Thin Lines (The Child Thief #3)(108)

“Might not be able to see them, either,” Abe huffed, striding along next to me. “Depending on what sort of camouflage tech they’re running.”

Oh, God. I hadn’t even thought of that. The idea that they might be able to stay completely invisible terrified me even more, and my pace doubled.

When we reached the airship, we started pulling the branches and grass from around it, brushing it off and trying to figure out whether it was still in one piece or not.

“Seems whole on this side!” Ant called from the other side of the ship. He’d put Jackie gently on the ground at the nose of the aircraft, her back propped up against a tree, and had sped to the other side with his brother, leaving Nelson, Kory, and me to clear this side, brushing our hands madly over the metal wall as we looked for holes or problems.

I didn’t see anything wrong with the ship on this side, either. It was still whole, and it didn’t look like the Authority agents had ripped off the wings or filled the sides with bullets. It looked airworthy. We were going to have a time maneuvering it out of the forest, but we also had Nelson, who was a more than capable pilot.

“Robin, get inside and make sure the thing still turns on,” she muttered. “We don’t have time to gas it up if it’s not going to work.”

I frowned. “Wait. If it’s out of gas, will it even turn on?”

She exhaled. “Yes. Just try it.”

She then turned and darted forward toward the nose, where I saw her throw open the door that led to the engine. She grabbed at the bag of tools we’d always kept right inside the door and jammed her hand into it, already reaching forward into the engine’s compartment.

I nodded, praying that she didn’t find anything amiss in there, and jumped for the handle on the side of the cockpit. I’d never flown the thing by myself, but Nelson had forced me to take lessons when I first joined her crew, and I at least knew how to turn it on. I climbed into the pilot’s seat and stared around me at the range of dials and screens on the ship’s dashboard.

“Thank the stars I’ve never had to fly this,” I said, knowing that I’d immediately be overwhelmed.

That said, turning it on was easy. I reached out and jammed my finger into the bright green ignition button, and the engine… coughed slightly.

Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no. Not now.

I jammed my finger onto the button again, holding it for a second this time, and the engine coughed again.

“You have to hold the button down longer, girl!” Nelson shouted from outside.

I nearly slapped my palm to my forehead. Of course I did! I knew that, but was forgetting in my stress over the situation.

I shoved my finger firmly up against the button again and kept it there, holding my breath, until the engine finally turned over and roared to life. I took a moment to grin at that, and then hit the button again.

I was guessing it was probably a bad idea to have the engine on while they were refueling. Definitely a bad idea to have it on while Nelson was inside that compartment, even though it had been her idea.

I jumped out of the cockpit and ran toward the rear of the ship, where I knew the cap for the fuel tank was, in case Jace and Henry needed help.

When I got there, though, I found that they’d already fit the hose to the tank. Henry was using some sort of handheld pump to urge the gas from one place to another, since we couldn’t count on gravity, and Jace was standing to the side of him, bouncing with the need to be out of here.

“How many gallons have you pumped?” he asked.

Henry glanced at the pump in his hand. “About fifty,” he huffed, breathless from the effort required to make the handheld device work.

“Nelson, is fifty gallons enough to take us for a few hours?” Jace shouted.

“Not quite!” Nelson answered from the other side of the ship. “I’d be happier with seventy-five!”

“Got that?” Jace asked, whirling back to Henry.

“Got it. We’re almost there. Just a second more, and…”

The sound of blades slicing the air made our heads snap up to the sky. Three choppers, I saw, scanning the air rapidly. Three full-sized military choppers, each a shiny, malevolent black, as if to match the drone. Their engines roared out over the quiet forest, and my heart shrank into a tiny, painful ball in my chest.

“Guess they didn’t even bother with the silencing tech,” Abe shouted, skidding up from the other side of the ship. “What do we do, guys? I’m guessing they’ve got guns on those things, and I don’t want to find out what their range is!”

Henry yanked the hose out of the airship, no longer bothering to count how much fuel he’d put in, and dropped it. Jace quickly put the cap back on the opening in the side of the ship.

“Everyone on the ship!” he yelled. “Those choppers are about one thousand feet away, and they’re coming in quick!” He spared a glance for Nelson, who had appeared, her face covered in smears of grease. “Nelson, the engine all good?”

“As good as it’s going to get,” she shot back. “We’re ready to go.”

He nodded. “I’m guessing you’re our captain. Get into the cockpit and get us in the air.”

He turned and darted after Henry, and I watched for only long enough to see them bend their heads together and start gesticulating madly over something, then whirled around to see Nelson, Abe, and Kory leaping into the ship. Ant was heading for the front of the aircraft to pick up Jackie, and I dashed after him, knowing that he would be the one in most need of help.