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The tailwind gusted and the na gust from the appropriate thruster kept the craft on track, and sitting on the straight, unbroken line of the prairie horizon a tiny black dot flicked at the corner of Croggon Hainey’s vision

He stood up straight, too quickly He rapped his bald, dark head on the underside of the cabin’s too-short roof and swore, then pointed "Men," he said He never called theround over there You see it? That what I think it is?"

Sih the goggles and said, "It’s a ship It’s grounded"

"I can see it’s a ship What I can’t see is if it’s lass," he deht the instrument forward, and stayed to stand by the

Hainey extended the telescoping tube and held it up to his right eye From habit, he rested his thumb on the scar that bisected that side of his face from the corner of his mouth to his ear He closed his left eye He scanned and aimed, and pointed the scope at the distant dot, and he declared in his low, loud, ru voice, "There she is"

La "You sure?"

"Of course I’m sure"

"How far out?" Simeon asked He adjusted his position so that he could reach the i hie of speed that Hainey was

"Couple of uessed "And open sky, no weather to account for" He snapped the scope back to its smaller size and jammed it into his front breast pocket

La "They’ve beenso slow No wonder they had to set down out here"

Siles and set theainst the rolled stacks of his roughly braided hair "They’ve never gotten any speed beneath the his words into an accusation

Hainey knew, and it worried hiround The Free Crohich Brink had renaible and she was capable of tre as if she were crippled and it ed, or she was so heavily laden that she could barelyaltitude

Her true and proper captain hoped for the latter, but he knew that her theft had been a violent event, and he didn’t have the faintest clue what she carried It was difficult not to fear the worst

Only a significant head start had prevented Hainey froed herself across the sky, li, and now she was stopped within a proverbial spitting distance

"Simeon," he said, and he didn’t need to finish

The Ja the fuel release valves and flipping the switches to power up the boosters "Fifteen seconds to fire," he said,to secure themselves before the jolt of the steaible forward

Laainst the wall, within easy reach of the engine room Hainey sat back down in the captain’s seat and pulled his harness tight across his chest; Siht one of the hand-rolled cigarettes he kept in a tin that was bolted onto the ship’s console

At the end of the prescribed tiainst the hydrogen tank that held it aloft and leaping in a back-and-forth ines found their rhythm, and the craft moved smoothly, and swiftly Hainey didn’t ive it credit--it was fast, and it was light enough to soar when necessary

"What are we…" Lamar said froain "What e do e catch theiven itto kill the sons of bitches and take our ship back" But it would be more complicated than that, and he didn’t really knohat he’d find when the ships and their crews had a chance to collide

He’d been weighing the pros, cons, and possibilities since leaving Seattle

The Free Croas heavily reinforced, but heavily powered to coernaut of athe bird over a thousand miles, he’d learned that Brink’s crew did not yet knohat the Free Croas capable of The ship was barely flying without knocking intodown trees