Chapter 3 - Captain Isaiah Brooks’s Son
The name Isaiah Brooks changed the radio.
Malachi heard it.
Even through static, even through alarms, even through the rush of air and fear pressing against the cockpit walls.
Captain Isaiah Brooks.
His father.
The man whose bronze wing pin now trembled on Malachi’s blazer.
The man passengers once applauded when he brought a damaged aircraft safely through a storm.
The man whose old training notes Malachi had read under blankets when he should have been sleeping.
The man adults spoke about in lowered voices now.
The controller’s voice softened by one careful degree.
“Malachi, did your father teach you cockpit basics?”
Malachi’s throat tightened.
“Yes.”
Grace looked at him.
Not with doubt.
With sudden understanding.
This boy was not a random child who had wandered into the cockpit.
He had lived around aviation language.
He knew the shape of emergency checklists.
He knew that panic killed faster when it moved the hands.
The controller continued.
“Good. Then we’re going to use what he taught you. One step at a time.”
Malachi blinked hard.
No tears fell.
Not yet.
“Okay.”
Grace reached for the emergency checklist clipped near the center console.
Her hands steadied as she opened it.
No readable text faced the passengers.
Only pages, tabs, procedure.
“Tell me what you need,” she said.
The controller answered through the headset.
“Flight attendant, confirm both pilots are unresponsive but breathing.”
Grace looked toward them.
Her voice tightened.
“They’re breathing.”
“Do not move them unless instructed.”
“Understood.”
Malachi’s hands stayed on the yoke.
His oversized headset made him look smaller.
The captain’s chair swallowed him.
But the aircraft responded to his movements.
Slightly.
Enough.
Passengers remained crowded behind the open doorway, faces pale under cabin lighting.
A woman crossed herself.
A man held his wife’s hand.
Someone whispered, “Isaiah Brooks had a son?”
Malachi heard it.
His jaw trembled.
Grace leaned closer.
“Don’t listen back there. Listen forward.”
He nodded.
Forward.
Instruments.
Radio.
Checklist.
Breathing.
The aircraft shuddered again.
Malachi corrected too sharply.
The nose dipped.
Grace sucked in a breath.
The controller’s voice came firm and immediate.
“Easy, Malachi. Small movements. Your father knew that. You know it too.”
Malachi closed his eyes for half a second.
Then opened them.
“Small movements.”
May you like
The plane steadied.
Read Chapter 4 👉 Because the controller recognized Malachi’s father, but recognition could not fly the aircraft for him.
