Evelyn sits down and follows her own instructions.
Meanwhile, Noah moves briskly down the aisle, scanning the rows of passengers. He senses a calm spreading through the cabin, reinforced by a sprinkling of laughter. He can’t share in their relief.
Where are the flight attendants,
he wonders, his eyes darting back and forth, scanning nuance after nuance of human interaction.
He searches for the faintest clue that the shuttle is under a terrorist threat. He is momentarily caught off guard when he makes eye contact with a young woman peering over her station in the row opposite him. Noah’s mind, which he has trained to work as a mental filing system, is capable of recalling thousands of people in the blink of an eye. He has never met her before, he is certain, but she looks at him as if she recognizes him. He keeps moving toward the exit of Section Two, determined the girl poses no threat. As he passes into Section One, he encounters a huddled group of flight attendants treating a few of their own staff and a passenger who were hurt during the free fall.
One of them raises his left hand to halt Noah’s advance. “Sir, there is no reason for you to be in this section. If you need assistance, I will send an attendant to you. Now please, go back to your seat.”
A loud bang from the front of the shuttle sends Noah into action. With the attendant distracted, Noah grabs the man’s left hand and pulls it hard sending him flying behind him. He makes a beeline to the cockpit door. Only inches from the intended target, another shot is fired. Noah knows the sound of gunfire better than anyone.
The cockpit door is ajar, but the moment he grabs the latch, he is thrown hard to the right and slammed against the wall. Noah holds on to the door latch for dear life as the shuttle nosedives yet again. The ship hurtles downward for a second time, but now the power is cut off. If not for the emergency lighting, they would be hurtling to earth in total darkness. Passengers and crew scream as time seems to pass in super slow motion. The shuttle has straightened in its fall, forcing the cockpit door to swing away from the wall, while Noah keeps a death grip on its handle.
He peers inside the cockpit but his view is fleeting, obscured by a shadowy figure barreling straight toward him. He instinctively reaches for the man’s arm and the inertia of the man’s fall throws both of them down the fuselage and crashing violently against the partition wall between the two sections. Noah, now pinned against the far wall, looks toward the cockpit and sees the pilot and co-pilot, their bodies rocking ever so slightly, lifeless arms dangling over their heads as if descending on a roller coaster ride.
He turns his attention to the man he fell with and notices he is wearing civilian clothes. Noah assumes the man was an air marshal.
Was
because a large part of the man’s skull is missing and he is clearly dead. Noah searches for the man’s weapon, but finds only an empty shoulder harness with the pistol nowhere to be found. He frisks the man’s pockets, emptying their contents into his own. He struggles to pull himself to the ledge of the partition and peers toward the rear. It is an eerie scene, with the cabin illuminated only by the faint blue glow of emergency lighting outlining the walkways and exit doors. He can hear the muffled screams of the passengers locked into their flight stations, as if trapped in the trunk of a car waiting for the inevitable.
Through the dim interior he can see an open aisle to the back of the shuttle, beyond the restrooms, to where the flight attendant stations are located. He grabs a fistful of the marshal’s lapel and drags him closer. He clenches both hands under the man’s armpits and, with no time to waste, he rolls himself off the ledge in a free fall toward the back of the shuttle. Time seems to slow once again as they tumble together through Section Two. Noah uses the dead man as a human shield as their conjoined bodies collide against the back section with a resounding thud. Noah hears the man’s sternum crack, along with several of his ribs, but the fall has left Noah no worse for wear, albeit slightly woozy.
He claws his way toward the flight attendant station, where he is forced to climb over a dead stewardess whose mangled body is wedged against the entrance. It takes all of his strength to pull himself against the force of the falling airship and into the jumpseat. He manually locks the shoulder harness in place as he scans the control panel of the
Mei Long.
Not only is the main power grid offline, but the emergency response protocol has been deactivated.
Whoever wanted this shuttle to go down certainly didn’t want any survivors.
He rifles through the contents of what he took from the air marshal. With only a spotlight overhead, Noah fumbles through the items: a gold Zippo, a pack of cigarettes, and a set of keys lay in one hand, while the other holds a wallet and a COM. He lets everything go but the COM, sending the objects flying overhead. After inspecting the device closer, he realizes it’s not a COM at all, but something else entirely. The computer screen projects a holographic blue orb filled with optical static that pulses a bright white light from its core. Unsure of what it is, he suspects it may have something to do with the power outage inside the shuttle. He does the only thing he can think of and smashes the device rendering it inoperable. The moment he does the shuttle is back online, and with only moments to spare, he punches a series of commands to activate the ERP. Instantly, he hears the parachute deploy, causing a noticeable change in velocity. The series of protocols are underway. With their impending doom averted for the time being at least, Noah allows himself a moment to breathe. He closes his eyes and empties his head while slipping the mysterious device back into his trouser pocket, exhaling in the process. He braces himself for the impact that is only seconds away.
Chapter 5
Phoenix Space Shuttle
Excerpt taken from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Phoenix Space Shuttle is a marvel of modern aviation. Phoenix is the first and only private company to provide commercial sub-orbital transport to twenty-two locations around the world. The luxury airline, owned by Chinese philanthropist Bao Sang Zhào, was founded in 2014. His inaugural fleet consisted of seven shuttles, each named after a famed winged reptile from the ancient Chinese fable “The Seven Dragons.”
On its maiden flight in the summer of 2017, the first shuttle traveled from London to Los Angeles in under four hours, shattering all previous records for commercial air travel. Powered by a supersonic hybrid rocket-propelled engine and a modified hull inspired by NASA’s defunct Space Shuttle Program, the airship can climb to altitudes of 110 kilometers and can reach self-sustained speeds of over mach 6. These innovations, along with its deluxe accommodations, make the Phoenix Space Shuttle the preferred method of travel for the world’s elite.
