Wanna break the sound barrier and buzz some fishermen?
Who: Carol and Colleen What: Leaving on a Jet Plane When: Recent Where: Up up and away status: Complete Rating: Low
Carol had invited Colleen out to her hangar -- which if she was honest was still a lot to wrap her mind around. Not just the hangar, but also what was in the hangar. Military fighters from three US branches and two foreign, a number civilian craft, even a couple experimental models.
While there were a number of choices to show off her piloting skills, the one that most felt at home to her was the F-16 Falcon. And, conveniently, there was a two-seater trainer in the hangar, currently being fueled.
She walked around, doing her pre-flight checklist while she waited.
Colleen wasn’t entirely sure on why she had agreed to go flying but that was irrelevant. She had agreed and it wasn’t like she was the type to back out. Besides, it could be fun. If anything, it would be a new experience, and while most of her time was taken up by teaching and fight clubs and reading, part of getting out of Scientology meant new experiences.
So once a time and place was set, it was just getting to that point. Which meant getting through her morning classes before cleaning up the dojo, showering and changing and then heading to the hanger.
. Which was a bit out of the way but that was probably to be expected. Either way, one she was certain she was in the right place (or as certain as she was going to be), Colleen headed to the hanged where there were different jets and noticed Carol. Good. She was at the right place.
“Hey.”
Carol looked up from checking the landing gear, and burst into a wide grin. She was already in a flight suit, and grabbed the one she had hanging over the rolling stairs that she used to climb into the plane. “Hey! Just in time!”
She offered the suit. “Ready to suit up? Should fit you.”
“Glad to know my timing is good.” As she was handed the flight suit, Colleen gave it a cursory glance. “Looks like it will, but yeah.”
Of course she also didn’t know much about said flight suits, so it had to be asked.
“I’m guessing this goes over the clothing?” Since she’d have to find a bathroom or somewhere to change otherwise. But it looked like it would go over the jeans and tank top she had on.
Carol looked her over and nodded once, “Yeah, you’re good. I should have remembered to tell you to wear something simple and close fitting but that’ll work. The suit is designed to constrict the body during tight turns, to keep blood from leaving the head, so you don’t want too much getting in the way.”
She twirled her finger. “Get that on and I’ll show you how to make sure everything is in order.”
“It’s fine.” Because really, there was a lot to take in. However, Colleen was also pretty consistent in what she wore, especially given it was summer. So tank tops and jeans? Those tended to be her staples for the moment. But once she got the okay, Colleen took off her shoes in order to get the jumpsuit on over her clothes before putting them back on and then walked over to where Carol was.
“Okay, now what?”
Carol finished her inspection of the jet to give Colleen some privacy, then looked her over, showing her how to make sure the suit was on and working properly. “I’ll help you up into the rear seat. There isn’t much back there you can mess up, I locked all the controls.”
Taking what Carol said about the suit and making sure it was all good, Colleen nodded. “Sounds good. And yeah, good plan.” Not that she’d purposefully mess anything up. But there were some risks not worth taking. Like accidentally hitting something she shouldn’t even if her aim was not to touch anything.
“Allright, up we go.” Carol lifted Colleen up the ladder with a surprising combination of strength and gentleness. “Grab onto that bar there and slide into the seat.”
Once she’d made sure Colleen was secured and buckled in, Carol hopped into the front seat. The canopy closed down on top of them and sealed with a hiss. She flicked the radio switch. “Avenger taxiing into position and awaiting confirmation.”
The fighter jet rolled out of the hangar, down a side road and then onto the main runway. Once Carol had clearance, she opened up the throttle. The jet’s turbines whined and then roared as the engine kicked into high gear, slamming both occupants against their seats as the Falcon surged forward.
Getting into the plane was easy enough with the assist as was getting strapped in. This was...definitely going to be a lot different than the flight to China in her Dreams with Danny and Claire but that was probably to be expected. Fighter jet or whatever this was versus private jet.
So for now it was just looking looking out and seeing the world move from a completely different vantage point than she was used to. Definitely more movement and feeling of the engine, so that was interesting.
