A synthetic voice crackled from the ceiling speaker. “Autopilot disengaged. Warning. Terrain. Pull up.”
I swallowed. “That’s not possible. We’re at cruising altitude.”
“I know,” Andrei said.
The jet banked right without warning, far steeper than any normal turn. The floor tilted under our feet. I slammed my palm against the cockpit door again.
“Captain!” I shouted. “Open the damn door!”
Nothing.
The synthetic voice repeated its warning: “Terrain. Pull up. Pull up. Pull up.”
Andrei’s pupils blew wide. “We’re nowhere near land. That shouldn’t be triggering.”
Unless the system thought we were driving straight into the sea.
Which meant someone had taken control of our flight computers.
Revenant? ARCHEON? Someone else?
Right now, it didn’t matter.
We needed that door open.
“Andrei,” I said. “Move.”
He blinked. “What are you?—”
I stepped back, planted my feet, and drove my shoulder into the door right at the latch point.
The reinforced panel didn’t break, but the impact rattled it. Pain shot down my arm. I did it again. And again. On the third hit, Andrei joined me, slamming his weight beside mine. The latch squealed a fraction.
The attendant, bracing herself between the galley counters, shouted, “There’s an override—there’s an emergency access. It’s in the panel.”
“Where?” I yelled back.
She pointed shakily to a small, recessed compartment near the doorframe. I flipped it open with my nails. Inside was a covered switch and a manual crank. I pulled the cover, grabbed the crank, shoved it into the slot, and twisted. It resisted, then gave with a metallic groan.
The door popped inward.
We tumbled into the cockpit.
The pilot was slumped sideways in his seat, unconscious or close to it. A thin trickle of blood ran from his hairline. He must have hit his head on something in the chaos.
The instrument panel was lit up like a Christmas tree. Red warning indicators flashed across multiple displays. Altitude numbers spun down faster than I cared to see. The attitude indicator showed a nose-down trajectory and my stomach pitched sideways.
I slipped into the right-hand seat, fighting the urge to vomit.
“Andrei,” I said tightly, “help me.”
He pushed the captain aside, slid into his seat, blinking through a haze. He must still have been disoriented from the hit to his head, but his hands found the controls like he’d been born with them.
“You know how to fly a jet?” I asked.
“I’ve flown simulators,” he said. “Done the basics. Enough not to die, I think.”
That did not inspire the confidence I wanted, but it was better than nothing.
