literature

The Seattle 777 Incident

Deviation Actions

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It was a rough day at Austin-Bergstrom International when our airplane landed, with wind and rain threatening to close down the airport. But somehow, the Thursday Shanghai run always came through. Our Boeing 777-4G9 seemed to glide in to the runway despite hefty crosswinds, before touching and quickly slowing down. Under air traffic controller guidance, I exited at the nearest taxiway and it wasn't long before the 777 was mated with the gate and everyone started to collect their things and disembark. I said goodbye to the people in first class, which was handled by one of three jet ways. I just turned around to grab my bag from the cockpit when a woman spoke.

"Excuse me, Mr. Pilot?" she asked timidly.

"Hmm... Ye- HOLY!" I shouted, inadvertently getting the attention of my co-pilot, Tyler. We both balked at what we saw. As a green, six-foot, anthropomorphic dragon stood behind of the two older people. I took a step back toward the cockpit as a precautionary (more reactionary) measure. Ever since the discovery (apparently rediscovery) of these partially humanized mythical beasts two years ago, the data has been sketchy about them. However, the airline that I work for, the $500 billion Austin based company TechAir, has been very open to the idea of allowing dragon's to fly on board their aircraft. Apparently, I was the first airline captain to internationally transport a dragon to the United States.

"Sir," she asked, almost pleading. "Where is the gate for our next flight?"

I took the boarding pass that she was holding, keeping a wary eye on the dragon in front of me. It was a paper boarding pass to TechAir Flight 4565, Austin–Bergstrom, Texas to New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport. I remembered it then, it didn't take long for the United Nations and more importantly, the US government to quickly attempt to integrate dragons into normal human society. Their well being be guarded by an group of agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the weirdest being the Federal Aviation Administration. Since New York City was the international meeting site of the dragons, fights have been buzzing in and out all week as thousands of them flocked to New York. There at the the UN building, they would vote on a new country for themselves, which the press sometimes jokingly called "Dragistan". Whatever the location and name, the UN and United States would fully support it. Personally, I'm all for it, but that still didn't make it any less nerve-racking to deal with one in person.

"It's...it's in the domestic terminal. Take the gold line on the monorail, you'll be there in no time. Although customs might take a few minutes longer, because well... of him." I said, motioning my head toward the dragon.

"Thanks a lot!" The green hided dragon said, pointing a thumb to himself, "I'm still a human in here! I have rights!"

"Well... uuuuh... Sorry to bother you.  Have a nice day and thanks for flying TechAir. Hope to see you again!" I smiled and said as genuinely, but still rather awkwardly, as possible. The dragon huffed, and they exited the plane. "Wow... A real dragon..." I said as they left, reaching for my bag in the cockpit luggage compartment.

"Yeah," Tyler said, reaching for his bag also, "Hard to believe that we flew one nonstop from Shanghai. Let's not get to caught up in all of this. Let's let the ground crew take over on the rest. We can stop by Schlotzsky's Deli while we wait for the next flight. It's been forever since I had a good sourdough pizza."

----

To the red scaled dragon, the cool, wet air of the American Northwest felt amazing. Transformed and re-registered with the government just two days ago, the college student had just resettled back into his original life and found some new ways to have fun with it. It was a calm day in Seattle Bay area for once and everybody was out to enjoy it. He had just finished riding a thermal, a rising column of warm air, bringing him up to a steady altitude of 6500 feet. He surveyed the ground below, even to his slightly enhanced eyesight, the trees still looked like tooth picks. He turned toward the right, holding the GPS in front of him until it read 250 degrees, there he took in the view. "Looks like I'm not alone..." He thought, smiling as he saw a small two person glider participating in a soaring course. He banked over and joined it in riding the thermals over a small field.

At first the glider pilots didn't see him, but one eventually did. Both the passenger and the dragon pulled out cameras to snap some pictures of each other before each one said hello. The dragon then pointed to the mountains.

