Free Coffee and Cockpits by Jade Hart Page A

centimetre we slowed, the plane would grow heavier and heavier. I wished I could be up there—helping.
    Captain Anderson came over the intercom. “Ladies and Gentlemen, we are about to touch down in Samoa. We request you ensure your seat belts are securely fastened and you assume the brace position as marked on your inflight manual in your seat pocket. Please place your arms above your head and lean against the seat in front of you. There is no cause for alarm, but we will be performing this arrival with no landing gear. It will be a little rough, but nothing we can’t handle. Thank you for your compliance. We shall see you when we’re on solid ground.”
    Passengers’ voices rose with terror, but most did as instructed, tucking their neck down, protecting their head with their arms. I wished I could do that. Facing backward, with nothing to grab, was eerily lonely.
    Palm trees suddenly replaced the sweeping ocean as we glided from aqua to soil. The green fronds grew closer, speeding faster and faster as we ate up the last few meters of air. 
    The split moment before we touched down, I took a deep breath and held it. Gripping my harness over my breasts, I closed my eyes. Please let us survive.
    The plane kissed tarmac with a teeth-clenching metallic screech. We jack-knifed into the sky again, jarring my neck; ripping screams from adults and children alike.
    The engines screeched into reverse as the pilots fought to brake. A hot, agonising slice rippled down my spine from whiplash as we kangarooed into the air again. A fraction of a moment later we collided with runway and stayed.
    My vision danced with stars and flecks of light from the pain in my back, and my hands fell from my harness like limp, uncooked dough. For a glimmer of time, everything was eerily suspended in empty blackness as if I was paralysed, but then sound and awareness fast-forwarded me back to the realm of sensation, and I gasped.
    We were a rocket. A cannonball on a deadly trajectory.
    Our speed didn’t diminish as we shot forward, fishtailing, and shrieking. The plane moaned and groaned, rivets popped from panels, metal buckled and warped. Without the aid of brakes, all the pilots had to use were flaps, engine, and ailerons. Wind roared and howled as the aircraft tried to stop. How long was the runway? Would we careen off the end?
    We hurtled toward a bank of ambulances and fire trucks. Blurred uniformed staff huddled as they watched us blast past.
    Glowing fireworks and sparks rained around us from metal on asphalt and inch by agonising inch speed relinquished its hold. With a sound of a dying bull, the plane lurched to a stop, and we balanced precariously on its belly, before slamming to the left and resting on a wing tip.
    My breath whooshed from my lungs. They did it! We were safe. Liam. I wanted to throw my arms around his neck and kiss him. To thank him for saving my life and a hundred others. If anyone deserved my promise to be open with someone, it was him. Not only did he fly like me, he saved my life with his talent. Sure, Captain Anderson had a lot to do with it… but, my body didn’t tingle around him.
    Samantha and Joslyn looked at me with grey faces, before breaking into glowing grins.
    “Well, we didn’t die.” Joslyn chortled.
    My body was an over-cooked noodle—rubbery and weak from adrenaline, but I was the happiest I’d ever been. Nothing like almost dying to put things in perspective.
    The entire plane erupted into claps and cheers.
    My skin broke into goose bumps at the sheer wondrous knowledge we’d all been through a catastrophe and survived. 
    I unfastened my harness, groaning. My neck was a twisted cord of contusion and pain. It took a few moments to unkink my spine enough to stand. Wobbling, I sat again and gingerly wrenched off my heels so I wouldn’t be unbalanced by the slope of resting on the wing.
    The more I moved, the more lubrication my spine received, and the agonising hot flashes receded to a dull