A followon from the other unifiished thing ( which follows on from the other unfinished thing which....) is actually finished.
Started February 21st - Hence the 'recent war scare' - which has aged like the 'War Scare that'd passed by October 1939' in the War of the Worlds.
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Jet's on 'medical' leave due to burnout and it's time to put Sylia Stingray out to sleep. But winding up Sylia's affairs has its complications.
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Jet found it strange that, of all the things she’d done in her life, dialing a phone would rank one of the most unnerving.
“Hello, Boeing Commercial Aircraft Sales, this is Karen Pulaski speaking. How can I help you today?”
How bizarre it seemed. This thing was worth more than most of Fenspace. The person on the other end of the line sounded like she was selling washing machines.
“My name is Jet - Jet Jaguar - I’m asking after a 747 that’s still unsold?” said Jet, doing her best to sound like she bought 4-engine wide-body aircraft all the time and not like someone asking after ‘The Car you have up on the DoneDeal. “The original customer was sanctioned and it was never delivered?”
The sound of rapid-fire typing carried across the line, filling out the various forms in a database required to log all contacts.
“Yes, that is correct, although the production line has closed, that aircraft is currently available for sale.” Tap-tap-tap on the keyboard. “Which airline do you represent?”
The oil sheikhs would’ve already dialed in to a different line with an altogether more fawning staff.
“I don’t represent an airline. I’m working for a mining company. We need something we can use for industrial transport in space.”
The typing stopped.
“I think you may be calling the wrong number ma’am. I’m sure there’re a number of used airframes that could be retrofitted that would meet your needs and would be more viable from an economic standpoint. I know a few people who’ve gotten some fairly old airframes flying again, for scrap value.”
Obviously trying not to sound condescending, but at the same time - Jet got the impression she wasn’t the first person from Up to ring about an aircraft or two.
“I‘ve thought about it. We need the cargo-deck volume. This is the only way to get it.”
Short of designing and building something, from the ground up - which had a lead time when starting from scratch. The first Miriya had been wrecked before it could be waved. The second had become a national treasure.
The last 747 had the sole advantage that it existed and nobody cared about it. It languished in a boneyard, half-finished.
“That’s not what I meant. Even as an undelivered aircraft, the costs involved in completion and delivery are significant. We would need to see some - financial backing - for such an order.”
Again, trying really hard not to be blunt. After all - there were those in Fenspace who definitely could plop just that amount of cash on a status symbol. The only reason they, or the usual Sheikhs hadn’t turned it into a flying monument to wealth’s lack of taste was because it’d been built as a freighter.
Jet took a breath - a sinking feeling setting into the pit of her stomach.
Lun had cost a fair amount. It’d been mostly paid for by Great Justice. The cost for purchasing, lifting, fitting out and operating Lun would be pocket change compared to this. Lun weighed more - and could carry maybe a fifth of the load.
“I can offer you a company,” Jet said, taking a breath.
Silence sat on the end of a line for what seemed like eternity. Jet pursed her lips.
“Okay,” answered Karen. “What do you propose?”
The typing began again. Jet really hadn’t expected to get this far.
“It’s privately held,” Jet answered. “Through a shell, I have a stake in a business called Stingray Motor Engineering. It already does some small things for the aero industry - it’s already a supplier to Boeing, on the MD-10 life extension program.”
A different kind of silence. Jet sucked on her lip. A shiver of tension rippled through her frame. She half-hoped to be thanked for her call, followed by a hang-up as abrupt as a trap-door opening.
“Oh.” So, not a complete loon. An actual flicker of interest - this may be a genuine lead - the first one this particular Karen had encountered in a long time. “I see. I’ll have to talk with my manager on this - it’s a little unusual. We’ll probably need your vendor code and a few other details to confirm.”
She had them to hand. The engineer who’d come up with the idea of using the SCHMU to run off patterned aero parts with the spare machine time had, inadvertently, signed the death warrant for the company he worked for.
That one engineer would pay for a 747. He would probably never know it.
Jet felt a nervous giggle rise in her throat - a bright spark of excitement that quivered inside her and shone in the back of her mind - a sensation that seemed strangely alien.
She found it hard to remember the last time something inside her had sparked like that.
“This is a little unusual for me too,” she said.
“Well, there’s always a first time,” the voice on the other end of the phone audibly smiled. “It’s certainly not the strangest thing somebody’s offered to pay for a new aircraft with.”
“I’ve left a message for my manager Andy to give you a call back. We can start qualifications and build up a user requirement specification. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”
“No. That’ll be it.”
“We’ll be in contact soon to commence the official process. We look forward to doing business with you Jet. Thank you for calling Boeing Commercial Aircraft Sales.”
-Click-
Jet stood alone in her apartment, filled with a sensation she didn’t quite recognise, but, when she put her mind to it, thought that it felt….
…good.
—-
The shine wore off after the first half-dozen meetings. Mission definitions, user requirements specifications, engineering requirements, designs, corrections, approvals. They never ended. Each one in a different room which, at the same time, managed to feel like the exact same Place, whether it was Seattle, Chicago or Washington D.C. Paintings of the same historic aircraft hung on walls veneered in the same shade of pine. The corridors all had the same corporate blue trim. The only change from meeting to meeting had been the depth of the lacquer on the table, and the quality of the lunch on offer as things steadily got more serious and the chance of this becoming an actual paid project got higher.
This was nothing like ordering a Blackbird, or from any other Fen vendor. There’d be a background check - an online configurator, a meet and greet to see if the Bird and the Buyer would get along, some lessons for the newbies, a small ceremony and away you go. Barely more complicated than buying a car, when you thought about it.
Jet wondered if the legal fees alone accounted for the cost of a new Blackbird.
In her corner, she had a pair of solicitors who came from a firm Noah Scott had recommended for winding up Sylia’s affairs, and an accountant who had a love for the art of numbers and finance Jet couldn’t hope to understand but could half-respect. The Troika handled the payment’s side of things on her behalf - untangling the Profeta-proof mess that was Sylia Stingray, gaining themselves some Cthulhu Mythos points, then putting the best foot forward before their higher paid and much more numerous counterparts from Boeing, and doing their damnedest to get a good value deal.
One of the Boeing engineers, a man named Hank, had a ring-binder on the table in front of him with a computer render of a 747 jet on the cover. His hair had turned the colour of cigarette ash. He’d been with the company for some time, with a broad face, short cut hair and a relaxed kind of smile that advised he had very little left to worry about. He was the only person in the room wearing a polo-neck and chinos. He wore a Rolex watch with an orange bolt of lightning for the second hand – a reward for decades of service.
Hank Mclean was the sort of man who sold Airplanes and Airplane accessories his entire working life, and was happily nearing the beginnings of retirement once he’d brought a long-running program to an end.
He opened the binder to the cover page. It already has a serial number, and buyer-specific model-code.
He starting leafing through papers showing flashes of technical drawings, calculations and executive summaries that Jet’d already seen and struggled to pour through in detail.
“From a technical standpoint, we’ve reached a project that’s feasible,” he said, giving Jet a reassuring smile. “I still wouldn’t want to do it on a passenger aircraft but I confirm it can be built”. He looked to the woman in a suit to his right, waiting for a short nod from her. “I’ve itemised the works needed, everything from reinforcing the upper-deck floors and cargo-deck, structural reinforcement of the hull for external loads, additional cargo-handling equipment, engine changes, installation and fit-out of additional crew rest area and Skyloft aft of station 2200, to stripping the current paint, and adding the silica heat-shield lacquer from the 3707 project. Total additional weight will be thirty thousand pounds.”
At each step, he showed coordinate sheets, technical specifications and amendments to drawings. The level of detail alone, raised headaches.
Handwaving it actively made it worse on many fronts. Less payload than the factory stock model. Almost as efficient per ton-mile than the original 747-100. At least, in atmosphere.
Nobody knew the cost per mile of open space. Nobody knew how fast it’d go, how much fuel it’d burn, or how far it’d go when freed from the requirement to obey the laws of physics. Airlines cared about shit like that. They cared about risk. Maybe that’s why they hadn’t gone in big yet.
The woman at the centre of the meeting smiled at her, as she placed her own ring binder on the table. This one, filled with printouts of spreadsheets, financial projections and a rainbow of charts and graphs. They’d paid for their Microsoft Excel package, and seemed determined to show it.
Boeing had guessed based on running data from Lun - which weighed about the same, with the same propulsion arrangement.
“Here I’ve itemised. Certification. Testing. Legal fees. Flight crew hours. Simulator hours. Changes to operating manuals and flight procedures. We think we can avoid type-conversion issues through some software changes to treat the twin-engine pods as a single power unit, but the regulators will decide that, and those costs will be extra”
Jet couldn’t help but note how hard she’d tried to make it clear she was the most important person in the room. She had the most expensive looking watch on her wrist. Her blond hair had been carefully sculpted into a short page-boy cut. Even the carbon-grey weave of her suit projected a deliberate sort of power.
Janet Pearson had taken a lot of effort to make it clear she was the one in charge. Even though her lips turned into a smile, her eyes remained hard and sharp. She ran an obsidian pen through another itemised worksheet, carrying momentum with her.
“I’ve also added our Startup airline assistance program. Customer home-base pre-preparation. Customer basic crew-training. Boeing substitute crew provision for first-flight and early operations. Maintenance contracts. Maintenance crew training and certification. Boeing Analytics and predictive maintenance service. Boeing fuel dashboard service.Standard certified parts package…”
The overwhelming sense Jet got was that she didn’t belong. Jet was the virus surrounded by the white blood cells - tolerated solely because she’d found the secret sauce that let her slip through.
“That’s a lot.” she said, betraying her true self.
Jet looked to the lawyers beside her, surprised that she’d spoken out of turn. All the negotiations had been finished. The deal had already been done. The engineer seemed to empathise.
“The economics of operating something like this is completely different from what you expect. This is not salvage from a boneyard. If it’s not working for you, it will very quickly start working against you.”
They’d even drafted a business model showing just how well it could do that - of course, consuming plenty of spare parts and services along the way. They had three models prepared, each of which proved beyond doubt that buying this jet would be an excellent investment.
With Boeing’s help, the new airline would be a profound success and everyone made money off that.
Jets eyes fell towards the number on the page - the final tally. She felt herself stop breathing - still disbelieving that Stingray could ever have been valued that high. The accountants had actually apologised to her - they’d gotten less than half what they originally asked for.
The true terror, was that, even with all the i’s dotted, t’s crossed and palms greased, there would still be leftovers. On a scale that seemed impossible to approach on a human level.
“Once this document is signed, the order will be placed, as per the above agreement,” said Janet. A blank space for her signature already waited on the page.
It’s not actually real money, she tried to remind herself. It was, almost, enough to make the Noah Scott’s of the world think twice. Jet felt herself shiver inside.
“I’ve never spent this much money before.” The words spilled from her mouth before she could catch herself. Once again, revealing to all present that she didn’t belong in this world. She felt the ripple on the room - a momentary shock.
The mask on Janet’s face cracked – her eyes brightening just a little. “The second time's a lot easier.”
For just a moment, she showed her true personality. Enough to make her trustworthy. Jet took a breath, and picked an obsidian pen up between two metal fingers.
“Fuck it.”
It took a lot of concentration to keep from crushing the pen through the paper as she traced through her name
Everyone stood, answering her signature with a round of applause. Janet kept smiling.
“Congratulations on ordering a brand new 747 - dash - 8 F”
She got the sense that, through it all, they were actually genuinely glad. Not for the money, or the sales targets - but something else Jet couldn’t quite define.
The book was closed on her signature and the process became inevitable. The lawyers, solicitors and barristers would commence their paper-pushing and fee accumulation. The engines would be built on Atalante, podded up and shipped to Boeing. Boeing would modify the shell, fit the new pods and give it the most intricate and delicate handwashing since Marie-Antoinette spotted a mote of dust on her finger.
Within two weeks, Stingray Motor Engineering would be assimilated by the conglomerate - its technological and managerial distinctiveness being added to Boeing. Sylia would, briefly, become wealthy enough to appear on the Fenspace 50, and then vanish with her obscene wealth to a life of indolent comfort and non-existence, while the money sat in escrow prior to delivery. Whatever the hell happened after that, Jet didn’t know and decided she’d probably feel guilty about it if she did.
And with it came the right and privilege to never, ever have to answer another bloody Stingray email again.
—-
—---
Jet found herself compelled to watch the project’s progress on the web. Rampant speculation amused in a way the official status reports from Boeing didn’t.
Could there be such a thing as positive trolling? Where the world responded with amusement, curiosity and delight, rather than disgust and anger.
The Twitterati spotted 1574 being moved from the boneyard where it’d been stored since Volga-Amur AirFreight had gotten beaten to death by the EU Sanctions stick. They’d seen it land still wearing its factory green clearcoat at Paine field, before being rolled back in to the factory in Everett.
They’d spotted the first few test flights with its new engine arrangements and came to the natural conclusion; Boeing had started work on modifying the B-52 series to be space capable – suitable for another half century of service.
StellviaCorp officially denied purchasing it, and wanted to talk to whomever had.
CHOAM, denied purchasing it, before announcing negotiations with Antonov for the remaining AN-225.
Antonov airlines released an annoyed statement confirming the surviving AN-225 airframe would never, ever be sold, so stop asking.
Nope, not us, announced the Rockhounds, even if it would’ve been cool. The purchase could not be economically justified.
Benjamin had been proud to say he’d put the engines into it, confirming that the USAF had nothing at all to do with it.
Russia’s crash program to make some of their TU-22’s spaceworthy necessitated a response from the USAF anyway. China would match. The Doomsday dance of the old world still continued, even if the music had slowed again after the recent war scare.
Frigga rolled on by itself, the duties of a burned-out baron being relegated to a rubber stamp and a pretty face for the ceremonial stuff. Frigga had begun to work on its own, more or less.
A few messages flashed through her mind - mostly inane things - a few queries for Asagiri - nothing fancy, someone from a school in South Carolina asking about their nuclear technician’s watches, and the usual administration needed for Great Justice, Her Majesty’s Revenue and the daily I Am Actually Looking After Myself log.
She still hated it.
The final message sent a thrill up her spine, answered by a shiver in her heart.
Invitation to a special event for valued Boeing customers.
Featuring the simultaneous rollout of our first customer 3-707, and our final customer 747.
After the long wait, it was finally done. The jet was ready.
A sudden dread settled over her. There would be actual people there who could afford one of them out of pocket - the oligarchs of the universe who wouldn’t think twice about dropping a couple of hundred million on a spacecraft.
—-
Jet hated mundane traffic control. It meant having to know what a squawk was, how to fly a traffic pattern and that airspace came in classes. She had to take her little slot of sky, ahead of some widebody full of holidaymakers and behind a Corporate Gulfstream.
The veneer of mutual aviation competence lasted until someone started meowing like a cat on the emergency frequency, followed by another gruff, frustrated voice answering with an unfunny complaint. Within moments, the entire frequency had been jammed up moaning about Guard and meowing for fifteen minutes.
While waiting for a landing clearance, Jet amused herself by using her Foxhound’s electronic warfare suite to identify exactly what airlines had been doing it. After an hour circling while the great and good were permitted to run straight in, clearance to land finally arrived.
Jet worked the throttle of her Foxhound, trying to keep it just above the stall, riding the buffet all the way down to a landing on the numbers at Paine field. Boeing had already prepared a parking spot, segregated from the real aircraft.
The black dagger-like shape of Magnificent Midnight, basking under the afternoon sun, sat beside the white lunchbox that was the Epsilon Blade.
At least, she thought, she’d have someone to talk to.
A Follow-Me car waited at the end of the runway with its orange lights flashing. It led her to a segregated part of the airfield, with the other Fencraft that’d made the journey.
Jet left the Foxhound to the ground-crew, following a chaperone in a Hi-vis jacket. She hid her body beneath a silver cloak, pulling it tight to keep from freaking the mundanes.
A woman with a clipboard, a smile and a neat blouse with a Boeing pin shining on her chest, met her at the glass door of the Boeing Customer Experience Centre.
“Hi Jet! Thanks for coming. I’m Julia and I’m here to show you to the reception,” she said - her face lit up by the same plastic, corporate smile that made Jet secretly wonder if Julia actually hated the people she met in her day to day life.
“Thanks,” Jet managed to say, trying to hide that shiver of discomfort.
The Centre had, of course, been designed to give the Tour of Wonder to visiting executives - showcasing the moneymaking possibilities of the most modern Boeing products, including the upcoming 3-707.
The 747-series had already been condemned to the ‘history’ section.
She was always late to the fandom, Jet thought. When everyone else was getting out, she was just getting in. Everything had been said, all the fun had been had, and nothing now was left but the long stagnant rundown.
