“How’re we doing back there?” Chase asked.
“No idea,” Jamie answered truthfully. “What’s the ETA to base?”
“We’re cruising at one-five-zero knots,” Ryder replied. “With this headwind, I’d say twenty-five minutes to touchdown.”
“Better if you could do it in twenty or less,” Jamie said, his expression grim as he worked on getting a collar around Jay’s neck.
“Don’t…” Rebecca rasped. “Don’t let him die.” The effort to speak too much for her oxygen-deprived brain to sustain, she fell unconscious, her body listing to the side.
“She’s out,” Zander said. “Breathing shallow but steady.”
“Increasing speed to one-seven-zero knots,” Ryder interjected. “CO Mac, I’m going to hand over control now.”
“Roger that, I’m ready.”
“You have control.”
“I have control. Currently at fifteen hundred feet. Two-nine-zero degrees. Airspeed, one-seven-zero knots.”
“Copy that. Maintain altitude and heading,” Ryder said, sounding a little breathless herself. “Barring any issues, ETA to base is nineteen minutes.”
“There better not be any more fucking issues,” Cody grumbled, sounding like a petulant child, but fuck, he really couldn’t take much more.
“Uh, Doc?” she said, her tone on the cautious side of not wanting to piss anyone off.
“Yeah?”
“I have a bit of lead irritating the hell out of my ribs. So when you get a free minute, I’d really appreciate it if you could?—”
“You what!” he barked, his head snapping up, his eyes landing on Cody’s. His shock visible on his face.
“I have a bullet between my?—”
“I heard that part,” he snapped. “How deep?”
“Deep enough since I’m about to join Rebecca for a nap,” she announced like she was going to a sleepover at her best friend’s place. “Don’t wake me up until you dig the bullet out, though, okay? I’m not a fan of seeing my own blood.”
“What the fuck?” Chase growled as Jamie got back to work on stabilizing Jay’s grotesquely dislocated shoulder.
“Easy, Mac. You’re gonna pop a brain in your vein.”
“What the?—”
“Crap…I meant to say a vein in your brain. Would’ve been so much cooler to get it right the first time,” she slurred, her breaths getting more labored with every word. “And before I forget…” She inhaled a quick round of oxygen. “Be on the lookout for a cat.”
“A cat?” Cody repeated, looking around the deck debris like some kind of alien stowaway furball would magically appear.
“Yeah. Tiny. Gray. Crazy eyes.” She took a shallow breath. “Likes to cuddle. You know the type.”
“Stop talking and conserve your strength,” Chase ordered. “Doc, you have to deal with her before she bleeds out all over the seat of my new toy.”
“Well, that’s…” She took another shallow breath. “Bitchy.”
“Z, get up there and check her out.” Shaking his head, Jamie continued wrapping Jay in heat-reflecting Mylar until he resembled a tinfoil mummy.
“Uh, Doc…” His broad shoulders jammed between the two pilots; Zander didn’t offer any false reassurances. “She’s lost a lot of blood. Should I try to get her vest off?”
“No. Apply pressure if you can. If not, leave it.” Finished doing what he could for his first patient, Jamie dug into his medical bag and pulled out a pair of clean surgical gloves, along with a wad of gauze.
