Chapter 2 - Heavy Hands on a Broken Beast
The aircraft shuddered as it sliced through the first layer of gray soup at twenty-four thousand feet. Mara kept her left hand clamped firmly around the control wheel. In an F/A-18, the stick rested between her knees, responding to micro-pressures from her fingertips. Here, turning required pulling an entire wheel through viscous hydraulic resistance that felt like stirring wet cement.
“How’s the speed?” Mara asked, glancing sideways.
Evan was propped up against the cockpit sidewall, his left hand managing the throttles. His face was gray, beads of sweat dripping down his jawline. “Two hundred fifty knots below ten thousand is the standard rule, but right now we’re at two-eighty. We need to shed energy before we reach the arrival corridor.”
“Speed brakes,” Mara ordered. “Pop the flight spoilers.”
Evan reached down with his left hand, awkwardly pulling the speed brake lever aft. A deep, rumbling vibration traveled through the airframe as panels rose on top of the wings, biting into the icy slipstream.
Back in row 14, passengers shrieked as the entire aircraft trembled violently.
“Easy!” Evan grimaced, his teeth grinding against the pain. “She’s not a fighter, Mara! You shake her like that and the passengers are going to start having cardiac arrests back there!”
“They’ll survive a little vibration; they won't survive overshooting the runway at three hundred knots,” Mara retorted, her voice icy, focused, and steady. “I need to know the stall speed in clean configuration and with full dirty gear down.”
“Clean stall is around one-forty at this landing weight,” Evan replied, coughing slightly. “V-ref with full flaps is one-thirty-eight. But Mara… look at your hydraulic quantity gauge on system B.”
Mara’s eyes darted down to the lower center screen. A amber warning illuminated. System B hydraulic pressure was fluctuating between 2,800 and 2,100 PSI.
“Fluid leak?” Mara asked, her eyebrows pulling tight.
“When the captain fell, he may have kicked the alternate gear extension handle or sheared something under the pedestal floorboards,” Evan groaned. “Or the turbulence over-stressed an actuator seal. If we lose System B, we lose normal flap extension. We’ll have to blow the gear down with nitrogen and land hot—no flaps, minimal reverse thrust.”
“A no-flap landing on a wet runway?” Mara muttered under her breath. “That means we touch down at nearly one hundred and seventy knots. That’s carrier landing speed, Evan. Only we don't have an arresting wire to catch us.”
“And Seattle doesn't have a runway long enough to stop two hundred tons moving that fast in the pouring rain,” Evan whispered.
Through the cockpit door, Tessa the flight attendant slipped back in, holding a portable oxygen bottle and a damp towel. She quickly wiped Evan’s burning forehead. “Evan, the passengers are starting to panic. Rumors are spreading that both of you are dead and an amateur is flying the plane.”
Mara didn’t look back, but her voice cut through the small cockpit like cold steel. “Tessa. Pick up that cabin PA right now.”
Tessa hesitated. “What should I say?”
“Tell them Commander Keene has the aircraft. Tell them we are lined up on our descent profile. And tell them to tighten their seatbelts, put their tray tables up, and trust the United States Navy to bring them home.”
May you like
Tessa blinked, swallowed the lump of panic in her throat, and nodded. “Yes, ma'am.”
As Tessa stepped out, Mara leveled the wings. Ahead of them, the radar display blossomed with an ugly splash of crimson and purple. A severe squall line had formed right over Puget Sound, choking off the approaches to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
