Chapter One
The warm mid-May sun was just beginning it’s decent into the horizon as Kim Possible glanced out the Plexiglas cockpit of the aged jet-trainer. She watched the scenery below change gradually from harsh brown desert, to tan farmland, to green forested hills, and finally to the gray and white snowcapped granite peaks of the Sierra Nevada’s. Looking at her watch she saw that it was just after seven pm (PST). It had only been twenty-two minutes since Ron and her had departed from Edwards Air Force Base in California’s Mojave Desert and already the small two-seat Lockheed T-33 was skimming the mountain range at 33,500 feet, on its way to Middleton, Colorado.
Bringing her gaze back to the console in front of her, the redhead pressed the button to activate her mask’s radio mic.
“Thanks again for the ride Lieutenant Steeves.” She said, addressing the young pilot who had graciously offered the teens a ride home after their latest battle with Drakken and Shego. The red-helmeted lieutenant turned his head slightly and pressed a button on the throttle in his left hand.
“Hey my pleasure Miss Possible, I’d hate to imagine what would have happened if y’all hadn’t stopped that blue fellow and his girlfriend from getting away with our stealth prototype.” His slight drawl suggested he had been raised somewhere in the South before joining the Air Force.
“What prototype?” Kim responded in a mockingly innocent tone of voice: the Base Commander had made it pretty clear to the two heroes that he did not want the details of their mission to get out.
“Yeah, right…” Steeves laughed. “My mistake. I’ll tell you what though, the US Government owes both of you a debt of gratitude for what you did…especially you Mr. Stoppable.” The man shook his head from side to side in awe. “Man, it must have taken a lot of guts to call their bluff and stand in front of the jet like that.” The man still couldn’t believe Ron’s Tiananmen Square re-enactment earlier on the base’s runway.
“Uh, actually…” Ron’s voice nervously joined into the conversation. “My shoe was kinda stuck in a drainage ditch. I was, y’know…running away…and it snagged. I would have taken it off, but when I saw them rolling toward me…I kinda froze.” The pilot actually managed to turn his entire body in the cramped cockpit and stare at the blond teen (or rather the young redhead who was blocking the teen), lifting the tinted visor on his helmet.
“You know son,” Steeves suggested. “You might want to word that story differently when you tell it to the ladies at school…y’know, just a suggestion.” He wasn’t able to see the boy blush out of embarrassment.
Kim turned her attention to her partner and fellow high school Senior, seventeen-year-old Ron Stoppable, whose lap she was currently occupying in the back of the cramped jet. “How you doing down there Ron?” She felt her friend’s legs rise up onto the balls of his feet before dropping back down.
“Eh, not too bad…” The blond replied. “Legs are getting a bit numb though.”
“Sorry about the accommodations,” The pilot said to the teens. “But I was the only one flying out today.”
“It’s ok,” Kim reassured the man. “We’ve had to rely on worse.” Though she couldn’t remember ever having to strap herself against her friend’s chest before: the Tweebs once, but not Ron. She hoped the arrangement didn’t make him too uncomfortable.
“Hey KP.” Ron piped up: his voice holding a bit of humor. “What do you think Josh would do if he found out you spent an hour and a half sitting on my lap?”
“I don’t know Ron,” His friend replied mockingly. “What do you think Tara would think about it?”
“…So lieutenant,” The blond asked, quickly changing the subject. “Where are you taking this piece of junk anyway?”
“Ron!” Kim scolded; she didn’t disagree with his choice of words, but she also highly doubted the man appreciated a teenager ridiculing his plane. Lt. Steeves just laughed.
“That’s alright Miss Possible,” The man reassured her. “I’m shuttling this Cold War relic to the AMARC facility at Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson for decommission. We actually didn’t even know we still had this thing until a base inventory found it abandoned in one of the auxiliary hangers last week.”
“Really…when was the last time it was flown?” Ron asked, suddenly feeling slightly apprehensive about their current transportation.
“Best guess: sometime during the Johnson Administration.” The pilot replied jokingly. The teens both exchanged nervous glances. “Don’t worry though,” The man continued. “I checked it out myself before we took off: everything’s in perfect working order.” On cue, a small red light began flashing on both the front and back control panel. Steeves reached forward and flipped a switch next to the light with his index finger before leaning back in his seat. “Oh great,” He grumbled. “Stupid piece of…”
“What’s this light mean?” Kim asked nervously.
“It’s an auxiliary warning light,” He responded calmly. “It means our primary ELT’s off-line.”
“W-w-what’s an ELT?” Ron asked in a panicked voice.
“Emergency Locator Transmitter. But don’t worry,” The pilot reassured the two nervous teens. “It doesn’t affect the aircraft’s flight.”
“It doesn’t?” Kim asked.
“Nah, you only need it if you crash.” Steeves turned to face them once again: an evil grin spread across his five o’clock shadow. “And that’s not gonna…”
The ensuing explosion interrupted their conversation and plunged the teens into blackness.
“KIM!” Ron’s voice screamed into her ear, bringing the redhead back to reality. She had no idea how long she had been unconscious, only that she had been unconscious for some period of time. Inside the crippled jet thick black smoke filled the cockpit: burning her eyes and assaulting her nostrils with an acrid smell of burning rubber. The gentle whine of the jet’s engine earlier was now replaced with a screeching howl as the plane hurtled toward the mountain peaks below. Inside the jet, the sounds of wailing alarms could be heard going off, warning the occupants of their impending doom.
As she peered forward through the thick layer of smoke, Kim could just barely make out the form of Lt. Steeves. The hotshot pilot was slumped forward in his seat, unresponsive. Unknown to Kim at the time, the earlier explosion had caused an electrical surge, projecting a shard of metal from the destroyed control panel into the young man’s neck and severing his carotid artery; he was dead in a matter of seconds.
Below her in the back of the doomed plane, she could hear and feel Ron pounding on her shoulders and screaming at her. She was only able to distinguish one word from his screams…
“EJECT!”
The redhead spread her legs and looked between them; at the neon-yellow handle with the words ‘PULL TO EJECT’ printed in black at the base of the antique ACES I seat. Without further hesitation, she reached down and yanked the handle toward her; bringing both arms into her chest as the Plexiglas canopy jettisoned into the frigid sky: followed shortly after by the two frightened teens.
The last thing Kim remembered before unconsciousness once again took her was the stinging feeling of cold air pummeling the areas of her skin not covered by her jumpsuit, and the far-too-near image of snowcapped peaks spiraling towards them below.
