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He was spinning. Faster and faster, until he was rolling through the air with such speed that he didn't know which way was up or down. His hand wrestled with the throttle, trying to get a grip, trying to take control again, but nothing he did, not one piece of his training from so many years as a pilot would make the spinning stop. A terror gripped him, striking him so hard that he nearly passed out from its gut clenching assertion. The spinning amped up, causing his head to explode with dizziness, his eyes automatically closing to try and lessen the nausea inducing burden.
Captain Michael Quinn was about to crash and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
Quinn had crashed five times before as a pilot, the most recent being in the service of Project Blue Book with the Doc. He’d busted his arm up pretty good on that one. But the truth was he didn't mind crashing much. It was just part of the job. A bad day at the office. His first crash had been a month into basic training, complete engine failure and a concussion that had left him unconscious for two days. Most people might’ve considered new employment, but Quinn had gotten right back up in the air as soon as his vision had gone from double back to single, determined to conquer the plane and take on his job of fighting the enemy in the war. He’d been shot down twice in the service, once, barely escaping a rough water landing and the other, ejecting into some trees behind enemy lines. Both times he’d just taken the pills they’d given him and been on his way. The engine fire crash towards the end of the war had admittedly been a bit scary, the canopy above him not opening properly so he could eject. He could still remember the unbelievable heat that had flashed across his face and the thick smoke choking him along with the panic that he might not be escaping the flying inferno. It had been right around that time that the canopy had finally opened and he’d safely escaped and parachuted to the ground with only a singed eyebrow and a little smoke inhalation. No harm no foul. Nothing a few drinks and a round of praise from his commanding officers at his continued excellence in handling a plane in even the most precarious situations couldn't fix.
But as the lights continued to swarm around him and his plane hurtled towards the ground, Quinn realized this time things were different. The checklist of what he was supposed to do in order to get control, a checklist so engrained in his mind that he could probably do it in his sleep, was switched off in his brain. He literally couldn't remember. It wasn't panic. It was just gone. Like it was being blocked by some force.
Some alien force.
There was a throb in his head, like a blinding migraine headache and the air was thick and tasted like metal and his stomach hurt, his insides bubbling and those weren't tears falling from his eyes as the ground loomed below because Captain Michael James Quinn didn't cry in an airplane. Ever.
“Captain, report, report, what’s happening?”
The question stuck in his brain and he took a moment to really contemplate it. What the hell was happening? Where was he? What had he been doing?
He tried to pull in a deep breath and find his calm, find that place in himself that had saved him from five other crashes. That thing that made him a good pilot and an even better Captain. A good military man. A blunt instrument. Practically unflinching. Tough. Real. Immune from fantastical ideas.
Like beings from outer space.
They weren't supposed to exist. He was supposed to shut all that down. Be the cynic to Hynek’s believer.
Hynek. Flying saucers. Aliens.
Something snapped in his mind and he finally understood what was happening to him, a terror more complete than anything he’d felt in his whole life took him over and he really was crying.
He was chasing aliens. It was real. It was all real. They were all around him. They were inside his head. They were making his plane go down.
He was going to die and he was all alone. No one to cry to or blow a kiss to. No fellow servicemen. Not even any real friends. There was only one person he had. A singular partnership.
The Doc.
Hynek.
He didn't realize he’d said the name out loud.
“Captain, repeat? Repeat?”
“Hynek,” he hoarsed out, his throat so dry he could barely form words. “Get Hynek.”
Those three words opened a channel in his brain and it was like a tether being released. Whatever kind of hold the beings he’d been chasing had on his mind lifted and he was ace pilot Captain Quinn again and he knew exactly what he needed to do.
His hand went to pull the throttle to idle, the movement painful, like his hand was locked up and his brain was still not fully on board with doing what it needed to do to save him. But he kept at it anyway, his hand aflame with effort and he screamed against the agony, the ground getting closer and closer as he struggle to take control. One final pull and he nearly passed out, his hands feeling like all the bones had been broken to rubble and crushed into dust. More tears fell from his eyes as the plane violently jolted and then ever so slightly began to right itself. The spinning slowed and then stopped all together and suddenly, Quinn had control and his brain was all his again with a surge of adrenaline rushing through it that made him gag. The ground was only a few hundred feet below. He looked up into the sky above and saw the orbs of light he’d been chasing were gone.
