Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 *********************************************************
************************ WARNING ************************
********************************************************* * The following
text contains written descriptions of * * sexual acts between adults,
children and adults with * * children.  If it is illegal for you to read
acts of * * this nature, or if you are under age, please stop * * reading
right now.  * * * * This story is a work of fiction.  Any similarities to *
* actual people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.* * * * (c)
2003-2005, Kenn Ghannon.  All rights reserved.  * * Any republication or
retransmission of this document, * * severally or collectively, without the
author's * * express written permission is prohibited.  *
*********************************************************

   Chapter One: What goes up...

   It was a beautiful day for flying.  The sun was shining and there wasn't
a cloud in the sky.  Weather reports along my flight route were unanimous
in their forecasts.  It was going to be gorgeous.  There was nothing to mar
the day, nothing except meeting the reproachful gaze of my sister.

   I was nervous when the vans pulled up.  I also had a large portion of
guilt and shame hanging on my shoulders, a cold, wet cloak hovering around
me.  I hadn't seen Jamie in over a year and I wasn't sure how I was going
to face her.  My failure lay large in my thoughts as I prepared myself for
what was coming.

   They piled out of the vans unceremoniously, a rather attractive blond
leading them.  My eyes, however, were on Jamie.

   She had grown since I'd seen her last, maybe 5-5, 5-6.  She still kept
her beautiful red hair long, but now it lay in soft ringlets around her
face.  The hint of a red mark lay on her thin button nose, probably from
acne.  Her eyes were still the soft green of a perfect, flawless opal,
however.  And her freckles covered her cheeks in a soft blanket of color.
She had developed a number of womanly curves as well, something that both
unsettled and scared me.  She was laughing lightly with a willowy blond who
was a few inches shorter than her.  When she saw me, though, her thin lips
set in a line and she barely looked at me as she passed.

   "Michael." I heard her throw behind her in greeting as she passed.  It
carried the finality of a tomb in that one word.

   "Mr.  Devan." The attractive woman had reached me.  She was blonde, like
me, but where my hair was always a nuisance and unruly, hers was well
managed and hung to her neck in a bang.  Her eyes were blue, also like
mine, but where mine were the icy blue of a cold winter stream hers were
the pale, soft blue of a promising morning.  She wore a patterned peasant
blouse, some type of flowery thing and a neat blue skirt.  Neither article
of clothing did much to hide her beauty, however, especially her well
developed legs which I gave a brief appreciative glance.  Luckily, she
didn't seem to notice.  She stuck out her hand.  "I'm Ms.  Clemons, but you
can call me Sarah.  Your assistant said she would supervise the loading of
the luggage.  Are we okay to board?"

   "Of course, Sarah," I said as I shook her hand with a somewhat forced
smile that I hoped looked more friendly than I felt.  I know that I
deserved Jamie's reaction but it still hurt more than a little.  "Please,
call me Michael - or better yet, just Mike.  The young woman, though, that
isn't my assistant.  She's my co-pilot." Jan would have laughed had she
heard.  She was a bright-natured young woman and she would have teased me
relentlessly to be called my assistant.

   We were soon in the air.  It was a three and a half hour trip down to
Miami from Vermont and an hour stop there while I topped off the jet with
fuel.  During that time, I had found every excuse I could to go into the
cabin and each time Jamie had studiously ignored me.

   I guess my emotions were plain on my face, because Sarah pulled me aside
on one of my frequent trips around the cabin.

   "It isn't my place to say, Michael," she began.  The look on her face
was one of compassion and concern.  Behind her eyes, though, I could see
more than a hint of mischief and laughter.  "But everything is going to be
okay.  I know your sister pretty well; I've been her teacher for the past
three years.  She's been mad at you for a long time, a very long time.  She
thinks that she hates you but I know that she doesn't.  If she truly hated
you she wouldn't be trying to make you suffer so badly.  Every time you
walk away, that puppy dog expression on your face, she watches you until
you shut the cockpit door.  My guess is that she's going to make you suffer
for a little while longer and then she'll find some excuse to make up with
you.  You could, however, speed the whole thing up by suffering more
publicly."

