"Lorraine!" Sharon pleaded again, seeing the lightning flash ominously ahead in the black sky over the harbor. "Please let's wait until morning before flying to your sister's!" The gusty humid wind rocking my slowly taxiing black Beechcraft Bonanza "BLACK LADY" there in the darkness, the brilliant mercury lights of the taxiway reflecting off the polished wings. The thought of flying up into such a storm, even with me at the controls, no doubt terrifying her. The storm was like nothing I had seen before, its very center according to the radar return unlike anything anyone had ever seen, I understood from what the control tower told me. The return being utterly different from normal!
"I'm not spending another night here in Los Angeles," I snapped back, "And that's final!" The cold icy anger showing in my voice as I waited for the clearance to take off, the dull reddish glow from the instruments in front of me no doubt making my face look even more harsh than ever. My mood so vile and bitter from the events earlier that evening that flying into a storm I normally would have avoided makes it quite possible that at the time I had a subconscious "death wish" and was really seeking our own deaths as a solution to my horrible emotional suffering.
I had spoken briefly to Janet Rogers on the telephone, telling her of what had happened, and thanking her for everything she had done for me. I would see to it when I reached La Paz that she would have sufficient funds to continue her education as far as she wished to go. I had a few weeks before changed my will, leaving all my wealth to Janet. Janet shared my own ideals, my own personal philosophy on life. Sharon had her own father's estate, but Janet had nothing, having been the illegitimate daughter of a teenage girl who had given her up for adoption at birth. She had been bounced from one foster home to another, and I suspected that I was about as near to a mother as she ever had!
"Couldn't we just drive somewhere and stay the night?" Sharon begged, making another futile attempt to talk me out of flying up into the storm ahead. The glow of the lightning flashing again in the clouds a warning of what laid in wait for us. The wind that now gusted through the open window there at my side moist and warm, smelling of the rain soon to fall. I had no wish to "intrude" now on anyone that I knew, and I didn't wish to just drive anywhere and stay in a motel until the weather cleared up!
"No!" I snapped, the rapidly whirling disk of the propeller flashing in the taxiway lights as I finally at last received clearance to take off. The controller in the tower warning me of the dangers that laid in the sky ahead for such a light craft as mine. My answer was a curt "thanks" as I hung up the mike and then pushed the throttle forward to begin the take-off run. The swift gusts rocking my V-tailed airplane as it rolled down the runway, the marker lights flashing by one after another on either side. Sharon reaching out to touch my arm, her soft eyes like those of a hurt doe in the red glow from the instruments. I felt ashamed at how I had treated her. How I had taken out my anger on her, my beloved beautiful teenage "golden girl".
"Don't worry, we'll be O.K.," I answered, giving Sharon a smile and reaching over to tousle her soft golden hair. Thinking that I'd make it all up to her later for how I had mistreated her. Then pushing the throttle all the way in, the roar of the big turbocharged engine at full power effectively preventing any reply she might have wished to make. The blonde teenager's imagination no doubt vividly picturing the terrors that might await us there in the sky ahead. The lightning like thunderbolts from the hands of an infuriated Zeus, the shearing gusts that could tear our wings off if I flew into the center of the storm, all the dangers that could be awaiting us there in the sky! The tower warning me once again to avoid the storm at all costs, its center on the radar like nothing anyone had ever seen before! A strange shifting "blob" that was almost like something alive! I wondered if there was a "UFO" up there! I could hear voices in the background asking if they should call out the Air Force to investigate the "return" now showing there on the radar screens.
The marker lights of the runway flashed by under the low wings as we raced down the long runway, our plane heavy with gasoline, the engine roaring in our ears, my powerful fingers steel bands clamped around the wheel. Fighting to hold the plane on course as the wind gusts shook and rocked it. My stepdaughter's face showing the terror she felt there in the glow from the instruments as Black Lady leaped and jerked in the gusts, Sharon's hands now tightly clenched there between her knees as she stared straight ahead, watching the storm rapidly approaching us!
