She took a final look around the destroyed cockpit. There was nothing there that would be of any use to them. Rummaging around she managed to find what appeared to be a cell phone of some sort, but before she could inspect it, she heard Cat call for her.

Going back to the cabin, she paused when another sharp pain shot through her knee. “What?”

“Do you smell smoke?”

Dylan lifted her nose and sniffed. “Shit. We need to get out of here.”

“How? Dylan, it?s storming, we have no idea where we are. Horace is?” Cat stopped, feeling as if she was going to panic and knowing now was not the time.

The tall woman moved to the blonde and cupped her chin in the palm of her hand. “We?re going to be all right. I promise.”

Cat only nodded. She looked up when she felt Dylan run her fingers over a hastily applied band-aid. “I?m okay, just a little dizzy. But it?s passing,” she said, hastening to reassure Dylan.

“Can you help me?” Dylan asked after a moment of careful scrutiny.

“Sure. What should we do first?”

“First we need to see if we can force the door open and try to find shelter away from the plane. I?m not sure it?s safe here.”

Cat stood up slowly, feeling truly like she wanted to just die and get it over with. “First mom, now this.”

“Easy, sweetheart,” she said absently, turning away before noticing Cat?s shocked smile at the endearment. “We?re going to be okay.” She handed her the device she had found in the cockpit. “Check this out and see if it?ll do us any good. I?m gonna check on Horace.”

“?Kay.” Cat watched Dylan limp away, then she opened the phone.

Dylan looked down at Norton who was tending to Horace, trying to keep him warm and comfortable. Even as a doctor, there was little she could do, and no equipment to do it with.

“The pilot is dead.” Dylan said softly.

“Damn,” the doctor sighed. “I?m not sure Horace is going to make it either.”

“Now for more bad news,” Dylan glanced at the blonde ?assistant? who had come through it with nary a scratch, and who was currently curled up against a wall, trying and failing not to cry. “I?m afraid the plane isn?t safe. Cat and I can smell a faint hint of smoke.”

“I can smell it too, although that could just be residual from the crash.”

“True, but I?d rather not risk it. Cat and I are going to try and get us out of here. Will you be all right until we get back?”

“Do I really have a choice?”

“Guess not.” Dylan sighed. “We?ll be back as soon as we can.”

Returning to the front part of the cabin, Dylan watched as Cat worked with the phone. “Please tell me you have good news.”

“Sort of. It?s a Satphone. Bad news the storm is interfering with the signal.”

“Terrific.”

“It?s not all black. The phone has a GPS, and I think I have it set to broadcast an SOS.”

“How did you figure that out?” Dylan was clearly impressed.

“My oldest brother is an absolute technology geek. He knows all about this stuff and there were always magazines lying around the house. Now I?m not sure the signal is getting out either, but once the storm clears we should be able to use the phone and figure out where we are.”

“That?s the best news I?ve had all night.” She winced and rubbed her knee.

“Sit down.” Cat ordered and moved to help her. “How bad is it?”

“It?s okay, just a little twisted.”

“No bullshit, Dylan. I?m not in the mood.”

The coach nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I hurt it.”

“Shit.” Cat began to look around the cabin for something she could use to stabilize the knee.

“Look in my bag,” Norton half yelled. “I?ve got a few splints in there. It?s the orange one.”

Cat dug in the requisite bag and came out with a long knee brace that had Velcro straps to hold it together. “This one?”

“Yeah, that?ll work. Strap it on tight or it?ll just make things work.”

Going back to Dylan she knelt down and wrapped the knee, placing the bandage over the tan pants that seemed to have a bit of blood splatter on them. “Are you hurt some place else you?re not telling me about?”

“No. I think that?s your blood.”

“Sorry.”

“Don?t worry about it.” She jumped a bit when Cat tightened the splint.

“Too tight?”

“No it?s just right, thanks.”

Cat sat back on the floor and wiped her eyes. It was all she could do to keep from crying. “Damn.” She looked up, “Are you sure we?re going to be okay?”

“I promised didn?t I?”

“Yeah.”

Dylan grasped Cat?s hand and smiled. “C?mon,” she said, hauling herself back to her feet. “Let?s get the hell outta here.”

After about ten minutes of pushing and banging on the crumpled cabin door, they finally pushed it open. The night air was cold and wet, the rain was steady but not hard. The sky was dark and the clouds kept most of the natural light of the moon from shining through.

