Entropy first contact, p.1
Entropy (First Contact), page 1
ENTROPY
Peter Cawdron
Copyright
Copyright © 2026. All rights reserved. The right of Peter Cawdron to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any other manner without the written permission of the copyright owner, except for the use of quotations.
Disclaimer: No artificial intelligence (AI) was used in the creation of this story. No AI training allowed. The author does not permit the use of this book for training artificial intelligence in large-language models.
Cover image: Abstract human face 1183300693 by Maksim Tkachenko.
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Inspiration
We're all going to die,
all of us.
What a circus!
That alone should make us love each other,
but it doesn't.
We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities;
we are eaten up by nothing.
Charles Bukowski
“There are only two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
Albert Einstein
The Storm
“I’ll go and talk to them.”
Captain Mick Anders unbuckles his seatbelt and climbs out of the cockpit of the Gulfstream G800. He has to step over the center console to get out of his cramped leather seat. After four hours, it feels good to stretch his long legs. The ceiling is low and curved, forcing him to duck as he holds onto the seatback.
Four windows wrap around the nose cone of the private business jet. At an altitude of just over 15,000 meters, or roughly 50,000 feet, the sky is no longer a brilliant, radiant blue. It’s daytime, but only on the horizon. Above the aircraft, the sky darkens, hinting at the endless night of outer space stretching for billions of light-years beyond the confines of a very small planet. Like pilots everywhere, Mick would love nothing more than to continue flying higher and higher, soaring into orbit, but even eighty-million-dollar luxury jets have their limits.
Every time Mick flies into the stratosphere, he finds himself in awe of how close he is to reaching outer space. The Kármán line is only sixty miles above the surface of Earth. It’s the point at which aircraft can no longer fly, and spaceships soar into orbit. Sixty miles is nothing. The Gulfstream is cruising at Mach 0.85, almost 900 kilometers an hour, or about 560 mph. Mick is covering sixty miles every five or six minutes, but in a swooping arc following the curve of the horizon and not upwards toward the stars. It’s frustrating to think space is so close and yet completely inaccessible.
Mick dreams of life among the stars. Occasionally, he’ll see glints of light reflecting off satellites racing overhead, teasing him. To his mind, they’re playful. They redefine norms. They speak of the future. In less than seventy years, humanity went from stilted flights over the sandy dunes at Kitty Hawk to standing on the Moon.
Orville Wright soared a mere 10 feet in the air for a distance of barely 120 feet, something that seems laughable to trainee pilots today. Each time Mick eases off the runway in the Gulfstream, climbing into the air, he spares a thought for the Wright Brothers. As the undercarriage of his business jet leaves the concrete, he passes through the first 10 feet with a sense of awe—that’s as far as they got, and yet they forever changed the world. Mick understands that the march of time means there will come a day when his flight in a Gulfstream business jet will seem as quaint as the flimsy Wright Brothers Flyer. One day, pilots will soar through reentry with the same ease he has when setting the G800 down on a runway. The Space Shuttle came close, but it was experimental, teasing pilots about the future. Someday, it’ll be the norm, and a flight to orbit will be as routine as one to France.
Air Luxe is a private airline operating out of a number of South American airports, including French Guiana, where the European Space Agency launches its Ariane and Vega rockets. After witnessing the launch of the ESA mission to deploy a rover on one of the moons of Saturn, the Teitel family is en route to Lima, Peru.
Mick is a glorified limousine driver. The G800 all but flies itself. Twin Rolls-Royce Pearl engines mounted near the tail of the aircraft push them on through the sky with the smooth purr of a kitten. White noise surrounds him. Mick loves the hiss within the cabin. It’s soothing. If anything, landing is a disappointment. Silence returns when he powers down the engines on the taxiway, and something inside him dies. How paradoxical that he only ever feels alive when he’s rushing through the tenuously thin upper atmosphere, where the temperature plummets to fifty below. As the air pressure outside is only a tenth that of sea level, the Gulfstream is able to slip through the thin air with little resistance, making it fuel efficient, but should the cabin depressurize, everyone would be unconscious within 10 to 15 seconds. Because of this, safety dictates that there is always one pilot seated in the cockpit. Even when flying on autopilot, there must always be a pilot seated and ready to don an oxygen mask in an emergency.
Mick slips on his airline cap, adorned with gold wings on either side of an old-fashioned globe. He straightens his black tie, ensuring it falls down the center of his shirt, covering the buttons. Mick is not one for formal dress or wearing uniforms, but it comes with the job, so he makes sure he looks sharp. With a quick push, he tucks his shirt into his immaculate, pressed trousers and opens the cockpit door. Walking out into the cabin of the aircraft, Mick is surprised to hear yelling from the passengers.
The flight attendant looks at him with wide eyes. She purses her lips, offering a slight shake of her head to signal that now is not a good time, but flightpath changes are more important than family dynamics. Further down the fuselage, John Teitel yells at his teenage daughter, Jillian. She’s tall and lanky and has curled up on the couch, adopting a defensive position that seems all too familiar to her. Jillian is at the age where the authority of adults is being questioned. ‘Because I told you so’ isn’t an effective strategy beyond the age of six, let alone sixteen.
