Taylor Varga (Worm/Luna Varga)

"Throttling up in five… Four… Three… Two… One!"

Captain Derek Jenkins, US Air Force, pushed the throttles to the limit slowly and steadily, feeling the afterburners kick in at one hundred percent, causing the experimental aircraft he was flying to surge remorselessly forward like nothing he'd ever experienced. Just as the thrust gauges maxed out in the second zone, he announced, "Full power on mains and afterburners."

His copilot behind him in the back seat of the experimental aircraft, the end result of decades of work by half a dozen companies and the crowning pinnacle of aeronautic engineering, replied, "Mach four indicated. Mach four point two. Four point six. Four point nine. Five. Five point two… leveling off at mach five point three two, flight level one thousand six. Engine temperatures nominal, fuel flow good, turbine stresses within projected limits, afterburners running smooth." The voice crackled in his pressure suit's helmet, the slight distortions from the intercom not completely masking the sheer joy the other man was also feeling. He felt more than heard the steady vibration of the fastest aircraft in history making the entire airframe hum under the incredible stresses of hypersonic flight. Even at this altitude, far higher than any air-breathing aircraft ever made, the air was thick enough to cause the exotic ceramic-metal sandwich skin to heat up to over nine hundred degrees centigrade.

There was a distinct glow around the chines and wing leading edges, he noted as he glanced to either side very quickly, making sure to keep most of his attention on the gauges, caused due to compression of the air because it couldn't get out of the way fast enough.

Yet the structure of the long-delayed and oft-nearly-canceled successor to the old SR-71 project had finally taken its first step into uncharted territories and he got to fly it.

It was the best feeling in the world, he thought to himself, a broad grin invisible on his face behind the gold-tinted faceplate of his helmet. He, and Kelly behind him, were going faster than anyone had done in an aircraft, if you ignored actual spacecraft like the long-dead Shuttle and the various orbital launchers, than anyone in history had managed. With the sole exception of the X-15, which in his view had been more of a rocket with wings than an actual aircraft.

The SR-72 was a real aircraft. It used aerodynamic lift, had proper wings, it could (in theory) fly for several hours, and it could take off and land without needing another aircraft to lift it miles into the air.

Yeah. The X-15, while it had been an incredible feat, and the people who flew it remarkable individuals, was not in the same class as the machine he was piloting.

And if the next stage of the test worked as the simulations showed, his craft would beat the X-15 in speed. Not altitude, they were neither rated for near-orbital altitude nor stupid enough to risk going sufficiently high that the Endbringer that circled the globe far out of reach might take an interest, but in terms of raw velocity they would shortly find out if twenty-first century engineering could finally exceed what had been done long ago in the sixties.

His thumb moved to a control on the joystick and rested just below the flip-up cover, ready for action. "Home Base, Roadrunner One. All systems are reading in the green. Requesting clearance for phase two."

After a couple of seconds pause, another voice joined both of them in the cockpit, broadcast from the experimental aircraft control room at Edwards Air Force Base many hundreds of miles away from them at this point and becoming more distant at nearly seventy miles a minute. "Roadrunner One, you have clearance. Initiate phase two when ready."

Derek flipped the cover aside and poised his thumb over the button under it. "Home Base, acknowledged. Initiating phase two in five seconds from… Mark."

He watched the timer count down, audibly counting with it, more out of habit than anything else, then when it hit the right point, gently depressed the button. Feeling it click into place, the pilot watched a number of other gauges and displays suddenly change, even as the SR-72 made a strange sound and leaped forward like someone had terrified it.

"Woohoo!" he screamed, unable to stop himself, as the mach meter rapidly changed.

"Metal ion injection at one hundred percent flow," Kelly spoke over the roar from far behind them and to both sides. In the small mirrors mounted on either side of the control console Derek could see the exhaust plumes from the engine had gone brilliant green-white as the metal-loaded exhaust ionized from the incredible temperatures, only prevented from melting the entire engine structure by the massive magnetic fields the special MHD afterburners used to both contain it and accelerate it. "MHD field holding steady. Mach six. Six point five. Seven. Seven point six. Seven point nine. Eight point two. Eight point five. Eight point nine. Nine point two. Nine point three. Nine point five…"

'Come on, you can do it,' Derek thought to his aircraft as he caressed the stick, making tiny almost instinctive adjustments to keep things on track. The plane sang and shivered like a living creature under and around him. 'Let's have that mach ten, baby.'

"Nine point eight five!"

