| Catching a Plane | |||||
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| What: Cir-El and Sola save a doomed flight | |||||
Mia is out on the town with her guardian and her soon to be step sister. They are looking over some of the shops near the airport. Mia is talking about a strange thing that happened last night, "So there were three people n the ally when I showed up. A badly hurt adult man, a boy about my age, and a blond woman of about 18. The boy and the woman insist that the man attacked them and the boy beat him up. They were discussing whether the girl is a mutant when I arrived...and I noticed she did not really seem to need to breathe."
Sola hmms softly as she glances around. "What would it even matter anyway? Are some people really that bigoted in this era?" She's only partially invested in the conversation, being that she's multitasking. For her, that means while she's listening and speaking, she's also reading thousands of recent news articles at computer speed, as well as listening discreetly on several emergency frequencies - police bands, fire department, and with the proximity to the area, air traffic frequencies. "Just because one looks different or has abilities or aptitudes another lacks, is it really enough to inspire hate?" Sadly, few of the shops are piquing her interest, though that does make it easier to appear that her attention's all there.
Bruce Banner is walking along with them promising to buy anything they want within reason. "Its the way its been for centuries. Others are judged by what makes them different. Skin color, personality, shape, size.. Sad really. If you think about it. I am a mutant kind of, some would consider me a mutate but kind of like their close neighbor."
Mia says, "I asked about that, for some reason, even though my abilities are not the same as others of my heritage, they do not consider me a mutant. It is a bit strange. The other world I lived on, they did not considr mutants anything strange..."
Sola shrugs a little. "To discriminate against just one class of people just due to a genetic quirk like that, though..." Suddenly her attention is elsewhere as she looks toward the sky. <<Deploy armor!>> she says in binary code, summoning her body armor via its teleportation spell. "Trouble overhead. I'm picking up a signal over the air traffic control frequencies. Flight from Pittsburgh to Boston passing through NYC airspace, pilot had a heart attack and the co-pilot got locked out of the cockpit."
Bruce Banner is staring at some puppies through a pet shop window. Looking over at Sola he raises a brow at those words. "What?" he begins looking at the sky.
Cir-El says, "Sorry daddy, sister Sola and I have a plane to catch. Watch our things, OK.". She changes clothes at super speed, leaving her civilian costume with Bruce. Dressed now as Superlass, she says to Sola, "OK, I can hear the tower, and the bearing they are trying to get other planes out of...lets go." She starts with a running leap in the general direction and, when high enough off the ground not to damage anything, kicks on the Red Star Burst to propel her like a rocket.
Sola nods to Superlass. "Tower, heroes en route to deal with it. Clear a runway just in case. Over, out," she states. She kicks on her own flight systems and follows. "According to the last time the plane checked in, it's at cruising altitude, but that won't last long with no pilot!" she shouts to Cir-El.
Superlass notes, "I only have an approximate direction and distance from the man reading the tower radar, do you have an exact range and bearing?" If need be, she can go full power and move super-sonic. She prefers to not do that, it is damaging to the environment.
Sola nods as she matches Superlass's speed. She could also go supersonic if needed, but to do so here, the resultant sonic boom could be extremely disruptive. "Triangulating with telescopic sight and GPS... 30 miles west-by-southwest of our current position, course east-by-northeast, speed 500 knots. Altitude 35,000 feet," she confirms. "If one of us could get into the plane, we could let the co-pilot in so he or she could land it."
Cir-El Estimates, 'At the current rate of closure, we should reach the plane in under 3 minutes. Think that is fast enough, or shall we pick up the pace?"
Sola looks upward in the plane's direction. "We ought to be fine. As long as the autopilot is on and the equipment stays intact..."
Yeah, no. Just as she starts her wishful thinking, she catches two signals from the plane.
"...Damn it. We need to speed up. I just caught a signal from the plane. The two left engines both just went. Co-pilot's not going to be much help if the plane goes down!"
Superlass says, "Hang on then," and tosses her cape around Sola to protect her from friction. She grips her sister a bit awkwardly with her legs and increases thrust to maximum, cutting the travel time from minutes to about 16 seconds. About a mile out she slows down so the sonic boom will not damage the plane and recovers her cape.
"You get the pilot into the cabin, I will take care of the engines. Have him cut off fuel to the left wing, we do not want an explosion."
Step one, she thinks, approach each engine and do a supersonic clap, the small sonic boom will remove the air and put out the first...but the engine heat will restart the fires soon if the fuel is not cut off...
Before the plan can even be executed, the engines do just as was feared... they explode.
"Okay... that's not going to work, then..." Sola says. "Even if we get the pilot in control, this plane's going down. I'll try to get in, but I can't actually communicate into the plane. There's no way to warn the passengers of the decompression and the wind resistance will make it much harder than normal to employ my agility."