It was several hours of fun for both the dragon and the glider pilots. With both sides taking advantage of the powerful ridge life being generated by the oncoming mountain air currents for hours before the glider occupants waived goodbye and abruptly veered off in the reverse direction. The dragon nodded, waived and also turned, angling his wings and tail like a rudder. He gave a powerful flap to gain some lift (it still felt weird to do that for him) and fought against the oncoming air current. He pulled out the Garmin GPS he brought along and landed on a bookmark where he left his bag. He reached in and pulled out a lunchbox with a roast beef sandwich, a bottle of Coke and a bag of Lay's Potato Chips. He sat down in the field and ate in front of a gorgeous view of Friday Harbor.
----
We boarded our jet again, a different 777-4G9, for another 16 hour nonstop trip across the Pacific to Shanghai Pudong International Airport, TechAir's main Oriental Pacific hub. The maintenance folk had been kind enough to let is know about a host of problems it had had. Yesterday's was the avionics, today's was with the pressurization system in the left engine. The bleed valves were stuck, an uncommon but relatively normal occurrence. These valves take air from the compressor before it is ignited to provide pressurization for the cabin in addition to some anti-ice systems. These valves are important and they are considered critical to the safety of the aircraft. The mechanics did a little marking on some of the panels, but the plane, according to the FAA's 2012 Master Minimal Equipment List, a 437 page list that tells you what to do if something is not working, was still legally able to fly. Going ahead, with this we closed the cabin doors and pushed back from the gate.

With the engines running and the back up generator off, we took our place in the departure line. We waited fifteen minutes in morning rush hour before we were finally given clearance to take off. "TechAir 2333, you are cleared for takeoff on runway 35 left," the controller said over the radio.

"Cleared for takeoff on runway 35 Left, TechAir 2333," I replied, I placed my hands on the throttle levers as the plane lined up with the runway center line.

"Taking off, runway... Thirty-five... Left," the aircraft computer said in a highly monotone male  voice. With that, we started the well rehearsed play that we have been acting out for years. I slowly pushed the throttles forward stabilize the engines to prevent a compressor stall caused by a lack of airflow to the engine's core.

"Power stable," I called out, as the GENx engines slowly accelerated to 50 percent N1, I returned my hands to the yoke.

"TO/GA power setting initiated," Tyler said, activating the 777's computerized Take Off/Go Around settings. The engines continued roaring to 95 percent N1, rotating the giant 737 sized fan disks to over 2,000 RPM and the large 500,000 pound jet started to rumble down the runway. "80 knots," Tyler soon called out, watching the digital indicated airspeed on the LED screen in front of him.

I glanced at mine, seeing that it matched, "check," I called and continued the takeoff roll. This is a critical phase of takeoff, any mismatch and we would abort it. This usually indicated problems with the pitot tubes, small tubes on the front of the aircraft that record altitude and airspeed. Usually disaster strikes when these go, and I have no intention of making it into a National Geographic 'Air Crash Investigation' episode.

The plane continued to move down the runway, soon approaching 160 knots. "V1," the planes computer called out as we continued to speed down the runway, blasting past a line of waiting planes and a new TechAir 747-8 that had just turned onto the taxiway.

With the decision speed, or "V1" being exceeded, I knew that if we attempted to stop, and applied every measure we could, we would still go flying off of the end of the runway and crash. We were committed, come hell or high-water, to lifting into the air. "Rotate," I called, as both of us pulled back onto the yokes. The massive aircraft slowly pitched up into a fifteen degree climb, and slowly lifted off of the ground. "V2," I called, as the safety speed of 190 knots was reached.

"Positive rate of climb," Tyler said as he reached for the landing gear handle and lifted it into the 'up' position, "landing gear up."  The loud electrical motors sounded as the landing gear was retracted into the aircraft. The aircraft gained speed before I leveled it off at 225 knots.

"Flaps up," I said, as I put the flaps lever up to zero degrees. Again, an electric motor sounded as the plane retracted the flaps.

"TechAir 2333, contact Austin Departure on one-one-niner-decimal-zero-zero. Good day." The controller replied, signing me off.

"Contact Austin Departure one-one-niner-decimal-zero-zero. Good day tower." I replied switching frequencies. The rest of the climb out was standard operating procedure. The one engine seemed to pressurize the cabin well enough. No problems on takeoff for once, that's a good sign of a good flight. Now, all we had to do was get it to the West Coast, then the relief crew could then take over, then it's a nice relaxing ride until we need to land again. So with the climb out going normally, the plane reached its cruising altitude somewhere over the Texas Panhandle. There, the autopilot took over flying the plane, so there's little to do until we get our time on break.

"So," I said, pulling out a book. "Now we wait."

"Yup," Tyler responded, pulling out his copy of the classic novel, The Bear and The Dragon.

