Dead Reckoning

I was twenty eight when the president announced we would be sending troops into Ukraine. The branches of the military had fought for nearly six months before the nukes started to fly over Europe, and suddenly what had been a war to save an invaded country became a war of survival. The draft had been reinstated, there had been protests and riots, though many young men and women had joined up willingly. I was twenty nine by then, older than the first round of drafties, but just yesterday the president had spoken to the nation, saying that it would be expanded to all qualifying young people below the age of thirty.

The news, and the idea that I would soon be going to war was still fresh in my mind that morning when I’d done my preflight checklist and taken off out of Salt Lake. I’d been a general aviation pilot for three years, I was slowly working through my ratings in the hopes of working for the airlines one day. Maybe I’d be flying military jets instead of Cessnas soon.

Flying is cathartic, it forced me to focus my mind elsewhere, away from a probable future on the front lines. Maybe if I signed up instead of waiting to be drafted I’d have a better chance of flying jets and not dying in the dirt holding a gun I barely knew how to shoot. Hard maybe.

"Skyhawk 6869 tango," Salt Lake tower said through my headset, "turn left over the numbers of 16 right and out on the barn transition."

"Over the numbers and out on the barn, 6869 tango." I let go of the mic and listened to the thrum of the small 172's engine, flying as instructed I cruised past the runways and out over the swampland just west of the airport. It had been a heavy snow year and the swamps were full with water, sometimes I liked to imagine myself flying over the Everglades when looking down on the short area between the lake and the land, no alligators in the high desert though. No alligators in the Ukraine either, but they do have crocodiles, maybe my swamp dreams would become a reality soon afterall.

I’d thought about joining the military a few times over the years, I’d been a AFROTC brat for a semester before my commanding officer had told me I wasn’t going to be a military pilot, so I’d bailed. Then, years later when the flight school bills had begun wracking up I’d thought again about joining the Air Force. They’d wanted me to sign a minimum twelve year contract, I didn’t want to be almost forty when I got out, so again I passed.

But as I cruised north of Tooele I wondered if I’d be flying even further north soon, training in the military airspace that encompasses nearly all the high desert just west of the lake. The air was smooth that spring morning, the sky clear as Salt Lake departure cleared me for a frequency change to Tooele. It was just myself and another student pilot in the airspace, they were doing laps in the pattern. Working through short or soft field landings most like, maybe some touch and gos, my instructor had always emphasized the importance of those.

I wasn’t working on anything in particular that day, just out to see the land from above as I loved so dearly and to take my mind off things. Like most people I’d become numb to the news of the war after a time, they say human brain is only capable of empathizing with less than a hundred and fifty people or so, after that death tolls just become stats. The stats were high, they'd been high for a while.

I flew that day in the hopes of avoiding thinking about the fact that I’d probably have to leave my girlfriend alone with our cat when I got drafted, to avoid thinking about how lonely that would be for both of us. She wouldn't be drafted, well probably not at least given that she was enrolled in graduate school, she had little to fear of a military future. But a regular douchebag bike mechanic like myself? I was exactly who they were looking for. The flight wasn’t distracting me as well as I’d hoped, maybe a closer view of the mountains would help. I turned westbound over I-80 and headed for Grantsville, the Great Salt Lake glistened below me, small white sails propelled by the calm winds glided along the blue and green waters.

I made a quick radio call, letting the lone other plane in the area know my intentions and entered a series of climbing 360 turns for ten thousand feet. On the chill spring morning the Cessna 172 cruised up about as quickly as a single engine plane with less horsepower than my car could. I soared over the top of the Stansbury mountains, flying above and between peaks in the hopes of avoiding any mountain wave turbulence. Based on the calm winds aloft and the motionless trees on the mountains I thought it a safe assumption.

The view of those mountains is incredible, the eastern side is all lush pine forest, hiding rivers and small snow melt lakes within its green hills. I’d gone camping there a few times, the closest terrain to the Pacific Northwest one could find in Utah. Cresting the jagged peaks, I crossed over to the western side of the mountains, all stark cliffs and brutal rock formations.

Barren desert flatlands lay far below to the west of the mountains. Few trees grew on that side of the hills, those few that did were lonely and wind blown, scraggly desert things who stood solemnly on their bluffs and gray rocks. Yellow grasses grew amongst those boulders, only beginning to show signs of new life as the spring had begun, though those native grasses were always yellow regardless of season. I spun about, descending and flying southbound so the peaks were outside the 172’s left window, stark hills framed by strut and wing.

A blur caught my eye, a brilliant streak of light careening out of the sky. It disappeared on the other side of the Oquirrh mountains, further east of Stansbury. Lightning? On a cloudless bluebird day? Then, there was a blinding flash, I shut my eyes and unconsciously yanked my controls westbound and away from the vile light. Suspicion was beginning to turn to fear as I went full throttle in the opposite direction. The eruption of light was so bright that I thought just the reflection off the G1000 avionics unit and the plane's windshield would be enough to blind me.

I’d read of Hiroshima and the blinding light that came from the atomic bombs dropped there, I’d read of the supersonic nukes Russia had sent into Ukraine. Deep down I knew exactly what had just happened, but I was numb to that fact, an instinctual demand for survival removing any and all feeling but cold logic. I maintained control of the plane westbound and waiting to be rocked.