Superlass says, "We can do this, as long as I can compensate for the thrust and drag..."
Of course, she is not sure Sola can hear her, as she places her shoulder onto the remains of the inner engine pylon and starts her Red Sun burst to try to match the engine's thrust. This is easier than the other way she would have to try if all or most of the engines were out but the wings were intact...
By carefully filtering out certain sound frequencies, Sola can hear Cir-El as well as she could if they were in a quiet room. As she latches to the side of the plane to try to let herself in, she scans the body of the plane. "This thing's in poor shape," she observes loudly as she pulls out the E-Lash, sets it to the Fire setting, and sets the power to its lowest level - using it like a cutting torch. "The wings have a lot of stress microfractures. Be careful how much force you apply or it might shear off."
Superlass has natural hearing as good as Sola's mechanical hearing, so they can carry out a conversation without difficulty. She replies, "Increasing thrust slowly until it is enough to keep the plane from going into a spin, as well as keep it in the air. Watch out though, the coincidence of the pilot going down, followed by an engine strike, seems extreme, there may be hostiles aboard. I will not be able to help much with that."
Sola gets the door open, and as air rushes out of the plane's interior, it has a noticeable green tint. "Nerve gas?" she observes as she steps in and quickly seals the door behind her.
Then she's knocked in the head by something resembling the flat of a blade. Superlass is currently busy matching thrust to drag and monitoring for the sounds of metal tearing from strain. She hears the noise from the cabin, and hopes Sola can take care of herself, this is a bit of a delicate operation. Apparently her warning was a bit late...
The door goes flying open again as a red-skinned man with long blades for forearms goes flying out, screaming. "He'll survive... metal skin," Sola says in a muted but aggravated tone as she shuts the door again.
Inside, everyone is unconscious except for a man and a woman - both standing near windows. The man is wearing a gas mask and has a slender build. The other is a woman not wearing a gas mask, with skin reminiscent of a lizard's. She's currently working to try to get the door open. "You're not stopping us, hero," the man says to Sola. "We're getting this tub to Genosha and we're gonna walk away."
Cir-El realizes, as she listens in, that only a handful of people are awake on board, and they appear to be the problem. That means the plane is on auto-pilot unless Sola or the guy who was in the cabin turned it off...well she can check that, she can change her thrust and see if the wing flaps or other side engines respond to the auto-pilot.
Sola thinks quickly. She says something that, to the hijackers, will be undiscernably fast. To Superlass, however, it'll explain everything. "Scanned the interior while idiot here was jawing about Genosha. Pilot did really have a heart attack, allergic reaction to the gas. He'll be dead in a few minutes if we don't land this plane fast. We've got hijackers, most likely mutants, trying to get to Genosha." Simultaneously, she uses her built-in phone module to ring up Bruce's phone on the ground. "There's easier ways to get to Genosha," she says at normal speed. "You could have swam." She flexes her hands. "Instead you'll just rot behind bars."
She moves in behind the male hijacker at a speed that would be a bit too fast for most humans to react to, but just as she's about to try to choke the man out, he blocks it.
Judging by the reaction of the flaps and opposite side engines, the autopilot is still on. We have closed about 3 of the 30 miles to New York at this point, which means the pilot will be dead if we do things the normal way. Well, if she leaves position, the plane will be able to partly compensate...it will stay in the air for a few minutes at least. She can get the pilot to the hospital and come back...the cabin will have lost pressure though, so she needs to do one thing first. Moving with super speed, she stops her thrust and moves to the pilot's cabin, resetting the autopilot to reduce speed and spiral down to a lower level so people can breathe...and so that the lack of thrust from the left wing will not matter as much. Once that is done she wraps the pilot in her cape and jumps out the window with him. She will drop him in New York hospital and be back in two minutes or less...
Sola smirks at the man as he blocks her choke attempt. "You're fast," she says. <<Light armor mode,>> she says in binary as the bulky enhanced plating of her body armor disappears in a magical flash, leaving just her normal bodysuit, as she swings at his face with a fist.
The man responds by trying to hit her in the chest, but only succeeds in breaking one of his hands.
The plane goes into s tight downward spiral, tilting the cabin. Superlass has to watch her accelerations so she does not kill her passenger, that is why this will take so long, even with the cape protecting him. The trip to the hospital will be the longest part.
Just as the female hijacker's about to get the door to the cockpit open, the plane tilts.
The male hijacker goes flying over Sola's head into the front wall. "Come on, Bruce, pick up the damn phone!" Sola cries out as she launches herself at the man, her left arm outstretched in the Taser grip.
