Page 168 of The Ampersand Effect

Shewasthe crew.

She tightened and relaxed her grip on the cyclic several times, her breaths controlled and purposeful as she maneuvered the pedals to assist Njáll.

“You have the controls,” Njáll said firmly from her right.

“I have the controls,” she confirmed.

No way was she going to refuse the chance to test her new skills—even if it meant testing and learning were, in fact, unfolding concurrently.

The volcano seemed to dare her, sputtering another batch of molten debris from the steady black plume around its gaping maw.

A familiar buzz of adrenaline slinked its way through her veins, and she hummed giddily to herself, slipping into the curated intensity of her captain persona.

With Njáll and Gunnar offering calm, intermittent instructions, Tobin used every ounce of her training and instinct to navigate the helicopter back toward the scorched, shifting earth.

Gunnar scanned the ground for a safe landing zone while Tobin and Njáll battled the flying debris and controlled the descent. He sighted a clear swath of land about fifty yards from the downed chopper. After a brief exchange over the comms, all three agreed—it was their only option.

The problem, they simultaneously noted, was the river of lava snaking toward the site. It would limit their time on the ground. And they already knew their takeoff was going to be tricky—thinner air and heavier cargo. Things were going to get bumpy.

The ground rushed up at them. The heated, lighter air bit into their lift, pulling them down faster than Tobin anticipated. Overconfidence burned hot in her chest, replaced by a jolt of cold self-reproach. She gritted her teeth and yielded the adjustments to Njáll, letting him counter the tricky updraft. With the corrections in place, she stabilized their velocity, keeping them from free-falling onto the earth.

Tobin exhaled through tensely parted lips—frustrated by the near- miss, but immensely grateful for Njáll’s unpretentious correction. He truly was her brother—both by choice, and at-arms.

With barely three hundred feet between them and the earth, the chopper began to buck and jolt. “Hold her steady,” Njáll gritted through the turbulence. “You’ve got this, Tobin.”

His words were bolstering. She wrapped herself in their impenetrable warmth, controlled an exhale, and set them on the earth as gently as possible. Which—given the thermal chaos—meant not gently at all. They hit with a ferocious thud that rattled all three of them down to their molars.

No time to think. The moment they touched down, their classmates from the fallen bird were running toward them. Well—runningwas a bit generous. They hobbled and leaned into each other, frantic and unsteady, dragging themselves toward their rescuers.

“Thank fokking fok,” Gunnar bellowed. “They’re both alive and upright.”

She felt the familiar jostle as he flung open the passenger door and jumped out, racing toward the downed pilots. The wave of heat that punched into the cabin was staggering—searing her skin, forcing sweat to bead instantly and stealing her breath as she tried to fill her lungs.

She glanced at Njáll, who was also fighting for air, though he seemed far less rattled by it than she was. “Smarter for us toremain strapped in,” he said evenly. “He can handle the transfer—they’re both ambulatory.”

She nodded, relieved. She had no desire to set foot outside unless absolutely necessary.

The downed pilots reached their helicopter just as another impressive eruption sputtered from the volcano. The earth shifted beneath them, and the chopper skidded a few feet—its ice-landing skids scraping for purchase on scorched earth. Tobin swallowed the urge to cry out, but only by sheer force of will.

Gunnar shouted something unintelligible as he heaved the weaker of the two pilots into the cabin, assisted by the hand of the other, who had already successfully shimmied in.

Tobin didn’t envy either of them. She knew exactly how terrified they’d been on the way down—and exactly how long their impending recovery would be. By her estimation, one sported a broken arm and likely a dislocated shoulder; the other had severe burns and deep lacerations along one leg. Still, the fact that they were both conscious gave them a considerable edge over her own crash and recovery. For that, she was deeply grateful.

“Thanks for the ride,” Gunnar quipped as he hauled himself back into the cabin. “Now get this bird in the air!”

“We’re gonna have to perform a hover check!” Njáll barked into their mics.

“I figured,” Tobin grunted, teeth already clenched in preparation for the rough lift-off.

Together, she and Njáll fought the thin, heated air, managing to hover for only a few seconds before the skids slapped back down in defiance. It took them four tries before they were able to hover long enough to pivot the nose with the wind. With Gunnar yelling obscenities at them from the cabin, their fourth attempt aligned with a gust of wind—it was still Iceland, after all. The helicopter bucked, bounced—and then surged upward, thelift finally catching them and pulling their weight away from the molten earth.

Once they’d climbed to a comfortable altitude, Tobin felt her body relax, and she settled into the rhythm of routine flight.

Behind her, Gunnar grunted, and Njáll chuckled airily beside her. “Good thing we got off the ground when we did,” he said, turning toward her with a sly grin. “I was about to sacrifice Gunnar to Surtr—just to have an excuse to throw him out and reduce our weight.”

“Fokk off!” Gunnar grumbled playfully from behind.

Tobin looked at Njáll quizzically, arching an eyebrow in question.