Cold Steel

by sierra_seven_

:SIGNAL LOST:

Cold Steel

Gulf Air Jet 1-2-Lima

By sierra_seven_

:SIGNAL LOST:

"Come on man, wake the fuck up! Please!" shouted a voice somewhere above him. Odd. Alexis was floating in darkness, completely weightless. At least, he thought he was floating. He couldn't see his body, but it was dark. So very dark. "Come on man, wake the fuck up!!" shouted the voice, both angrily and fearfully. Why did it have to disturb him? He was happy, peaceful and content.

"Slap him. Shock him into waking up. It worked on me, remember?" said another voice worriedly, joining the first. The first voice choked back a sob, and slapped his face. Or what he thought was his face.

'That does it. I'll go up there and show those fuckers a lesson. Why do they have to disturb me?' he thought. He started floating towards the voices, fighting the force pulling him down. No, he wanted to talk to them. What he had begun to think was his body strained against the invisible drag, trying to reach the voices. He slowly became aware of the sound of rushing air, the same he had heard... When? It seemed familiar, but he couldn't quite place a finger on it. Wait, finger? There was no sign of his hands, feet or any other part of his body. All that existed was the darkness and the voices. Something was very wrong.

In a surge of panic, he flung his consciousness towards the voices, straining to wake up. He was stuck, trapped by the invisible field. He moved again. But how could he move? He had no body. Unless...

He tried manipulating the field with his mind. If he could just open a small gap, he could force his way in an-

"Argh! What the fuck is going on!" shouted Alexis, writhing in his chair.

"Calm down, we're ok. We're still airborne, you need to get on the controls and guide us down." Ella said calmly, although her sharply defined face showed indications of tears. As he slowly returned into his body, he heard several alarms sounding. Their harsh shrieks echoed through the cockpit, making it hard for Alexis to focus on guiding the plane down safely. Looking out of the front windscreen, he saw they were still cruising over the desert. However, their engines were still offline, and they were gradually losing altitude.

"What happened to the fighter? What's our altitude? And why the hell are there so many alarms going off?" The pilot grumbled, rubbing his forehead irately. Ella was sat behind him, furiously adjusting the communications equipment. If they could get a MayDay transmission out, they had some chance of survival. If they went down in an unknown area with no settlements or towns nearby, they were as good as dead.

Henry looked over at a display. "Err, ninteen thousand five hundred feet and dropping. The fighter wasn't there when I woke up. Wait, sirens? Our electronics are back online!" Henry leapt into action, attempting to bring the engines back online. The cockpit was ablaze with activity for the next few minutes while the air crew tried to restore failed systems. In the cabin, however, was a different story. From what the stewardess had reported, the passengers were falling to pieces. The shock of the... 'flash' was too much for them to bear.

Ella quickly explained that everyone on the plane had become unconscious after the 'flash' and many were still unresponsive. The passengers that had successfully woken up were panicking, desperately trying to wake relatives and family. The cabin was a scene of utter chaos. However, their job was to land the plane safely, and the cabin crew would need to deal with the passengers.

"Captain, engines One and Two are responding, but I can only dial them up to 20% thrust. The flash must have damaged them somehow." shouted Henry, striving to be heard over the screaming alarms.

"Good, that'll give us a few minutes more of thinking time. Stokes, see if you can coax any more power out of them. I'm going to try and calm the passengers down." answered the captain, reaching for the intercom.

"Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. We have suffered a minor technological fault and are working on resolving the problem. Please return to your seats and await instructions from the cabin crew. Your cooperation in this matter will be greatly appreciated. On behalf of Gulf Air, I would like to apologise for any inconvenience this may cause. Thank you." He hoped halfheartedly that the sirens blaring in the background wouldn't worry the passengers too much.

"Captain, GPS and radio are offline. I can't broadcast, I can't reach the GPS network and the flight diagnostic equipment has shut down." A grim silence spread through the cockpit.

"We're going to have to ditch." said Ella resignedly. The impact of this slowly sunk into the assembled crew members. With limited fuel, no navigation and no means to summon help, they would need to crash-land. And if they couldn't find a settlement or town, they would have little chance of rescue. Satellites could only do so much. And with the sheer size of the Arabian desert, it could be weeks before they were found. They could survive a few days on the water they had, assuming it didn't spill into the dry desert sand on impact.

The captain groaned, bowing his head. "Ok, I'll search for a good landing site. Seeing as we will be ditching into the desert, I suggest we keep the landing gear up and slide out the momentum. If we deploy the gear, there is a good chance we'll lose the undercarriage. Do you all agree?" The crew nodded fearfully.

"Captain, shall I take us into a controlled descent?" murmured Henry, still getting his head around the grim news.

"Yeah, bring us down so we can scan for a landing area. Ideally, we want to burn through as much fuel as possible so the... crash-landing goes well. I don't want fuel getting out of the wings. Anyway, what happened after the Flash?" he enquired curiously, trying to keep calm.

The Flash had become the name of the mysterious light that had wiped out their electronics and brought them to wherever they were. The mysterious installation wasn't marked on any of the maps, breaching several FAA regulations. They never would have seen it if the GPS hadn't screwed up. Alexis' best guess was that it was some kind of energy weapon, judging from the electronics overload and the distinct blue flash. If they got out of this alive, the Saudis would have hell to pay.

Henry began their descent while Alexis supervised it. Ella sat behind them, still trying to restore any available systems. They would need all the help they could get. "I woke up, you and Ella were still unconscious. I levelled us out slightly and woke Ella up." Ella rubbed her face resentfully. "She woke the flight stewards, and then we got you up. You were down for about five minutes. I think we've passed Riyadh, and we're somewhere near the far coast. Though honestly I have no idea. Hopefully Riyadh ATC picked us up on radar, and will find us quickly." Henry sounded hopeful. An airliner was hard to miss on radar, even more so if it deviated from its planned course.

