Текст книги "Nerve Center"

Автор книги: Dale Brown

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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

Breanna pulled back on the stick. The altimeter ladder shot up wildly. Minerva lost hold of her knife—it clattered to the deck, tossed there by the sudden rush of g forces.

She’d blow the plane. It was the only thing to do.

9,200—9,500—9,800—

They’d die in a second. But at least Dreamland would be safe.

“No!” screamed Lanzas, lurching toward her.

Breanna shrugged her off and closed her eyes as the altimeter nudged ten thousand feet.

Dreamland

8 March, 0811

FOR THE PAST HOUR, MACK HAD SAT IN THE MiG ON the runway, listening as the searchers continued to hunt for Galatica. He had cursed when the F-15’s closed in, realizing that he wanted to be the one who nailed the plane.

And then, miracle of miracles, it had escaped.

Only to be found by Bastian, who was targeting it.

Figured. Damn bastard hogged all the glory.

Still, from the position Dog gave, Gal seemed to be relatively close and headed this way. Resolved to get into the fight, he requested clearance from Dream Tower.

Without bothering to wait for an answer, he depressed the throttle button and moved the bar to idle. Using an old Russian Istrebeitelnyi Aviatsionnaya Polk rapid-takeoff trick, he selected just the right engine on the start panel. Knife kicked on the battery and hit the start switch, sending a whoosh of compressed air into the starboard engine. The MiG rumbled to life; he waited barely a second as it spooled up. In that second he pulled his canopy down; by the time it snugged he had started forward, rushing into the air on just one engine. Only after he had cleaned the gear did he bleed air into the left power plant, jump-starting it. The MiG shot upward.

“Alert the Nellis patrols,” he told Dream Tower. “I don’t want those cowboys taking potshots at me because I look like a bad guy.”

“Uh, Sharkishki, you’re clear to take off,” answered the tower belatedly.

Aboard Gal

8 March, 0811

THE STORM WAS SO THICK AND DEEP THAT IT TOOK Madrone forever to realize that the connection to the planes had been lost.

The ANTARES helmet had been pulled half off his head. He had become another person, his physical self another robot to be controlled.

The Megafortress lurched upward. Madrone shook his head clear and lifted the visor. Zen floundered on the deck beside him, the control lead snagged around his arm. He was trying to pull it with him as he elbowed backward from the control panels like a swimmer.

More like an upside-down turtle.

Madrone quickly undid his restraints and leaned down to punch Jeff flat in the face twice as the son of a bitch struggled to roll away. But Stockard didn’t give up, somehow continuing to push himself backward, dragging the cord with him. Anger propelled Madrone to his feet. He stopped Jeff with a sharp kick to his stomach, then stomped twice on his chest, slamming his heel into Jeff’s jaw before Stockard finally stopped, his eyes rolling back in his head as he momentarily lost consciousness. Kevin braced himself for a truly awful kick—he would beat the pulp from the bastard’s brain until the floor oozed with it. But as he started to swing forward, something held him back, a voice whispering to him from far away.

Jeffrey is your friend. He tried to warn you but you didn’t listen.

“Give me the cord, Jeff.”

Stockard, his head limp to the side, said nothing. Madrone reached down and put his fingers on Jeff’s arm almost gently as he pried the cord away.

“I’m sorry, Jeff. It has to be this way now.” He gathered the ANTARES wire into his hands, restored the plug, and wound the wire around the panel so it couldn’t be easily removed again.

Aboard M-6

8 March, 0828

THE FIRST SCORPION MISSED, SAILING ABOUT A hundred yards wide of Galatica. For a second, though, it looked like the pilots had lost control of the EB-52, and Dog thought Gal would spin into the mountains.

Somehow, she didn’t. Somehow, she began climbing again, and shook off the second and third Scorpions they had launched.

The fourth Scorpion lost its track and self-destructed.

They had two more left. The closer they got, the better their odds of nailing the plane. But McAden couldn’t get a lock to fire.