The feeling of being completely out of place crawled down her throat as she was led through galleries of old aircraft models and unbuilt prototypes.
“Just this way, Jet…” Julia beckoned her forward with a clipboard.
“Thanks,”
Another short corridor led to a set of closed double doors, with a single armed security guard outside. Julie pushed the doors open, leading her to a large reception hall, already filled with people. The far wall where there should have been windows to let one look out over the airfield had been hidden by curtains. Models of Boeing aircraft stood on pedestals, around which people gathered. There were those who wore suits and ties, and those who wore bisht and keffiyeh. Everyone had an entourage, of sorts. Security guards, assistants, or peons.
Was that Michael O’Leary with Noah Scott?
Jet got the sense that she lowered the tone of the room by at least a couple of Octaves. There was more money in that room than any human being should ever rightfully have. These were people who looked down on the owners of Rolex watches as being cheap. Jaeger-LeCoultre at least was the minimum requirement for entry, with Patek Philippe or A. Lange und Sohn being preferred.
Jet made her way across the floor to a table of sandwiches - to see what sort of ham and cheese billionaires ate.
She thought she could spot the true executives, from the private jet buyers - they sort of segregated themselves into their respective cliques. Some to gloat over how much they could afford. Others to gloat over how much profit they could make. Some key suppliers could be identified by the pins on their ties - men who looked like they’d been extracted from the sixties and been teleported into the present day, wearing their smart casual corporate uniforms
General Electric, Pratt and Whitney and Rolls Royce had their representatives. Jet tried not to be amused at the sight of Gina Langley turning a shade of red angrier than the dress she wore, because one of the Sheikhs would obviously only speak to Benjamin.
Gina noticed Jet just in time to give her an excuse to leave before something happened that a Sheikh would regret. Gina made her way through the crowds, joining Jet at the sandwich table.
“So, you got an invite?”
Jet swallowed a mouthful.
“I almost wish I didn’t.” she said. She looked at all the money strolling around her. “I don’t belong here.”
“You get used to it.” Gina assured, with an easy smile. “You’ve dressed up.”
“I think showing up naked would’ve given the mundanes a conniption.”
Naked, for Jet, of course being hard, bare armour.
“Not just the coat, but the hair and makeup,” said Gina. “Long hair’s a really good look.”
Six months without a cut had it already reaching the small of her back
“Thanks,” said Jet, feeling a bright smile across her lips. After six months, Gina had been the first to actually comment on it. “That’s a nice dress.”
It had an unnatural, glass-like shimmer, like a layer of varnish over the iridescent red fabric beneath.
“Venusian silk,” said Gina with a smirk, and a shrug of her shoulders. “I’d still prefer to wear my flight-suit over something like this, but some of these old fossils would probably get offended, and, well, this is a big door to open up so we have to learn to hold our noses.”
Gina made a show of pinching her nose.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this amount of money in a room before,” said Jet.
“You should see the Nikaido foundation charity auction, sometime,” said Gina.
“They don’t invite people like me to that,” said Jet. Thankfully.
Once again, Jet sensed she’d gotten the worst side of the whole deal. Boeing got a brand new technology to take it to space. Benjamin and Gina got a buyer with big damned pockets for their engines. Jet got a… jet.
“Is that a Bin Laden?” asked Gina, pointing towards a tall middle-eastern gentleman wearing a finely tailored suit. His name had been embroidered into the pinstripes of his suit.
“I think that’s the older brother,” said Jet. Her muse confirmed it. “The one that’s perpetually embarrassed by the kid doing silly things”
The smile was the same - the grown up version of a child’s ‘I did something really naughty and you can’t catch me’ smile - even while he shook hands with another man in a grey suit wearing an AerCap tie. The pin-stripes on his suit had been embroidered with his name in micro-detail.
There were those who had to demonstrate their wealth. There were those who didn’t. Then there was Jet.
“I’m sensing a theme among the crowd.”
“The testicle owners club?”
Jet raised an eyebrow, before giving a soft, content smile. “I hadn’t thought of it that way,” she said. “A lot of people said that about Sylia too. She wasn’t a member of the club.”
It’d been one of the few times her appearance had threatened to cross the line into an identity.
“It’s nice to break the combo,” said Gina. “Isn’t it?”
Jet hadn’t really thought she counted, but couldn’t really figure out how she wouldn’t. She supposed, she didn’t really feel it in the same way Gina would.
On a flash of an idea, she smirked, unclasped her cape, and handed it to one of the event attendants to put away. A ripple passed through the crowd as more and more eyes turned in her direction, before consciously snapping away to avoid being caught staring.
What the fuck is that?
Did Boeing truly understand who and what they’d invited?
The whispers died down quickly. Obvious Jet was just one of those people from up there. And one who wasn’t afraid of showing who and what she was in her spacesuit. They didn’t need to know her armour didn’t come off. Twenty years of Fenspace and the wave had made the unusual ordinary.
“That’s better,” said Jet.
Gina gave an amused, “Hmm”
Another man entered the room, wearing the Business-Casual uniform of Corporate America. One or two rungs above the McManagement level.
“Guess we’re about to start,” said Jet.
He stepped up to the podium, leaning into the microphone.
“I’d like to introduce Rachel Homey, CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes,” he said, before stepping aside.
Jet blinked. She recognised the name. She recognised the woman who entered from a side-door
“She worked for Stingray,” said Jet, to Gina.
“As what?”
“She ran Detroit for the last two years.”
Again, Gina gave an amused “Hmmm.”
Jet remembered why Rachel’d gotten the job in the first place and decided not to say anything more.
Unlike Sylia, Rachel had always preferred the cool, professional air of a well-tailored business suit. She’d been the person who’d spend a thousand dollars on a pair of piano-black leather shoes, to avoid giving the impression she’d spent a thousand dollars on a pair of shoes.
Only those who mattered, would notice. Those who wouldn’t notice, didn’t matter. She didn’t need to make a statement like Sylia.
Rachel stepped up onto the podium, and took a moment to let the murmur in the crowd die down.
“Thank you,” she said. “Ladies and Gentlemen. We stand at a confluence of ages. At a point of inflection in the history of the aerospace industry.”
A pause to let the words settle on the crowd.
“After nearly sixty years and one thousand, five hundred and seventy four delivered aircraft, the Seven Forty-Seven program and its legacy will now begin its passage into history. Fittingly, the final Seven-Forty-Seven to be delivered will be the one to bring that legacy to the stars.”
The curtain dropped on cue, giving Jet her first look in person at the aircraft.
It greeted her with the same view that’d greeted a billion travelers waiting to board for the last sixty years. Looking up at its cockpit windows reminded her of the statues from Easter island, with the eyes perched at the top of a long nose that reached down to meet her.
Aside from double-up engine nacelles with their vortex dissipators, there was little to hint at it being anything more than standard aircraft. A few reaction control jets had been faired in on the nose and tail, some extra fairings had been added to the aircraft's back, and it’d gained some stub fins on the tail assembly - possibly stolen from a 737 judging by the size.
Bare metal had been lacquered to shine, with a only a matt-black patch under the cockpit windows to keep the glare down, and a single white and midnight-blue cheatline along the flanks of the fuselage, echoing the dawn of the jet-age.
“Antares will serve as the pathfinder for a Boeing conversion program for existing aircraft, applicable to both passenger and freight aircraft, providing an exciting new value proposition for our customers’ existing fleets, compatible with all of their existing infrastructure .”
A few hands golf-clapped in feigned appreciation. The photographers took their pictures. Nobody had come to see yet another Jumbo Jet. Most likely owned one, or had already had theirs turned into coke cans in favour of something newer, sleeker and more efficient.
“Oh wow,” said Jet. She found herself unable to say anything else. The renders and photographs never did justice to the size of the thing.
“Joining it,”Rachel continued with appropriate corporate bombast “Will be the first of a brand new generation of aerospace craft, our first customer delivery of the new Boeing Three-Seven-Oh-Seven, our first true Interplanetary liner, carrying the legacy of the first Seven-Oh-Seven, Seven Forty-Seven and Triple-Seven, bringing safe, cheap and reliable interplanetary travel to more people than ever before.”
The second curtain dropped to the floor. The applause began, followed by the chattering of cameras eager to get a photograph of Boeing’s newest and greatest achievement.
It sat on the tarmac shining a brilliant Eurowhite under the afternoon sun, with flowing ribbons of sky-blue paint hinting at high speed airflow over a javelin-like fuselage. A pair of silver arrow barbs projected from both sides of a bodkin-point nose, with a single fletched stabiliser on the tail.
A pair of stub wings supported two engines each, slung below, looking like oversized missiles.
It exuded a sense of pure, air-piercing speed.
“The new Three-Seven-Oh-Seven can deliver a hundred and fifty passengers from New York to Sydney in under two hours, or from New York to Mars in Five. The boarding gate of your local airport will be your gateway to the universe.”
Beside its sleek granddaughter built specifically for spaceflight, Antares seemed oddly cobbled together - its original smooth lines broken by the nurnies and greebles needed for spaceflight, tacked on where they needed to go rather than integrated into the original design.
Jet liked that - something of an aeronautic Freakshow, to reclaim the slur.
Only a few stragglers cared enough to join Jet at the window, staring up at the waiting Jumbo. A man stepped up beside her.
Noah Scott, wearing his usual vacuum-ready middle-management office suit - well loved, but cleanly pressed, and just a little bit loose. Of all the people in the room, he was the only one to wear a Casio watch.
He’d dressed for business spaceflight, the same way he always had.
Jet felt insects crawl under her armour and across her chest. They lived in such different orbits of fandom - they normally only ever interacted when something drastic happened. Like the Quattro thing, the Genaros thing…. And Asmodeus Grey.
Noah smiled at her. “I thought this was for Boeing customers only,”
I thought this was for people who - you know - were of a different sort of class.
“Ah, yeah,” she feigned a sheepish grin. “That one’s mine.” A single steel finger pointed out the window at the Jumbo.
Which kind of begged the question - which one was his?
“I knew something was up,” said Noah. “Ever since the Stingray merger.” he paused. “That is a lot of money.”
Surely it could’ve been used for something sensible, like property and stock-market investments, luxurious stays on Stellviacorp properties, and getting whole-body plated in 24-carat gold. Deep in her secret heart, getting herself gold plated, then hand-waxed and buffed to a high shine joined the most decadent of her private fantasies.
Jet tried to hide the smirk, even as the idea refused to die. “We need to move a lot of parts. There’s no other way,”she said. “And Antonov are very protective of the new Miriya.”
As cool as it would’ve been, nobody sane would dare even send the inquiry. Not after the last one burned.
“I never could quite get the business case to work out.”
Jet looked at him, not sure if that had been a warning, a question, or a regret.
“It helps if the value of the money used to buy it is low,” she admitted. “If it can do the job I need it to do, it’s worth it,” she said. “It’s paid for itself when its job’s done.”
“And after?” Noah asked. “Surely you’ve plans for it.”
“I don’t know,” Jet admitted.
She’d already decided she’d never scrap the thing. Sending the Knightwing to the recycler’s torch had hurt far more than she’d ever expected it to.
Noah gave her an odd look for a moment. “You do understand, the most valuable part of that entire aircraft, is the Boeing logo on the tail, and a piece of paper from the FAA telling the whole world the American government thinks it’s safe to fly.” he said. “The rest is just metal and wires flying in formation.”
Jet smirked, “Sure that’s always the way. You’re only paying for the label.”
Noah, at that moment, clearly realised he wasn’t dealing with A.C Peters. He deflated just a little, leaving Jet wondering just what she’d missed and feeling just a little insecure that she had.
Everyone around her saw the world in an entirely different manner.
“An actual N-number, a type-certificate, and an airworthiness certificate open a lot of doors,” Noah explained.
Having an N-number and a binder full of paperwork meant there was someone with deep pockets and a whole set of heavy rubber stamps guaranteeing it wouldn’t cause a problem wherever it went. Someone who, on some level, relied upon the objects they applied their rubber stamp to not falling out of the sky and causing a problem, so people would continue to trust the rubber stamp.
“We bought it to move a lot of heavy parts,” said Jet. “I still have to figure out what else I can do with it.”
It was the Mad’s maxim. Get your technical success. Figure out what to do with it afterwards. Jet recalled the warning she’d been given at the contract signing; If it’s not working for you, it’s working against you.
Noah answered her with a smile. “Something like this could be really useful for the Nikaido foundation.” he said. “The Foundation moves a lot of equipment between orbit, and Earth.”
“Sure, I’m sure something could be worked out,” she answered. She had the idea of doing it for ‘gas money’, or something like that - Jet didn’t know what yet, beyond the the idea that sending an invoice to the Nikaido foundation seemed like a bit of a shitehawk thing to do.
There was, however, one question she had to ask.
“I thought this was for Boeing customers?”
Noah answered her with a nod. “The easier it is for more people to get from Earth to Space, the better for Stellviacorp.”
He left her with that somewhat cryptic remark, and the sense that the world she’d just stepped into worked on far different rules than she’d been used to. She watched him mingle, in between the moments where she had to smile, nod, and act proud for the photographers and influencers who’d finally gotten around to being interested in Antares and asking her the same questions over and over again.
Jet watched as Noah spoke to airline owners - to the people who had the influence to make the final purchase and buy.
It took some time, and a sandwich or two, for the moment of enlightenment to strike. Noah Scott didn’t have to buy a single aircraft, to get the benefit of them existing, and flying to his hotels. You buy the plane - I’ve somewhere for it to go and make you money.
So, win-win for Noah and Boeing. Stellvia Hotels had more people coming up the well and through their doors. Boeing had evidence of a market it could offer to its customers - something that gave them access to the money they could be making but weren’t.
The whole room was sort of capitalist mass-cross-pollination.
Another part of her mind had another, far sharper, way of describing it that would cause a lot ruffled feathers.
But, at least, she thought she could see the game they expected her to play.
—---
Get your technical success, worry about what to do with it later, the mad’s maxim applied to everything. Build it, make it ‘cool’ and maybe they will come. The odd success might just cover the cost of repeated failure.
It kept the lights on. It left a landing bay full of ideas that never quite found a home, most of which dissolved into the general pool as someone took over looking after them and saved them from being cut up. Show up at Convention, show something off, and maybe somebody’d bite. Enough bites kept the lights on.
Maybe someone popular would rave about it and you’d get more sold out of their followers and fandom. Assholes of course wanted free shit to promote it. Unless you had something interesting enough that it’d be valuable to their brand, in which case maybe there could be a dealing.
In Jet’s mind, dealing with Influencers seemed a lot like paying the Danegeld.
The technical reports and flight tests had started to come in from Boeing - all the details an airline would need to put together a business model. The flight tests said it worked, and could work. It would fly safely and carry the loads it needed to carry.
Now came the figuring out what to do with it, once the project had finished.
The numbers involved, chilled her blood. If it wasn’t working for her, it’d very quickly work against her.
She found herself in the unusual position of staring at a wall of spreadsheets late into the night, trying to figure out what needed to happen to make it work. Or at least, work to the point that it wouldn’t be a noose.
An incoming call begged for her attention, one which she couldn’t dismiss.
“You're supposed to be resting,” said A.C. Her avatar rendered on Jet’s shoulder, face in a pout of irritation at having to take a personal involvement in this.
“But this is fun,” Jet answered with a smirk and a finger pointed at the screen.
The obvious counter being, it’s not exactly work or stressful if it’s fun.
“Eddie’s also annoyed at the inefficiency of it all”, said A.C., taking a breath “All that funding could’ve gone towards so many other things on this project.”
Jet wondered if she had an idea exactly how much funding there had been.
“Maybe. I know,” Jet answered with a gallic shrug. “But headaches and all that. So long as it’s a trade of one thing I don’t want, for one thing I need and it solves the problem, I’m fine with it.”
It seemed easier than staring the raw abyssal figure and its consequences in the face.
“Hmmm,” the avatar of A.C. made a show of pondering, pursing her lips slightly. “Just remember, you’re still supposed to be resting.” she said. “You’re still under doctor’s orders, off active duty.”
A polite, gentle way to remind her to go to bed, go to sleep. Don’t make me call you again.
“It’s the first time in a long time I’ve felt excited about something. Like being in an airport at the start of a long holiday.”
Jet found herself smiling - a soft, genuine smile.
“And that’s why Julian asked me to remind you to take time to rest, not to get too wrapped up rather than stop. The logs from your muse are positive - but burnout doesn’t end this quickly.”
“I still hate that.”
“You know the alternative.”
A far more firm reminder.
If you can’t look after yourself, steps would have to be taken. And Jet would have no option but to fight back because the alternative was so utterly terrifying as to be a living nightmare.
