Firestorm Page 0,102

sweating."

He was off the air about ten seconds when the first shudder came, as the plane began to tilt forward, nose down.

Oh, crap.

We were in for it now.

The shuddering turned into a steady shaking, as if some giant hand had closed around the plane's fragile skin. I swallowed hard and clutched the armrests as outside the pale blue sky went mist gray, and then started a hellish descent toward black. The clouds looked thick enough to walk on. Thick enough to trap us, like spider-webs around a fly. Lightning flashed close, illuminating the interior with a wash of blue-white flame, and in its flare I saw Yves calmly reading his Mother Earth News, legs crossed. I couldn't see anyone else, but I doubted they were all so fatalistic about it. Surely some of them must have been as terrified as I was...

We shuddered and dropped. Free fall. Ten feet or more, and it seemed to take forever. We hit an updraft with a bang and fishtailed, or tried to; I sensed the pilots correcting up front, adjusting the engines. Keeping us intact.

We dropped again, farther this time, and I felt the plane twisting to the left--and then something hit us from the right side, and we rolled.

Screams. Yves dropped his magazine and grabbed for his armrests as everything went sideways; my empty soda can clattered against the cabin wall in a chittering panic, and I heard a crash from below as bags shifted. The roar of the engines shifted, and then the speakers activated again. Copilot Klees made an authentic western-style yee-haw. "Well, you people are so lucky," he said, as if flying sideways, staring down at the ground from the side window, was an everyday occurrence. "You're about to experience the joy of flight all those U.S. Air Force ads talk about. Hope you're all observing the seat belt sign. Three--two--one--"

The plane rolled left. Rolled completely over so that we were hanging upside down, and I had a brief surreal glimpse of my long black hair shuddering in midair like a beaded curtain, and then the world was rolling again, and we came upright again. Steady as a rock once we'd achieved level status.

Maybe people screamed. I don't know--I'm pretty sure I did. I looked over at Yves as I clawed my disordered hair out of my eyes, and his legendary calm was shaken enough for him to cross himself and begin murmuring something I recognized as an Our Father.

We were still descending.

"Hope you enjoyed that," Klees said. He still sounded absolutely cheerful and unperturbed, as if he did this daily, with two shows in the afternoon. "If anyone feels the urge to purge, please, avail yourself of the bags. My contract does require me to do cabin cleaning, as well."

A shaky laugh from someone up front with more intestinal fortitude than me. I was seriously contemplating the aforementioned bag, which looked sturdy and inviting, but I hadn't eaten or drunk enough to need to resort to it. A few grim, sweaty moments, and I was okay.

I grabbed leather as the plane did another unsettling shimmy combined with a bucking motion. Outside the windows, black clouds pressed as close as night. I rested my aching head against the pillowy seat and thought that maybe I ought to try the aetheric again, but I was no longer certain it was a good idea.

Yves took my hand. The warm anchoring of his skin helped keep me from visions of the plane corkscrewing down into the earth and exploding.

I closed my eyes as the plane shuddered and rocked, heeling from one side to the other, slipping violently sideways as if trying to avoid something I couldn't see or sense. My weather senses were overloaded. I was useless up here, with so much happening and focused right on us. If I'd been on the ground, it would have been different, but I felt so helpless up here, so out of control...

The plane leveled out in a sudden lurch, as if it had suddenly hit a patch of glass-smooth air. No turbulence, not even the slightest bounce. I opened my eyes, blinked at Yves, and he raised his eyebrows and gave a Gallic shrug.

"Bathroom," I said, and unfastened my seat belt, climbed over his knees and hustled for the tiny, cramped stall. It was unoccupied, thank God, and I lunged inside, clicked the latch shut, and leaned over to splash cold water on my face. The urge to vomit was passing. I dampened a