Rand reached back and put a hand on her shoulder. “Keep it steady, Elle. Just a few more minutes.
We’re nearly through. Don’t let go. I can’t do this for you. This is yours.”
She wanted to let go. To put her hand to her face to shield her wounds from the heat. “I can’t keep this up.”
“You can. Trust me. Just another minute.”
Did she trust him? Could she? “What’s in this for you?” The drugs were wearing off and her eyeballs were swelling again. Her lids wouldn’t close over them. She feared if she forced them, they wouldn’t go up again. She needed distraction. “Tell me.”
There was a long pause. It felt like forever as her face and hands crackled and crisped. “At first, it was the rush. I’ve always been an adrenaline junkie. Then it was the money. People who want to move things without suspicion will pay nearly anything. I tried the ‘straight and narrow’ route. Had a steady job with low pay and no future. Drove me nuts. So, you’re right. I was for sale to the highest bidder.”
Close now. She could feel the shaking lessen, but now was the most dangerous part. If they hit the stratosphere wrong, or the concentration of gases was too different from Earth, she could ricochet off, and they’d tumble and break up. Rand tightened his hand on her shoulder. His wrist was probably cramping from the angle. She asked him. “What changed?”
“There’s always a line. A line you can’t cross. To me, the line was kids. Who knew? Someone paid me to drive a freighter. I was told to ignore noises in the back. But I couldn’t. They’d sealed them in without enough air holes. I broke it open. Not a one was more than ten. I didn’t know where they were supposed to end up, and I didn’t care. I dropped off the grid with them. Took them to the Mars colony’s orphanage. I knew a group of nuns there who would care for them. A day later I joined the resistance.”
Her muscles were getting so tired. “We must be going in wrong. It shouldn’t take this long.”
“It’s a thick atmosphere. Hang in there. Nearly done. The clouds are getting lighter.”
“So you joined the resistance to escape the wrath of your former clients?”
His voice turned hard as diamonds. “My clients were part of the Stovian high command. I discovered they preferred . . . veal for banquets.”
Elle couldn’t help but shudder. Children as food. “So that should make me trust you?”
“To stop Stovia from turning our whole planet into a slaughterhouse? Oh yeah. You can trust me.” He took a deep breath and let it out slow.
Her voice took a teasing edge. “Not doing it for me?” Why the hell did she ask that? But it was spoken. She couldn’t figure out how to take it back.
He tried to keep his voice light, but failed. “That, too. How would you get out of here if not for me?
Breaking through the clouds now. Vector to 249.868, 14.87, 6.0, and stay straight as an arrow. Asort dead ahead, if the maps we have are accurate.”
Dead ahead. Hopefully that wasn’t prophetic.
The shaking of the stick stopped abruptly and the air began to cool. She let out a harsh breath she didn’t know she was holding, and ripped off her gloves. She’d need finer control of the stick in the air. Rand patted her head and then let go to put his hands back on his keyboard. “Tell me where to go.”
He did, and even described the scenery as they flew – so far with nobody noticing. “Weird trees here.
They look like giant ferns. No, more like big stalks of celery. They’re mostly brown and withering.
Atmosphere sucks. Sort of like what they used to talk about in history books about the industrial age.
Smog. Thick. Don’t know if it’s breathable to humans. At least, it can’t be healthy.” After a few minutes of silence, he started up again. “I think I see the place, up ahead. The complex is huge. How many bombs do we have, again?”
“Ten. Five bunker-busters and five diron fault-expanders.” She reached forward to where the bay door-releases were located. Good. She recognized them by feel.
“Ten? On this tiny thing? Where?”
“It’s why we don’t have a galley or cargo bay. They were converted to munitions storage.” One pull per release. If the complex was big, they might want to make two runs. Diron to shake things up, and then the bunker-busters to destroy anything underground.
The warning alarm sounded. “Uh-oh. We have company,” she said. They were being targeted. “Move to atmosphere flight. Altimeter reading? Speed?”
“Thirty-five thousand feet, seven hundred knots. Shit! Incoming missile! Hard left roll. Now!”
She cranked the stick over and felt the ship slip into a barrel roll. The sizzling sound of a light missile went past her left ear. “Whew. That was close.”
“Not as close as this one! Tyler Tip to right on two, one, mark!”
Her grandfather had taught her an old propeller-plane trick called an “Immelman”. It was very close to a Tyler Tip, done in the atmosphere. The ship performed, just barely. She hadn’t had the chance to test the Javelin in heavy air. It was sluggish, not nearly as light as in space. “That was too close. Let’s get this done.”
He gave the bearings and she dipped and wove around the towering trees, using Rand’s rapid-fire coordinates. Her world narrowed to following the commands while trying to listen for the sound of the other planes outside the ship.
More enemy ships were launched as they got closer. “Get ready. Don’t think about anything but releasing those bombs.”
Now, why did he say that? His voice sounded strained. “Rand? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” His voice cracked. He was lying. She moved one hand back and touched his face. It was wet . . . and slippery. “You’re bleeding. What happened?”
“Shrapnel came through the panel. All the instruments are working. I’ll be fine. Just do your job. Don’t worry about me.”
Of course, the moment he said that, she started to. “What’s your condition? If it’s serious, we’re breaking off until we can get you stabilized.”
“I’m . . . okay. Just . . . a . . . little hard to—” He gasped. “Breathe.”
The compartments had separate forced-air systems. So long as hers kept forcing air toward her helmet, she’d be fine. She reached up and yanked the cord on her suit, then handed the tube backwards. “Here.
Don’t argue. There’s almost a day’s worth of air here if you don’t go crazy.”
He pushed it away. “Can’t. Need . . . to . . . talk, to direct . . . you.”
Damn it. He was right. “But I can’t afford for you to pass out, either.” She pulled off her helmet and immediately her chest seized up from the horrible air quality. “Trade . . . me . . . helmets.” Her head started to pound from the lack of oxygen.
Again Rand tried to wave it away but she insisted, pushing her helmet with the good line backwards. “I don’t have to . . . talk. I . . . can use . . . my suit.” With that, she plugged the mouthpiece behind her lips and tossed the helmet entirely over her head.
After a long moment, she heard his voice again. “Damn you, Tyler. You can’t afford to be low on air.”
She just shrugged, not that he could see her. There wouldn’t be any more talking until they were back in space. Then they could make repairs – provided they made it past the Stovian armada. The one nice thing was that the Javelin had speed. Once they dropped the weight, it would outrun anything the Stovians had.