Chapter 5 - THE PHANTOM IN THE SKY
"What do we do?" Miller asked. The fight had completely vanished from his voice. He was looking at Mara now not as an intruder, but as a lifeline.
"You need to disconnect the automated flight envelope protection system," Mara said, her hands moving across the overhead switches with fluid, instinctive precision.
"We can't do that!" the First Officer protested, his hand hovering over the panel. "Company policy strictly forbids operating in Direct Law mode over oceanic routes! It bypasses all safety limits!"
Mara turned her head slowly and locked her dark eyes onto the First Officer. The sheer intensity in her gaze made the young man pull his hand back as if he had touched a hot stove.
"Your safety limits are currently trying to kill you," Mara said quietly. "If you stay in Normal Law, this plane will be in the ocean in nine minutes. Do you want to follow company policy, or do you want to see New York today?"
The First Officer swallowed hard, his throat clicking. "Which switch?"
"Cover six, row four," Mara commanded. "Pull the primary flight computer circuit breakers. Force the aircraft into Direct Law. You'll lose auto-thrust, you'll lose auto-trim, and you'll have to fly this stick purely on mechanical wire tension."
Miller hesitated for a fraction of a second, looking at the dark ocean visible through the front windshield. "Do it," he told his co-pilot.
The First Officer reached up, flipped open two red protective covers, and pulled the yellow pull-ring breakers.
Instantly, the high-pitched warning chimes stopped.
The cockpit fell unnaturally quiet, saved for the deep, thunderous roar of the wind rushing past the thick windshield glass. The bright amber safety warnings on the main flight display disappeared, replaced by a single, terrifying red message across the center display:
DIRECT LAW - MANUAL PILOTING REQUIRED
The plane dropped six hundred feet instantly as the computer ceased its automated adjustments. The nose pitched down heavily toward the gray ocean below.
"Hold her!" Mara yelled, grabbing the back of Miller's headrest to brace herself. "PULL BACK!"
Miller hauled back on the control yoke with both hands, his face flushing red with exertion. "She's heavy! God, she's heavy!"
"She doesn't have computer-assisted hydraulic boosting anymore!" Mara shouted over the roaring wind. "Co-pilot, get on the mechanical pitch trim wheel! Roll it back! Help him!"
The First Officer grabbed the manual trim wheel located beside his knee and began spinning it wildly backward.
Slowly, agonizingly, the heavy nose of the commercial airliner began to rise. The horizon line on the synthetic vision display leveled out.
31,000 feet.
30,500 feet.
30,200 feet.
The heavy descent stopped. The airframe shuddered once, twice, and then stabilized into a flat, steady glide.
May you like
Captain Miller let out a long, ragged exhale, his shoulders slumping forward against his harness. "We... we leveled off."
"Don't celebrate yet," Mara said, her eyes fixed on the outdoor air temperature gauge. "We're down to 30,000 feet, right in the middle of a supercooled moisture layer. If we stay here, your control surfaces are going to freeze completely solid in fifteen minutes."
