Katniss

"Just…unplug it, or something!"

"I'm afraid we're not authorized for that kind of medical tampering, sir."

"Who gives a damn about authority? I don't see a Capitol permit anywhere on this hovercraft!"

The voices are becoming clearer and clearer as the bickering continues. I try my hardest not to move, lest they'll stop talking and leave me ignorant of whatever is going on right now. One voice, slightly slurred and raspy, could only belong to Haymitch. The second, measured and feminine, I've no clue as to who it could be.

"She's our best shot!" Haymitch pleads in a lower voice. Did I stir too visibly? Do they know I'm conscious? Oh, who cares! I'll have to wakeup soon anyways.

I let one eye open slightly, desperate to regain my bearings. My last memory is a foggy vision of a Peacekeeper knocking me out in District 11. After that, everything seemed to black out. Now I'm lying on some sort of table, and by the feel of it I am no longer clad in the beautiful dress that Cinna and Portia had collaborated on. Instead, I'm wearing a paper hospital gown. Forgetting that I'm not supposed to move, I raise one hand lazily, glancing down at my wrist. A long tube snakes out from my vein to an IV drip on the side of the bed-table-thing. The clear liquid contained inside the plastic bag immediately matches up with the term morphling in my mind, and suddenly there's nothing I'd like more than to just yank it out. Then I realize, that's probably what Haymitch is talking about.

"Miss Everdeen, how are you feeling?" asks the feminine voice, coming from a young woman wearing nurse's clothing. The name Qaz is printed on her nametag above her heart, and a cap with a blue cross and a badge I'm not able to recognize sits atop her brown curls. She glances down at a clipboard I hadn't noticed before, then adjusts her glasses and looks at me. After quickly jotting something down, she carefully unhooks the drip.

"Terrible," I answer honestly. It's not so much the side effects of the sedative that are making me feel this way, but the fact that I'm currently on a hovercraft that seems to be doing somersaults in midair isn't exactly helping. I try to sit up, but am promptly stopped when Nurse Qaz puts her hand gently on my collarbone, guiding me back down. "What's going on?"

"I am sure Mr. Abernathy will be able to explain better than me," she tells me, then hands me a cup of water from a nearby table. "Tell me, Miss Everdeen, do you feel any nausea, headaches, stomach pains, or blurred vision?"

I shake my head, but wince immediately, as I am, in fact, suffering from a strong headache. She sees that somehow in my expression and purses her lips, writing something else down on her clipboard. I look around the room and see I'm closed off behind a curtain, with no windows or doors near me. "Can I talk to Haymitch?" I ask, trying to fight off the sudden drowsiness threatening to overcome me.

My voice is slurred, but she understands what I try to say. She nods and backs away to the curtain, pulling it to the side. "I'll be in the other room running some tests, and I'll be back here in a few minutes," she informs me, walking out the other door.

Behind the drawn back curtain, Haymitch has been sitting glumly on a small plastic chair, waving his hand back and forth as the honey-like drink inside his cup sloshes from side to side. When he sees me, he springs up from the chair in excitement, not even bothering to wipe up the spilt whiskey. "Katniss, you're awake!" he says in lieu of a greeting. He rushes to my side, putting his hand to my forehead as if I've got a fever.

"Haymitch, what's—" I try to ask, but he interrupts me immediately.

"We're on a rebel hovercraft that is currently under attack from Capitol counterattacks," he tells me urgently, in a hushed voice. "Gale and Dolf, a trained rebel from 3, are currently manning the aircraft. We've got six rebel snipers on the roof, trying to fend off the attackers, but they have not been trained well enough for flying targets. I know you're probably the most prepared in such a scenario, but the dopes in charge won't let you up without your consent, which is kind of hard to get when you're knocked out, sweetheart!"

I scowl—as if it's my fault they sent me into a morphling-induced sleep!—and for the first time notice the loud sounds going on above us. I try to sit up, which is considerably difficult when I've got no back support. "Okay, I'll do it. But I'm not going to wear this!"

Ten minutes later, Haymitch finally gets permission from Nurse Qaz to release me from the hospital wing of the plane. We rush through the paperwork, with me having to sign countless papers that basically all claim that I'm fine and willing to enter combat. Haymitch and I pass Commander Boggs on the way up, but I barely have any time to soak in the fact that he was, just a few days ago, a wounded soldier in the cottage in the woods.

We find a supply closet, which is filled with soldier uniforms, bulletproof vests, and weapons. I slip into a drab gray jumpsuit and lace up knee-high combat boots as Haymitch holds up different types of bows for me to inspect. They are all designed for bulky, large male soldiers with bad hand-eye coordination, so I'm about to give up hope of ever finding one suitable for me…until we come across a beautifully made, simple longbow, designed with slightly more curviness than the ones my father would make back in 12. I hold it in both my hands, examining its smooth wood, its string. It's shorter than traditional longbows, but suitable for me since I'm shorter than traditional archers anyways.

"This one," I say, beaming at Haymitch. "This one's perfect."

