(OOC: Assuming my WIL check didn't fail too hard)

Jessica hardly has the barf bag open as a virtual splash of half-digested breakfast fills it. Disgusted, she tries to fold it shut, then reaches for the next one. Silently, she wishes that she hadn't insisted on getting a real job.

Jack, after hearing the sounds of two stomachs churning...calls back again.

"Guys, I know you're hurting right now, but I need one of you to come up front here and help me steer the plane....the other needs to keep a lookout on the screen in case our two extra passengers managed to stay on the wing."

I run towards the front of the plane, asking "Where did those shits come from!?"

Jack glances for a millisecond at Artis then back at the flight panel.

"No time for that now, hop in that seat and help me keep this thing level. I've got the tower in Madrid on the receiver and they're readying a crash crew on the landing strip, now it's a matter of keeping this bitch in the air. You don't happen to know how to fly, do you?"

"Um, no," I say, wondering if I should randomly push buttons now or later...

"Great...always my luck. Have a seat and strap yourself in. (flicks on the intercomm) Jessica dear, are you ok? I need you to go over to the control panel and activate the auto-defense systems...the controls up here are jammed and...well, we're a bit busy keeping the plane from crashing."


(Edited by Dieter at 10:00 am on April 24, 2002)

"No problem."

Jessica digs herself out of the seatbelt, only to get caught in a slight turbulence. With her sense of balance already upset, it doesn't take long for her to crash on the ground. Rationalizing that the ground is steadier when you're lying on it, she crawls towards the panel and pushes the button she believes to be the right one.

"Next time I'm renting a boat and rowing to Europe..."

Jessica pushes the proverbial large red button on the control panel. As the button is pressed, Jessica hears a calm and reassuring female voice eminating from the panel's speaker system.

"Intrusion countermeasures activated. Scanning for threats...scanning. Three threats detected."

A schematic of the jet is displayed, indicating two small incendiary devices attached on the starboard engine mount and on the seam where the wing is riveted to the fusilage. A third threat of organic composition is under said wing.

The voice then speaks again,

"Threats identified, suggest EMP burst. WARNING! burst should not be used at altitude."

"I'm pulling a Lt. Madison here..."

Jessica turns around and shouts in the general direction of the cockpit.

"The computer suggests an EMP blast, but advises to get this piece of scrap metal down first."

Jack yells back,

"Tell the computer that while I do appreciate its suggestion, those those explosives will no doubt go off before we'll able to land. Look, we're at 9000ft. and holding. If I dump some fuel, we'll probably gain another 1000. If we then activate the EMP, it will cut out the ignitions systems for about 3 seconds, we're going to fall maybe another 500ft during that time, it takes 10 seconds for the engines to turn over and another 10 for full rpms. Tell that to the damn computer and see what it says...and hurry!"

As the music moves into straight instrumental jazz, the sound system remains as good as it was before, despite the subwoofer in the trunk taking some damage.

Harry gets out and starts shouting at whoever rear-ended them, gesticulating wildly

(ooc: do I know spanish? I guess roll languages.)

Aboard the Good Ship Lollipop:
---

"Do it now or we all die anyway!!!" I scream, buckling myself into the copilot's chair.

Highway A-2, 7:30pm Madrid local time

The jarring effect of a rear-end collision, along with the fact that it made the instrumental part of You're nobody till somebody loves you skip, pissed Harry off to no end. Unfortunately, Harry only remembers a few choice epithets in Spanish back from his days of riding the bus in Philadelphia.

As he gets out the car to yell at people who just cost him his insurance deductible, Gavin rolls down the window knowing full well this isn't going to have a happy ending.

Harry puts on his hat and begins walking back to the car who hit them, he's yelling wildly saying what he thinks is,

"What the hell were you thinking? Are you blind?"

As Harry begins his tyrade, the driver and front seat passenger get out of the offending car.

Both are very goon-looking, dressed in what looks like golf attire...polo shirts and khakis. The passenger is inconspicuosly wearing a sports-jacket, despite the fact it is well over 95F outside.

Meanwhile, the terror at 9000ft continues

Artis' screaming simultaneously causes Jack to bleed the fuel lines and Jessica to panic, hitting the EMP option on the computer's touch screen.

The soothing voice comes on again,

"EMP activated...EMP activated."

Jessica begins to hear a whirring noise eminating from the back of the plane and before she has time to alert her crewmates, the pulse goes off. All lights and electronic instrumentation fade to black as the turbines of the plane slow to a stop.

Artis and Jack have a lucid moment.

-Has this ever happened to you before?
-Once, but that was in a DC-3 and over water.
-What happened?
-I crashed. Broke my leg 3 places.
-Oh, that's comforting.

The thought of being in a powerless plane at 10,000ft is perhaps the most frightening experience one could have. The nose begins to pull into a steep dive and into a flat spin.

As the plane begins to dive, Jessica decides that being an atheist sucks when your only hope would be divine intervention.

Moments after Jessica's "born-again" decision, the lights and computer display screen are restored. Jack sees the power indicators coming online and promptly hit the engine ignition switches.

All the while, Artis sees the jet's altimeter spinning downward.

8000....7900....7800....7700...

From the cabin, Jessica hears the engines trying to turn over. The jet is shaking violently as the plane plummets downward at an alarming rate.

7600....7500....

