Ghosts of Koa, The First Book of Ezekiel (70 page)

Zeika shook with rage, thinking of General Cua in the war room,
knowing
that he had planned on very few of them making it back.

I have to get the Page and make it back.
She focused her eyes forward and gripped the handles on her seat, determination setting in.
I
have
to...
 

If not to save her family, if not to honor her comrades' sacrifice, then
definitely
to make Cua pay.
 

Forcing a now watery gaze past the bursts of red and black, past the static screams that peppered the air around them, Zeika gripped the pull handles for dear life, homing in on the air fortress.

"We'll be there in two minutes, but we've got a cloud of bogies up ahead," her pilot announced. "Help me out here, Middle Man."

She lowered her chin and focused as far out as she could go, straining to navigate her powers around her allies. The jets in front of them rippled, sheets of metal lifting up into the wind as they turned to canvas. The pilot navigated around the charring steel, bullets, and floating sailcloth, closing in on the airship from above. Zeika kept reaching out with her power, hitting as many Alchemist jets as she could, but there were so many of them, she couldn't possibly hit them all--

Focus, Z!

She kept reaching and hitting, even as dozens of enemy targets came up on her mental radar. She tensed and leaned forward, ignoring the flopping of her stomach against her abs as her pilot homed in on the drop off point.

"Eject in T-minus five, four-- ACK!"

His countdown was cut down as bullets slammed through his windshield from the right, spattering his head into mush. Zeika screamed as the glider lurched out of control, but her body sprang into action, and she pulled the ejection handles, throwing herself sideways out of the glider, the airship only thirty feet below her. Her downed glider spiraled away, breaking apart in the wind.

Visions of death crowded her mind, but as her ejection seat flew through the sky, all her instincts kicked in, cutting across her fear. She had to make it onto the airship.
 

She pushed her chair away and deployed her parachute. As she floated down to the airship, Koan fighters pulled up around her, providing cover and the few precious seconds she'd need. The crests of missiles whistled through the air, and the pilots did all they could to draw off the Alchemist jets and take them down.

Zeika put a shield around her and the chute to kill any wayward metal, and she forced her eyes from the pilots trying to protect her. She looked down, ready to turn any part of the airship into cloth so she could drop in.
 

In the distance a fighter jet exploded beneath the hammering of bullets, and a blowback wind, sudden and gusty, howled against her body, forcing her sideways, slightly off course of the airship.
 

She was still dropping, but she was going to short it.

Shit!

Forcing herself to ignore the airship rushing up to meet her, Zeika tensed her muscles, changing her clothes into pure bronze. She could hear the parachute slap closed beneath the pull, rippling in the air behind her as she fell. Thirty seconds to impact. The metal's density fought against the push of the wind, and she began to fall straighter. Twenty seconds. She reached out with her powers. Only certain plates of the ship fell away while others stayed as they were-- and she saw that by some miracle, she had pulled the door off a hatch, a loading dock with a protruding walkway. Ten seconds!

In full free fall, she reached, ready to de-metallize and grab the lip of the hatch at the right moment--

Come on, come on--

She changed her clothes back, and her arms were nearly wrenched out of their sockets as the lip of the hatch came into her grasp. She swung herself up onto the hatch platform and rolled onto her back, her heart slamming against her ribs. She made it.

To the Six Wisewomen (and Wiseman) in my life:
Mom, Lael, Tonia, Marjorie, Gina, Regine, and Q... thanks for understanding when I fell down my rabbit hole of wonder, and er-- left my cellphone topside. Love you!

Props to my AMAZING team:
Michael J. Carr, Nathan Crandall, Eric Quigley, and JD Smith, who whipped me and "Ghosts of Koa" into beautiful shape! Hugs to you!

And to Jeff Schmitz, my cheerleader in baggy pants!