Chapter 4 - The Threat Lurking in the Storm
The warning chime sounded again—a rhythmic, sharp pinging that drilled straight into Mara’s skull. On the upper engine display, the number two engine's exhaust gas temperature gauge began creeping into the yellow arc.
“Compressor stall warning,” Evan rasped. He reached up with his uninjured left hand to toggle the engine anti-ice switches, his knuckles white. “The ice crystal icing at this altitude… it’s choking the intake.”
“Throttles back half an inch on number two,” Mara commanded, her eyes fixed on the vibrating needle. “We can't afford an uncontained engine failure. Not with our hydraulic line already bleeding.”
Suddenly, the airplane punched into the outer bands of the squall line.
Daylight, or what little remained of the late twilight, vanished into complete darkness. Sheets of freezing rain smashed against the cockpit windshield with the sound of gravel being hurled against glass. The massive wide-body airliner dropped fifty feet in a split second, tossing Mara against her shoulder harness.
Inside the passenger cabin, several overhead bins burst open. Bags, coats, and duty-free souvenirs crashed into the aisle. Screams erupted in unison.
Walter Pierce reached out with both hands, bracing the elderly woman sitting across the aisle who was hyperventilating into a paper bag. “Breathe! Keep breathing! She’s got the controls!”
“We’re going to crash!” a young man yelled from three rows back, standing up in a total panic. “The engines are dying!”
“Sit your ass down, son!” Walter roared with the full, booming authority of a high school principal who had spent forty years commanding unruly teenagers. “That woman up front flies supersonic jets off the deck of aircraft carriers in the middle of midnight typhoons! If she can’t land this bird, nobody on this planet can! Sit down, buckle your harness, and keep your mouth shut!”
The cabin fell into a stunned silence, broken only by the engine rumble and the relentless pelting of rain against the aluminum fuselage.
Up in the cockpit, Mara was fighting the aircraft's roll tendencies with sheer physical strength. Without the autopilot, the asymmetrical thrust from the choking right engine was constantly trying to twist the nose to the right. Her left calf burned from applying constant left rudder pressure.
“Evan, I need the descent checklist completed now,” Mara barked.
Evan blinked heavily, his eyes struggling to focus on the printed laminated card pinned to his yoke. “Altimeters… set to twenty-nine point eight two. Approach briefing… McChord Field, ILS Runway 16. Minimum safe altitude… three thousand feet. Radios… tuned to McChord tower on one-two-four point eight.”
“What about the flaps?” Mara asked.
Evan selected Flaps 5 on the lever.
Nothing happened.
The indicator needle twitched twice and remained frozen at zero. The amber caution light for System B hydraulics flashed into a steady, ominous red.
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“Pressure is zero,” Evan said, his voice dropping into quiet despair. “System B is completely dead. We have no flaps, Mara. Zero flaps.”
Mara stared through the rain-streaked windshield into the black void below. “Then we land hot. Call McChord tower. Tell them Northstar 417 is coming in fast, heavy, and slick.”