Jack continues to try and start the engines to no avail.
Artis stares at him with the "Would it help if I got out and pushed?" look.

"Take it easy, my brother, these new planes are a bit twitchy."

6900....6800....

Jack pauses for a moment, then begins pounding the ignition panel with his fists.

"Work!...Damn you...work!"

The third punch seems to do the trick. As the engines groan violently, the pressure gauges and primary systems come online.

6200...6100...

Jack throttles the plane to full power.

"Come on baby!"

5500....5400

"Artis, push down on the rudder plates!"

The plane shook more violently than in the past, but the spinning is beginning to stop.

4800...4700

Artis can now see off in the distance what appears to be the Madrid skyline. The plane has stopped spinning and Jack is levelling her off.

"See, that wasn't so bad. The good thing now is that if we have to ditch her, a water landing is doable."

Just as Jack said that, Madrid airport transmitted that it was seeing the jet on its radar.

"Barajas airport, this Tango Foxtrot...Amigos, I hope you have that emergency crew ready to go. This landing isn't going to be pretty."

As the plane made its final approach to land, Artis and Jessica were moderately relieved that their first mission flight wasn't going to be their last.

The landing goes fairly well, a sudden cross-wind caused the plane to veer slightly off course, but all things considered...

As the plane is taxi-ed to the hangar, followed by howling sirends of emergency vehicles, Jack checks over the controls and flips on the intercomm,

"Well, as the saying goes, Any landing you can walk away from...We should be in the hangar momentarily."

(Edited by Dieter at 12:36 pm on April 29, 2002)

Jessica allows herself a breath, then goes meet Jack in the cockpit.

"If they had sabotaged the plane with anyone else behind the helm, we wouldn't have made it. I'm positively impressed by your piloting abilities, Mr. Dalton."

"Well, thank you darlin' for flying Dalton Air. Make sure your traytables and seats are in full upright positions."

Jessica's heads back to collect her things to disembark and Jack follows her to open the outside door.

Waiting in the hangar are two of The Agency's suits and a team of techies who immediately begin analyzing the condition of the plane. Jack seems to know the suits by name.

-Bill, Fred...how nice to see you guys again!
-Mr. Dalton, we have a few questions to ask you about the events that occured in-flight.
-Guys, guys. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. What say we all head over to the lounge and knock back a few?

While Jack tries to dodge the questions and get a cold one, Artis and Jessica are disembark. One of the techies then comes over to the Fred and Bill. He's wearing your stereotypical crime scene coveralls, mask, rubber surgical gloves, and carrying a pair of forceps and an empty ziploc baggy marked "evidence".

(taking off his mask)

-Uh, sir? Sorry to interrupt, but we've found something lodged into the starboard aileron.
-Well, what is it?
-Um, I'm not sure sir. You should probably come over and check it out.

Highway A2, about 5 miles from the airport

(OOC: For cinematic effect, we'll assume you and the other car pulled off to the side of the road, thereby keeping police presence to a mininum)

An interesting standoff is unfolding as the occupants of the two cars stand looking at eachother, waiting for the other to make the first move.

The driver of the car starts yelling back in broken English.

"Hey man, what the hell's your problem?!"

Harry sizes up the situation.

Ok, two of them...two of us...fair odds I suppose. The driver looks like a cool customer. His friend however, looks a bit short-tempered.

(Edited by Dieter at 8:05 pm on April 26, 2002)

"We should make sure this mission hasn't been hosed from the very beginning," I say to Jessica. I idly tap the cellphone in my pocket, wondering if it's safe to update the boss yet, then decide to see what the whole mess was about first.

Everyone meanders over to the other side of the plane.

Standing there are the other two techies, poking and prodding at something caught in the aileron. After about 30 seconds of constant probing, something falls off the wing, landing on the concrete hangar floor and skittering with a metallic sound.

Hearing this forboding noise, the techies, including the one who initiated this investigation, scatter like roaches taking cover behind whatever then can find.

Perhaps Artis and Jessica's wills were tempered with the recent flight, or they were simple just too jaded on what fear was at the moment...nevertheless, they stand their ground.

Bill wets his pants like a little girl as Fred looks ashamedly at him then walks over and crouches down to pick up the metallic object, now by the front landing gear.

"Bill, go out to the car and get a dry pair of pants. Recruits, come over here....you techies, get back to fucking work bunch of pussies. It's just a friggin altimeter."

Fred stands up as Artis and Jessica join him. He then walks over to the aileron as the techies begin to crawl out of their hiding places.

"Here, hold this."

(giving the altimeter Jessica, which appears to be covered in blood)

Fred grabs on to the aileron with one hand and the uses the other to grip the foreign object.

"Hey, big guy (looking at Artis)...a little help here. I want you to hold this hunk of aluminum in place while I pull. Here goes..."

1...2...3!

The foreign object is dislodged as Fred yanks it out, falling on the floor in the process. He doesn't get up, preferring to study what he extracated.

"Yup just what I thought...some poor bastard got caught while trying to jump off the wing. Judging by the death grip (no pun intended) the poor bastard probably gave a pretty good fight before his arm separated completely from his shoulder. You techies...I want a full analysis of this (throwing the lead techie the arm). Fingerprints, DNA, fiber samples, the whole nine yards."

Fred then turns to Artis and Jessica, bloody hands and all.

"Well, looks like you two have already had quite an exciting first mission."