And of course the muse would pick up on those neurochemical changes and dutifully report them like the snitch it was.
Jet forced herself to take a breath, answering A.C. with a wan smile.
“I finally killed Sylia, at least,” she said, trying to change the subject. “That’s one big thing I don’t have to worry anymore,”
A.C’s avatar visibly shuddered.
“I saw Geoffrey Wilson’s gloating podcast on it.”
Jet blinked.
“You actually follow that stocking of shite?”
“I don’t have a choice,” the avatar rolled her eyes. “The amount of commenters on his Thought Leader podcast who’re also on a Justice League watchlist.”
“Sylia Stingray’s greatest victory is that……” Jet felt a savage grin crawl across her face – one of pure, vicious and spite-filled satisfaction “.....as far as all the people who wasted so much of their lives talking shite about her are concerned, she built her company, sold it all, and disappeared to a quiet life of peaceful luxury on her own private island and will never have to work another day in her life - Sylia Stingray hit the Unicorn and cashed out, while they still stack boxes for the crumbs from Jeff Bezo’s table.”
A.C. took a breath, folding her arms under her chest.
“That does take the edge off, alright.” she said. “They may have their keyboards, but we’re both wealthy, strong, intelligent, fashionable and beautiful combat cyborgs.”
Jet felt a faint chuckle leave her throat. “I amn’t sure I’m fashionable.” She’d been wearing the same thing for over fourteen years, after all. A little spark lit inside her, and she found her mouth moving . “In a weird way, he convinced me to take the Oath of Venus.”
The avatar moved her hands to her hips. Really, Jet?
“And here I always thought it was because of the Mackie accident,” the Avatar feigned surprise. “You mean to tell me you lied to your doctor. In the same of Sir Alex Ferguson what shall we do with you?”
“Well, it was that - but, more than that too,” she smiled back. “The more those tech bros talked shit about her, the more I wanted to be her just so they wouldn’t be able to gloat over the truth.” They would never, ever have stopped gloating if they’d discovered the truth.. “After the Mackie accident, and living with the Knight Sabers, I just felt I had more in common with them, than who I’d used to be.”
For some reason, she found herself compelled to remember the Great Justice supply officer who’d remarked that he’d never been deep-throated by a chick who didn’t need to stop to breath
Welcome to the club, she’d been told afterwards.
“I find it helps keep them in line when they know you can crush them like an egg,” said A.C. “They get very polite after that.”
On social media, and in person.
“I think some of them might enjoy that.”
“Well,” the avatar raised an eyebrow. “If you really want to be Sylia then, prosthetics have advanced a great deal - we can have almost the same physical strength, speed, stamina and vacuum tolerance. And I’m sure we could even create a direct interface with Sylia’s hardsuit - for the best of both worlds - so the armour could go back on when you felt like it, and still be a part of you.”
Logical, when explained like that. A natural progression.
Jet felt her body inside her armour for the first time in a long time, withdrawing subtly from the plate. Her hands went to where the unlock switches on her hips still were. Of course, they didn’t work.
“It’d make a great holiday,” she said, almost disappointed that she knew what her answer would be anyway. “For a month - maybe two. Lounge on a beach with sandy toes. Get wet in a cold sea. Soak in a Hot Spring. Sleep in Satin sheets. Silk lingerie. Maybe some Company. “
A raised eyebrow, may have sent an unintended signal.
Still, without the interference's and overheads of the puppet signal - it would be hard to outright say No.
A.C. waited, seemingly knowing the answer.
“I know I’d regret it.” Jet said “This is who and what I am. Even the steel bits.” she placed her metal fingers on her breasts. “Besides, how else could I show off a figure like this”
Her hips have a subtle shake - one which drew a look of surprise from the avatar.
“Oh I’m sure something could be arranged,” said A.C. “Especially considering the available funding.”
Jet glanced at the screens.
“And what would you know about that?”
“Only what a Moodies analyst publicly valued a potential IPO at before a private sale,” said A.C, her eyes zooming in. “So, what was the final figure? Settle a bet.”
Those green eyes insisted.
Jet felt an electric thrill - a chance to brag without seeming crass.,
“One point two.” she said quickly. The avatar waited, it’s expression flattening. “One billion, two hundred and seventy-five million, four-hundred and eighty-two thousand, six hundred and eight dollars.” A pause. A.C. continued to wait.“And Seventy-nine cent”
A.C’s face scrunched into the image of disgust, like she’d just stood in something left behind by a particularly sick cat. In the back of her mind, Jet wondered if that was the real difference between the pair - A.C. always seemed to be that much freer about expressing herself
“Lebia won,” she said, with a feigned ‘Humph’
Jet assumed that Eddie, being the eternal optimist, had likely rounded it up to Eighty, and A.C might’ve taken the cent below.
Just to account for how accountants tended to round out the decimals. Of course, waiting for the cents also gave the impression that they had calculated it to that level of precision, whether they had or hadn’t.
“Sorry about that,”
Not Sorry.
“I assume you’ve made plans.”
Only after saying that, did the avatar realise who she was talking about.
“I was going to tell everyone once the details were done but - after the jet, the setup costs, everyone’s fees, the accountants, the lawyers, all the governments getting their beaks wet because this is all painfully above board,” Jet counted each one on a finger. “It all has to filter back through the same channels I used to pay the bills for the Knight Sabers, and that’s Wiz Mechatronics.”
What went in, had to come out somewhere Federal eyes could see.
Jet saw the realisation dawn inside A.C’s eyes - just a little spark. Jet’d paid her for some of the Saber’s hardware and medical bills through Wiz.
Jet took a breath, doing her damnedest to look calm, professional and give the impression like these were sums of money she talked about over breakfast and not the life-changing amounts they actually were.
Life-changing for some anyway. A busy Tuesday for others.
Her whole body buzzed, begging her to brag, demanding she shout to the heavens that she had done it. She struggled to keep the cork in.
“Basically, there’s about a five million dividend per share in Wiz - so you can work that out. For the girls, there’s a fund that’s a hundred grand a year, each.” It came out more like a train from her mouth, than a sentence. A nervous laugh. “Her majesty’s revenue are going to have a fucking cat.”
Some of those at the end of the chain would hardly blink at that amount. Then there were those who would go through it like an alcoholic who’d suddenly inherited a brewery.
Quite a few people were about to get a hell of a fright, Jet thought.
A.C’s eyebrows raised just a little.
“I hope it works out for them,” she said, after a moment.
“Yeah,” Jet breathed “I hope it works out for everyone.”
So many Lottery winners lost everything. It felt like a Lottery win - unearned, maybe undeserved, money falling down like mana from fucking heaven.
Jet, in her heart, already felt herself wandering too easily in that direction.
“Remember. Look after yourself,” A.C said, after a moment.
“Yeah,” answered Jet. She took a breath, then powered the monitors off.
The avatar, satisfied at last, gave her a quick smile, before vanishing as the connections closed.
Jet took another breath, watching her reflection in the darkened monitor screen do the same. Her eyes had a faint light in them - one that’d been gone for so long she’d forgotten what it even looked like.
First, be Kind to yourself.
—--
For all of the corporate fanciness of the Boeing Delivery Centre, and it’s function as a multi-million dollar jet dealership, the actual final handover took place in a small office just off the ramp where the airplanes had been parked.
The handover for the cameras had already occurred - this was to be a private ceremony - a little Eleusinian mystery for those with enough in the bank to pick up the keys to a big jet. Jet preferred it that way, away from the press-conferences and the smile, wave, nod and be super-proud of everything.
The lawyers made their final appearance, along with a now distinctly frazzled looking accountant. The man had definitely gained Mythos Points handling the whole affair. She recalled the first time she’d tried to hire an accountant - and how he’d ended up joining a catgirl collective. Joining them were the first flight crew - An old friend of Jet’s to fly it, a man named Kelsey who applied to be the First-Officer and Lun Alekseeva who seemed just a little out of sorts, having been shoehorned into a more traditional Pilot’s uniform to take the navigator’s desk.
Boeing had their own guarantee group, dressed in the more practical shirt and slacks rather than anything office related. One of them had been there from the start - the same engineer with the lightning-handed Rolex. He’d been joined by another, younger man who was finding it hard to keep from staring at Jet. Boeing's own lawyers flanked them on either side.
Everyone had a Boeing-provided Hi-Vis jacket for their own personal use. Jet thought to keep hers as a souvenir.
On the table between them, a stack of binders carried the paper versions of all the electronic documentation due to be sent the moment the final button was pushed.
At the centre of the table, contained in three red binders was the Boeing 747 Aircraft Readiness log - all the little checks made to prove it was ready for handover. Four more ring binders carried the paperwork for all of the engines. Every last bolt, screw and lightbulb had its own certification paperwork, somewhere, explaining exactly where it came from, who had made it, and who had made the machines they used.
Legal paperwork lived in simple brown paper folders, waiting for the final signature.
Mitchell Gant, the man who’d taken it up for it’s first flight, and would fly it for the foreseeable future as captain, took a breath.
“We had an issue with a fuel flow indicator,” he said. “Otherwise, it’s a happy airplane. Really good to fly.”
The younger of the Boeing engineers looked at his notes, flipping through a few pages in his clipboard. “Loose connector in the equipment bay,” he said. “All other outstanding items on the readiness list are complete.”
Jet took a slow breath, glanced at Mitchell to her right, then at the laptop in front of her. Mitchell gave her soft smile to reassure. It was a good aircraft.
“And now for the final paperwork,” said Hank. He’d been there since the start, since the first customer meeting. Now he was there at the end.
With one final sheet of paper, and one short blank line awaiting the customer’s signature.
The whole room waited for her signature.
She managed not to shred the paper.
One of the lawyers spoke up. “And now, of course, all that’s left is the transfer of the funds.”
Oh. That. The fun part.
A laptop was pushed in front of her, already open to the proper escrow account. A single, obvious button waited for her to push.
That was a big damned number beneath. A terrifying number
It took fifteen seconds for her to work up the nerve to press the key.
A moment of pure frission thrilled through her body as the number dropped. If that amount of money had been printed off in single dollar bills, it would’ve filled a truck. It would’ve weighed tons. It was gone.
“It’s through,” said one of the Boeing lawyers.
The thought finally occurred to her that maybe there were better things that could’ve been done with it, and that maybe, she might’ve needed to think this through more.
Hank cleared his throat and leant forward, a small brown paper pouch in his hand “This is the last time I’ll get to say this.”
Jet looked at him, feeling a mild sense of terror rise inside her and she suddenly realised she was more in love with the process of buying the jet, than the outcome of the process. She stretched a hand out.
“The transfer’s complete, the money’s in the bank, here are the keys,” Hank poured them into her open palm. “Congratulations, you just bought yourself an airplane.”
One single shot from a camera caught the flash of smile on her face before it could vanish. Cut in polished brass, the keys seemed impossibly simple, compared to the complexity of a full airliner.
“Thanks,” she managed to say. She looked at Mitchell Gant, who’d already begun to pack his leather flight bag. “I think it’s time we made a move.”
Hank held up a single finger. “ I actually have a note here from the factory.” He slipped it out from under one of the binders “They’ve checked their records and there’s one small item that’s still to be finished before we can let you fly away.” From under the papers on his desk, emerged a rectangular object - the size of a laptop - carefully wrapped in brown paper. “It’s a simple piece of trim for the cockpit - if you permit me, I’ll add it myself.”
Another small ceremony.
“I’m sure that won’t be a problem,” Jet said. A giddy thrill rolled through her body. She took another breath. She did her best to be calm, to not run for the new thing, to act like she belonged, to not make a fool of herself.
The lawyers and accountants remained behind - they’d be leaving the same way they arrived - by taxi.
Jet had a plane to catch.
Outside, a soft rain fell from the smothering blanket of grey clouds above. Water beaded and ran down her armour. She walked with her helmet still clipped to her waist, the rain wetting down her hair. Putting it on would’ve freaking the mundanes a little too much - they’d just about learned to tolerate the ‘space-suit’
The entourage walked across the parking ramp, past a rainbow row of waiting aircraft. Most had already been given their final branding, and awaited their first flights. One Japan Airlines 787 had been prepared for it’s own delivery, later in the day.
Antares towered over them all, sitting at the end of the row like a Brontosaurus that escaped from Jurassic Park, hodge-podge of frog DNA to update it for the modern era and all. Still recognisable, but obviously different to those in the know.
Of course, the twitterati complained about the pollution of the original design.
A couple of influencers joined the entourage - those with enough reach and mindshare to be worth bringing aboard for an experience flight. She’d have to speak to them of course, giving the proper hyper-cheerful interviews.
The rain stopped.
Someone held an umbrella over her head. Mitchell had snuck up on her. He’d always been damned quiet on his feet, even when he’d been a full-armour cyber. In flat shoes, with a prosthetic body, he’d startle a mouse.
“I can’t believe you actually bought that,” he said, a wry smile on his broad face.
“I needed it,” Jet said, with far more abruptness than she’d intended. “You know, I’ve never actually been on one.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“I only ever took a plane once, from Dublin to London and back again.” She knocked on her chest with a knuckle. “And then, I never had to again,”
She looked up at Antares in front of her, hooked by umbilicals to two box-like carts, feeding the aircraft with air and power.
Fuel trucks sat beneath both wings, topping off its tanks. Of course, Boeing wouldn’t give a free first fill of fuel to get it off the forecourt, that’d been itemised on the invoice too.
Full tanks cost as much as a Blackbird.
“Remember what I said when we found that Boskone shuttle,” said Mitchell. Fourteen years ago, when Jet’d been Jet, and he’d been Gant - Engel Two.
It didn’t seem that long.
It felt like it’d been the night before.
“There is nothing like the feel of a Seven-Four at full take-off thrust.” he finished.
For a heartbeat, she found herself reliving that moment fourteen years before on the bridge of a Boskone transport, poking the abyss in the eye and looking forward to the new Golden Age that followed.
For some it had been. Those who came after, or those who’d been there before.
“I’ve flown some pretty fast spacecraft since then,” she said, forcing a smile, even as she felt a cloud roll across her soul.
“This is different,” he said. “All that weight and power, it feels like God is pushing you forward. It’s an immense force.”
He made a show of pushing with his free hand.
“I wouldn’t mind having a go at that,” she said, halfheartedly.
“Real jet needs real pilot’s license,” he answered with a childish grin. “And it can’t barrel-roll.”
Jet made a show of giving him a childish pout. Her heart wasn’t in it. Her head had gone to somewhere completely different.
Mitchell Gant had gone on to become who he wanted to be. He’d become someone other than Gant the cyber. Jet had gone on to become who she was - just more of the same and less of everything else.
“It’s preflight time,” he said. “I’ll see you aboard.”
Jet guessed he’d sensed the change in her mood. She could be grateful at least, that he understood.
“Oh Wow!” a voice interrupted, speaking in that distinct ‘Youtube’ bounce where every vowel got spoken, and every single sentence had to be sold. “It’s Jet, the owner of the Seven-Four-Seven behind me. Now tell me Jet, do you always wear a spacesuit like that?”
Her muse pegged him as a popular avgeek out of Hong Kong. Her jaw opened slightly, her mind taking a few moments to catch up.
“Don’t you know? Earth’s a dangerous place,” she said.
He laughed at that old joke. Or at least, pretended to.
“So, Jet, how does it feel to own your own Seven-Four-Seven.” His camera-drone buzzed back, refocusing its light-field sensors to include both the jet, Jet and himself in the shot. “And it’s the last Sevent-Four-Seven aswell - the last one that will ever be built.”
Not as good as the idea of owning the final 747. Not as good as she thought it might. That wasn’t the answer she needed to give. She forced a smile, even if she couldn’t match the proper bouncing cadence.
“Well, we’re all excited to be part of this and to be partnering with Boeing on this project and I can see already, they’ve built a great airplane.” she took a breath. “Now it’s just about finding out what it can do.”
“Well I…” and he interposed himself between the camera, Jet and the jet, ”….am looking forward to joining you on this first flight and it is a great honour to be invited along.”
“Thanks for coming. It’ll be a good trip.”
A small part of her soul began to dread it, for reasons she couldn’t understand. What should have been the culmination of months or waiting, anticipation and excitement seemed to have grounded out.
She recalled how excitement and fear sat as neighbours on the emotional spectrum. Something else had set her off, and watching Gant go about checking over Antares gave her a hint to what it might’ve been.
Hank indicated it was time to board.
The jet loomed over her, a single portable stairway leading up to the one open door.
Jet took a breath - she could’ve lived the rest of her life in peace and leisure. Instead she bought a fucking 747 because it seemed like a good idea for half a second.
Rather than climb the steps, she jumped from the concrete to the doorway. The Boeing engineers had gotten used to it - they didn’t blink. The Avgeeks startled like sheep.
