<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 150%; line-height: 116%;"><span style="color: #FF0000">Major Tom 'TT' Theophilus Peters</span></span></div><br/><br/><div style="text-align: center;"><a class="postlink" href="http://i1343.photobucket.com/albums/o793/Galvin_Fugazi/0b1c5703-1ec6-4951-9974-ee41ec21aa28_zps54ccd4dc.jpg">[ img ]</a></div><br/><br/><div style="text-align: justify;">Major Tom Peters, nicked TT by most and Major Tom by a few, who have heard about that century old song out of times, when there had been still countries on earth, looked over the useless cockpit. This plane would never fly again, that was for sure. He and Karra had heard the tearing sound of the metal-polymer, when both wings had decided to stay behind with the trees and not to follow the rest of the plane on its slide through the trees. It had been bad luck and they both knew. Flying without sight and instruments was already a big problem as long as you had communication with control. But they had nothing of it all. No sight, no instruments and no communication. When the clouds had finally cleared, they had been only a hundred feet above ground. That Tom had been able to get the plane on the ground after they had touched the tree was a miracle. And that they had not hit any of those huge trees nose first was another miracle.<br/><br/>Tom removed his earphones and mike. They had been useless for the past two hours. Only static in them. He looked over to Karra, his co-pilot. A little cutie with sharp claws. Therefore nicked Kitten most of the time. But not by Tom. He knew that she hated it to be called like that. He put his hand on her arm and squeezed it lightly.<br/><br/><span style="color: #FF8000">"You're ok, Karra? I doubt we will get a recommendation for this job. Looks like we just turned some millions into worthless scrap."</span><br/><br/>Tom quickly checked the controls. The fires had been extinguished automatically by the halon system, the inner hull was not breached. So far so good. He looked out of the tinted windows of the cockpit. Where did they crash? Tom had never seen trees with such massive trunks outside of Sequoia National Forest. But they should be on the East Coast, not on the West Coast. He had never seen anything like that on the East Coast.<br/><br/><span style="color: #FF8000">"Still no contact to ground control? And no GPS signal? Let another check routine run over the comm and navigation module. I know that we did it twice in the last hour. Just do it, Karra. There's not a lot we can do, other than that. The mayday signal is emitted automatically, but if we have no communication..."</span><br/><br/>Tom got out of his seat and walked over to the recon console at the right side of the cockpit. He switched on the module and waited for the computer to boot. As this planes were knicked city hoppers, people tend to forget that they had originally been designed to transport troops and equipment deep into combat areas. There had been some highly effective weapons under the now gone wings. And there was all kind of ground surveying equipment mounted into the hull of the plane. ABC detection units, perimeter radar, infrared sensors and motion detectors. Just to mention a few of them. Tom wanted to be safe. They could have landed in the middle of a terrorist training area.<br/><br/><span style="color: #FF8000">"Let us get some first impressions before we inform our passengers. Somehow I fear that our civilian guests will not be very happy. I see no hotel near and far..."</span></div>