The Guardian of Azurin

"Now you feel like a real bird," he said to himself as the weight transferred through the stick into his hands. Landing an intergalactic cruiser in an atmosphere required extreme concentration and he focused on the task ahead as he took the flight stick in his hands.

The lights dimmed briefly, followed by some hissing and clicking sounds as he flipped switches on the control panel. Huge wings emerged from the fuselage of the ship and expanded to form the enormous delta surfaces that would catch the air and carry them safely to the ground. They Orion shuddered slightly as the mighty wings locked into place with a muffled clunk. As he flipped another switch, there was the sensation of dropping in an elevator, as if the floor had dropped a few inches. The Orion swayed briefly, then settled down as he guided her onto the glide path. She was now under his control now - only the invisible air held them aloft. The Orion was quick, responsive, reliable and he loved flying her. It was like she was part of him.

Pitney, his best friend and co-pilot sat opposite, making final systems checks and ticking them off on his list. Pitney had never landed a cruiser in an atmosphere before and was anxious to learn in order to receive his Advanced License. For him this was a Look and Learn trip as well as a vacation.

"OK," he said, cheerfully as he strapped himself in. "Thunderbirds are Go!"

"What does that mean?" said Bowflex, laughing. He was familiar with Pitney’s habit of using expressions that he’d read in T’Ahrain’s archives.

"Oh, it’s just something the kids were watching from the archives. I liked the sound of it," said Pitney. "It sounded kind of . . . exciting."

"What’s a Thunderbird?" said Bowflex. "Sounds like a deity from a lost world."

"Nah," said Pitney holding out his arms like a bird. "It was the name of the planes. They called them Thunderbirds. It was pretty good, actually. My favorite character was Virgil, the pilot of Thunderbird Two—"

"O-kay, Pitney," said Bowflex, cutting him short and gripping the flight stick. "Paradise, here we come. Hold onto your hat!"

After an exaggerated display of knuckle cracking, he fastened his own safety harness and pulled the flight stick towards him. Quilan’s landing strip lay before them like a white ribbon across the land as they completed the final approach. To the port side lay the Sea of Basilon, a huge expanse of clear warm waters with regular tides from the distant sun. Even from up here, the vast reefs were clearly visible. The undulating lands of Quilan were to starboard, stretching away until they reached the snow-capped peaks of the distant mountains that lay like sleeping purple dragons on the horizon. He would be heading to them in the next few days, hoping to learn more about Quilan’s ancient past and perhaps even uncover some artifacts if he was lucky.

A sudden, urgent buzzing from the console startled them and the Orion lurched as if she’d hit an invisible bump in the sky and jerked them in their harnesses. Pitney grabbed at the console while Bowflex pushed the glide stick forward and was wrestling with it.
"What the heck was that?" said Pitney with a note of panic in his voice. The entire console had lit up as the bridge filled with the screeching of warning devices. Bowflex scanned the panel for indicators. Lights flashed and blinked, sirens sounded and automated voices droned out status reports, suggesting corrective measures. A jet of steam blew across the room from a damaged pipe behind them.

"PLEASE ADOPT EMERGENCY PROCEDURE PROTOCOL . . ."

The metallic voice from the overhead speaker sounded bored.

"Starboard engine!" yelled Bowflex. "It’s failing!"

Pitney stared at him in disbelief. "What do you mean, failing? That’s impossible! QuaDrives don’t fail," he said, in the voice of someone who knows that despite what he’s been told, the evidence clearly showed otherwise. He flipped some switches to silence the annoying bells and sirens.

"Orion? This is Quilan Control."

The voice in Bowflex’s headset was calm but with undertones of anxiety.

"We see . . . smoke coming from your starboard QuaDrive. Repeat. We see smoke. Can you confirm—Oh, no!"

Now the voice was frantic.

"Orion! We see flames! There’s flames now. Your starboard engine is on fire! Pull Up! Pull Up!"

Bowflex shot a glance at Pitney as he struggled to keep the Orion on her glide path. Pitney craned his neck as he tried to look out of the side windows.

"Oh, no . . ." he whispered, looking at Bowflex who was being shaken by the vibrations transmitted through the flight stick. "They’re right, sir! There’s flames everywhere! The engine is on fire!"

Bowflex grimaced as he pulled on the stick. The Orion’s nose was still pointing toward the ground that was getting closer by the second and filled the view through the windows.

"Fire control! Now!" he shouted above the din.

