Chapter 2: Strategic Lateral Offset Procedure

"Hey, look at this," Hiccup said out of the blue, just over halfway into the flight. For a moment, Astrid thought she might have missed a caution message on the flight computer. Looking closer, she saw he was examining the little TCAS symbol on the navigation display.

There was another aircraft gaining on them from directly behind. At 39,000 feet, the mystery plane was cruising 1,000 feet above them, and a good Mach .03 faster.

"Who do you think it is?"

"He's catching up pretty quickly, you can see for yourself in a little bit."

Astrid wrinkled her nose and raised an eyebrow teasingly. "'He'?"

She watched closely as Hiccup blanched, a horrified expression slowly donning his face. "Wait, no, I didn't mean to imply— I just assumed—" He took a breath and sighed, eyes shut, "I'm just going to stop talking now."

Her restraint vanishing, Astrid leaned back and broke into a fit of laughter. It was almost like bantering between close friends. Hiccup himself seemed glad to see her fully at ease as well, taking the jest in stride. It was nice, and she had to admit, she could get used to his company, and his stories.

For all the hostility she had aimed at him earlier, she couldn't fault him for everything that happened. Actually, maybe she could blame him a little for the delayed promotion. Just a little. Still, she had come to appreciate his presence, and his expertise. He knew the A320 inside out, and happily shared whatever tips and insights he had gained with her. He would probably be a great instructor one day.

A few minutes later, a truly enormous silhouette appeared in Astrid's field of view.

The plane behind had overtaken them, revealing itself to be a huge, four-engine behemoth. While Astrid certainly knew about them, this was her first time seeing an A380 in the air, soaring easily across the skies. Her usual routes were entirely in the north, and no airline flew them that far up. She leaned forward, looking up through the windows to get a better look.

It was amazing something so big could fly so seemingly effortlessly. On the ground, the A380 was hulking, lumbering. She had once heard someone compare them to a pregnant whale, and it was definitely an apt analogy. But once in flight, there was a kind of majestic grace to it.

Hiccup must have read her mind, "Want to take a few photos? Here, you can use my camera," he said, grabbing a Nikon from his bag behind the seat and handing it to her.

Astrid unbuckled her shoulder harnesses, and leaned forward against the top of the instrument panel glareshield, angling the camera lens upwards to get a good shot. The plane in front filled up the entire viewfinder, a dark shape against the blue sky.

Without warning, their plane rolled to the left, hard.

Astrid's head banged against the cockpit window to her right, and she felt her insides squeeze up against her diaphragm as the aircraft dropped, her seatbelt the only thing keeping her down. Moments later, she was slammed back into her seat in a daze and held there, as if by a massive, invisible hand. Hiccup's camera clattered to the floor. An alarm chimed, warning that the autopilot had disengaged.

On instinct, Astrid grabbed the sidestick and jerked it hard to the right.

"No, wait! You'll make it worse!"

No sooner had Hiccup finished, the aircraft lurched again, and banked rapidly to the right, even more steeply than before. This time, the bank angle warning triggered. The nose dived down, too, and through the windshield, all she could see was the white tops of the clouds beneath.

The sudden movement was disorienting, and if it weren't for the attitude indicator, she would have no idea where the plane was pointed. In an instant of fearful panic, she thought they were going to tumble out of the sky. All of a sudden, the cloud layer looked awfully close, and she wondered just how much sky was left between them and the ground.

"My aircraft!" Hiccup barked, and Astrid's hand jumped away from the controls. Despite her stunned state, the urgency and harshness in his voice shocked her into immediately obeying, letting him spring into action and take over.

Even as the jet continued to buck and bump beneath them, Hiccup smoothly guided the wings level and brought the nose back up, changing heading to give the A380 above wide birth. The cause of their distress was still continuing along placidly, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Seconds later, they were climbing back to their original cruise altitude.

The buffeting faded, but Astrid's heart was still hammering a staccato against her ribcage. "What the fuck was that?" she eventually managed to gasp.

"Wake turbulence." Hiccup's voice was even, steady; a stark contrast to hers. "Are you okay?"

Buckling her shoulder straps back on, Astrid pressed the heel of her palm against her head where she had hit the window. There'd be a heck of a lump later, but it wasn't bleeding, and the throbbing was diminishing. "Yeah, I think I'll be fine."

"Good. Get on the intercom, find out what's going on in the cabin."

