I only did the one thing I was there to do.

The mains came down and the right leg groaned — a deep, structural complaint I felt in the soles of my feet — and for one long, awful second the right wing began to drop as the unconfirmed gear took the weight and thought about giving way.

I didn’t think.

Eighteen months of rust and it didn’t matter; the hands remembered.

I fed in asymmetric thrust and walked the rudder, holding the nose straight down the white line by main force and fine touch, keeping the failing side light, buying the leg the half-second it needed — and the mechanical lock caught with a clunk you could feel through the whole airframe, and the leg held.

Reeves brought in reverse thrust and the engines roared and the big jet slowed, and slowed, and rolled out straight, and turned off onto the taxiway, and stopped.