“You will respect me,” John Teitel says, towering over his daughter in the aisle of the plane.
“Respect you? I hate you.”
John Teitel laughs. His disdain for his daughter is apparent. “What? You think you’re the next Greta? You think you can change the world?”
“I can try.”
From outside the cockpit door, Mick clears his throat, wanting to get their attention, hoping to defuse the tension, but John Teitel is enraged by his teenage daughter.
“You! You can’t change the world. You can’t even change the sheets on your own goddamn bed!”
“I’d rather change the world than kill the planet like you.”
“What did you say to me?” He yells, firming his stance, posing like a prize fighter in the ring at Vegas. With a rush of speed, he reaches in and taps her cheek with his hand. He doesn’t hit her, as such. He provokes her.
“Don’t.”
“Or you’ll what? You’ll cry in therapy?”
“Fuck you,” Jillian replies, curling up on the lush, leather couch running along the starboard side of the airframe. She has her feet up and her arms wrapped around her legs, making herself small, cowering before her angry father.
“Fuck you,” John Teitel says, unbuckling his belt. He slips the thick leather strap out of the loops on his denim jeans.
“Daddy, no,” a young boy says, tugging on his father’s leg. He’s distressed. He’s clearly seen this before, and John Teitel has traumatized him yet again.
“Marta,” John says, appealing for his wife to intervene, but not to defuse the tension. All he wants is for his trophy wife to pull their son away so he can whip his daughter with his leather belt.
“No, John. No,” Marta says, slurring her words. She’s drunk. Her movements are coarse. She reaches out for the boy of five or six and pulls him away as John wraps the belt around his fist like an old-fashioned boxer preparing to step into the ring.
Mick is stunned.
Nothing could have prepared him for this moment, not flight school, not fifteen years as a commercial pilot flying the A380 Airbus, not even his own acrimonious divorce. It’s not just that a father is about to strike his own child; it’s the power dynamic—the utter imbalance.
John Teitel holds all the power in every regard. He’s the closest thing to a god on Earth. Not since the pharaohs of Egypt have men wielded such authority in any culture. Not even the Kings of England or the royal court in Paris ever commanded such obedience. John Teitel is beyond rebuke by anyone else on the planet. He’s a billionaire hundreds of times over, and that makes intervening messy. With the snap of his fingers, John Teitel can engage an army of lawyers to hound Mick for the rest of his life. He commands politicians and judges as though they were the concierge clerk at an exclusive hotel. They fear him. They worry about his ability to turn the media against them. They know he can mobilize the public with flaming torches and pitchforks. “Will there be anything else?” they’ll ask with genuine subservience after incarcerating the likes of Mick Anders.
After the initial shock, rage swells within Mick. Seeing children treated worse than animals causes his blood to boil. His fists may clench, but he can’t afford to strike John Teitel. Even if the man’s wife testifies on Mick’s behalf, he’ll probably rot in a South American jail for the best part of a decade for throwing one good haymaker. Mick is going to intervene; he needs to, his integrity demands that of him, but he’s got to be smart.
Mick marches rather than walks down the center of the Gulfstream, pounding his shoes on the aisle, knowing its raised walkway will flex and bend, sending waves along the cabin floor. For him, it’s a way of projecting both his presence and his authority as the captain of the flight long before he reaches John Teitel. The old man turns, horrified to see Mick marching up to him.
Like so many billionaires, John Teitel has a wife less than half his age. At a guess, he’s in his mid-seventies, but he could be older with a dash of plastic surgery and a bunch of medical treatments to keep the years at bay. His children are at least two generations younger than him. He has his hand raised, ready to strike his daughter, but he stops as the wave of motion flexing through the floor reaches him.
“Mister Teitel,” Mick says, slowing his words and speaking with deliberation, trying to use the passage of time to defuse the situation.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” John says, turning to face Mick. “How dare you interfere in a private family matter?”
“It’s not the private family matter that brings me here,” Mick says, desperate to remain calm. He’s being honest. He had no idea this level of conflict was brewing within the Gulfstream. He steps up to John Teitel, stepping a little too close for personal comfort, breaking social norms, and provoking a predictable response. The old man steps back, lowering his hand.
“What is it?” the angry man barks.
Mick is determined to defuse the situation. He could simply explain what’s happening and scurry back to the cockpit, but he feels for Jillian. She has to live with this monster.
“It’s best if you see for yourself,” Mick says, turning slightly and gesturing for John to follow him back to the cockpit.
“This had better be good,” John Teitel says, glaring at Jillian for a moment before storming off toward the cockpit. Mick trails behind him. He leans forward, opening the cockpit door for the billionaire. The copilot, Raquel Stewart, turns, surprised to see Mr. Teitel standing in the frame of the open cockpit door.
