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************************ WARNING ************************
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* The following text contains written descriptions of   *
* sexual acts between adults, children and adults with  *
* children.  If it is illegal for you to read acts of   *
* this nature, or if you are under age, please stop     *
* reading right now.                                    *
*                                                       *
* This story is a work of fiction.  Any similarities to *
* actual people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.*
*                                                       *
* (c) 2003-2005, Kenn Ghannon.  All rights reserved.      *
* Any republication or retransmission of this document, *
* severally or collectively, without the author's       *
* express written permission is prohibited.             *
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Chapter One: What goes up...

It was a beautiful day for flying.  The sun was shining and there wasn't a cloud in the sky.  Weather reports along my flight route were unanimous in their forecasts.  It was going to be gorgeous.  There was nothing to mar the day, nothing except meeting the reproachful gaze of my sister.

I was nervous when the vans pulled up.  I also had a large portion of guilt and shame hanging on my shoulders, a cold, wet cloak hovering around me.  I hadn't seen Jamie in over a year and I wasn't sure how I was going to face her.  My failure lay large in my thoughts as I prepared myself for what was coming.

They piled out of the vans unceremoniously, a rather attractive blond leading them.  My eyes, however, were on Jamie.  

She had grown since I'd seen her last, maybe 5-5, 5-6.  She still kept her beautiful red hair long, but now it lay in soft ringlets around her face.  The hint of a red mark lay on her thin button nose, probably from acne.  Her eyes were still the soft green of a perfect, flawless opal, however.  And her freckles covered her cheeks in a soft blanket of color.  She had developed a number of womanly curves as well, something that both unsettled and scared me.  She was laughing lightly with a willowy blond who was a few inches shorter than her.  When she saw me, though, her thin lips set in a line and she barely looked at me as she passed.

"Michael." I heard her throw behind her in greeting as she passed.  It carried the finality of a tomb in that one word.

"Mr. Devan."  The attractive woman had reached me.  She was blonde, like me, but where my hair was always a nuisance and unruly, hers was well managed and hung to her neck in a bang.  Her eyes were blue, also like mine, but where mine were the icy blue of a cold winter stream hers were the pale, soft blue of a promising morning.  She wore a patterned peasant blouse, some type of flowery thing and a neat blue skirt.  Neither article of clothing did much to hide her beauty, however, especially her well developed legs which I gave a brief appreciative glance.  Luckily, she didn't seem to notice.  She stuck out her hand.  "I'm Ms. Clemons, but you can call me Sarah.  Your assistant said she would supervise the loading of the luggage.  Are we okay to board?"

"Of course, Sarah," I said as I shook her hand with a somewhat forced smile that I hoped looked more friendly than I felt.  I know that I deserved Jamie's reaction but it still hurt more than a little.  "Please, call me Michael - or better yet, just Mike.  The young woman, though, that isn't my assistant.  She's my co-pilot."  Jan would have laughed had she heard.  She was a bright-natured young woman and she would have teased me relentlessly to be called my assistant.

We were soon in the air.  It was a three and a half hour trip down to Miami from Vermont and an hour stop there while I topped off the jet with fuel.  During that time, I had found every excuse I could to go into the cabin and each time Jamie had studiously ignored me.

I guess my emotions were plain on my face, because Sarah pulled me aside on one of my frequent trips around the cabin.

"It isn't my place to say, Michael," she began.  The look on her face was one of compassion and concern.  Behind her eyes, though, I could see more than a hint of mischief and laughter.  "But everything is going to be okay.  I know your sister pretty well; I've been her teacher for the past three years.  She's been mad at you for a long time, a very long time.  She thinks that she hates you but I know that she doesn't.  If she truly hated you she wouldn't be trying to make you suffer so badly.  Every time you walk away, that puppy dog expression on your face, she watches you until you shut the cockpit door.  My guess is that she's going to make you suffer for a little while longer and then she'll find some excuse to make up with you.  You could, however, speed the whole thing up by suffering more publicly."

Her words were light and the message cheered me up a bit.  I smiled at her, not forced this time and she smiled back.  "I'll try to do that, Sarah.  Thanks."

"Don't mention it." Then, with a final smile, she returned to her seat.  I made sure to look extremely forlorn every moment after that and I found myself glancing to make sure that Jamie was noticing.

The re-fuel went uneventfully; I let the children exit onto the tarmac for a few minutes to stretch while the plane finished re-fueling and Jan made sure our flight plan was filed.  Customs came out and checked everyone's passports, the normal stuff.  It was incredibly routine, except for the hang-dog expression I wore whenever I was near Jamie.  Jan, of course, took one look at it and just burst out in a gale of laughter.  I guess I was overdoing it, if only a little.

Flight time to Brasilia was about 10 to 12 hours, depending on tail winds and flight controllers.  I was spending split time between the cockpit and the cabin, trying to accelerate my suffering.  I wasn't really trying to make light of Jamie's anger, I just wanted my sister back and I somehow wanted to make up for all the years that I'd neglected her.  Acting worse than I felt was impossible, of course, so I just tried to let a small portion of the misery I was feeling through to my features.

I sat with Sarah while I publicly suffered, both because it was in plain sight of Jamie as much as because Sarah was attractive.  I found, luckily, that she was also a great conversationalist.  We discussed authors we both enjoyed reading (Ludlum and Heinlein, oddly enough) as well as those we didn't (Niven, Loughlin).  We talked about the attractions the kids would be seeing during their 5 week journey through South America.  She regaled me with funny stories about the students she had taught.  All in all, it was a great way to spend time.

