Chapter 3 - Flying With Nothing but Fire
Reed stared at the paper.
Jennifer stared at me.
I stared at the name.
Colonel David Mercer.
Thirty-two years disappeared.
For a moment, the cockpit was gone.
The warnings were gone.
The tilted horizon was gone.
I was back at Edwards, standing inside a windowless briefing room while David Mercer closed a red folder and told me I was cleared to fly.
I had asked him one question.
“Did engineering sign off on the hydraulic redesign?”
He had looked me straight in the eye.
“Yes.”
That was the lie that destroyed my life.
“Sarah?”
Jennifer’s voice pulled me back.
I looked at her.
“What does the message mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Reed turned the printed strip around.
“Phoenix should have died in 1992.”
He read the second line.
Then the signature.
“MERCER.”
His expression hardened.
“You know him.”
“Knew.”
“Is he alive?”
“I don’t know.”
That was the truth.
After my discharge, I had spent years trying to locate him.
Letters went unanswered.
Phone numbers changed.
Records disappeared.
Then I stopped looking.
Not because I forgave him.
Because anger had begun consuming everything else I had left.
Jennifer looked toward the aircraft systems.
“Whoever sent this knows who you are.”
“Yes.”
“And knows about Wraith.”
“Yes.”
“And somehow has access to our maintenance network while we’re in the air.”
“Yes.”
Reed folded the printout once.
“Then we have two emergencies.”
I looked at him.
“No.”
“What?”
“We have one emergency.”
I pointed toward the windshield.
“Keep this airplane alive.”
He held my gaze for a second.
Then nodded.
Good captain.
Fear later.
Flying now.
Jennifer checked our heading.
“One-seven-zero.”
Wrong direction.
Again.
I applied more left thrust.
The left engine responded.
The right came back slightly.
We waited.
“One-six-nine,” Jennifer said.
“Come on.”
“One-six-eight.”
The nose was moving.
Slowly.
Painfully.
But moving.
Portland remained more than fifty degrees away.
That was too much.
“What’s ahead of us?” I asked.
Jennifer pulled up the map.
“Terrain rises northeast. Lower ground south-southwest. Several smaller airports.”
“Runway lengths.”
She started calling them out.
“Redmond, seventy thousand—”
“Seven thousand.”
“Right. Seven thousand thirty-eight.”
“Too short.”
“Eugene, eight thousand nine.”
“Better.”
“Portland still best.”
“How far to Eugene?”
“Ninety-one miles.”
“Bearing?”
“Two-one-zero.”
I looked at Reed.
“Eugene takes less turn.”
“And gives us two thousand fewer feet of runway.”
“We may not have enough control to reach Portland.”
He understood immediately.
A perfect runway was useless if you could not point the airplane at it.
Jennifer said, “Eugene has emergency services.”
“How much runway do we need with no normal flight controls?” Reed asked.
“More than exists.”
He looked at me.
“That’s comforting.”
“I’m trying honesty today.”
His mouth twitched.
Not quite a smile.
The aircraft rolled right one degree.
I corrected.
Reed watched.
“Eugene.”
I nodded.
“Eugene.”
Jennifer transmitted.
“Center, Southwest 2891 changing diversion request. We are attempting Eugene due limited heading authority.”
“Southwest 2891, Eugene notified. Turn right—”
Jennifer interrupted.
“Unable conventional turns. We will advise heading capability.”
A pause.
“Southwest 2891, roger. Eugene is yours.”
That was aviation language for something no controller ever wanted to say.
Do whatever you can.
I studied the engines again.
They had become our wings.
Our rudder.
Our elevator.
Our steering wheel.
Everything depended on two spinning machines designed only to push us forward.
I made another power change.
The aircraft responded.
One-six-five.
One-six-three.
One-six-two.
Then the left engine temperature began creeping upward.
Jennifer saw it.
“EGT.”
“I know.”
“Approaching limit.”
“How close?”
“Thirty degrees.”
Reed looked at me.
“If we cook the engine—”
“We lose the airplane.”
I reduced power.
The heading stopped changing.
We still needed nearly fifty degrees.
“Damn it.”
Jennifer studied the engine page.
“Can we use larger reductions on the right instead?”
“Yes.”
“That lowers total thrust.”
“Yes.”
“We’ll descend.”
“Yes.”
Reed frowned.
“So either stress the left engine or trade altitude.”
“Exactly.”
