Prairie Fire (31 page)

GOOD PAYLOAD, DECENT RANGE

The first thing we did, of course, was fight. Or rather, the mentors fought with each other, and with the infantry commander who was theoretically in charge of the whole operation.

“How are we even sure it's a Chinook?” the commander said. “She just saw fire near the mountains and panicked.”

“Siobhan McQuaid does not panic,” Porter said, his voice absolutely steady. I was grateful for his vote of confidence, but to be honest, I was pretty close to panic.

“Chinooks don't come this far,” Amery said.

“They've gone farther,” Porter reminded her. The mood darkened considerably, and I saw Porter and Owen lock eyes. They both seemed to deflate for a moment, and then straighten as they reached some agreed upon purpose. I was jealous. I had worked for a long time to be able to do that with Owen. Porter had only had those few weeks in Hinton. Still, this was hardly the time and place for that. I turned my attention back to my dragon slayer.

“This is going nowhere,” Owen hissed in my ear. “Come on, let's go.”

We hadn't been dismissed, but I didn't think they'd miss us too much. Nick and Kaori, standing behind their own mentors, followed us out of the mess tent. Annie, Aarons, and Davis were waiting outside, obviously eavesdropping, while Courtney stood beside them. She at least pretended to be going over a requisition list. They didn't look remotely abashed when we got close. I didn't blame them.

“What are we going to do?” Nick asked. “We've got some time, I know, but it's headed for Grande Prairie, so they're in big trouble.”

“They should be able to evacuate,” Kaori said.

“To where?” Nick said. “You can't just turn sixty thousand people into the woods at night in the winter. At Fort Calgary, we've got the whole base, and Edmonton and Moose Jaw have emergency tunnels, but Grande Prairie just has regular shelters, and that won't be enough.”

“What if we shot it?” Courtney's face was white in the dark, and her voice scraped out as she said the words, like it was the hardest thing she'd ever said.

“With arrows?” Nick was nearly hysterical now. “I'm good, but there's no arrow in the whole world—”

“With an SAM,” Courtney said. The words tripped out now, like she was afraid that if she stopped talking, the words would stop coming. “Surface-to-air missile.”

We were all shocked into silence. Three dragon slayers, raised from the cradle to cringe from the very idea, a firefighter who could see better than anyone the damage in her mind, a medic who could smell burning flesh and imagine leukemia for generations, and one bard who knew all the stories. Only Aarons, the smith, looked less than stunned.

I shook my head. That was the one thing we couldn't do. I could see the map in my mind, clear as if it were in front of me. We were too close to where the Wapiti River joined the Smoky. If we shot the Chinook here, we could contaminate the entire northern Alberta water table, and that was before you considered the part where we would set a large area on fire.

“I think she's right,” Owen said after a very long moment. He had locked eyes with Courtney, which was not normal. Usually he and I made decisions together.

“Owen, are you insane?” I asked.

“No,” he said. He still didn't look at me, though. Maybe it was the light, and I just couldn't follow his eyes. “They'll have time to barricade the Peace River, and most of the Smoky will be upstream of the damage. Even if it gets as far as the Lesser Slave, they should be able to contain it.”

Apparently I wasn't the only one who had been studying the map.

“What about the forest?” Kaori said. “Not to mention the oil and gas in the ground here. It is the livelihood for the region, and it will not grow back in a hurry.”

“At least they'll be alive,” Nick said. “I think they'd rather be alive.”

“Fine,” I said. I could feel the instruments assembling—rustling sheet music, settling in, looking to the conductor for direction. Except I didn't know who the conductor was, so I didn't know where to look. “Where are we going to get a surface-to-air missile?”

“We'll take it from the stores,” Courtney said.

“We have that with us?” Now I was feeling hysterical too.

“The Patricias travel like they're in a combat zone,” Courtney reminded me. “Artillery included.”

I tried, but there were too many pieces in play for me to deal with, too many parts and me behind on my own sheet music. I couldn't see everything. I couldn't see enough. Courtney was the planner. If she knew where something was and how to use it, I would just have to trust her.

