ehowton ◾ ◾ Escaping the Eastern Bloc

I was in Soviet Russia with a bunch of civilians. The 747 we'd been brought over in was in the massive hanger having been refueled and all of us - myself, my boss, and the civilians, had somehow evaded our captures and were now freely roaming around the base. My boss was going to try to covertly get them all back on the plane, and my job was to learn how to fly it.

But everytime I tried to board the massive jumbo-jet, I found our civilians, just walking around the hanger gawking at things. It was insane they hadn't all been recaptured at this point. Each and every time, I would slink around to them, help them understand why they needed to be discreet, and escort them to the plane. I did this dozen of times at great peril to getting caught, but each time managed to evade close calls.

Eventually, I was in the cockpit of this gigantic plane, freaking the hell out, because this plane was HUGE. So big, in fact, I couldn't see much of anything. Important things like, the ground underneath me, and where the wings were - would they or would not go through things? I didn't know!

The cockpit itself was rather unremarkable. Like the driver's seat of a Class-A recreational vehicle without the steering wheel. Most of the instruments were covered in a tan leather and secured by Velcro, but I couldn't find any usable buttons, levers or switches. Some annoying talking guy was sitting behind me going on and on about a great many grievances - none of which where constructive, so I asked him to shut the hell up - his incessant monologuing was piercing my concentration. When that didn't work for more than a couple seconds at a time, I put his mouth to better use and asked him to read the Boeing 747 Owner's Manual to try and find out how to turn the damn thing on.

Between the two of us, we were able to fire up the engines, and at one point, steer. Although my first attempt scared me to death as the plane was stuck in in a turn, doing slow, massive donuts inside the hanger, slowly migrating across the floor where surely the wings would start to damage things, or things would start to damage the wings as we spun like a top into them (and I could NOT believe that none of the bad guys noticed a gigantic, noisy, powered on 747 turning circles in a rather populated hanger!)

Once I understood how to control the direction of the plane by using thrust from the engines at different rates, I headed out of the hanger. It was night now and I didn't care what the wings took down with them. I made a huge crash through the narrow opening in the doors, and pulled back on the throttle. That caused the engine to die.

Now I was in panic mode! Surely someone would notice the plane - out of the hanger - especially after that crash. Well, they did, but they didn't understand it. People in uniforms and automatic weapons started milling around the plane, trying to figure out how all of this came to be. I understood as soon as I'd applied the throttle, I'd killed the engines because they were only idling. I'd needed to rev them prior to engaging the afterburner - or something - I dunno, I just knew what I'd wrong, and how to do it right the next time, but couldn't find the switch to re-fire the engines.

I asked the guy behind me to find it in the owner's manual, and eventually, we got the engines running again, revved them appropriately, and pulled back on the throttle propelling us forward. We were being chased now by the uniformed men with the automatic weapons, and I was on edge because they didn't seem smart enough to not shoot at a plane laden with jet fuel. Across the well lit highway I was shocked to see the CSC embassy! All I had to do was make it over there and we were safe!

I don't know how many streetlamps I knocked down with the wings as I crossed the highway with a rolling 747 trying to make it to the enormous parking lot of my company's embassy, but because they were closed, we were still on our own. I lined up the jet, and started sequence for takeoff. I figured once I got this fat bastard in the air, everything would be okay.

And then after it was too late to stop, I saw my son's friend, Colen running down the runway drawing fire away from us. I couldn't leave him. I slowed the plane, my boss extended the door, grabbed Colen, secured the door, and I punched the throttle, lifting into the air!