Christopher Eagle - Lake Ontario

Christopher Eagle
Lake Ontario
June 30th 2013

The air was clear and the sun hung high in the early afternoon sky. The temperature was a significantly hot 30°c with very low wind. Chris Eagle had been out to Toronto island Airport with a wealthy passenger who wanted to catch a plane there to fly to the USA. He was delighted to have this passenger as he was able to score an extra hundred dollars as a tip. As it had been an early morning flight, he took the opportunity to grab the ferry into the city and take a look around.

It was a busy for a Sunday, but it was the long weekend. Canada Day was July first and that was Monday. So there were events going on along the harbour front. He came across a place called Harbourfront Centre where he discovered all manner of studios where skilled artisans with glass blowing or pottery could work and at the same time show their skills to the public. He continued past display cases offering examples of exquisite glass workmanship. Shops down the corridor offered some of these beautiful works of art to be sold to the general public. He walked through the displays -  however most of the works were a little too fine for his budget.

He continued to walk through the building until he came across a shallow pond. It had children using small canoes or pedal boats, and a few older people playing with remote controlled sail or motor boats. He watched these for a while before purchasing an ice cream from a dickee dee vendor.

He walked along the docks, which had flower beds full of brightly coloured iris along the border  between the Harbourfront Centre and the lakeside. Across the water he could see the Toronto islands; one of which was the airport. The water was dotted with sail boats and small motor craft that moved between the Toronto docks and the island. The air was fresh smelling although it had a hint of algae -  which was not unpleasant.

Chris glanced over the docks into the water, he could see it was very clear and thick with water weeds. He noticed a fish, possibly pike, swimming around in amongst the plants. Even tiny fish schooled nearer to the dock. The metal retaining wall went deep into the water and was thick with hair algae. The fish darted in and out, finding refuge within as well as all manner of insect larvae or small crustaceans for the eating. Seagulls filled the air with their cries as they competed each other for some the tiny fish or a delicious score of french fries stolen from an unsuspecting person's pick-nick table. A small family of Canada geese - almost fully grown, swam along eating fish or grazing algae. The amount of life within the city limits was outstanding.

He passed a couple smaller boats and one large ship that was tied to the docks with a series of heavy ropes. The ship was a tall ship named Empire Sandy. It had three tall masts and its sails were furled neatly.  The crew were boarding passengers who would be going on a brief morning cruise. He had seen the ship on the lake in the past, however had not seen it up close. He had viewed it always from the air. He admired the overall structure and was impressed by the rigging. The amount of rope that was used to make nets, ladders, stays for the masts, he wondered how anyone could plan and design something to intricate. He had watched movies, such as Pirates of the Caribbean, and seen them in there. It did not do any justice for the amount of details that went into setting such a craft up.

He wanted to go on a cruise, but refrained. He knew he would have to return to Burlington with his plane very soon. He finished his ice cream and turned back to the ferry terminal to catch a boat back to the airport. It took a while for people to load up and when they were ready, the ship blew its horn and moved out into the lake. If it was not for the fact he had a scheduled flight in the afternoon he may have stayed longer. However he promised himself a trip by GO train so he may explore the sites later and have a longer and more enjoyable experience. He really wanted to check out the island's amusement park - or perhaps the CNTower that stood proudly over the Provincial Capitol. He liked the Idea of the edge walk. He could see people hanging off the edge of the tower and it seemed exciting.

Once back at the Toronto Island Airport, he returned to his aircraft and gave it the once over before taking it into flight. The clear skies gave him an amazing view of the Greater Toronto Area, several cities that had sprawled so much that they merged into one massive super city with a population of over six million people.

As he neared Oakville he noticed something unusual. There was smoke coming up from the decommissioned refinery. It was still being used as fuel storage and depot, but they no longer actually made petroleum products.

“Burlington Airpark, this is Eagle, there appears to be a situation with the Petro-Canada refinery – there is an awful lot of smoke, over.”

“Rodger that, Eagle. Hazard has been reported, Military is en-route... Please change direction south and land in At Hamilton Airport.”

