Apocalyptic Dragon Riders

Chapter 17

The probability of a bird strike shattering the cockpit glass was extremely low. But at thirty-thousand feet, it wasn’t impossible to encounter large birds — swans, vultures, bar-headed geese — any of them could collide with an aircraft. Especially in a head-on strike, the combined impact force could be enormous.

“Got it,” Lin Mo nodded.

The lead flight attendant pressed her hand on the cockpit door. Several other attendants came to help.

“Three... two... one... go!”

Normally, no one could just waltz into the cockpit, but this was an emergency. They had no choice but to break protocol. The environment inside a breached cockpit was lethal to the unprepared — someone physically weaker could simply pass out or even die.

The moment the cockpit door opened, a violent blast of air shot into the cabin, whipping everything into chaos. A shadow darted inside, and bang! the door slammed shut again. The howling wind was cut off instantly, and the terrified passengers let out a collective breath of relief.

“Lin Mo! Can you hear me?!” The lead flight attendant rushed to the interphone the second the door was shut, desperately calling into the cockpit.

“I hear you! I did everything you told me. The cockpit glass was hit by birds — more than one. The captain’s gone. The first officer’s barely hanging on. I’m in the captain’s seat now, getting ready to take ground control instructions and stabilize the plane.”

The sound of wind roaring through the cockpit was still violent, but Lin Mo’s voice came through calm and steady, as if completely unaffected. In front of him, two gaping holes had been punched through the windshield. Shards of glass and bloodied, unrecognizable bits of bird carcass were scattered everywhere.

“Thank God… thank God…” The lead attendant slumped to the floor, clutching the handset, her uniform soaked through with sweat.

The aircraft’s shaking gradually subsided. The frame’s agonizing groan went silent. The entire plane slowly leveled out. The passengers, their nerves stretched to the breaking point, finally collapsed back into their seats like puppets with their strings cut. No one even had the strength to cheer for surviving.

The thin air and gale-force wind inside the cockpit barely affected Lin Mo. Back in his old world, charging through the skies on Goldie the dragon while clad in full plate had long since hardened him to open-air combat at extreme altitudes. Compared to that, the turbulence blowing in through the shattered glass was nothing.

When the control tower finally reestablished contact, the airport ground crews erupted into chaos. They quickly discovered that the person flying the plane was no longer the original pilot. Once they understood the situation, they scrambled a dozen pilots of the same aircraft type, each sitting inside a simulator cockpit to provide precise step-by-step instructions. For the safety of everyone onboard, the ground controllers described every button and switch in meticulous detail — its exact position, its shape, its markings, its neighbors — and had Lin Mo confirm before pressing anything.

Lin Mo listened intently, as focused as a new recruit hearing flight instructions from his drill sergeant for the very first time. Under his control, the plane gradually shifted from full autopilot to partial manual control as he worked to stabilize its attitude and systems.

“What’s your airspeed?” asked one of the senior pilots, speaking from inside a Boeing 737 simulator. “It’s on the lower left of the panel, near the chronometer — looks like a small clock face. Check the little window and tell me the reading.”

“Got it. Reading one-nine-zero,” Lin Mo replied without hesitation, glancing at the instruments and quickly reporting the number.

“Good. Now adjust heading to one-five-seven. It’s right in front of you, near the windshield, just below eye level — watch the autopilot panel. If you notice anything abnormal, tell me immediately.”

In the simulator cockpit, two laptops streamed live data from the plane — radar position, speed, altitude — while the ground crew guided Lin Mo through every move.

When the control center saw that the flight parameters were stabilizing, everyone finally exhaled in relief.

“Locate the RECALL panel — you should be able to see it just above eye level, near the Fire Warning button. Press it and check that the system lights go out. If any remain lit, report them. Your altitude is too low — move the landing gear lever to OFF, then switch the Auto Brake to OFF. After that, follow my next command…”

The ground pilots were patient and precise, spoon-feeding him every instruction, step by step. Occasionally someone would ask how he was holding up. The wind noise in the mic still sounded terrifying to everyone listening, but Lin Mo’s voice remained rock steady. They could hardly believe that someone with no formal flight training could withstand this brutal environment — much less remain calm enough to take instructions — but the fact that he could gave them far more confidence about a safe landing.

If it had been an ordinary passenger in that cockpit, they probably would have passed out within minutes from the turbulence, low temperature, and thin air. Even a trained pilot might have struggled without supplemental oxygen at this altitude.

“Maintain current heading. We’re diverting you to Shijiazhuang Zhengding Airport,” came the updated instruction from the emergency control team. The original destination had been Changchun Longjia International Airport, but given the incident, an emergency landing at the nearest available airport was preferred. Lin Mo’s unexpectedly steady handling of the aircraft, however, gave the team the confidence to choose a slightly farther but safer diversion airport, one that offered better preparation time and a lower risk of flying over Beijing’s restricted airspace with a damaged aircraft. Burning more fuel would also reduce landing risk.

“Copy that. Confirming new destination: Shijiazhuang Zhengding Airport!” Lin Mo replied solemnly. Even he hadn’t expected that, before officially becoming a pilot, he would get the chance to fly a fully loaded passenger jet — with no license — carrying over a hundred lives. The only reason he could handle the plane so smoothly was thanks to his years as a dragon knight. His sense for air currents, his experience of riding a massive flying creature through storms and lightning, translated naturally into keeping the aircraft steady.

To Lin Mo, piloting a plane felt eerily familiar — almost easier than riding Goldie. He could sense every shift in airflow along the fuselage, and his corrections were smooth, natural, almost instinctive.

As he flew, he couldn’t help but marvel at this enormous metal construct, a masterpiece of engineering. In his old world, flight was a luxury reserved for noble houses with air-riding beasts, or the dragon knight legions themselves. The idea of casually transporting over a hundred civilians across the sky in one journey was unthinkable — no kingdom could afford to build such massive airships. If they could, wars would be over in an instant: just drop a squad of sword saints onto the enemy capital and wipe them out.

The aircraft’s stabilization brought visible relief to the passengers. Faces lit up with joy, as if each had just won the lottery. Some even wept tears of happiness, tearing up the farewell notes they had just written. The cabin slowly returned to order, and every word of the calm conversation between cockpit and ground control that came through the speakers reassured the passengers even more.

A few still worried silently for Lin Mo. Their lives all rested on the shoulders of the young man up front. The cabin might have been calm, but anyone who knew aviation understood just how hostile and dangerous the cockpit still was.

Thirty minutes later, the plane reached the Shijiazhuang airspace. Nearby traffic was rerouted or put into holding patterns to clear the skies for the emergency landing.

Under normal conditions, professional pilots would simply line up and land one after another at such a busy airport. But today, the man at the controls was a first-time flyer — and his first landing would decide the fate of everyone aboard.