The Skylark's Song

Four

Robin didn't know what to do. She didn't know what to do.

Remember the training, she thought as she grabbed the side of Wade's chair, feet skidding out from under her as the glider tilted at an alarming angle. What first? What first? Safe gliding altitude. Do that first.

"Safe! Ha," Robin scoffed to herself, even as she reached around Wade's slumped torso and yanked the yoke back hard, pulling the nose of the aircraft level with the horizon. A draft caught the tail and shook the glider like an unexpected wave on the ocean. Jamming at the pedals with her hands as she scrambled over Wade's lap, she got the flaps on the wings opened enough to catch it, propelling them up in a dizzying vertical ascent.

That should buy her some time and, if she was lucky, hide her from the Coyote long enough for her to . . .

First aid, she scolded herself firmly. "Step one, check for signs of . . . of . . ." She squirmed around in the cramped space, yanking off her right glove with her teeth and setting her fingers against Wade's neck. There was a pulse, but it was thready and stuttered.

"Step two, stop the bleeding," she said. "Medical kit is . . . rudding hells." The spot where it was usually secured on the slim shelving built into the ribs of the glider was empty, the straps torn and frayed. It must have gone out the side of the glider when Robin did. "Improvise, Sergeant!" she scolded herself when the wash of despair threatened to rob her of motivation.

Oiled canvas patches weren't designed to be absorbent. In fact, they were pre-pasted to be almost the exact opposite, ready to slap on a tear, not a person. Still, they would have to do. She stripped off her left glove, yanked her scarf from around her neck, and kept her ears open for the buzz of an aeroship, Robin scuffled around the cabin, the floor juddering and shuddering beneath her feet as the glider drifted, rudderless. She scooped up two patches that hadn't been sucked into the sky and, working quickly, folded her scarf into a pad big enough to cover a bullet wound. Then she jammed it down hard on Wade's shoulder, making sure it really got in there. She didn't have time to be disgusted by the way she could see right through to the bone, or by the smell of the raw meat and blood of him.

The medics could worry about how clean the scarf was and the possibility of putrid wounds after she got their asses back to Saskwya and down on the ground. Wiping the blood from the edges of the wound with the tail of her shirt, Robin slapped the two patches over her scarf, using their hastily applied adhesive to hold it in place. Wade grunted, head rolling, eyes open long enough for her to see just the whites.

"I'm sorry, Wade. I'm so sorry," she said, and then she unclipped him from his seat and heaved him around the back of it into hers. He made a rough, groan-scream sort of sound, but didn't wake up. Robin was no medic, but she didn't think that was good. Her hands were shaking too badly to get him clipped in right, so she just slung the safety belts around him, tucking his ruined arm in close to his chest, and tied him into place.

Then she threw herself down into the pilot's seat.

Home, she thought desperately. Just get us home. You can do it, Sergeant. You can. Just . . . don't panic. Deep breaths.

If it was there at all, the buzz of the Coyote's aeroship was lost in the whistle of wind against canvas. She couldn't hear him, but neither had they heard his first approach, either. "He wouldn't have given up. Don't get complacent," Robin warned herself. "Go. Get away."

Slowly, tentatively, Robin raised her arms. It felt like she was pushing through thick sand, and not just air. Her arms shook—hells, her whole body shook with the intense, screaming desire to run, run, run away.