Eventually we got talking, first about politics, then employment, the TSA, dragons and their country they were voting on in the United Nations building, ultimately it came to telling our career stories. I had been flying commercially for 15 years, three as a Boeing 777 captain, before that I flew a 747 from our hub in Honolulu to Singapore Changi International, that's one helluva ride in a monsoon I can tell you. Before that I flew Tupelov's from our Austin Base to JFK, once again, that is one crazy route, it's busy, really busy.

"Look," I told Tyler, "I don't care how amazing San Francisco fog is on a windy day. You've never been to Singapore in a monsoon. Flying a totally instrument landing while fighting wind and rain is never fun. They're one of the most challenging approaches I've ever done."

"Singapore? Ha! They're politically stable. Try Cairo 2011, remember the Egypt riots about Mubarak? I flew into that, that city was one big torch every night!" He responded smugly.

"Try flying into Lhasa in 2009 during the Chinese crackdown." I replied with a slight laugh, "They declared it a no fly zone right as we entered it. Ever seen a Chinese MiG up close? I mean *that* close."

"Ever done Kai Tak? That airport is amazing." He said, lying through his teeth, "One of the easiest approaches I've ever done."

"That's because you never did it. Obviously, all the Kai Tak veterans I talked to say it was a miracle to land there. Devine intervention if you walked away in stormy weather," I replied, seeing through his story.

"What? I can't help that I am young," he replied, taking a drink from the water bottle he had brought along. Both of us chuckled. I smiled and looked out toward the Rocky Mountains. From thirty-five thousand feet, the view is spectacular. No dragon could ever get up here, and even so have the pace in the change in scenery that you experience. I've learned that dragons are cool, flying on your own is amazing, but being human has its own perks. Like flying a 250 ton piece of aluminium across the vast pacific ocean, freaking awesome. Out running one in an Audi, too. I've found, best way to wipe the snug feeling off their faces. It reminds them that they are not gods.

Pleasant thoughts were interrupted by a shrill cry from the planes computers. "What was that?" I asked Tyler, instinctively grabbing the control yoke.

"Dammit!" He said exasperatingly, "Looks like the other pressurization system has just gone out." He pressed a few buttons on the overhead panel, trying to reset the valves. Nothing came out of it and all the valves were showing shut.

"Can you reopen them?" I said, disengaging the plane's autopilot with a noisy alarm.

"Let's see," He said calming down a bit, pulling out the quick reference handbook, "OK step one..." He set to work on the electrical and pneumatic systems, resetting the bleed valve computers, filter units, air conditioning, and virtually every air system, but nothing worked to unstuck the stuck valves. I picked up the phone in the center console and dialed the maintenance department. The phone rang twice before it was answered.

"TechAir Maintenance," the man said over the phone.

"Yes, this is 2333, we're having problems with the pressurization system."

"Aircraft?"

"Boeing 777. Registration NC56542TR."

"Ah... THAT one." There was a slight clicking, and then a small ding sounded from the cockpit speakers as the technician downloaded the latest data from the flight computers, "According to the flight computer, the bleed valves are malfunctioning."

"We figured that," I replied, slightly blinded by the obvious.

"Well, you'll need to get it on the ground so that we can look at it. From your location, the closest major airport that supports the 777-400 is Seattle-Tacoma. I would advise the APU to provide temporary pressurization on your way to Seattle."

"Alright, Thanks." I replied, setting the phone down on its receiver, I turned to my copilot. "Passenger's won't be to happy with this. Gotta divert to Seattle."

"No they will not." Tyler replied, putting away the handbook, a defeated look on his face. He then thought for a moment and smiled, "Maybe I should say something like 'Ladies and Gentlemen, we are having a potentially fatal problem with the life support systems on board. The pressurization system is out so if you are starting to feel tired, don't fall asleep. The cabin crew will start passing out oxygen now. We charge one dollar per breath, major credit cards accepted. Thank you for flying with us and if we get out of this alive, we hope you fly TechAir again soon."

We both chuckled a bit, then Tyler dialed the PA system, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your first officer speaking, we are uhh... experiencing some technical glitches up here in the cockpit, so we will be diverting to Seattle-Tacoma Airport, where another beautiful 777 will be arriving in a matter of minutes to continue you on your way to Shanghai. We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused. Thank you for flying TechAir."

I reached up and started the Auxiliary Power Unit, a small generator in the tail that could at least provide the pressurization required to get us to Seattle. Hopes were dashed however, by a sudden loud bang from the back of the plane and several blaring alarms up here in the cockpit. "Dammit! There goes the APU!" Tyler replied, quickly switching to the EICAS, a system of LED screens that display information on the functions of the aircraft, APU panel. "This is the third blown APU this week," he said, commenting on the maintenance papers given to us by the ground crew back at Austin.

