“Breathe,” I told him.
He blinked at me like I’d slapped him.
I leaned in, checked the captain’s pulse. Weak. Alive. Not waking up.
Then I slid the headset on like it belonged there.
“Control,” I said into the mic, steady as a nail. “This is Flight 909. Medical emergency. Captain unconscious. We are losing stability. Request immediate priority and vectors.”
Static hissed.
Then a voice, clipped and tense. “Flight 909, copy. Identify yourself.”
I stared at the panel for half a second, feeling the old name in my throat like a bone.
I hadn’t said it out loud in years.
But the plane shuddered again, and two hundred people behind that door were counting on me without knowing my name.
I exhaled once.
“Call sign Falcon One.”
Silence.
Not the normal kind.
The kind that tells you someone, somewhere, just sat up straight.
A different voice cut in—lower, urgent, like it came from a room with no windows.
