Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Note from the Publisher
Trademarks Acknowledgement
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Epilogue
About the Author
Titles by Talia R. Blackwood
A Silver Publishing Book
The Landing
Copyright © 2013 by Talia R. Blackwood
E-book ISBN: 978005582853
First E-book Publication: November 2013
Cover design by Reese Dante
Editor: Monti Shalosky
Logo copyright © 2012 by Silver Publishing
Licensed material is being used for illustrative purposes only. Any person depicted in the licensed material is a model.
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This book is written in US English.
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Note from the Publisher
Dear Reader,
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Trademarks Acknowledgement
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:
Converse: Converse Inc.
Homer Simpson: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
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Chapter 1
When Adrian Mesler embarked on Flight 512, his career had already ended.
The result of the final test rested in his hands. He stared at the letter in disbelief. There had to be a mistake of some kind. But the word was there, at the bottom of the letter.
Rejected.
He felt dizzy. Ten years of training, hours and hours of flying, a loan taken out to rent complex aircrafts and simulators for practice, a lifetime of sacrifices—and everything had gone to hell in a moment. The airline had refused him. The reason was the result of the psychological test. According to the profile, he couldn't cope with emergency situations. He had no ability to lead.
Adrian had considered the psychological exam a formality, since the airline had already hired him for the training period and put him into operating service as a reserve. He was sure he would become a pilot. Throughout his entire life, he'd aimed to be just that.
His vision blurred, there in the middle of the hallway of the airline offices in the airport. Adrian was about to cry in public—something he hadn't done since grade school.
He stumbled over to the window and pulled the phone out of his bag. He called Luke, and rested his hot forehead against the glass of the window. Outside, on the runway, dozens of jetliners were landing and taking off.
"Hey," Luke said, answering on the first ring. "I didn't think you were allowed to make calls from planes."
"I'm not on board," Adrian said.
"If you've forgotten something, I can't come to the airport. I have to be into the operating room in five minutes."
Adrian closed his eyes. Please don't treat me bad now that I need you.
"The airline hasn't accepted me."
Luke laughed.
"It's the truth," Adrian said. "I'm serious."
"But you're their ideal of a man, ready to jump on any plane to anywhere in the world, at any time of the day or night, careless of who you leave behind, always with that fucking ironed uniform ready in your closet!"
Tears brimmed in Adrian's eyes when he realized that Luke was right. Adrian had sacrificed so much of his private life in his dream of becoming a pilot.
"You could try another airline," Luke suggested.
"I can't! If the best airline company has refused me, I'm over. I can't even hope to be hired anywhere else."
"You could continue to work as a flight instructor at a club, then."
"That's not what I've worked for during all these years!"
Luke sighed. "What can I say? I'm sorry. I'm very sorry, because it's what you care about more than anything else. You've only had those damn jets in your life, so I'm sorry. But think also about the two of us. Think about me, for once. I'd be happy if after a twelve hour shift, I came home and found you there, rather than on the other side of the world."
"So should I be the one who sacrifices everything for your career?"
"Hey, look, I'm not the one who was fired."
Adrian shut his eyes. No, shit, no.
They had been together for almost five months now. Things had started to go wrong a while ago—it wasn't easy to reconcile a surgeon and a jet pilot, both ambitious—but Luke's words had probably marked the final break.
So, even things with Luke were over. Adrian had lost his career and private life in one fell swoop.
"I have to go," Luke said. "Can we talk about it later?"
They wouldn't talk again. They were over and nothing else. When he felt a little click inside of him, like a switch turning off, it was forever. It wasn't his fault. He wanted to be able to rethink things, but the switch prevented it. If a matter was closed, there was no way to convince his heart to consider it again.
"Sure. I'm sorry to call you like this."
"I'll call you back as soon as I can. Bye."
Adrian wanted to add something, but Luke hung up.
They wouldn't speak ever again.
* * * *
"Mr Mesler?"
Adrian jumped.
The flight attendant watched him. "The captain is on board and is waiting to meet the crew."
Adrian tried to pull himself together and put the phone away. He had been called as an emergency reserve and had to get on board. He could decline the engagement and leave. Perhaps the flight could be delayed, perhaps the airline would have found another officer ready to run to the airport without much notice, ready to leave his loved ones to fly halfway around the world, driven only by the passion; an officer
who would probably be able to cope with emergencies and assume a leadership position.
