A light abruptly snapped on. Someone had set up a spotlight, pointing it at the big helicopter and then sweeping it across the walls.
Mira ducked behind a fuel barrel.I hope you hurry up with that distraction, Dane!
She wondered what he was planning, but she found out a minute later when there was a tremendous thump and several of the barrels rolled out across the helipad, spilling their contents along the way. The smell of diesel was strong.
Mira sprinted for the helicopter. Behind her, she heard a loudWhoomph!and abruptly there was flickering orange light.Oh my gosh, he's lighting them on fire.Well, that was one way to do it.
There was a guard at the small helicopter. Mira unceremoniously shot him in the leg. Leaving him writhing on the ground, she threw herself into the pilot's seat.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that the big helicopter was now in flames.
Well, there goes our backup plan! You better hope this one has fuel, Dane!
It seemed that flying a helicopterwasjust like riding a bicycle, in the metaphorical sense at least. She found that all the moves for the startup sequence came back to her easily, flicking switches and powering up the machine.
A burst of gunfire rattled across the concrete. Mira gasped and ducked as bullets whined off the side of the machine. Then Dane threw himself in, panting and naked and looking pleased with himself.
Mira wasted no time in taking off.
As the machine rose into the air, she saw a scene of chaos below them. Flaming fuel was spread out over a large area. The spotlight rotated to point at them, and near it, she glimpsed the Colonel—recognizable by his white hair whipping in the wind from the helicopter's rotors—shouting orders.
Gunfire rattled around them. Mira could tell some of it was hitting them; the helicopter jerked and she nearly lost control.
If they put a hole in our fuel tank, we're dead.
But then they were above the island. She glanced down again, seeing it spread out from above. It was smaller than she had realized, nothing but a rock sticking out of the ocean with a concrete fortress on top of it. Flames still flickered on the helipad. Then it was falling behind them.
Dane pulled the plugs out of his ears and leaned over the back of his seat. "We made it!" he yelled over the noise of the rotors. His face was alight with a brilliant delight that she had never seen on him before.
The last thing she wanted was to puncture his joy, but she couldn't lie to him. She could barely keep control of the helicopter. The control stick was jerking in her hands like a bucking bronco, and the engine nearly gave her a heart attack by stuttering, almost cutting out, and then coming back.
"We're not clear yet," she shouted over the helicopter's noise. "They hit us somewhere vital. I don't know how long this bird's going to stay airborne."
The helicopter sped over the dark sea.How far?Mira thought desperately, but she knew already that it didn't even matter what direction they went; any land they could find was much too far away.
"Dane, I don't know which way to go!" she shouted. "Do you have any idea?"
"Wherever you go, don't go straight," he yelled back. "All they gotta do is send a boat after us in the same direction. That's how I got to the island. Confuse our trail."
"Oh, right." She jinked to the side, making a 90-degree turn.
It was increasingly evident that they were in trouble. The helicopter's flight was erratic, and every time the rotors stuttered or the engine tried to cut out, Mira's heart leaped into her throat. A boat could drift, a car could roll to a stop, even an airplane could glide. But helicopters were essentially bricks with a spinning piece on top. If the engine stopped working, they were going to plunge straight down.
"I'm going to keep us low," she said breathlessly. "That way if we fall, we won't hit the water hard enough to kill us."
She was increasingly afraid that it was more likewhenthanif. The engine was growing increasingly erratic, missing more than it hit.
"If we're going to ditch anyway, should we jump?" Dane asked. "That might be less dangerous than waiting to crash."
"Let me see how long I can keep her in the air." She nodded behind her. "Look for emergency gear. There should be some, hopefully in a waterproof pack. Whatever you can find will be better than nothing. Especially if there's an inflatable dinghy or something."
"No dinghy," he yelled back after a pause. "But don't forget I can turn into an orca!"
Shehadactually forgotten it for a minute there. "Yes, but I can't!"
Whatever he answered was lost in the abrupt coughing and sputtering of the engine. This was it; they were going down. They began to lose what minimal altitude she had kept. The helicopter's skids grazed the waves, jerking it around in its erratic flight.
"You're right, we're ditching," she yelled over the noise. "As soon as I let go of the stick, it's going to fall."
