First-Class Smugglers

University Girl Wendy

    Alarms blared. There was a muffled explosion at the back of the plane. Spuds snorted and fell out of his seat, while the wheel in Jase's hand abruptly leaned to the right. He yelped and pulled it back with some effort, then frantically checked his altitude controls. There was a red, flashing light above the E3 label, and looking out the window, Jase saw his right wing covered in smoke. He flipped on the intercom.

    "Hey Spuds." He said as he wretched the wheel to the left, "Please tell me the wing smoking isn't as bad a sign as I think it is."

    "I'm gonna let you answer that one buddy." Spuds replied tensely.

    "What the heck happened?"

    "Your co-pilot," Spuds answered, carrying Freddie over his shoulder, "shredded some wires that control the power management controls." He opened a closet and—ignoring the bodies of the unconscious guards that fell out—tossed Freddie in. "Long story short the third engine is caput."

    "How do you break an engine with wires?!" Jase demanded.

    "I could tell you but it'd take a while, and use all those 'sciencey' words you said hurt your head back when you were in flight school."

    "Fair enough." Jase grimaced as he continued to strain the wheel to the left, "But while we're on the subject of school if I remember one thing it's that we can fly on two engines for as long as we want, even if they're just numbers one and two. It's not the most comfortable but I can hold this for another twenty minutes until we get there."

    "You're not wrong." Spuds said, looking out of his window towards the engine under the wing, "Except the fan blades from the engine kinda decided to rip up the side of the plane on their way out."

    "So we have a few scratches."

    "So we have shrapnel, and its cut up the secondary hydraulics system." Spuds said, watching the fluids currently dumping out of the plane.

    "Ok, give it to me straight then Spuds." Jase said, "What are we dealing with?"

    "In a nutshell? Triple redundant means we have three backup hydraulics. Back up number one went out with the landing gear, backup two is being peed out our butt, and backup three won't activate unless I do it electronically," he looked back at his sparking control panel, "and that's not gonna happen."

    "What about doing it manually?" Jase suggested.

    "I could try..." Spuds groaned as he opened a hatch near his chair. It led down to a maze of metal pipes and rubber tubes, barely big enough to fit him, with florescent blue lights lining the crawl space. Spuds awkwardly climbed down into it, "Oh yeah this is gonna be fun. Just keep the plane from flipping over for a bit, I've got this."

    While he worked Wendy called up to Jase to ask why her promised blue-skyline view was suddenly being obstructed by black smoke and splashes of suspicious liquids. Jase explained, and minutes later Spuds called up and asked to be put through to Wendy, whereupon he said, "So Jase told me you're looking to get a recommendation from the royal pain."

    "Yes, and it's been hard enough without the added anxiety of maybe crashing in the ocean." Wendy replied.

    "Hey don't blame me for that, this is Freddie's doing." Spuds grunted as he turned on his back and lay down uncomfortably on a series of pipes, looking up at a panel of gauges and valves. "Anyways, I'm calling to say you might get a few brownie points if you tell him you've arranged for an in-flight...uh...entertainment experience."