Ends with a Horse, Part 18b
Just get us on the ground…that part'll happen, pretty definitely.
Next to him, Zoe gave Mal a look as she adjusted her harness. How rough, sir?
We won't die, he replied with his look. I think.
"Glad you're feeling confident, sir," Zoe said aloud. They all wished for Wash's steady hand at the controls.
Time to take the plunge, Mal thought, then wondered at himself for his bad choice of words. To Kaylee he said, "Shut down the mains, and go to auxiliary power."
. . .
"Gone? What do you mean, gone?"
"I mean, the connection dropped. Completely."
"But they're still on our screen." Anatoly pointed to the blip.
"Well, yes, Anatoly, the planetary GPS system is still functioning." Duh. Boromiro rolled his eyes. "But that's not the signal from our flight bot. They're completely powered down."
"Powered down?"
"Yes. Engines off."
"Are they insane? They'll crash."
. . .
"High in the sunlit silence—" River was reciting that damned poem, and Mal couldn't help but recall Zoe's follow-up: "You all know what sunlit silence means... Engine failure in atmo."
At least all the gorram alarms had shut off.
This is crazy. Absolutely crazy, Mal thought, as Serenity plummeted just like a downy feather wouldn't through Bernadette's atmo. It was the second-most terrifying planetary approach he'd ever made, but that was only because he'd survived the hell-bent spinning dive toward death on Ferdinand Moon—when Wash's last act of flying in the 'Verse had pulled them out of the death-dive just in time to glide into a crash landing. This was ever so slightly less terrifying, but not by much.
"Kaylee, if you love me, get me some auxiliary power now!" Mal shouted.
. . .
Kaylee didn't have time to cuss out the designers of Serenity's engine room for putting the main switch up high where she couldn't reach it. She used adrenaline-driven strength to shove a tool chest up under the gorram switch, reached up and flipped it. Engine room went black, because the dumb-ass designers had put the gorram light switch at the other freakin' end of the room, but this time she had a flashlight in the pocket of her coveralls. She leapt down from the chest right about the time the ship gave a sickening lurch downward, like the floor dropping too suddenly in an elevator, and missed her footing. Caught herself before she fell over, in about as graceless a move as ever a woman made, floated and hopped and lurched her way right on over to the auxiliary switches. The emergency lighting came up, but auxiliary power took a mite longer to kick in, and for seconds that felt like hours, the ship continued in free-fall.
. . .
When the auxiliary power finally came on, Mal remembered to breathe again, only then realizing that he hadn't been before. With only about two-thirds power, helm was sluggish as anything, but at least he had some semblance of control.
Mal jumped in startlement when the Controller's voice broke the silence. "247 Alpha, do you read?"
"Uh, yes, Tower. We're still flyin'." Remember to breathe. Still flyin'.
"Got control of your helm?" Tower asked, not unkindly.
"Why, uh, yes—in a manner of speakin'. Auxiliary. Low power, manual control." Breathe in. Breathe out. Keep flyin'.
"Firefly Serenity, descend and maintain level ten thousand," the Controller directed, as if this were a perfectly normal controlled landing.
"We're nearly at ten thousand feet right now, sir," Zoe informed him calmly, snapping Mal out of his state of shock.
He looked at the altimeter. Ten thousand feet. 天啊 Tiān ā, they had plummeted a good fifty thousand feet in their free-fall. Breathe in. Breathe out. With an eye on the artificial horizon, he pulled out the yoke to level their flight.
"Traffic at one o'clock, Serenity," the Tower said.
Traffic. Yeah. Mal looked through the window, spotted the traffic—a Blue Sun passenger ship—as it cut across their path, but it was maintaining altitude, and they weren't, so there was no longer a chance of collision. "Traffic in sight, Tower," he reported. As he scanned the sky, he saw that they also seemed to have acquired a military escort—a couple of Norn-class armored fighter craft, no doubt joined their company a while back, when they were cheerfully violating military airspace.
"Traffic behind you, Serenity," Tower informed him, "overtaking."
