Orbit

aerodynamics drastically changing.

Suddenly Intrepid flops forward, nose down, and just as quickly Kip punches the retract button as he keeps forward pressure on the stick, once again seeing the two green locked lights illuminate before pulling g’s to raise the nose and slow the renewed airspeed that peaks at less than three hundred miles per hour.

But now he’s below twenty thousand, and a quick glance at the map tells the tale. The purple glide range circle has shrunk drastically, and Roswell is completely out of reach.

There is, however, a new target colored red just to the southwest, and he understands: a short runway. But if he runs off the end of concrete at a slow speed, he might survive.

He knows now to keep Intrepid above a hundred and ninety miles per hour. Maybe even two hundred since he’ll need energy to flare and bring his descent rate down to a survivable vertical speed at touchdown.

He banks to the right, bringing the ship to a southerly heading, the altitude now coming through fifteen, but the rate of descent only three thousand per minute and holding.

He sees a few towns below, and he can see roads and section lines and a few rail lines.

Eleven thousand.

He can see evidence of wind below, plumes of dust when he looks closely, indicating a strong west wind.

And he can see the purple circle retracting away from the airport he’s trying to reach, the edge of the circle finally passing over it.

No more airports within the circle.

Kip feels his pulse rate climbing again as he begins searching through Intrepid’s windows. Empty fields everywhere. A few railroad tracks and a small number of cultivated fields, but, other than a few country roads, no runways, no airports, no ribbons of concrete.

Except for the highways.

He has no choice. There will be power lines and signs and maybe even an occasional overpass—not to mention cars and trucks going one heck of a lot slower than two hundred miles per hour—but he’s through eight thousand feet now with nowhere else to go.

He searches for an interstate, but whichever ones may be around are probably too far north. He’s close enough to the ground to confirm that the wind is still out of the west, and he sees a two-lane highway running east and west and turns to the east, paralleling it, putting what seems a comfortable distance for a turn between the roadway to his left and Intrepid, and at the same moment he rolls out of the turn it hits him that there’s no logic in waiting until he’s lower to turn into the wind. He keeps Intrepid turning left, bringing it around steadily and overshooting slightly, then moving left a quarter mile until he’s tracking straight down the highway below and coming through four thousand feet. There’s a small rain shower off to the south and what looks like a dust devil off to the right of the highway, and he can see a big truck moving toward him perhaps a mile distant.

Landing gear!

He checks the airspeed, holding at two hundred ten, and flips the switch for the gear. He hears a whooshing noise and several “thunks” and three green lights appear on the upper right-hand panel. Unlike the first private suborbital craft, Intrepid actually has a steerable nosewheel, and he reminds himself that the rudder pedals control it.

Three thousand.

The wind isn’t exactly from the west, it’s a quartering crosswind from the left. He’ll have to steer aggressively to keep from running off the road.

Two thousand two hundred.

The truck passes safely beneath him but he can see another one coming at him, and he knows even Intrepid’s short wingspan is too wide to fit both of them on the same two-lane road at the same time.

One thousand five hundred.

The rate of descent is frightening. It’s like he’s just dropping at the roadway, and a brief glance at the vertical velocity indicator shows why: more than four thousand feet per minute descent rate. A normal airplane touchdown is less than two hundred feet per minute.

The truck is more distinct ahead, a tanker of some sort, the gleaming metal of his tank reflecting the afternoon sun. Kip is covering three miles per minute and the truck perhaps one, but it’s more than a mile away and coming toward him. No other cars or trucks that Kip can see, but now, like a parade of apparitions, several more big rigs rise from the undulating heat waves over the highway, and of all things to encounter in flat eastern New Mexico, he sees an overpass crossing the highway probably two miles ahead.

Kip’s fingers are fanning themselves on the stick controller, his eyes taking in the road, the truck, and the horizon before flitting quickly to the last items on the Before Landing checklist.

Gear down and locked, seats up… I think that’s it.

Something to the right of the roadway a mile or more away ahead catches his attention, another roadway or something like it at perhaps a forty-five-degree angle. But there’s no time to evaluate anything else and he locks his eyes back on the highway, wondering if the oncoming truck drivers have spotted him dropping from the sky straight ahead of them. If so, there’s no indication. The big rigs are getting closer by the second, the plume of black smoke from the lead vehicle streaming from its stacks and its speed constant.

There’s nowhere else to land, but he’s too wide to simply use the right lane and pass them safely, even if he puts her down on the right shoulder. One or more of the eighteen wheelers will end up taking him out, or wreck themselves trying to avoid him.

Airspeed?

He’s holding just over two hundred miles per hour, afraid to pull off any more, but it’s clear that if he doesn’t flatten the glide, he’s going to take out the first truck.

The angled ribbon of concrete or blacktop or something to the right looms in his mind and he focuses on it as an alternative. Whatever it is, even from a mile out he can see it’s overgrown with weeds and cracks that will probably kill him.

The road ahead is impossible, and he makes the choice without another thought. Kip pulls on the stick gingerly, feeling the craft respond as he settles through five hundred feet, calculating how much bank to use and when to angle onto the other roadway. The thing seems to end barely a mile or more in the distance, like it’s merging into the desert, but at least the terrain on the other end is flat.

The overpass is still ahead, about a mile or so distant, the beginning of the strip of angled road he’s aiming at starting on the far side. He’ll have to fly over the overpass before angling onto the road.

The road, he realizes, is an old runway, maybe military, and there are a few buildings along the far end.

He pulls his aim point to the right, just above the overpass, still aligned with the highway he can’t use.

One eighty-five!

He doesn’t dare get slower before being right over the threshold of the old runway. He feels the remaining two hundred feet of altitude more than reads it on the altimeter, his eyes focused now on missing the overpass as he turns toward the end of the old runway. He rolls right slightly, feeling Intrepid drop more as he stops the turn, coming through fifty feet as the concrete abutment of the overpass flashes beneath him.

And in an instant he’s yanking Intrepid to the right, using the rudder to help skid toward the end of the concrete ribbon, holding his breath as the truck he’d been aiming at disappears behind him. The ship aligns with the runway and he snaps it back to wings level, yanking the nose up to stop the frightening rate of descent, trying to exchange speed for lift as the threshold of the cracked and broken concrete runway moves beneath him.

He feels the airspeed bleed away, unsure how far off the surface he is, amazed when the main wheels squeal onto the surface.

Suddenly it’s like trying to control a kid’s tricycle accelerated to a hundred miles per hour on a bucking surface. He plops the nosewheel on the ground only to find himself rocking wildly left and right and working the control stick as he fights to stop overcontrolling the nosewheel steering while racing over a washboard. He steers