"This is one hell of a plane." I muttered, slowly pushing the giant aircraft into a quick, but steady dive. "First the valves freeze up and now the APU has died." The alarm continued until Tyler cut it off, instantaneously followed by the loud ringing of the fire alarm. "Correction, ON FIRE!" I muttered before shouting, "Checklist!" Tyler scrambled to find the Quick Reference Handbook again, which once he did, was nearly ripped to shreds to find the APU fire section. Fortunately, the problem was resolved quickly, and the fire was quickly extinguished. All I thought was, 'is there anything else that could go wrong?' I learned that it could go a lot more wrong. There's always something more that could go wrong.

----

To the red scaled dragon, staring into the sunset over Friday Harbor was simply amazing. It had been something he had always wanted to do, 'and now with this new body I can anytime', he thought, glancing at himself. He took out his iPhone and the Bose Quiet Comfort noise cancelling headset and started up some music. "This is not the end, this is not the beginning..." Started the first lines of the Linkin' Park song "Waiting for the End". He stood up, placing the bag over his shoulders and between his wings as comfortably as he could. He flapped and ran to get a good start, kicking up an enormous quantity of dust. He was just about to lift off when something on the ground reflected into his eye. A bright gold colored nugget.

'What's this?' He thought, stopping his wings to pick up the hand sized golden nugget. "This looks like..." he thought back to his own transformation, seeing the red colored rock, and the five minutes of disbelief that followed by accidentally touching it. 'Nah,' he thought as he twirled it through his three fingered hands, thinking of what he could do with it. "I'll sell it," he said as he took to the air. He pulled out the GPS and set out for home, riding the thermals to a steady 7,500 feet above sea level. He had no idea of the danger that lurked only 100 miles away.

----

"TechAir 2333 you are cleared to flight level 75. Maintain current heading for fuel dump," The Seattle controller said as we passed through 15,000 feet. I was busy managing the throttles, being careful to keep the speed and angle of descent at a constant level. The scenery had changed, from dark craggy peaks of the Rockies to the luscious green treed mountains of the American Northwest. At 10,000 feet, I pulled up slightly to level the plane off into a 3 degree dive.

I started some calculating. At our current weight, we would crush the land gear if we fouled up the approach. So we were being directed to a place about 50 miles out side of Friday Harbor to lighten our load by dumping fuel. I know its a waste of perfectly good fuel, but it had to be done so that we could land safely. I primed the pumps and turned my attention back to the aircraft.

"7,500. We're good," I said, seeing the altimeter reach our directed altitude. I pulled the throttles back to slow down to 250 knots. I reached for the autopilot, dialed everything in that was needed and the plane once again was under the direction of the computer. "Alright," I said, "let's diagnose the problem here..." I said to Tyler as I pulled out the Boeing's manual from the shelf behind me.

----

It was many hours of soaring, but the dragon had finally began to make some progress to get home. He looked down on the cars that drifted on the asphalt below. He had to get back home, for at least tonight, tomorrow he had to get up to go to class again, "Biology... Ugh..." He thought as he continued to soar over the valley, struggling mildly against the mountain's air currents. He pulled out the gold rock, twirling it between his hands, "but you my little gold nugget," he cooed "will make my life sooooo much easier."

The dragon slipped on his headphones, turned on the iPhone, and continued his relaxing journey, the last of the large valley disappearing behind him. The sun was still shining, and he continued to fly, following the GPS to the "home" bookmark. However, what started with a low vibration, gradually increased in pitch, soon it was reverberating his body and became deafening. The dragon looked up, his jaw dropped. He folded his wings and dove, narrowly missing the giant engine, but his gold nugget had not. It was forcefully ripped from his hands and went flying into the engine. Tearing both the rock and the engine to shreds.

The dragon, the opened his wings to catch his fall. He the tore off his headphones, and floated toward the ground. He looked up, and was unable to see anything that could have caused that. He looked over himself, upon seeing no damage he looked around again and muttered, "What the hell was THAT?"