"Captain, these systems are going to take forever to reboot. A few of them are completely dead." The Flight Technician sounded disappointed in herself.

"Ok, let's get down to a good altitude and figure out where we're going to ditch this bird." Alexis smiled grimly and slid on a pair of sunglasses. The burning light was beginning to enter through the corner of the window, and it was hurting his eyes.

***

"Ok, Ella, any systems you get up now will be useless. Start scanning for somewhere we can ditch. The plan is to belly-slide along a flat area. We can put the turbines into reverse to slow us down. So long as we keep the wings level, we should be ok. I'm not going to lie, this is probably going to go badly. But if we find the right place there is no reason why this shouldn't work."

"Captain, look! About ten kilometres ahead. Looks to be a settlement of some kind. Are we going to try and ditch near it?" asked Ella, pointing through the windshield. She was right. From this distance, it was just a small collection of shapes in the distance. But villages meant people, and people meant rescue.

"We'll try nearby, if there are any suitable landing areas. However, we want to drop low enough for them to know we're in distress. Wait..." Alexis squinted through the window. "The town is surrounded by what looks like farms. Fuck. Farms in a desert? These Saudis are getting smarter."

***

The scorching sun beat down upon the worker's back. He raised a hoof, wiping the sweat from his forehead. Creaky Spokes was a hard taskmaster but had managed to get the settlement up and running in only a few days. He had lead the expedition that had founded the small town, and had designed many of the town's buildings. The labourer had spent the day hauling planks and building supplies to the location of the new barn. It was hard work, but everypony had to pull their weight.

He was irritated by the faint whining in his ears, but assumed the wheels on his cart were becoming stiff and clogged with sand. The wind blowing through the apple trees was cool and refreshing, so he could ignore that little irritating sound behind him. Yes, cool and refreshing breeze. That was what he wan- He whirled around angrily, staring at the cart. The whining continued, though he couldn't make out the reason why. He glanced into the air, searching for the cause.

The pony froze in terror, watching the gleaming behemoth gliding through the air. He had never seen anything like it. The fearsome object certainly wasn't pony-made, he would have heard if a project this ambitious was attempted. It cruised through the air effortlessly even though the huge wings didn't move. It certainly wasn't an animal. He couldn't even see what propelled it. Magic? Even that was a bit far-fetched.

The stallion almost soiled himself in fear as the golden bird screamed overhead. He swiftly unclipped himself from the wagon and galloped back towards the town. The building supplies could wait.

***

"Well, that ought to let them know. Right, let's get on the gro-" Alexis paused as the stewardess rushed into the cockpit. Her name was Maysun, according to her name tag. She'd burst into the cramped room enough for him to take notice. Alexis never bothered to interact with the crew because they changed so often, but he had a feeling he'd be with this flight crew a lot longer than he thought.

"Captain, we're going down, aren't we." she asked in her thick Arabic accent. Alexis nodded grimly. The atmosphere in the cockpit suddenly became a lot more tense.

"Alright. We can't wake some of the passengers, and most of them aren't responding. About forty are conscious, and we might be able to wake ten more before you decide to land. I fear for them. They can't assume the brace position, and that will certainly put their lives at risk." she spoke, looking fearful. He couldn't blame her. They were about to crash into unknown territory with almost no knowledge of the area and with the majority of their passengers unconscious.

"Wake as many as possible, but make sure you get back to your seats when I give the brace order. You have about three minutes." The pilot spoke authoritively, and the young woman rushed out of the cockpit.

"Ok, bring us down. We're aiming for the flat ground four kilometers ahead. We want to descend slowly, and land even slower. Keep above stall speed and keep wings, fins and stabs in check." He spoke calmly, expecting his crew to behave in the same manner. Alexis kept the plane level, and Henry made several small corrections to the plane's course, keeping the airliner straight. Ella just strapped herself in and murmured a few prayers to herself.

After a few seconds the 'Too Low; Terrain' alarm kicked in and the pilots' chairs began shaking, as if they hadn't realised they were barely tens of metres above the ground. In front of them the ground flew by, a blur of yellow and orange. Alexis reached over to make the final message to the passengers, and possibly the last message he would ever give.

"Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. Due to circumstances beyond our control, we are going to need to land the aircraft. Please assume the brace position immediately." He nodded grimly to Henry, who proceeded to lower the aircraft by another few feet. Twenty tense seconds passed until he spoke again.

"Brace brace brace!" he said clearly, before turning back to his console. He shot a final sad look at Henry. Together they slid the engines into reverse and raised the nose of the aircraft. He thought of his childhood, his family pet, the struggles and achievements he had experienced as he escaped destitute Russia, his home. He thought of the hundred-odd passengers in the cabin who had their own stories, their own experiences. Many would never awake.

The pilot listened sadly to the haunting melody of the various sirens, alarms and alerts as he dropped the final few feet onto the desert floor.

---

Note from the author: Thanks for reading! Please comment on what you thought of the chapter, or the story, or whatever you want!

Huge thanks to my team, MyLittlePwny, Cry Havoc (The editors), LeafLock (For the title art) and LightPony (For the advice and support!)

Comments

[Whisper The Saint]

Chapter read.

What I said before still applies.

I will read the third chapter before going into more details.

[LeafLock]

I like that you've paced everything out very well. It's not *BOOM!, PONIES!*. You take your time getting the humans there, and I think that's crucial in a crossover. Most of the pilot dialogue feels genuine, even if it does seem they're fairly calm during an emergency landing. And now to the next chapter!

[Reaper1oo]

Evolved: dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/Pinkie_Pie_lolface.png
Ignore the eyes