Chapter 3 - Thirty-Eight Thousand Feet
The controller’s voice was calm.
Rebecca held on to that.
On her worst nights after the accident, she had remembered aviation as alarms, accusations, and the sound of breaking things.
She had forgotten this part.
A stranger somewhere below them, sitting at a console, making space in the sky.
Logan identified her to the controller and explained Daniel’s condition. Rebecca confirmed her previous qualifications, then asked for weather and a clear route toward Wichita.
They were west of the worst storm cells, with rough air between them and the airport.
Not ideal.
Possible.
Possible was enough.
“Your airplane,” Logan said.
Rebecca looked at him.
“Confirm.”
“You have control.”
“I have control.”
The familiar exchange nearly undid her.
She adjusted her grip, conscious of every place fear wanted to tighten her muscles.
The aircraft responded.
For a few precious seconds, nothing went wrong.
Then the flight-control alert returned.
Rebecca resisted the urge to jump directly to the conclusion living in her memory.
“Read the approved procedure,” she told Logan. “Exactly as written.”
He opened the checklist.
His voice shook on the first line, steadied on the second.
They worked together.
No improvisation. No heroic guess. Just a disciplined sequence, cross-checks, and enough room between decisions to recognize a bad one.
Behind the cockpit door, Marlene reported that Daniel remained unconscious but was breathing. Ground medical support was staying connected.
Rebecca acknowledged her.
Then Charles spoke.
Not from the doorway this time.
Through the cabin interphone.
“Tell me whether this has anything to do with our components.”
Rebecca closed her eyes for a fraction of a second.
Our components.
“You need to let us work.”
“I know the engineering on this aircraft.”
“Then you know a cockpit during an emergency is not a conference room.”
He went silent.
Beside her, Logan stared at the manufacturer identification on a status page.
“Whitmore built this unit?”
“One of the suppliers.”
“Is this what happened on your flight?”
“We don’t know what this is yet.”
She needed him here, in this aircraft, rather than inside her history.
He nodded.
Outside, lightning spread through clouds like cracks opening in dark glass.
The jet entered turbulence.
Rebecca maintained the assigned heading while Logan coordinated their descent. The controller kept them clear of other traffic, providing weather information and options without crowding the frequency.
Then an abrupt command pulsed through the controls.
Rebecca countered it.
Her heart slammed against her ribs.
Snow.
Metal.
Her first officer shouting her name.
“Rebecca?”
Logan’s voice reached her from very far away.
She looked at the instrument panel.
Read their altitude aloud.
Then their airspeed.
Then the heading.
Facts.
Solid things.
She could stand on facts.
“I’m here,” she said.
They continued the procedure. The abnormal input ceased, though the warning remained.
Rebecca didn’t call it fixed.
She called it manageable.
In the cabin, Nolan sat opposite his father.
Neither had spoken for several minutes.
Finally, Nolan looked down at his phone.
The video was still there.
Rebecca kneeling.
His own laugh.
For the first time, he watched it without an audience in mind.
Charles saw the screen.
“Delete that.”
Nolan lifted his eyes.
“Because it was wrong?”
“Because this is not the time.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Charles looked away.
A few feet from them, Marlene adjusted Daniel’s oxygen equipment under the physician’s guidance.
“Rebecca saved your evening already,” she said quietly.
Charles frowned.
“She kept serving you after you decided cruelty was part of the service.”
Neither man answered.
The cabin lights flickered once.
Nolan reached across the aisle and fastened the loose strap on the medical kit so it wouldn’t slide.
A tiny useful action.
It was all he knew how to offer.
In the cockpit, Wichita approach cleared the jet lower.
Rebecca could see scattered lights beneath the clouds now.
A city.
Roads.
People washing dishes, walking dogs, putting children to bed.
Ordinary lives continuing beneath their extraordinary fear.
Logan studied the weather update.
“Crosswind’s increasing.”
Rebecca checked their remaining options.
They had fuel.
They had an airport with emergency crews waiting.
They had a malfunction they were managing rather than fully understanding.
And Daniel had time they could not measure.
She made the decision.
“We continue. If the approach becomes unstable, we go around.”
May you like
Logan nodded.
This time, when he answered the controller, his voice sounded like a pilot’s.
