43
“Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Hoodie Little Four is hit. Repeat, I’m hit. Going down.”
Steve’s brain had gone fuzzy. It was late afternoon in an indescribably long day, but the adrenaline of the call snapped him wide awake. The interior of the Firehawk was unchanged. Five more hours of ferrying retardant had done nothing but add more energy-bar wrappers to the trash.
Shaking his head to clear it, he looked at the position of the MD 500 on his feed from Beale and saw the drone was close.
He swung the drone north. North. s**t! All he could think was another surface-to-air missile.
Beale called, “Nature of hit?” Her voice was far steadier than his would have been. Obviously she had the same thought.
“Damn tree!” The pilot cursed. Female. Pissed, not scared. “Fire shot a chunk of tree over