“How much altitude do we have to spend?”
Jennifer answered.
“Thirty-one thousand eight.”
I looked at the terrain display.
“We spend altitude.”
Reed nodded.
“Agreed.”
I pulled the right engine back more aggressively.
The aircraft began descending.
Eight hundred feet per minute.
Then twelve hundred.
But the heading changed.
One-five-nine.
One-five-six.
One-five-three.
“Working,” Jennifer said.
The bank began reducing leftward.
Good.
Too good.
“Bring right power back two percent.”
Reed did.
The response was delayed.
Then the airplane settled.
Flying with engines alone was not like steering a car.
It was like telling a ship what you wanted and waiting to see whether the ocean agreed.
Every input arrived late.
Every correction tempted another correction.
The pilot had to think seconds ahead.
Sometimes minutes.
I had learned that lesson in the Wraith.
I had learned it while bleeding from my forehead and smelling insulation burn.
The aircraft had been dying around me.
Ground control screamed for me to eject.
But I had discovered something.
The engines still listened.
So I had used thrust.
More left.
Less right.
Then reverse.
Tiny changes.
The Wraith had responded.
Not enough to save it.
But enough to keep it away from the primary viewing platform.
That part never appeared in the report.
According to the official findings, my “improper control inputs” had worsened the crash.
I had spent three decades wondering whether I could have done more.
Now I had 193 people behind me depending on the same technique.
Maybe history did not repeat itself.
Maybe it waited.
Jennifer said my name.
“Sarah.”
“What?”
“You’re bleeding.”
I looked down.
One of my old scars had split slightly where my hand gripped the throttle.
I had not noticed.
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s on the control.”
“Then the airplane has my DNA.”
Reed gave me a quick look.
“You always joke during emergencies?”
“Only expensive ones.”
Jennifer tore a small gauze pad from the cockpit medical kit and handed it to me.
I wrapped my palm without taking my eyes from the instruments.
“Heading one-five-one,” she said.
We needed two-one-zero.
Still a long way.
The interphone rang.
Reed answered.
“Cockpit.”
Linda’s voice came through.
“Captain, we have a medical problem.”
His expression tightened.
“What happened?”
“Passenger in row twenty-two. Older male. Chest pain. Difficulty breathing.”
Reed looked at me.
I shook my head slightly.
He understood.
There was nothing we could do except fly.
“Any medical personnel aboard?”
“A nurse is with him.”
“Use the medical kit. Keep him seated and belted if possible.”
“Understood.”
Then Linda hesitated.
“Captain?”
“Yes?”
“People are asking who the woman in the cockpit is.”
Reed looked at me.
I almost laughed.
Of course they were.
“What did you tell them?”
“That she was helping.”
“Good answer.”
Linda lowered her voice.
“One passenger says he knows her.”
I stopped moving.
Reed noticed.
“Who?”
“He won’t give me his name.”
The cockpit changed.
Not physically.
But everyone felt it.
Jennifer leaned closer.
“What does he look like?”
Reed repeated the question into the interphone.
Linda answered.
“Male. Maybe late sixties. Gray hair. Dark jacket. Seat 3A.”
My mind began working.
Late sixties.
Too young to be Mercer, unless he had lied about his age in 1992.
Possible.
But unlikely.
“Did he say what he knows?” I asked.
Reed relayed it.
Linda went quiet for several seconds.
Then she replied.
“He said to tell Sarah Mitchell that Phoenix still owes him a landing.”
Every muscle in my back tightened.
Reed slowly turned toward me.
“What does that mean?”
I knew the phrase.
Only six people had ever used it.
My test team.
After difficult flights, we joked that no matter how bad the mission became, Phoenix owed everyone a landing.
Five of those people were dead.
The sixth—
No.
He could not be here.
“Sarah.”
I looked at Reed.
“His name is probably Nathan Cole.”
Jennifer searched the passenger manifest.
Her eyes moved down the screen.
Then stopped.
“No Nathan Cole aboard.”
“Try Nicholas Cole.”
“No.”
“Robert Cole.”
“No.”
Reed asked, “Who is he?”
“My Wraith systems engineer.”
Jennifer froze.
“The one who warned about the hydraulics?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to him?”
“He testified that I ignored his warnings.”
Reed frowned.
“That doesn’t sound like someone on your side.”
“He wasn’t.”
At least, that was what I had believed.
