Chapter 3 - Blind Launch
Outside on the tarmac, Bryce Callaway and Russell Keane stood near themergency barricade, watching the Asterion 900 engulfed in smoke.
"Is she out?" Bryce demanded frantically, grabbing a firefighter by his jacket. "Is Audrey out of the plane?!"
"The main door never opened!" the firefighter yelled back over the deafening roar of sirens. "We can't get hose lines close enough! The belly tanks are going to rupture!"
Suddenly, the high-pitched whine of the twin jet engines changed frequency. The turbines didn't spool down; they roared into a deafening, full-thrust scream.
Russell’s jaw dropped in absolute disbelief. "What the hell is happening? The pilots are on the ground!"
Before anyone could comprehend what was occurring, the burning Asterion 900 lurched forward.
It plowed directly through the fiberglass safety barricades, its tires screeching against the wet asphalt as it accelerated away from the roaring pool fire on the ramp.
Inside the cockpit, Travis couldn't see the runway.
The windshield was covered in black soot on the outside and heavy condensation on the inside. Alarm lights flashed across the glass cockpit panels like a casino slot machine—EICAS FAIL, FUEL OVERPRESSURE, FIRE LOOP 2 BROKEN.
"You can't fly this!" Audrey screamed from the jumpseat behind him, holding onto the leather armrests as the jet jostled violently. "You're a maintenance contractor!"
"I spent twelve years flight-testing experimental airframes for the Navy, Miss Langford!" Travis shouted over the blaring master caution horn. "Now shut up and call out the airspeed on the backup analog dial!"
Audrey’s eyes darted frantically to the small, round emergency flight display on the center console. "Eighty knots! Ninety!"
The end of Runway 19 was approaching fast. Beyond the paved tarmac lay a rocky fifty-foot cliff dropping straight into the churning Pacific Ocean. If they didn't get airborne in four seconds, they would plummet into the rocks at a hundred and fifty miles per hour.
"One hundred ten knots!" Audrey yelled, her voice cracking with terror.
"Not enough airspeed," Travis growled, pulling back slightly on the control yoke to test the elevator response. The hydraulics felt sluggish, thick with melted fluid. "I need one-thirty!"
"One-twenty! We're out of runway!"
Through the soot on the windshield, the red threshold lights at the end of the runway flashed past.
Travis slammed the throttles past the emergency detent into maximum takeoff power. He pulled back hard on the yoke with both hands, bracing his feet against the rudder pedals.
The Asterion 900's nose pitched upward. The main landing gear clipped the perimeter chain-link fence, ripping away a section of steel mesh, before the aircraft lurched into the heavy coastal fog hanging over the ocean.
Below them, the jet left behind the burning airfield and the fuel depot, lifting into the grey, empty sky.
Inside the cabin, the roaring sound of the ground fire faded, replaced by the rush of wind across the damaged skin of the fuselage. But the relief lasted less than three seconds.
At three thousand feet, as the aircraft climbed through a thick layer of cloud cover, a loud, violent shudder ran through the airframe.
BANG!
A bright orange flash illuminated the cockpit windows. The left engine gauge instantly plummeted to zero.
"Left engine failure!" Audrey gasped, pointing at the dark screen.
Before Travis could trim the rudder to compensate for the asymmetric thrust, a second, heavy mechanical clunk echoed from the right side. The second engine gauge flickered, spun backward, and flatlined.
The cockpit master warning horn let out a continuous, mournful tone.
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The twin-engine, multi-million-dollar demonstration jet was now a sixty-thousand-pound glider sitting at nine thousand feet above the freezing Pacific Ocean.
And both of its engines were completely dead.
