by Lee Stephen
“Increase to six hundred knots, now. Don’t wait, do it!”
Scott’s hands were sweating bullets in their gloves as he slowly pushed the throttle forward. The Pariah’s thrusters grew louder. Next to him, Becan gripped the sides of his seat and went rigid.
“Listen and listen carefully,” Tiffany said. “At some point very soon, the hole in your wind screen is going to start cracking. When that starts happening—”
It was already happening. Scott’s eyes widened as the cracks spiraled out, shaking the entire canopy with every inch they rapidly grew.
“—you’re like, seconds away from the canopy blowing off. You’re going to be okay. Just keep the cockpit door locked so no one opens it from the troop bay!”
Becan was already on it, slapping his hand out to engage the cockpit door’s bolt lock. The wind screen was practically dancing.
The blonde went on. “The important thing is that you don’t get flustered and you don’t—”
Eruption. There was a deafening sound like a torrent as the wind screen shattered, its shards tattering against Scott and Becan’s armor as the canopy literally blew apart in the span of a single second. Scott’s eyes widened in abject horror as he was exposed to wide open sky. He couldn’t even scream.
The occupants of the troop bay were shaken violently as the entire hull of the Pariah shimmied, the roar of wind in the cockpit drowning out what little background noise there had been. From one end of the troop bay to the other, operatives grabbed hold of support rails with fervent urgency.
“What the hell just happened?” David yelled, his voice barely audible over the sudden cacophony.
From farther down, Lilan shouted at the top of his lungs. “They just lost the canopy!”
David did a double take. “What?”
“They just lost the canopy! They’re flying without a windshield!”
Forcing his head down against the onslaught of wind, Scott stared at his hands on the controls. Despite the beating his upper body was taking, his hands were almost entirely shielded, firmly in place on the joystick and throttle even as his shoulders and biceps were pounded. He could literally hear nothing—not Becan, not Tiffany, not a thing beyond the incessant roar of the pummeling wind. Focusing on the airspeed indicator, he saw a reading of five hundred and fifty. He wasn’t even going as fast as he was supposed to be going. As Scott eased the throttle forward just a fraction more, he spared a glance at the radar. The V2 was still gaining.
In the midst of the drubbing his ear drums were taking, he could hear the faint sounds of a voice screaming. Tiffany. Releasing the throttle, he quickly turned the volume of his helmet speaker up to full blast.
“—are they still gaining?”
“Yes!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, though not even that was enough to make his voice rise above the roar. He couldn’t even hear himself. “Yes, they’re still gaining!”
Even with the volume all the way up, he could barely hear Tiffany’s voice as she addressed him. “I said how fast are they still gaining?”
He looked at the radar again. “Not as fast!”
“Get as low as you can and follow the terrain!”
Follow the terrain? Looking down against the wind, he saw the ground beneath them, the clear view pristine and untainted without smudged cockpit glass to distort it. Get low, Scott, he thought to himself. Easing the joystick forward, he angled the nose of the Pariah down ever so slightly. As difficult as it had been to control the Vulture before, the controls were horrifyingly touchier now. The catastrophic failure of the canopy had undercut whatever aerodynamics the flying brick had. Between that and the landing gear, which was still stuck down, the Pariah was rattling all over the place. Briefly, he glanced at Becan. The Irishman was totally rigid. Was he unconscious or just terrified? It didn’t matter. Focusing on the ground again, Scott pulled up the joystick to awkwardly level off. He was overcompensating with every movement. How did pilots do this?
Breathe! You’re not crashing. You’re in total control. As long as the nose keeps pointing forward, you’re going to be okay.
Out of the corner of Scott’s eye, several streaks of orange flew past the Pariah. He inhaled sharply. The V2 was firing at them. “Veck!”
“What’s wrong?” Tiffany asked.
“They’re shooting at us!” Scott jerked the stick to the left to veer the Pariah away as the orange streaks swept its way, the rapid motion of the unanticipated maneuver sending the transport completely on its side, then beyond. Before Scott could even rationalize what was happening, the Pariah was going inverted.
