Chapter 44 - Into the Monsoon
Fourteen hours later, Carter Flagship One and two massive, matte-grey C-130 Super Hercules transports were roaring through the volatile, storm-churned skies over the Philippine Sea. Thirty-eight thousand feet above the ocean, the turbulence was relentless. Thick walls of dark, convective cumulonimbus clouds rose like jagged black mountains into the stratosphere, lit from within by constant, pulsating veins of violet lightning.
Inside the pressurized cabin of the lead Hercules, Ava was secured into a four-point harness beside Hank Miller and senior flight captain Robert Drake, a veteran pilot who had spent twenty years flying cargo into extreme combat and disaster zones. Behind their cockpit bulkhead, the cavernous cargo hold was packed to maximum capacity with forty tons of lifesaving humanitarian supplies, tightly lashed beneath heavy nylon cargo netting and industrial tension straps.
Suddenly, the aircraft shuddered violently as a pocket of severe wind shear dropped the heavy turboprop four hundred feet in less than two seconds.
Loose gear rattled against the metal deck plates. In the cargo bay, a piercing warning horn began to sound: ALARM: PALLET STABILIZER DELTA THREE COMPROMISED.
Captain Drake fought the flight controls, his muscles straining against the control yoke. "We’ve got a fifty-knot downdraft off the volcanic ridge! The shifting g-forces are snapping the secondary cargo ties on Pallet Three! That pallet holds the industrial refrigeration units containing the infant vaccines and fresh blood plasma! If that four-ton pallet breaks loose, it will smash straight through the rear ramp hydraulics!"
Hank Miller unbuckled his harness, swearing under his breath as he reached for a safety tether. "I'm going back to secure the manual ratchet chains!"
"Take me with you, Hank!" Ava shouted over the deafening roar of the four massive turboprop engines. Before anyone could protest, she clipped her own safety harness to the overhead running cable and slid out from her seat onto the shaking cargo deck.
The wind howling through the fuselage seams was freezing. In the center of the bay, the massive steel cargo crate holding the biological medicines was tilting dangerously, its forward locking pins sheared clean off by the violent turbulence. Every time the plane banked, the multi-ton container groaned against its remaining restraints, threatening to slide into the pressurized airframe wall.
Hank threw his weight against the manual tension winch, but the intense lateral load jammed the steel ratchet teeth. "The release pawl is seized!" Hank yelled, grease and sweat dripping down his face. "The lock lever is wedged under the cargo shoe! My hands are too large to reach between the container rails!"
Ava didn't hesitate. She dropped to her knees on the vibrating aluminum floor, completely ignoring the terrifying sensation of thirty thousand feet of empty air howling inches beneath the hull. Reaching her slender arm into the narrow, four-inch gap beneath the sliding container, her fingers found the cold steel pawl.
"Pull the tension chain on three, Hank!" Ava commanded, her voice steady and clear above the roaring engines. "One... two... three!"
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With a fierce, precise wrench of her fingers, Ava dislodged the jammed locking pin just as Hank hauled on the heavy steel lever. The heavy-duty ratchet clicked home with an echoing, metallic snap. The four-ton container locked solidly into its floor tracks, immovable once more.
Ava pulled her arm back, her skin bruised but unbroken, and looked up at Hank with a confident, breathless grin. Hank stared down at the twelve-year-old girl, shaking his head in absolute awe. "Miss Carter, you have ice in your veins."
