by

Kagan Tumer

Chapter 1: Crash Landing

“The truth is everyone is going to hurt you. You just have to find the ones worth suffering for.”—Bob Marley

Metal grinding on metal screeched inside his cockpit. Mika tapped the control screen, overriding the safeguards on the forces his damaged aircraft was sanctioned to apply. Speech mode still set to mute, the autopilot admonished him for his questionable decision in a range of hues, crackles, and tremors.

Released from its directive not to pulp its human pilot, the transport banked hard then dove harder. The strap bit into his shoulder, pressing him into his chair. The dry, rough leather sanded his cheek as the craft accelerated and vibrated.

A little more of this, and half his bones would break without colliding with anything. Still, it was better than colliding with something. A chorus of wailing alarms joined the autopilot’s complaints, warning him that his descent angle and velocity ranged far outside safe landing bounds.

Like he didn’t know.

He had too little thrust and even less lift—not surprising since his port wing was nothing but a stump. The only figure trending upward was the stress on the hull, ready to tear his craft apart at twenty thousand feet and a thousand miles an hour. The reptilian portion of his brain insisted he bail. His mammalian brain urged him to go through his options again for any solution he had overlooked. His rational brain counseled him to trust the autopilot’s infinitely faster reactions and take in the scenery.

The craft brought the roll under control by diving more. The ground hurtled toward him at bullet speed, and it was bigger. As the autopilot pulled out of the dive, the stern warning from the comms reached its third repetition: “Unidentified aircraft.” A two-second pause. “You are in restricted airspace.” Another pause. “If you do not alter course, you will be shot down.”

Target Lock flashed red on the screen. He pointed forward with his hands flat, thumbs up, and pitched his wrists back as though he were bringing a barrel to his lips. The autopilot considered his input, and the nose pointed up ever so slightly.

His descent slowed, but the shaking intensified. He eased back down, and the craft plunged again. The shaking did not let up.

“This is your last warning. Identify yourself and alter course.”

They still hadn’t shot him down, but he was pushing his luck. He swiped the panel to enable his commlink. “Not in control of aircraft. All systems critical. I need assistance.”

“Identify yourself.”

“This is Scout Delta-One-Six.” He tapped the screen and lifted the hold that had prevented his autopilot from sending its identification codes.

The silence extended long enough for them to run a mission check that wouldn’t bring anything up. He tapped again to transmit an encoded message that would appear like gibberish.

“Alter course. Now.”

“Can’t do that.”

“You have five seconds to alter course, or you will be shot down.”

He kept his craft pointed southwest. He had sustained most of the damage in his first crash landing and burned his engines in the ensuing takeoff. “That’d be redundant.”

The five seconds passed without shots being fired. “Explain.”

He stretched the story to buy another minute, reaching the status update. “Port winglet and engine are gone. Main starboard at sixty percent. Aft at thirty. The compensators fade in and out, so I’m pitching and rolling all over the place. I’m not flying; I’m in a controlled fall.”

There was no response.

“And I use the word ‘controlled’ loosely. My hull is minutes from tearing itself apart. I can’t bank or do much of anything other than go straight and down.”

“Proceed to these coordinates.”

A spot east of Lake Tahoe popped up on his screen. Were they kidding? That was two hundred and fifty miles southeast with the high peaks of the Sierras between them.

“Not a chance. I don’t have enough power or lift to get there. Have you heard a thing I said? I have, at most, eighty miles on a tight, downward cone.”

“There are no places you can land within eighty miles.” She was firm as though by speaking forcefully she could rescind the laws of physics.

Sweat dripped into his eyes and burned as he rolled. “I’m not going to land.”

“What?” Her voice rose in genuine surprise.

“I won’t have enough lift if I cut thrust, so I can’t slow down. I’m going to crash.” He felt detached as though it were some other pilot falling out of the sky.

“Your flight profile does not match Delta-One-Six.”