Hank waited aboard, with hi-vis and clipboard
Jet stepped forward, crossing the threshold to board her own personal jumbo-jet.
Something washed across her soul, a sensation like a tuning fork singing inside her armour. The Jedi might’ve called it a disturbance in the Force, but somehow it felt the exact opposite, almost like stepping into the sunlight, rather than being washed over in darkness.
Antares really was a happy airplane, right down to the molecules in its skin and the ‘wave in the paint. It sang with an eagerness to be and to become, like that moment of anticipation at the top of a roller-coaster ride.
She sensed everyone had begun to stare.
“It’s been a while since I was on a plane,” she said, momentarily feeling just that little bit sheepish.
“Well,” said Hank, giving her a momentarily amused look. “ if you’ll care to follow me, I’ll give you the tour.”
Jet followed him through the usual Tour of Wonder, being introduced to the various features of her new aircraft. The fragrance of jet-fuel and fresh plastic lingered in the air, mingling with hot ozone from the ventilation and the dryness of new carpet. The cabin lights shone bright and sharp as daylight.
The galleys, the crew bunks, a half-dozen luxurious business-class-style seats, the cargo equipment and hatches, the sheer vastness of the cargo space compared to many other fencraft, and how it all descended from the first prototype that flew five months before man first walked on the Moon.
Of course, he demonstrated each and every single feature with beaming pride, all the way from the aft pressure bulkhead that kept the air in, to the cockpit on the upper deck, looming high over the concrete apron below.
Antares had a density of purpose and being, a depth of existence when compared with the last Fencraft she’d hitched a ride on. It had a detail and texture missing from most Fenships - a depth of structure and function that went beyond the surface. Each light, each switch, each label served a specific and necessary function. The greebles on the walls and deckplates served a purpose, in the way those aboard Lun never actually did, beyond being there because they looked like they needed to be.
Surrounded by a half-dozen people who buzzed in delight over every single one of them, Jet felt the dread sense settle on her shoulders that having herself involved would ruin it somehow. She felt her self withdraw inside her armour, wrapped in the sensation that the thing which brought them so much happiness would probably get itself slowly corroded by her presence.
The tour finished back at the cockpit.
Jet, Hank, Mitchell, Kelsey and Lun, along with the entourage of influencers and their camera drones crammed themselves into a space intended to be comfortable for four people at most. Jet stood with her back to what’d been labelled the Flight Engineer’s station - even if it was nothing more than a few leftover monitor screens set into the tan plastic trim, and configured as an access point for the live information inside the quick access recorders.
Camera drones whirred, stirred by their operator’s phone’s touchscreens, drinking in each and every button for the benefits of the subscribers at home.
Hank took great care in making sure his last little trim piece had been mounted at a bubble-perfect level on the rear wall of the cockpit. Four screws held it place.
Cut from brushed aluminium, rather than the traditional brass expected by Jet, it sparked under the lights from the hungry camera drones.
The Boeing Logo in a deep lacquered blue took pride of place at the very top of the plaque - a angled sketch of an aircraft tracing an arc around the outline of the globe. Below it’d been, carefully engraved and lined in the same deep blue.
Whatever Hank had tried to say, got drowned out by the applause. In such a small compartment, it rattled the plastic trim.
Jet felt herself smile and was aware of her body applauding with them, even as her self wondered if they all truly felt so glad and excited, or were they just playing it up to the cameras.
Hank stood back a moment to admire his handiwork, before turning to face the cameras with a look on his face, like a man who’d just finished the longest, hardest work of his life, and didn’t particularly want it to end.
The satisfied melancholy that comes after a good thing that’d been good for a long time, came to a good and natural end.
“The amount of people who asked to work on this thing, it gave the floor managers headaches just finding enough screws for every hand to turn. They all wanted to be part of the last one.”
He turned to face the camera drones. “They all wanted to say I did it. I was there at the end. Now I am the last Boeing employee to assemble a part on a new Seven Forty Seven.”
A soft smile fell on his lips. He placed his commemorative screwdriver on the flight engineer’s console.
“Seniority has its privileges I guess.”
“Congratulations,” said Mitchell
“Congratulations,” said Kelsey.
“Con-gratu-lations,” bounced one of the influencers.
Only after the final screw had been turned, and the applause had died, did everything make sense.
How many thousand people had felt the same way?
“Congratulations,” she said, In a tone that reminded her of a very different ending. In that moment, a couplet came to mind - the first lines of a song that already seemed familiar, but which she couldn’t quite place.
I am the last one of my line, the last to take the throne.
Once my kind they ruled the skies, but now I reign alone.
The words played on repeat in the back of her mind as Jet recorded the same interview at least four times - the same basic question with the same basic answer, only the words that shaped them changed.
The influencers demanded to have their backs scratched.
And both Boeing and Jet needed someone to talk about the jet, to show it off, to get it noticed, to get contracts and charters to pay the bills or new orders to cover some of the sunk costs.
The speakers on the overhead chimed once, bring a hush
“Lady and Gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking,” Jet could hear the grin on Mitchell’s voice as he spoke. “I’d like to welcome you aboard this very special flight. The inaugural flight for this aircraft and this airline.”
It’s not really an airline, Jet thought.
“Our flight today will take us westbound out over the Pacific Ocean for about two hours, before we turn and begin our orbital climb. The weather is not the nicest it could be but we expect smooth sailing all the way out. We expect to arrive at station Stellvia at 4pm Station time.”
“Quick flight,” said one of the influencers.
Jet would’ve done it in minutes.
“We are very lightly loaded today and we will be giv’n’r some so this will be a faster take-off than normal, and we have been asked to make a circle back over the field before we commence our climb. Now settle back while we start our engines, and try to enjoy the ride.”
The idea of taking a seat on an airliner and buckling in struck her as utterly absurd, even as everyone else began to stare and wait for her to take the one remaining seat, right at the front beside the window.
It’d been agreed and assigned.
She thought about going overboard and watching the take-off the old-fashioned way, maybe following for some video footage, or taking a spin in the turbulence coming off the wings.
All the other influencers were there, one more ‘Mystery Iron Girl’ video after thirteen years would probably find a welcome audience.
“Don’t tell me you're afraid of flying,” said Hank, with a smirk.
“Not used to being a passenger,” she answered quickly. “Last time I took a plane was a Ryanair to Gatwick.”
A lifetime ago.
If she didn’t have to actually fly it, or talk to someone, she always stood. She moved around. She did anything but strap herself in and let the journey happen.
The lights flickered, and the engines began to howl. The frame of the aircraft fizzed as it came to life. Jet’s bones resonated in sympathy.
Everyone waited. The drones watched and circled, seeming to savour her embarrassment.
She lowered herself into a seat which managed to be uncomfortable in the same way every other seat designed for a human did. The belt strap rode in a grove in her armour. Her fingers fumbled with the buckle. Her body bristled at the idea of being strapped to a seat - even if the belt could be snapped by a flick of a wrist.
It’d been so long since she’d just been a passenger.
The aircraft juddered, and began to roll forward. The Influencers buzzed in excitement. The engines whined, pushing Antares down the taxiway. To Jet, everything felt wrong. All three hundred tons bounced over every expansion joint and pebble on the taxiway. Light plastic fittings rattled.
Lun could smash through waves. It had weight and mass - a solidity to it. Antares felt too light and too rigid for something of its size, like a hollow cube made from carbon fibre, painted and texture to look like a brick.
Maybe it wasn’t too late to go overboard
It rolled past the factory and the ranks of newborne airliners waiting their own turn to fledge .Crowds had gathered at the airport fence to wave it farewell. Two fire engines formed an arch with water at the threshold to the runway to give one last wash.
Antares came to a halt at the start of the runway, waiting.
Jet tapped a finger on the handrest.
The engines woke with a howl. Jet felt her heart skip. Nothing happened for an instant. All four engine pairs shrieked in a chorus as they wound up to their maximum power. Within a heartbeat, the brakes released and an invisible hand crushed her back into the seat.
Her own accelerometers gave a confused error, as software tried to account for the acceleration, while her body knew it was seated. She had to consciously keep her drives from compensating.
Within six seconds, they exceeded a hundred kilometres an hour. Respectable for a car. Insane, for over three hundred tons.
Another rock, or another seam in the concrete, sent a hard shock up through the jet’s frame, followed by another, then another at an accelerating pace. All the cabin fittings threatened to shake themselves loose, being held on by the lightest possible fixing.
Runway signage flashed passed at an increasing rate. The ranks of new aircraft beyond watched with patient jealousy.
Jet could see one of the ramphands waving farewell. A startled bird rose from the grass beside the runway.
The acceleration continued, inexorable, like the hand of God pushing the aircraft forwards. Not the most powerful she’d experience, but by far and away the most irresistible.
Fifteen seconds after the brakes released, the jet reared up into the sky. The earth beyond the window dropped away at an increasing rate, falling further and further behind. It seemed for a moment that the Earth had left them, rather than the other way around.
“That was quick,” she said, struggling to find another way to describe it.
Her body still quietly warred at the conflicting sensations it was getting, sitting dead still while she launched through the sky.
Waved craft didn’t usually make her feel like this
“This is amazing, huh?” the man in the seat said to her. “Always feels good to take-off on a Seven-Fourty-Seven.”
He gestured with his arms in a way that’d make even an Italian chef feel ashamed.
Jet looked to her left. Scud clouds rolled past the window as they skimmed along the bottom of the overcast.
She smirked. “You should try being the aircraft.”
“Nah, I prefer to let someone else do all the work,” he answered with a grin.
It definitely hit differently.
The world passed beneath with a strange serenity that belied the roar of the air ripping past just the other side of the glass. She knew she could reach through and feel it tear at her fingers. She recalled the sensation of transonic shock waves falling off her body, like being caught forever in that moment where she tore through a leaf of paper.
Antares banked to the left with Mitchell Gant’s usual precision. Whether it was himself, alone, soaring through the canyons of Noctis, or at the controls of a jumbo-jet, he still flew the same way, with no wasted movement, no overcontrolling.
Antares flew like it rolled on rails.
He’d changed his body and grown the ultimate Nigel Mansell moustache, but the core of who he’d been remained the same.
In her mind’s eye, Jet could plot the arc traced by the aircraft, bringing it back around to the threshold of the runway, still gathering speed.
Antares dropped below the cloud again, right at the runway threshold. The world beneath flashed by, the jealously waiting airliners and crowds of wellwishers staring up as it raced overhead. A quick rock of the wings from side-to-side bade farewell to the factory that’d given it life. The last 747 left the nest for the final time. With luck, it would never return.
—--
Of all the video taken of Antares departure, the one that finally achieved critical mass was a phone-camera shot of the big jumbo dissolving into the clouds, leaving only thunder in its wake. It got a spot on the local Seattle cable television news, and on a three-minutes of Aviation compilation after yet another Aerosucre jet skimming the ruins of a barn at the end of a Columbian runway,
The influencers got about editing their work, for release over the coming days. Antares took on its first mission - pleasure cruises around the L5 stations and Luna for the curious, and a demonstrator for those who might want to hire it out.
An entirely different circle of Fandom had entered her orbit, curious to see what sort of business model she’d figured out that justified dropping what they guessed was half a billion dollars on the last Brand New Boeing 747.
It seemed utterly insane to her, that they took her seriously. People, after all, only did things like that for rational, cold, hard, capitalist reasons. There had to be some big cash bonanza behind it, something they were hungry to be a part of.
Nobody after all, did anything like that for shits and giggles.
She mulled it over while she watched the big jumbo dock with Stellvia from Megs. Another group disembarked. After a few rest hours, the final group would board for the final trip, and then there’d be a short hop to John Henry for the first load of reactor parts and its true working life would begin.
She’d found a table in the corner of the bar where she could work on a laptop, filtering through some of the job offers, while enjoying a steaming hot coffee.
“May I join you?”
Jet looked up. Yayoi Fujisawa stood waiting, still wearing her flightsuit and pilot’s jacket, while carrying a tray with a teapot, cup, and a plate of biscuits.
Jet closed the laptop lid and transferred the display back to her mind’s eye. “Sure, I’m just doing a little work.”
“Thanks.”
Yayoi sat opposite, carefully placing her tray on the table, before setting about pouring herself a steaming cup of green tea.
“Enjoy the flight?”
Obviously, judging by the look on her face. She beamed like she’d just gotten off her favourite ride at the funfair. Yayoi looked up, then out the window to the decking arm where Antares had been parked. She thought a moment.
“It’s definitely different to any ship I’ve flown.” she said. “It feels more like an aircraft, that just happens to be a fencraft, rather than a fencraft that happens to be built from an aircraft.” She saw the smile on Yayoi’s face broaden.“It really is a happy airplane.”
“Everyone who's flown it has said that.” said Jet, before taking a sip of coffee.
“Hmmm….” Yayoi thought a moment. “It’s definitely something in the wave.”
So, she understood it aswell.
“You think of all the people who worked on it, and all the ones built before. There were people on the production line who’d done nothing but build 747’s their entire working life, and they knew this was the last one they’d ever build. That’s ten thousand people who wanted that aircraft to fly.”
A little spark of realisation seemed to light inside Yayoi’s eyes.
“So that’s the real reason you bought it?”
Jet gave her a rueful smile. “I’d love it to be, but I only figured it out when I picked up the keys.”
Yayoi took a moment to take a sip of tea, before carefully place the cup
“A lot of people are curious,” she said. “A lot of the businesspeople are wondering what the model is. Padraig O’Neill just ordered his own, just in case there was something he wasn’t seeing.”
“I remember his vlog.” Jet did her best to match the mouth-full-of-marbles that was the D4 accident. “How did that foking skobe manage to boy a Boeing?”
Yayoi covered her mouth with a hand to hide a giggle. “He was pretty annoyed.”
Fucking with that Castlerock gobshite’s head brought a smile to Jet’s face. Making him dump millions into the money furnace, more so. Especially because he actually cared.
“I think a lot of people assume that if you spend that much money on something, it’s because it’s going to make even more money, faster than if you just stuck it in the market.” She took a breath. Of course, the accountants had done there job and made sure she had an intimate understanding of how that worked. “Well there’s the assumption you want to make money, and that everybody thinks like that.”
Yayoi refilled her teacup from the clay pot.
“I think, people tend to assume their own motivations in others.” She said, before taking another sip of her tea. “When Stellvia first launched, given the amount of money Noah sank into making it happen, a lot of people were asking the same questions. It was a lot of money and no obvious gain.” She paused a moment, to consider where exactly they were seated “At first.”
Jet felt herself compelled to look around the bar, and everything that’d been built up beyond it.
“I’ve said it before,” said Jet. “I just wanted rid of Stingray and the hassle. If I could get something out of it that I needed, then it was a bonus.”
Yayoi actually blinked at that. It’d taken her completely by surprise. She thought a moment, just long enough stir up a pot of self-consciousness in the back of Jet’s mind.
It really did sound so incredibly stupid when said like that. So much money, burned. Half a billion dollars.
Put like that, it could really haunt someone’s soul for the rest of their life.
After what seemed an interminable pause, Yayoi finally spoke.
“That amount of money could really change your life, if you’re not ready for it. That would be pretty frightening.”
Exactly!
“You ever hear of Jack Whittacker?”
“I remember Noah mentioning his name,” said Yayoi. She thought a moment. “He was a businessman. He won the lotto, then he lost everything.”
The short version of a horror story.
“The money was like an albatross. His life was ruined..” Jet explained “I wanted rid of Stingray and I didn’t want to be a billionaire.” Jet paused a moment as she realised exactly what she was saying. She felt a nervous chuckle rise from her throat. “That probably sounds insane.”
Yayoi actually smiled at her.
“Not at all,” she said.
Jet settled as far back into the chair as it allowed her. Nobody else would ever understand.
It didn’t matter. It’d pay its running costs. And of all the things she’d done, it was the one that people actually seemed to get excited about.
“So what are your plans for it? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“I don’t know,” said Jet. “Charter work mostly, just have to show up on time, then let someone else worry about filling it.” The least risky of the three Boeing Business Models. She paused. “Maybe when the special project’s finished, see if anyone’s planning a mission out into the wild and get away from it all for a bit.”
Both found themselves looking out the window at black beyond.
Something to look forward to, at least, thought Jet.
------
Mitchell Gant first appeared in a story 11 years ago talking about how much he liked flying a 747. That's such a long time ago.
Started February 21st - Hence the 'recent war scare' - which has aged like the 'War Scare that'd passed by October 1939' in the War of the Worlds.
-----
Jet's on 'medical' leave due to burnout and it's time to put Sylia Stingray out to sleep. But winding up Sylia's affairs has its complications.
