The Captain Speaking – Part 1: Pre-Flight

The simulator suite was a darkened cabin with a full cockpit in the centre, banks of switches glowing amber, a curved windscreen showing a night runway in the rain. A briefing table stood in the corner, a pot of coffee on it, two flight bags at its foot. The booking had been for four hours. No instructor had been requested.

Annika sat at the table in her captain's uniform, four gold stripes on each shoulder, her cap beside her cup. She was forty-five, a long-haul captain with eighteen thousand hours and a voice that had calmed turbulence. Rory was thirty-eight, her first officer and partner of four years, easy-going and capable, who had told her in a crew hotel bar that in the air, with her in the left seat, was the only place his mind was ever quiet.

"Sit," said Annika. "Pre-flight briefing."

He sat. She slid a laminated checklist across the table. Standing Orders. His limits and hers in black marker: no marks, nothing painful, no real humiliation, nothing beyond the room, no one else. The word was Mayday.

"Say it."

"Mayday."

"If you say it, the Captain hands over the controls. I am Annika. We have coffee and watch the rain."

"I understand."

"And every half hour I ask if you wish to continue. You answer honestly."

"Yes, Captain."

"Not yet." She put on her cap, buttoned her jacket and stood, and her whole bearing changed. Her voice dropped, calm, level and wholly sure. "First Officer Mackie. You were late for the briefing."

"I am sorry, Captain."

"You will be." She pointed at the cockpit's right-hand seat. "Strap in. Hands in your lap. You will not touch a control until I tell you."

He sat in the right seat with the harness across his chest. She climbed into the left and ran through the checklist, flipping each switch with a slow, deliberate click. She said nothing to him. The rain streamed on the windscreen. The engines spooled up in a low, rolling thunder.

"Are you content, First Officer?"

"Content, Captain."

"Good. This will be a very long flight."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Landing.