It was over. He’d survived.
“Returning to base, over,” he said into his comm, his voice sounding foreign to his own ears.
The flight back to base was jagged and turbulent and when he looked down at his still throbbing hands, he realized it was him making the bumps, both of his hands buzzing and shaking like angry bees. It was just the adrenaline, he tried to convince himself. That’s all it was.
So were the tears that still flowed from his eyes. He wasn't still scared. It was just the body’s natural response to literally being invaded by an alien.
He was fine. He was alive. He was good. He would talk to Hynek and they’d figure it out and this would just be another one of his stories, a near miss of a crash that he’d tell drunkenly at the bar or on one of his dates with a beautiful lady that would make him look brave and strong.
Except he wouldn't. Because it would never just be another almost crash story. It was something different. Something far more terrifying. As he got closer and closer to the base, the reality of what he’d just gone through really hit him and he nearly lost control of the plane all over again.
When he saw the lights of the base’s runway, a dizzying relief coursed through him, as he suddenly needed to be out of the plane and out of the plane right then, the air growing thick again. Claustrophobic.
He decreased his speed and put down the landing gear, his heart booming in his chest as the plane descended, half panicked that whatever or whoever had controlled him earlier would seize control again and take him back up into the air.
But it didn't.
The wheels collided against the ground and he rolled forward for several long seconds until the plane ran out of steam. The second the plane came to a full stop, gut curling nausea punched Quinn in the stomach and he scrambled to get out of the plane, falling painfully onto the tarmac and whipping off his helmet before wretching all over the ground.
He thought he heard a commotion around him. Voices and footsteps encircling him as he continued to be sick, his stomach turning itself inside out, his vision graying out with dizziness, his head throbbing once again. There was a tentative hand on his back, which he normally would’ve shirked away from, but God help him, he needed it right then. Just that small bit of comfort and he felt tears rolling out of his eyes once again and he was glad he was pitched forward, his face unseen as he continued to be sick. He might’ve started sobbing, he wasn't sure. The hand tightened on his back and then he knew he was.
“Give him some room!” came the Doc’s voice, firm and insistent, even among the master’s of the universe surrounding them. “You’re okay, Captain Quinn. You’re okay. You’re safe on the ground.”
He wanted to stop, he wanted to stop the tears and the shaking and the vomiting and just be better, but he wasn’t. He was still shaken. He was still so scared.
He felt Hynek kneel down next to him, the Doc’s arm wrapping gently across his back, nonchalantly pulling him into half an embrace. “Michael, you’re home,” the doc whispered so only he could hear.
Quinn let out a soft sob and then sucked in a deep breath, the nausea finally abating and then he concentrated on just trying to breathe and right himself. Trying to figure out how the hell he was going to get to his feet and face everyone surrounding him.
“Damn it, just give him more room!” came Hynek’s voice, like he was reading his mind.
A handkerchief was thrust into his hand, which he gratefully took, wiping first at his tears and then at his mouth, wiping away all of the evidence that he wasn't handling his close encounter with anything akin to cool or grace. When he was finished, the handkerchief was taken back and the arm across his back tightened.
“Are you okay to stand, Captain?” asked Hynek.
Quinn turned his head, finally looking at Hynek, the Doc’s glasses and salt and pepper beard maybe the most comforting thing he’d ever seen. “I don't know, Doc,” he whispered honestly, genuinely trying to get the steam to stand up, but all of his energy was used up, physically, emotionally, psychologically and every other ally he could think of. He’d never been more exhausted in all of his life.
Hynek nodded, understanding and tenderness warming his eyes, regarding him not as a colleague, but as a partner. As a friend. Quinn basked in it, desperately needing the comforting energy.
“Take your time, Captain. We will figure this out.”
Quinn knew they would. They’d get to the bottom of whatever had just happened to him and he would be okay. Hynek would make sure of it.
He wasn’t crashing that day.
That’s All Folks!