'A little more. Come on, beautiful, just a little more…'

"Mach ten! Ten point one. Ten point one five. Ten point two… Holding at ten point two four. All in the green, maximum power on engines, skin temperature within limits, no unusual airframe stresses… Holy shit, this is amazing."

The brief lapse from total professionalism made Derek stifle a snicker, as he felt exactly the same and the exaltation he was experiencing he knew without a shadow of a doubt was mirrored by the man six feet behind him. He didn't even have to ask. He just knew.

Scanning his instruments, he saw that everything was indicating exactly what Kelly reported, showing that the SR-72 was living up to every goal the designers had aimed for over the last forty years. Even the technological breakthroughs made after decades of studying Tinker Tech were holding their own perfectly. No one could understand the Tinker-based technology itself, but an awful lot of people had spent hundreds of man-years examining every scrap they could lay hands on and had, despite never cracking the whole story, derived enough around the edges to push forward many fields of science in sometimes strange ways. Leading to the machine he was currently flying towards the east coast like a bat out of hell, covering over a hundred and thirty miles a minute while trailing green-white fire for miles behind them.

It wasn't subtle, true, but by god it was fast…

Looking to the sides again he saw the leading edges glowing bright white in the heat of the air being violently shoved aside by the thunder of their passage. He wondered what they looked like from the ground, many miles below them. Impressive, at a minimum. The UFO stories coming from this test flight would likely be just as impressive, he thought with an inner grin.

"Congratulations. Roadrunner One. You've entered the history books." The voice of Colonel Grant, the man running the entire SR-72 project, sounded supremely satisfied and very proud. "Fantastic job."

"Thanks, Home Base. Wouldn't have missed this for the world," he replied with deliberate calm. "All systems still in the green. No signs at all of problems. Requesting clearance to extend mission to phase three, as long as we're up here."

There was a long pause, then Grant came back. "Telemetry agrees everything's looking good, Roadrunner. If you feel phase three is achievable on this flight, we have no objections. Clearance granted."

"Acknowledged, Home Base. See you when we get back. Roadrunner out." Releasing the talk switch he heard a chuckle from the rear seat.

"You just want a joyride in the most expensive aircraft on the planet," Kelly commented.

"Don't you?" he responded with a grin in his voice.

"Didn't say that did I?"

Both of them laughed for a moment. "At least we're not paying for the fuel."

"Good point. It's not cheap."

"How's it looking back there?"

"Absolutely solid in the green across the board. Fuel consumption is bang on the money, temps are good, pressures are good, stresses are well below anything worrying… We can keep going no problem."

"Fastest west coast to east coast flight ever here we come," Derek commented with a grin. "Then fastest one on the way back. Let's see how many records we can break."

"Sounds like a plan."

Zipping eastward at a speed that would have them on the coast in under a quarter of an hour, twenty miles up and far above any other aircraft, Derek enjoyed the ride. Despite the subliminal vibration the aircraft moved smoothly through the thin atmosphere, the deep thunder of the engines everpresent but quiet enough once you got used to it that it didn't overwhelm other sounds. He could hear his breathing in the pressure suit, and faint clicks and whines from various systems being conveyed through the seat and his suit. After a minute or so of keeping a very careful eye on the instruments, he relaxed enough to start paying a little more attention to the view outside the cockpit. Although he was still very aware indeed that they were riding the edge of the survivable at all times, and never took more than a fraction of his attention away from his job.

It was a spectacular sight, he thought, staring out at the visibly curved horizon, black above them and a thin layer of air, most of which was beneath them, covering the planet beneath. Very few people in history got to see this view, and he was profoundly glad he was one of them. Watching the sun rise slightly off to one side at a preposterous rate as they raced to meet it was weird, the day having gone from just before dawn when they took off to apparently a couple of hours after sunrise now, only a short time later.

Hearing a click in his headset, he wondered what Kelly was doing, then heard voices and realized. His colleague had apparently switched one of the radios to the standard ATC frequency and they were currently monitoring the communications from other aircraft far below and moving at a snail's pace by comparison. He wondered why the other man had done that for a moment, then listened and understood with a smirk.

"Holy shit, what is that?"

"Air Canada 236, please repeat?"

"Sorry, Tower. We're monitoring something… something… flying due east well above us. No idea what it is, but it's really hauling ass. Nearly out of sight already, came up on us from behind under a minute ago. Green contrail, must be miles long. Something glowing white at the front, but it's nothing like any aircraft I've ever seen before."

