My ears recover, and I can hear rapid, panicked breathing; when I try to speak, I realize I’m the one hyperventilating. I shoot a quick glance over at the copilot’s seat.
“Flynn? You alive?”
He doesn’t answer immediately, and when I take another look, he’s got his head pressed back against the seat and both hands gripping the armrests, white-knuckled. “I hope not,” he gasps, closing his eyes more tightly.
The laugh that escapes my lips is only a little hysterical. “We’re not down yet,” I warn him. “And we can’t land at the base.”
“Can you land this thing in the swamp?” he manages, voice choked.
“More or less,” I reply through gritted teeth, trying not to let him hear my own fear. A trained pilot could do it. But I’m a combat specialist, and this…no one trained me for this.
We stay in the clouds for a while, the turbulence throwing us around nearly as badly as the descent did. I can’t see any sign of the fighters on my screens, but that’s because Avon’s atmosphere makes the scans almost useless in the air. The same thing I’m counting on to hide us will keep me from knowing if we’re still being pursued.
I keep my eyes on the topographic map scrolling by on the left side of the dash until I start to see familiar patterns. I shift our course to take us wide of the military base, making for the island to the east instead, the one place I know there’s some solid ground to retreat to. I can’t land on the island itself; without a paved landing pad I need soft ground to avoid a crash. But I can set the shuttle down in the swamp a few klicks away, and we can abandon the ship and make for the island before the military shows up at the crash site.
It’s not my most graceful landing ever. The ship ends up at a slant, the landing pads half submerged on one side. I want to see if Flynn’s okay, but I can’t make myself let go of the controls. I can’t take my eyes from the instruments. In the end, Flynn has to unbuckle and come get me, wrapping his hands around mine.
“Jubilee—we’re down. We’re here, we’re fine. You can let go.” He pulls my hands away, massaging life back into the whitened knuckles.
I wrench my eyes from the screens. “Are you okay?”
He nods, though I can see his face is bone-white in the gloom of the cabin. “Just don’t make me leave the ground again any time soon.”
Together we stumble toward the back of the shuttle, and I hit the door control. The gangway comes down at an angle sharp enough that its hydraulics can’t compensate, making it rattle when it splashes into the water. The shuttle groans as it continues to settle into the swamp’s thick muck, confirming that we’re never taking off in this thing again. I close my eyes, letting the damp, swampy air caress my face. Night has barely fallen, only a tiny bit of light left on the horizon to mark the last remnants of day.
“That was incredible,” Flynn says softly.
I shake my head. “If I were a pilot it would’ve been smooth as butter. It was stupid, is what it was. We’re lucky we didn’t break apart.”
“How far are we from your base?”
“Three, four hours by boat. Quicker if they spotted our descent and send a chopper or a skimmer. The shuttle’s too easy to spot—we can’t stay here.”
Flynn doesn’t answer right away, gazing out into the darkness. His body’s angled toward the distant hideout that shelters the Fianna, where he’s lived for the last ten years. I want to touch him, show him somehow that he’s not alone without them. But before I can, he gives a sharp exhale and a nod. “There’s a dugout not far from here, totally invisible from the air. There’s a few days’ rations, a med supply kit; it’s supposed to be a hideout if any of us get separated and can’t make it back to the caves. We can hole up there until they stop looking for us.”
I glance at him, even though his features are concealed by the gloom. “Seriously? God, Flynn, how many of these secrets do you have tucked away that the military doesn’t know about?”
This time I can see his smile in the glow of the emergency lights, tired and grim. “At least one more, luckily for us.”
It takes only a few seconds for the runabout to auto-inflate, but we take the time to stock up on the emergency ration bars from the shuttle and raid the first aid kit for anything useful. The footing is treacherous on the wobbly, unlit gangway, but we can’t risk a light that could carry for klicks and betray our position. The only illumination is from the emergency exit lights on the shuttle. I’d shut those down if I could, but they’re designed to stay lit no matter what.
It’s only after we’ve got everything I can think to grab on board that I pause for a breath. I can see Flynn only as a silhouette in the dim, reddish glow of the emergency lighting. He comes closer, reaching for me—it’s as much to be sure where I am as to take my hand.
“Ready to go?” His voice is quiet, though there’s no one to hear him but me.
“I’m ready,” I say, but I can hear how very tired I sound.
His fighters, my soldiers; there are enemies on every side, and none of them know what’s really happening. They’re all pawns in this sick experiment of LaRoux’s, and these whispers, these tortured, vicious things, they’re making it happen.
He lifts my hands in his, ducking his head to touch his lips to them. “We’ll get through this. We’ll disappear into the swamp if we have to, we’ll search this place meter by meter until we find proof.”