The Storm Shift

Text 1: Holding Pattern, by Imani Vale

An original novel extract.

At 21:47, a red warning opened across Mara’s screen. STORM CELL EAST. Flight 612 was descending, Flight 88 was asking to climb, and a training aircraft had missed its turn. Her supervisor had stopped prompting her ten minutes ago; now he stood behind her, silent. White lightning filled the tower windows, then vanished.

‘Six-one-two, maintain height.’ The pilot answered in a crackle. At once another voice pressed over his, then another: call signs, heights, headings, all crowding the same narrow channel. Mara’s pencil tapped once, twice, three times against the strip board. She stopped it with her thumb. The room was cool, but her collar felt tight enough to fasten her to the chair.

A dot on the radar drifted towards the red sector. Not fast. Not far. Still wrong. ‘Eight-eight, turn left immediately.’ No reply. Rain rubbed out the view beyond the windows. ‘Eight-eight?’ Her supervisor moved at last, one step closer. Then the speaker burst alive: ‘Turning left.’ The dot curved away with a finger’s width to spare. Mara released the breath she had been storing since 21:47. Before she could lower her hand, another warning began to pulse.