“That,” Mick says, pointing at a billowing white cloud ahead of them. “That is the problem.”
“It’s a cloud.”
“It’s no ordinary cloud,” Mick says.
“It’s a fucking cloud. It’s made from goddamn water vapor. You can fly through it as though it were made from tissue paper.”
Mick is not impressed with this asshole. “It’s a tropical cumulonimbus. The updraft we’re seeing has winds exceeding 180 km/hr. It’s the equivalent of a category three hurricane. Flying through that is not an option.”
“You told me you could fly over tropical storms.”
“I told you we could fly over most tropical storms. We’re at fifty thousand feet. That’s our ceiling. That monster reaches up to at least sixty.”
“So, what are you saying to me?”
“We’re going to fly around it.”
“And?”
“And that will add about an hour to our flight time.”
“Not acceptable,” John Teitel says.
“We have no choice.”
“There’s always a choice.”
“With all due respect,” Mick says, even though he has absolutely no respect at all for the lauded Mr. John Teitel. “Physics is not up for debate.”
“I—”
“I’m the captain,” Mick says. “It’s my call.”
“Make that call, and I will make it my personal mission to destroy you,” John Teitel says, and Mick gets a taste of the disdain his daughter has for him. Mick avoids the temptation to react. He lowers his head in fake submission, trying to defuse the man’s anger with body language if not words.
“I need you and your family to remain seated with your seatbelts fastened.”
The flight attendant takes her cue from Mick and places one arm between them, directing John Teitel back to his seat with her other arm, saying, “This way, sir.”
“I want you to fly through that cloud,” John Teitel says with the confidence and conviction of someone who knows absolutely nothing about flying an airplane.
“No,” Mick replies, not entering into a debate.
“I’ll ruin you,” John Teitel says. “I’ll buy this fucking company and fire your ass.”
“Whatever,” Mick says, closing the cockpit door. He feels sorry for the flight attendant as she’s going to have to stage manage the old man, coaxing him into doing the right thing while trying to appease him. At least the decrepit old asshole has lost focus on his daughter.
“How are we looking?” Mick says, stepping over the center console and lowering himself back into his seat. He pulls the five-point harness over his shoulders and around his waist, strapping in.
“It’s rough out there,” Raquel says. “What are we going to do?”
Mick’s surprised she’s considering anything other than flying around the upper edge of the massive cloud, but he understands. She’s trying to skirt not only the storm outside the plane, but the one within, as that threatens her career.
“We’ll shave the edges,” he says. “But we’re not going through it.”
As copilot, she eases the Gulfstream to one side, causing the plane to bank and turn slightly. No doubt, that is infuriating the control freak in the main cabin. Beneath them, a thick cloud bank sprawls through the sky, with columns rising from the heart of the storm, reaching above them. There’s a slight shimmer from some turbulence.
Mick flicks between radar screens. He looks at the waypoints preprogrammed into their flightpath and begins setting new points to the south, looking at the overlay of the storm and real-time satellite imagery.
“This really is a monster,” he says. Although they’re flying through clear air, the Gulfstream hits a pocket that causes them to drop several hundred meters in a matter of seconds. Mick’s heart rises in his throat. Although the copilot has the controls, he instinctively grabs the yoke, wanting to gain some kind of control when none is to be found. Even on the outskirts of the storm, they’re at the mercy of the maelstrom.
“Tissue paper, huh?” Raquel says.
Mick laughs. “Right now, that old fart needs some toilet paper.”
“Coming around,” the copilot says, leveling out.
“Keep us at least ten to twenty klicks from those updraft columns.”
“Copy that.”
Mick flicks through several more screens, zooming out to look at the storm as a whole. It’s intensified and grown since they left the east coast of South America, defying meteorological projections. From what he can tell, several supercells have collided with each other, forming a chain of storms spanning the continent. The computer in front of him overlays the satellite imagery with lines indicating the borders of various countries, allowing him to see how the tropical storm stretches from Ecuador and Colombia in the north, over the Amazon rainforest in the west of Brazil, along with most of Bolivia and Peru. The tail reaches over Chile to the south.
“It’s going to be a rough approach into Lima,” he says, thinking aloud. “If we circle out wide and head south, we can come in over the Pacific.”
“You think we’ll find clear air?” Raquel asks, looking at the same data as him.
“I dunno. Radar is showing intense rainfall over Peru.”
“Alternatives?”
Given the wrath he’s already endured from John Teitel, Mick would rather not divert to another airport, but Raquel is right to bring up the option. They have to consider alternatives well before they need them.
“There are plenty of airports to the south, but these guys are going to want to land at a major city.”
“So, you’re thinking La Paz or Santiago.”
“I really don’t want to head that far south.”
“I bet,” Raquel says, grinning. She clearly enjoyed listening to Mick spar with John Teitel.
“I’m going to—”
Before Mick can finish his sentence, he’s blinded by a flash of lightning striking the nose cone of the Gulfstream.