“Hang in there,” said Dog. “Jennifer, how’s that second U/MF?”

“It’s still in native mode,” she said.

“They’re zigging. Tinsel. Damn, jamming our radar again,” said McAden. “Shit—we’re blind. I just lost them. I’m guessing they’ll dive down for the ground clutter, but I don’t have a heading. Jesus, I can’t find them. Scanning. Scanning.”

“Jennifer, can you find Galatica for us? They’ve jammed our radar.”

“ECMs are off,” reported McAden.

“Working on it,” said Jennifer.

“No contacts. Shit,” said McAden.

“I’m sorry, Colonel,” said Gleason from downstairs. “Without a transmission from them we have nothing to pick up.

“Be ready,” Dog said. “They’re here somewhere.”

Was Bree flying? She was this good certainly.

Bastian held his course for Gal’s last position. He pulled up the corn screen on his right MUD and hit the Dreamland reserve frequencies, punching in a combination to broadcast on all of the channels simultaneously.

“Rap, this is Colonel Bastian. You have to surrender, kid.”

“Daddy?”

Hey, babe, he thought. Sorry. I am so sorry.

“Captain Stockard. Stand down,” he said flatly.

“Shoot us down! There’s a nuke on the Flighthawk! Shoot us down!” said Breanna. She started to say something else, but the transmission was abruptly killed.

“Yes! I have them!” said Jennifer. She fed the coordinates up to the bridge.

“I have a lock! Five miles!” announced McAden. “Colonel?”

Shoot us down.

“Colonel?”

“Fire missiles,” said Dog. For maybe the first time in his life, for certainly the first time since joining the Air Force, a tear slid down his cheek.

Aboard Gal

8 March, 0832

As MADRONE REENTERED THETA, HE SAW THE LAUNCH warning. He felt the computer tracking the missiles as they approached, winced as one slipped out of the noise and headed clean for their hull.

Another ducked downward, confused, not a threat.

Tinsel, jammers, cut left, cut right, you’re too high, easy pickings.

Accelerate, accelerate. Left, right, left, left again, fool the sticky bastard.

Dreamland lay just ahead. No one ever will go through this again. Never.

The Scorpion stuttered in the air, a half mile from the fuselage. It had him nailed, but staying on its target had exhausted its fuel. Kevin lurched to the right as it tried one last burst of speed and then exploded.

The shock wave nearly threw Hawk Three into a spin.

It was then that the other missile picked itself off the deck and nailed Gal’s extreme starboard engine.

MINERVA FELT THE SHOCK AS THE AMERICAN MISSILE tore into the power plant on the right side of the wing. She spun around, nearly pirouetting out of the seat even though her restraints were snugged.

The plane stuttered in the air, but kept climbing. They passed through ten thousand feet, the Megafortress fighting off a yaw.

Gravity punched against her chest as the plane finally lurched into an invert and then began to fall from the sky. They would die now. She’d had the seats sabotaged and there was no escape.

She hadn’t wanted to escape, not really. There had been hours to persuade Madrone, or even betray him, to simply call the Americans and surrender. But she hadn’t.

Minerva felt a twinge of regret, a small wish that her fate had followed a different path. Then her body slammed back against the seat so abruptly that she nearly lost consciousness.

This is what death feels like, she thought to herself.

Then the Megafortress rolled level, and blood began returning to her brain.

Aboard M-6

8 March, 0838

“THEY’RE BEYOND US!” YELLED MCADEN. “EAST, AT two, no, call it one o’clock. Three miles.”

“Radio the position to Nellis air defense and the rest of the net,” said Dog, calmly throwing the Megafortress into the tightest bank he could manage to pursue Galatica. “Sidewinders up. Dr. Geraldo, if you want to take your shot, do it now.”

Aboard Gal

8 March, 0840

MADRONE SAW THE MEGAFORTRESS’S EMERGENCY panel in part of his brain. The Scorpion had taken the power plant completely off, but had done only light damage to the wing itself. One of the fuel tanks had been hit by shrapnel, but the bladder material had quickly self-sealed. As potent as the Scorpion was, the EB-52’s venerable airframe had survived considerably worse.