Pitney pulled down a panel on the wall next to him, gripped the nearer of the two large red handles and yanked it downward. An immediate hissing sound set their teeth on edge as he looked out the side window again to see huge white clouds spewing from the engine cowling. They were illuminated from the inside by fierce orange flames that occasionally burst through and licked at the Orion’s fuselage. The ship shuddered as Bowflex struggled to maintain their heading. He yelled into the headset.

"Control? Clear that runway! We’re coming in hot! Get everyone out of there now!"
The Orion trembled and the control tower crew watched in horror as her huge bulk veered away from the landing strip and headed toward the lush green forests of Quilan, a million square miles of wild vegetation. The sparkling Sea of Basilon slipped gracefully out of view in the Orion’s port windows.

"Altitude . . . 5000 feet!" screamed Bowflex above the noise and looked at Pitney. "What’s that engine doing?"

The question was rhetorical and his heart sink as he watched the engine’s power indicator dropping toward zero. For the first time in their perfect history, a QuaDrive was failing. On his ship.

That’s impossible! Bowflex told himself. A QuaDrive can’t fail. There’s nothing to fail!

Pitney’s expression was one of someone who knew he’d just put his last coin in Life’s slot machine. They couldn’t survive a forest landing. There was no way to crash land an 800-ton spaceship. It would be like landing an anvil.

"Pitney!"

Bowflex’s face contorted as he leaned back with all his strength on the flight stick.

"What’s that engine doing?" he shouted. Pitney looked at him and he had his answer.

The starboard QuaDrive had failed completely and the readout showed zero output as it blinked lazily. Bowflex’s training kicked into overdrive automatically and he braced his feet against the console panel, pulling back on the stick and trying to twist it to the left.

"She can land . . . with one . . . engine," he said, grunting with effort. "Just . . . have to . . . get her . . . nose around. . ."

The Orion was aimed at the ground like an arrow and didn’t move. Bowflex looked at Pitney, who was watching him with a vacant expression.

"Get that . . . landing gear up now!" he screamed.

It was like a slap. Pitney knew that once the landing gear was up they were doomed. They’d be committing to a crash landing and certain death. He blinked a few times to clear his head and then rammed the palm of his hand onto a large button on the console, pressing his other hand on top for good measure. Even above the noise on the bridge, they heard the buzzing and felt the slight vibration as the landing gear retracted into the fuselage with a final, hollow thunk. The Orion bucked wildly, as if riding over corrugations on a dirt road.

"Turbulence!" shouted Bowflex above the noise.

Pitney nodded and watched as the forests below began to take shape and he could make out individual tree clumps. This was not good. Not good at all. There wasn’t a clear patch of ground as far as the eye could see. A voice that sounded like it had just discovered morphine drawled into the cockpit as a bright yellow beacon flashed on the overhead console.

"PULL UP . . . PULL UP . . . PULL UP . . ."

"Shut that damn thing off!" yelled Bowflex, pulling the microphone on his headset back into place. "I can’t pull up! We’re going down!"

"Mayday! Mayday!" he screamed into the headset. "Martin? We’re going in! About 3 miles due East of you. Get some MediVacs over there now!"

Martin sounded distant. The usual control tower background music was off and they heard the shouting in the distance as emergency teams were dispatched.

"They’re already on their way, buddy," said Martin miserably and then after a pause added a redundant, "Good luck."

Bowflex said nothing. There was nothing to say. Through the port windows, he saw the tiny red and white MediVac helicopters in the distance, hauling themselves into the air.

They’ll follow us until we—He tried not to think about it. Like Pitney, he knew that putting down a huge cruiser in a forest was impossible. It just couldn’t be done.

Martin stood at the window of Quilan’s control tower with his hands pressed together and held against his chin and muttered under his breath. A mere three miles out, the Orion’s massive delta wings glittered in the clear blue skies as her nose tilted toward the ground at a precarious angle.

"By all the gods, pull up! Pull up! You can do it, buddy. You can do this! Pull up!"

He knew that the Orion had as much chance of survival as a snowball in a flamethrower. The headlines were already forming in his mind and he tried to push them aside as the huge craft sunk lower in the sky and towards its inevitable end. Intergalactic cruisers had no ejection procedures.

On the ground below, a mass of vehicles like scurrying ants headed down the runway with lights flashing and sirens blaring. Two MediVac units thump thumped overhead, beating their enormous rotor blades in the air like overfed dragons trying to get airborne. They turned and followed the Orion. It was like following lemmings.