In the troop bay, arms and legs flailed in every direction as the entire transport spun upside down, weapons, equipment, and Travis and Donald’s bodies falling from the floor to the ceiling as the entire world flipped. The operatives collectively cried out as the wildly inconsistent rotation continued.
Upside down and still spinning, the threat of the V2’s cannon fire took a dire second place to the sheer panic of suddenly being in the middle of an unintended barrel roll. Scott had no idea what to do—all he could attempt was just to keep the nose forward and stay in the turn until they leveled off. But they were dropping. Fast. They were about to hit the treetops.
The Pariah rolled on to its side. The rapid descent paused. As Scott gritted his teeth and desperately tried to stay straight, the transport finally came out of the roll and leveled off again. Pulling the nose back, Scott sent the Pariah soaring back up to safe heights.
Scott looked in both directions for the sweeping orange streaks of the V2 behind them. He didn’t have to look far. The streaks appeared again, this time moving in from the opposite side of the ship—and this time, impossible to avoid. Pulling the stick almost as hard to the right as had sent him barrel rolling to the left, Scott managed only to send the troop bay occupants flailing in futility. Though the sounds of bullets hitting the hull couldn’t be heard over the roar of wind in his face, he could certainly feel them. The Pariah shimmied, then shook, then jolted hard, as if something had snagged the transport in mid-air. On the Pariah’s console, a row of indicators flashed bright red.
Scott knew it was damage of some sort—he just didn’t have time to lean in and identify it. The V2 behind them was still firing. More red lights flashed. They were getting pummeled. A console panel on Becan’s side of the cockpit exploded in an array of sparks and smoke that were almost instantly extinguished by the torrent of air. Out of the corner of Scott’s eye, he could see Becan waving his hand instinctively as if it would serve some sort of purpose. Pushing forward on the joystick and yanking back on the throttle, Scott sent the transport on an abruptly slow descent with no inclination as to whether or not the maneuver would do anything at all.
It did! Seconds after the Pariah nose-dived and eased back, the startlingly close silhouette of the pursuing V2 flew overhead. Scott and Becan both looked up, where the transport’s underbelly rocketed past them. Slapping Scott on the shoulder and pointing as if revealing something new, Becan indicated to the passing transport.
“I know!” Scott yelled. Pulling up on the stick, Scott pushed the throttle forward again. The Pariah’s engines burst with fury as the feral dog churned ahead.
But they were still going down.
What in the world? Scott pulled back on the joystick again, and again, nothing happened to alter their course and bring the Pariah back skyward. Eyes widening behind his helmet, Scott stared at the quickly-approaching ground they were steadily angling toward.
This didn’t make sense! Why wouldn’t the Pariah be pulling up? He was pulling back on the stick, he was doing everything he was supposed to do. Why wasn’t it working now?
Once more, Becan slapped Scott on the shoulder and pointed—but this time, Scott followed along. Becan was pointing at the damage indicators. Scott leaned close quickly to see.
Vertical Thrusters.
Lift Control.
Sitting back upright, Scott stared wide-eyed at the ground. Vertica
l thrusters and lift control. The Pariah couldn’t rise. He was about to slam them into the ground. Panic struck as Scott pulled back the joystick for all it was worth. Slowly—ever so slowly—the transport’s nose began to lift.
No mind was paid to the V2, where it was, or where it was going. The only thing Scott saw was death as they barreled toward it in a Vulture without a canopy being flown by two men who knew nothing about flying.
Treetops whizzed past them, their details becoming more defined with every passing second. Still, the Pariah slowly pulled up. But it didn’t feel like nearly enough.
Scott did the only thing he knew to do: pray. Tightly sealing his eyes, his mind spat out the most desperate prayer he’d ever prayed in his life. Let me fly this thing, let me fly this thing, let me fly this thing, let me fly this thing, let me fly this thing.
