I was shaking, my hands numb. Exhaustion punched into me. The concentration had been so terribly intense.
But Midas, I was sure, would have been proud of me. He'd forever been trying to teach me his skills, and he'd declared on more than one occasion that I'd never make a combat pilot.
In his opinion, I had the essential reflexes and strength, but I never saw the big picture. And it was always that last, overlooked detail that got you killed.
That last, overlooked detail came in from the north, across the treetops, autocannons flashing.
TEN
Down.
Doctor Berschilde of Ravello.
Khanjar the Sharp.
It was the fourth speeder that had been hunting us. Before I could even let out a curse, its streaming cannon fire had severed our tail boom and mangled the aft fan, shredding off its cover and twisting the still-spinning props.
We started to rotate violently. The cabin vibrated like a seizure victim. Eleena screamed.
I wrestled with the controls, fighting the bucking stick. I cranked the wing fans to vertical and throttled up to break the drop. The flier crunched down through upper branches, glanced off a main bough, and nose dived.
I stood on the rudder and yanked back the stick.
'Brace!' 1 yelled. That was all I had time to say.
We side-swiped a fanewood's trunk, a collision that ripped off the port fan and stripped the monocoque's hull paint down to the bare metal and bounced once off a peaty ridge of moss and leaf mould. Then we rose again, yawing to the left as the remaining turbofan screamed to the edge of its tolerance trying to gain some sort of lift. The engine-out alarm shrilled as the fan stalled, overcome by the pressure. We fell then, sideways, survived a headlong impact with an oak that crazed the windshield and slammed into the loamy earth, slithering a good fifty metres before we rocked to a halt on our side.
I didn't black out but the long silence following the crash made it feel like I had. I blinked, lying on my shoulder against the side hatch. Eleena
moaned and Aemos started coughing. The only other sound was the tinkling patter of the shattered windscreen scads gradually collapsing into the cabin.
1 got up and clambered over the seats.
'Eleena? Are you hurt?'
'No, sir… I don't think so…'
'We have to get out. Help me.'
Together we dragged the coughing Aemos clear and went back for Medea who was still, mercifully, unconscious.
The searchlights of the speeder lanced down through the hole we had made in the canopy, poking around.
Any moment now…
Eleena and I dragged the other two into the shelter of a hollow a good distance from the downed aircraft.