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Connie couldn’t remember the last hour of the flight. She knew that forevermore it would be a hazy time of high adrenaline and near panic. As they’d moved through Ukraine wilderness, she slowly picked up more and more of the flying. Not good enough to do it on her own, but she was doing the heavy motions and Major Beale the finer tweaks.
It felt like a maddening video game. At best-fuel cruise speed of one hundred and fifty knots, trees, houses, whole hills popped up in endless, mind-numbing succession. An unending slalom, every object requiring instant attention because at less than a hundred feet up, they were constantly less than a second from becoming a hole in the ground.
One thing for sure, Connie knew she hadn’t been built to be a combat pilot. Ever.
She’d tried speaking t