-------
Jet found it strange that, of all the things she’d done in her life, dialing a phone would rank one of the most unnerving.
“Hello, Boeing Commercial Aircraft Sales, this is Karen Pulaski speaking. How can I help you today?”
How bizarre it seemed. This thing was worth more than most of Fenspace. The person on the other end of the line sounded like she was selling washing machines.
“My name is Jet - Jet Jaguar - I’m asking after a 747 that’s still unsold?” said Jet, doing her best to sound like she bought 4-engine wide-body aircraft all the time and not like someone asking after ‘The Car you have up on the DoneDeal. “The original customer was sanctioned and it was never delivered?”
The sound of rapid-fire typing carried across the line, filling out the various forms in a database required to log all contacts.
“Yes, that is correct, although the production line has closed, that aircraft is currently available for sale.” Tap-tap-tap on the keyboard. “Which airline do you represent?”
The oil sheikhs would’ve already dialed in to a different line with an altogether more fawning staff.
“I don’t represent an airline. I’m working for a mining company. We need something we can use for industrial transport in space.”
The typing stopped.
“I think you may be calling the wrong number ma’am. I’m sure there’re a number of used airframes that could be retrofitted that would meet your needs and would be more viable from an economic standpoint. I know a few people who’ve gotten some fairly old airframes flying again, for scrap value.”
Obviously trying not to sound condescending, but at the same time - Jet got the impression she wasn’t the first person from Up to ring about an aircraft or two.
“I‘ve thought about it. We need the cargo-deck volume. This is the only way to get it.”
Short of designing and building something, from the ground up - which had a lead time when starting from scratch. The first Miriya had been wrecked before it could be waved. The second had become a national treasure.
The last 747 had the sole advantage that it existed and nobody cared about it. It languished in a boneyard, half-finished.
“That’s not what I meant. Even as an undelivered aircraft, the costs involved in completion and delivery are significant. We would need to see some - financial backing - for such an order.”
Again, trying really hard not to be blunt. After all - there were those in Fenspace who definitely could plop just that amount of cash on a status symbol. The only reason they, or the usual Sheikhs hadn’t turned it into a flying monument to wealth’s lack of taste was because it’d been built as a freighter.
Jet took a breath - a sinking feeling setting into the pit of her stomach.
Lun had cost a fair amount. It’d been mostly paid for by Great Justice. The cost for purchasing, lifting, fitting out and operating Lun would be pocket change compared to this. Lun weighed more - and could carry maybe a fifth of the load.
“I can offer you a company,” Jet said, taking a breath.
Silence sat on the end of a line for what seemed like eternity. Jet pursed her lips.
“Okay,” answered Karen. “What do you propose?”
The typing began again. Jet really hadn’t expected to get this far.
“It’s privately held,” Jet answered. “Through a shell, I have a stake in a business called Stingray Motor Engineering. It already does some small things for the aero industry - it’s already a supplier to Boeing, on the MD-10 life extension program.”
A different kind of silence. Jet sucked on her lip. A shiver of tension rippled through her frame. She half-hoped to be thanked for her call, followed by a hang-up as abrupt as a trap-door opening.
“Oh.” So, not a complete loon. An actual flicker of interest - this may be a genuine lead - the first one this particular Karen had encountered in a long time. “I see. I’ll have to talk with my manager on this - it’s a little unusual. We’ll probably need your vendor code and a few other details to confirm.”
She had them to hand. The engineer who’d come up with the idea of using the SCHMU to run off patterned aero parts with the spare machine time had, inadvertently, signed the death warrant for the company he worked for.
That one engineer would pay for a 747. He would probably never know it.
Jet felt a nervous giggle rise in her throat - a bright spark of excitement that quivered inside her and shone in the back of her mind - a sensation that seemed strangely alien.
She found it hard to remember the last time something inside her had sparked like that.
“This is a little unusual for me too,” she said.
“Well, there’s always a first time,” the voice on the other end of the phone audibly smiled. “It’s certainly not the strangest thing somebody’s offered to pay for a new aircraft with.”
“I’ve left a message for my manager Andy to give you a call back. We can start qualifications and build up a user requirement specification. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”
“No. That’ll be it.”
“We’ll be in contact soon to commence the official process. We look forward to doing business with you Jet. Thank you for calling Boeing Commercial Aircraft Sales.”
-Click-
Jet stood alone in her apartment, filled with a sensation she didn’t quite recognise, but, when she put her mind to it, thought that it felt….
…good.
—-
The shine wore off after the first half-dozen meetings. Mission definitions, user requirements specifications, engineering requirements, designs, corrections, approvals. They never ended. Each one in a different room which, at the same time, managed to feel like the exact same Place, whether it was Seattle, Chicago or Washington D.C. Paintings of the same historic aircraft hung on walls veneered in the same shade of pine. The corridors all had the same corporate blue trim. The only change from meeting to meeting had been the depth of the lacquer on the table, and the quality of the lunch on offer as things steadily got more serious and the chance of this becoming an actual paid project got higher.
This was nothing like ordering a Blackbird, or from any other Fen vendor. There’d be a background check - an online configurator, a meet and greet to see if the Bird and the Buyer would get along, some lessons for the newbies, a small ceremony and away you go. Barely more complicated than buying a car, when you thought about it.
Jet wondered if the legal fees alone accounted for the cost of a new Blackbird.
In her corner, she had a pair of solicitors who came from a firm Noah Scott had recommended for winding up Sylia’s affairs, and an accountant who had a love for the art of numbers and finance Jet couldn’t hope to understand but could half-respect. The Troika handled the payment’s side of things on her behalf - untangling the Profeta-proof mess that was Sylia Stingray, gaining themselves some Cthulhu Mythos points, then putting the best foot forward before their higher paid and much more numerous counterparts from Boeing, and doing their damnedest to get a good value deal.
One of the Boeing engineers, a man named Hank, had a ring-binder on the table in front of him with a computer render of a 747 jet on the cover. His hair had turned the colour of cigarette ash. He’d been with the company for some time, with a broad face, short cut hair and a relaxed kind of smile that advised he had very little left to worry about. He was the only person in the room wearing a polo-neck and chinos. He wore a Rolex watch with an orange bolt of lightning for the second hand – a reward for decades of service.
Hank Mclean was the sort of man who sold Airplanes and Airplane accessories his entire working life, and was happily nearing the beginnings of retirement once he’d brought a long-running program to an end.
He opened the binder to the cover page. It already has a serial number, and buyer-specific model-code.
747-877F 77001/1574 Customer Proposal Document.
He starting leafing through papers showing flashes of technical drawings, calculations and executive summaries that Jet’d already seen and struggled to pour through in detail.
“From a technical standpoint, we’ve reached a project that’s feasible,” he said, giving Jet a reassuring smile. “I still wouldn’t want to do it on a passenger aircraft but I confirm it can be built”. He looked to the woman in a suit to his right, waiting for a short nod from her. “I’ve itemised the works needed, everything from reinforcing the upper-deck floors and cargo-deck, structural reinforcement of the hull for external loads, additional cargo-handling equipment, engine changes, installation and fit-out of additional crew rest area and Skyloft aft of station 2200, to stripping the current paint, and adding the silica heat-shield lacquer from the 3707 project. Total additional weight will be thirty thousand pounds.”
At each step, he showed coordinate sheets, technical specifications and amendments to drawings. The level of detail alone, raised headaches.
Handwaving it actively made it worse on many fronts. Less payload than the factory stock model. Almost as efficient per ton-mile than the original 747-100. At least, in atmosphere.
Nobody knew the cost per mile of open space. Nobody knew how fast it’d go, how much fuel it’d burn, or how far it’d go when freed from the requirement to obey the laws of physics. Airlines cared about shit like that. They cared about risk. Maybe that’s why they hadn’t gone in big yet.
The woman at the centre of the meeting smiled at her, as she placed her own ring binder on the table. This one, filled with printouts of spreadsheets, financial projections and a rainbow of charts and graphs. They’d paid for their Microsoft Excel package, and seemed determined to show it.
Boeing had guessed based on running data from Lun - which weighed about the same, with the same propulsion arrangement.
“Here I’ve itemised. Certification. Testing. Legal fees. Flight crew hours. Simulator hours. Changes to operating manuals and flight procedures. We think we can avoid type-conversion issues through some software changes to treat the twin-engine pods as a single power unit, but the regulators will decide that, and those costs will be extra”
Jet couldn’t help but note how hard she’d tried to make it clear she was the most important person in the room. She had the most expensive looking watch on her wrist. Her blond hair had been carefully sculpted into a short page-boy cut. Even the carbon-grey weave of her suit projected a deliberate sort of power.
Janet Pearson had taken a lot of effort to make it clear she was the one in charge. Even though her lips turned into a smile, her eyes remained hard and sharp. She ran an obsidian pen through another itemised worksheet, carrying momentum with her.
“I’ve also added our Startup airline assistance program. Customer home-base pre-preparation. Customer basic crew-training. Boeing substitute crew provision for first-flight and early operations. Maintenance contracts. Maintenance crew training and certification. Boeing Analytics and predictive maintenance service. Boeing fuel dashboard service.Standard certified parts package…”
The overwhelming sense Jet got was that she didn’t belong. Jet was the virus surrounded by the white blood cells - tolerated solely because she’d found the secret sauce that let her slip through.
“That’s a lot.” she said, betraying her true self.
Jet looked to the lawyers beside her, surprised that she’d spoken out of turn. All the negotiations had been finished. The deal had already been done. The engineer seemed to empathise.
“The economics of operating something like this is completely different from what you expect. This is not salvage from a boneyard. If it’s not working for you, it will very quickly start working against you.”
They’d even drafted a business model showing just how well it could do that - of course, consuming plenty of spare parts and services along the way. They had three models prepared, each of which proved beyond doubt that buying this jet would be an excellent investment.
With Boeing’s help, the new airline would be a profound success and everyone made money off that.
Jets eyes fell towards the number on the page - the final tally. She felt herself stop breathing - still disbelieving that Stingray could ever have been valued that high. The accountants had actually apologised to her - they’d gotten less than half what they originally asked for.
The true terror, was that, even with all the i’s dotted, t’s crossed and palms greased, there would still be leftovers. On a scale that seemed impossible to approach on a human level.
“Once this document is signed, the order will be placed, as per the above agreement,” said Janet. A blank space for her signature already waited on the page.
It’s not actually real money, she tried to remind herself. It was, almost, enough to make the Noah Scott’s of the world think twice. Jet felt herself shiver inside.
“I’ve never spent this much money before.” The words spilled from her mouth before she could catch herself. Once again, revealing to all present that she didn’t belong in this world. She felt the ripple on the room - a momentary shock.
The mask on Janet’s face cracked – her eyes brightening just a little. “The second time's a lot easier.”
For just a moment, she showed her true personality. Enough to make her trustworthy. Jet took a breath, and picked an obsidian pen up between two metal fingers.
“Fuck it.”
It took a lot of concentration to keep from crushing the pen through the paper as she traced through her name
Everyone stood, answering her signature with a round of applause. Janet kept smiling.
“Congratulations on ordering a brand new 747 - dash - 8 F”
She got the sense that, through it all, they were actually genuinely glad. Not for the money, or the sales targets - but something else Jet couldn’t quite define.
The book was closed on her signature and the process became inevitable. The lawyers, solicitors and barristers would commence their paper-pushing and fee accumulation. The engines would be built on Atalante, podded up and shipped to Boeing. Boeing would modify the shell, fit the new pods and give it the most intricate and delicate handwashing since Marie-Antoinette spotted a mote of dust on her finger.
Within two weeks, Stingray Motor Engineering would be assimilated by the conglomerate - its technological and managerial distinctiveness being added to Boeing. Sylia would, briefly, become wealthy enough to appear on the Fenspace 50, and then vanish with her obscene wealth to a life of indolent comfort and non-existence, while the money sat in escrow prior to delivery. Whatever the hell happened after that, Jet didn’t know and decided she’d probably feel guilty about it if she did.
And with it came the right and privilege to never, ever have to answer another bloody Stingray email again.
—-
—---
Jet found herself compelled to watch the project’s progress on the web. Rampant speculation amused in a way the official status reports from Boeing didn’t.
Could there be such a thing as positive trolling? Where the world responded with amusement, curiosity and delight, rather than disgust and anger.
The Twitterati spotted 1574 being moved from the boneyard where it’d been stored since Volga-Amur AirFreight had gotten beaten to death by the EU Sanctions stick. They’d seen it land still wearing its factory green clearcoat at Paine field, before being rolled back in to the factory in Everett.
They’d spotted the first few test flights with its new engine arrangements and came to the natural conclusion; Boeing had started work on modifying the B-52 series to be space capable – suitable for another half century of service.
StellviaCorp officially denied purchasing it, and wanted to talk to whomever had.
CHOAM, denied purchasing it, before announcing negotiations with Antonov for the remaining AN-225.
Antonov airlines released an annoyed statement confirming the surviving AN-225 airframe would never, ever be sold, so stop asking.
Nope, not us, announced the Rockhounds, even if it would’ve been cool. The purchase could not be economically justified.
Benjamin had been proud to say he’d put the engines into it, confirming that the USAF had nothing at all to do with it.
Russia’s crash program to make some of their TU-22’s spaceworthy necessitated a response from the USAF anyway. China would match. The Doomsday dance of the old world still continued, even if the music had slowed again after the recent war scare.
Frigga rolled on by itself, the duties of a burned-out baron being relegated to a rubber stamp and a pretty face for the ceremonial stuff. Frigga had begun to work on its own, more or less.
A few messages flashed through her mind - mostly inane things - a few queries for Asagiri - nothing fancy, someone from a school in South Carolina asking about their nuclear technician’s watches, and the usual administration needed for Great Justice, Her Majesty’s Revenue and the daily I Am Actually Looking After Myself log.
She still hated it.
The final message sent a thrill up her spine, answered by a shiver in her heart.
Invitation to a special event for valued Boeing customers.
Featuring the simultaneous rollout of our first customer 3-707, and our final customer 747.
After the long wait, it was finally done. The jet was ready.
A sudden dread settled over her. There would be actual people there who could afford one of them out of pocket - the oligarchs of the universe who wouldn’t think twice about dropping a couple of hundred million on a spacecraft.
—-
Jet hated mundane traffic control. It meant having to know what a squawk was, how to fly a traffic pattern and that airspace came in classes. She had to take her little slot of sky, ahead of some widebody full of holidaymakers and behind a Corporate Gulfstream.
The veneer of mutual aviation competence lasted until someone started meowing like a cat on the emergency frequency, followed by another gruff, frustrated voice answering with an unfunny complaint. Within moments, the entire frequency had been jammed up moaning about Guard and meowing for fifteen minutes.
While waiting for a landing clearance, Jet amused herself by using her Foxhound’s electronic warfare suite to identify exactly what airlines had been doing it. After an hour circling while the great and good were permitted to run straight in, clearance to land finally arrived.
Jet worked the throttle of her Foxhound, trying to keep it just above the stall, riding the buffet all the way down to a landing on the numbers at Paine field. Boeing had already prepared a parking spot, segregated from the real aircraft.
The black dagger-like shape of Magnificent Midnight, basking under the afternoon sun, sat beside the white lunchbox that was the Epsilon Blade.
At least, she thought, she’d have someone to talk to.
A Follow-Me car waited at the end of the runway with its orange lights flashing. It led her to a segregated part of the airfield, with the other Fencraft that’d made the journey.
Jet left the Foxhound to the ground-crew, following a chaperone in a Hi-vis jacket. She hid her body beneath a silver cloak, pulling it tight to keep from freaking the mundanes.
A woman with a clipboard, a smile and a neat blouse with a Boeing pin shining on her chest, met her at the glass door of the Boeing Customer Experience Centre.
“Hi Jet! Thanks for coming. I’m Julia and I’m here to show you to the reception,” she said - her face lit up by the same plastic, corporate smile that made Jet secretly wonder if Julia actually hated the people she met in her day to day life.
“Thanks,” Jet managed to say, trying to hide that shiver of discomfort.
The Centre had, of course, been designed to give the Tour of Wonder to visiting executives - showcasing the moneymaking possibilities of the most modern Boeing products, including the upcoming 3-707.
The 747-series had already been condemned to the ‘history’ section.
She was always late to the fandom, Jet thought. When everyone else was getting out, she was just getting in. Everything had been said, all the fun had been had, and nothing now was left but the long stagnant rundown.
The feeling of being completely out of place crawled down her throat as she was led through galleries of old aircraft models and unbuilt prototypes.
“Just this way, Jet…” Julia beckoned her forward with a clipboard.