“Military? What the pit for?”

“Eagle, its a Decepticon incursion.”

“Decepticons!” he  exclaimed. He banked a little bit south but not too much as he really wanted to get a better look. He leaned down and fiddle with his radio, fine tuning it until he picked up garbled chatter.  It was something he had tinkered with in his spare time. He was not sure why he was driven to make alterations, but he felt it would work. After a moment of some minor adjustments the chatter became clear.

“Meh, this stinks, Thundercracker,” said a grumpy voice. “I hate all this hard work.”

“Shut up, and do what Megatron tells you, Skywarp.” the other replied.

“He's gotten worse, maybe Starscream was right after all,”

“Shut up, Skywarp -  or you'll end up like Starscream.”

“Think he's dead?”

“Without a doubt.”

“Intruder where? Yeah, we got a fix on him, we'll take them out”

There was some static... Skywarp and Thundercracker leapt into the air and transformed into jets and flew after his slow propeller propelled aircraft.

“Megatron's intruder is a tiny prop plane, give me a break, this is a waste of our time,” Skywarp snarled.

“A couple shots and he'll be out of our hair,” Thundercracker said as they approached from Chris' front.

They fired at it and Chris attempted to evade the shots with a neatly executed barrel roll.

“Meh, for a human he's agile,” said Skywarp. “But can he teleport?”

Chris cursed as the black Seeker vanished from view in a purple flash.

“Slag it!” Chris snarled as the dark Seeker re-materialised in behind him, firing his cannons at the small plane.

“Did you say something, Skywarp?” Thundercracker asked.

“Wasn't me, and its only us who use this frequency... we better change” replied Skywarp. Chris' eyes grew large as he realised the radio he had tuned into was not one way but actually two way. He had an open line to the Decepticons. He tried to think of something to say, but when he did, the channel had static on it as they changed their frequency. If he had time on his hands, he probably could have found the correct channel, but as it stood, he was fighting to remain in the air.

Chris could not keep ahead of the Decepticon jet and the super sonic flier flew over him, shaking him hard with the jet wash. The larger faster jet disrupted his airflow and Chris' craft started to stall and drop. Skywarp turned back and fired his cannons once more Chris could not get his aircraft to respond and was struck. The bullets perforated a wing, and it was ripped off.

He watched in horror as the wing fell and hit the water. “Mayday Mayday!” he screamed as the aircraft spiralled down and struck the lake with such force, the other wing ripped off and the body of the plane skipped and slammed the surface again. The force of the impact had him shaken inside. His restraints kept him within his seat but he still managed to strike the pilot side of the cabin frame with his head. It bounced twice before it finally settled. Chris was unconscious within the sinking plane, there was enough air inside to keep it floating for short while, however water began to creep in.

The two jets circled once over the lake and returned to the refinery; content that they had removed the problem. Once the jets had flown off the scene, a couple nearby pleasure boaters rushed over at high speed to see if they could assist in any way.

The door was ripped open from the plane and a person dove into water next to the now rapidly sinking aircraft. Chris remained strapped in, blood ran down his face from a small wound above his left eye on his forehead. The skipper of the motorboat removed his life jacket and handed it to the  man who was swimming with the aircraft.

A second motor boat arrived and they affixed a line to the almost entirely submerged plane that was tied to a white boat fender as a marker float. A couple men on jet ski's arrived, and also assisted in extracting Chris. One dove inside to ensure the aircraft had no other passengers.

The first responded, was slipping the life-vest around Chris when he came to. He spluttered and flailed in a panic. Once he realised there were people around him and they were helping as opposed to harming. He slowly calmed down. Unhappy about being wet, scared and that his head hurt.

“Dude, that was pretty epic flying,” said one of the jet skiers.

“I-I'm gonna be in trouble... it wasn't my plane...” Chris grumbled.

“I'm sure they'll understand – you got any breaks? Hows your arms and legs? Can you feel them?”

Chris moved his arms and legs. “No, no breaks that I can that I can tell... just a headache...”