"Are you all right, Mr Mesler?" the attendant asked.
Sure, he could leave and go home and wait for Luke, but that would have been his last flight on a jetliner.
"I'm coming," Adrian said.
* * * *
"Are you the reserve?"
"Yes, sir."
The captain and the cabin crew were silently staring at him. The captain was a senior pilot. His name was Jules Santoro. Tall and handsome, he had short gray hair and deep expression lines at the corners of his mouth. Adrian had never met him, but already had a small crush on him. The captain had performed a fantastic emergency landing after an engine failure; Adrian had tried the same landing in the simulator. In other circumstances, it would be an honor to fly with him.
The captain merely handed him the paperwork. Adrian signed the flight release and took a look at the flight plan and weather report.
"What's your first task?"
"Inspecting the airplane, sir."
"Well. Go ahead."
Adrian began the inspection. The procedure gave him time to be alone and recover, if possible.
He walked along the plane in a daze. The day he had made the decision to become a pilot, he was sitting astride a branch of the fig tree behind his house, with his nose in the air and the wind in his hair. He would have been at most six years old. He loved challenges, his head was full of dreams, and walking on the ground wasn't enough for him. He wanted to be a hero and he wanted to fly. He wanted to be a fighter pilot, but growing up, he realized war wouldn't be for him. So he thought he would become an airline pilot, never doubting he could succeed.
After a specialized college, he landed a job in a flight school, often working crazy hours and during weekends, with the sole purpose of increasing his amount of flight hours. He had taken people on tourist flights, and he had even flown advertisement aircraft. Flying was his life. He felt this in his heart.
But it turned out that his heart had been wrong.
A feeling of emptiness, of panic, swelled his heart, which began hammering against his ribcage. Adrian saw the edge of deep despair, but he couldn't afford to be overwhelmed during his last assignment. His last flight had to be perfect. He struggled to complete the inspection and return to the cockpit.
The flight attendant who had called him at the airport waited for him at the top of the business class hallway. Adrian slowed down. She was the chief cabin crew attendant, a pleasant woman of about forty, with exotic, maybe Indian, features. Her first name, by the badge pinned on her chest, was Joanne.
Young hostesses in search of a hot date with a pilot often approached Adrian. But perhaps this wasn't the reason why the woman was waiting for him, while smiling cordially.
"Mr Mesler, damn, you're terribly young," the woman said as he approached.
"I'm thirty-two," Adrian said, bored by having to continually repeat his age. He knew he looked several years younger, maybe because of his fair hair.
"I'm sorry I have to bore you with my questions, First Officer Mesler, but as you certainly know, one of my responsibilities is to check on the health conditions of our pilots."
"I'm fine, Joanne," Adrian said dryly.
"Sure," the woman said, nodding. "It's just, in the airport hallway, you appeared a little upset."
"I'm fine now," Adrian repeated.
"Certainly and I'm sure you don't need me reminding you that the safety of over two hundred passengers is in your hands, Mr Mesler."
Adrian bit his lower lip. The chief attendant could easily report to the captain and question his suitability to fly. "Joanne, I assure you if I weren't able to handle the situation, I'd never be on my way to board this flight. You don't have to worry about me. We have an amazing captain. Basically, my job is to simply sit back and watch."
The woman nodded, smiling. "Apologies again. Have a great flight."
Chapter 2
Flight 512 took off. Adrian kept so busy completing all the required procedures to the very best of his ability, working out the flight plan and filing it with air traffic control, he didn't realize Captain Santoro observed him. The Boeing went from the gate to the runway, and they waited for the traffic controller's go-ahead, then the captain took off flawlessly.
Once the plane was on autopilot, the captain leaned back and cracked his knuckles. "You have completed all the procedures without me having to say a word."
It took Adrian several minutes before he realized that the captain was talking to him.
"Not bad for a rookie, especially a reserve."
Adrian blushed and turned to the left seat, but the captain had dialed a flight attendant via the intercom. The attendant showed herself to the security camera, and the captain opened the cockpit door.
"Is everything okay with the passengers, Joanne?"