----

A loud banging sound rippled throughout the plane followed by an immense burst of flame coming from the right hand side of the aircraft. "Engine fail," the CAWS, a variety of mechanisms that speak to the crew about what's going wrong where, responded as the computer jerked the right engine's throttle back to idle as a safety measure. We had no time to react as the plane started to lurch to suddenly the right causing the autopilot to disconnect. Without control, the increased drag caused by the failed right engine started to roll the aircraft over, "Get it! Get it!" I shouted, dropping the manuals from my lap and jerking the plane's control yoke violently to the left. The plane however, despite full ailerons, continued its roll to the the left. It passed 20 degrees, 25 degrees, 30 degrees, 35 degrees, the plane was starting to hit its design limits, any more and it will start falling, the plane's computers were agreeing, shouting "BANK ANGLE!" warnings constantly. I throttled the remaining engine in an attempt to get more air flowing over the wings. "Rudder. Left rudder!" I shouted, both us slammed the left rudder pedal which, combined with the ailerons, slowly righted the plane. Both us were breathing hard, sweating, trying desperately to control the aircraft. We pinned the yokes to the left, but were slowly able to straighten them out after a little experimentation

"Holy crap..." I said as the artificial horizon slowly leveled off, "We got it under control." I tapped the radio, "SEATAC (short for Seattle-Tacoma), this is TechAir 2333, we are declaring an emergency."

"TechAir 2333, state your emergency." The controller responded curiously.

"We've had an explosive engine failure on our right engine," I said as Tyler cut the fuel and pulled the engine two fire handle twice.

"Bottles fired," he said, returning his manual to his pouch. I gave him a thumbs up and promptly continued to tell SEATAC about our problem.

'Alright 2333, I have 16 right all geared up for you to land. Would you like 16?" the controller asked, I pulled out my FAA charts, charts handed out by the government about airfields all over the US. After a little digging, I found SEATAC's chart. I scanned for runway 16 right, at over eleven thousand feet, 16 right is a good safe length to land on.

"We'll take it," I said, returning to the crippled airliner thinking, 'just get it on the ground.'

With an engine out, the fuel dump was out of the question. We would have to land almost 50 tons beyond the maximum designed landing weight of the 777, a problem indeed for all on board. We were going to land heavy, fast and loaded with volatile fuel. This means that we would have to touch down as early and slow as we can. A difficult and dangerous situation, especially considering that we were carrying more than 200 people.

"Roger that 2333, equipment is rolling. Will provide assistance on a need be basis, SEATAC out."

"Thank SEATAC, 2333 out" I replied, taking off the headset. Breathing a sigh of relief.

Tyler also took a big sigh of relief, then gave one of the worst things you could hear, "You smell that?"

I sniffed the air, it smelled like... "Smoke," I uttered. Fire on an airliner is amongst the worst things that can happen, universally striking fear into pilots. Right now, we are dealing with nightmarish stuff. With one engine out, crippled controls (I believe the ailerons and rudder were severely damaged when the engine failed). Sure enough, after a bit of looking a small amount of smoke was wafting through the vents in the overhead. I grabbed the fire extinguisher behind me, keeping one hand on the control yoke, and called the flight attendants in the back to tell the cabin to prepare for a possible emergency landing and quick evacuation. I didn't want to mention the possible fire. There's something different about this smoke though, it's a "Gold color?" I said aloud.

"What?" asked Tyler.

"The smoke isn't anything I've ever seen. It's got a gold color to it," I said again, I looked up at the oxygen mask above my head. To risky for that because it increases the likelihood of a flash fire. The smoke hoods are behind me, I could put it on, but the plane is constantly requiring my full attention. I was stuck, trapped with a needy aircraft and no smoke protection. I could only sit and watch as the cockpit slowly filled up with smoke. I let go of the breath I was holding and signaled the relief crew, who was still hanging on for dear life a deck below, to come up with extreme caution. I coughed as I inhaled the first bits of the smoke. Followed by another, and another, soon I was coughing like crazy. Choked of oxygen, my vision started to blur, becoming so bad that I couldn't read the panels right. The numbers were too blurry to read and the blue-orange artificial horizon started to meld together into an incomprehensible mess. I spotted my hand as I stabilized myself against the front panel. It looked different, more shiny, glossy, and overall "scaly?" I muttered before the smoke finally overcame me.