There was no rhyme or reason to the request beyond fear and the worst kind of adrenaline he’d ever felt. This couldn’t be how they ended. Not after they’d come so far. Not after they’d finished the job they’d been sent there to do. Please, God, please, God, please, God…let me fly this thing! Opening his eyes, Scott almost had a heart attack right there.
They were going to hit the trees.
Turning his head, Scott continued to pull back as the slapping sound of treetop branches slammed into the Pariah’s nose—he could feel pieces of the small treetop branches hit him. Then…
…air.
The Pariah leveled off, its nose tilting up just enough to bring the cursed transport back over the treetops. The slapping stopped—the sky became their dominant view. As if something on the transport just clicked, the Pariah burst forward with newfound vigor, its velocity noticeably increasing as a granule of control turned. Had they not been flying at some five hundred knots, Scott would have leapt up and shouted.
Scott quickly looked behind him then at the radar. Where was that V2? The blip that was the enemy Vulture was farther away now, but undoubtedly looping back and around to attack their rear again. Scott had to circle them—to keep them having to loop farther and farther to come around. He had no idea if that tactic was even valid. It just felt like all he could do.
“Hey, are you listening to me?”
The screaming voice in his headset almost made him jump. It was Tiffany. In the middle of the rush, he’d blocked her out completely. Screaming back at the top of his lungs, he said, “I am now!”
“Where the heck have you been?”
“We got shot! We almost crashed!” He stared at the radar again. He couldn’t tell if he was circling the V2 or not. This thing was almost impossible to read when Travis wasn’t there to decipher what he was seeing.
When Tiffany spoke back, she sounded shocked. “You got shot? Bad?”
“I think we’re okay!” Scott answered. “We’re still flying!”
“What got damaged?”
He looked at the console again. A third indicator was flashing: Pilot Assist. “Vertical Thrusters, Lift Control, and Pilot Assist!” A long pause ensued. When Tiffany spoke again, her words weren’t even audible. Scott shook his head. “I can’t hear you, speak up!”
“I said repeat what you said!”
“Vertical Thrusters, Lift Control, and Pilot Assist!”
Again, silence, though this time, it was starting to get unsettling. At long last, the blonde spoke. “That’s bad!”
Bad? “Define ‘bad!’”
“You’re not gonna be able to land!”
That was bad. “If we can’t land, how are we going to get you on board?” The roar of the wind was starting to physically hurt. It was like the constant rush of a freight train in his head. Looking at the radar again, Scott blinked when he saw the V2 wasn’t there. It had vanished totally off the screen. In a panic, he said to Tiffany, “The V2 is gone!”
“I know,” she answered. “He just bugged out when I showed up on his radar! I climbed high to make sure he could see me.”
Relief struck. At least they didn’t have to keep contending with that. Straightening out the transport again and easing it toward the north, he asked, “What are we going to do?”
Tiffany answered with no hesitation. “If you try to land yourself without any of those things, you’re going to crash and die!”
“I just did a barrel roll!”
“What?”
He tried to explain his thoughts. “I think I’m getting the hang of this thing! I think I might be able to land it.”
“You just did a barrel roll right now?”
“No, earlier, in combat!”
She sounded beyond exhausted. “That’s probably because you had Pilot Assist! It’s like a mini-autopilot that lets you do things smoothly. But now that’s gone!”
A mini-autopilot? He looked at Becan, who was still obliviously looking ahead, body quivering in the never-ceasing wind. “Are you trying to tell me,” Scott asked Tiffany, “that everything I did was because of a mini-autopilot?”
“Yes!”
“Fantastic!” Scott couldn’t believe it. What he’d been through certainly hadn’t felt like autopilot. Was he so bad at flying that even something like Pilot Assist couldn’t smooth him out? If so…
…this was indeed very, very bad.
“I uhh…” shouted Tiffany as uncertainly as he’d ever heard her. “I might have an idea! But it’s nuts!”
In light of his current option of crashing and dying, “nuts” wasn’t sounding so bad. “What is it?”
“Can you go up at all?”