   Her words were light and the message cheered me up a bit.  I smiled at
her, not forced this time and she smiled back.  "I'll try to do that,
Sarah. Thanks."

   "Don't mention it." Then, with a final smile, she returned to her seat.
I made sure to look extremely forlorn every moment after that and I found
myself glancing to make sure that Jamie was noticing.

   The re-fuel went uneventfully; I let the children exit onto the tarmac
for a few minutes to stretch while the plane finished re-fueling and Jan
made sure our flight plan was filed.  Customs came out and checked
everyone's passports, the normal stuff.  It was incredibly routine, except
for the hang-dog expression I wore whenever I was near Jamie.  Jan, of
course, took one look at it and just burst out in a gale of laughter.  I
guess I was overdoing it, if only a little.

   Flight time to Brasilia was about 10 to 12 hours, depending on tail
winds and flight controllers.  I was spending split time between the
cockpit and the cabin, trying to accelerate my suffering.  I wasn't really
trying to make light of Jamie's anger, I just wanted my sister back and I
somehow wanted to make up for all the years that I'd neglected her.  Acting
worse than I felt was impossible, of course, so I just tried to let a small
portion of the misery I was feeling through to my features.

   I sat with Sarah while I publicly suffered, both because it was in plain
sight of Jamie as much as because Sarah was attractive.  I found, luckily,
that she was also a great conversationalist.  We discussed authors we both
enjoyed reading (Ludlum and Heinlein, oddly enough) as well as those we
didn't (Niven, Loughlin).  We talked about the attractions the kids would
be seeing during their 5 week journey through South America.  She regaled
me with funny stories about the students she had taught.  All in all, it
was a great way to spend time.

   The shuddering of the plane was the first indication that something was
wrong.  At first I thought it was pretty much normal turbulence but when
the plane dropped twice in a row, I knew something was up.  A quick look
out the windows showed a dark band of greenish clouds that certainly hadn't
been there earlier.

   I excused myself from Sarah.  "Students, you'd better buckle up," I said
as I made my way to the cockpit.  "Looks like a bit of stormy weather. 
I'll see about climbing above it." I nearly choked on my words when the
plane shuddered hard to the right and I was nearly thrown off my feet.  My
hand on the cockpit door handle was the only thing that kept me from
falling.  I turned the handle as the students behind be screamed.

   "Jan, what the heck is going on?" I started as I staggered into the
cockpit.

   "Thank God, Mike," Jan said as she looked up.  "I haven't any idea where
these clouds came from.  I looked down for no more than a minute to measure
our progress against flight plan when the plane first heaved.  I looked up
and there were those damn green clouds where blue sky had been a moment
before."

   I quickly took my seat and buckled in.  "That's impossible, Jan.  Clouds
don't come up from nowhere.  Not that fast.  No chance you were dozing? 
It's a long, boring flight."

   Jan gave me a long, hard look before returning her eyes to the console.
"You know me better than that, Mike.  They came out of nowhere in
minutes...no warning, nothing." She began tapping hard against the console.

   The sky had turned so dark I had to turn on the overhead night lights to
see what she was tapping.

   "What's the matter with the compass?"

   "Hell if I know.  It can't make up its mind which way is north."

   The pit of my stomach fell away as the plane dropped like a stone
through the air.  The sharp tightening of my stomach told me that we had
just dropped a lot more than 50 feet.  A lot more.  I heard muffled screams
coming from the cabin as I struggled with the suddenly less than responsive
yoke.

   "What's our altitude?" I asked, taking my mind off my losing battle with
the stick long enough to try to gauge how far we had fallen.  My eyes
scanned the dark clouds as they wrapped themselves around us, gently
stroking the plane to and fro.

   "No idea, Cap.  That's out too.  Damn near everything's acting funny."