----

I awoke with a jolt, crashing my head into the roof of a bunk. 'How'd I get here?' I thought as I recovered from the that incident. Apparently I was in the crew rest area, a room under the 777's main cabin. "Ow..." I muttered as I started to reach a hand up to rub the bump. I instantly noticed that something was wrong. My voice sounded throaty, like I was producing the sound more in my throat than in my mouth. I started to bring a hand to my throat, my eyes were greeted with semi-glossy, gold colored scales. "What the crap?!" I yelled as I quickly got out of the bed. I became unbalanced on digitigrade feet and instantly fell over with a loud thud, causing a discomforting pain in my body as I fell on a new appendages of mine, a tail and a new set of wings. Now I was in severe mental shock, 'How? Why? What is this? How did it happen?' were the questions that ran through my now scaly head, as I continued to stare at my body. Unable to cope with the increasing amount of bewilderment and my mind's demands for answers, I cracked. I slowly crawled into the fetal position on the floor, wings folded tightly and tail wrapped around me tightly, and whimpered.

"Captain..." a stewardess said in a comforting voice placing a hand on my shoulder, "Captain, it's all right..." Around me was the flight crew, all staring at me. Some with pity, others with curiosity, some with utter disgust, as I continued to lay on the ground. I was mentally frozen, and those were the only lines I can remember anyone say.

Time is a weird thing while in shock, it feels eternal, flowing like a white water rapid in a time lapse, you know it's moving, but its so slow you can hardly tell the difference. Tyler, I later noticed, was also in the same state. He woke up soon after me, doing practically what I had done. I didn't even realize that he had done that, a testament to the severe fragility of my own mental state. It took me many hours after everyone had left, later confirmed as all night, for me to snap out of my trance, eventually I falling asleep on the carpet, my new wings and tail slowly twitched as I slipped into dreamland, where the problems would hopefully vanish.

I instantly awoke, an odd feeling since I was used to a whole process as a human. I, however, was now more curious than terrified of my new body. Seeing that I would have to live with it for quite some time, I knew that I couldn't exactly be repulsed by it now. I stood up, still unsteady on my new digitigrade feet. I bumped my head on the low lying ceiling, inadvertently punching a hole in the plastic roof. I muttered an 'oops' and realized that I put on about two feet in height. I would have to stoop a bit to fit in here and after bending my new, slightly longer neck in such a way that was both comfortable and fitting, I decided to look myself over.

Everything was different about me, from the gold colored scales and the off-white colored leathery underbelly. The two new appendages, a tail for one and the wings for second, hanging off of me. My feet had morphed into their digitigrade counterparts, with three wicked looking toes and covered in golden scales, and ending with large black claws. Hands too had changed, ditching the little finger and increasing the size of the other three, with large black claws resting on the ends of all four fingers. Finally, my face had grown into a muzzle, but until I had a mirror, I had no idea what it would look like. From crossing my eyes, it apparently was triangular in appearance and covered in the same scales that now coated my body.

I started with the wings, experimentally unfurling them. They were very large, at over ten feet, they were longer than I was tall now, and beautifully decked out in bright gold scales with tough, thick, dark gold leathery membranes connecting the four fleshy, cartilaginous fingers together, the elbow-like joint topped by a sharp black claw. I gave them an experimental slow flap, learning that they were very strong and flexible. I then reached for my new tail, letting my wings naturally fold up against my body, like an extra pair of arms they were.

It was a weird feeling touching my tail. It's like touching a four foot extension of your spine and it had a tendency to drag along the floor in a somewhat annoying fashion when walking around as I found out testing my new, digitigrade walking style. That in itself was a weird thing, feeling my leg bend in three places was extremely discomforting at first, I stumbled a few times, but eventually got the hand of it. After my walking tests, I decided to test how nimble my tail was. I figured out that it was fairly so after some experimentation, giving a large degree of motion and usability up and down its length. I also figured that it could give away some of the thoughts I could be feeling at the moment. Fortunately for me though, I'm not a very emotional individual.

Of course my hands had changed too, I let go of my tail and took a look at them. Each was covered in bright gold scales. I extended my fingers straight out to get a better look at them. It felt weird, but strangely natural to have only 3 fingers and a thumb on each hand. I could live with 6 fingers, but the loss of my thumbs would be truly devastating. I flipped my hands over. Something that always had fascinated me is how dragons grip things, as the scales are smooth and provide no friction for gripping objects. The entire palm of my hand was now very tough and leathery, providing ample grip as I found testing them with my luggage, setting it on top of the bed. Topped with sharp claws that look like they could do some serious damage. Unfortunately, the composite fiber handle of my hand bag had to learn that the hard way.