“Yeah you've got a cut,” the first on scene said. “Looks kinda nasty. Just relax a little, you're safe now. Mark gave you his vest, it'll buoy you until we can get a rescue craft over.” They floated him over to one of the boats and the man in the vessel reached over and grabbed the fest and hooked a line into it. They did not want to move him more than necessary in case he had spinal injuries. As it was, they had to take a significant risk, in order to extract him from the now-rapidly sinking aircraft.

He patted his back pocket to ensure that he still had is identification. His biggest worry was not having a name to his face... The aircraft finally sank below water, it turned and the last of the air violently bubbled out and it tipped causing the surface to boil briefly causing the nearby watercraft to rock.

Chris' face went white. “I'd have drowned...” he said as realisation struck him. “If you weren't here - I'd have drowned... “ A thought played in his head of waking up one last time underwater, and struggling to undo the straps as his lungs filled with water. His body shook, as much from the cold lake water as it did from the mental image of drowning. He knew he should have gone further south to avoid the incursion but his curiosity had been too strong. The voices of the Decepticons were strangely familiar. Six fighter jets streaked into the area and the sounds of fighting could be heard. The Men on the water looked at each other with concern.

“The OPP are arriving,” Mark said as one of the Jet Ski's zipped out to greet the incoming police and apprise them of the situation.

The police boat arrived from Port Credit and a Coast Guard ship came from Hamilton. It stayed out at a distance away from the shore, its crew watching the skies. A small rescue boat was lowered into the water and crew of the Coast Guard arrived. They slipped a spine board under Chris and helped him onto to the coast guard rescue boat. Although he had suffered no apparent spinal injuries, they wanted to make sure.

“We are going to need statements from all of you... ”

They carefully lifted the man out of the water and secured him to their craft and powered out to the marina at Port Credit. They passed the pier where people spent the afternoon lazily fishing. An old man with dark skin waved to the passing coast guard rescue boat just as he reeled in a large lake trout. He showed his catch off proudly.

The paramedics at the ambulance quickly treated his injury and had him transferred from the spine-board to the stretcher, removing as much of his soaking clothing as they could. He panicked again fearing they would lose his identification. Once he was reassured and was given his wallet to hold they took him directly to Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital.

“They said you were taking on the Decepticons...” said the paramedic who was riding with him in the back.

“Not taking on Decepticons, trying to run from them was more like it,” Chris replied. “I can't fight them in a Cessna 172 -  can't exactly out run them either...”

“You're a lucky duck...” the paramedic remarked.

“Tell me about it... if it weren't for those boaters, I'd have drowned for sure...”

“It helps reaffirm my faith in humanity; when people help others. Otherwise I fear how this world will become,” the paramedic mused.

“Twice now, people have come to my rescue... when my life was hung in the balance. A little over a year ago... and just today. I wish I could pay them back for their kindness...” he said lightly.

“In the case of that, just pay it forward. Help someone else. Random acts of kindness goes a long way to helping a community or even a country. Its why I am a paramedic. I want to help people. I'll never get a thanks, but I'll know I may have made a difference. Sometimes I can't help a person - I see death frequently... I see stuff of nightmares. I have gone home and cried because of someone I just could not help. Yet I hope that the families of the people can carry on and help someone else. Even if all it is is mowing the lawn for an elderly person...” the Paramedic rambled.

“Pay it forward, eh?” Chris repeated. “I'll remember that.”

The ambulance came to a full stop and they arrived at the hospital. He had to wait a little while before the doctors could see him. There were injuries from people that had been removed from the refinery that needed to be seen first.

His x-rays came up clean, there was no fractures or breaks, but he did have bruises and a few small cuts, as well as the one on his forehead that required six stitches. They decided to keep him overnight to ensure he would not worsen from his concussion.

The following morning the doctors agreed he was remarkably healthy for a man who had been shot down by Decepticons and decided to discharge him. Sarah arrived to take him home. It was Canada Day and he really wished to celebrate this one rather than be cooped up in a hospital.