We spend another five minutes gathering enough ammunition. The arrows have different shapes and sizes, some made for shooting down and some made for rocketing upwards. I grab half a dozen simple arrows, geared more towards long-distance shooting, but I see Haymitch had something else in mind.

"Thirteen has been preparing for this sort of attack," he explains, holding out another six arrows, all of these tipped with highly flammable material instead of the usual spikes. "These will set virtually anything on fire."

"Okay," I nod, and run up to the ladder in the main cabin.

"Katniss, wait!" he calls after me, just as I'm about to push open the emergency exit leading to the roof. I lean over, wondering what on earth could be so important, when he smirks and adds, "Stay alive."

I roll my eyes at our little joke, before exiting. I can immediately tell it's bad.

There must be approximately five Capitol crafts surrounding our rebel vehicle, and none of them seem to have any purpose other than to take ours down. A rebel soldier standing to my right looks over at me and smiles. "Good to see you up and about, Everdeen!" He quickly turns and shoots at a hovercraft that had been swooping down on me, without me even noticing it. I see that all the snipers are holding either machine guns or complex compound bows, neither of which help with their failing accuracy on the moving surface.

First I start off with the normal arrows, aiming at the most vulnerable parts of the counterattacking aircraft. Gale once told me, while we were out hunting and a Capitol hovercraft flew above us, that the large fans underneath were what kept them in the air, and that if anything—even a small rock—got caught inside, the hovercraft wouldn't last long before it either went down or, if the rock was lodged deep enough, became engulfed in flames. So I aim in between the large steel flaps spinning so fast that I can barely shoot an arrow without it being deflected and sticking itself sturdily on the roof of the craft below it.

Thankfully, the other soldiers catch on to my plan, and soon enough all of us are aiming for the bottom fans on the attacking planes. One soldier actually manages to get a bullet stuck inside the fan, causing it to spiral downwards. However, our victory is short-lived, as I run out of normal arrows and can't very well use the flammable ones for fear of them being deflected and setting our craft on fire.

"Hey, you!" I call over to another soldier. He turns his attention to me, so I try to make it fast before a Capitol pilot sees his opening and fires at him. "What's the most flammable part of a hovercraft?"

His eyes drift from me to the quiver slung over my shoulders, and his mouth opens in understanding. "Just aim for the wings, they're the most vulnerable, especially in military crafts!" he shouts back, before shooting up at a wing himself to prove his point. A second hovercraft falls to the left as the wing bends over from the bullet, and I'm amazed at how engineers haven't worked to improve that flaw.

Somewhere in the control room downstairs, a switch is hit, because we are speeding now towards northeastern Panem. The Capitol hovercrafts are left trailing behind. I'm sure if they wanted to, they could probably chase us, but have decided to stay back and assess damage.

I wonder how many of them will be alive after Snow's through punishing them.

Two soldiers help me down into the cabin, probably worried that I'm still suffering through migraines—which I kind of am—and Gale, who's found a replacement in the control room, receives me in his arms. I am panting, out of breath, with arms too sore to function—I've never shot that quickly at anything before—and I'm pretty sure my face must be some shade of violet.

Still, Gale manages to say, "You know, Catnip, out of breath is a good look for you."

"Oh, shut up Hawthorne," I tell him jokingly, rolling my eyes.

"Good job, Miss Everdeen," says Boggs, smiling at me. Haymitch stands behind him, giving me two thumbs up. Boggs leans his head over some sort of contraption fastened onto his wrist, and he heaves a sigh of relief. "We're just a few minutes away from Thirteen. You can all relax now."

Gale, despite my protests and my acclamations that I can, in fact, walk on my own two feet, carries me to a small lounge with several sofas occupied by tired soldiers chatting over small portions of bread. My stomach growls as I realize I'm starving. Gale notices and stops by the counter to snatch a few pieces of bread before finally setting me down on a sofa. He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, studying me.

"What?" I ask self-consciously, my hands automatically reaching for my braid—only to remember my hair's been curled by Flavius.

He smiles at me, but doesn't blink or stop looking at me. Finally he says, "You look beautiful, Miss Everdeen."

I have the decency to drop my gaze, blushing ever so slightly. At least, I hope it's not too noticeable. My cheeks feel like they're burning. "Thank you," I mutter, embarrassed and flattered, and angry too because I can't think of a better response.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I am so sick of cliffhangers! This time I'm letting you guys off easy, especially because this is by far the longest chapter I've written—to make up for my tardiness. Again, thanks a ton to all my reviewers, I love you all (but you know that)!

Now, to my anon:

noname: I know, right? I was swamped with exams, but thankfully I did well on both of them! (I think?) Anyways, thank you! And yes, the whole yanking the morphling thing was a little stunt on my part (because so far I've been practically depicting him as some sort of flawless human being when in reality he can get pretty reckless). OH MY GOD you actually had a potato for me! (Okay, potato, potato salad, same difference). That made my day!

I'll update as soon as possible now that I am on vacation! *what what*

-TGBW