My Pleasure, Darling

32: A Piloting Minor, That's Totally Fine

I don't know how many times over I have thanked my lucky stars that one night, as I was running scared down a mountain side, I met Felix Bruge. But I'm thankful again. I reckon I will be, a few times more.

When I am filled with anguish and the blinding lightning in my leg, he is thinking. He is smart.

It is because of his quick thinking that I raise a plague flag out of our window when we are pursued in the middle of the night. The cars after us – bearing no flag whatsoever – give up their chase almost immediately.

Bloodthirsty nomads notwithstanding, they will allow us passage across their territories before they mess with plague.

This is not the only idea Felix has had, but he won't divulge the rest to me until the car finally rolls to a halt on asphalt.

We have reached an airfield.

An airfield in nomad territory. An airfield that hasn't been used for at least twenty years – hasn't seen any real air traffic for at least a hundred before that. Most of the aircraft have disappeared entirely: scavenged for usable parts, sheets of metal, engines, batteries, solar panels. In some places, all that's left of what were once large planes are the landing gears.

Nobody would be stupid enough to come to this airfield on purpose. Anybody who did land here, did so because they had no other choices. You hear about it sometimes. A plane going down over nomad country. Even if the pilot lands their craft with precision, they won't survive out in the territories. A few of such craft are here, you can tell – they haven't been scavenged, or if they have, only a little. There is one that almost even looks modern.

Felix parks the car and we turn together. Andrea is asleep. It's a light one, I think. We both step out at the same time. I hiss at him over the bonnet.

"Are you crazy?!"

"We can do it, Lois. We can fly right out of here. This is Pittak Point, it has to be. Which means that, by air, Metran Isle is only four hours away."

"Yeah, on a commercial airline, one staffed by qualified pilots!" I am lucky we are on opposite sides of the car, so he doesn't see how I keep one leg off the ground. My hands are pressed to the metal. "What are we going to do?!"

"I took a piloting minor at the Academy."

"A piloting minor – are you crazy?!"

He folds his arms. "We're in nomad country."

He's got a point and I don't like that. You have to be a little crazy to be in nomad country. I lean back a little, off the metal of the car, but still holding to it for support. The first bullet only ever grazed my flesh, but this second one is a little lower, and I know for a fact it is still in there. I can feel it. It nudges against either my bone or a nerve if I turn the wrong way. I want to throw up every time it does. I can't afford to. Not just because Felix and Andrea would worry. I can't afford to lose any water I've drunk.

"Look, I can keep a bird in the air for four hours. Even if it's an older model. You..." He trails off. There's a moon out, just a little more than a half, and for a few moments, it bleaches him very pale as he stares at me. Is it bewilderment, shock, terror? I can't tell. "You can't do that again."

"Sure I could."

"No. I don't think you could. I don't think I'd ever get you back. You'd never be the same Lois Darling ever again."

He could very well be right. He could, also, be wrong. I am a General's daughter. I do what I need to do.

"So we need to take our best opportunity out of here. I need you to hold down the fort, watch the horizon, keep a gun in front of you at all times while I go scope out the best aircraft for the job."