Sky's The Limit Challenge:

George lowered his headset to his chair and stretched in his seat before turning to Joy.

“It’s fourteen-hundred Zulu time, altitude is steady, Traffic Control is happy, and I’m going to take a piss.”

“Five by five,” Joy shook her head with a small chuckle at George’s comment, but kept her eyes forward. Even though auto-pilot was doing most of the heavy lifting at this point in the flight, she was in awe of the cerulean blue in front of her. Besides, she had grown accustomed to her co-pilot’s bluntness over time. They had been working together fourteen years at this point and it was practically part of their routine.

She gave a quick glance to the picture of George’s family on his side of the control panel– his stunning wife and two beautiful blonde babies that he held so close to his heart. Joy always envied the love he had for them… he was so ecstatic to return home to them every single time, while Joy wished more than anything she could fly away from Robert and keep on going.

She loved him at one point, she knows. But, never as much as she loved the sky, as much as she loved looking at the pilot’s license with her name on it– nothing ever came close.

Robert understood that for a long time, but his bitterness eventually grew and Joy’s time at home had started to feel more like time on a battlefield in recent months. But now, Joy was on her way to Paris, and she couldn’t be happier to spend a night in France’s most alluring city, especially knowing the love of her life, The Boeing-787 Dreamliner, was taking her there.

The B787 was her favorite plane to fly; large, spacious, sleek, modern, safe- it was the perfect creature to handle in the air, and she knew it like the back of her hand. Joy let out a small whine at the recollection that they were already five hours into their seven hour flight. Only two hours left piloting her baby meant only twenty-four hours before she’d be going back home to Robert.

The click of the door behind her didn’t pull her gaze away from the sky and clouds in front of her, nor did George settling back into the co-pilot’s seat.

“Have fun?” Joy teased.

“Oh yeah, got a bourbon on the rocks, had some hot moms’ hit on me, saw an elephant- had the time of my life!” George played along with a cocky smile.

“Imagine what you’ll do once we’re actually in Paris,” Joy smirked as she kept her eyes ahead.

In her peripheral, George clearly deflated. “I wish Hannah could be there, I’m on so many trips all the time, but she hasn’t had a vacation since Joey was born. She deserves a trip to Paris… the City of Love will never feel like it without her there.”

“You’re such a sap,” Joy smiled softly, her teasing masking her admiration.

“C’mon, you seriously aren’t sad you’re going to Paris without Robert? I know things have been rocky, but Paris is Paris.”

“I’m sad we’ll be flying out on an A320, it’s like going from Prada to Sears overnight.”

“You’re ridiculous,” George chuckled as he turned his attention towards the view ahead of them. “You never get sick of this, do you?”

“Not once in 18 years.” Joy smiled out at the blue ahead. She was exactly where she always wanted to be. Ever since she was a little girl, she would read about Beverly Bass and chase after the planes that soared over her school yard. While other kids wanted to go to amusement parks, she begged her parents to take her to air shows. She knew George didn’t understand her passion in full. Sure, he loved traveling before he met Hannah, but being a pilot was just a way for him to get paid to do it– it’s why he was content as a co-pilot and grew to be her favorite colleague over the years. George was never bitter that he was on the right of a female captain, he never wanted to be in the pilot’s seat himself.

An alert pulled Joy out of her thoughts, a flash on her right got her to pull the plane out of auto pilot immediately.

“Entering an air pocket,” Joy announced, flipping on the intercom.

“Attention passengers, we’re about to enter some slight turbulence, so please remain in your seats, fasten your seatbelts, and get ready to groove in your seats for a few minutes,” Joy flipped off the intercom and prepared to keep the plane steady as it started to shake slightly,

A small jerk to the left first, then a slight tousle up and down- no more bumpy than a car driving too fast on an unpaved road. It was to be expected on any flight, hell, they had already coasted through two other air pockets already, it was standard. The rumbling increased slightly, the plane wobbling with far less grace as Joy navigated her way out of the air pocket. All to be expected from a bout of turbulence. The plane pulled left rather aggressively, but Joy flipped a couple switches and leveled the plane again without a second thought.

“Feisty one,” George muttered as he flicked a couple other switches. This air pocket was a bit nastier than the ones they had soared through earlier in the day, but again, turbulence was to be expected.

What they didn’t expect though, was the aggressive dip the nose took. The already violent turbulence increased tenfold as their altitude started to drop by the second.

“Joy!” The plane swung left again and George nearly fell out of his seat.

Still going downward, and Joy unable to regain control thus far, she turned her radio to the air traffic control channel.

“Mayday, Mayday, Mayday! A.T.C.!” Joy yelled once she grappled onto the control panel to secure herself. “This is B787-300ER, Mayday! We need rescue teams sent around lat 45.08, long negative 20.51,” Joy repeated the call, her voice hoarse and eyes straight ahead as she white knuckled the wheel.

“George, get the phone,” Joy ordered, and George frantically scrambled for the phone to the passenger cabin.

Joy didn’t take her eyes off of the white clouds surrounding her even though George’s stare burned into the back of her head as he made the call to the flight attendants.

“Easy Victor.” George returned to his position after making the call, trying to get control over the plane as Joy did the same. The plane jerked downwards more, the nose dipping sharply as the aircraft shook more. The white clouds around them turned grey as they dipped even lower in the air.

Finally, Joy looked over to George, who looked over to her with wide eyes and wrinkles stark against his forehead. She was ready for this, he wasn’t, so she gave him another order.

“You should go.”

“Are you?” George’s voice cracked, sweat beading on his skin.

“A Captain goes down with their ship right?”

“Then I’m staying, I’m your co-pilot after all.” For the first time since they had dipped, George’s voice was steady, and Joy gave him a curt nod before returning her gaze to the greying sky they were shooting through.

With a deep breath, she turned on the intercom, “Attention passengers, we are in an emergency situation, please follow the safety instructions provided to you by the crew and please remain calm.”

Joy turned off the intercom and the yelling from the passenger cabin made it very clear that the hundreds of passengers were, in fact, not calm.

The ocean was clear in front of them now, the angry waves becoming more visible as they barreled closer. The plane was practically at straight dive now, nearly pulling apart at the force of the plunge.

In the midst of her scattered concern for the passengers and plane, Joy momentarily thought about Robert, how he had screamed during an argument a month prior that her career would kill her one day. Maybe today was that today, and Robert could bask in the ego-boost from being right. Robert would be smug if Joy died, but Hannah would be a mess if George didn’t make it. A single mom with two kids younger than four, and George would lose out on all the milestones his kids hadn’t reached yet. Dying in flight may have been an appropriate fate for Joy, but not for George.

“George, go. That is an order from your captain.”

“No.” Joy growled at his defiance, she didn’t have the time or coherence to explain to him that he had a family; that he had people he loved to survive for. She couldn’t find the words to tell him that she cared more about saving the plane than she did about saving herself.

Flying was her everything, the B787 was her plane, and she wasn’t giving up on any of it. Even though by the second the sight of the sky was being replaced more and more by the blue abyss they were plummeting towards. Joy never liked water.

The plane started to rumble even more, tearing itself apart from the pressure as Joy continued to try to pull the wheel up in vain.

With their seats thrashing violently as the cabin tried to stay intact, every alarm around them blaring a funeral march, and George holding onto his family photo with a death grip to her right - Joy swallowed hard and stared forward into the deep blue as the nose made contact.