Sarah remained near the cockpit door.
“Should I tell the passengers what’s happening?”
“Yes,” Marcus said. “Enough truth that they stop inventing something worse.”
She gave him a questioning look.
“Tell them the captain became ill, we’ve diverted to Ireland, and they need to remain seated. Don’t mention how much hydraulic pressure we have left.”
“How much do we have?”
Marcus looked at Foster.
Foster swallowed.
“Thirty-one percent on one system. Twenty-seven on the other.”
Sarah understood immediately.
She disappeared into the cabin.
Marcus sat in the cockpit jump seat and began working through the problem with Foster. They reduced unnecessary control movements and planned the descent early so the aircraft would not require dramatic configuration changes near the runway. Every adjustment became a negotiation with the airplane.
For several minutes, things remained stable.
Then they hit turbulence.
The aircraft dropped sharply.
Foster reacted instinctively, pulling back.
“Easy,” Marcus said.
Another jolt struck the plane.
Foster pulled harder.
Marcus put a hand on his forearm. “Don’t chase it.”
“We’re losing altitude.”
“It’s turbulence, not a departure. If you keep correcting every bump, you’ll burn through what’s left of the hydraulics.”
Foster forced himself to relax.
The aircraft shuddered again, then settled.
Marcus nodded. “There you go.”
Foster released a long breath.
“I’ve flown this route forty times.”
“Tonight isn’t the route you’re flying.”
Foster looked at him.
Marcus pointed toward the instruments.
“You’re flying the airplane that exists right now. Forget the one you wish you had.”
That sentence seemed to steady him.
In the cabin, Sarah was fighting a different emergency.
Fear.
Passengers had begun calling family members through the aircraft’s internet connection. Rumors were spreading faster than the crew could control them. Someone claimed both engines had failed, another insisted they were turning toward Iceland, and a third passenger said the captain was dead.
A man near the center of the cabin stood and demanded answers.
Sarah ordered him to sit down.
He refused.
“I paid four thousand dollars for this ticket,” he shouted. “I deserve to know who is flying this plane.”
Colonel Whitmore unbuckled his belt.
“Sit down.”
The passenger turned. “Stay out of this.”
Whitmore rose slowly.
“I spent thirty-two years around military aviation. The man they took forward knows exactly what he’s talking about.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know enough.”
The passenger gestured angrily toward the cockpit. “He’s not even an airline pilot.”
A woman across the aisle began crying again.
That was when Dr. Shaw emerged from the cockpit.
“The captain suffered a medical emergency,” she said loudly enough for several rows to hear. “The first officer remains in command of this aircraft. The former military pilot is assisting him because the aircraft has a technical problem.”
People became quiet.
Then someone asked the question everyone was thinking.
“Are we going to crash?”
Dr. Shaw paused.
She could have lied.
Instead, she said, “The best thing every one of us can do right now is give the people flying this airplane the calmest cabin possible.”
It wasn’t reassuring.
But it was honest.
Passengers sat down.
Back inside the cockpit, the hydraulic pressure had dropped below twenty percent.