As the copter drew nearer to the new volcano, a thin line of people emerged from the grayness beneath them and started waving frantically.
Torkel picked up the copilot’s microphone. “This is Flying Fish. We have you in sight. Please identify yourselves. Is Dr. Whittaker Fiske with you? Over.”
Rather to Yana’s surprise, a response came back immediately. “Flying Fish, this is Team Boom Boom. We see you. We have two severely injured people in our party. That’s a big Mayday. Please transport to SpaceBase pronto. Over.”
The pilot clicked the transmission button on his own microphone. “This is Flying Fish, Boom Boom. Gotcha. We’re setting down one-zero-zero meters due east of you. Over.”
But Torkel clicked on the copilot’s mike again before the stranded team could respond. “Boom Boom, this is Captain Torkel Fiske on the Flying Fish. Is Dr. Whittaker Fiske or any member of his team with you? Over.”
“Negative, Cap’n Fiske. Petaybee blew its top about the time the shuttlecraft was landing. The turbulence from the volcano blew the craft off course and we had to initiate evacuation procedures before we could search for survivors. Sorry, sir. Over.”
“Boom Boom, Flying Fish here. I’m sorry, too, but you’ll have to hang on while we radio SpaceBase for another craft to retrieve you. We need to look for the survivors soonest.”
“I can’t fly into that, sir,” the pilot said, glancing anxiously at Torkel. “It’d clog the jets. Let me pick up the wounded and get ground support.”
“Finding my father is number-one priority,” Torkel told the pilot in a command tone. Yana couldn’t see his face. She wondered briefly if Torkel wanted to save his father because of his importance to the mission, or simply because Dr. Fiske was his father.
“Flying Fish, you can’t leave us here. Our wounded are in bad shape and the rest of us are having trouble breathing from the ash. It’s smothering in there, sir. Please, at least pick up the wounded. Boom Boom over.”
The pilot, heedless of Torkel’s commands to fly into the face of the billowing ash clouds, began circling to land. Yana saw Torkel reach for his sidearm, but the pilot had anticipated a problem.
“Sorry, sir,” the pilot said, pointing a pistol at Torkel, “but you and the others will have to get out while we load the wounded. I’ll call for another aircraft and some ground support for you as soon as we’re in the air.”
Ornery started to draw his weapon, but his attention was on the pilot, not on Yana. With a well-placed chop to his wrist she numbed his hand and relieved him of his weapon before either he or Giancarlo could react. She stuck the muzzle of the gun under Giancarlo’s ear with one hand and extracted his sidearm from his holster with the other in a series of rapid movements that would have made her hand-to-hand combat trainer beam with pride. Ornery leaned menacingly toward her, but his numbed hand wasn’t following orders. She shook her head and jabbed Giancarlo meaningfully with the gun.
“This section of the aircraft is secured, pilot,” Yana said into her mouthpiece.
The pilot gave her a thumbs-up and said to Torkel, “I’ll take your sidearm, too, sir. And just in case you gentlemen want to claim this is mutiny or anything, I’m sure superior-officer types like yourselves are aware that, by chain of command, I am the pilot of this craft. I am therefore the temporary CO. Thanks to you, ma’am.”
He set the copter down and the stranded people surged toward it. He lifted a foot and kicked Torkel’s door open. “Out you go, Cap’n. You there, Corporal, open your own damn door and disembark. You too, Colonel. Under the circumstances, we’ll belay the ladies first shit.”
When the others had jumped out of the copter and the pilot turned to watch her go, Yana saw that he was a warrant officer, a green-eyed, lean-jawed man with curly black hair, broad prominent cheekbones, and the slight tilt to his eyes she had begun to identify with people from Petaybee. His nametag said O’SHAY.
Chapter 14
The track-cat lumbered down the riverbank and into the trees, surely and slowly-much too slowly to suit Diego. What if someone caught them and tried to take them back? What would happen to them then? Would they send Dad offplanet? Would they split them up? Would he be charged with the theft of the track-cat?