Investigative Reporter Encounter

You are Stephen Mahkes, fall guy, but with the right movie break, you could make it into stunt man legend. You swear you could. Only breaks that have come your way today have been your equipment. You and one of the prop guys, Willie, are looking over the motorcycle you were riding a few minutes ago. Luckily, you weren't between it and the hay bale you two extracted if from after you lost control. Filming some sort of chase scene around an airport for some action film, you don't really know what, or even who, you just take your cues "Jump over that, it'll blow up, then turn left and go around the building." A day of tight turns, jumps, and sliding crashes, most of them intentional, and the machine was looking pretty ragged.

"Well, That'll let you ride it into the shop, but it's pretty much scrap parts now." Willie says after duct taping the cowling back on. You shrug and look forward to the whirlpool tank. You have some of the usual minor bruises and aches, but nothing major. Your shoulder is a little sore, but that's mostly from the couple of times it's been broken, nothing new.

Willie looks behind you, focused on something, as he says "What the F..?" about the same time you hear a small engine prop. You duck down low before spinning around, just in case, but see a small Cessna scudding down the runway. As it goes past, you see a bloom of red hair attached to a woman tied to the pilots chair. There's no redheads in this film, nor plane stunts, and no way she can pilot that tied up.

You haul the bike up and rev it started. Willie looks startled. "You can't jump on without wrecking the bike!" You smirk at him "It's scrap parts anyway!" you shout as you gun it onto the runway and after the plane. They'll either have to fire you, or write this in, you can't just let a hot chick like that crash while people stand around guessing if this is a stunt or real.

You quickly catch up on your stunt bike. The plane must not be anywhere near full throttle to be going so slow. You slow down as you close the distance and leap onto the wing strut, kicking off from the bike to keep it from going under the plane. Prying your fingers in the seam, you push the door out and jump inside. As you move to cut the engine, the red head yells "Don't!"

You freeze and look at her. Shining emerald eyes look stunning, although panicked. "Tell me you know how to fly this thing! They'll kill us if you stop!"

Confused, you say "Who?" and look behind you for an answer. A black luxury sedan is speeding up the runway behind you. You see a muzzle stick out from a window as they close on Willie. A fiery flash and Willie has a ragged stitching of blood spraying from his chest as he falls.

"Willie!" You turn around and start flipping the controls. Cessna's are easy to fly, and you been working toward getting qualified as a stunt pilot. The engine revs in response as you gun it high, hoping you have enough runway to achieve takeoff speed.

The girl screams as gunfire surround the plane. The window on her side gets shot out, you can hear the fuselage take a few shots, but you both make it out OK. You pull back and the Cessna leaps up into the air, leaving the sedan behind. You can hear more gunfire, but nothing connects.

"That's one dead friend you owe me, now you going to explain what's going on?" You shout to her as you start heading for the nearest other airport. She looks back to you, full lips, her feminine cleavage pushed up by her bonds, trim figure, all making you wonder how she managed to get herself in a mess like this. "I'm a reporter, well, more of a investigator these days. I was hired to find out what happened to a débutante when she was with a governor's aide, and well, seems like they don't want freedom of the press."

You grumble, letting her get away with that for now, since she's tied up, ~and~ hot. You look down at your gages, blink, and look again, watching the fuel gage sink visibly. "Crap." You look out and see at least three holes in the wing. "Good news, I can land this plane. Bad new, I've never crash landed any planes ... And we're going to have to, somewhere." You look out over the dense conifer forest below. "Any suggestions?"

She smiles "I have a safe house in the trees toward the mountain, over there," she points with her chin, "If you can get us close, We'll be able to rest up and won't have to worry about them finding us before I publish my story." You know these are dense woods, hard hiking on foot, you can't imagine trying to put a plane between those trees. You know theres some farms over east, you could put down in a field, if you can reach them. With the fuel loss, maybe, maybe not.