{"product_id":"2940012363435","title":"STRANDED","description":"A \"yelp.\" Always... ALWAYS...That spontaneous squeal was how GREAT he felt when his plane was hurled off the carrier and all those G-forces pinned him to his seat. What a rush, he thought. Nothing... nothing at ALL... can kick this. Nothing can TOP this. Like a kid on a \"rolley coaster\" ride was how it felt, and he always admitted THAT to himself on take off.\u003cbr\u003eMan! Add to that rush — of being thrust into the sky at what felt like millions of miles per hour — this rush, of seeing this incredible display of stars. This night sky! The avionics in the cockpit a dim glow, all he wanted to do was marvel at the majesty and beauty of the spectacle that the Universe and its agent, the U.S. Air Force, was allowing him to see on this night.\u003cbr\u003eThe soft \"shushing\" of suit-oxygen was the only sound for now, the throb of the jet engines more a physical sensation than an auditory one, and it all became a meditation for him.\u003cbr\u003eSuch quiet and such a sense of being in tune was odd, he knew that. A man of war so totally at peace with everything: in this one place, at this one time. In this one place and time high above Planet Earth, in fact, he was indeed far away from all of it. Away from the complex of people in his life and high above the bewildering geo-politics that had put him and this powerful airplane on a carrier out practically in the middle of the ocean. That body of water was now only a deep darkness below him, those forces that were had been at war were as distant as his childhood, as far away as his once-angry father.\u003cbr\u003eEnough! He was on a simple recon flight, a short fifteen or twenty minutes from land, a quick fly over look-see at the emplacements of the bad guys, then another quick quiet ride home. Gone at most an hour and a half. Easy money. No need to dredge up the dead past; no need to bring the bad stuff into this magical night ride.\u003cbr\u003eJust look out at it all, he told himself Take some of the good Air Force pure oxygen into my lungs, and let the show roll on.\u003cbr\u003eHe reached into the pocket of his flight suit, and dug out his class ring. He slipped it onto his right hand ring finger, and slowly turned it. For good luck, he told himself. My good luck ring...\u003cbr\u003eFeeling almost meditative, he looked at the avionics. All good. Down below him, the quiet earth. Above him... the quiet night sky. The spoils of war: Walter Evans, Jr. was in his element. Far enough away from it ALL that it just couldn't touch him. The fighting over, the tanks smoldering far away tribute to the Defense Department budgets of the last twenty-five years, and it all added up to a kind of \"Zen and the art of smart bombing.\"\u003cbr\u003ePeace in the middle of war...\u003cbr\u003eHis mind drifted; he was looking forward to rotating home in another two weeks, let himself float on thoughts of home, thoughts of downtime. Be good to spend time with Tracy and the boy. Time off, a chance to kick back, go out to dinner... Images of his family floated in and out, and his breathing was slow and easy.\u003cbr\u003eSoon. I'll be home soon.\u003cbr\u003eBut... it's too quiet, he realized. WHAT? WHAT IS IT NOW?\u003cbr\u003eThen, a short, sudden bomb burst of light, followed by a nuclear blast of thunder... from where, damn it, from where? There's no storm tonight! No bogies up here. They would have TOLD me!\u003cbr\u003eNo bad guys. He knew that. They had been thoroughly whipped AND tamed. But... What the hell is going on?\u003cbr\u003eYet... Whatever was going on, whatever was happening, something was way way WRONG.\u003cbr\u003eWalter Evans, Jr. was staring at a light show which had just had the plug pulled. Where there had been millions of stars in the night sky to look on with only awe, now there was nothing. Nothing: the sky was a sheet of black plastic, absorbing light perhaps: but giving none back.\u003cbr\u003eNone.\u003cbr\u003eWhere there had been softly glowing avionics, now there was only a pitch black cockpit, and a horrible, disorientation.\u003cbr\u003eNothing, nothing, nothing.\u003cbr\u003eNo light, no sound, no nothing, no damn oxygen, no damn power, no damn control, no damn nothing!\u003cbr\u003eOh, damn! And for sure no damn jet airplane.\u003cbr\u003eHe was in a man-made meteor, a plummeting asteroid about to punch a hole in the bottomless darkness that was below him, undistinguishable from the now-infinite darkness above him. Unless his mind was gone, too, he was pretty sure he wasn't dead. But... now that he thought about it, not THAT sure. He twisted the ring mindlessly. What? What??","brand":"Logan Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47177189818608,"sku":"2940012363435","price":154.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012363435_p0.jpg?v=1763567893","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012363435","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}