Prologue 1: In Brightest Day
No one understood Hal, his mom never did, Jack didn't. Jimmy would try to regulate the fights, but it would never work. His mom would always yell at him for his crazy stunts, while Jack would yell at him for worrying his mother. The fights didn't even faze him anymore; they were just another part of his day. Hal felt that, after what he was about to do he'd get an earful once he got back.
If you get back, a voice in Hal's head echoed.
"Just keep your cool, and everything will go as planned," Hal told himself as he sneaked through a broken part of the fence into the Ferris Air Fields. He quickly turned and tried to act natural as he joined a crowd of mechanics heading toward a hanger.
"Hal!" the mechanic next to him stated, "What are you doing here?"
Busted, Hal thought as he opened his mouth to offer some sort of explanation, "Tom, I…"
"Never mind," Tom Kalmaku, Hal's old friend, Inuit mechanic, and intern at Ferris Air, shrugged it off as he led Hal to a locker room in a nearby building, "Here, put these on and get out, old man Ferris will have your head, and mine if he found out you were here." He handed Hal a flight suit and helmet, complete with mask.
"Tom, I…" Hal began before changing his mind about what he was going to say, "Thanks."
"Don't mention it, Highball. Now get out of here before Ferris finds you."
Hal quickly raced out, heading toward the gate with his face fully covered. Then, he changed his mind, he'd be considered a coward if he'd failed to do what he intended. He headed back toward the hangar.
There it was, the F-100 Super Sabre. One of the fastest and oldest jets Ferris had. Hal never flew one before, but he figured it couldn't be that difficult.
Quickly, Hal jumped into the cockpit and started the thrusters, taking off with sufficient speed. Yelping with excitement, Hal decided to really open her up. He initiated a series of dives and rolls, playing around with the systems a little. That's when he accidentally stumbled into the test zone.
"Unidentified aircraft, you are breaching restricted airspace, turn back now," A voice over the intercom stated, but Hal paid it no mind, he was having too much fun.
Two black jet fighters began to follow him closely. Hal remembered hearing about a test for an automated air fighter system in the newspaper.
"Now let's see what you can do," Hal accelerated faster than he'd ever gone before, the strain on his body could have killed him, but he whooped with exhilaration as the planes followed closely. They began to fire, "Holy…" Hal swore as he dodged real bullets, "Damn, they really pulled out all of the stops with this," Hal then made a sudden and rash decision, knowing that his own plane had live rounds, he shot upward, "Let's see if a computer can make it to heaven."
Higher he soared and colder the cockpit became. Hal kept looking back to see if the planes were still following. After an altitude of about 10000 feet, the two planes began to slow. Hal, knowing that if he went any higher he would stall, immediately shut down all systems and began to dive downward. Quickly he dropped as the two planes came closer, then, when he was about a few yards away from them, he restarted the plane and began firing away. The enemy planes couldn't dodge a trick like that and quickly, yet somehow safely, fell.
That's when Hal began to panic. He tried to pull up from the dive, but the controls were jammed. The same thing had happen to his father.
"Dad, are you sure about this?" Hal remembered asking his father the first night the two of them snuck out of the house.
"Are you scared, Hal?" he asked. Hal nodded, "You've never flown with me before. We'll be just fine."
That night, Hal had never felt as excited in his life. He was finally flying, soaring above the clouds like he had always dreamed. He was in his father's domain, the one place where he could never be touched.
It was a few weeks later that the accident occurred. Hal's dad was test flying an experimental plane that would've changed the future. Hal remembered wearing his father's flight jacket that morning. It was a part of his dad's promise, he said that as he'd make sure to land safely to get his jacket back from Hal, and every time he went up, he'd come back, every time, but the last.
The plane soared over Hal's head as he yelled, "That's my dad!" It was soon after, that the plane quickly dove downward. Hal kept begging the plane, and his father, to pull up, but his prayer went unanswered. A blaze of fire and the tears of a child who dreamed to be like his father soon followed.
It was the worst day of Hal's life. Hal wiped the tear from his eye as he tried in vain to pull up. He wouldn't make the same mistake as his dad.
"For God's sake, Hal, pull up!" Tom's voice yelled over the intercom. Hal kept trying as he neared the ground.
He knew he had only one last hope, he pulled the eject lever as he fell, but it didn't work. "Damn Ferris, why don't you keep your equipment working properly," Hal yelled as he kept tugging on the ejection lever.
"Hal Jordan of Earth," a voice declared, Hal first thought that it was coming from the intercom, but it sounded too clear to be on the radio, "You have been chosen."