The response came quickly, and the news wasn't good. Flight attendants had been in the middle of cabin service when the turbulence hit. In all, seven injured, three seriously, with bleeding from the head, and possibly a neck fracture. Astrid could hear crying in the background as she talked to the crewmember who answered.

Relaying the information to Hiccup, she saw his mouth press into a thin line. "Declare an emergency, have control find us the nearest airport that can take them."

In all her years flying, she had never declared a mayday before. Incidents happened, but they were never serious enough to warrant emergency priority.

"Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is Berkian 547." She swallowed, trying to keep her voice from shaking. "We hit heavy turbulence, multiple serious injuries onboard, requesting directions to closest airport with medevac."

As air traffic control gave them a new heading, Astrid recalled the time she had an engine surge and start to spit flames. The vibrations shook the entire aircraft, and it felt as if the whole thing was going to tear apart along the rivets lines. Petrified passengers also witnessed the streaks of fire shooting out of the engine before she shut it down.

In comparison, their current situation was tame; the plane was fine, and everything was under control.

But the suddenness with which she had lost that control weighed on her. The entire ordeal lasted less than a minute, and she couldn't bear to imagine what the result would have been had Hiccup not been there. If she was the captain instead.

Equally disturbing was Hiccup's warning. Had she really worsened their crisis? Oh gods, what if someone was paralyzed for the rest of their life because of her?

"I—" Her voice caught in her throat. She felt faintly sick. "I've had first-aid training," Astrid eventually stammered out, catching Hiccup's attention. "Should I go see if I can help?"

Shaking his head, Hiccup replied with a firm no. "Let the cabin crew handle it. I need you here monitoring and on the radio. Get the charts out, go over our approach for me."

Her hands trembled slightly when she pulled out her tray table and unfolded the charts on it. Hiccup evidently noticed; when he next spoke, his voice was gentler.

"Hey, take a deep breath and pause for a moment. It's over now, we're okay. It's just like flying to any other airport for the first time." Peering over at her, he added, "Remember the scan technique? Front-to-side."

Right. Visual scanning. They were going to make an impromptu fast approach, separation was important. Start at the center of the windshield, move to the right, pause on each section. Swing back and repeat for the left. Instrument panel next. Rinse and repeat.

For the next hour, the only sound in the cockpit was the drone of the engines. As they neared the airport, the workload picked up dramatically. Astrid kept in touch with the tower controller, went through checklists, and helped configure the plane for landing.

Before she knew it, Hiccup had lined them up for final approach, and the robotic synthesized voice of the flight computer was calling out their altitude.

When Hiccup gently touched the rear landing gear onto the runway and eased the A320 onto the ground, Astrid idly noted that it was the smoothest landing she'd ever experienced. She could probably hold a full mug of coffee and not spill a single drop throughout.

Turning off the runway, they stopped on a nearby taxiway, where air stairs and ambulances were waiting. Once the engines were shut down, Astrid gave them the all-clear, and watched as they sped towards the cabin door, out of sight.

She chewed on her lower lip, wondering if the passengers were going to be all right. Briefly, a little part of her worried how this was going to look on her records, and the guilt of even remotely caring about that at a time like this piled on, too.

"No, Dad, the passengers and the crew are fine." A brief pause. "The plane's fine, too, I think. Everyone's fine. And I'm fine as well, by the way, thanks for asking!"

Astrid was finding it increasingly hard to smother her laughter the longer Hiccup's call went on.

"Okay. Yes, I know." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Okay. No, I won't. Okay. Okay." His free hand was thrown up into the air in exasperation.

From what she had seen, Hiccup could get rather animated when agitated. At the moment, he was pacing circles around the couch Astrid was sitting on. She followed him with her eyes whenever he appeared back into her line of sight, but honestly, it was starting to get a bit dizzying.

After a few more similar exchanges and an equally terse goodbye, Hiccup finally discarded his phone on the table. Flopping down beside Astrid, he breathed out a long, world-weary sigh, eyes closed and rubbing his temple. If this was what every conversation with Stanton Haddock was like, she was beginning to understand why he ran off to fly with an airline on the other side of the world.

"Everything okay?" Astrid couldn't contain herself, a cheeky smile pulling at her lips.

Hiccup's eyes flashed open, and he sent her his best attempt at a withering glare. It only served to make her smile a full-blown grin.

The two of them were in the airport pilot lounge. Their plane was grounded until maintenance could inspect it for potential damage, and both they and the passengers needed to be ferried out by another flight coming to pick them up.

"I'm sorry about your camera."