As the bridge doors hissed open, they turned to see a shadowy figure in the cloud of steam that parted in small wisps to reveal Bowflex’s father. Although this wasn’t his father, this was commander Bowflex. He didn’t have to ask what had happened as he’d seen it through the windows of his suite. Bowflex was the first to speak as the commander took in the scene on the bridge.

"Dad? What are doing here? Where’s mom?"

The commander shot him a stern look. "She’s fine, son."

Bowflex’s father had commanded the T’Ahrain outlook post for almost two decades and was looking forward to his first vacation since retiring as month ago. A large, well-built man with a shock of almost white hair, commander Bowflex had brought order and discipline to the outpost and was considered a pioneer in intergalactic travel, having sat on the board that designed the infallible QuaDrive engines. The dreaded Vizier had been forced to turn tail and leave the quadrant through his impeccable military strategies alone.

A panicked Pitney now looked into his steel blue eyes. The commander’s voice was kind, but firm and as always when he spoke, it was a veiled order rather than a request. A life in the military can do that to any man.

"Son, either grab that stick and land this Lady or get out of that seat and let me in," he said.

Pitney reacted like an automaton, unbuckling his harness and staggering out of the seat using the side rails for support. Commander Bowflex sat down heavily and took the dormant flight stick in his hands. As a co-pilot, Pitney was not qualified to land in an atmosphere so the stick was always deactivated during flight.

Commander Bowflex looked at his son.

"She’s alright, son," he said again in a reassuring tone. "A little shaken, but she’s alright. He managed a tight-lipped smile. "Besides, she knows we’re in good hands."

He spoke in statements, more of a report than an answer, as if reading from a script.

"Well?" he said, expectantly and gestured at the stick. "Are you going to switch this on or not?"

Bowflex’s mind was reeling. Federation of Planets regulations strictly forbade civilians on any flight deck and as his father was now officially retired, he was also officially a . . . civilian.

"Dad, you know I can’t—"

He looked imploringly at his father and noticed that he still wore his tunic and not a hair was out of place. The change was incredible and the commander’s voice was calm and reasonable.

He must know we can’t land, thought Bowflex. Even with two pilots. It doesn’t make any difference. This is a final flight! But he also knew that such thoughts carried no truck with FoP personnel. Commanders or otherwise. It was never over until it was over. Ever.

Once, when Bowflex had failed a particularly stringent flight simulator test, his father had said, "It’s not over till the fat lady sings." He now wished he’d asked him what that meant. Or was it was just something people said, like "Have a Nice Day"? They were just meaningless words. Strange, he thought, how we try to live our lives in the last few seconds before the end instead of enjoying them spread out over a few decades. And peculiar that our minds lose track and drift when we face imminent danger—"

"Jonathan!"

The voice was a wall of sound even above the chaos in the cockpit and went straight to his brain. It was a voice that wasn’t ignored.

"The stick!" said the commander, still with the stick grasped in his hands. "It’s our only chance. You know that. You cannot do it on your own so light up this stick now!"

Bowflex gawped at him as he thought about the twenty-five crew and five guests aboard the Orion. No matter how he looked at it, that was thirty people who had placed their trust—No, their lives in his hands and two of them were his parents.

The forest approached at an alarming speed as Bowflex looked out of the Orion’s windows. They seemed to be coming in faster than when they approached the landing strip, now a mere ribbon that led away into the distance. There were shapes. And trees. Big trees. Hard trees.

Pitney gripped the handrail with whitened knuckles and desperation in his eyes that Bowflex hadn’t seen before. He spoke as if it would be the last words he’d ever hear.

"He’s right, Jonathan," he said, solemnly. "It’s our only chance. You need a co-pilot for this one and you know I can’t do it."

Jonathan thought Bowflex. Pitney never addressed me by my first name. The word sounded foreign, as if it didn’t belong to him and Pitney had addressed someone else.

His father’s voice was strangely calm and level.

"Son? I can’t order you to release this stick, but we both know that it’s now or never. With two pilots we at least have some chance." There was a slight pause and then he added, "It’s not over till the fat lady sings."

Bowflex nodded slowly. They were both right and he knew it. He couldn’t do this on his own. He needed another pilot. One to control their slope and one to work the flaps to slow them down. Two pilots. Sitting right next to him was the best pilot the FoP had ever seen. The man who’d taught him how to fly the Orion.

As soon as he punched in a code on the ID panel on the console, the rigid stick in his father’s hand became limp and he immediately pulled on it, pressing himself back into his chair against the drag of the air outside.