The shuddering of the plane was the first indication that something was wrong.  At first I thought it was pretty much normal turbulence but when the plane dropped twice in a row, I knew something was up.  A quick look out the windows showed a dark band of greenish clouds that certainly hadn't been there earlier.

I excused myself from Sarah.  "Students, you'd better buckle up," I said as I made my way to the cockpit.  "Looks like a bit of stormy weather.  I'll see about climbing above it."  I nearly choked on my words when the plane shuddered hard to the right and I was nearly thrown off my feet.  My hand on the cockpit door handle was the only thing that kept me from falling.  I turned the handle as the students behind be screamed.

"Jan, what the heck is going on?" I started as I staggered into the cockpit.

"Thank God, Mike," Jan said as she looked up.  "I haven't any idea where these clouds came from.  I looked down for no more than a minute to measure our progress against flight plan when the plane first heaved.  I looked up and there were those damn green clouds where blue sky had been a moment before."

I quickly took my seat and buckled in.  "That's impossible, Jan.  Clouds don't come up from nowhere.  Not that fast.  No chance you were dozing?  It's a long, boring flight."

Jan gave me a long, hard look before returning her eyes to the console.  "You know me better than that, Mike.  They came out of nowhere in minutes...no warning, nothing."  She began tapping hard against the console.

The sky had turned so dark I had to turn on the overhead night lights to see what she was tapping.

"What's the matter with the compass?"

"Hell if I know.  It can't make up its mind which way is north."

The pit of my stomach fell away as the plane dropped like a stone through the air.  The sharp tightening of my stomach told me that we had just dropped a lot more than 50 feet.  A lot more.  I heard muffled screams coming from the cabin as I struggled with the suddenly less than responsive yoke.

"What's our altitude?" I asked, taking my mind off my losing battle with the stick long enough to try to gauge how far we had fallen.  My eyes scanned the dark clouds as they wrapped themselves around us, gently stroking the plane to and fro.

"No idea, Cap.  That's out too.  Damn near everything's acting funny."

"Did we take a freaking lightning hit or something?  There's no way so many systems could go out..."  I got a slight shock when I grabbed tight at the stick.  "Damn it...we're hit.  Lightning or something.  I'm getting a feedback charge from the controls.  It's mushy. Unresponsive.  We're dropping air here!"

"Cap, it's worse than that.  We're blind.  I've got no altitude, no compass, nothing.  Everything's gone freaking nuts.  The radio's quiet too.  I can't even get an echo."

I grabbed the headset and turned to the emergency channel.  "This is November four niner seven five zulu.  Mayday.  Mayday.  We've taken electrical damage and are flying blind.  Please advise.  Over."

"Won't work, Cap.  I been trying that for the past couple of minutes.  We're dark."

"Open the emergency kit; I keep a compass in their as a souvenir," I barked at Jan.  I was scared and my fear tempered my words far more than they should have.  "I'm going to try to turn us around, maybe get us over, under, or through these damn clouds."

Jan turned and pulled the emergency kit out, opened it, and extracted an old compass.  I had found the old compass in the hangar when I had bought the charter business.  I had hung onto it superstitiously; I figured it had brought me a lot of luck over the years.  I never thought I'd actually have to use it.

"Jesus," Jan exclaimed as she looked at the old dial.  "Look at this Mike!"

I looked and a chill filled my stomach.  The dial was revolving so fast you could barely see it; as fast as a prop propeller.  The stick jerked out of my hand and the nose tipped down dangerously.  Rain started pelting the glass in front of my face and I knew that things were going to get a lot worse.  The rain was so heavy that we were flying blind in more ways than one.  I needed to come up with a plan real soon but unfortunately nothing would come to mind.

I grabbed the stick and pulled us up slowly but I couldn't tell how far we had plunged.  The engines complained a little and it felt like I was lifting cement, but I eventually managed to level us off.  It wasn't easy, the wind was in more control of the plane than I was.  It howled around us, angry at us for disturbing its sleep with our big steel bird.

"Jan, keep sending that distress call.  I'm going to try to keep us pointed in one direction and see if I can't climb above this."  My voice was filled with unwarranted comfort; I had no idea where we were nor where we were going.  The pushing and pulling of the near gale force winds threatened to tear the stick out of my hands, but I valiantly pulled the yoke back.

A bright flash lit up the sky almost in front of me and the accompanying boom thundered in my ears.  I blinked away dark dots floating in front of my eyes, desperately trying to see.  I thought the boom had been thunder until I heard Jan scream.

"God, Mike.  We're hit!  We're hit!  Left engine is burning!"

I felt the plane start a shallow, flat spin and I eased back the throttle on the right.  I banked hard left, into the spin, to try and get some control but for some reason it only got worse.  I hit the engine fire button, but it didn't work.  Nothing seemed to be working.  I went full flaps, hoping to get us into a roll and out of the flat spin.  The plane shuddered, the hand of the wind shaking her like a petulant child shakes a doll.  All the while, I could hear the muffled screams behind me.

I don't quite know how I did it, but I came out of the flat spin with my heart in my throat.  The yoke was still sluggish and hard and my prize plane felt like a dying, beached whale.  I eased the right engine up some and tried hard to compensate for the dead left wing.

"Mike, we're losing altitude fast."

"I can't help it, Jan," I said.  I marveled at the sound of my own voice, how cold and detached it sounded.  "The right engine isn't giving us enough of an upward thrust.  I can't help it now.  We're going to go down."

For a second that was an eternity, time stopped.  There was no sound as my words sank into Jan's brain and her eyes went wide.  She screamed into the mike "Mayday!  Mayday!  Mayday! This is..." but that was all she managed to get out as the plane, my prize plane, plowed long into the raging sea.

