, the horror of what unfolded before him gnawed at him, would not relent.
Breathe. Just breathe.
Zeb knew Pike Place was a multi-level structure built into a steep hillside above the waterfront district, a space that could be occupied at times by upwards of 5,000 people. Below street-level, beyond the public face of buskers, artisans, and entrepreneurs, another layer of life existed: a small community of 500 full-time residents, many low-income and elderly. And now these lower level passages had transfigured into a mass of awkwardly meandering wounded. The primal urge to surface led them upward through flame-engulfed passageways, from there out into the open turmoil of the Stewart Street entrance. All of it resembled a scene from a bad zombie movie.
Clear my head. Help someone.
Come on, Zeb. Do something.
"Please. Please, someone. She's still in there!"
He saw her, upright but weakened, leaning against what remained of the green metal framework of the market portico. She reached out toward the undead crowd with her bloodied right arm. No one responded.
"Please, please! "
Her words, though more emboldened with every syllable, became choked off by the damaging effect of smoke on her vocal chords.
Zeb moved in.
"Who? Where?"
"My friend, Sasha. She is old. I could not free her. She is still alive. I heard her cry..."
The young woman's voice and courage were returning.
Beneath matted hair, drywall dust, and grease mixed with bloodstains on
" Good Lord… "
Captain Brian Rhemus was the best of the best, the guy every major airline puts forward as their poster child for professionalism, competence, and courage. With more hours in this type of airliner than ninety percent of his colleagues, Rhemus was the man you wanted in the seat as often as FAA personnel rules would allow. In the end it didn't matter. It was all too sudden to imagine. Certainly too sudden to do anything about.
The captain fought back the multiplicity of failures with every trick and technique in his senior aviator's tool bag. Still, the situation unraveled faster than the pace of his already racing mind and heart could track with. No more words were broadcast from Rhemus to the tower. The furious nature of the chair he occupied allowed none in these last, heroic attempts to save those he was entrusted to protect.
Alarms screeched in the small space occupied by Rhemus and the copilot as the Airbus 310 lost every tracking, guidance, and control system it had, even multiple redundancies built in for these very circumstances. Transformed into a flying rock, 2132 hit hard, very hard, ambling another five city blocks as entire sections of the fuselage came apart with helpless human cargo attached to each spiraling chunk. The blast of heat and explosive energy spread everywhere, slicing its way pitilessly through the busy city space.
When the black box was finally recovered SEA Control's last transmission revealed their frantic attempts at guiding the wayward plane in from over twenty miles away.
"American 2132, please repeat. We have you losing altitude over Seattle core. 2132. 2132 please respond. 2132 …"
The shocked hush from the tower resonated more like a vacant, soundless scream of despair as the electronic signature of the inbound plane vanished off their scopes.
Gone.
Zeb looked on the carnage in dismay.
An initial wave of first responders began appearing on scene, navigating the formidable, disorganized barriers of aluminum, steel, and flame in search of casualties. The disdainful work of triage—choosing who would live and who would not—became their primary, sordid task. By day's end these selfless rescuers would join the grieving themselves, a number of their brethren lost in the battle against injury and death.
Utterly powerless.
Dalton hated this feeling with every single fiber of his being. Though personally spared the primary concussion of the plane's entrance, the horror of what unfolded before him gnawed at him, would not relent.
Breathe. Just breathe.
Zeb knew Pike Place was a multi-level structure built into a steep hillside above the waterfront district, a space that could be occupied at times by upwards of 5,000 people. Below street-level, beyond the public face of buskers, artisans, and entrepreneurs, another layer of life existed: a small community of 500 full-time residents, many low-income and elderly. And now these lower level passages had transfigured into a mass of awkwardly meandering wounded. The primal urge to surface led them upward through flame-engulfed passageways, from there out into the open turmoil of the Stewart Street entrance. All of it resembled a scene from a bad zombie movie.
Clear my head. Help someone.
Come on, Zeb. Do something.
"Please. Please, someone. She's still in there!"
He saw her, upright but weakened, leaning against what remained of the green metal framework of the market portico. She reached out toward the undead crowd with her bloodied right arm. No one responded.
"Please, please! "
Her words, though more emboldened with every syllable, became choked off by the damaging effect of smoke on her vocal chords.
Zeb moved in.
"Who? Where?"
"My friend, Sasha. She is old. I could not free her. She is still alive. I heard her cry..."
The young woman's voice and courage were returning.
Beneath matted hair, drywall dust, and grease mixed with bloodstains on
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