"Right!" he said grimly. "Concentrate on holding up her nose. We’re looking for level flight! When I tell you to, pull back on the stick as hard as you can and hold it there! We’ll try for a stall and set her down that way. I’ll keep the flaps extended and try to slow her down."

Bowflex nodded mutely. It was the best plan, the only plan. Keep the Orion as level as possible with full air brakes applied and pull up her nose sharply just before she stalls. The massive air drag should slow her down rapidly before she stalls. And then . . . just let her go. Luck would take over from there.

Bowflex was surprised at his own thoughts. He despised the idea of ‘luck’. It was a silly superstition. There was no such thing as ‘luck’. Things didn’t just happen. Everything happened as the result of a set of predetermined rules. The Laws of Physics. Aerodynamics. Skill. There was no luck.

The forests were getting dangerously close as he looked out of the windows again and he imagined the Orion’s massive slipstream tugging at the treetops. Pitney had strapped himself into the navigator’s seat that was normally only used during interstellar trips. His face was ashen and he shook visibly. Bowflex tried to smile but it turned into a lopsided grin. The trees were now only a hundred feet below them and extended to the horizon, where the mountains watched them with interest.

The Orion flew almost silently, with only a slight hissing sound as she cut through the air. Bowflex had silenced all the claxons and the broken steam pipe had ceased blowing. Now there were only flashing lights on the console and the bridge was eerily silent.

"Airspeed?" said the commander, levelly. "Keep me updated!"

"Seven hundred," said Bowflex wryly.

His father’s voice was still calm, but more urgent. "That’s too high!" he yelled. "Pull her nose up a few degrees!"

The horizon barely moved as Bowflex pulled back on the stick. "That’s all, dad" he said. "Any more and she’ll stall."

If the Orion stalled at speed, they’d lose all control. They had to bring her airspeed down! His father had both hands on the flight stick and pulled at it as if he was fighting a prize swordfish. The trees were giants through the windows as the Orion’s nose began to drop again. Huge green sentries that stood silent watch over the vast plains and breathed life-sustaining oxygen into the atmosphere by the ton. They were the lungs of Quilan.

"Five hundred and falling," said Bowflex as he read the airspeed indicator again.

Now they could hear the Orion straining against her leash with the hissing of the passing air increasing as the drag began, as if they were pulling against an elastic cord.

His father shot him a glance and nodded.

"Ready?" he said.

Bowflex nodded. "Ready, Commander," he said, automatically.

Damn! He cursed himself. It just slipped out! I didn’t mean to say it!

Years of calling his own father ‘Commander’ were etched into his brain but his father appeared not to have noticed. Instead, they heard the gut-wrenching clatter as the tallest of the forest trees brushed the Orion’s undercarriage. She was built to withstand enormous impacts, direct strikes by small space debris and sudden pressure changes. But that was in the vastness of space! Everything was different in an atmosphere. All the safety features designed for interstellar travel were now just so much . . . dead weight.

"Three hundred and fifty," said Bowflex, evenly, watching as his father struggled for a better grip on the stick. Trees slammed into the Orion’s belly as she sped across the forest canopy. Out of the tail of his eye, he saw treetops flying away to the sides like discarded Christmas trees as they sliced them off. When it came, his father’s voice startled him.

"Now!" he screamed.

In unison, father and son, Captain and Commander, released all other controls and pulled back on the flight sticks with all their strength and the Orion shuddered as if she was riding on corrugated iron. After a few seconds, the horizon suddenly dropped to the bottom of the windows and vanished. They looked into a clear blue sky with a single white cloud that floated in the center of the view like a spectator.

The gravity was crushing! It was like suddenly tripling your body weight and they all gasped at the intensity of it. The Orion’s tail section dipped and they heard her groan as she fought against stalling. The voice was frantic now.

"Keep pulling, son . . . She’s almost there!"

Bowflex kept the pressure on the stick with his arm muscles screaming from the effort. Little yellow dots filled his vision as the intense gravity drained the blood from his head. The airspeed indicator read 279 miles per hour.

The massive juddering sensation was the Orion’s tail section as it thudded into the trees, like the piece of cardboard that kids tie to their bicycles to slap against the spokes.

From the Quilan control tower, Martin watched in horror as the Orion skimmed across the treetops like a stone skipping over water.

When they were almost horizontal in their seats, Commander Bowflex stretched out his hand, struggling against the massive gravity. It was shaking and blurry from the intense vibration of the cockpit as he grabbed the edge of the console and walked his fingers toward the remaining engine’s kill switch. And then, with monumental effort and a last glance at his son, he brought down his hand and slammed it onto the button.

