'We're going down! Hold on!'
With a last second jerk on the stick, Nina turned a crash into a hard landing. They settled to a stop a few yards from the remains of the Redcoats' Kidder Street checkpoint.
The two exited the cockpit, drew side arms, and inspected the damage.
'She’ll fly again,' Nina predicted as she ran her hand over the skin of the craft. 'We just need to find some spare parts.'
Trevor changed the subject: 'Good job up there.'
Nina smiled. 'Yeah. You, too.'
They stared at one another for three long seconds, then nervously looked away.
Trevor and Nina walked Kidder Street to the parking lot that had once been the Redcoats’ camp. Four of the alien airships, four big pieces of artillery, two tanker vehicles of a kind, and two mobile anti-aircraft guns sat in that parking lot.
Omar shuffled between the guns and planes like an excited child on Christmas morning.
Trevor and Nina approached Jon and Lori.
Nina spoke first: 'We kinda trashed the Apache and there's a squad of Redcoats still roaming the boulevard.'
Jon Brewer said, 'Don’t worry about them. If something doesn't eat them by this afternoon, they'll be on the run out of the valley.'
Trevor gave Jon a solid handshake.
'Well done… General. What’s our status?'
'Stonewall and Bear have headed for the estate; they need to rest and refit before they can do anything more. Some other volunteers drove in a while ago and are helping search for enemy stragglers. Personally, I'm exhausted and it's damned cold out here. But you want to know something? I feel like I could do this all day.'
'Adrenaline,' Lori said. 'Winning something like this, the way the odds were stacked against us, it's like a drug, I suppose.'
A message came over the radio from Tolbert.
'Yo, boss,' he meant Brewer. 'We found a couple of them holdin’ up in a corner bar. Could use some extra guns.'
Jon told Trevor: 'Tolbert’s got a team searching over there,' and he pointed to a residential neighborhood below the ridge and to the north before transmitting to Tolbert: 'We can’t have them drinking our booze, now can we?'
Jon slung his rifle, took a step in that direction, then turned to Nina. 'Hey, you wanna help me out on this or is infantry work too good for the fly girl?'
She shrugged and followed him, rifle in hand.
Trevor stood with Lori Brewer and watched Nina and Jon walk across the parking lot, climb over the guardrail, and disappear down the grassy slope.
'Hey,' Lori put an arm on his shoulder. 'How is it you knew this would work? How is it that we’re alive when we were outnumbered and outgunned?'
'How did you know when you came up that ridge that you would wipe out this base and survive to tell the tale?'
Lori answered, 'I didn't know. Honestly, I was sure we were going to die.'
'Yet you did it anyway?'
'Sure,' she said and tried to smile. 'It didn't seem like I had any other choice other than letting my husband get killed by himself.'
'Well there you go. It isn't that I knew it would work, it's that we didn't have any other choice.'
Tolbert's voice-from the radio-interrupted their conversation: 'They're taking pot shots at us. Where’s our support?'
Jon’s voice: 'We’re coming. Over your right shoulder, cutting through the yard.'
Tolbert: '’Bout time.'
Trevor told Lori, 'Your husband…he did a hell of a job.'
'Don’t tell him that; he’ll be impossible to live with.'
Bang.
An explosion blasted from the neighborhood to the north. Trevor flinched, then saw a puff of smoke drifting from the far side of a house.
His heart stopped as a message broadcast over the radio: 'Nina is down! Nina is down!'
Trevor instantly stepped toward the slope but caught himself. In the distance, the smoke rose and dissipated.
Lori growled, 'What are you waiting for? Get your ass down there, Trevor. Run…'
Trevor, confusion and fear all over his face, glanced at Lori then moved toward the grassy slope. His walk grew into a jog.
'Run! Go! Now!'
His jog became a trot became a sprint. Trevor bound down the hill nearly falling as he pushed through dead stalks of grass. He stumbled over the railroad tracks and raced across a small street then hopped a decaying old metal fence into a backyard where he stopped at the base of a rear porch.
In front of him, a block away, he saw the bar full of barricaded Redcoats. Jon, Tolbert and others fired into that bar neutralizing the threat. He did not see Nina.
Where is she?
His eyes searched desperately; his mouth gaped…
…Nina stood in the shadows of the porch holding an ice pack on a minor bump to her head. A stray Redcoat burst had hit a propane tank on a gas grille. The explosion merely knocked her to the ground. Jon left her behind with an instant-cold pack from his first aid kit.
Trevor did not see her, but she saw him; she saw him come running around the house searching for her. She saw the look of desperation in his eyes. Nina saw his feelings, forced to the surface by fear. She took a step forward. The boards creaked and grabbed his attention.
He saw her standing with the pack to her head. She did not need it, though. She tossed it aside at the same time that his look of desperation turned into a massive smile of relief.
Then he caught himself. The smile vanished. For a moment, it appeared he would walk away; retreat.
No. No more retreating.
Instead, he walked in big, deliberate-almost angry-strides to the porch. He climbed the stairs. Nina backed into the corner. Her heart raced; she trembled.
Trevor grabbed her shoulders and locked onto her eyes.
'Now you listen to me!' He shouted. 'I don’t want to be alone anymore! I don’t want to be afraid anymore!'
She breathed a sigh and a sob all in one exhale as he continued, 'I can’t spend every night thinking about you then every day running away from you!'
She shook; her eyes watered.
'Tell me to go away and I’ll go. But you have to tell me that because I’m done hiding from you!' He paused for only a split second then implored, 'Say something! Say anything!'
The words flooded out: 'What do you want me to say? I’m afraid, damn it, I’m scared!'
'We’re all scared!'
Their words mixed.
'I’ve never been like this before…I’m confused…and I keep wondering…I don’t want to be just a killer…'
He pushed, 'Tell me something Nina! Tell me to leave but tell me something!'
'…and I betrayed you…and they made me hate you… but I think I love you!'
The words slipped out; no conscious thought directed them.
Everything stopped. All the mixed words. All the confusing emotions. Time halted.
Nina Forest filled with fear. She had never felt vulnerable before and now she stood there with her heart wide open. He could have shattered her with a word. He could have killed her if he walked away.
Trevor moved his arms from her shoulders to her back and gently pulled her in close; her face buried in his