Cat pushed the steps over the side, and they hung in a jumbled mess halfway to the ground. Luckilly, the plane had taken a belly landing and the ground wasn?t that far below. Cat jumped down easily. Dylan bit back a groan of pain as her injured leg briefly bore her whole body?s weight.

Both turned as one to see the wreckage the crash had wrought.

The nose had been all but ripped off, as were both wings. The tail section was crushed and torn away from the plane but not ripped completely off.

“We?re screwed,” Cat said, then sneezed, a gentle reminder she was still sick as hell.

Dylan silently shook her head. “Okay, first things first. I don?t know where we are, but Horace isn?t gonna make it if we just sit here on our asses waiting for a rescue that we don?t even know is coming. We need to get moving.”

As Dylan hobbled away, Cat caught up to her and stopped her with a hand to her arm. “Dylan, wait.”

The coach stopped and turned to Cat, eyebrow raised. “Yes?”

“I think it might be better if we made some sort of shelter here and waited. No wait, hear me out,” she continued quickly as Dylan looked prepared to argue. “You?re right when you say that we don?t know where we are. For all we know, we could take three steps in any direction and blunder off the side of a mountain somewhere. It?s dark, it?s raining, and we?re lost.”

“And Horace Johnson is dying,” Dylan replied, voice tight. “I might not like the bastard, but I can?t sit by and do nothing while it happens.”

“But the satt phone?.”

“You said yourself that you didn?t know if the signal would penetrate the storm. I can?t risk it, Cat. Much as I?d rather just sit here and wait, there?s no way of knowing when, or even if, we?d be rescued. We need to move.” Her lips turned up in a wry smile. “Hell, this is America. I remember reading somewhere that there isn?t a place in this whole country that doesn?t have a maintained road within several miles.”

“But you?re hurt?.”

“So are you. And so is Kelly. But none of us is hurt as badly as he is.” Dylan?s eyes softened and she grabbed Cat?s hand in her own, squeezing it gently. “I have to try, Cat. I can?t just sit around waiting. Not when someone?s life is on the line. I just can?t.”

After a long moment, Cat sighed and nodded. “Do you promise to take it easy, and stop if it gets to be too much for any one of us?”

“I promise.”

Smiling, Cat stood up on tiptoe and kissed a stunned Dylan softly on the lips. “I believe you. Now let?s go take care of business.”

With that, Cat trotted off, back toward the plane, leaving a wide-eyed Dylan behind.

Dylan, Cat, and Kelly, despite their various injuries, made quick work of salvaging the wreckage of anything that would be of use, and strapping Johnson to a backboard stretcher that had come through the crash miraculously unharmed. Of the secretary, who Cat discovered had the totally fitting name of Tawny, there was little effort to help, as her constant whining had forced the doc to dope her up with some potent antianxiety medication that had her huddled off to one side, humming to herself and grinning idiotically at nothing.

“Well, we won?t starve,” Dylan commented as she tossed the gear out the door.

“Got a Big Mac in your pocket?” Cat teased as she picked up a couple cushions they decided would make good pillows.

“No, but I imagine by the time we get out of here, I?ll even be willing to eat one of those.”

“Funny, I was thinking if we were gonna be here too long you could make soup from roots or something.”

“Well, after a few days of that I might even be convinced to eat pizza.”

“We could do vegetarian on half.”

“You?re on and I?m buying.”

“It?s a date.” Cat grinned, thinking that this was the most absurd way she had ever been asked out. “It is a date isn?t it?”

“You bet it is.”

Dylan handed the solar blanket to the doctor to give to Horace to keep him warm. “He needs this worse than we do.” She didn?t know how, but the bigoted old bastard was still alive, though deeply unconscious and gray as ashes. “You ready?”

“Guess so.”

“Let?s go.”

With Norton, powerful flashlight in hand, taking point and Dylan and Cat carrying Johnson?s stretcher between them, the small group began to make its way away from the plane?s wreckage and, hopefully, toward some indication of civilization.

The rain had slackened some, but the night was still dark and moonless. The scent of evergreen, damp and sharp, filled their otherwise dulled senses. They followed a game trail that sloped steadily downward at a gentle grade.

Dylan?s knee felt like it had been filled with broken glass, shooting bright spikes of pain through her body with every limping step she took. Every time she was almost ready to call a halt, however, she would look down at Johnson?s gray and pain wracked face and push on, figuring that while she could worry about her knee later, Johnson simply didn?t have that kind of time.