Chapter 1 - The Boy in the Captain’s Chair
Twelve Year Old Malachi Takes the Controls After Both Pilots Collapse and Ground Control Recognizes His Hero Father’s Name.
The aircraft dropped so suddenly that every passenger in the cockpit doorway screamed without meaning to.
A warning alarm pulsed across the glowing instrument panels.
Red and amber lights flashed over Malachi Brooks’s terrified face as his small hands locked around the control yoke.
The oversized pilot headset slipped slightly over his messy brown hair, but he did not let go.
He was twelve.
His secondhand navy blazer looked too big on his shoulders.
His striped tie was crooked.
The bronze aviation wing pin on his chest trembled with every jolt of the aircraft.
Behind him, Grace Holloway braced one hand against the cockpit console and the other against the seat frame.
Her navy flight uniform was wrinkled from crawling through panic.
Her blonde hair had loosened from its bun.
Her eyes kept moving from the unconscious pilots to the altitude tape.
“Malachi, we’re still losing altitude.”
Malachi’s lips parted.
For one second, he looked exactly like a child.
Then his frightened eyes hardened into focus.
He made one small correction with the yoke.
The aircraft shuddered but steadied slightly.
Passengers crowded in the open cockpit doorway, pale and silent now, too frightened to interfere with the boy in the captain’s chair.
Malachi did not look back.
“Connect me to ground control. Now.”
Grace swallowed her fear and reached for the radio panel.
Her hands shook, but she pressed the switch and placed the transmitter within his reach.
Static crackled through the cockpit.
Then an unseen male voice came through the headset.
“Flight 782, identify yourself.”
Malachi swallowed.
His thumb found the radio switch.
“Malachi Brooks. I’m twelve. Both pilots are down.”
The passengers gasped, but no one spoke over him.
For one unbearable second, only static answered.
Then the controller returned, voice suddenly shaken.
“Brooks… Captain Isaiah Brooks’s son?”
Malachi’s eyes flicked to the bronze wing pin.
Grace’s gaze dropped to the cockpit floor.
An overturned cup lay near the pilots’ side.
A faint residue glimmered beside it.
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Her face went cold with alarm.
Read Chapter 2 👉 Because Malachi was fighting to keep the aircraft level, but Grace had just seen something that made the pilots’ collapse look less like an accident.
