Helios: 03 - I - A Few Shots to Cool My Nerves
Dropcraft Sirr Sinjab
Akkan Droptrack, Hillah, Al-Adhara
2045 VST, February 11, 2481
Ziya El-Mofty sat in his chair in the cramped cockpit of his dropcraft Sirr Sinjab. In front of and slightly below him were his two pilots, Rasheed Saab in the left chair and Nimat Ziman in the right. Behind him was his flight engineer Ala Boulos and Yusuf Ali, the navigator and communications officer.
His crew had already verified their credentials with Hillah Space Control. They were given clearance to drop into the small town of Akkan, near the coast of the planet's largest continent Suwa. Despite the utter blackness of the night, the cockpit was lit with the red glow of reentry.
Ziya was registered as a merchant, transporting goods and people between planets and sometimes between star systems. He and his crew had managed to pick up their 1,500 ton Lyn class dropcraft about a decade before in an act of piracy against the Republic Air Force. The crew had changed the craft's name from Hemlig Ekorre to Sirr Sinjab shortly after acquiring it. Despite being put on the Republic's blacklist, he often ventured into Republic space to buy commodities then transport them to systems on the outer fringes of borderland space, where he could sell them at highly inflated prices. Over the past decade, Ziya and his crew had made millions smuggling commodities out of Republic space and lived a comfortable life in the hills just outside Akkan.
As the dropcraft descended towards Suwa, the red glow faded from the cockpit and Yusuf contacted Hillah Control, “Dropcraft Sirr Sinjab out of communications blackout, proceeding on Akkan droptrack,” he said in a thick Arabic accent.
“Roger dropcraft Sirr Sinjab, turn left 270, maintain Akkan droptrack. Contact Suwa control on reaching fifty-thousand”, Hillah Control responded.
Yusuf read back and acknowledged the instructions from Hillah Control. Even though Arabic was the national language of the Khaytif Emirates, space and air traffic control was always conducted in English. English had been one of the galactic languages, alongside Mandarin and Russian, because the larger and more powerful factions spoke it. The only instances English wasn't used for aerospace control was when operating in the Union of Socialist Republics, the People's Interstellar Republic, and their satellite factions.
“Let me know when we are one hundred miles out from the target,” Ziya said in Arabic to Yusuf as the dropcraft banked hard left in the blackness of midnight.
“Will do,” Yusuf responded, “We're just over two hundred now, a little under 15 minutes out.”
Ziya keyed his headset mounted microphone, “Just under fifteen minutes out Fouad.”
“Right, I'll let our passengers know,” Fouad Zaman, the dropcraft's loadmaster, responded from the craft's cargo area.
The length of droptracks was usually in the hundreds of miles, as measured on land, which made for steep drop approaches if a dropcraft didn't use a wide spiraling descent. An aerofoil dropcraft would typically be in a 50 to 80 nose-down angle for most of its flight. However, this approach would be a bit different than normal once the craft got close to the target area.
“Flaps sixty,” Rasheed said.
Removing his left hand from the engine throttles, Nimat pulled the flap control lever down to 60 percent and returned to the throttles.
“Flaps sixty,” he responded as the dropcraft began to shake a bit.
Rasheed pushed the control stick forward, sending the craft into a steeper angle, “Keep it just over stall speed.”
“Just over stall speed,” Nimat said pulling the throttles back to idle.
Even though they were approaching an inhabited area, there was no glow outside to indicate where the horizon lay. All that could be seen through the cockpit window was black. Ziya looked at the digital attitude indicator mounted on the fuse panel above the pilots' positions. It was completely brown with no blue to be seen, meaning the craft was almost pointed directly at the ground. He looked at the altitude indicator which was ticking down by the hundreds of feet per second.
Like almost every machine throughout the galaxy equipped with electronics, the Sirr Sinjab had sophisticated artificial intelligence systems. The dropcraft’s response to the unusual angle and speed was to emit pitch angle and stall speed warnings from the craft’s voice warning system. Yusuf pressed a button on the dash-like console in front of him, muting the voice warning system by forcing the Sirr Sinjab’s AI processor to recognize this as a safe but non-standard flight profile.
Ziya's crew was used to doing drops such as this, known as smuggler drops, even though they didn't do them very often. The goal was to fly at the correct altitude so as not to attract attention from ground control until just before they reached the target area. They would then quickly descend out of radar coverage and drop whatever contraband they had in the cargo area. Although this practice was well known by ground control centers across the galaxy, it was hard to determine if a craft was doing a smuggler drop or had just strayed below the prescribed flight level. Ground control rarely sent out fighters to investigate dropcraft which had strayed from the correct altitude, a fact that Ziya and his crew were counting on.
“Get everything ready, we'll be in position and leveled out momentarily,” he informed Fouad.
“I figured that,” Fouad responded sarcastically, “I've just been waiting for your word several minutes now.”
Rasheed gently pulled back on the stick, leveling out the dropcraft, while Nimat pushed the throttles up to keep the craft's speed just over stall speed.
“Dropcraft Sirr Sinjab, you are below cleared flight level. Return to flight level one-zero-zero immediately. Report on reaching,” air traffic control ordered over the radio.
Rasheed responded to the request from the controller as he gave a thumbs up to Ziya, “Roger Suwa Control. We had an engine swap-over failure but it's operational now. Climbing back to flight level one-zero-zero. Sirr Sinjab will report on reaching.”
Flight level was a common term for altitude, which was measured in hundreds of feet. Flight level one hundred was the correct approach altitude for this leg of the droptrack and would put the craft at 10,000 feet altitude. Ziya again glanced at the altitude indicator, which read just under 5,000 feet, while Rasheed pulled back on the stick just enough to put the craft into a slight nose-up attitude.
“Ok, you're clear to make the drop Fouad. Make it quick and clean,” Ziya spoke into his microphone.
“When haven't I made these things quick and clean,” Fouad remarked, “Opening cargo ramp and dropping now.”
Fouad had turned off all the lights within the cargo area to ensure people that might be on the ground couldn't see anything but the dropcraft's engine flares. He moved to the wall mounted cargo area controls and pulled down the lever to open the cargo door at the rear of the dropcraft. As the door slowly opened, he made sure his restraint harness has clipped into a cargo tie-down on the floor. Although the cargo area was as black as the outside, Fouad could see everything in it well through his night vision mask. He waited for the door to fully open then pushed one of the cargo release handles up. The pallet nearest the door and its cargo rolled back out the dropcraft and into the thick black of the night. Fouad pushed the next handle up, sending the second pallet rolling out of the craft. The third pallet, larger than the other two combined, would continue on with the dropcraft until they landed in Akkan. This pallet held their stated cargo, a shipment of small arms smuggled out of the Republic. After a several second pause, he raised his left arm and moved his hand in a circle with his index finger pointed out. Less than thirty seconds later he pushed the door control lever back up and waited for the cargo door to fully close.
Once both the door closed and door locked lights turned green he advised Ziya, “Drop successful, cargo door closed and locked.”
“Good work gentlemen. Hopefully the cargo is successful. We'll know in a week or so,” Ziya said to the crew, “Let's get to Akkan and land this thing. I've got some tequila smuggled away and want a few shots to cool my nerves.”