crude end

[Fierlin1182]

Four years earlier

The road at UAL wasn't always smooth. Around about now, the airline had been through a huge IR meltdown. Sheila Smith, terrified for the life of her company, slashed jobs and secretly paid out the ones lodging complaints against her. To the press, the airline looked like it had solved these disputes calmly and efficiently. Something different went on behind the scenes, but Smith wouldn't have told if she'd been paid a million dollars.
Twenty million, then maybe: the fleet needed a new addition, as routes were growing with tremendous pace. UAL was becoming fast one of the most popular airlines in the world. They had already expanded into Asia, South America, parts of Europe and Australia. People wanted their kids to experience what it was like to fly in one of the original big airliners, before the opportunity was lost for good. Smith saw opportunities there and ratings just soared after that.

Smith loved her company, her life. The board couldn't imagine a better person to run UAL, although she was widely known for being disliked by the employees. Most of them though, once they met her in person, softened a little as beneath the hard outer shell, they sensed something else in Smith: a vulnerability, a fear that this wouldn't last forever. She was willing to take the risk for a lot of things, and that's what had gotten her so far in life.

 

[Fierlin1182]

Four years earlier

This was about the time Stacey reached the peak of her business career. A popular, beautiful woman with the famous "Cheltar Smile", her products were recognised worldwide and she owned and directed the largest company in the world after perhaps Microsoft, BHP Billiton and Unnamed Airlines.
Stacey could handle the workload. At that time, she felt like she could handle just about anything. She was working almost 18 hours a day, totally at home in her office. Her husband didn't mind, he would at times work even more than her, and they'd still find time to take days off, lay off the work suit and go out somewhere nice, just the two of them. That was a nice period in Stacey's life.

That was before the credit crunch in 2050, when Cheltar Corp went under, a whole load of their debt was found to be bogus, as well as a good percentage of their balance sheet. Stacey couldn't accept it for weeks to come. How had this happened? She was in shock, crying sometimes, and so disappointed with life that her husband eventually got tired of it and left her.

Stacey had thought bitterly, What happened to the marriage vows, when he said he'd stick with me through thick and thin?
That's when things had started to break down. Cheltar shut its doors. All 600, 000 employees lost their jobs. None of them took it as hard though, as Stacey Mansfield.

 

[Fierlin1182]

Wow, I'm on a roll. Give me a sec, what comes next...?

Carson was asleep in his chair, snoring softly, when Stacey shook him slightly on the shoulder.
"He's stopped."
Carson snorted and leapt up from his seated position. "WHaaaaaa.....?!" he slurred.
Stacey waited for him to become aware of his surroundings.
"You dozed off as Southton was making his journey to the great unknown. He's stopped."
Carson looked at the dot which was indeed now stationary. It had come to a rest near a small, unnamed island in the middle of the ocean.
"Where on earth even is that?"
Carson took down the co-odinates.
"I sure hope to heaven that the island isn't smaller than one second of latitude."
Stacey laughed. "Doesn't look like it. That thing's making me feel like I need readers."
"I suppose we'll be heading out there one day?"
"Soon."
"How though? If we file a flight plan to that place, the cops will be onto it before you can say Tag, You're It."
Stacey rolled her eyes. "You can't file a flight plan to a place that doesn't even have a name. They've obviously got a private landing strip going on there. Which is exactly what we're going to use."
"A private landing strip?"
"Yes. You don't forget where I come from, do you?"
"YOUR private landing strip?!"
"Well, technically it's not MINE anymore, after that... But they never bothered moving my plane out of its hangar."
"Why not? The government could have sold it."
"They get enough money from the mining tax, they don't need a plane worth a rat's behind."

 

[Fierlin1182]

The next morning, Stacey and Carson were standing in front of the aircraft hangar outside Stacey's old mansion. It was now unoccupied, but the men dealing with it had been stupid enough to not change the combination of the front gate, despite replacing all the locks.

Stacey felt a tear come to her eyes as she looked out over the rolling acres that she had once called home. Just to occupy the runway had needed miles of field, but she had decided to use the rest of it for something too.
There was her veggie patch, although most of the plants had already scattered their seeds by now and were starting to wilt for the winter.

Her husband had bought a small flock of sheep the year before they split, a move Stacey, being a city girl, was strongly opposed to, and now they were gone too. That was partly the reason why she liked spending so much time at the office: she felt so much more at home on the top floor of a glass and steel skyscraper than in an old-fashionedly furnished mansion on acres of field.

Now, Stacey was ever so thankful she'd held onto the property, despite having found something closer to the city and her taste.
She inserted the key into her plane's ignition. It had been so long since she'd even gone near the thing, let alone flown it. But she was pretty sure it'd all come back to her when they got going.

Carson slid into the seat beside her. She smiled at him.
"We'll fly under radar for a bit. I know how to get to the closest uncontrolled airspace and out to GlideCorp without attracting too much attention."
She started the engines, and did a few pre-takeoff checks. She was nervous, but there was no way she was showing Carson that. This was her again, she was under control, the successful entrepreneur she always was.

Carson looked down at the journal in his lap and the most recent entry he'd made.

May 13th, 2052

Heading out to GlideCorp today. Not sure what we're going to find there. Suspecting crude stockpiles and refinery.

 

[Fierlin1182]

That's all for today folks, I'm getting sore eyes looking at the computer screen!

 

[Fierlin1182]

THREAD KILLER! *points at myself*
Did I scare you all off because I wrote too much?

 

[HCFarms96]

ray's two cents :

THREAD KILLER! *points at myself*
Did I scare you all off because I wrote too much?

haha, nope! I've been enjoying your story!
And I killed my story thread, too

lol​

 

[Fierlin1182]

Quote:
haha, nope! I've been enjoying your story!
And I killed my story thread, too

lol

Snap, that makes the two of us.

Are you going to keep going? Yours is good. You should have a followers list, I'll be on it.

 

[HCFarms96]

ray's two cents :

Quote:
haha, nope! I've been enjoying your story!
And I killed my story thread, too

lol

Snap, that makes the two of us.

Are you going to keep going? Yours is good. You should have a followers list, I'll be on it.

Yes, I'm going to keep writing it. This is one story I'm determined to finish! I have started sooo many stories and never finished them

Your story is really good, too

I would do a followers list, but I'm not sure how...

Still learning my way around here.

 

[Fierlin1182]

Quote:
Snap, that makes the two of us.

Are you going to keep going? Yours is good. You should have a followers list, I'll be on it.

Yes, I'm going to keep writing it. This is one story I'm determined to finish! I have started sooo many stories and never finished them

Your story is really good, too

I would do a followers list, but I'm not sure how...

Still learning my way around here.

I'm a bit of a start-again-er as well.

I've finished maybe five and given up on the same number.
Thanks! I've lost a bit of my creative mood recently but hope to keep going soon.

I think you can put a follower list on your first post and edit it as people sign up