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“Why don’t you let me do that for you, Miranda?”
“Why?” She squinted at him, studying his chin. She normally focused on his left ear, because eyes were very difficult for someone on the Spectrum to look at. But his left ear was under a thick wooly hat.
“Because—”If I let you do it, we’ll all be standing here freezing our asses off for the next hour while you look at every detail.“—it will give me something to think about other than the cold while you continue to work on the debris assessment.”
She considered, nodded, and handed everything to him. Holly had finished freeing the recorder and set it on the ground. Miranda took back her wrench, pocketed it in her vest, double-checked that it was in the correct pocket, then led Holly away.
Mike perched his butt on the top of the small black box and plugged in the QAR.
Andi stayed close by. “That was very smooth. You are the master, Obi-Wan. You must teach me the ways of the Force.”
“You two aren’t having problems, are you?” Mike booted the tablet—but he didn’t know Miranda’s password. He unplugged her computer and fished his own out of the broad pocket in his tool vest.
While he waited for it to boot, he watched an Air Force C-37B land on the shorter runway. A sweet ride indeed, the newest jet in the Air Force’s executive transport inventory, the sixty-million-dollar Gulfstream 550 bizjet. Moments later, a C-130 Hercules transport lumbered aloft. The far end of the field was definitely hopping, but at ten thousand feet away, it wasn’t a distraction. Except at the moment of takeoff, the sounds rarely carried to them.
He booted his tablet, then tapped to load the QAR interface software.
That’s when Mike realized that Andi still hadn’t spoken.
A glance over said that maybe theywerehaving problems. “Speak, young apprentice.”
“As I’m four years older than you, I should—”
“But you know helicopters. I know people.”
Andi sighed and sat down on a section of the inner refueling boom pipe as big around as her leg. Normally, when still attached to a KC-46, the long metal tube extended from the bottom of the tail section to pump fuel into other jets as they tagged along close behind the aerial tanker. The force of the crash had tried to tie it into a pretzel and had come close to succeeding. It was pinned in place by the trailing edge of a broad piece of the port-side wing—the single largest fragment to survive the crash.
He waited. Andi was a former Night Stalkers’ helicopter pilot. By habit, she rarely spoke unless it was about an operation. However, as a member of Special Operations Forces for ten years, patience was not one of her strengths when the next action was hers to take.
Mike started counting.
“I keep screwing up!”
He’d made it to seven.
The second time, he made it to ten and deemed that the taciturn part of her nature had surged to the fore again.
“Andi.” He liked her. A year ago when she’d joined their team, she’d still been fighting with her combat-related PTSD. She’d let him see behind the curtain of her personal silence a couple of times. But did he like her enough to trust her with Miranda?
Not your call, Mike. Miranda chose her.He had watched for signs of Andi forcing herself on their team leader, but they simply weren’t there.
“Andi, stop trying so hard.” The QAR software was loaded, he asked it to graph the flight profile.
“That’s it?Stop trying so hard?Like I’m supposed to be all Zen about this great relationship?”
Mike tried not to glance toward Holly. The back of her head had appeared momentarily around one of the two monstrous Pratt & Whitney engines that broken from the wing and tumbled along the runway, landing clear of any fire.
Likehewas supposed to beall Zenabout his own relationship with Holly?
A good question to ask himself later, as in afteroccurrens messorem mortis—after meeting the reaper of death. The wonders of a Catholic School education, he could consider death in a comfortably remote Latin.
“Yeah, Andi. That’s about right. Don’t try to peel away the mystery, because it sure as hell won’t work. Be with Miranda or don’t be with Miranda, there is no true understanding between people.” He sure didn’t understand Holly, but hedidlike having her in his world. “There is only acceptance of her as she is.”
Andi didn’t speak.
It sounded more wise than he’d thought it would. Maybe that would raise him from Obi-Wan status to Yoda status. And maybe he should listen to that himself. Figuring out Holly had occupied a lot of his thoughts lately, to absolutely no avail.
Andi still didn’t speak. Instead she stared down at the tablet lying flat on his lap for long enough that Mike looked down himself.
Then he saw what was on the screen. A flight profile should never look like that—except when it ended like this flight’s had.
In slow unison they turned to look at the section of wing that had pinned the twisted refueling pipe to the runway.
In his opinion, Andi said it perfectly.
“Well…shit.”