The state-of-the-art aircraft can transport seventy-seven passengers and crew, and the cabin is spacious, with sparse seating. The flight stations come equipped with a fully retractable lounge chair and a flexible overhead compartment, allowing passengers to pull down the console at any time and lock their individual stations, encapsulating the traveler in a chamber of privacy.
Beyond its numerous amenities and advanced technology, the Phoenix Space Shuttle is also the safest in aviation history. Now in its fifth year of operation, and with an expanded fleet of eleven shuttles, the luxury craft have logged more than 25,000 flights with zero reports of mechanical failure, let alone fatalities or injuries.
In the case that a crash landing is unavoidable, the aircraft is designed to activate an emergency response protocol to ensure the highest probability of survival for both passengers and crew. The first action is to deploy a parachute from the tail section, reducing the airship’s descent velocity by a third. The second protocol, and probably the most extraordinary, is its ability to determine whether or not a full detachment of the shuttle itself is possible. Sensors pinpoint the exact geographic location and proximity to civilians on the ground. If the sensors determine that humans on the ground will not be harmed, the shuttle will separate into two sections. The nose, also known as Section One, encompasses the cockpit and one third of the passengers; and the tail, or Section Two, will also separate in order to increase the probability of survival during a crash landing. The wings of the shuttle contain all of the fuel cells, so their detachment will eliminate any risk of passengers and crew dying from fire or smoke inhalation — the leading cause of death in plane crashes. Each section, along with the wings, is equipped with its own set of thrusters, so if the sections detach, they will pull away from each other in opposite directions.
*************
The safety protocols are about to be tested as the
Mei Long,
one of the original seven, hurtles toward earth. Moments before impact, the shuttle begins the detachment phase, sealing the open areas between Sections One and Two with steel doors that lock into place.
But the reverse thrusters in the front of the shuttle fail and the nose crashes hard into the ocean, killing everyone on impact. The left wing of the airship flies through the air, before slamming into the jagged cliffs on the coast of the South Island of New Zealand, starting a fire so brilliant that the illumination can be seen from miles away. The right wing shoots out in the opposite direction and spears into the ocean. The collision smashes the wing to pieces and ignites the fuel tank, setting a huge swath of water on fire. The tail section, upon releasing its parachute, triggers its thrusters and through a series of twists and turns, skims hard across the water like a skipping stone before finally coming to a halt. The left side of the fuselage bears the brunt of the landing, compromising its frame and allowing a substantial amount of water to pour in. It will be only a few minutes before the entire tail section capsizes.
Of the sixty-two passengers and crew who departed from London, fifteen are still alive, struggling to free themselves from their flight stations.
Lucid and highly focused, Noah waits for the tail section to stabilize in the water before releasing the emergency doors and engaging the two life boats from the control panel. Released from his harness, he steps over the dead stewardess in the entrance way. She has been thrown about the cabin since he initially clambered over her to get to the station. He doesn’t bother to check for a pulse as her neck is clearly broken, her head turned at an angle that would turn most people’s stomachs. The red silk scarf tied around her broken neck sends his thoughts shooting toward his wife. He runs down the aisle and into the passenger seating area.
“Eve!”
She is not at her station. He cranes his head frantically, and then his heart skips a beat when he hears her voice. “Over here!” She waves her arms at him. She is in the opposite row helping the young man seated next to the mysterious girl Noah had noticed earlier. The girl looks up at him, but his eyes have already locked onto Evelyn’s. He says nothing, but the concern he carries is evident. She watches his face flood with relief as she mouths to him,
I’m okay.
Noah nods and then orders, “There’s not much time. Get everyone out!”
Evelyn continues toward the doors, working her way through the rows and helping to free those struggling with their harnesses. She stops to check the stations that are still closed, and discovers a few passengers knocked unconscious by the impact. She helps them to their feet and out of the sinking crypt. When she nears the exit, she orders the survivors to swim for the life rafts, shouting over the calamitous sounds of screaming passengers.
Meanwhile, Noah has opened the overhead compartment of his flight station. He transfers as much warm clothing as he can grab from their suitcases into the two backpacks that already are bulging with gear for their trip. He slings a backpack over each shoulder and darts back to the flight attendant station for any items that may be of use. He finds a first aid kit along with a pantry filled with hundreds of miniature liquor bottles, as well as an assortment of snacks and fine chocolates. He also comes across the air marshal’s wallet and instinctively puts it in his pocket. He stuffs the backpacks until they can’t hold anything else before wading toward the exit bay doors. The water is up to his knees and the tail section is leaning at a severe angle and sinking.
He encounters Evelyn pushing out the last of the living. “Take this!” he shouts, hurling one of the backpacks at her. She catches it with one arm and quickly slings it across her back. She places her hands on the outside rim of the bay door and looks back at Noah as she proclaims, “I love you!” before launching herself onto the rubber slide that sends her tumbling toward the sea.
Noah takes one last look inside the cabin, now filled with over a meter of steadily rising water. The leviathan is dark and cavernous as a light flickers overhead, exposing a makeshift cemetery for the recently departed, their egg-shaped caskets glowing iridescent blue as the craft begins its long descent to the ocean floor. Noah locks the two straps of his backpack across his chest and climbs to the edge of the exit door. He takes a deep breath and then dives sharply into the sea. Landing perpendicular to the chute, Noah decides to take a direct route to the raft that lies ahead. His dive is weighted from the backpack and he drops like a stone into the black sea. He encounters an underwater world alive with thousands of fish cutting back and forth and splintering in multiple directions. The crash has wreaked havoc in the ocean and the scene is erratic. While the view is spectacular, Noah senses the danger — where there are fish there are predators — and the quicker he and the others can get out of the water, the better.