   "Did we take a freaking lightning hit or something?  There's no way so
many systems could go out..." I got a slight shock when I grabbed tight at
the stick.  "Damn it...we're hit.  Lightning or something.  I'm getting a
feedback charge from the controls.  It's mushy.  Unresponsive.  We're
dropping air here!"

   "Cap, it's worse than that.  We're blind.  I've got no altitude, no
compass, nothing.  Everything's gone freaking nuts.  The radio's quiet too.
I can't even get an echo."

   I grabbed the headset and turned to the emergency channel.  "This is
November four niner seven five zulu.  Mayday.  Mayday.  We've taken
electrical damage and are flying blind.  Please advise.  Over."

   "Won't work, Cap.  I been trying that for the past couple of minutes. 
We're dark."

   "Open the emergency kit; I keep a compass in their as a souvenir," I
barked at Jan.  I was scared and my fear tempered my words far more than
they should have.  "I'm going to try to turn us around, maybe get us over,
under, or through these damn clouds."

   Jan turned and pulled the emergency kit out, opened it, and extracted an
old compass.  I had found the old compass in the hangar when I had bought
the charter business.  I had hung onto it superstitiously; I figured it had
brought me a lot of luck over the years.  I never thought I'd actually have
to use it.

   "Jesus," Jan exclaimed as she looked at the old dial.  "Look at this
Mike!"

   I looked and a chill filled my stomach.  The dial was revolving so fast
you could barely see it; as fast as a prop propeller.  The stick jerked out
of my hand and the nose tipped down dangerously.  Rain started pelting the
glass in front of my face and I knew that things were going to get a lot
worse.  The rain was so heavy that we were flying blind in more ways than
one.  I needed to come up with a plan real soon but unfortunately nothing
would come to mind.

   I grabbed the stick and pulled us up slowly but I couldn't tell how far
we had plunged.  The engines complained a little and it felt like I was
lifting cement, but I eventually managed to level us off.  It wasn't easy,
the wind was in more control of the plane than I was.  It howled around us,
angry at us for disturbing its sleep with our big steel bird.

   "Jan, keep sending that distress call.  I'm going to try to keep us
pointed in one direction and see if I can't climb above this." My voice was
filled with unwarranted comfort; I had no idea where we were nor where we
were going.  The pushing and pulling of the near gale force winds
threatened to tear the stick out of my hands, but I valiantly pulled the
yoke back.

   A bright flash lit up the sky almost in front of me and the accompanying
boom thundered in my ears.  I blinked away dark dots floating in front of
my eyes, desperately trying to see.  I thought the boom had been thunder
until I heard Jan scream.

   "God, Mike.  We're hit!  We're hit!  Left engine is burning!"

   I felt the plane start a shallow, flat spin and I eased back the
throttle on the right.  I banked hard left, into the spin, to try and get
some control but for some reason it only got worse.  I hit the engine fire
button, but it didn't work.  Nothing seemed to be working.  I went full
flaps, hoping to get us into a roll and out of the flat spin.  The plane
shuddered, the hand of the wind shaking her like a petulant child shakes a
doll.  All the while, I could hear the muffled screams behind me.

   I don't quite know how I did it, but I came out of the flat spin with my
heart in my throat.  The yoke was still sluggish and hard and my prize
plane felt like a dying, beached whale.  I eased the right engine up some
and tried hard to compensate for the dead left wing.

   "Mike, we're losing altitude fast."

   "I can't help it, Jan," I said.  I marveled at the sound of my own
voice, how cold and detached it sounded.  "The right engine isn't giving us
enough of an upward thrust.  I can't help it now.  We're going to go down."

   For a second that was an eternity, time stopped.  There was no sound as
my words sank into Jan's brain and her eyes went wide.  She screamed into
the mike "Mayday!  Mayday!  Mayday!  This is..." but that was all she
managed to get out as the plane, my prize plane, plowed long into the
raging sea.