At her best cruising speed, it would take Cir-El about 30 seconds to reach Metropolis General Hospital. Because she has to limit her acceleration, it takes nearly three times that. It is longer than she likes, but she drops him at the hospital and tells the startled nurse, "Heart attack brought on by exposure to a chemical agent, he needs a crash cart STAT." Then she is gone and on her way back, staying subsonic until well clear of the city, then acceleration to emergency speed...
The man screams as he takes a few thousand volts to the heart, before succumbing to unconsciousness. "I don't have time to beat you up nicely," Sola says as she, in a quick motion, shocks the female hijacker. As she does and the woman also loses consciousness, the air starts to clear a little. Getting to the keypad, she starts to punch in digits until she can stumble upon the unlock code for the door. "Don't have time for this!" she shouts.
Superlass pours on the speed...last time she tried pushing this hard it was to get into orbit. She is going as fast, but with a closer target. She drops subsonic a mile from the plane again, and enters the cabin. She sets an entry vector on the autopilot and then gets back in position to push against the engine pylon. She gradually increases her thrust until level almost flight resumes...only a slight downward tilt for approach. Hopefully Sola can get to the radio and tell the airport controller what is going on.
Sola gets into the cockpit and takes the pilot's seat. "What I wouldn't give for flying lessons," she says softly as she takes the controls. Quickly looking up the flight plan, she gets on the radio. "Tower, this is Flight 460, Pittsburgh to Boston, reporting in. There was a hijacking attempt that was thwarted. Plane is damaged with two engines gone, and we have no pilot. We need you to clear a runway for us, we're coming in hot, over." As she shuts the mic off, she sighs. "Damned antique... I'm not sure I can fly this."
Superlass replies, "I can help by adjusting my thrust. The Autopilot is easy, it can do most of the work until almost touchdown. The landing will be tricky..." Sola focuses on the sky and city ahead. "Here's hoping..."
She'd left the door open behind her, because she figured no one would wake up in time to affect things before the landing.
As her head is slammed into the console from behind, she realizes just how wrong she was. The man she'd electrocuted earlier woke up and attacked her.
She turns and makes a calculated decision... throwing the guy out of the side part of the front window. Law Zero in effect... except the guy will likely also survive due to some kind of enhanced healing and durability capabilities.
She gets back into the seat and looks over the controls. "...Yeah, about that autopilot?"
The plane suddenly lurches as the robot hero is thrust against the autopilot. Superlass as to stop thrusting against the pylon to keep the wing from being damaged and then she says, "OK, if the Autopilot is damaged we will do this the hard way. I am going to need you to use the control yoke to steer. The control yoke should be in front of the left hand seat...first check the autopilot...that should be in the center of the instrument panel. Check in with control, they can hopefully guide you better than me, I only know what I have seen in movies."
Sola checks the controls frantically. "Bad news on three counts. The autopilot can't be re-engaged and the plane's radio was also broken. My communications array also got broken when my head hit the controls. There's going to be no help coming from the ground." She grabs the stick. "Well then. Here's hoping this thing flies something like a 2070s-era space shuttle. I'm leveling her out as best as I can and trying to point her to JFK. That's where I was told to put down before the guy attacked me and broke everything."
Cir-El says, "Until we get ready to land, things are easy enough. Do you have a cell phone? We we get close you can call if you do." Of course, she can not call, the winds out here would overwhelm the microphone.
Sola shakes her head, though of course Superlass probably can't see that. "My communications array handles all of my wireless communication - wi-fi, bluetooth, radio, cellular. Were I a telepath, I'd be headblind. The only long-range communication method I have left is point-to-point infrared to transmit basic binary code." She looks back towards the passenger area. "How far out are we? I don't have a GPS signal either."
Superlass says, "Hold the yoke steady for one second." Once Sola confirms that she is doing so, Superlass disengages herself, moves to the cabin, and leaves her smart phone next to Sola before taking back her place and then starting to build the thrust up again. She says, "Hopefully the GPS on my phone is working this far out, but from this height you should be able to see the skyline at 50 miles, we are closer than that."
Sola holds the stick steady and picks up the smartphone. "...The hell?" She tries to use it and does get the screen to come on... but she can't get anything on the screen to respond. "Great. A touchscreen. This is why I had to strip down one of these and wire it directly into my systems..." She sighs and looks ahead. "I'm going to try to speed up the remaining engines. We've got to land fast. Considering what that gas did to the pilot, I'm worried about what it might have done to everyone else on the plane."
"That will not be a problem, the drop in cabin pressure when you opened the window blew the gas out," replies Superlass. That was why she had to get the plane down fast, so there would be enough air in the cabin to breathe. "Now here, if you have an interface jack working, you could plug into the plane's system. That shows a distance and estimated time of arrival at least..." She is not sure what Sola's capabilities are at the moment.
