//------------------------------// // Today is a Good Day to Die // Story: Not Another Speedwriting Fic // by Admiral Biscuit //------------------------------// Today is a good day to die... I would prefer tomorrow, though Admiral Biscuit She’d always expected her life to flash before her eyes. Wasn’t that what ponies said?  That right before you died, your life passed before your eyes? Her life didn’t flash before her eyes.  Instead, it was nothing but a flashing warning light and a blaring alarm that set her fur on end. It was a little thing, but little things rapidly turned into big things.  That was why there was an alarm; it was supposed to warn a pony before things got completely out of hoof.  It was supposed to warn a pony while the situation was still recoverable. Programmers couldn’t see the future, though.  They considered some forms of failure, they wrote a useful guidebook to help in bad situations, but even they could not have forseen a collision--or if they did, they glossed over it.  They might have written in the manual to not run into things, and that was good advice. They were safe at home, whoever they were.   She was not. She was falling through the uncaring sky, her machine coming apart around her.  Secondary alarms flickered on, their tone less urgent. They were systems she could potentially live without, at least in the short term.  Long term? Well, she was pretty much fucked. Mama hadn’t raised a quitter, so she reached out and silenced the master caution warning--it wasn’t telling her anything useful any more. She tentatively moved the tiller, trying to establish how much control authority she had left. Not much, but not nothing.  The ship responded sluggishly to her command, its movements wallowing instead of crisp. Training kicked in, hours upon hours of practice in simulators as fake emergencies were thrown at her.  There was no flashback of her uncompleted life going through her mind; instead, there was a purely analytical flowchart of how her current situation related to anything at all she’d trained for. Right behind that came years of experience at the controls, the feel of the craft when things were normal and the feel of the craft when things were less than normal. The flashback to the impact, the blow that shook her ship from stem to stern, the moment of panic.  The dryness of her mouth and the chill that ran down her spine, the desire to run, to gallop away followed by the realization that there was nowhere to gallop to.  Outside was death; inside was life, at least for a few fleeting moments. More alarms blare--secondary systems failing. The ship knows it’s mortally wounded. She can still see tumbling bits outside the window, too many of them critical parts of her craft. She punches the console, her shoe denting the uncaring metal.   The alarm isn’t silenced. “Hull breach, hull breach.” The bulkheads are shut, they work automatically.  In fact, if she were to die at the controls right now, the autopilot might manage to carry her home, or at least close to home. For a moment, she can see it.  A ghost ship, controlled by nothing but the residual magic in its navigation system, finding its way home.  Inside, nothing but a corpse. No. Mamma didn’t raise a quitter. She grabs hold of the control yoke, and punches the autopilot off.  The ship might be able to guide itself without her, even with this much damage, but she’s not willing to let it.  If there is to be death today, it will be with her at the helm, laughing in the face of Fate. *    *    * The ship is sluggish, the damage mortal.  Bits and pieces of aluminum are still flaking off the wing, she’s dumping fuel through multiple tank breaches, most of her hydraulics have gone teats-up, and in terms of helpful suggestions, the QRH is a useless waste of paper.  It might as well suggest she pack it up and go home for all the help it has to offer. Engineers programmed the systems to try and save the ship but didn’t give as much thought to the ponies within, she knows that. “Pan, pan, pan.”  Her voice in the radio is strained, high-pitched.  “Flight 1408.” A pause, then the ground control replies.  Laconic, as always. “Uh, go ahead, 1408, state intentions.” What are her intentions? Live. She wants to live.  Today is a good day to die, but tomorrow would be better. “Extensive port wing damage, hydraulics failing, fuel leak.”  You gotta lay it on thick before ground pays attention. She could declare an emergency, but that feels too final. “Need direct vector to any suitable landing field.”  She concentrates on her voice, gotta keep the edge of panic out.  If she can talk calmly, she is calm. “Understood.”  The voice on the radio is calm, and why shouldn't it be?  He’s sitting in a comfy chair, not fighting for his life. Clearance instructions blur by; she’s focused on her struggling craft. “Need direct routing.”  She focuses on her charts, hoping for a miracle, but one is not forthcoming. *    *    * She’s got one shot.  Her craft is hopelessly damaged, barely capable of flight any more.  It doesn’t cut through the air like it ought, but it’s still flying. She’s kept the sink rate survivable, at the very least.  But will it be enough? For a moment, she moves outside herself, seeing the struggling craft plummeting through the air, picturing the controls set and held in the only position which still allows some semblance of controlled flight.  The engines are stilled; it is a ghost drifting through the sky. Ahead, a small gap in the trees.  Not a runway, that hope had long passed. Her hooves work the controls, delicately bringing her craft in line with the last hope she has.  The radio can’t hear her any more; she’s gone beyond the horizon, and there is nothing left but her and a crippled machine. Oh, to be a pegasus, and to soar majestically through the window to freedom. *    *    * The deceptively soft sound of trees brushing against the fuselage, and then the drop, the twisting chaos as her craft is torn apart by the uncaring forest, tumbling and plummeting to its fate, now entirely beyond any last hope of control.  She keeps her hooves on the tiller, for what illusory comfort it provides. More telltales illuminate, although at this point they’re not meaningful.  The last dying gasp of the machine, skidding across the snowy forest floor and then all is silent, the power has failed, too. She punches the cockpit glass out with a hoof and stumbles away from the smouldering wreckage in a daze.  One leg drags behind, broken, although she isn’t aware of that. She’s outside in the good air, she’s alive, and that’s what matters more than anything else.