Deadstick

By Sean Monaghan

Scorching across the California sky, test pilot Hank races to save his son. With afterburners overheating and Sally Jean, his favorite aircraft, tearing apart around him, he needs to think fast.
Or not think at all.
A dieselpunk story by Sean Monaghan, author of Pan Am 617 Heavy. Includes bonus story "How Do You Like These Heights".

• Language: English
• Publisher: Triple V Publishing
• Release date: Oct 25, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466091290

Sean Monaghan

Award-winning author, Sean Monaghan has published more than one hundred stories in the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and in New Zealand, where he makes his home. A regular contributor to Asimov’s, his story “Crimson Birds of Small Miracles”, set in the art world of Shilinka Switalla, won both the Sir Julius Vogel Award, and the Asimov’s Readers Poll Award, for best short story. He is a past winner of the Jim Baen Memorial Award, and the Amazing Stories Award. Sean writes from a nook in a corner of his 110 year old home, usually listening to eighties music. Award-winning author, Sean Monaghan has published more than one hundred stories in the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and in New Zealand, where he makes his home. A regular contributor to Asimov’s, his story “Crimson Birds of Small Miracles”, set in the art world of Shilinka Switalla, won both the Sir Julius Vogel Award, and the Asimov’s Readers Poll Award, for best short story. He is a past winner of the Jim Baen Memorial Award, and the Amazing Stories Award. Sean writes from a nook in a corner of his 110 year old home, usually listening to eighties music.

Book preview

Deadstick

DEADSTICK

SEAN MONAGHAN

Triple V Publishing

CONTENTS

Deadstick

How Do You Like These Heights?

Afterword

About the Author

Also by Sean Monaghan

Copyright © 2011/2012 Sean Monaghan

All rights reserved.

Published by Triple V Publishing

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Cover illustration

© Sean Monaghan

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Paperback isbn: 9781479366743

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Discover other titles by this author at:

www.seanmonaghan.com

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This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and incidents described in this publication are used fictitiously, or are entirely fictional.

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No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, except for fair use by reviewers or with written permission from the publisher. www.triplevpublishing.com

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Deadstick was originally published in the anthology Oil and How Do You Like These Heights? was originally published in the anthology What is New is Old Again, both from Static Movement.

DEADSTICK

Hank pushed Sally-Jean over the crest and slammed on the afterburners. He’d logged more hours strapped into her snug cockpit than in the rest of the test planes put together. The snub-nosed Lockheed felt like she was a part of him. Some of the guys at Ridgecrest were starting to make lewd comments, asking when the wedding was.

He didn’t mind. What they didn’t know was the sheer bliss of pointing her heavy ass at the ground and shunting her into the stratosphere at six gees, then bending her around, butterfly-like, into a parabolic arc, cutting the engine and letting her float fifty thousand feet down before reigniting and pulling up, all sense of butterfly gone, screaming along fifty feet above the desert floor. He didn’t need the amphetamines they sometimes offered around; Sally-Jean kept him alert and hopped-up all he needed. She always came back with an empty tank.

Next year, 1990, with the start of the new decade, FASA would be looking for pilots to put into a capsule to launch into space from Florida. He’d seen the age requirements and he’d missed by a year. He wanted to be out west anyway, to stay close to Jeb. If CASA could get their act together there might be a California space program anyway and he was on the spot to apply for that. Being local ought to count. So long as the Guate-Honduro Confederation didn’t push further north through the Mexican border and force the governor to divert more funds to a war effort. Though if the Chinese invaded Japan again, then it might all become moot. Everything had changed since the Brits bombed Buenos Aires.

Hank pulled away from the dunes and swung through Towne Pass, hills rearing up either side of the cockpit. Down, following the recently sealed road, and a hard left turn into the Panamint Valley. He tapped the timing dial and checked the fuel. The last afterburner burst had left him with fumes. He edged his girl up over the range and towards China Lake.

The engine spluttered. Then caught again.

Come on honey. Hank stroked the cockpit rim. Just a little further. He knew he shouldn’t have used the afterburners after Beatty, but crossing Death Valley, pass to pass, in under three minutes never got old. Especially if there were tour buses to buzz. They barely even saw him.

He came up over the range and saw the air station. He would have to aim to put down on runway nineteen, directly ahead. Sally-Jean might be the smoothest aircraft he’d ever flown, but she didn’t glide so well.

Hank? the radio squawked.

Gemma? Give me clearance on nineteen.

You need to get back here.

The engine coughed. Be back in a minute, he said. Is nineteen clear?

Hold a moment. I’m not at the desk.

What? Just get it clear. How could she be away