After the crash, Nathan Cole became the government’s most useful witness.
He told investigators that I had been informed about hydraulic instability.
He said I chose to fly anyway.
His testimony ended my last chance of clearing my name.
I had hated him almost as much as Mercer.
Then, seven years later, I heard he had died in an industrial accident in Nevada.
No funeral notice.
No body I ever saw.
Just a name in a short newspaper article.
Jennifer stared toward the locked cockpit door.
“Your dead engineer may be sitting fifteen feet behind us.”
“Maybe.”
“And someone is sending messages signed by your old colonel.”
“Yes.”
Reed exhaled.
“This flight is becoming crowded with ghosts.”
The engine warning tone sounded again.
Jennifer snapped back to the panel.
“Left EGT rising.”
We had allowed the power difference to remain too long.
“Reduce left two.”
Reed moved it.
“Heading will drift.”
“I know.”
The aircraft descended through thirty thousand feet.
The air became slightly denser.
Control response changed.
Not much.
Enough.
I felt it before the instruments showed it.
“Careful.”
Reed looked at me.
“What?”
“She’s getting more sensitive.”
Jennifer watched the bank.
“Twenty degrees right.”
“Right engine up one.”
He moved it.
“Twenty-one.”
“Another half.”
The engine came up.
The aircraft held.
I began thinking ahead to landing.
That was the part nobody wanted to discuss.
Cruise was forgiving.
Landing was not.
A runway demanded alignment.
A descent rate.
A speed.
Flaps.
Landing gear.
Brakes.
All the systems pilots normally used to transform a seventy-ton aircraft into something gentle enough to touch pavement.
We had no idea how many of those systems would work.
“Jennifer.”
“Yes?”
“Check alternate gear extension capability.”
She did.
“Available mechanically.”
“Flaps?”
“Hydraulic.”
“So likely unavailable.”
“Correct.”
“No-flap landing.”
Reed grimaced.
“Fast.”
“Very.”
“Braking?”
Jennifer checked.
“Accumulator pressure remains.”
“How many applications?”
“Unknown.”
“Assume one.”
Reed stared toward the windshield.
“So we land fast with almost no steering and possibly one useful brake application.”
“Correct.”
“And you still want Eugene.”
“No.”
He looked at me.
I pointed toward the map.
“I want Portland again.”
Jennifer understood.
“Because of runway length.”
“Exactly.”
Reed shook his head.
“We barely have heading authority.”
“We’re getting better response as we descend.”
“That could disappear.”
“So could our engines.”
“Comforting again.”
“I try.”
Jennifer recalculated.
“Portland bearing two-two-four. Distance ninety-seven.”
“How much heading change?”
“Seventy degrees from current.”
Reed looked at me.
“Can you do it?”
I stared at the engines.
Then at the horizon.
Then at my scarred hands.
“I can try.”
The interphone rang again.
Linda.
Reed answered.
“Go.”
Her voice was different.
Quiet.
“Captain, passenger 3A wants to come forward.”
“No.”
“He says Sarah needs to see something.”
“What?”
“A photograph.”
I felt cold.
“Ask him what’s in it.”
Reed did.
Linda answered.
“He says it was taken the morning of the Wraith crash.”
I closed my eyes for half a second.
Reed said, “Keep him seated.”
Then I heard movement behind us.
Not through the interphone.
Through the cockpit door itself.
A knock.
Three slow taps.
Then two.
My blood went cold.
That pattern.
Three.
Then two.
Our old test-team signal.
Jennifer looked at me.
“Sarah?”
Another three knocks.
Then two.
Reed reached toward the security camera display beside him.
The feed activated.
A gray-haired man stood outside the cockpit door.
His face was older.
Thinner.
But I knew him.
Nathan Cole.
The engineer who had supposedly died twenty-five years ago.
He lifted a photograph toward the camera.
Even through the small monitor, I could see who was standing beside him in the picture.
David Mercer.
And me.
Reed leaned closer.
“There’s writing on the back.”
Nathan slowly turned the photograph around.
Four words had been written across it.
Jennifer read them first.
“THE FAILURE WAS DELIBERATE.”
Then Nathan raised one finger and pointed toward the cabin behind him.
Someone stepped into view.
I stopped breathing.
Because the second man outside the cockpit was wearing an airline maintenance jacket.
May you like
And around his neck hung an identification badge bearing the name of the technician who had been dead for six years.
Marcus Hale.