Madrone didn’t care much for history. He dropped into Hawk Three and plunged out of Galatica’s shadow. Dreamland lay thirty miles away.

Two F-15’s approached on a direct intercept, along with four F-5’s.

The Eagles were merely a nuisance. The F-5’s weren’t even that.

He accelerated toward his target.

“Kevin,” said a familiar voice in his earphones. “You have to give up. You’re sick. It’s ANTARES.”

Geraldo.

He killed the radio.

Aboard Sharkishki

8 March, 0848

MACK TRIED TO TELL THE NELLIS COWBOYS IN THEIR F-15’s that they were getting the sucker play, but the idiots wouldn’t listen. They charged at the Megafortress and the Flighthawk that suddenly leaped from its shadow like they were running down a piece-of-shit Chinese F-7/MiG-21 impostor.

A piece-of-shit F-7 wouldn’t have jumped from 250 knots to Mach 1.2 in less time than it took for the lead Eagle pilot to curse.

Stinking Madrone. He flew straight out of Zen’s book, no damn creativity at all. Though burdened by something that was increasing its radar signal for the F-15’s, the U/MF blew past the Eagles, made a feint for the F-5’s, which threw them in a tizzy, then ducked into the ground fuzz where no one could see him.

Mack waited for the U/MF to rise up behind the F-15’s. When it didn’t, he took a guess why—the larger return was being generated by a missile or bomb.

He had his passive sensors goosed to the max, but couldn’t find the little bastard. He tucked Sharkishki lower, nudging back in the direction of Dreamland.

Guy comes this far, in this direction, has to be thinking of nailing Dreamland.

That or Vegas. Maybe they’d cleaned Monkey Boy out at the blackjack tables and he wanted revenge.

Mack might take a piece of that himself. He zipped over Interstate 15 at five hundred miles an hour. Trucks and cars veered every which way, the drivers obviously freaking.

Wimps. He had plenty of clearance, at least a good eighteen inches. Maybe even twenty.

Aboard Galatica

8 March, 0853

BREANNA PUSHED AT THE STICK, THE PLANE SWIMMING sideways in the air.

Why weren’t they dead? Had Minerva been bluffing? What could be so magical about ten thousand feet if there wasn’t a bomb in the plane.

Maybe hitting that altitude simply armed it.

Shit.

There was no time to curse herself. She’d lost an engine, maybe part of a control surface. She didn’t trust the flight computer and had no copilot. Breanna would have to do everything herself.

Assuming she didn’t blow up. And assuming Minerva didn’t take out her knife and slit her throat.

Aboard Gal

8 March, 0855

JEFF LAY ON HIS BACK, HIS HEAD FLOATING SOMEWHERE in a black ball of fur that filled the Megafortress’s lower deck. He heard Madrone grunting above him, working the Flight-hawk toward its target. He tried to push up, but pain shot through him. His chest and upper spine felt as if they had caught fire. He flopped back, overcome by the fear that not just his legs but every inch of him was paralyzed.

No, he told himself, I’m not giving up. Fight! Fight!

But no part of him moved.

THE TARGETING SCREEN TOOK OVER MADRONE’S MIND. Numbers drained off the right side, slipping into the hole where the rest of his life had already washed away.

He had to hit the second air shaft on the target, and he had to hit it just right. But that was the beauty of the Brazilian missile. It could be steered very precisely.

The bomb would only destroy the top portion of the lab. A second reinforced layer protected the computer itself. But they’d never get around the radiation. They’d wait a hundred years, maybe more.

The numbers drained away. The Flighthawk’s pipper began to pulse, and the targeting bar went to yellow, ready.

He was now thirty seconds from his target. Time to unsafe the bomb, allowing the trigger to be activated as soon as the missile’s engine ignited.

As he started to give the command, something told him to watch his back.