If a nuclear bomb had just been dropped over Salt Lake City, everyone I knew in Utah was immediately presumed dead. My girlfriend, my coworkers, everyone gone. My girlfriend, and our cat. I slammed my eyes shut, telling myself it was to hide from the glare but really it was to keep the tears in. I had no time to mourn, I needed to get on the ground.

An eruption so deafeningly loud cracked my ears, drowning out the dull whir of the prop and the plane’s engine, had I not been wearing my headset I thought for sure I would have gone deaf or suffered severe hearing damage. If that sound was from the explosion, the shockwave was imminent. I needed to get on the ground. My ears rang with the angry buzzing one hears after suffering a concussive smack to the skull, I maneuvered into the shadow of the Stansbury mountains, blocking both the blinding light, and I hoped, the majority of the shockwave coming my way. My altimeter read six thousand feet, I was less than two thousand feet above the high desert plains below.

Then the shockwave hit me, and the plane was sent careening. All I could do was hold the yoke steady and try to maintain coordination as it propelled me erratically west and downward, the plane was bathed in an intense heat, sweat beaded on my forehead as I struggled against the controls to keep myself a-flight, the ground loomed before me, I was losing altitude at an alarming rate, my ears popped as I continued diving toward the ground, trying desperately to keep the wings level it was all I could do as I was rocked and buffeted by the shockwave dulled only by the two mountain ranges between myself and what I assumed the decimated remains of the city. I slammed the throttle to full, and despite all my instinctive desire not to do so, I shoved the yoke downward in the hopes of breaking any potential stall, if the warning horn was going off it would have gone unheard through the roaring ring in my ears, diving faster now, the wings re-aquired lift, and I slowly began bringing the yoke back, holding coordination with the rudder pedals, I'd dove too close to the ground, at the risk of entering a secondary stall I yanked back on the yoke in a last ditch attempt at not crumpling into the dirt.

By some miracle I was able to get the wings somewhat level, the rear wheels hit first, slamming into the rough desert sands, then the modest suspension on the front tire crashed into the ground, bouncing upwards I held in full throttle, using the remnant of the shockwave to propel me back off the ground and into the air. Turns out all those go-arounds drills my instructor had insisted on doing had come in handy after all.

The wave passed, and I managed to maintain some semblance of control over the plane as an immense sea of loss crashed into me. Tears rolled down my cheeks at knowing I would never see my girlfriend again, never again be with her and our plump cat after a long day at work. I tried to remind myself there was no time for mourning. I needed cool logic in that moment, my survival depended on it.

I believed it a safe assumption my flight school was gone, daring a glance back I saw only smoke and rumble, an enormous mushroom cloud growing above the mountains. The rental 172 was mine, my only safe haven. I cringed as I remembered jokingly asking my girlfriend to skip work and come flying with me that morning. I’d known she wouldn't come, she was far too dedicated to her work. What I would give to make her change that decision. With my left hand on the yoke, I pulled my phone out and called my girlfriend. The phone went straight to voicemail, she never turned off her phone. No, no, no.

"No!" I screamed, my own voice amplified into my already ringing ears by my headset. She was gone, everyone was gone.

Surivival, there would be time to mourn later, I had to focus on survival. I didn’t know much of anything about the radiation that spread from nuclear bombs, but I knew enough to know that I needed to get as far away from the city as I could.

But where was I to go? I had over half a tank of fuel, that could get me a solid three hours of flight time, maybe four if I had a tail wind and was conservative with fuel, but there was essentially nothing west of me but desert and wilderness for hundreds of miles. I could fly to Wendover, that was likely out of the dangerous radiation zone, and a small enough town that Russia likely wouldn’t have targeted it. But there was nothing but casinos and dispensaries there, and I imagined there’d be a sea of refugees flooding that way soon anyway. No, I needed to go further west, picking a solid cruise climb attitude, I flew to ten thousand feet once more and chose a heading of 270. North and west, hoping to get as close to one of the hillbilly towns in eastern Washington as I could. Hopefully the Tri Cities wasn’t a big enough metropolitan area for Russia to target. Hopefully.

If Salt Lake had been nuked, that meant every major metropolitan area in the US would be destroyed. A spear of fear stabbed me in the gut then, if Salt Lake was gone, Seattle would be smithereens by now. My parent’s home sat some eight miles west of downtown, across the Puget Sound. My dad worked in Seattle. He was gone.

Maybe there was still hope for my mom, if she was able to get to the basement quick enough, maybe the shockwave wouldn’t brought the house down on top of her. I held onto that thin thread of hope, it was one of the few I had left. Most of my friends from high school and college lived in the greater Seattle area, it was safe to assume they too were gone.

I called my mom. It went straight to voicemail. I called my girlfriend again, and again. Voicemail, voicemail.

I was alone, completely alone. My sister was going to grad school up in Bellingham, if I could find somewhere to fuel up, I could fly up there and meet her, Bellingham was a small town, she may still be alive. Maybe there was hope, maybe. I’d check my parent’s house first, see if could find my mom, then I’d go north, they had to have survived, their lives were the only hope I had left.

I flew north and westbound, leaving the mushroom cloud and my life behind me.