"All fine, Captain. We have a team of Olympic canoeists who ordered spirits and are a little noisy, but nothing we can't handle."
"Well then. Can I trouble you for a cup of coffee?"
"Sure, Captain. Mr Mesler?"
Adrian tensed in his seat as if it were burning, even without coffee. "No, thanks. I'm okay."
The attendant exited.
The captain sat down stretching. Unlike all the seniors with whom Adrian had flown so far, the man seemed surprisingly jovial.
He looked towards Adrian with sympathy. "You're very young. How many flying hours have you accumulated?"
"About two thousand. And I'm not so young, sir. I'm thirty-two."
"Not so young?" the captain laughed. "When you're fifty-seven then you might not be so young."
Adrian allowed himself to smile a little.
"Two thousand hours of flight, you say? That's too much."
"Too much?" Adrian asked in surprise.
"Yes. Do you have a life, apart from flying?"
Adrian blinked, confused.
"Yes." The captain nodded, chuckling. "I thought so. Just like me at your age."
Seniors usually didn't consider the newbies at all, but Captain Santoro seemed quite different. Adrian's heartbeat quickened as his admiration for the man increased.
He turned to the captain and took a deep breath. "I think you did a fantastic landing on Flight four fifty-one, sir."
"For goodness sake, don't remind me about that!" The captain rubbed his eyes. "It was awful. I seriously thought about leaving after that."
"Really?"
"It's terrible. Suddenly the plane loses altitude, and there are all those people yelling… one hundred, two hundred people screaming and you have to save them all."
"But you did it."
"Yes, but I still have nightmares. What's your name?"
"Adrian. Adrian Mesler, sir."
"If you ever find yourself in a similar situation in the course of your career, Adrian, try not to listen to the screams. Just pretend you're in the simulator."
Adrian's eyes filled with tears. He looked down and said nothing He didn't have a career. Should he tell the captain? He flushed with shame at the thought. But the captain seemed kind; he might be able to advise Adrian on what to do. Or maybe the captain could do something. He might have enough power within the airline to change things.
A faint glimmer of hope surfaced inside Adrian. It was worth trying.
Adrian cleared his throat. "Captain, I was actually…"
"What the hell is that stuff?" the captain exclaimed.
Adrian looked out.
His heart jumped into his mouth.
The Boeing 767 flew towards a thick bank of clouds as solid as a wall. More than clouds, it seemed to be smoke from a huge fire. But a fire, thirty-three thousand feet in the air?
The attendant rang the bell to enter and the captain unlocked the door. Joanne entered the cockpit and saw the clouds from the windscreen.
"Oh my god!" She jumped, pouring the coffee on the carpet.
The idea of a nuclear explosion popped into Adrian's mi
nd. But the stuff they saw wasn't the shape of a mushroom, and it was greenish. The 767 was about to end up in the middle of it.
"Why haven't we heard anything from air traffic control about this?" the captain asked, keeping his cool.
Adrian rushed to put on his headphones, but they were completely silent. He checked the on-board computer with amazement.
"No digital nor radio signal from ATC," Adrian said. "We've lost ATC!"
A stunned silence filled the cockpit.
"Joanne, this is an abnormal situation. Go back in the cabin and continue with the safety procedures."
"Yes, sir!" Joanne exclaimed and ran back to the cabin.
The smell of the spilt coffee on the carpet permeated the cockpit.
"Whatever that is, it's not appearing on the radar," the captain stated.
"Ten seconds to… impact? Contact?" Adrian said, unsure about the term to use, as the aircraft headed towards the huge cloud.
"Shit," the captain said.
"Seven seconds, six, five…"
"I wish I was…"
The captain didn't continue. Instead, he gave a sort of sigh.
Adrian turned towards him and immediately stood up.
He stared at the empty seat.
The captain was gone.
His heart leapt into his mouth again. The seat wasn't really empty; the captain's uniform was still there but the captain had disintegrated, evaporated, disappeared, leaving his clothes on the seat.
At that moment, the Boeing hit the cloud.
The light turned green.
* * * *
Footsteps rapidly approached the cockpit. Soon after, someone knocked insistently on the safety door. The monitor showed it was Joanne. Adrian unlocked the door.
The Landing (Apocalypse) Page 1