Page 14 of Protecting the Flame

Emma opened her mouth to ask why he’d switched specialties when, all of a sudden, the plane dropped what felt like ten thousand feet but was probably more like fifty. The seats shivered. The cargo locker behind her seat clanked, and from somewhere behind and beneath her feet, she heard an odd clinking and clunking. Luggage? Why had that sounded like glass? Or was it metal? Burke said he had a belly tank, so that would be full of gas not tools. Maybe another cargo bay, then? Maybe that’s why Hunter was so worried about weight?

Another bounce, and Mattie gave a little cry as her book bounced out of her lap and did a swan dive onto the deck where it lay in a broken-wing splay.

“I got it.” Grateful for the distraction (she did not want to imagine the impossibly high mountain that was probably dead ahead), Emma swept up the book in one hand. “Here,” she said, stretching toward the girl. “Take—"

The plane suddenly bucked again. Emma’s head snapped forward and then back like a heavy tulip on a spindly stalk.

“Oh!” Mattie’s eyes went wide behind her glasses. “Gosh, are you okay?”

“Yeah, take it easy,” Will said. “No sense getting whiplash.”

“I’m okay.” Her neck wished to suggest otherwise. Oh, be quiet. She realized she was still hanging onto the book. “Here.”

“Thanks.” Mattie made a face. “Man, what I wouldn’t give for a wormhole.”

“Yeah, but then we’d end up in the Delta Quadrant.” At the girl’s frown, Emma waved a hand. “It’s a long story.”

“But a good one,” Will said. “Resistance is futile.”

The response was immediate, the words out of her mouth before she realized because it was what she’d always tossed out when Ben came at her with the same line. “Yeah, take your best shot, Locutus.”

“Because we are about to intervene.” Will’s grin broadened. “I always thought Frakes was a bit wooden, though I am positive my mother had a secret crush on him. What about yours?”

“For my mom? James T. Kirk,” she said, returning his smile. “I mean, come on, the guy lost his shirt practically every episode of the first season. She once said he was considered beefcake in her day.”

Mattie looked from one to the other. “What are you guys talking about?”

“Ancient history,” said Will.

“An old TV show,” she said to Mattie.

“Hey.” Will looked offended. “Watch who you’re calling old.”

“I didn’t say you,” Emma began, but Mattie interrupted, “What’s an old TV show got to do with a wormhole?”

“What’s Star Trek got to do with a wormhole,” Will scoffed as the plane bucked up and down. “Just everything.”

“Jesus,” Scott moaned, holding his head in a credible imitation of Edward Munch’s The Scream. “You guys are nuts.”

“No.” Will said. “Only lightening the mood by sharing a mutual cultural referent. But I sure wouldn’t mind a wormhole right about now. Burke, seriously, is there enough valley between us and Lone Ridge?”

“Oh, yeah.” Burke made a piffling sound. “We got to grab more air, get through a couple saddles and notches. Nothing we can’t handle. Maybe another hour.”

“You said that an hour ago,” Mattie pointed out.

“Yeah, well, the wind’s picked up.” Hunter scowled. “You’re all freaking yourselves out.”

This guy did not, Emma thought, have much in the way of people skills. “Maybe we’ve got a good reason. We’re flying blind in clouds and a snowstorm, and we can’t turn back.”

“We got instruments,” Hunter countered.

“Burke,” Will said in that mild way of his, “you’re not worried about fuel?”

The pilot shook his head. “Like I said, we got plenty. Got ourselves new wing tanks and that belly tank…always keep that in reserve for the approach…and extra in the bladders in back to refuel us in the air if we have to, but it won’t come to that. Even if we had to set down, I got enough survival gear in the cargo locker, we’d be fine.”

“Wait a minute.” Pulling out of his slouch, Scott twisted toward Burke. “What do you mean, if we have to set down?”

“Because of the clouds,” Will said. “They get much lower, even trying for a notch or saddle on instruments won’t necessarily be safe. Landforms aren’t static.”

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