And then she was right against the back of her seat and wow that was unexpected. Which there was nothing wrong with.
They climbed quickly, but eventually evened out, the pressure receding for the time being. Clouds raced past them and Carol gently twisted the stick so that the plane banked slightly, giving them a view of the ground thousands of feet below, and the rapidly approaching ocean.
Carol grinned at the sight, and at the feeling of being airborne. If there was one place she felt most alive, it was up here. “How’s that for a view?”
She wondered if Colleen had ever seen an air show. “Ever see the Thunderbirds or the Blue Angels?”
Not that she’d pull off some of those stunts with a passenger, but there were a few she could think of that weren’t too crazy.
The view was amazing and Colleen could only stare out the window to take it all in. It was also a good thing she wasn’t afraid of heights. But still.
“It’s amazing.”
She was still taking in the view when Carol asked about the Thunderbirds or the Blue Angels. Neither of which sounded familiar.
“Um. No, can’t say I have.”
“They’re aerial acrobatic teams,” Carol explained. “They fly in tight formation and do stunts, usually low to the ground. Dangerous but spectacular to witness. I can take you through a couple maneuvers if you’d like.”
Slowly, Carol twisted the stick again and they were upside down. She laughed. “Look, the ocean is the sky!”
An old inside joke with her and Maria, but still fun to say.
They were low enough now that a whale breaching the surface was visible. It was huge, a blue bulky shadow under the waves before it disappeared.
“Huh.” It wasn’t something Colleen could really invision, but then they were suddenly going through some maneuvers. Or well, currently they were upside down.
“Holy shit.”
Imagining something so big as to look that big even a thousand feet up was a little mind-blowing to Carol. She dreamed of space and war and super powers and yet a blue whale was this thing that remained awe inspiring to see. Her voice was a little quiet as she admitted. "I only wish I'd planned that."
Slowly, she righted the fighter jet, then started to climb again, until they were going vertically straight up, and then into a loop. In a dog fight, or even an airshow, she would have gone faster, taking the turns sharper in an aerial ballet of death and violence. But this was leisurely in comparison.
"Hold on to your butt." The loop turned into a sharp banking maneuver, then a double barrel roll, like the absolute best roller coaster ever.
Nature was a many splendored thing. It couldn’t be planned for, just experienced. So instead, it was just another moment of seeing how large the world us and how small people could be in comparison. It was awe-inspiring.
Even if this was leisurely compared to what Carol would do in dog fights or airshows, it was still quite fast for Colleen. Not so much to make her sick, but it was still much different from what she was used to.
The warning to hold on was acted upon, with Colleen finding something to hold onto. There was a rush of adrenaline as Carol did the maneuvers and that sense of adventure. A different rush from the fight clubs and that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Carol whooped when they finished the barrel roll. The sky had cleared and melted into the ocean on the horizon far to the west. Out of habit she checked her readouts, searching for bogies, but luckily they were alone up here, except for a lone Cessna a few clicks north and some fishing vessels. Which gave her an idea. The grin in her voice was self-evident. "Wanna break the sound barrier and buzz some fishermen?"
Colleen’s heart was racing from the adrenaline, and then Carol was talking about breaking the sound barrier?
“Sure. Why not.”
Might as well, right? Colleen spent enough time being the responsible one, might as well have some fun.
Angling the nose of the jet downward into a steep dive, Carol could feel the flight suit tighten around her thighs and biceps as they thundered towards the sea. And then they were skimming the waves, picking up speed as they approached the small fishing vessel.
The only sign that they broke the sound barrier was a slight shudder to the plane and the reaction of the people on the boat just before they shot past it.
The slight tightening of the flight suit would have been a bit more concerning if Carol hadn’t already explained the reasoning for it, so while it was a strange sensation, Colleen didn’t mention it. Instead she was just there for the ride.
Literally.
Even though she wasn’t quite sure what the shudder meant to the plane and her attention turned to the woman in front of her, who didn’t seem remotely concerned. So it was probably fine.
