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This time, the six of them were all crammed inside the Firehawk cargo bay, the big loading doors closed to keep out the increasing number of crew numbers at the Cornelius Skyport.
Carly knelt beside Steve’s control seat. Henderson, Beale, and Jeannie all crowded close, watching the monitors. Kee Stevenson was again in the background, sitting on her pack.
TJ and Chutes had shifted operations over from Hillsboro. Betsy had dragged in a kitchen on a trailer and served them a fiery chili with a hard enough slap of heat to keep them conscious. Smokie and hotshot crews had started rotating out to sleep like the dead for six or eight hours before plunging back in, their first break in days.
Carly had helped Steve get the new gray-box bird aloft, and now its feed ran on his monitors in the