The rollercoaster motions of the plane during the flight had cracked the lens. Astrid didn't know much about cameras, but it definitely looked expensive.

Hiccup merely waved her off, "Wasn't your fault." His eyes were closed again, as if about to take a nap, leaving Astrid to her own devices.

Earlier, she had heard more about what happened in the cabin from a flight attendant. Wine bottles from the catering cart had been sent flying, some shattering on impact, flinging glass shards at those seated nearby. A passenger on his way to the lavatory was hurled into the cabin roof before crashing back to the floor. Those made up the worst of the injuries, the rest being mostly scrapes and bruises.

Thankfully, the paramedics who responded assured them that none of the injuries were life-threatening. It was a major relief to Astrid, and it felt like a weight had been lifted from her chest.

But something else still haunted her. The sound of Hiccup shouting "You'll make it worse!" reverberated in her head, and it was all she could think about now. Ever since they'd been left in private, she had wanted to ask him about it, to know if that's really what happened.

She tugged loosely at her braid, fingers playing with the loose strands of hair at the end. As much as she feared the answer, she was never one to shy away from reality. That didn't mean she couldn't be a tad apprehensive about finding out, though.

Eying him, she saw he had his elbow on the arm of the couch, propping his head up with his left hand. He didn't look asleep, only resting. Maybe now was the time. Get it out, be direct, straight to the point.

She took a deep breath. Here goes nothing.

"Did I really make things worse?"

The sudden question startled Hiccup, and he jerked upright, eyebrows pulling together as he frowned a little. Weighing his words, he didn't answer until several seconds later. It was excruciating, waiting for the hammer to drop.

"Compensating that hard can make it worse."

"But," he added quickly, "It's not your fault. It's a natural reaction, and simulator training didn't cover this sort of thing. Unless you've come across it before, you wouldn't have known."

Shaking his head, he went on, "It was scary for me as well. And if we're going to assign blame, then this is as much my fault for not realizing wake turbulence could still be an issue at that kind of distance.

"But that's when we really earn our stripes though, isn't it? When the unexpected happens, and it's up to us to make the right call." There was a kind of resolve in his tone, entirely different from the lighthearted humor she had come to expect from him. "And now you have the experience to know how to respond in the future. Or better, avoid it entirely. If anything, you're a better pilot now than you were this morning."

It was in that instant that Astrid realized no, she wasn't ready for the captaincy.

As proficient as she was on the flight deck, thus far everything she had done was by the book. This was her first time being thrown into unforeseen danger, and she had let panic take over, instinct overriding judgement.

Levelheaded, calm, and composed, even in the worst of times. That's what made a good pilot. There was a lot she hadn't seen yet, a lot more to learn.

In a sudden bout of gratitude, Astrid reached around Hiccup's shoulders, drawing him close and giving him a hug. She caught a flash of his shocked expression, and felt his body tense under her arms. Astrid gave a soft squeeze and pulled back, placing a light peck on his cheek along the way. Hiccup sat there stiff as a board, his face growing steadily redder.

"Thanks. For, well, everything, I guess," she said quietly, chuckling a little at his response.

Hiccup coughed and cleared his throat a few times before he could formulate any words. When he did, it was distinctly higher pitched than usual. "No problem," he squeaked out.

"You know," Hiccup started, after regaining full control of his vocal chords, "There is something I could 'abuse'" —he made air quotes with his fingers—"my status for."

Seeing her querying and expectant gaze, he pressed on, the nervous demeanor back again, "I could have us paired together on more flights. Only if you want to, of course!" He added the last part hurriedly.

When Astrid didn't say anything immediately, he looked away and started rambling, gesturing wildly at nothing in particular throughout, "No, of course you wouldn't. Why would you? That was a terrible flight, it could be a bad omen. I mean, it's probably Toothless's fault, he's blacker than squid ink pasta—"

"Hiccup," Astrid cut him off, silencing him instantly. "I'd love to fly with you again."

The giddy look that donned his features made her smile, too. For good measure though, she gave him a light punch on the shoulder. "But only if I get to hear more about Toothless."

AN: Thank you so much everybody for reading! And I hope I haven't given anyone a fear of flying...

If you want to read more about the wake turbulence of an A380, search for "Emirates A388 over Arabian Sea on Jan 7th 2017, wake turbulence sends business jet in uncontrolled descent" on The Aviation Herald. That was the incident that gave me the idea for a reasonably realistic scenario to use for this fic.

Finally, thanks to the great friend who beta'd this for me, and for reminding me how normal human beings talk in real life.