Chapter 6 - Stripping the Epaulettes
Allara didn't wait for Terra to recover from her shock. She turned her attention back to Ryan, whose chest was heaving as panic fully set in. A pilot of his caliber, flying ultra-long-range private jets for billionaires, commanded an annual salary well into the mid-sixteenth figures, complete with massive perks and global prestige. Throwing all of that away because of a momentary lapse in judgment—driven purely by snobbery—was a catastrophic fall from grace.
"Take them off, Captain," Allara ordered, pointing directly at the gold stripes sewn into the shoulders of Ryan's crisp white uniform shirt.
Ryan stared at her in sheer horror.
"Dr. Banks, please," Ryan pleaded, his voice breaking as pride completely dissolved into utter desperation. "I have thirty years in the sky. I have flown heads of state, tech moguls, royal families. If you fire me with cause for insubordination and disrespect to an owner, my career is finished. No insurance company in the country will clear me to fly commercial or private ever again."
"Then you should have thought about that before you treated me like a piece of garbage on my own runway," Allara said coldly. "Take the epaulettes off, Ryan. Now."
With trembling, clumsy fingers, Ryan reached up to his right shoulder. The gold thread offered a slight resistance as he tore the velcro and fabric away, then repeated the humiliating process on his left shoulder. He held the two symbols of his professional authority out in his wet, shaking palm, offering them up like a defeated knight surrendering his sword.
Allara didn't take them from his hand. She let them fall.
Ryan opened his palm, and the gold-striped epaulettes dropped into the muddy puddle at the base of the red carpet, instantly soaking in the dirty water.
Terra watched in absolute horror, realizing that her own fate was sealed right alongside the captain's. Her professional network, her high-society connections, and her lucrative salary were evaporating before her eyes because of her arrogant assumption.
"And you, Terra," Allara said, turning her cold, piercing eyes toward the blonde flight attendant. "You can take your apron off and walk back to the terminal with him. My flight will depart on schedule, but neither of you will be on it."
"You can't strand us here in the middle of a rainstorm!" Terra protested, her voice cracking with hysteria. "How are we supposed to get back to the city?"
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"Call an Uber," Allara replied flatly. "Just like you told me to do."
Without another word, Allara turned her back on them, stepped over the muddy epaulettes lying in the crimson rug, and walked up the stairs of the Obsidian King, entering the cabin as the heavy pneumatic door sealed shut behind her.
