“Oh. A literal zipline from the chopper to the top of the berg?”
“Exactly.” Reed nodded enthusiastically. Down below us, Nate looked up at us, meeting our eyes through the glass.
“And then?” he asked.
“Then we have a ladder-ramp type of contraption. I will send it down that zipline first. It will just slide right down to the surface. Then I clip in and follow it down the same line. We never cross above the chasm. The colony never sees the rotor wash.”
I looked at the rim and then at the waterside of the iceberg and worked through it.
“Umm, Pilot Harmon, how do you throw a hook from a moving aircraft while piloting it?” Nate asked.
Reed smiled like a madman. “Oh, I won’t be piloting.”
I shook my head. Yeah, this was going to be absolutely insane.
“My husband will.”
Down below, Nate’s eyes went so big that I could see it even from this distance.
“Are you two real?”
Reed started laughing. Big, booming laughter. I couldn’t join because what he was proposing was indeed the only working solution, but it meant he would be risking life and limb. And he would be depending on my rusty piloting skills.
My headache came back full swing. I had lived a quiet life tucked away at Waypoint Station, and he had just come barging in, and now, in less than twenty-four hours, I had experienced every single emotion the human brain possibly could. And the worst hadn’t even come. And yet. And yet, I would be lying if I said I didn’t like it. Reed’s spirit was unmatched. I think he lived the lives of a hundred men single-handedly, and somehow I had the luck to be chosen for this wild ride.
“Nate, give us a moment.” I keyed the mic off.
“You know it’s the only way,” Reed said.
“I know. I just don’t like it. You made me promise you earlier. Now it’s my turn.”
He glanced at me with warm eyes. “Anything.”
“You will be safe. Nothing can happen to you.” My voice shook. “Nothing. You hear me?”
He reached for me, grabbed my palm, and brought it to his lips. We were visible through the cockpit to the research vessel’s crew. At that moment, I didn’t care.
He kissed my fingers and held my gaze steadily. “I’ll be safe, love. I’ll come back.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. When I opened them, I was ready. “Let’s do it.”
***
I had flown before. I couldn’t land or take off or do anything besides basic flying, but I knew the mechanics of holding a chopper steady. Had to learn during that deployment because there was no one else left.
But knowing the mechanics and executing them while your husband leaned out of the open side door with a grappling hook were two entirely different things. Reed had clipped himself to the anchor point inside the cabin before he opened the door. The wind came in immediately, cold and flat, filling the cockpit.
For the next several minutes, it was a scene out of my nightmares. Reed hung over the open water, one hand on the line above him, the other guiding his descent, his body moving in a long, controlled arc toward the iceberg wall. He was so small against that wall of ice.
I held the chopper and tried to just keep breathing. He was absolutely insane to do this and, God, how I loved that about him.
At last, he landed safely, and I could breathe again. Reed moved across the iceberg surface to the chasm edge. He went to his knees and worked the ramp over the rim, unfolding each segment, extending it down into the chasm in sections. Was it long enough? I couldn’t see.
“Anything?” Nate asked.
“Not yet,” I said.
Reed stood up and waited. Nothing happened. He turned back to me and shrugged. I raised a hand and splayed my fingers to tell him to wait.