“The Falcon is capable of Mach 2, or twice the speed of sound,” Carol explained, once she’d come down a bit from the rush. “You don’t actually see fighters that go much faster than that. They lose a lot of agility to be capable of those speeds, which makes them piss-poor dogfighters. I’ve tested a few designs that tried to increase speed without sacrificing maneuverability and most of them had too many problems to be useful.”
She craned her neck, looking up towards the sky. “Always wanted to fly a Russian MIG-31 though. One of the few that I’m aware of that strikes that balance successfully.”
The SU-27 was another in that category, but she’d flown one once. The Russians had always been good at that sort of thing. But not even the Russians could make a Mach-3 fighter that didn’t have problems in dogfights. But when you could intercept bombers and fire missiles at range, did that really matter?
“Uh. Impromptu lesson there.”
A lot of the words didn’t really have much meaning to Colleen, what with them being different fighter jet types and things specific to a world she had no understanding of. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t interested. Hardly. Part of getting out of Scientology and into her own thing was learning new things.
So even if things didn’t really make too much sense? She still liked to learn something new.
“You’re fine. I mean I don’t know what half that means, but you’re fine.”
“I can give you a history lesson sometime, if you’re up for it. Complete with models and diagrams!” Not that Carol knew many people that would be that excited about that kind of thing. Maria in her dreams maybe. Maybe a few others.
She was a like a teenage boy that way. Too bad they couldn’t fly up here indefinitely, though with some of the designs the Stark/Future Industries space collaboration were working on, that might be possible some day. The plane started to climb again.
The Falcon typically didn’t operate above 50,000 feet and it was generally unsafe to go above 60,000, though it was technically possible to cruise at 75,000 and to briefly go higher, but Carol wasn’t about to put Colleen’s life at risk. “I wanted to be an astronaut. But the Shuttle program ended while I was still in training. But the work I’m doing right now will get me into space. But for now… this is the closest I’ll get.”
They leveled out at just under 53,000 feet. Ten miles above the surface of the earth, the curve visible and the sky a deep blue, as though the blackness of space was only a few miles away from being visible.
“Sure, why not.” While Colleen didn’t know if she would find it interesting once it was all said and done? It was still something new and when she wasn’t teaching or fighting, she was usually reading and learning new things. So learning about fighter jets? Why not.
If Colleen knew what Carol wanted to do but was holding back on, she would have been thankful. While she trusted the other woman, it wasn’t like she was looking to accidentally get killed in the process.
“Makes sense. And at least you’re getting to do work that will eventually get you there.” She never had that, the dream job as a child. But that was life. She was figuring it out for herself and had been for a few years now, ever since she had gotten out. Besides, there was a new view to behold.
"It's nice to be doing it outside the military," Carol admitted. "I couldn't in good conscience continue to serve anyway." It had been her life, her career for so long, but she felt sometimes like she'd been a little blinded to the realities of it all.
"What about you? Ever wanted to go to space?"
Well that was something Colleen understood. Sea Org had essentially been like the military and it had been a matter of being blinded to the realities of what was going on, of the truth of Scientology. Part of that whole cult thing. But once she had noticed that the teachings weren’t lining up with the actions, getting Blake out… well it all became clear until she had finally escaped from the RPF that Colleen saw just how much of a lie it had all been.
And then the Hand.
“Can’t say I ever put much thought into it.”
It would be an alarming comparison, the military to a cult, if it wasn't so true. That Carol's Raging Feminism had survived was a miracle.
"When it's safe enough, I'll take you up." There were evidently spaceships and starships and yet it wasn't the same, as far as she was concerned. That wasn't earning it.
“Sounds like a plan.”
Reluctant to take them back but knowing the jet would need to land or refuel eventually, Carol took them on a long, banking turn and pointed the nose back towards land. She wondered if Colleen ever wanted to just drift aimlessly for awhile. Let the wind carry her away from responsibility. It was a tempting thought for Carol even if it was one that she’d never seriously consider.
“Then it’s a space-date,” Carol joked.
Drifting from responsibility… Colleen wouldn’t even know how to imagine that. Between Sea Org and then everything after. Well, Colleen’s life was all responsibility all the time. She got out, but it was never long and aimless.