The spring of the Columbian Soviet Republic was exceptionally long.
Even when the snow thawed into slush and mud, the air refused to warm. Within that biting chill, the Wright couple stood clutching their documents.
The final page of the dossier bore the official seal of the Federation.
Approval for the Establishment of the Wright Aircraft Design Bureau.
— Bill Cunningham, Chairman of the National Committee for Inventions and Discoveries, People's Commissariat of Science and Technology.
The words looked like a blessing, but blessings in Ursus-inspired bureaucracy always arrived with conditions. The documents were densely packed with support scales, deadlines, performance targets, and safety regulations.
Further down, in minuscule script, were rows of clauses concerning the allocation of responsibility.
No one loves responsibility. Everyone loves results.
Initially, the Design Bureau building resembled a mere warehouse. The windows were narrow, the ceilings high. Countless drafts whistled through cracks, rattling the toolboxes. However, as machinery arrived, workbenches were bolted down, and blueprints were pinned to the walls, the warehouse transformed into a factory. The factory soon became a world. And the Wright couple stood at the center of that world.
The husband was a man of few words. His hands, gripping a pencil, were perpetually stained black. His movements—touching the grain of the wood, tapping iron cores, tensioning fabric—were quiet. He was a man whose silence became stubbornness, and whose stubbornness translated into precise calculation. He trusted numbers, believing that mathematics saved lives.
The wife was different. She did not remain confined to the blueprints. She walked out of the warehouse to confront union representatives, support bureaucrats, finance officers, and the heads of the grasslands. Though she always carried papers, she had learned early on that ink alone did not move men.
And between them was Kristin.
Their young daughter grew up in the corners of the Design Bureau. By day, she gathered small wood scraps amidst the scent of sawdust; by night, she fell asleep under workbenches, covered by a laborer's discarded overcoat.
The mechanics' voices softened when they spoke to her. Grumbling stopped, and rough hands hesitated. The moments when this bureau became a life rather than just a workplace usually happened in her presence.
Conviction was not universal from the start. During the bureau's first briefing, the union representative spoke out bluntly.
"The sky is where the Paul Beasts fly, not a place for humans to crawl into. You want to build a machine for that? With scraps of cloth and wood? Are you possessed by a death wish?"
Laughter rippled through the assembled mechanics. But the wife did not smile that day. Instead, she nodded.
"You're right. That's why we will be the first ones to fly it."
A sudden hush fell over the room. The husband didn't even look surprised by her declaration; the conclusion seemed to have been reached between them long ago. He merely glanced at his wife, and she did not shy away from his gaze. That exchange of looks was the true resolution of the meeting.
Eventually, the first prototype, 'Flyer 1,' emerged into the light. It was a skeleton of wood, wings wrapped in fabric, joints reinforced with iron. The propulsion system was a modified engine provided by the Department of Power Machinery of the People's Commissariat of Industry. Finally, on the day of the test flight, the craft faced the wind at the end of the runway.
Before their beloved daughter and a host of engineers, the couple climbed into the aircraft. The husband took the pilot's seat, and the wife sat beside him. They didn't look at each other. Instead, they verified the checklist: cables, pins, connections, fuel, gauges. Finally, they gripped each other's hands once. Then, they departed.
The wheels spun. Wind surged beneath the wings. The onlookers' breaths hitched in unison. The fuselage shuddered, yet it surged forward. It seemed on the verge of lifting. Then, the craft rose—briefly. Just for a moment.
The instant the wheels left the earth, the craft settled back down, skidding along the runway. A wingtip scraped the ground, and the fabric tore. The machine ground to a halt. The husband disembarked first, followed by the wife. Their hands and legs trembled, but they fought to keep their expressions stoic.
While the airfield director measured distances and angles, the union representative let out a long sigh. "It flew." No one expected him to say those words so quietly. That single phrase changed the atmosphere of the Design Bureau. Ridicule faded, replaced by frustrated curses of encouragement.
"Make it fly straighter next time! So it can actually carry a person!"
From that day on, the flights were repeated. Ten times. Twenty. Thirty. At first, the fabric tore every time. At high speeds, the wings vibrated, connections loosened, and the engine overheated and died. The husband did not rage. Instead, he spent his nights revising blueprints. The wife did not rage. Instead, she rallied the people the next morning.
Kristin memorized the numbers. "What number is it today?"
"The fifty-first."
"Then tomorrow is the fifty-second."
Her tone mirrored how one counts down to a birthday. The child did not yet know what the adults understood: some numbers do not represent a celebration, but endurance. By the hundredth flight, the mechanics stopped calling the craft 'that thing' and started calling it 'our kid.'
"Looks like she's in good condition today." "We need to reset the wing tension. Yesterday's wind was foul." They grumbled as they hammered rivets, and in their grumbling, they became more meticulous than ever. The slower the hands move, the higher the chance of survival. Their caution saved the bureau.
However, as successes accumulated, the 'next step' loomed larger. A bureaucrat from the Federation's support division eventually came down to the site. His overcoat was expensive, but his face was haggard. He stared at the craft for a long time before speaking.
"You must show us more now. Not just lifting off, but ascending. The Federation will not wait forever. The Soviet demands data; the Committee demands results. Terra is vast, and the competitors are many."
That night, the lights of the Design Bureau burned late. The mechanics headed home one by one, and the union representative, pausing to smoke at the door, asked, "Is your promise to both fly still valid?"
The husband replied shortly, "It is." The representative dropped his cigarette. "Madmen." It sounded like an insult, but his voice held a trace of profound respect.
