Part 3
The entirety of the flight to Seoul saw Martin on the edge of his seat with anxiety. He knew Douglas was watching him as discreetly as he could, but simply couldn't help it. The possibilities and plans whirled endlessly in his mind. He only had three days. Three. Days. That was such a short amount of time to prevent an aviation disaster.
Still, he couldn't let himself dwell on 'what ifs' and worries. He couldn't afford it. Not with so much at stake. Of course, that didn't stop him from nearly having a panic attack from being overwhelmed. He had let Douglas take the landing, which naturally had the first officer alert. But frankly, Douglas being suspicious was the least of his worries. How the hell he was gonna stop GERTI from being irreparably ruined was most certainly a priority. Well mostly it was just objectively taking the incident and laying out the details, then laying out various ways to prevent the scenario. Right?
Oh, for god's sake, who was he kidding. He wasn't Douglas. He wasn't a clever sky god who could probably come up with a hundred ways to stop this. But, damnit, he had to try. Right, just start with the incident itself. Know exactly what went wrong and why, then focus on how to prevent it.
Okay, easy enough.
Problem? Rapid decompression.
Why did it happen? GERTI was getting engineering work done at a foreign airfield, and the stupid ground crew didn't think to report running a bloody baggage cart into their plane. Which of course, managed to cause a cargo door failure imid-airi/.
Martin was still honestly furious with those groundsmen for such a stupid move on their part. That moment of sheer panic when the pressure dropped so suddenly and he nearly couldn't breathe and fuck, it had completely messed with his inner ear, giving him barotrauma of all things. The vertigo and the mild hearing loss, which healed, were in all honesty a small price for them all being alive, but it certainly hadn't helped him land the damn plane. Douglas had nearly passed out because he had somehow managed to slam his head somewhere, and Arthur and Carolyn were no help at all, so really it was impressive they had all survived. He had landed GERTI, and they had all quickly disembarked, letting emergency services deal with the rest, as they huddled together beneath a few shock blankets. Investigation revealed rapid decompression as the culprit, but only after mentioning the engineering work and interrogating that particular ground crew had it come out as to what had caused it. Poor GERTI was deemed gone for good and MJN was over.
Alright, now Martin was angry again. And still panicky. And now Douglas was giving him worried looks. Perfect.
Martin schooled his expression back into neutrality, ignoring his first officer's concern. He'd let himself bask in it later, when their imminent doom wasn't weighing quite so heavily on his mind.
So basically, the situation was terrible and he wished he were Douglas or had his help, but Douglas hadn't really been able to fix it then, and anyway, it was a moot point.
Back on track, Martin organized his thoughts much like he did his paperwork, setting the incident aside for now, to make sure he didn't get them killed on the current flight.
The next two days were a blur of calculating, planning, checking, and double-checking. He had come up with a good-sized list of possible ways to prevent crashing, and had managed to eliminate all but one. He had thought to get engineering elsewhere (but Carolyn couldn't afford that), to magically find evidence of the baggage cart collision (impossible), to trick the ground crew (can't, he's Martin, not Douglas), to distract the ground crew (he had no idea how), to bribe the ground crew (nothing to bribe with), get Douglas to do something (how the hell would he explain it?), watch them working (that was just weird and paranoid even for him), or witness it (he had no idea when it had happened). He had finally settled on simply stopping the collision altogether himself. That method also ensured them a way home, after all, and a plane to keep business going afterward.
So the final day came. This was it. Martin could practically hear the clock counting down. He was practically humming with nervous energy, and of course Douglas picked up on it.
"Sir isn't nervous about a simple engineering job on GERTI? I realize this is a rather cheap place, but they do know what they're doing."
Martin bit back the That's what you think he could feel rising. Instead he focused on giving Douglas an answer that wouldn't cast any suspicion on him. The worried looks had not ceased and even Arthur seemed to have picked up on Martin being slightly out of character.
"N-no it's not that. I just, I just have other things on my mind."
"I noticed. Sir has been rather jumpy lately. ...Is everything alright Martin?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that your behavior as of late is a bit strange."
Martin chewed on his lower lip, wondering how to deflect his first officer, but wanting to enjoy his rare show of concern. He knew he needed to say something at any rate, to get Douglas to stop worrying.
"Well, uh, van is a little slow lately, and um, I've just been in a mood. ...sorry."
"You don't need to apologize Martin." Here, Douglas gave Martin a long look. "You know, I realize I may not be the most approachable of friends, but I hope you know that we are indeed friends, so should you ever need help..."
Martin couldn't help but stare at Douglas in surprise. Which just made Douglas sigh.
"Sir needn't look so surprised. I pushed a piano for you, do you really think so little of me?"
"No no it's not that. It's just, it's that you actually said it, I mean, I-I know, of course I know! But ah I'm sorry, I'm just rubbish at this kind of thing. My family never really, I mean..."
He trailed off, unsure how to articulate what he meant. That his family sucked and were unhelpful, basically, but that seemed a tad rude to say about them. Thankfully, Douglas seemed to get his drift.
The two men spent a good chunk of the waiting time simply sitting together. There wasn't much to do around, so they just stayed put. Arthur had run off to explore regardless, and Carolyn had followed to keep him out of trouble. Eventually, Douglas ended up drifting off. Martin took that opportunity to slip outside and assess the situation. Making his way to GERTI, he eyed the nearby baggage cart. From the looks of it, the reason for the collision had been an elementary mistake of hitting gas instead of brakes. He wanted to bang his head on a wall. Something so minor had caused the downfall of his closest friends. He purposefully strode to the baggage cart, and while no one was around, took the chance to move the blasted thing away from the plane. Way away. So that even if the handler hit the gas, they would catch themselves long before they hit GERTI. And if it inconvenienced them to have the cart so far away, well good. They deserved it for their incompetence. With a satisfied feeling settling in his chest, Martin quickly slipped back into the waiting area where Douglas was still asleep.
When his first officer woke, he would assure him that he'd missed nothing. The two would play word games to pass the time. Arthur and Carolyn would return, Arthur chatting excitedly about what he had found, while Carolyn rolled her eyes fondly. They would return to GERTI. They would take off. Post-take off checks complete, they would fly her home. They land safely in Fitton. They taxi, they complete post-landing checks, they leave the plane.
Martin slips off for a moment to himself, claiming he dropped his mobile on GERTI, walking to the plane and staring at the cargo door. He was almost incredulous at how ridiculously simple it had been to prevent such an enormous disaster. He exhales shakily. Despite his elation at having actually done something right, he knows what happens next.
