Wind whipped over him. From the side. Tiny holes peppered the plane.
Jack twisted, looked out the windscreen. Found. Flames streaming from his left wing.
The inevitable conclusion nailed him. The Gomer with a missile launcher on his shoulder had hit him instead. And Monica's plane was already descending toward the runway. A pop to her craft would be fatal without the altitude to recover.
Dread pinging over him, he keyed up the private interphone. "Rodeo, we've been hit."
And so have I. Words he held back.
Stunned numbing eased. Reality seared through his skin. Hot. But he couldn't think about that. Later, he'd worry about the shitload of shrapnel lodged in his thigh. Right now, he didn't have the time to waste on extra words.
Anticipation tingled through her. From her jump seat behind Crusty piloting the medivac, Monica watched the dirt runway come closer. Closer. Back wheels touched down, then the nose, buildings sprawling in front of her.
One holding her sister.
Only a few more minutes and she would see Sydney. The hostages were all safe and accounted for, the airfield and compound in American hands. And she had Jack to thank.
They had problems, but they weren't quitters. Some things in life were worth fighting for and she was beginning to trust in herself enough to let down her defenses.
She was finally learning to trust Jack. If only she didn't have to wait so long to start her campaign to get him to expose his feelings to her.
The open-frequency channel crackled. "This is Budweiser two-one, we took a missile in the number two engine."
Jack? His voice echoed over her headset. A buzzing started in her brain. Loud. Like someone let loose a hive of bees. This wasn't supposed to happen. Jack, of the jokes and killer smile, was invincible, damn it, and they all knew it. His cocky arrogance was obnoxious as hell sometimes, but everyone believed in him.
"This plane's pissing gas out all over the place," he continued with more of that calm confidence. "We're gonna have to put her down here. Alpha, is the runway clear?"
"Hold, Budweiser two-one," Colonel Cullen replied over the radio waves. "We have a plane on the active runway—Budweiser two-seven."
Crusty reached for the throttles. "This is Budweiser two-seven. I'll be clear of the active runway in thirty seconds at the south end."
The engine whine increased, almost as deafening as the buzzing in her brain. The plane surged forward to taxi out of the way. A tight turn in the parking area cranked the C-17 around to face the incoming craft.
She'd wanted to see Jack today, but God, not this way, peering powerlessly through her windscreen as he came in for a crash landing.
Fire streamed from the left wing, trailing out into the night sky. The hulking gray plane screamed toward them.
Helplessness screamed over her just as thunderous. "Tell me what's happening," she asked Crusty as if that gave her control, some kind of active role. "What's he doing? What's he thinking?"
"He's fine, Tiara. Trained. In control."
"Tell me, damn it."
Crusty angled toward her while facing forward. "He's losing fuel fast out the hole in the left. Losing weight. Which screws with the center of gravity because of all the gas still on the right. He'll be shifting fuel to the left even though it drains, too."
"He's feeding the fire to stay upright?"
"Basically. He needs to land quick. As long as he's going fast, the flames are behind him."
But when he stopped to land...
She listened to Crusty beside her and Jack's voice over the headset, absorbing the words of both men.
Crusty depressed the mike button. "Cobra? Dude, you'd better plant this one. There's threat on the right. And you can't turn left into that dead engine without crashing. You're not gonna make it around for a second approach. You need to throw it into an inflight thrust reverse."
The C-17 was the only plane in the world that could perform that maneuver. She'd once heard Jack brag about it. But was now the time?
God, it sounded insane, on fire and slowing while still in the air. Once he lost speed, the flames wouldn't be streaming behind. If the plane ignited, he would have nowhere to run. But Crusty was infamous for jerking the plane around, knowing its limits after years as a test pilot.