The air thinned as the altitude increased. In the rarefied air, the engine gasped for breath, as did the humans' lungs. Icing occurred suddenly. Even on clear days, the wingtips gradually turned white. White is beautiful, but white on a wing is death. Several times, they nearly failed to return.
During the hundred-and-forty-something flight, when the engine cut out mid-air, the union members ran toward the end of the runway, screaming curses. "Don't you dare die, you crazy bastard!" Those curses weren't aimed at the machine, but at the sky itself. Naturally, the sky did not answer.
That day, the couple forced the craft down onto the runway. The wheels shattered, and the wings tilted dangerously. As the wife stepped out of the cockpit, her knees buckled. She tried to hide it, but Kristin reached her first. "Mom!"
The mother did not hug her daughter; she feared the child would feel her hands shaking. Instead, she pressed her daughter's head against her chest. In that moment, the girl felt it—her mother's heart was beating much too fast. Despite the terror, they had continued to challenge the void.
The bureau's lights continued to burn late. The husband revised blueprints, the wife researched how to secure oxygen apparatuses more tightly, and the mechanics silently retensioned the fabric. Then came the two-hundredth flight.
"No abnormalities!" "Takeoff!"
While officials from the Ministry of the Army and Navy, along with scientists and high-ranking bureaucrats, watched through binoculars—feigning skepticism but hoping for a miracle—the craft ascended. The 'Flyer 8' took flight.
And the couple's two-hundredth flight was a success. It was a flight worthy of the word. They reached a set altitude and returned for a safe landing. The spectators cheered for the first time.
"This is a revolution!" "Notify Comrade Chairman immediately! Our Federation has conquered the sky!"
Vast amounts of funding began to pour into the Wright Aircraft Design Bureau. Although the couple could no longer fly themselves, the pilots hired with the grants aided in developing their new models. The Wright Bureau designed numerous aircraft, but their masterpiece was the LC-15.
It was the 15th aircraft, named 'Kristin' after their daughter. On paper, it could soar up to 7,250 meters. It was built for one, but could accommodate two if the fuel tanks were slightly reduced. To commemorate the development of this miraculous machine, the couple decided to take to the air once more.
The two-hundred-and-first flight. It was the first flight of the high-altitude prototype. The date was set. Notice arrived that observers would be present. Binoculars, altitude charts, and chronometers were readied.
The airfield was cold in the pre-dawn hours before departure. The grass was frosted. Breaths escaped in white plumes. Torches flickered in the wind, their light dancing across the fabric of the aircraft. The husband and wife boarded the cockpit. As usual, they didn't look at each other; they simply pressed their wrists together. Those wrists were covered in scars and the weariness of years.
The wife took one final look down. The faces of the mechanics, the union representative's lips, the bureaucrat's stiff smile, and Kristin. For a brief second, the wife's gaze wavered as she saw her daughter. But the flicker of doubt was quickly extinguished. The husband spoke softly.
"Ascending."
"Let's go up," the wife replied.
The craft moved. Wheels rolled on the runway. Wind filled the wings. It shook, yet it rose. The ascent looked practiced, almost routine. But routine is an illusion; the sky is always alien.
The observers raised their binoculars. Someone continuously tracked their height with an Originium aero-measurement device. "Altitude, two thousand." "Three thousand." "Four thousand." As the numbers rose, voices lowered. "A new record! Five thousand meters!"
The craft became a mere speck in the heavens. "Six thousand… six thousand one hundred…" The observer's voice thinned, as if matching the rarefied air. Their tone held expectation. But within the lens of the binoculars, the speck buckled.
It wasn't the wind. It was as if the aircraft had slammed its forehead against an invisible wall. The machine faltered for a fraction of a second, and in the next, its form disintegrated. The wings sheared off. One dot became two, then four, scattering haphazardly.
The observer forgot to breathe. His fingers remained frozen over the altitude marker. Before the number could be uttered, someone moved. A man standing before Kristin covered her eyes with both hands. His palms were rough and trembling violently. The girl could not resist. Even with her eyes covered, the sky did not disappear. The sky remained as it was, and its indifference was more terrifying than anything else.
"Don't look," someone said, but the words didn't reach her. Kristin didn't see it happen. But she heard it. She heard the sound of everyone's breath stopping at once; the sound of someone trying to say 'no' but failing to finish the word; and above all, the sound of the adults suddenly becoming quiet. That silence fell from the sky.
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That night, the lights of the Design Bureau did not go out. The mechanics were reticent. The clerk recording the data stopped tearing a sheet of paper and gripped it tight. Someone trembled while reaching for a drink; someone else refused to drink at all. No one used the word 'dead.'
Kristin sat alone at the edge of a desk. An altitude chart lay before her. Beside it was a single observation record: The Stasis Layer.
Throughout the day, Kristin had heard the adults whispering that term in low tones. Some said the layer blocked what was above; some said it was a line that could not be crossed. Some called it an atmospheric current, others the wall of the heavens.
Kristin pressed her fingertip against the word. The paper was silent. But beneath it, something hot welled up. Her chest tightened; her breath caught in her throat. The sensation of the hands covering her eyes that afternoon returned to her. At that moment, someone outside the door spoke in a tiny voice.
"Up there… it's not ours yet."
When the voice faded, Kristin spoke with a clarity that surprised even herself. "Then... I'll make it mine."
No one answered. But Kristin rose from her chair and looked through the window at the sky. The night sky looked higher than it did during the day. Higher, colder, and further away. Yet, Kristin did not look away.
"I will pierce that Stasis Layer."
The words were quiet, but they became lodged between the scent of iron and paper in the bureau. In the place where one person's world had ended, another's ambition was beginning.
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LC-15