“Thanks,”
Another short corridor led to a set of closed double doors, with a single armed security guard outside. Julie pushed the doors open, leading her to a large reception hall, already filled with people. The far wall where there should have been windows to let one look out over the airfield had been hidden by curtains. Models of Boeing aircraft stood on pedestals, around which people gathered. There were those who wore suits and ties, and those who wore bisht and keffiyeh. Everyone had an entourage, of sorts. Security guards, assistants, or peons.
Was that Michael O’Leary with Noah Scott?
Jet got the sense that she lowered the tone of the room by at least a couple of Octaves. There was more money in that room than any human being should ever rightfully have. These were people who looked down on the owners of Rolex watches as being cheap. Jaeger-LeCoultre at least was the minimum requirement for entry, with Patek Philippe or A. Lange und Sohn being preferred.
Jet made her way across the floor to a table of sandwiches - to see what sort of ham and cheese billionaires ate.
She thought she could spot the true executives, from the private jet buyers - they sort of segregated themselves into their respective cliques. Some to gloat over how much they could afford. Others to gloat over how much profit they could make. Some key suppliers could be identified by the pins on their ties - men who looked like they’d been extracted from the sixties and been teleported into the present day, wearing their smart casual corporate uniforms
General Electric, Pratt and Whitney and Rolls Royce had their representatives. Jet tried not to be amused at the sight of Gina Langley turning a shade of red angrier than the dress she wore, because one of the Sheikhs would obviously only speak to Benjamin.
Gina noticed Jet just in time to give her an excuse to leave before something happened that a Sheikh would regret. Gina made her way through the crowds, joining Jet at the sandwich table.
“So, you got an invite?”
Jet swallowed a mouthful.
“I almost wish I didn’t.” she said. She looked at all the money strolling around her. “I don’t belong here.”
“You get used to it.” Gina assured, with an easy smile. “You’ve dressed up.”
“I think showing up naked would’ve given the mundanes a conniption.”
Naked, for Jet, of course being hard, bare armour.
“Not just the coat, but the hair and makeup,” said Gina. “Long hair’s a really good look.”
Six months without a cut had it already reaching the small of her back
“Thanks,” said Jet, feeling a bright smile across her lips. After six months, Gina had been the first to actually comment on it. “That’s a nice dress.”
It had an unnatural, glass-like shimmer, like a layer of varnish over the iridescent red fabric beneath.
“Venusian silk,” said Gina with a smirk, and a shrug of her shoulders. “I’d still prefer to wear my flight-suit over something like this, but some of these old fossils would probably get offended, and, well, this is a big door to open up so we have to learn to hold our noses.”
Gina made a show of pinching her nose.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this amount of money in a room before,” said Jet.
“You should see the Nikaido foundation charity auction, sometime,” said Gina.
“They don’t invite people like me to that,” said Jet. Thankfully.
Once again, Jet sensed she’d gotten the worst side of the whole deal. Boeing got a brand new technology to take it to space. Benjamin and Gina got a buyer with big damned pockets for their engines. Jet got a… jet.
“Is that a Bin Laden?” asked Gina, pointing towards a tall middle-eastern gentleman wearing a finely tailored suit. His name had been embroidered into the pinstripes of his suit.
“I think that’s the older brother,” said Jet. Her muse confirmed it. “The one that’s perpetually embarrassed by the kid doing silly things”
The smile was the same - the grown up version of a child’s ‘I did something really naughty and you can’t catch me’ smile - even while he shook hands with another man in a grey suit wearing an AerCap tie. The pin-stripes on his suit had been embroidered with his name in micro-detail.
There were those who had to demonstrate their wealth. There were those who didn’t. Then there was Jet.
“I’m sensing a theme among the crowd.”
“The testicle owners club?”
Jet raised an eyebrow, before giving a soft, content smile. “I hadn’t thought of it that way,” she said. “A lot of people said that about Sylia too. She wasn’t a member of the club.”
It’d been one of the few times her appearance had threatened to cross the line into an identity.
“It’s nice to break the combo,” said Gina. “Isn’t it?”
Jet hadn’t really thought she counted, but couldn’t really figure out how she wouldn’t. She supposed, she didn’t really feel it in the same way Gina would.
On a flash of an idea, she smirked, unclasped her cape, and handed it to one of the event attendants to put away. A ripple passed through the crowd as more and more eyes turned in her direction, before consciously snapping away to avoid being caught staring.
What the fuck is that?
Did Boeing truly understand who and what they’d invited?
The whispers died down quickly. Obvious Jet was just one of those people from up there. And one who wasn’t afraid of showing who and what she was in her spacesuit. They didn’t need to know her armour didn’t come off. Twenty years of Fenspace and the wave had made the unusual ordinary.
“That’s better,” said Jet.
Gina gave an amused, “Hmm”
Another man entered the room, wearing the Business-Casual uniform of Corporate America. One or two rungs above the McManagement level.
“Guess we’re about to start,” said Jet.
He stepped up to the podium, leaning into the microphone.
“I’d like to introduce Rachel Homey, CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes,” he said, before stepping aside.
Jet blinked. She recognised the name. She recognised the woman who entered from a side-door
“She worked for Stingray,” said Jet, to Gina.
“As what?”
“She ran Detroit for the last two years.”
Again, Gina gave an amused “Hmmm.”
Jet remembered why Rachel’d gotten the job in the first place and decided not to say anything more.
Unlike Sylia, Rachel had always preferred the cool, professional air of a well-tailored business suit. She’d been the person who’d spend a thousand dollars on a pair of piano-black leather shoes, to avoid giving the impression she’d spent a thousand dollars on a pair of shoes.
Only those who mattered, would notice. Those who wouldn’t notice, didn’t matter. She didn’t need to make a statement like Sylia.
Rachel stepped up onto the podium, and took a moment to let the murmur in the crowd die down.
“Thank you,” she said. “Ladies and Gentlemen. We stand at a confluence of ages. At a point of inflection in the history of the aerospace industry.”
A pause to let the words settle on the crowd.
“After nearly sixty years and one thousand, five hundred and seventy four delivered aircraft, the Seven Forty-Seven program and its legacy will now begin its passage into history. Fittingly, the final Seven-Forty-Seven to be delivered will be the one to bring that legacy to the stars.”
The curtain dropped on cue, giving Jet her first look in person at the aircraft.
It greeted her with the same view that’d greeted a billion travelers waiting to board for the last sixty years. Looking up at its cockpit windows reminded her of the statues from Easter island, with the eyes perched at the top of a long nose that reached down to meet her.
Aside from double-up engine nacelles with their vortex dissipators, there was little to hint at it being anything more than standard aircraft. A few reaction control jets had been faired in on the nose and tail, some extra fairings had been added to the aircraft's back, and it’d gained some stub fins on the tail assembly - possibly stolen from a 737 judging by the size.
Bare metal had been lacquered to shine, with a only a matt-black patch under the cockpit windows to keep the glare down, and a single white and midnight-blue cheatline along the flanks of the fuselage, echoing the dawn of the jet-age.
“Antares will serve as the pathfinder for a Boeing conversion program for existing aircraft, applicable to both passenger and freight aircraft, providing an exciting new value proposition for our customers’ existing fleets, compatible with all of their existing infrastructure .”
A few hands golf-clapped in feigned appreciation. The photographers took their pictures. Nobody had come to see yet another Jumbo Jet. Most likely owned one, or had already had theirs turned into coke cans in favour of something newer, sleeker and more efficient.
“Oh wow,” said Jet. She found herself unable to say anything else. The renders and photographs never did justice to the size of the thing.
“Joining it,”Rachel continued with appropriate corporate bombast “Will be the first of a brand new generation of aerospace craft, our first customer delivery of the new Boeing Three-Seven-Oh-Seven, our first true Interplanetary liner, carrying the legacy of the first Seven-Oh-Seven, Seven Forty-Seven and Triple-Seven, bringing safe, cheap and reliable interplanetary travel to more people than ever before.”
The second curtain dropped to the floor. The applause began, followed by the chattering of cameras eager to get a photograph of Boeing’s newest and greatest achievement.
It sat on the tarmac shining a brilliant Eurowhite under the afternoon sun, with flowing ribbons of sky-blue paint hinting at high speed airflow over a javelin-like fuselage. A pair of silver arrow barbs projected from both sides of a bodkin-point nose, with a single fletched stabiliser on the tail.
A pair of stub wings supported two engines each, slung below, looking like oversized missiles.
It exuded a sense of pure, air-piercing speed.
“The new Three-Seven-Oh-Seven can deliver a hundred and fifty passengers from New York to Sydney in under two hours, or from New York to Mars in Five. The boarding gate of your local airport will be your gateway to the universe.”
Beside its sleek granddaughter built specifically for spaceflight, Antares seemed oddly cobbled together - its original smooth lines broken by the nurnies and greebles needed for spaceflight, tacked on where they needed to go rather than integrated into the original design.
Jet liked that - something of an aeronautic Freakshow, to reclaim the slur.
Only a few stragglers cared enough to join Jet at the window, staring up at the waiting Jumbo. A man stepped up beside her.
Noah Scott, wearing his usual vacuum-ready middle-management office suit - well loved, but cleanly pressed, and just a little bit loose. Of all the people in the room, he was the only one to wear a Casio watch.
He’d dressed for business spaceflight, the same way he always had.
Jet felt insects crawl under her armour and across her chest. They lived in such different orbits of fandom - they normally only ever interacted when something drastic happened. Like the Quattro thing, the Genaros thing…. And Asmodeus Grey.
Noah smiled at her. “I thought this was for Boeing customers only,”
I thought this was for people who - you know - were of a different sort of class.
“Ah, yeah,” she feigned a sheepish grin. “That one’s mine.” A single steel finger pointed out the window at the Jumbo.
Which kind of begged the question - which one was his?
“I knew something was up,” said Noah. “Ever since the Stingray merger.” he paused. “That is a lot of money.”
Surely it could’ve been used for something sensible, like property and stock-market investments, luxurious stays on Stellviacorp properties, and getting whole-body plated in 24-carat gold. Deep in her secret heart, getting herself gold plated, then hand-waxed and buffed to a high shine joined the most decadent of her private fantasies.
Jet tried to hide the smirk, even as the idea refused to die. “We need to move a lot of parts. There’s no other way,”she said. “And Antonov are very protective of the new Miriya.”
As cool as it would’ve been, nobody sane would dare even send the inquiry. Not after the last one burned.
“I never could quite get the business case to work out.”
Jet looked at him, not sure if that had been a warning, a question, or a regret.
“It helps if the value of the money used to buy it is low,” she admitted. “If it can do the job I need it to do, it’s worth it,” she said. “It’s paid for itself when its job’s done.”
“And after?” Noah asked. “Surely you’ve plans for it.”
“I don’t know,” Jet admitted.
She’d already decided she’d never scrap the thing. Sending the Knightwing to the recycler’s torch had hurt far more than she’d ever expected it to.
Noah gave her an odd look for a moment. “You do understand, the most valuable part of that entire aircraft, is the Boeing logo on the tail, and a piece of paper from the FAA telling the whole world the American government thinks it’s safe to fly.” he said. “The rest is just metal and wires flying in formation.”
Jet smirked, “Sure that’s always the way. You’re only paying for the label.”
Noah, at that moment, clearly realised he wasn’t dealing with A.C Peters. He deflated just a little, leaving Jet wondering just what she’d missed and feeling just a little insecure that she had.
Everyone around her saw the world in an entirely different manner.
“An actual N-number, a type-certificate, and an airworthiness certificate open a lot of doors,” Noah explained.
Having an N-number and a binder full of paperwork meant there was someone with deep pockets and a whole set of heavy rubber stamps guaranteeing it wouldn’t cause a problem wherever it went. Someone who, on some level, relied upon the objects they applied their rubber stamp to not falling out of the sky and causing a problem, so people would continue to trust the rubber stamp.
“We bought it to move a lot of heavy parts,” said Jet. “I still have to figure out what else I can do with it.”
It was the Mad’s maxim. Get your technical success. Figure out what to do with it afterwards. Jet recalled the warning she’d been given at the contract signing; If it’s not working for you, it’s working against you.
Noah answered her with a smile. “Something like this could be really useful for the Nikaido foundation.” he said. “The Foundation moves a lot of equipment between orbit, and Earth.”
“Sure, I’m sure something could be worked out,” she answered. She had the idea of doing it for ‘gas money’, or something like that - Jet didn’t know what yet, beyond the the idea that sending an invoice to the Nikaido foundation seemed like a bit of a shitehawk thing to do.
There was, however, one question she had to ask.
“I thought this was for Boeing customers?”
Noah answered her with a nod. “The easier it is for more people to get from Earth to Space, the better for Stellviacorp.”
He left her with that somewhat cryptic remark, and the sense that the world she’d just stepped into worked on far different rules than she’d been used to. She watched him mingle, in between the moments where she had to smile, nod, and act proud for the photographers and influencers who’d finally gotten around to being interested in Antares and asking her the same questions over and over again.
Jet watched as Noah spoke to airline owners - to the people who had the influence to make the final purchase and buy.
It took some time, and a sandwich or two, for the moment of enlightenment to strike. Noah Scott didn’t have to buy a single aircraft, to get the benefit of them existing, and flying to his hotels. You buy the plane - I’ve somewhere for it to go and make you money.
So, win-win for Noah and Boeing. Stellvia Hotels had more people coming up the well and through their doors. Boeing had evidence of a market it could offer to its customers - something that gave them access to the money they could be making but weren’t.
The whole room was sort of capitalist mass-cross-pollination.
Another part of her mind had another, far sharper, way of describing it that would cause a lot ruffled feathers.
But, at least, she thought she could see the game they expected her to play.
—---
Get your technical success, worry about what to do with it later, the mad’s maxim applied to everything. Build it, make it ‘cool’ and maybe they will come. The odd success might just cover the cost of repeated failure.
It kept the lights on. It left a landing bay full of ideas that never quite found a home, most of which dissolved into the general pool as someone took over looking after them and saved them from being cut up. Show up at Convention, show something off, and maybe somebody’d bite. Enough bites kept the lights on.
Maybe someone popular would rave about it and you’d get more sold out of their followers and fandom. Assholes of course wanted free shit to promote it. Unless you had something interesting enough that it’d be valuable to their brand, in which case maybe there could be a dealing.
In Jet’s mind, dealing with Influencers seemed a lot like paying the Danegeld.
The technical reports and flight tests had started to come in from Boeing - all the details an airline would need to put together a business model. The flight tests said it worked, and could work. It would fly safely and carry the loads it needed to carry.
Now came the figuring out what to do with it, once the project had finished.
The numbers involved, chilled her blood. If it wasn’t working for her, it’d very quickly work against her.
She found herself in the unusual position of staring at a wall of spreadsheets late into the night, trying to figure out what needed to happen to make it work. Or at least, work to the point that it wouldn’t be a noose.
An incoming call begged for her attention, one which she couldn’t dismiss.
“You're supposed to be resting,” said A.C. Her avatar rendered on Jet’s shoulder, face in a pout of irritation at having to take a personal involvement in this.
“But this is fun,” Jet answered with a smirk and a finger pointed at the screen.
The obvious counter being, it’s not exactly work or stressful if it’s fun.
“Eddie’s also annoyed at the inefficiency of it all”, said A.C., taking a breath “All that funding could’ve gone towards so many other things on this project.”
Jet wondered if she had an idea exactly how much funding there had been.
“Maybe. I know,” Jet answered with a gallic shrug. “But headaches and all that. So long as it’s a trade of one thing I don’t want, for one thing I need and it solves the problem, I’m fine with it.”
It seemed easier than staring the raw abyssal figure and its consequences in the face.
“Hmmm,” the avatar of A.C. made a show of pondering, pursing her lips slightly. “Just remember, you’re still supposed to be resting.” she said. “You’re still under doctor’s orders, off active duty.”
A polite, gentle way to remind her to go to bed, go to sleep. Don’t make me call you again.
“It’s the first time in a long time I’ve felt excited about something. Like being in an airport at the start of a long holiday.”
Jet found herself smiling - a soft, genuine smile.
“And that’s why Julian asked me to remind you to take time to rest, not to get too wrapped up rather than stop. The logs from your muse are positive - but burnout doesn’t end this quickly.”
“I still hate that.”
“You know the alternative.”
A far more firm reminder.
If you can’t look after yourself, steps would have to be taken. And Jet would have no option but to fight back because the alternative was so utterly terrifying as to be a living nightmare.
And of course the muse would pick up on those neurochemical changes and dutifully report them like the snitch it was.
Jet forced herself to take a breath, answering A.C. with a wan smile.
“I finally killed Sylia, at least,” she said, trying to change the subject. “That’s one big thing I don’t have to worry anymore,”
A.C’s avatar visibly shuddered.
“I saw Geoffrey Wilson’s gloating podcast on it.”