There was a sudden last gust that shook the craft, bouncing it hard against the concrete of the runway, Sharon softly gasping in terror. Then I drew the half wheel slowly back and lightning streaked clouds were all that could be seen as the ground fell away beneath. A sigh of relief going through me as I brought the wheels up, and then throttled back to cruising power a moment later. Turning and giving my Sharon an encouraging smile as her eyes met mine in the glow of the instruments. I reached out and touched her hand for a moment before a powerful gust of wind once again demanded my full attention at the controls. The control tower once again warning me to avoid the storm at all costs and to make my turn now away from it even although I didn't yet have hardly a thousand feet there beneath me! Warning me of the "unknown" there up in the clouds ahead! The man obviously was seeing something I wasn't! I could hear their conversation in the background, something again about calling the Air Force to investigate, the "return" now being half a mile across! I found their conversation utterly "fascinating" then!
"Scared?" I asked, giving her a smile. The thought of a "flying saucer" filling my thoughts. It is said that "curiosity killed the cat". It also gets people like me into "trouble". It certainly did in this case! Sharon and I were to share adventures that I believe no one of the 20th Century ever shared. On the other hand we have also found something that we would have never had back in our own time. Perhaps fate guided my hands on the plane's controls. What is, I think now, was "meant" to be.
"A bit," she admitted, giving me a brave smile, while keeping a firm hold on the seat as if she might go flying out of the airplane even with her seatbelt fastened tightly around herself. A flash of lightning there in the sky ahead briefly lighting up her features. For an instant I wondered why I was doing what I was. I heard the man in the control tower calling again, warning me to "TURN BACK THIS INSTANT"! I smiled to myself. I would do as I damm well pleased! If there was a "flying saucer" hiding there in the center of this storm, we would find it now!
"Get the parachutes from behind the seats," I ordered, Sharon giving me a "strange" look, but knowing better than to argue the matter with me. The lightning now flashing all around us as I pushed the throttle all the way back in, the roar of the engine almost overwhelmed by the crash of the constant thunder around us. The clouds like monsters in the sky as they seemed to leap and dance, lightning flickering in their depths, the wind gusts now so strong that it was impossible to hold the plane steady. We would find that "flying saucer", Sharon and I!
"I hope we won't ---------!" Sharon breathed, her breath nearly taken away as the laboring airplane suddenly dropped a hundred feet in a powerful downdraft. There was danger that the wings might be torn off! The lightning jagged zig-zag streaks in the dark clouds around us. My hands fighting the controls as the craft leaped beneath us like a living thing, not even the roar of the engine drowning out the heavy drum roll of the thunder. Fat oily raindrops beginning to splatter against the windshield like hailstones as I quickly slid the window shut, my mouth now set as I flew Black Lady further up into the storm!
"Tower to Beechcraft NC109677," the radio crackled, the static bad now. "YOU ARE TO TURN BACK IMMEDIATELY!" My reply was to snap it off, putting an end to the annoyance. We would see what laid ahead in this strange storm if it was the last thing I ever did! And it almost was too as you will see! When I think back on it, I wonder what drove me to do it, to take a risk like that, especially with Sharon's life too at stake. What has motivated me to do the things that I have done? To take the risks of combat, to put my own life at stake like I have done for one who would not even be born until six centuries after my own birth! One tall and golden, the ruler of a mighty Empire, so incredibly beautiful it takes your very breath away even to look upon her as she sits on her golden throne. Darlanis, Empress of California!
"Maybe we'd better do as he says," Sharon ventured, the look on her face telling much of how she felt as she clutched the parachute to herself like a life preserver. I nodded, thinking of the dangers, the "risks" that we were now so foolishly taking.
"LORRAINE!" Sharon screamed, the sky ahead of us suddenly filled with a greenish flickering glowing "blob" of light like nothing I'd ever seen before! The blob seeming to almost reach out to engulf us like some strange alien living blob of unholy light! The controls strangely unresponsive as we seemed to be drawn in like a bit of food sucked in by an amoeba! The cold terror clutching at my heart like the fist of a strong man as I uselessly twisted the wheel as far as it would go! We were flying into this terrifying blob of unearthly living light, and there wasn't a single damm thing that I could do about it either! My last thoughts as the light closed around us and I felt an intense tingling electrical shock go through me were of Sharon and how recklessly foolish I had been to risk her life, her dear young precious life, for THIS!! And then I lost consciousness...
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