Titanium Texicans Read Online Free

fall backwards, but his descent slowed. He released the right pedal and pushed the left pedal down as he mashed the power overdrive button under his right thumb on the yoke. The flitter spun around, but it didn’t stop turning. Instead, he turned 360 degrees. He was still going down backwards, but the power overdrive was slowing his descent. The flitter was still going down too fast. He didn’t know what else to do.
    He heard his grandfather’s voice in his head, “Don’t just sit there, even if it’s wrong, do something.” Of course, his grandpa said that about everything. Grandpa thought sitting and doing nothing was a sin in itself. “It’s not the Menzies’ way,” he’d say.
    Tasso shrugged. He jammed both pedals to the floor. That did nothing. He pushed the yoke forward, trying to push the flitter into a forward dive. He thought it might level him out before he hit the ground. The front end of the flitter pushed down, but it started a forward roll that continued causing the flitter to summersault front over rear.
    Tasso watched the rocks below getting closer and closer as the flitter rolled. However, his descent began to slow further. The forward roll offset the flitter’s reverse momentum and the ground stopped rushing at him. He checked the altimeter and found he was only twenty feet or so above weed top level, but he was still flipping ass-end over teakettle.
    He watched the ground roll past and disappear, followed quickly by a patch of dark sky. It rolled around again and then the same patch of sky. The whirling was almost as if the little flitter didn’t know whether to crash backwards or face first, so it just spun.
    “One more spin and I’m going to toss my cookies,” Tasso said. He saw the patch of sky roll across the window. He shut off the engines with a flick of a finger. He crashed to the ground. Thankfully, he was right side up and the driver’s crash couch cushioned the fall enough that he only had the wind knocked out of him.
    The GPS map showed his location as only a few kilometers away from the McWithy Range’s rough terrain, on approach to the McGrath Pass. Any farther and he would have crashed into rock and ravine, instead of landing in a soft field. Well, the field was relatively soft.
    The radio popped to life. A male voice blared out of the speakers, “Calling the crashed aircraft at the north end of the McGrath Pass. Respond please.”
    “Um … yes?” Tasso asked.
    “Are you injured? Do you need emergency medical assistance?” the voice asked in a business like, almost robotic manner.
    “No,” Tasso answered, not entirely sure who or what was talking.
    “Are you in physical distress? Or are any passengers in physical distress?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “You don’t think so?” the voice sounded exasperated. “If you don’t know, then get someone who—”
    “Shut up, dipwad,” a female voice interrupted. “It says here on the checklist that confusion can be a sign of a concussion. Just read the questions, you moron.”
    “You shut up. I got the microphone, not you,” the male replied. “You’re the moron, not me.”
    “Um, hello?” Tasso asked.
    “Wait a minute,” the male voice said. “I forgot where I was on the checklist. Oh, yeah. Are any passengers in physical dresses? Sorry. I mean physical distress?”
    “I’m alone and I’m fine. I am down and my flitter doesn’t appear to have suffered any catastrophic damage.”
    “Flitter huh? What kind you got?”
    “I am, or was flying a Mifflin-Roberts Model 16A12 Matador.”
    “Matador, huh? Those things are as ugly as my little sister, but a tough piece of machinery. What brought you down?”
    “Hey!” the female voice interrupted. “I’m ugly, huh? I know where you sleep, cretin. Besides, get back to the checklist. You are supposed to read from the list when responding to a distress call.”
    Tasso frowned. “I didn’t send out a distress call. I didn’t have time to.”
    The male voice