Jet blinked.
“You actually follow that stocking of shite?”
“I don’t have a choice,” the avatar rolled her eyes. “The amount of commenters on his Thought Leader podcast who’re also on a Justice League watchlist.”
“Sylia Stingray’s greatest victory is that……” Jet felt a savage grin crawl across her face – one of pure, vicious and spite-filled satisfaction “.....as far as all the people who wasted so much of their lives talking shite about her are concerned, she built her company, sold it all, and disappeared to a quiet life of peaceful luxury on her own private island and will never have to work another day in her life - Sylia Stingray hit the Unicorn and cashed out, while they still stack boxes for the crumbs from Jeff Bezo’s table.”
A.C. took a breath, folding her arms under her chest.
“That does take the edge off, alright.” she said. “They may have their keyboards, but we’re both wealthy, strong, intelligent, fashionable and beautiful combat cyborgs.”
Jet felt a faint chuckle leave her throat. “I amn’t sure I’m fashionable.” She’d been wearing the same thing for over fourteen years, after all. A little spark lit inside her, and she found her mouth moving . “In a weird way, he convinced me to take the Oath of Venus.”
The avatar moved her hands to her hips. Really, Jet?
“And here I always thought it was because of the Mackie accident,” the Avatar feigned surprise. “You mean to tell me you lied to your doctor. In the same of Sir Alex Ferguson what shall we do with you?”
“Well, it was that - but, more than that too,” she smiled back. “The more those tech bros talked shit about her, the more I wanted to be her just so they wouldn’t be able to gloat over the truth.” They would never, ever have stopped gloating if they’d discovered the truth.. “After the Mackie accident, and living with the Knight Sabers, I just felt I had more in common with them, than who I’d used to be.”
For some reason, she found herself compelled to remember the Great Justice supply officer who’d remarked that he’d never been deep-throated by a chick who didn’t need to stop to breath
Welcome to the club, she’d been told afterwards.
“I find it helps keep them in line when they know you can crush them like an egg,” said A.C. “They get very polite after that.”
On social media, and in person.
“I think some of them might enjoy that.”
“Well,” the avatar raised an eyebrow. “If you really want to be Sylia then, prosthetics have advanced a great deal - we can have almost the same physical strength, speed, stamina and vacuum tolerance. And I’m sure we could even create a direct interface with Sylia’s hardsuit - for the best of both worlds - so the armour could go back on when you felt like it, and still be a part of you.”
Logical, when explained like that. A natural progression.
Jet felt her body inside her armour for the first time in a long time, withdrawing subtly from the plate. Her hands went to where the unlock switches on her hips still were. Of course, they didn’t work.
“It’d make a great holiday,” she said, almost disappointed that she knew what her answer would be anyway. “For a month - maybe two. Lounge on a beach with sandy toes. Get wet in a cold sea. Soak in a Hot Spring. Sleep in Satin sheets. Silk lingerie. Maybe some Company. “
A raised eyebrow, may have sent an unintended signal.
Still, without the interference's and overheads of the puppet signal - it would be hard to outright say No.
A.C. waited, seemingly knowing the answer.
“I know I’d regret it.” Jet said “This is who and what I am. Even the steel bits.” she placed her metal fingers on her breasts. “Besides, how else could I show off a figure like this”
Her hips have a subtle shake - one which drew a look of surprise from the avatar.
“Oh I’m sure something could be arranged,” said A.C. “Especially considering the available funding.”
Jet glanced at the screens.
“And what would you know about that?”
“Only what a Moodies analyst publicly valued a potential IPO at before a private sale,” said A.C, her eyes zooming in. “So, what was the final figure? Settle a bet.”
Those green eyes insisted.
Jet felt an electric thrill - a chance to brag without seeming crass.,
“One point two.” she said quickly. The avatar waited, it’s expression flattening. “One billion, two hundred and seventy-five million, four-hundred and eighty-two thousand, six hundred and eight dollars.” A pause. A.C. continued to wait.“And Seventy-nine cent”
A.C’s face scrunched into the image of disgust, like she’d just stood in something left behind by a particularly sick cat. In the back of her mind, Jet wondered if that was the real difference between the pair - A.C. always seemed to be that much freer about expressing herself
“Lebia won,” she said, with a feigned ‘Humph’
Jet assumed that Eddie, being the eternal optimist, had likely rounded it up to Eighty, and A.C might’ve taken the cent below.
Just to account for how accountants tended to round out the decimals. Of course, waiting for the cents also gave the impression that they had calculated it to that level of precision, whether they had or hadn’t.
“Sorry about that,”
Not Sorry.
“I assume you’ve made plans.”
Only after saying that, did the avatar realise who she was talking about.
“I was going to tell everyone once the details were done but - after the jet, the setup costs, everyone’s fees, the accountants, the lawyers, all the governments getting their beaks wet because this is all painfully above board,” Jet counted each one on a finger. “It all has to filter back through the same channels I used to pay the bills for the Knight Sabers, and that’s Wiz Mechatronics.”
What went in, had to come out somewhere Federal eyes could see.
Jet saw the realisation dawn inside A.C’s eyes - just a little spark. Jet’d paid her for some of the Saber’s hardware and medical bills through Wiz.
Jet took a breath, doing her damnedest to look calm, professional and give the impression like these were sums of money she talked about over breakfast and not the life-changing amounts they actually were.
Life-changing for some anyway. A busy Tuesday for others.
Her whole body buzzed, begging her to brag, demanding she shout to the heavens that she had done it. She struggled to keep the cork in.
“Basically, there’s about a five million dividend per share in Wiz - so you can work that out. For the girls, there’s a fund that’s a hundred grand a year, each.” It came out more like a train from her mouth, than a sentence. A nervous laugh. “Her majesty’s revenue are going to have a fucking cat.”
Some of those at the end of the chain would hardly blink at that amount. Then there were those who would go through it like an alcoholic who’d suddenly inherited a brewery.
Quite a few people were about to get a hell of a fright, Jet thought.
A.C’s eyebrows raised just a little.
“I hope it works out for them,” she said, after a moment.
“Yeah,” Jet breathed “I hope it works out for everyone.”
So many Lottery winners lost everything. It felt like a Lottery win - unearned, maybe undeserved, money falling down like mana from fucking heaven.
Jet, in her heart, already felt herself wandering too easily in that direction.
“Remember. Look after yourself,” A.C said, after a moment.
“Yeah,” answered Jet. She took a breath, then powered the monitors off.
The avatar, satisfied at last, gave her a quick smile, before vanishing as the connections closed.
Jet took another breath, watching her reflection in the darkened monitor screen do the same. Her eyes had a faint light in them - one that’d been gone for so long she’d forgotten what it even looked like.
First, be Kind to yourself.
—--
For all of the corporate fanciness of the Boeing Delivery Centre, and it’s function as a multi-million dollar jet dealership, the actual final handover took place in a small office just off the ramp where the airplanes had been parked.
The handover for the cameras had already occurred - this was to be a private ceremony - a little Eleusinian mystery for those with enough in the bank to pick up the keys to a big jet. Jet preferred it that way, away from the press-conferences and the smile, wave, nod and be super-proud of everything.
The lawyers made their final appearance, along with a now distinctly frazzled looking accountant. The man had definitely gained Mythos Points handling the whole affair. She recalled the first time she’d tried to hire an accountant - and how he’d ended up joining a catgirl collective. Joining them were the first flight crew - An old friend of Jet’s to fly it, a man named Kelsey who applied to be the First-Officer and Lun Alekseeva who seemed just a little out of sorts, having been shoehorned into a more traditional Pilot’s uniform to take the navigator’s desk.
Boeing had their own guarantee group, dressed in the more practical shirt and slacks rather than anything office related. One of them had been there from the start - the same engineer with the lightning-handed Rolex. He’d been joined by another, younger man who was finding it hard to keep from staring at Jet. Boeing's own lawyers flanked them on either side.
Everyone had a Boeing-provided Hi-Vis jacket for their own personal use. Jet thought to keep hers as a souvenir.
On the table between them, a stack of binders carried the paper versions of all the electronic documentation due to be sent the moment the final button was pushed.
At the centre of the table, contained in three red binders was the Boeing 747 Aircraft Readiness log - all the little checks made to prove it was ready for handover. Four more ring binders carried the paperwork for all of the engines. Every last bolt, screw and lightbulb had its own certification paperwork, somewhere, explaining exactly where it came from, who had made it, and who had made the machines they used.
Legal paperwork lived in simple brown paper folders, waiting for the final signature.
Mitchell Gant, the man who’d taken it up for it’s first flight, and would fly it for the foreseeable future as captain, took a breath.
“We had an issue with a fuel flow indicator,” he said. “Otherwise, it’s a happy airplane. Really good to fly.”
The younger of the Boeing engineers looked at his notes, flipping through a few pages in his clipboard. “Loose connector in the equipment bay,” he said. “All other outstanding items on the readiness list are complete.”
Jet took a slow breath, glanced at Mitchell to her right, then at the laptop in front of her. Mitchell gave her soft smile to reassure. It was a good aircraft.
“And now for the final paperwork,” said Hank. He’d been there since the start, since the first customer meeting. Now he was there at the end.
With one final sheet of paper, and one short blank line awaiting the customer’s signature.
Aircraft: 747-877F No. 77001/1574. Customer Acceptance of Delivery :______________
The whole room waited for her signature.
She managed not to shred the paper.
One of the lawyers spoke up. “And now, of course, all that’s left is the transfer of the funds.”
Oh. That. The fun part.
A laptop was pushed in front of her, already open to the proper escrow account. A single, obvious button waited for her to push.
CONFIRM
That was a big damned number beneath. A terrifying number
It took fifteen seconds for her to work up the nerve to press the key.
A moment of pure frission thrilled through her body as the number dropped. If that amount of money had been printed off in single dollar bills, it would’ve filled a truck. It would’ve weighed tons. It was gone.
“It’s through,” said one of the Boeing lawyers.
The thought finally occurred to her that maybe there were better things that could’ve been done with it, and that maybe, she might’ve needed to think this through more.
Hank cleared his throat and leant forward, a small brown paper pouch in his hand “This is the last time I’ll get to say this.”
Jet looked at him, feeling a mild sense of terror rise inside her and she suddenly realised she was more in love with the process of buying the jet, than the outcome of the process. She stretched a hand out.
“The transfer’s complete, the money’s in the bank, here are the keys,” Hank poured them into her open palm. “Congratulations, you just bought yourself an airplane.”
One single shot from a camera caught the flash of smile on her face before it could vanish. Cut in polished brass, the keys seemed impossibly simple, compared to the complexity of a full airliner.
“Thanks,” she managed to say. She looked at Mitchell Gant, who’d already begun to pack his leather flight bag. “I think it’s time we made a move.”
Hank held up a single finger. “ I actually have a note here from the factory.” He slipped it out from under one of the binders “They’ve checked their records and there’s one small item that’s still to be finished before we can let you fly away.” From under the papers on his desk, emerged a rectangular object - the size of a laptop - carefully wrapped in brown paper. “It’s a simple piece of trim for the cockpit - if you permit me, I’ll add it myself.”
Another small ceremony.
“I’m sure that won’t be a problem,” Jet said. A giddy thrill rolled through her body. She took another breath. She did her best to be calm, to not run for the new thing, to act like she belonged, to not make a fool of herself.
The lawyers and accountants remained behind - they’d be leaving the same way they arrived - by taxi.
Jet had a plane to catch.
Outside, a soft rain fell from the smothering blanket of grey clouds above. Water beaded and ran down her armour. She walked with her helmet still clipped to her waist, the rain wetting down her hair. Putting it on would’ve freaking the mundanes a little too much - they’d just about learned to tolerate the ‘space-suit’
The entourage walked across the parking ramp, past a rainbow row of waiting aircraft. Most had already been given their final branding, and awaited their first flights. One Japan Airlines 787 had been prepared for it’s own delivery, later in the day.
Antares towered over them all, sitting at the end of the row like a Brontosaurus that escaped from Jurassic Park, hodge-podge of frog DNA to update it for the modern era and all. Still recognisable, but obviously different to those in the know.
Of course, the twitterati complained about the pollution of the original design.
A couple of influencers joined the entourage - those with enough reach and mindshare to be worth bringing aboard for an experience flight. She’d have to speak to them of course, giving the proper hyper-cheerful interviews.
The rain stopped.
Someone held an umbrella over her head. Mitchell had snuck up on her. He’d always been damned quiet on his feet, even when he’d been a full-armour cyber. In flat shoes, with a prosthetic body, he’d startle a mouse.
“I can’t believe you actually bought that,” he said, a wry smile on his broad face.
“I needed it,” Jet said, with far more abruptness than she’d intended. “You know, I’ve never actually been on one.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“I only ever took a plane once, from Dublin to London and back again.” She knocked on her chest with a knuckle. “And then, I never had to again,”
She looked up at Antares in front of her, hooked by umbilicals to two box-like carts, feeding the aircraft with air and power.
Fuel trucks sat beneath both wings, topping off its tanks. Of course, Boeing wouldn’t give a free first fill of fuel to get it off the forecourt, that’d been itemised on the invoice too.
Full tanks cost as much as a Blackbird.
“Remember what I said when we found that Boskone shuttle,” said Mitchell. Fourteen years ago, when Jet’d been Jet, and he’d been Gant - Engel Two.
It didn’t seem that long.
It felt like it’d been the night before.
“There is nothing like the feel of a Seven-Four at full take-off thrust.” he finished.
For a heartbeat, she found herself reliving that moment fourteen years before on the bridge of a Boskone transport, poking the abyss in the eye and looking forward to the new Golden Age that followed.
For some it had been. Those who came after, or those who’d been there before.
“I’ve flown some pretty fast spacecraft since then,” she said, forcing a smile, even as she felt a cloud roll across her soul.
“This is different,” he said. “All that weight and power, it feels like God is pushing you forward. It’s an immense force.”
He made a show of pushing with his free hand.
“I wouldn’t mind having a go at that,” she said, halfheartedly.
“Real jet needs real pilot’s license,” he answered with a childish grin. “And it can’t barrel-roll.”
Jet made a show of giving him a childish pout. Her heart wasn’t in it. Her head had gone to somewhere completely different.
Mitchell Gant had gone on to become who he wanted to be. He’d become someone other than Gant the cyber. Jet had gone on to become who she was - just more of the same and less of everything else.
“It’s preflight time,” he said. “I’ll see you aboard.”
Jet guessed he’d sensed the change in her mood. She could be grateful at least, that he understood.
“Oh Wow!” a voice interrupted, speaking in that distinct ‘Youtube’ bounce where every vowel got spoken, and every single sentence had to be sold. “It’s Jet, the owner of the Seven-Four-Seven behind me. Now tell me Jet, do you always wear a spacesuit like that?”
Her muse pegged him as a popular avgeek out of Hong Kong. Her jaw opened slightly, her mind taking a few moments to catch up.
“Don’t you know? Earth’s a dangerous place,” she said.
He laughed at that old joke. Or at least, pretended to.
“So, Jet, how does it feel to own your own Seven-Four-Seven.” His camera-drone buzzed back, refocusing its light-field sensors to include both the jet, Jet and himself in the shot. “And it’s the last Sevent-Four-Seven aswell - the last one that will ever be built.”
Not as good as the idea of owning the final 747. Not as good as she thought it might. That wasn’t the answer she needed to give. She forced a smile, even if she couldn’t match the proper bouncing cadence.
“Well, we’re all excited to be part of this and to be partnering with Boeing on this project and I can see already, they’ve built a great airplane.” she took a breath. “Now it’s just about finding out what it can do.”
“Well I…” and he interposed himself between the camera, Jet and the jet, ”….am looking forward to joining you on this first flight and it is a great honour to be invited along.”
“Thanks for coming. It’ll be a good trip.”
A small part of her soul began to dread it, for reasons she couldn’t understand. What should have been the culmination of months or waiting, anticipation and excitement seemed to have grounded out.
She recalled how excitement and fear sat as neighbours on the emotional spectrum. Something else had set her off, and watching Gant go about checking over Antares gave her a hint to what it might’ve been.
Hank indicated it was time to board.
The jet loomed over her, a single portable stairway leading up to the one open door.
Jet took a breath - she could’ve lived the rest of her life in peace and leisure. Instead she bought a fucking 747 because it seemed like a good idea for half a second.
Rather than climb the steps, she jumped from the concrete to the doorway. The Boeing engineers had gotten used to it - they didn’t blink. The Avgeeks startled like sheep.
Hank waited aboard, with hi-vis and clipboard
Jet stepped forward, crossing the threshold to board her own personal jumbo-jet.
