Chapter 7

She woke with a jolt as the alarm clock next to her bed went off. She sat up in bed, the new book she'd gotten from MacGyver hitting the floor with a loud thud. She was in bed, in her sweatpants and t-shirt she normally wore at night. She was drenched in sweat as if having experienced a nightmare of the wildest kind. Her body shook with fear for some reason but she couldn't put her finger on what caused it. She struggled to remember something but for the life of her she couldn't remember what it was. She looked at the book, seeing it bookmarked with the letter that had been in the book. It seemed as though she'd finished her book but she couldn't remember a thing about it.

Part of her knew it was Thursday but she felt as if there was a huge hole in the last day of activity. She couldn't seem to put a finger on what was bothering her, but the alarm clock was blaring and she needed to get out of bed and ready for the day. She had the weirdest dreams the last two nights but for the life of her, she couldn't remember what the hell they were about. She hit the off button on the alarm and crawled out of bed. In ten minutes she had her room straightened, bed made, showered, dressed in her flight suit and heading out the door with the clipboard of documents she'd reviewed two nights ago, all signed and ready for the day.

She hurried down to the mess hall where she grabbed a light breakfast and some water. She didn't want to overdue it because who knew what sort of flying she'd get into today if everything went well. A simulator was a great many things but at times it just couldn't substitute for the real thing.

She headed to the hanger where the new jet body and engine had been assembled. The program had been uploaded to the system three days ago and they'd been running diagnostics on it since then. Everyone seemed about as excited as she felt, which boded well for the alertness of everyone, hopefully. It would take an hour to prep her for the medical readouts as to her reaction time, her heart rate, brain function and blood pressure. This wasn't anything new since she'd been doing this sort of thing since starting in the simulator but this was the first time up in the real thing.

Once she'd settled and they got a baseline on her, her heart rate checked and everything was a go, she climbed into the cockpit and found to her pleasure that the seat fit very well to her and made relaxing in it much easier. Once monitors were brought up, systems were online and the medical readouts were sending signals back to the recording equipment, they were ready to pull the jet out onto the tarmac.

Within an hour, all systems double-checked and triple checked, she flipped the switch to fire the engines. The mic popped on as she sat for a moment, letting the engines warm up. All of the mechanics had been tested in other planes but never together at one time. She could feel the rumble of the jets from behind and feel their vibration in her breastbone. This is what she lived for.

Clearance was given and she taxied out to the takeoff point. Once she was swung around in the right direction, she waited for her green light. The lights flipped to signal her pathway clear and she began rolling down the runway, picking up speed quickly and finally hitting the jet thrust and she took off for the sky. She had been instructed to run through the basic flight maneuvers one at a time. As they were called off over the intercom, she executed each one with expert perfection.

The morning progressed smoothly and the jet performed beautifully. The program wasn't there to fly for her but it helped to monitor everything from her to the plane itself and interact between the two. It also was programmed to help land the plane or eject the pilot in the case that a pilot became disabled or the jet was hit in battle. They weren't quite willing to test that theory just yet. By noon, Red was instructed to bring it in for a few hours so she could get a bite to eat and the jet could have its data downloaded before she took it up for a more aggressive afternoon flight.

With a perfect landing, she taxied the jet back up the runway until she shut it down and it was towed into the hanger. Once there, she was disconnected from the monitors and climbed out of the cockpit. Doctor Ichi looked like a starved child in a candy store, not sure what to ask first. She held up her hands with a smile. "From where I was sitting, it's a smooth ride and performs beautifully. I sit in reserve judgment until this afternoon when we put it through a bit more rigorous test."

Doctor Ichi nodded and was quickly combing over the data that was being downloaded. Grabbing a quick ride back to the barracks, she took a few minutes to freshen up and head over to the mess hall. Lunch was a little more robust then breakfast but she still kept to light things that wouldn't make her get sick while pulling several G's. An hour later, she was back to the hanger, waiting for them to give her the green light to go back up.

By 1400 hours, Doctor Ichi was ready for the next round of data. With a slight sigh and a roll of the eyes, Red let herself be hooked up again to the testing devices for readouts. As she was climbing into the cockpit, one of the techs rushed over to her with a new set of gloves, "Major MacPhearson…Major. The gloves you had on this morning weren't monitoring as well as they should. We have a new set hooked up to test just in case there's a glitch in the old ones."

Red settled in the jet and looked at the tech that was on the ladder, holding out the new pair. "Yeah, sure," she said without much commitment. She pulled the other gloves off and handed them to the tech. She took the other ones being offered and slid them on. Her nose picked up a slight hint of something that smelled different about them but she flexed them on her hands a few times. "Are these picking up the readouts now?" she asked as she watched the tech turn his head and nodded to someone.

He looked back at her, "We've got a thumbs up. You're ready to go," he said with a smile and quickly climbed back down the ladder and headed to his station. Her canopy was shut and she was towed back out to the runway. Since they had it slated for all afternoon, there was no traffic to wait for. The green light was given and she fired the jet up, taxing out to the tarmac and headed back into the air, like an anxious bird, waiting to be airborne again.

Doctor Ichi's voice came over the headset, "Major, we want you to run through the basic flight maneuvers one more time and then we wish you to give it a good workout. Please do not push it too far today. We will have time for that later. But we do wish to see how it performs at the next level up."

"Roger," came her voice back over the headset. She shifted the stick to begin the simple evasive maneuvers as planned. Her vision blurred for a moment and she blinked her eyes quickly to clear it. She looked at her instruments and corrected her course slightly. She did a loop up and over to point the jet back towards the runway as she went into the next set of planned tests, but she over compensated and the jet seemed to wobble heavily before she corrected it.

Doctor Ichi's voice came back over the headset, "Major? Are you all right? Your heart rate and blood pressure monitors show they are both dropping."

Red's eyes seemed to blur again, realizing that Ichi's voice seemed slurred and slower than usual. "I… I better land," she said. She wasn't a macho type pilot. She knew that if she wasn't feeling well or something was wrong, it was best to land quickly to avoid crashing.

Doctor Ichi's voice echoed in her ears, "Major! Pull up. You must land now. Major!"

She couldn't seem to focus on his words as the world tilted. She could hear someone shouting into the headset, "EJECT MAJOR! EJECT! Why isn't the program working? EJECT!"

The she tried to reach the button on her seat that would do a manual eject but it seemed to be inoperative. She tried to speak into the receiver, "Caaaann…ttt. Nnnnooottt …woorrr …kinggg." Her voice was sluggish and slurred. Part of her brain was telling her that she was going to crash or fly into the control tower, but she couldn't make her hands seem to work any more as the jet slipped sideways. She struggled to stay conscious half wondering what the hell was happening to her.

It was the last thought as the blackness claimed her, her body relaxed as her hands dropped away from the stick. She wasn't conscious as the jet impacted the ground. It had landed almost flat on its belly but then a wing twisted, sending the wreckage tumbling over and over again until it came to a mangled stop a mile out from the hanger.

The silence that followed was deafening.