Pulling up on the stick, Scott was able to get the Pariah to indeed lift—but only after the joystick was pulled completely back. “Barely!”
“What about down? Try that out, but very slowly!”
Scott pushed the joystick forward as instructed. To his surprise, the transport had no trouble whatsoever going in that direction. The dipping of its nose was so startling, it almost scared him. Yanking back again, he brought the Pariah back up to even keel. “Yes! I can go down fine!”
“Good! That means your elevators still work in one direction! Start climbing to about twelve thousand feet, but don’t go any higher! If you do, you’ll put everyone in the troop bay in danger!”
Twelve thousand feet? That had to be above the detection zone—the Pariah was supposed to be staying low to keep hidden. “Are you sure?”
“You don’t have time to argue! Do it now!”
“All right!” Pulling back on the stick again, the Pariah slowly began its upward ascent. “What’s the plan?” he asked, watching the altimeter as their altitude increased.
There was a pause. “I’m going to come aboard!”
Scott blinked. He looked at Becan, who was completely removed from the conversation. His focus returned forward. “What did you say?”
“We’re going to climb to twelve thousand feet together, side by side! Then you’re gonna nose dive, kill all thrust, and deploy the Pariah’s emergency parachutes! I’m gonna hold position over you, open my canopy and, umm…dive to you…”
She could not be serious. “Tiffany, that’s not possible!”
“It is! I’ve actually seen it done!”
Seen it done? By who? “Pilots do this?”
“I saw a stunt person do it!”
A stunt person? “You’re not a stunt person!”
“No, but I am a skydiver! And I’m like, really good!”
This took “nuts” to new heights. “There has got to be an alternative!”
“You’re not gonna be able to land that plane! You’ll die trying!”
“Can’t I just softly crash land somewhere—”
She cut him off sharply. “We’re doing this! I’m already picking you up on radar! I’ll be alongside you shortly!” There was another pause. “This is going to work!” she said. “If we do it right, it’s going to work! Trust me! Those are my friends in there, too!”
This made even the wildest of his battlefield feats seem like playground material. But if she was right, and if he truly woul
dn’t be able to land the Pariah anywhere with his limited flying ability…blowing out a nervous breath, he half shook his head. “All right, Feathers! This is all you!”
“We’re totally gonna do this! The two of us will be famous!”
“That’s great! Maybe they can build a monument where they peel us off the ground!” He checked his altimeter again. Five thousand feet and climbing. “Let’s do this, then!”
It didn’t take long for the Superwolf to appear as an unidentified blip on the Pariah’s radar as it approached rapidly from the rear. All the while he watched Tiffany zoom toward them, they went over the plan in full detail. Tiffany would park her Superwolf over the Pariah and enter an inverted hover, opening her canopy and simply allowing herself to fall out while the Pariah nose-dived downward. The Pariah would then deploy its emergency drag parachutes—which, to Scott’s knowledge, had never been used—slowing its fall just enough for Tiffany to dive down to it and leaving her Superwolf to fly back to Northern Forge on autopilot. As crazy as the plan sounded, it was within the realm of physics, and according to Tiffany, done by a number of stunt skydivers. It had just never been attempted by her. Desperate times called for desperate measures.
There were only two seats in the Pariah’s cockpit and three people who needed to be fully strapped and harnessed in, once Tiffany was inside. There was only one option available: Scott would have to unharness himself, allowing Tiffany to slide herself into his lap, at which point they’d harness themselves together as one. At least Tiffany was slender. If all else failed, Scott knew it would be up to him to relinquish the harness, hold onto something tightly, and just pray for the best. If he flew off into the sky for a free-fall rendezvous with Planet Earth, so be it. At least his team would have a fighting chance to survive.
The other issue they had to contend with was the leveling off of the Pariah without fully-functional elevators to assist with lift. That, ironically, was the easiest solution. Tiffany wouldn’t try to lift the Pariah’s nose. She would continue dropping the nose until they came out of the free-fall inverted, at which point she would simply roll it upright.