The lack of urgency in her voice implied she did not believe him. If they were going by flight profile, he did not blame them. He suspected he had the elegance of a wounded bat and the maneuverability of a flowerpot.

If he hadn’t known how dire his situation was, the extended silences would have clued him in. “Delta-One-Six.” It wasn’t a question but came from a new, more authoritative voice.

“Still here.”

“Major Tomlin was in command of Scout Delta-One-Six. You are not Major Tomlin.”

He had hoped to avoid this conversation until he was on the ground. “Correct.”

“Major Tomlin has been missing in action for two weeks.”

Yeah, that.

“How did you obtain the authorization codes for this craft?”

“She gave them to me.”

“There was no, er, no one with your profile on her crew.”

The official crew profile had contained three Marin soldiers, all women. So, they didn’t need to identify him to conclude he shouldn’t be in the pilot’s seat.

“You either stole this aircraft or are responsible for Major Tomlin’s disappearance. Is there a reason I should not shoot you down?”

None came to mind. “Major Tomlin is not missing in action.” He took a deep breath and exhaled. “She’s dead.”

An audible gasp came across the link. Several voices talked at the same time. The confident voice cut through the chatter. “Have you witnessed that firsthand?”

He wished he hadn’t, but the moment was etched in his memory. “Yes.”

“How did she die?”

Lin’s serenity filled his mind, urging him to grasp his predicament and choose every word he uttered with care. And then Lin’s face fought the pain to flash a contorted smile and winked. It wasn’t a playful wink but one that forced him to face the ugly truth.

“I shot her.”

“Are you trying to provoke me into blowing you out of the sky?” The shout became a hiss before the sentence ended.

“Just setting the record straight in case this crash-landing turns into more crash and less landing.” His encoded file revealed all that, but he wanted to say it out loud anyway. He owed Lin that much.

“You have ten seconds to explain.”

That was a laugh. His screen flashed and displayed new projections. His path had not improved. “I can use some assistance in picking a place to touch down.”

“Assistance?” The intonation went up though it wasn’t a real question. “You are in restricted airspace with forged identification codes and a stolen craft. You admitted killing a Marin officer.” She hesitated as though she contemplated adding to the list of his offenses. The list must have been damning enough. “I have my finger on the missiles targeting you. I’m debating whether to shoot you down or watch you crash.”

“So, no assistance?”

After fifteen seconds of silence, the red Target Lock disappeared from his screen, and a new voice came on the line.

“I need access to your system health diagnostics and engine data.”

His speed had dropped to six hundred miles an hour with the starboard engines about to burn. He tapped the screen and flicked his index finger to send the requested information.

“Not receiving anything. Untap the autopilot and tilt main starboard engine forward by three degrees.”

He did so.

“Any change in heading?”

He waited for two seconds, but nothing happened. “No.”

“The change in drag differential should give you maneuverability. That’s strange.” She hesitated, umming and ahhing. She must have decided he needed the truth more than he needed hope, as her words cut through the cacophony of displays. “Based on the little data I’m receiving, you shouldn’t even be in the air.”

“Good to know.”

Five more seconds passed. “Can’t link to your autopilot. The damage is with the data feed. Can’t land you from here.”

Of course not. Why should that have worked when nothing else did?

The thrust had dropped to 24 percent. The descent angle was three shades in the red. The path he was tracing wasn’t promising.

“I’m also getting an error from the landing gear. There are no diagnostics, though, so something might be wrong with the sensors,” she said.

“That’s because there are no sensors. Or landing gear. I lost them at my last crash.”

The six-second silence unnerved him more than a shriek would have.

“Let’s find you someplace soft then and see if we can get you to land this thing manually.” She shot instructions as fast as he processed and implemented them.

He followed her mechanically. His mind let go of every conscious thought and focused on the one verb she had uttered that had resonated.

Land. It was a good verb. He visualized that outcome, but the rate of the dropping altimeter didn’t let him believe it.

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