Something washed across her soul, a sensation like a tuning fork singing inside her armour. The Jedi might’ve called it a disturbance in the Force, but somehow it felt the exact opposite, almost like stepping into the sunlight, rather than being washed over in darkness.
Antares really was a happy airplane, right down to the molecules in its skin and the ‘wave in the paint. It sang with an eagerness to be and to become, like that moment of anticipation at the top of a roller-coaster ride.
She sensed everyone had begun to stare.
“It’s been a while since I was on a plane,” she said, momentarily feeling just that little bit sheepish.
“Well,” said Hank, giving her a momentarily amused look. “ if you’ll care to follow me, I’ll give you the tour.”
Jet followed him through the usual Tour of Wonder, being introduced to the various features of her new aircraft. The fragrance of jet-fuel and fresh plastic lingered in the air, mingling with hot ozone from the ventilation and the dryness of new carpet. The cabin lights shone bright and sharp as daylight.
The galleys, the crew bunks, a half-dozen luxurious business-class-style seats, the cargo equipment and hatches, the sheer vastness of the cargo space compared to many other fencraft, and how it all descended from the first prototype that flew five months before man first walked on the Moon.
Of course, he demonstrated each and every single feature with beaming pride, all the way from the aft pressure bulkhead that kept the air in, to the cockpit on the upper deck, looming high over the concrete apron below.
Antares had a density of purpose and being, a depth of existence when compared with the last Fencraft she’d hitched a ride on. It had a detail and texture missing from most Fenships - a depth of structure and function that went beyond the surface. Each light, each switch, each label served a specific and necessary function. The greebles on the walls and deckplates served a purpose, in the way those aboard Lun never actually did, beyond being there because they looked like they needed to be.
Surrounded by a half-dozen people who buzzed in delight over every single one of them, Jet felt the dread sense settle on her shoulders that having herself involved would ruin it somehow. She felt her self withdraw inside her armour, wrapped in the sensation that the thing which brought them so much happiness would probably get itself slowly corroded by her presence.
The tour finished back at the cockpit.
Jet, Hank, Mitchell, Kelsey and Lun, along with the entourage of influencers and their camera drones crammed themselves into a space intended to be comfortable for four people at most. Jet stood with her back to what’d been labelled the Flight Engineer’s station - even if it was nothing more than a few leftover monitor screens set into the tan plastic trim, and configured as an access point for the live information inside the quick access recorders.
Camera drones whirred, stirred by their operator’s phone’s touchscreens, drinking in each and every button for the benefits of the subscribers at home.
Hank took great care in making sure his last little trim piece had been mounted at a bubble-perfect level on the rear wall of the cockpit. Four screws held it place.
Cut from brushed aluminium, rather than the traditional brass expected by Jet, it sparked under the lights from the hungry camera drones.
The Boeing Logo in a deep lacquered blue took pride of place at the very top of the plaque - a angled sketch of an aircraft tracing an arc around the outline of the globe. Below it’d been, carefully engraved and lined in the same deep blue.
THE BOEING AIRCRAFT COMPANY
Model 747-877F No. 1574.
ANTARES
The final aircraft of its type.
“When we were told it's impossible, we knew it's the right way to be done.”
Model 747-877F No. 1574.
ANTARES
The final aircraft of its type.
“When we were told it's impossible, we knew it's the right way to be done.”
Whatever Hank had tried to say, got drowned out by the applause. In such a small compartment, it rattled the plastic trim.
Jet felt herself smile and was aware of her body applauding with them, even as her self wondered if they all truly felt so glad and excited, or were they just playing it up to the cameras.
Hank stood back a moment to admire his handiwork, before turning to face the cameras with a look on his face, like a man who’d just finished the longest, hardest work of his life, and didn’t particularly want it to end.
The satisfied melancholy that comes after a good thing that’d been good for a long time, came to a good and natural end.
“The amount of people who asked to work on this thing, it gave the floor managers headaches just finding enough screws for every hand to turn. They all wanted to be part of the last one.”
He turned to face the camera drones. “They all wanted to say I did it. I was there at the end. Now I am the last Boeing employee to assemble a part on a new Seven Forty Seven.”
A soft smile fell on his lips. He placed his commemorative screwdriver on the flight engineer’s console.
“Seniority has its privileges I guess.”
“Congratulations,” said Mitchell
“Congratulations,” said Kelsey.
“Con-gratu-lations,” bounced one of the influencers.
Only after the final screw had been turned, and the applause had died, did everything make sense.
How many thousand people had felt the same way?
“Congratulations,” she said, In a tone that reminded her of a very different ending. In that moment, a couplet came to mind - the first lines of a song that already seemed familiar, but which she couldn’t quite place.
I am the last one of my line, the last to take the throne.
Once my kind they ruled the skies, but now I reign alone.
The words played on repeat in the back of her mind as Jet recorded the same interview at least four times - the same basic question with the same basic answer, only the words that shaped them changed.
The influencers demanded to have their backs scratched.
And both Boeing and Jet needed someone to talk about the jet, to show it off, to get it noticed, to get contracts and charters to pay the bills or new orders to cover some of the sunk costs.
The speakers on the overhead chimed once, bring a hush
“Lady and Gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking,” Jet could hear the grin on Mitchell’s voice as he spoke. “I’d like to welcome you aboard this very special flight. The inaugural flight for this aircraft and this airline.”
It’s not really an airline, Jet thought.
“Our flight today will take us westbound out over the Pacific Ocean for about two hours, before we turn and begin our orbital climb. The weather is not the nicest it could be but we expect smooth sailing all the way out. We expect to arrive at station Stellvia at 4pm Station time.”
“Quick flight,” said one of the influencers.
Jet would’ve done it in minutes.
“We are very lightly loaded today and we will be giv’n’r some so this will be a faster take-off than normal, and we have been asked to make a circle back over the field before we commence our climb. Now settle back while we start our engines, and try to enjoy the ride.”
The idea of taking a seat on an airliner and buckling in struck her as utterly absurd, even as everyone else began to stare and wait for her to take the one remaining seat, right at the front beside the window.
It’d been agreed and assigned.
She thought about going overboard and watching the take-off the old-fashioned way, maybe following for some video footage, or taking a spin in the turbulence coming off the wings.
All the other influencers were there, one more ‘Mystery Iron Girl’ video after thirteen years would probably find a welcome audience.
“Don’t tell me you're afraid of flying,” said Hank, with a smirk.
“Not used to being a passenger,” she answered quickly. “Last time I took a plane was a Ryanair to Gatwick.”
A lifetime ago.
If she didn’t have to actually fly it, or talk to someone, she always stood. She moved around. She did anything but strap herself in and let the journey happen.
The lights flickered, and the engines began to howl. The frame of the aircraft fizzed as it came to life. Jet’s bones resonated in sympathy.
Everyone waited. The drones watched and circled, seeming to savour her embarrassment.
She lowered herself into a seat which managed to be uncomfortable in the same way every other seat designed for a human did. The belt strap rode in a grove in her armour. Her fingers fumbled with the buckle. Her body bristled at the idea of being strapped to a seat - even if the belt could be snapped by a flick of a wrist.
It’d been so long since she’d just been a passenger.
The aircraft juddered, and began to roll forward. The Influencers buzzed in excitement. The engines whined, pushing Antares down the taxiway. To Jet, everything felt wrong. All three hundred tons bounced over every expansion joint and pebble on the taxiway. Light plastic fittings rattled.
Lun could smash through waves. It had weight and mass - a solidity to it. Antares felt too light and too rigid for something of its size, like a hollow cube made from carbon fibre, painted and texture to look like a brick.
Maybe it wasn’t too late to go overboard
It rolled past the factory and the ranks of newborne airliners waiting their own turn to fledge .Crowds had gathered at the airport fence to wave it farewell. Two fire engines formed an arch with water at the threshold to the runway to give one last wash.
Antares came to a halt at the start of the runway, waiting.
Jet tapped a finger on the handrest.
The engines woke with a howl. Jet felt her heart skip. Nothing happened for an instant. All four engine pairs shrieked in a chorus as they wound up to their maximum power. Within a heartbeat, the brakes released and an invisible hand crushed her back into the seat.
Her own accelerometers gave a confused error, as software tried to account for the acceleration, while her body knew it was seated. She had to consciously keep her drives from compensating.
Within six seconds, they exceeded a hundred kilometres an hour. Respectable for a car. Insane, for over three hundred tons.
Another rock, or another seam in the concrete, sent a hard shock up through the jet’s frame, followed by another, then another at an accelerating pace. All the cabin fittings threatened to shake themselves loose, being held on by the lightest possible fixing.
Runway signage flashed passed at an increasing rate. The ranks of new aircraft beyond watched with patient jealousy.
Jet could see one of the ramphands waving farewell. A startled bird rose from the grass beside the runway.
The acceleration continued, inexorable, like the hand of God pushing the aircraft forwards. Not the most powerful she’d experience, but by far and away the most irresistible.
Fifteen seconds after the brakes released, the jet reared up into the sky. The earth beyond the window dropped away at an increasing rate, falling further and further behind. It seemed for a moment that the Earth had left them, rather than the other way around.
“That was quick,” she said, struggling to find another way to describe it.
Her body still quietly warred at the conflicting sensations it was getting, sitting dead still while she launched through the sky.
Waved craft didn’t usually make her feel like this
“This is amazing, huh?” the man in the seat said to her. “Always feels good to take-off on a Seven-Fourty-Seven.”
He gestured with his arms in a way that’d make even an Italian chef feel ashamed.
Jet looked to her left. Scud clouds rolled past the window as they skimmed along the bottom of the overcast.
She smirked. “You should try being the aircraft.”
“Nah, I prefer to let someone else do all the work,” he answered with a grin.
It definitely hit differently.
The world passed beneath with a strange serenity that belied the roar of the air ripping past just the other side of the glass. She knew she could reach through and feel it tear at her fingers. She recalled the sensation of transonic shock waves falling off her body, like being caught forever in that moment where she tore through a leaf of paper.
Antares banked to the left with Mitchell Gant’s usual precision. Whether it was himself, alone, soaring through the canyons of Noctis, or at the controls of a jumbo-jet, he still flew the same way, with no wasted movement, no overcontrolling.
Antares flew like it rolled on rails.
He’d changed his body and grown the ultimate Nigel Mansell moustache, but the core of who he’d been remained the same.
In her mind’s eye, Jet could plot the arc traced by the aircraft, bringing it back around to the threshold of the runway, still gathering speed.
Antares dropped below the cloud again, right at the runway threshold. The world beneath flashed by, the jealously waiting airliners and crowds of wellwishers staring up as it raced overhead. A quick rock of the wings from side-to-side bade farewell to the factory that’d given it life. The last 747 left the nest for the final time. With luck, it would never return.
—--
Of all the video taken of Antares departure, the one that finally achieved critical mass was a phone-camera shot of the big jumbo dissolving into the clouds, leaving only thunder in its wake. It got a spot on the local Seattle cable television news, and on a three-minutes of Aviation compilation after yet another Aerosucre jet skimming the ruins of a barn at the end of a Columbian runway,
The influencers got about editing their work, for release over the coming days. Antares took on its first mission - pleasure cruises around the L5 stations and Luna for the curious, and a demonstrator for those who might want to hire it out.
An entirely different circle of Fandom had entered her orbit, curious to see what sort of business model she’d figured out that justified dropping what they guessed was half a billion dollars on the last Brand New Boeing 747.
It seemed utterly insane to her, that they took her seriously. People, after all, only did things like that for rational, cold, hard, capitalist reasons. There had to be some big cash bonanza behind it, something they were hungry to be a part of.
Nobody after all, did anything like that for shits and giggles.
She mulled it over while she watched the big jumbo dock with Stellvia from Megs. Another group disembarked. After a few rest hours, the final group would board for the final trip, and then there’d be a short hop to John Henry for the first load of reactor parts and its true working life would begin.
She’d found a table in the corner of the bar where she could work on a laptop, filtering through some of the job offers, while enjoying a steaming hot coffee.
“May I join you?”
Jet looked up. Yayoi Fujisawa stood waiting, still wearing her flightsuit and pilot’s jacket, while carrying a tray with a teapot, cup, and a plate of biscuits.
Jet closed the laptop lid and transferred the display back to her mind’s eye. “Sure, I’m just doing a little work.”
“Thanks.”
Yayoi sat opposite, carefully placing her tray on the table, before setting about pouring herself a steaming cup of green tea.
“Enjoy the flight?”
Obviously, judging by the look on her face. She beamed like she’d just gotten off her favourite ride at the funfair. Yayoi looked up, then out the window to the decking arm where Antares had been parked. She thought a moment.
“It’s definitely different to any ship I’ve flown.” she said. “It feels more like an aircraft, that just happens to be a fencraft, rather than a fencraft that happens to be built from an aircraft.” She saw the smile on Yayoi’s face broaden.“It really is a happy airplane.”
“Everyone who's flown it has said that.” said Jet, before taking a sip of coffee.
“Hmmm….” Yayoi thought a moment. “It’s definitely something in the wave.”
So, she understood it aswell.
“You think of all the people who worked on it, and all the ones built before. There were people on the production line who’d done nothing but build 747’s their entire working life, and they knew this was the last one they’d ever build. That’s ten thousand people who wanted that aircraft to fly.”
A little spark of realisation seemed to light inside Yayoi’s eyes.
“So that’s the real reason you bought it?”
Jet gave her a rueful smile. “I’d love it to be, but I only figured it out when I picked up the keys.”
Yayoi took a moment to take a sip of tea, before carefully place the cup
“A lot of people are curious,” she said. “A lot of the businesspeople are wondering what the model is. Padraig O’Neill just ordered his own, just in case there was something he wasn’t seeing.”
“I remember his vlog.” Jet did her best to match the mouth-full-of-marbles that was the D4 accident. “How did that foking skobe manage to boy a Boeing?”
Yayoi covered her mouth with a hand to hide a giggle. “He was pretty annoyed.”
Fucking with that Castlerock gobshite’s head brought a smile to Jet’s face. Making him dump millions into the money furnace, more so. Especially because he actually cared.
“I think a lot of people assume that if you spend that much money on something, it’s because it’s going to make even more money, faster than if you just stuck it in the market.” She took a breath. Of course, the accountants had done there job and made sure she had an intimate understanding of how that worked. “Well there’s the assumption you want to make money, and that everybody thinks like that.”
Yayoi refilled her teacup from the clay pot.
“I think, people tend to assume their own motivations in others.” She said, before taking another sip of her tea. “When Stellvia first launched, given the amount of money Noah sank into making it happen, a lot of people were asking the same questions. It was a lot of money and no obvious gain.” She paused a moment, to consider where exactly they were seated “At first.”
Jet felt herself compelled to look around the bar, and everything that’d been built up beyond it.
“I’ve said it before,” said Jet. “I just wanted rid of Stingray and the hassle. If I could get something out of it that I needed, then it was a bonus.”
Yayoi actually blinked at that. It’d taken her completely by surprise. She thought a moment, just long enough stir up a pot of self-consciousness in the back of Jet’s mind.
It really did sound so incredibly stupid when said like that. So much money, burned. Half a billion dollars.
Put like that, it could really haunt someone’s soul for the rest of their life.
After what seemed an interminable pause, Yayoi finally spoke.
“That amount of money could really change your life, if you’re not ready for it. That would be pretty frightening.”
Exactly!
“You ever hear of Jack Whittacker?”
“I remember Noah mentioning his name,” said Yayoi. She thought a moment. “He was a businessman. He won the lotto, then he lost everything.”
The short version of a horror story.
“The money was like an albatross. His life was ruined..” Jet explained “I wanted rid of Stingray and I didn’t want to be a billionaire.” Jet paused a moment as she realised exactly what she was saying. She felt a nervous chuckle rise from her throat. “That probably sounds insane.”
Yayoi actually smiled at her.
“Not at all,” she said.
Jet settled as far back into the chair as it allowed her. Nobody else would ever understand.
It didn’t matter. It’d pay its running costs. And of all the things she’d done, it was the one that people actually seemed to get excited about.
“So what are your plans for it? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“I don’t know,” said Jet. “Charter work mostly, just have to show up on time, then let someone else worry about filling it.” The least risky of the three Boeing Business Models. She paused. “Maybe when the special project’s finished, see if anyone’s planning a mission out into the wild and get away from it all for a bit.”
Both found themselves looking out the window at black beyond.
Something to look forward to, at least, thought Jet.
------
Mitchell Gant first appeared in a story 11 years ago talking about how much he liked flying a 747. That's such a long time ago.
I love the smell of rotaries in the morning. You know one time, I got to work early, before the rush hour. I walked through the empty carpark, I didn't see one bloody Prius or Golf. And that smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole carpark, smelled like.... ....speed.
One day they're going to ban them.