“Fine,” I said. “Are you just going to steal it?”

“Pretty much,” she said.

“I'll come with you,” Owen said.

“No, just me,” Courtney said. “They won't court-martial me if they catch me poking around in the stores.”

“You're as much in the army as I am,” Owen pointed out.

“Yeah, but I know my dad pretty well, having spent most of my teenage years trying to provoke him,” Courtney said. “The only thing he holds in higher regard than the dragon slayers of the Oil Watch is the dragon slayers in his own family, and he would never, ever let my court-martial cast any dirt on our image. If I get caught and I can't talk my way out of it, he will.”

“At least let me go with you.” Owen finally looked at me, but only briefly. “Once you give it to me, I can just disappear into the brush and no one will be able to stop me.”

Courtney looked at him for a beat too long, and then at me. I was thinking about fire, and horns, and didn't see what I should have seen.

“Fine,” she said. “Let's go.”

They disappeared into the dark, and we stood around, breathing steam and trying not to think about the inferno that was about to settle down on our heads.

Porter stuck his head out of the tent and saw us.

“Where's Owen?” he asked.

“Busy,” I said. It was not my best lie. Mostly because it was the truth.

“When he gets back, tell him I want to see him,” Porter said. “We have to arrange the camp for low emissions to avoid catching the Chinook's attention. It'll be a cold night.”

“I will, sir,” I said.

“I'm sending down to Calgary for some of that chemical the Japanese have been working on. It's still experimental, but we're about to have a perfect testing ground, I'm afraid.” His eyes narrowed. “Where's Courtney?” he asked, his voice much quieter.

“Also busy,” Nick said. He was a terrible liar, so it was fortunate that he was telling the truth too.

Porter's face hardened and then softened in an instant.

“Stick together,” he said to me. “No matter what.”

Then he was gone. Annie and Aarons went to marshal the rest of our squads and pack up in case we needed to move in a hurry. After a moment, Davis followed them.

“Stick together when, exactly?” I said, to no one in particular. “Does he mean huddle together for warmth?”

Neither Nick nor Kaori had an answer, and we shuffled our feet in the snow for what seemed like hours until Courtney came back.

“It's done,” she said. “We got a Stinger. Good payload, decent range. Can be put on an ATV for transport. It was the biggest MANPADS we could manage.”

Basic Training was a while ago, so it took me some time to remember exactly how the Stinger worked. One person. Unguided range. And Courtney had come back by herself.

“Where is Owen?” I rounded on her.

“He's gone,” she said.

“He's gone where?” Nick asked.

“I'm not telling you which way he went. You'll never catch him anyway.”

Then Nick's eyes widened, white showing in the dark. “He can't. He can't.”

“He's going to,” Courtney said. “We have to get ready for the fires. Get the others. Get everyone.”

“Courtney,” I said, my voice flat as my mind raced. “It's a close-range weapon.”

“I know,” she said. Her hands were still. Her hands were never still.

“You know,” I parroted. I wanted to fly at her, to rip off my gloves and sink my fingernails into her face. But I couldn't feel anything.

“Siobhan, we have to move,” she said. “There is going to be a fire.”

I couldn't drive the ATVs, because my hands weren't deft enough to squeeze the throttle or the brakes. I don't think I could have driven anyway. My mind was too busy sorting parts, trying to stall until the ending was ready. So many things I could do now. And so many things I couldn't. Technically, ATVs are one-person vehicles, but I rode behind Nick anyway. We tied my hands around his waist, which was also dangerous, particularly in the dark. At least we would be on a cut line, and it was one we had just cleared, so we knew that it was straight and relatively free of surprises. Nick drove as cautiously as he could in the darkness, but we were still jarred and shaken when we got to the coordinates Courtney had selected.

The stars were all obliterated now, and an orange glow surrounded us. We could only guess how much fire the Chinook had laid down as it came out of the mountains. Usually, they liked to hold off until they got to their targets, and then they breathed fire until they had no fire left to breathe. No one could guess the range, though. The Chinook that Porter had slayed in Kansas had held off burning until it got there, and no other Chinook on record had traveled that far.