I unzipped the case and took out a small glass mirror and brought it up to my stooped over head. "Whoa..." I muttered, staring at my face. I had guessed right, a new triangular shaped muzzle now took up residence where my nose and mouth once were. I reached up and stroked my face. It felt weird to have a hand on my face that far out, I continued to trace my muzzle, reaching up to the back of my head. Two large black colored horns, and several smaller ones in between, now protruded from the back of my head, each in a spiraling fashion. At two feet long, the largest helped to balance the weight of my new muzzle. My ears had also changed, becoming fin like protrusions on the outside of my head. Though slightly better in the range, there was little difference from human ears in sensitivity.

Finally, I opened my mouth. I was greeted by copious amounts of teeth, some were very sharp, others were slightly flatter and dull. "Still omnivorous" I thought as I counted 27 teeth on the bottom, giving me 54 to 56 teeth in total. In addition, large drops of thick saliva clung from the roof of my mouth, creating fearsome looking lines of coagulated spit that clung to both top and bottom layers of teeth. I stuck out my tongue, long, fork shaped and pitch black. It was fun to play with, at least until I tasted a bit of roof and quickly darted it in, spitting to get the taste of plastic out of my mouth.

But it was my eyes that shocked me the most. Taking the place of my normal emerald eyes as a human was an eyeball that was as black as pitch with bright deep ruby red iris with a catlike slit for a pupil. It was rather creepy to look at. I did take a quick glance around the room to see if there were any improvements. My vision was good, but not like 'Wow!' good. Compared to my vision as a human, it was like an artist adding an extra color to his painting palliate, the result is the same, but there are simply more color options available for the artist to mix. I was just about to look over feet when I heard another noise.

"Ugggh..." the other gold dragon now known as Tyler moaned, my new finned ear picking up his moaning in the background. I ran over to help him up. He propped on his hands and knees, he looked up, stared at me in horror, and started to scramble away. That's when he noticed his new tail. "What the..." He muttered, bringing a four fingered hand up, he stared at me with a pair of vibrant ivory eyes, with round pupiled and radiant sky blue irises. We looked exactly alike, like we were twins now or something, with the only difference being the eyes.

"Look," I said, trying to calm him down, rather surprised on how rather deep my voice had gotten, "I don't know what happened here, but we'll figure it out."

"Not helping!" replied Tyler, shocked at his own voice too, "Look at you... Look at me! We're both freaks, beings that until two years ago, didn't even exist!"

"Yes but..." I was about to reply when the service elevator dinged. Out stepped four large men, a security detail obviously, all protecting the smaller, older one in the middle. He was a man in his forties, a little under six feet, Caucasian, grey and brown haired with hardened, steel blue eyes that looked like they've seen more than his age let on.

"Well, well, well. What do we have here. Looks like two gold dragons on one of my 777's?" He said, swirling his cane around in his hand. The four men he brought along moved to surround us, like as to protect him, not engage us. He then opened a brief case that he had brought along, and took out a large valve.

I instantly recognized it as a bleed valve. It was open and the inside layered with a strange gold dust. I put two-and-two together. This was the source of all our problems, we had commanded all the valves shut and this particularly one hadn't, for what reason I do not know. But the ones to the passenger cabin, had closed and thus were safe from the dust. The one to the flight deck however, hadn't and we were exposed to it.

"Is that what..." I started, earning a glare and an instant shut up motion from him. He shook his head, annoyed, and continued.

"I have always admired creatures like yourself. Such grace and elegance." He started, "But there's a problem with dragons." Earning fresh and curious looks from Tyler and I. His tone was obviously negative and condescending. Despite our fearsome looks, he continued on, oblivious to them. I eyed the exits, but they were blocked by the security detail, giving us no choice but to listen to him. "Its you dragons are threatening us humans! I will not allow freaks like you to exist, not in my airline and sure as hell, not on this planet!"

This caused me to twitch my tail and rustle my wings in anger. 'How dare he... I've been a dragon for less than 24 hours and he's already made judgements?' I thought, keeping as silent as I could. I clenched and unclencehed my fists, drumming them along my palm, and narrowed my fearsome red eyes. I took a quick glance at Tyler, obviously he felt the same way, his tail and wings making small, but noticeable twitching motions of annoyance and anger. But both of us could have expected what came next.