He didn't have to wait long before Serenity was lapped by a fleet of Blue Sun transports—on their way up. Or maybe not, it was just that he—糟糕 zāogāo. "Unable to maintain altitude," he reported, edging the yoke up, checking the trim. The needle on the altimeter just continued its steady dip downwards.
"Are you able to climb?" Tower asked.
"Negative." Auxiliary power just didn't have enough oomph. Not with a full payload in the cargo bay.
"Descend to level six thousand," Tower ordered.
"Can do," Mal responded. Boat won't go up, but surely it'll go down.
He must have spoken out loud, for River responded, "That part will happen, pretty definitely."
They had descended to eight thousand feet by this time, and Mal watched as they continued, right on through seven thousand, six thousand, five—该死 gāisǐ. Mal's attempts to level off were unsuccessful. Serenity's response to his pull on the yoke was feeble at best. He'd never felt her respond so sluggishly under his hand. Molasses didn't begin to describe it. "Unable to maintain six thousand, Tower. Request direct Shinjuku Spaceport."
Tower directed him in a series of descending turns, and Mal had a panoramic view of the disruption he'd caused to Bernadette's air traffic. Commercial and private spacecraft and aircraft of all descriptions were in holding patterns at higher altitudes, cleared out of Serenity's way, so that he could blunder his way down to the ground and crash his ship in full view of an audience of thousands.
"Firefly Serenity, proceed direct to Shinjuku," Tower ordered. Mal exhaled. Weren't much choice—Shinjuku Spaceport, a nice solid mountainside, or hell—wherever they were going, they were gonna get there directly. "Do you have the spaceport in sight?"
"Yes, I do," Mal reported, surprised to find himself nearly above the spaceport. Neatly lined up for a landing, he would say, if this were normal circumstances. Which it wasn't.
"Land at the Emergency Berth, if you are able," Tower directed, and Mal knew that all other traffic at the spaceport was being held up for him. He saw the clearly marked square perimeter of the berth, with the white cross and the character "急 jí" painted in red in the center. "Do you require a firetruck, foam, emergency services?"
"Uh, negative," Mal responded, hoping like hell he was correct. The Firefly shuddered, the engine clearly taking strain as Mal attempted a fully-laden VTOL landing with two-thirds power. Angle, airspeed, alignment…Mal abandoned the dials and tried to judge by feel, trying to factor in the delay in response to his touch that the low-power situation seemed to warrant. The ship descended by uneven lurches, with whining noises from the engine room and a massive shudder that rocked the entire frame of the vessel from stern to stem. Lurch at the wrong moment could still plough them straight into the tarmac. He took a chance, anticipated the touch-down, engaged the thrusters just a mite ahead of schedule, and Serenity settled lightly onto the landing pad with no more than a slight bump.
Mal breathed a sigh of relief, shutting his eyes. Ship was intact, all in one piece. They were alive. He breathed with it a moment, until Jayne's voice sounded in the comm, interrupting his thoughts.
"Cap, we still crashin'?"
"We've been on the ground for a full minute, Jayne," Zoe answered.
"Good. So we can unstrap ourselves then."
Mal felt River's shining, inquisitive eyes on him, and turned to her. He spoke as if continuing a routine flight-education speech. "And that there," he told her, "was a perfect example of how not to fly in controlled airspace."
. . .
.
.
.
glossary
天啊 tiān ā [God]
糟糕 zāogāo [crap]
该死 gāisǐ [damn]
急 jí [emergency]
A/N: Okay, that's it for now. Before you yell at me—at least I got the crew on the ground! I think this story will have another two, maybe three chapters. I will post them sometime after I get back from vacation. (They have been undergoing adjustment as the pieces of the next story begin to fall into place.) Meanwhile, about the landing: I have never landed a VTOL aircraft. Never even gone for a helicopter ride. I did research, and relied on a hair-raising story told to me by a friend who once flew in a horribly overloaded transport helicopter in mountainous terrain. But if anyone out there actually knows anything about landing a helicopter, or better yet a Harrier jet or Osprey, PM me—because ultimately a number of the details of this landing were guesswork, and I'd like to fix them if I got it all wrong. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoyed this latest chapter!