ZEN’S RIGHT BOOT LAY AGAINST THE CORD THAT connected to the helmet. If he could kick it, he could knock it loose, knock if off Kevin’s head.

His leg stayed motionless.

Of course. Useless damn legs. Useless damn body. He’d taken his best shot and now he was truly impotent.

“No!” he screamed, smashing his arm against the base of the control seat so violently his whole body jerked away.

The cord caught on the tip of the lower flap hook on his pants. But it had been tied to the panel—putting pressure on it had no effect on the plug. Jeff cursed and tried to sit up, pushing away the pain, telling his body he’d ignored much worse. He had gotten his elbow below him and begun to lever around when Gal lurched hard to the right and downward. Jeff’s efforts were vastly multiplied by the plane’s sudden momentum; his body flew backward, tugging the wire and sending the ANTARES helmet flying across the cabin.

Aboard Sharkishki

8 March, 0855

MACK PUNCHED HIS THROTTLE AND JERKED THE STICK back, riding the massive thrust of the MiG’s tweaked turbofans upward as he saw the Flighthawk cross above him.

Little bastard was fast and still off his screen. Mack had the Scorpion thumbed up, locked.

Go, baby, go.

The missile clunked off its rail. He lost a second in locking and firing the other missile.

They were going to miss.

Son of a bitch. Chaff. Zigging and breaking down.

That damn Madrone. Zen had taught him well.

Sidewinders up.

Too far.

Mack jammed the throttles all the way to max afterburner. As the MiG shot ahead on its fiery ride, the Sidewinder growled. He launched right away.

Aboard Gal

8 March, 0658

MADRONE’S MIND FLEW INTO A THOUSAND PIECES.

He tried to give the command anyway, tell the Flighthawk to launch.

Minerva. The dark woman of death.

Kevin opened his mouth, but the only word that came to his lips was “Christina.”

As he said it a second time, he realized the connection with ANTARES had been lost.

Aboard M-6

8 March, 0900

“FLIGHTHAWK IS DOWN! FLIGHTHAWK IS DOWN!” SAID McAden. “Who got him? Shit! MiG bearing—it’s got to be Smith!”

“The bomb,” said Dog. “Was it on the U/MF or not?”

His eyes were pasted on the windscreen. Las Vegas sat peacefully in the distance.

“I’m tracking fragments,” said the copilot. “Big hunk of something.”

Dog waited. If the Flighthawk had had the weapon aboard, it might still detonate when it hit the ground.

If it didn’t have it aboard, he had to take out Galatica.

He might still have to.

The city’s neons seemed to flicker.

Crazy imagination.

No, a reflection from Galatica, passing ahead.

“Lost it. Bomb would have gone off by now,” said McAden. “Galatica, two miles dead ahead. Low, erratic.”

“See if they’ll answer a hail.”

Aboard Gal

8 March, 0906

LANZAS SEEMED DAZED NEXT TO HER. BREANNA decided it was time to get her weapon. She slipped the restraints, then jerked the stick forward, sending the plane nose down.

Pushing away her com headset, Rap dove for Minerva, wrestling for the big knife Minerva had tucked in the other side of her belt. But the Brazilian she-wolf didn’t try to fight her off. Breanna pulled the blade free, then pointed it at Lanzas.

“It’s no use,” said the Brazilian. “You can kill me if you want. The bomb will get us when we land.”

“Kevin’s bomb?”

“That’s on the Flighthawk.”

“We’re booby-trapped,” said Breanna. “Where is it? Where’s the bomb. Is it on a timer? Or an altimeter? When does it go off?”

Lanzas said nothing more.

“Jeff, are you down there? Jeff, are you all right?”

He didn’t answer. She tried the interphone circuit again, but got nothing.

“Kevin?” she said tentatively.

Madrone didn’t answer.

The Megafortress accepted her commands without interference. Something had happened below—it might well be that both Jeff and Kevin were dead.

