Spy School: Old Becomes New

Chapter 12

May 15th, 2029

In The Sky

1000 hours

Ben's POV

I was staring out the small window that was cheaply made from some sort of plastic. We were above the clouds, the morning sun shining but not in the direction as to blind me. The clouds were large and fluffy, as if I could sleep on them. The blue sky was calm.

Which was the opposite of me.

At the end of the day, I didn't want to be here. My daughter was still a baby, and I couldn't stop thinking about what happened on the last mission.

To my surprise, Erica was along the same lines of thinking. Our last mission she had been so excited to go on, Emma in tow as just a newborn. This time, I could tell that she was frustrated to have been chosen to go on the mission.

Most people wouldn't have been able to tell this, but I could. To the outer public, she looked cool, calm, and collected. But I could see in the way her eyes shifted that she was nervous. I assumed that, like me, it had to do with bringing Emma along.

Emma herself was seated in between the two of us. We were on a commercial flight, Air Canada to be exact. There were 6 seats in a row, separated in the middle by an aisle. The CIA, well, Cyrus, had recommended that we fly commercial. We didn't want to make any headway when touching down in Toronto. We knew that whoever was enacting these plans would be keeping tabs on all this, especially with Mike and Zoe presumably in tow.

Emma was watching a movie on the tv screen in front of us. Bella the bear had come along and was being gripped tightly by Emma. Emma had pink headphones on and she was staring closely at the screen. The movie appeared to be of emotions inside someone's head. I wasn't too interested.

Erica was simply staring off into space, but I knew she was keeping tabs on all of our surroundings. She was gifted like that, always being able to stay alert while appearing non functional. I laid my head back against the window. The flight wasn't long.

But my nerves were making it seem like the flight had gone on for ages. I couldn't shake the feeling that something bad might happen to Emma. I knew that I would try my hardest to make sure she was safe, but it doesn't make you feel any better.

We had debated leaving her with Catherine and Alexander, and had even brought up the idea to Cyrus. Unfortunately, those two were going to be joining us at some point as well. Trixie was off to Spain on vacation, so we had elected to keep Emma with us. Besides, at this rate, she is going to be a super spy with all of the experience.

I closed my eyes lightly with my head against the window, face pointing out to the clouds. I stayed like that for a while.

I started to feel light on my eyes, getting brighter and brighter. I was confused as we were not on a trajectory towards the sun that would cause that. I opened them.

At first I didn't see anything. It looked normal out in the sky.

Then I spotted a black dot in the sky. It looked like a bird, but the way it was flying was irregular. It was in a straight line. At this height, with all the planes, no bird would be able to fly straight without feeling some wind resistance.

I sat up and stared out the window for a better look. It definitely was not a bird. And it was most definitely coming towards us. My math skills went into effect. We had about 3 minutes to impact if we stayed on our flight path.

This was definitely a missile.

I quickly pulled up the trajectory of our path on the screen, and saw that we were about to descend in two minutes. 

I assumed that this was a SAMS type missile, heat seeking. The descent would throw off its path but not for long, maybe giving us an extra 30 seconds. I reached over Emma and poked Erica, pointing out the window.

She raised her eyebrows slightly, staring intently at the missile. I could see the recognition in her eyes almost instantly. She immediately got out of her chair and walked to the front of the cabin. The flight attendants tried to stop her but she pushed them out of the way and kicked open the door to the cockpit. I could hear her say "CIA", assuming she had flashed her badge. I ran up to the cabin and stopped the attendants from trying to stop her. 

"You need to warn everyone here right now that major turbulence is about to start" I said. I flashed my CIA badge as well. 

"Why?" said one of the attendants, visibly frightened by what had just happened. 

"There's a missile coming towards us. My partner will work with the pilots. We need to brace the passengers."

I was talking in a no nonsense voice. They sensed that I was being serious and got on the intercom.

"Attention passengers, we will be entering a path of major turbulence soon. Please get to your seats and keep seatbelts buckled. We will begin going over the safety features of this aircraft within 30 seconds."

I went back to my seat and made sure Emma was okay, and then started going down the aisle to make sure all the passengers were seated and secured properly. With myself and the 3 other flight attendants, we finished quickly.

The fourth attendant started rattling off the safety features. Where the emergency exits were, oxygen masks, life jackets, and the brace position.

I got back to my seat and unbuckled Emma, taking off her headphones and holding her tightly in my chest. She seemed confused but didn't say anything.

My mental timer went off, saying that we should be descending, and that we did.

Erica's POV

I barged into the cockpit, assuming Ben would be helping the people in the cabin get prepared. The first officer looked shocked and tried to throw a punch but I deftly blocked it. I flashed my CIA badge once more and pushed the officer out of the seat, to where the engineer would sit.

I sat down and started looking at the radars, putting on the spare headset as well.

"What are you doing here?" The captain asked.

"I need radars from our east displayed please," I responded.

He turned them on, still confused as to what I was doing. I pointed at the incoming object on the radar.

He went white in shock.

"Is is is ... that a missile??" he said, barely whispering.

"Yes it is," I said calmly. "I'll be taking over control here, you be my second set of hands."

I peeked at the flight radar and it told me I had to descend to make the landing at the airport.

Why not?

I pushed down on the controls.