Courtney was on her radio when Nick and I arrived, the last to do so because he'd been going slowly. And I listened while she told Porter what we were doing. What Owen was about to do. I waited until she was done, until Porter had told her to be careful, and meant something entirely different, before I went over to her.

“Does he have a radio?” I asked.

“Yes,” Courtney said. “But he's on the other side of that,” she waved at the forest. “I don't know if he'll hear you.”

“Give it to me,” I said.

I took off my gloves so I could press the buttons properly. The cold bit at my fingers.

“Owen?” I said. “Owen, can you hear me?”

I tried a few more times, but there was only static.

“We don't have much time,” Nick said, looking up. “It'll be on top of us soon.”

“How do we know it'll go for him?” Kaori asked, as delicately as possible. Her eyes shone, and I knew it wasn't just reflected light.

“He took some extra munitions,” Courtney said, watching me carefully. “And there's an active oil rig. He's going to light it on fire.”

“Courtney,” I said. “You don't just walk away from—”

And then the look they'd shared before they stole the SAM fell into the harmony, and the song made awful, awful sense.

Trees produce oxygen as part of their life cycle, and I was in a forest. I tried to breathe in, to move to the next measure, but I couldn't do it. I tried and tried, but the air was gone, and I was stuck until Nick walloped me in the stomach and instinct took over.

“Nick,” I said, after I finished gasping. “I need you to help me climb a tree.”

Nick nodded and took the floodlight to see which tree would be the best. The one he selected was not the tallest, but it had the widest branches at the bottom, and it was one that even I could climb. At last we were as high up as we could safely go, the cold wind pulling at our coats and the heavy scent of dragon smoke all around us.

“Try now,” Nick said. He pressed me against the trunk as the tree shifted in the wind. “Don't worry about falling,” he said, his hands solidly on either side of me, holding on for both of us. “I've got you.”

I let go of the trunk and fished the radio out of my pocket.

“Owen!” I yelled. “Owen Thorskard, you answer me!”

There was a crackle, and then his voice.

“Siobhan!” he said. “I'm sorry. Don't be angry with Courtney. It was my idea.”

“I'll be mad at whoever I want,” I said into the radio. Nick buried his face in my shoulder, and I wondered if he was crying, like Kaori was.

“Okay,” he said. “Be mad. But don't be so mad that you forget the story.”

“Fuck the story. We're supposed to go home together. We're supposed to live in Trondheim, and you're supposed to have adorable baby dragon slayers with Sadie.”

He laughed at me, then, but it was hard to tell because there was a roar above us as the Chinook drew close. It was hard to see in the dark and through the tree branches, but its presence was unmistakable. In the distance, we saw the orange flare of an explosion, and I knew that Owen had lit the rig. I screamed, not bothering to muffle the sound, and above us, the dragon keened and turned, wings splitting the air. As it headed towards the new source of carbon dioxide that Owen had so thoughtfully provided, I had a flash of memory—a classroom and an imaginary canal and a girl who could casually change the course of history because it was over, and the fire couldn't really hurt anyone. This one could.

“Siobhan?” It was Owen, through the radio. He sounded so calm.

“Don't,” I begged. “Run.”

“Siobhan,” he said again.

“Stop it,” I yelled. I wanted to reach through the radio and grab him. “Please, you can still run.”

“Siobhan, I need you to tell Aunt Hannah—” he started.

“SHUT UP!” I screamed again. It must have hurt Nick's ears, he was so close, but he didn't let me go.

“Tell her that I'm sorry.”

“Owen.”

“Tell her that I love her.”

“Owen.”

“Tell her—” He laughed. “I don't know. Tell her a lie.”

We could hardly see, except for when the Chinook passed between us and the fire. Then, there was blackness, but all other times, there was just orange. He must have waited until the very last moment, until he couldn't possibly miss. Chinooks don't have many weak spots. He was only going to get one shot.