Superlass adds, "I am not sure, but I think there is an emergency communications system on the right side of the cabin, a back up for the main on the left." Sola sighs softly. "Plane systems aren't exactly the most advanced. I just don't have the compatibility needed to interface with so much ancient tech. Looks like we're close enough to start bleeding off altitude to prepare to land, though. I might not have GPS, but my telescopic vision still works, at least. I'll have to rely on that, plus the analog gauges."
Superlass says, "Do what you can, I will match the thrust from the other side...reduce the engine throttles. If need be I can go to plan B once we are close enough for me to see the landing zone...or we can put down in the water near shore."
Sola nods. "Letting off the throttle, dropping altitude. Drop your speed by about half," she says as she holds the stick steady while flipping switches. "Steady..." listening to the engines from he other side, Superlass reduces her thrust at a similar pace. She is glad that she is able to reduce the thrust, this is eating into her reserves at a pretty high rate. She says, "I should be able to hear the tower soon, though at this range what I here will be delayed several seconds.
Sola takes a few deep breaths as she continues to work the controls. "In about a minute, I'm going to cut the engines altogether. We'll glide in," she says. "I'll take the latency at this point just to have some guidance."
Superlass asks, "If you know Morse Code, you might use the transponder to send a message. I can handle all thrust by relocating as soon as you turn off the engines. Especially if you put down the landing gear first." She says, "OK, I can hear the tower, One is asking for any response from us, six others are getting traffic out of out air lanes."
Sola nods. "I'm sending a reply." She starts to tap out a response - No radio - Attempting to glide in - Have first responders on standby. "Pitch up 25 degrees, shutting down engines. The rest is up to gravity, residual velocity, and..." She flips a switch. Nothing happens. She flips it again... "There we go, /and/... landing gear deployed. Straightening her out."
This will be the part that will probably wind up on the news channels. Superlass disengages from the wing and moves to beside the forward landing gear. Flipping herself upside-down, she braces her legs against the frame of the plane and faces her head forward so she can see what is in front of her, then puts her hands above her head pointed towards the ground and starts thrusting again. She may not be quite strong enough to pick up the plane, but she can provide enough forward momentum to keep it in the air. It will look darn silly though...
Sola holds the stick tightly. "Altitude dropping... 2,000 feet... 1,500... 1,000... Preparing for touchdown, this is going to be rough! 500..."
As they draw closer, Cir-El starts relaying instructions, faster and more currently. She has no way to monitor her air speed, so it is up to Sola to respond with current air speeds as the tower asks for changes.
Without the air speed gauge, it'd be hard to figure that out.
Fortunately, Sola has a built-in accelerometer. "100 knots... 80... 60... touching down... now!"
At the moment of touchdown, Superlass frees herself from her position and puts her back to the nose of the plane, using her thrust to slow them down. She ignores the crash foam getting on her uniform, it will not stick to anything but her skin and hair anyway.
There's not much left that Sola can do except apply the brake as hard as she can. "Still slowing... we're just barely going to have enough runway for this..."
Superlass replies, "I could stop it faster, but I do not want to hurt the passengers, keeping things slow...barely enough runway is plenty." She is pretty sure the passengers are not in their seats and buckled in.
Sola strains to hold the brake. "Yeah, they couldn't exactly put their trays in the upright position and fasten their belts, being unconscious... Ten knots... Safe to stop now..."
Slowly increasing her thrust until the plans stopped, Superlass stopped thrusting and fell to the tarmac. She did a quick spin in place to get the foam off her and then said, "That did it, we are down. Let me bring around the loading ladder so the emergency crews can get on, then I think I am done here. You might need to talk to the police about he hijackers, but I can not help with that."
Sola leans back in the pilot's seat and rubs her head. "At this rate, dealing with that might be easier than landing a plane..." She takes a deep breath, then gets up to retrieve the last hijacker - and seeing that she's stirring, punches her to knock her back out.
All the passengers are still completely out cold.
Superlass says, "I will be with daddy, bring my phone back when you are done." Moving the loading ladder is easy. Superlass waves to the arriving rescue workers and jumps away. It will take her hours to recover from the exertion, but she tries not to show how much it tired her. It would not help much for any villains to see how limited she really is.
Sola jumps out of the plane with the hijacker in her arms, then walks over to an ambulance. "This one here is one of the hijackers," she explains as she sets the mutant woman on a stretcher. "From what I can tell, her body releases a nerve gas as long as she's conscious. I suggest sedatives." Then she heads over to the cops to talk to them.