"Tower, Speedbird 128. We see it too. Coming towards us incredibly fast. Very high, at least three times our altitude we estimate. Some sort of aircraft, definitely, my copilot has binoculars on it right now, but nothing like anything we've ever seen." The British-accented voice sounded completely professional but also totally baffled, making Derek smirk to himself. The Canadian pilot had sounded even more confused.

"We have it on radar," the tower controller replied after a few seconds, the databurst accompanying the transmission showing Derek it was coming from Kansas City International Airport. "Transponder shows a military flight. Experimental aircraft, by the looks of the number."

"Area 51 boys playing around again, I guess," someone else said, although he didn't identify himself.

"American 41 Heavy, yeah, they do that. Never seen anything like this before though."

"God, it's already nearly over the horizon from us," the Air Canada pilot said with a stunned note to his voice, made faint by distance now. Derek was suppressing a chuckle, feeling highly amused, and he could almost feel Kelly grinning from behind him. "Unbelievable. Did they find that crashed UFO after all?" The far-distant man laughed before the transmission ended.

They were very close to Kansas City now, passing about ten miles north on their blistering dash to the east. The number of flights below them who were now discussing their passage with confusion and interest kept increasing, making Derek smile to himself.

"We have to do it," Kelly's voice in his headset said.

"Do what?" Derek queried, although he had a pretty good idea.

"Shul did. We have to."

Yep. Kelly was thinking exactly the same thing he was.

Unable to suppress the sly grin, Derek took a couple of breaths to center himself, made sure to put on his most professional military pilot demeanor, then gently touched the talk switch.

"MCI Tower, Roadrunner One out of Edwards, requesting ground speed check," he said in the best speaking voice he could manage.

There was a long pause. All radio chatter on the ATC frequencies died, and he could almost sense many pilots listening intently to their radios, which made him extremely amused. The sound of Kelly quietly snickering to himself in the back seat was barely audible.

"Roadrunner One, we have you at six thousand four hundred and thirty nine knots ground speed," the tower man said, his voice betraying a certain amount of incredulity despite the even tone, which was the same voice every tower controller always tried for.

"Holy…" The transmission was dropped a moment later, and Derek wondered what airliner had sent it. He'd probably never know, but he was grinning like an idiot at the imagined shock on many faces.

"Thank you, Tower. That matches our instruments almost perfectly. Have a nice day. See you on the way back."

"You're welcome, Roadrunner One." He could somehow tell the other man was also grinning.

Yeah. They were the fastest thing in the air and everyone knew it.

"MCI Tower, Blue One, out of Brockton Bay," a clear female voice spoke just as he was relaxing again. "Requesting ground speed check."

Brockton Bay? Why did that sound familiar? He puzzled over the place name for a moment.

"Ah… Blue One, we don't have you on radar," the tower controller replied a second later.

"Apologies, Tower, I forgot to disable the stealth. You should see me now," the woman replied immediately. Her voice was at least as professional as everyone else's was, but somehow Derek got a sense of a mischievous grin in there too.

After a couple of seconds, ATC responded, in a slightly choked voice, "Blue One, MCI Tower. We have you on radar now. Ground speed is…" The pause made Derek lift an eyebrow. "Nine thousand nine hundred and eighty seven knots."

He felt a shock of total disbelief go through him at the figure. That couldn't possibly be correct?

"MCI Tower, Blue One. I make it ten thousand dead, but thank you. Hope you have a good day. Blue One out."

The radio went dead again with a faint click, and neither of the people in the SR-72 said anything. No one else on the network appeared to want to, or possibly be able to, speak either. Looking around, Derek couldn't see anything else at their altitude, but he eventually looked up just in time to see a small glittering object overtake them far higher than they were flying, moving vastly quicker due east. As he watched it dwindled into the distance, and just before it vanished he could swear it did a barrel roll.

At mach fifteen point five.

A barrel roll.

It was a good thirty seconds before either of them could say anything.

Eventually Kelly laughed a little unsteadily. "Brockton Bay, man. Weird place."

"Yeah." Derek peered after the long-gone whatever the fuck it had been. "Weird place. Let's never go there." He very carefully adjusted their heading to make sure they missed the east coast city by a wide margin, then settled back for the flight.

Thinking hard, and wondering what the fuck had just happened…

When they got passed by a lizard on a surfboard at mach ten point three a little later, which waved gaily at them before accelerating so fast it basically vanished in seconds, he just sighed.

The world was a very strange place, and he'd long ago stopped trying to make it make any sense.

At least the SR-72 was still the fastest real aircraft in the sky, so there was that.