He finished his rant about how the evil dragons will kill us all and doom the planet, he stared up at us with a look of seasoned, steeled boardroom contempt. He might have been my boss's boss but I sure didn't really care, I could claw his face out with that show there. Rather discomforting was that something was pushing me to do so, but rational look at this whole thing it quickly shut it down. "That is why I have taken steps, to get rid of you wretched things!" He said in a deathly tone, he smiled sinisterly turned away and said one last thing, "Oh, and say hello to Wichita for me. I won't be there to see her today, so give her my best regards." He snapped his fingers and I soon felt the hard plastic of a nightstick on my head and the sweet dark embrace of unconsciousness once again washed over me.

I awoke once again with a start, the room that I was in was totally dark. The only things that linked us to the outside world was the rumbling of a diesel engine the occasional bump of the road. I guessed that we were in the back of a tractor trailer box. I rubbed my head where I was hit, to the right of my new horns, causing noticeable, but small, bump. I heard a noise coming from across the back of the truck. It sounded like light breathing. I followed it blindly, stumbling around, unable to gain proper footing.  I did however, eventually came upon Tyler, still unconscious, and shook him. He awoke startlingly fast, smashing the base of his horns on his head into my muzzle. It took a bit of time, but after we recovered, we sat down in the darkness from what I could only assume was across from each other for the last time as individuals and not lab rats. "So this is it?" I asked him, sitting, folding my wings and curing my tail around my legs.

"I guess it is," he said disconcerted, the tapping of his claw on the steel floor making slight ticking sounds. We continued to ride on in total silence. Both of us were pondering the rest of our, possibly short, lives. The questions we were asking ourselves ranged from the big, 'why did this happen to me?' to the completely inane, 'did I set the alarm system at the house?' The truck soon squeaked to a halt, hearts pounding as we heard shouting outside. The door latch was opened and the cool night air rushed in to replace the stale air inside the container.

We were ordered out at gunpoint by what looked like Washington State National Guard soldiers. The four men that had tagged along with our now not dragon friendly, not so great CEO, stood beside us as soon as they exited their black Suburban. We watched as a large plane, an Air National Guard C-130, landed on the abandoned airfield and taxi to a stop. "Fate awaits you," one of the security men said, signaling to the plane. My heart sank, and started pounding in my chest as I saw the soldiers start to load up.

"But it is not yours," the same man said again after a long pause, "Thanks guys! You did great! Give the Colonel my regards!" he said, shouting and waving to a sergeant boarding the plane. "This is," he said pointing with an open hand to a general direction, away from the C-130. I was shocked and bewildered. 'What just happened?' was going through me and Tyler's minds as the men started forward.

We were instead guided to a large hangar, once used to house Navy zeppelins. It seemed like whatever they were hiding and whatever they wanted us to see was behind those doors. The man shouted a command and the doors slowly started opening. When the electric motors stopped, I could barely make out the silhouette of a very large winged object. Slowly, giant lights that had been set up before hand gradually illuminated, dramatically and one-by-one. To reveal what we thought we'd never be able to expect.

"Where dreams come true right?" One of the men said as a small push car came to pull the plane out. Both of our muzzles dropped, because we were now looking at every pilots dream, a Boeing B787-9 Dreamliner. It was just officially launched just this last month, and only two have been produced, with the one before us being the second one. Decked out in a hybrid livery of TechAir and Boeing's, it was the perfect way to commemorate it.

I turned to look at one of the men, he looked at me and chuckled, "Company's called her 'Wichita Falls.' I'm sure that name sounds familiar to you." He then handed me an envelope, smiled and turned back around to admire the plane. With a claw, I opened the note. It was a simple, one sheet of plain sheet of copy paper. It contained a simple piece of paper with a line of hand written instructions, "Don't break it this time."
I have returned after a two year hiatus. It felt good to write again and I hope to continue to do so into the future.

As with all my work, a good positive critique is well appreciated. I always continue to strive for quality product, and I have no holds barred on providing it. ;)

This is the longest story I've ever written, 27 pages of double spaced writing (15 single). In addition, I don't think aviation and TF's have been made like this. So Hooray for individuality. ;)

I would like to make a shout out to :iconsome-kind-of-name: for his great writing assistance that he gave me. Much of the final kinks were sorted out by him. So give credit where credit is due. ;)

It's good to be back, I hope to continue on into the future here on dA as a regular prose writer.

As always, spot something that doesn't fit and I'll attempt to fix it.


Credits:

Green Dragon on 777— :iconsome-kind-of-name:

Universe— :iconfarm-fresh:
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NBDragon21's avatar

I take it because off how detailed you wrote it that you experienced the tragedy.