Breanna reauthorized the computer pilot, reasoning that Madrone had been able to take over the plane even when the computer pilot was off. The computer snapped in, almost eager; it blew through its self-diagnostics, reporting itself fit and trim. Rap glanced at Lanzas as she told the computer to hold the present course, then locked the controls with her voice command.

The Brazilian made no effort to stop her. She seemed to be in a trance.

Breanna stood, twisting her headphones off. But as she started to get up to go below, she heard a voice over the headset.

Still staring at Lanzas, Bree put the headset on.

“Bree.”

“Jeff? Are you okay?”

“We landing?”

“I think we’re rigged to explode. I’m not sure how, though—whether it’s a timer or some sort of altimeter bomb.”

“You sure?”

“I don’t know if Lanzas is lying or not. But she was awfully worried about going over ten thousand feet.”

“We did that already.”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

“I want you to eject.”

“What about you?”

“Just do it.”

“Don’t be stupid, Jeff. Besides, she probably sabotaged the seats. The ones below were monkeyed with.”

He didn’t answer. She could hear him groaning and shoving his body around; he sounded like he did in the morning when he pulled himself from bed and went to the bathroom by crawling across the floor.

“How much fuel do we have?” he said finally.

“About twenty minutes worth. Maybe a little less. We’re on three engines,” she added. “A Scorpion took one off.”

“That ought to stretch things a bit, no?” he asked.

His voice was so deadpan, she wasn’t entirely sure he was trying to make a joke.

Aboard M-68 March, 0915

“GALATICA, THIS IS DREAMLAND M-6. Do YOU READ ME? Galatica, can you hear me? Please acknowledge.”

Dog listened as both McAden and Geraldo took turns trying to hail the plane. They were about ten minutes out of Dreamland.

His fatigue was starting to set in. Fatigue and worry, mostly about his daughter.

“Dreamland M-6, this is Galatica,” said Breanna. “I’m in control here. Repeat, I am in control.”

“Bree,” said Dog.

“Hey, Daddy. What the hell are you doing in a Megafortress?”

“I’m flying it,” he said. “Bree—the nuke.”

“On the Flighthawk.”

“Mack Smith splashed it,” said Bastian.

“Mack?”

“Insubordinate snot disobeyed orders, thank God,” said Dog. “Now listen, little girl, you stayed out past your bedtime and I’ve come to bring you home. Set up for Runway One.”

“I’m afraid we can’t do that. We have a bit of a situation here.”

Aboard Galatica

8 March, 0925

IN JEFF’S OPINION, MINERVA WAS BLUFFING.

On the other hand, nothing she’d done until now had been a bluff.

“Altimeter or timer?” Bree asked.

“Timer,” said Jeff.

“Then we should land right now.”

“Unless it’s an altimeter. What’s the lowest we’ve been?”

“Hold.”

Jeff listened as Rap paged back through the logs.

“Three hundred feet. But if it wasn’t armed until ten thousand, it could be anywhere below 4,500, I think. Minerva’s still catatonic. What about Kevin?”

“I knocked him out. He wouldn’t know anyway. She used him.”

“So what’s your call?” Bree asked, her voice as breezy as if she were asking about a basketball bet. “Altimeter or timer?”

“Have to be a radar altimeter.”

“Why?”

“Because otherwise you could defeat it by landing someplace high. Lanzas would have thought about that, and suggested it as a way out. Do you know where it is?”

“If I knew where it was, don’t you think I’d run back and find it?”

“I didn’t realize you had a blowtorch handy,” said Zen sarcastically. “Must be in the tail, where they repaired the plane. Maybe we can spoof the beacon.”

“Jeff, even if you were right and you could find a way to do that, it wouldn’t eliminate a timer.”

“Well, let’s take a shot at finding it. Check the course that Kevin programmed in. See how low he was going to go before making the attack.”

“That was the three hundred feet.”

“Probably below that triggers it.”

“Well, great, that’s an easy jump.”

If it did have a radar altimeter, there probably would be a way to spoof it, Jeff decided. He could use a Flighthawk to detect it, or maybe examine the hull for a hot spot.