The effect was instantaneous and the Orion fell from the air like an anvil.

Bowflex was thrown forward as the Orion tipped her nose down and the horizon reappeared briefly before shooting up past the top of the window. Now they looked at massive tree trunks. Dark and ominous and above all solid. The light level in the cockpit fell as the Orion plowed into the wall of trees and Bowflex strained against his harness as the forces squeezed his chest. It was like being suspended horizontally.

And then the noise came.

That awful, ear-numbing sound that is too big to register initially. Even through the Orion’s two-inch carbon-titanium hull and inch-thick windows, the sound was still a solid wall. They thump thumped into the trees, splintering them into thousands of flying pieces. The seat harness cut into him as gravity and the massive forces tried to wrench him free and he instinctively brought up his hands up to protect his face. Through his fingers, he watched the small red smears appearing on the windows as late fleeing birds were crushed against the glass.

As the console creaked and began to break apart, pieces were wrenched off and flew around the cockpit, bouncing off the walls. Bowflex turned to his father, who was still pulling on the flight stick, but his efforts were in vain. It was over.

The Orion was in free fall.

Bowflex pushed against the console with his feet as the Orion’s huge nose cone tipped forward and she made her final plunge toward the forest floor. Trees splintered, cracked and exploded as the Orion gouged her way down, as if she wanted to be on the ground. As they plummeted downward, his stomach was pushed up into his chest. The forest floor looked dark and forbidding when they finally broke through under the lower branch line. It was gloomy under the forest canopy and terrified animals skittered away as the Orion clawed her way through the staggered wall of trees like a crazed behemoth.

And then she hit the ground.

Bowflex grunted and his vision flashed a brilliant white as the impact squashed him into his seat. As of in slow motion, the massive windows of the Orion appeared to crawl out of their frames and then exploded, spewing millions of shards of Plexiglas around the cockpit that stung his face like bee stings and tried to rip the uniform from his body. One of the Orion’s mighty wings was shorn from the fuselage in a tremendous jolt. She leapt into the air again like a hurdler as soon as her nose hit the ground. She had bounced off the forest floor.

They hung in the air for a brief moment as if suspended in time and then plowed forward again. A huge tree looming ahead was split in half as the Orion’s momentum drove her onward in an overpowering creaking, grinding noise as she fought off her attackers. And then, as if someone had turned down the volume, she ground to a halt behind an enormous pile of forest floor. The silence was deafening apart from small rivulets of dirt that dripped onto the console from the window frames. The Orion creaked ominously for a few seconds and then, like a dying swan, slowly fell onto her side.

Bowflex waited a few seconds before he removed his arms from around his head. His body felt warm and sticky and he knew instinctively that he was bleeding profusely. Vicious pain forced him to look down at his legs that were trapped under the console and he recognized the small white shard of bone that stuck up accusingly through his uniform. Searing pain coursed through his body and as he dropped his arms, he saw the horrific extent of the damage. Even with ears that whined loudly in the silence of the forest, the first shock was that of still being alive. The second was when he looked over to his father’s seat. What he saw made him gasp through the agony.

The entire starboard side of the cockpit was gone.

A jagged edge of steel outlined where the cockpit had been and Bowflex looked instead into the broken trees and forest floor. Animals were screaming in the distance and a pall of thick blue smoke drifted lazily towards the forest canopy, picking out shafts of sunlight while leaves fluttered down like rain. An overhead solar visor broke loose, swung precariously on a piece of wire for a few seconds and then dropped to the cabin floor as he stared in horror at the scene with his mind reeling at the enormity of it. There was the plink plink of cooling metal and distant groans from the Orion as she lay like a beached whale on the forest floor, far from home.

The pain was overwhelming as he tried to turn around in his seat. Instead, he pushed against the console but his fragile seat broke free and toppled over backward, sending a flash of pain through him. The scream was as his head hit the deck and he stared into Pitney’s lifeless eyes.

Heavy blood loss was causing visions to flash before his eyes and he fought the spinning sensation as unconsciousness threatened. Too exhausted to continue fumbling with the harness that held him fast, he lay back and looked up at the weak light that penetrated the forest canopy and bathed everything in an eerie lemon green glow.

The distant, rumbling thwap thwap of the approaching MediVac units scattered the remaining birds into the skies above and he listened to the soothing sound. As he looked up, he caught a fleeting glimpse of the red and white helicopters spiraling overhead like a giant wasps.

And then, with an increasing buzzing in his ears, he succumbed to the darkness.