Excerpt from The Last Pilot by Benjamin Johncock, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Firing chamber four.

[…]

[…]

[…]

Pancho glanced at Billy. Billy shrugged his shoulders.

Point eight-three.

Copy that, Jim.

Say, Ridley, sure is dark up here.

Beautiful, Jim.

Jettison remaining lox, glide down.

Copy.

[…]

Jim?

Christ he's doing a roll!

Jim, that's not in the flight plan.

Zero-g […]

Copy that, Jim.

Holy hell.

Engine cutout.

[…]

Ridley?

Fuel can't feed the engine […] zero-g […] down.

Level her out.

Leveling out.

Roger.

[…]

[…]

Walt?

[…]

Dick, what's his position?

Negative, can't see […]

Walt?

Nothing.

I see him.

Confirm.

How's the fuel?

Terrific.

Them NACA boys sure gonna chew you out!

Copy that, Jack; couldn't resist. Lox spent, gliding home.

Roger that, son.

*   *   *

Well, shit, Harrison! Pancho said. She looked up at Billy.

You want me in tonight?

You bet your sweet ass I do.

Harrison flew more powered flights that afternoon, easing the X-1 up to point nine-six Mach, encountering different problems each time. Lakebed landings were also tough, with no markings and too much open space. Depth perception was an issue; it was easy to bend an airplane porpoising in, or flaring high and cracking off the landing gear. On the last landing, Harrison let the airplane settle in by itself, feeling for the changes in the ground effect as he lowered down, greasing in at a hundred and ninety miles an hour. With no brakes, it took three minutes to roll to a stop. The fire truck drove out and he hitched a lift back to the hangar.

The men debriefed in Ridley's office, a small room on the second floor of the main hangar. The windows were covered with dust, the walls papered with enlarged photographs of instrument panels, maps of the desert and hanging clipboards, fat with flight reports.

That low frequency rolling motion was most likely fuel sloshing, Ridley said, looking at the clock on the wall. Nothing to worry about.

Well, that's sure good to hear, Harrison said. We done?

That's it, Ridley said. Let's go to Pancho's.

Grace took a left outside Rosamond, heading home, the package collected from the post office beside her. It was from her father. He sent occasional collections of miscellany; had done for years. There was usually a book, food (tinned or tightly wrapped in waxed paper), a small bottle of spirits, distilled himself, the odd trinket unearthed from the house that would inspire bursts of nostalgia. This haul included a pocket watch, Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, an old photograph of her looking stern on a horse and a bundle of Beemans gum labeled FOR JIM, which saved her going back to the store; she'd forgotten to pick some up. Jim chewed it constantly. He said sucking on pure oxygen when he flew dried out his mouth, and that chewing helped equalize his ear pressure at altitude. Grace also suspected that the pepsin it contained proved handy in the cockpit.

It was almost noon. The hot sun hurt her face. A dust cloud churned up around the car as she drove; the monotony of the Mojave roads almost hypnotic. Her thoughts drifted from her father to her mother to her appointment on Monday. Her body stiffened. Her back began to ache. She leaned forward, against the wheel, stretching it out. She grimaced, then sighed. A sign on the roadside caught her eye. It was tied to a post marking a rough track that led up to Mac's ranch. She pulled up, let the engine idle, read the sign. She sat in silence for a minute. Then she drove up the track.

Excerpted from The Last Pilot by Benjamin Johncock. Copyright © 2015 by Benjamin Johncock. Excerpted by permission of Picador. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.