Except that he didn’t have a Flighthawk. But Jennifer Gleason did.

“It’s in native mode, orbiting above Dreamland,” Jennifer told him. “I can unlock it. Can you fly it?”

“Not a problem.”

As he waited, Jeff glanced over at Kevin, slumped in his seat. Zen had grabbed and punched him hard as he leaned over him; blood curled from his nose and ear. But for some reason Jeff thought it was more than the blow that had knocked his friend senseless. The fatigue of these past days, the drugs, fear, and maybe the realization of what he’d done—they must be at least as responsible for knocking him out as Jeff’s fist.

Zen’s wrist had swollen, either from the punch or the fall. He winced, but still managed a smooth handoff of the Flight-hawk. He took the U/MF from its orbit and swung up toward the EB-52.

Odd to fly the plane from the panels without his flight helmet, almost as if he were working by remote control. Which, of course, he was. All the time.

“Blew that engine clean off,” said Zen.

“B-52’s don’t go down,” said Bree. “I can tell you stories. Major Cheshire has a whole gallery of damaged BUFFs that landed in Vietnam with half the plane shot away.”

Jeff tried infrared as he closed in, focusing on the tail section. Maybe there was a little part of the right stabilizer that wasn’t as hot as the rest, maybe not. The repair threw everything off anyway.

“Going to put the fuzz detector on full,” said Zen. “Jeff, it’s not going to make any difference.”

“Knowledge is power. Just hold us level until the tanker gets here.”

“I have an idea. Let’s break off the stabilizer and land.”

“What?”

“Let’s assume the bomb is there, okay? What do we do? We can’t eject, we can’t land. We twiddle our thumbs for the next twenty years—or twenty seconds, until the timer nails us.

Jeff nudged the Flighthawk closer. There were intermittent signals.

“I think it is in the tail. Where they repaired the plane.”

“Great. Snap it off and let’s go home. I’m getting hungry.”

“How do you want me to snap it off?”

“Shoot it off with the Flighthawk.”

“You’re out of your mind, girlie.”

“Don’t call me girlie while we’re working.”

Zen pulled up the armament panel. The U/MF was down to two slugs.

Not that he had intended on using them.

“Don’t have enough bullets, Bree.”

“Slice through it,” she said. “Fly right into it. This way we’ll be sure nothing else hits us.”

“Rap, even if I managed to do that, how are you going to land without a tail?”

“You know how many times I’ve done that?”

“Zero.”

“Hell, it was in pieces when I landed in Brazil. I’ve done it once a week on the simulator. Jeez, even my father can do it.”

“I’m not worried about him.”

“You have a better idea?”

HE DIDN’T.

Breanna decided that sooner was better than later—it wasn’t like they were going to gain anything by waiting.

As they crossed into Dreamland’s restricted airspace, she leveled at a thousand feet. The range was cleared; they had nothing but empty lake bed for miles.

Was snapping off the stabilizer better than letting the bomb explode?

Depended entirely on how big the bomb was. And where it was. And luck. And how clean a break Jeff got.

Three hundred feet was really too high to do this.

Small bomb wouldn’t do much damage. Except for the debris and shrapnel and fire.

She could land without one stabilizer. Hell, she could land without the whole tail.

Of course, if Jeff missed and somehow took out the wing as well …

“We’ll get ready to land,” she told her husband. “You have to hit me when we’re at three hundred and fifty feet.”

“Shit, Bree, we’ll roll right into the ground.”

“No way.”

“Bullshit.”

“We will if you miss and crash into the rest of the plane.”

“Bree.”

“On a ten count.”

“Fuck you.”

“With great pleasure,” she said, watching the altimeter slip through nine hundred feet.

Aboard M-6

8 March, 0930

BASTIAN HEARD DREAM TOWER CLEAR BREANNA TO land.

“I thought you had a bomb aboard,” he said, trying—and failing-to keep his voice calm.

“Probably.”

“Well, what the hell are you doing?”

“Landing.”

“Wait. We can figure something out,” he said. “Maybe we can get some parachutes into your plane.”

“No time. Relax. We’ll be okay.”

“Breanna Rapture Bastian Stockard—”

“Close your eyes, Daddy.”

Aboard Galatica

8 March, 0935

HIS DAUGHTER WOKE HIM WITH HER WAIL. KEVIN JERKED back to consciousness.

He’d fallen asleep downstairs again. He had to get up and get her, before she woke Karen.

No.

He was in the Megafortress.

Zen had taken control of the Flighthawks.

They’d take him prisoner, make him go back into Theta, have ANTARES suck what was left of his mind away.

He couldn’t let that happen. He pushed to get up out of the seat, got tangled in the restraints. He fell and rolled onto the deck.

JEFF’S HAND WAS SO WET WITH SWEAT THAT THE STICK slipped as he approached. He wrapped both hands around it, eyes and consciousness riveted on the screen.

He had Gal’s speed nailed. The computer kept warning about proximity, which was good.

A quick plunge to the right, snap off half the tail on Bree’s count.

“Okay. Ten, nine,” said Breanna.

“Jeff.”

Zen looked up. Madrone stood over him with his gun. “Seven, six.”

Jeff put his right hand up, his other on the stick. He felt Kevin pushing the gun down into the back of his neck. “Five, four, three.”

Madrone ripped the headset away. Zen took a breath, then bent the stick downward.

DREAMLAND’S EB-52 SIMULATOR WAS VERY, VERY realistic. But it couldn’t begin to approximate what it felt to lose your tail at 140 knots, 347 feet above the ground.

The Megafortress lurched upward, then flopped down like a flat stone, losing 150 feet of altitude in the blink of an eye. Breanna and the computer struggled to compensate for the ravaging forces of gravity and momentum.

She held the plane steady, but it slid sideways through the air. One of the flaps, damaged earlier by the Scorpion, flew off the plane. Something exploded behind them, kicking at the fuselage, pushing the nose upright at the last second.

They hit the ground rather slowly, at ninety-two knots. But they struck at an angle. The leading gear collapsed; the right-side gear twisted off, but remained under the plane. Gal spun wildly. Breanna felt something hot in her face, then lost consciousness.

Dreamland

8 March, 1008

CAPTAIN BREANNA “RAPTURE” BASTIAN STOCKARD woke up in her father’s arms. Her body felt as if it were encased in cement. Her arms hurt. Her fingers fluttered.

Her toes were numb. She tried to bend her knee, felt nothing.

“Breanna. Bree.” He spoke to her in his strong voice from far away, beyond the mountains.

Whose voice was it? Jeff’s?

Bree opened her eyes.

“I can’t move my legs,” she said.

“You’ve been immobilized,” he said. “Bree. You’re okay.”

“I’m okay?”

“You’re alive.”

She remembered Zen in the hospital. She’d said the same thing to him.

Breanna started to cry.

“The doctors say you’re okay. We’re going to put you in the ambulance.”

The tears flowed. God. To lose her legs.

“Yo. Good landing.”

She turned her head. Jeff lay on a stretcher next to her.

“Jeff—”

“Kevin’s dead,” he said. “He got slammed in the landing.

Minerva bashed her head too. They don’t think she’ll make it.

She didn’t care about the others. She pushed her head up, looking toward her feet.

You’re okay, she’d told Jeff. You’re fine.

What a Goddamn lie.

Oh, God, she thought. Oh, God.

Then she saw her right boot move, ever so slightly. She pushed her left foot. It moved as well.

Thank you, God, oh, thank you, she thought as she slipped back into unconsciousness.

*   *   *

DOG STEPPED BACK FROM THE STRETCHERS AS THE medics packed Breanna and Jeff into the ambulance.

“We made it,” said a sweet, soft voice in his ear.

“Yes,” he said. Then he turned and took Jennifer Gleason into his arms, his mouth finding hers in a long, glorious kiss.