Chapter Thirteen: The Piston Peak Inferno
We jumped as the alarm sounded across the base. Patch's voice came in over the speakers.
"Listen up, y'all, we got big trouble. Wildfire jumped the main exit road and now it's blocked."
"There's not another way out of the park?" Crow asked as we approached Windlifter and Dipper.
"There's only the one main exit and entrance." Dipper said. She looked to Windlifter. "I know it's after sunset, but you're in command. It's your call."
"There's not much time!" Maru warned. "If you're gonna go, you better go now."
"And we'll need every plane we've got." Dusty added. Everyone looked to Windlifter, waiting for his respond.
"Load up." The Sikorsky ordered.
Everyone leaped into action. Maru began hooking up Dipper, Dusty, and Windlifter to the hoses for retardant and the Smokejumpers loaded into Cabbie.
"We'll have you out of here in sixty…" Maru paused, jiggling the lever to the water. But nothing flowed through the hoses. Maru hurried to the gauges near the hoses, tapping one of them. "Problem! There's no water pressure!"
"Main line musta burst again!" Cabbie groaned.
"Hey Patch!" Dipper called as Maru unhooked the hoses. "What's the lake look like?"
"Negative." Patch reported ruefully. "No visibility. Boxed in by fire and smoke."
Windlifter began taking off, his lights flicking on. "All we have left is what's in our tanks. Let's make it count."
Dusty , Cabbie and Dipper took off following Windlifter.
Don't be afraid. You can do this. If you have to use your curse mark, do it! I thought to myself.
"We're headed straight into the fire!" Dusty called. "Aren't we gonna fly around it?"
"The fastest way to the main road is through the fire!" Dipper protested.
"Brace yourselves!" Windlifter called. He and Dipper disappeared into the smoke. We tensed up a bit as Cabbie and we followed close behind.
Chaos. That was the simplest way to explain the inside of the inferno. Embers blew up in everyone's faces. Smoke clouded our vision. Chunks of flaming wood shot down like tiny meteors. Everyone became forced to weave their way through the destruction to avoid getting hit. We were vaguely aware of Dipper shouting encouragingly, but the intensity of the firestorm made it hard to concentrate. After a few tense moments that felt like years, the team, Crow, Dusty and I finally broke through the smoke. Thankfully we all came out unscathed, but the sight on the other side of the smoke made us all widen our eyes briefly. Flames engulfed the valley, leaving only a burning glow beneath us.
We ended up flying right over the lodge, somehow unaffected by the flames getting closer and closer. Soon, we noticed why: a huge amount of water soaked the lodge from the roof sprinklers. That was quite the amount of water for standard roof sprinklers to put forth. Then again, Cad was probably so addicted to the stupid bomb fire pile he would've spared no expense to keep it safe. So we continued on, reaching the main entrance in less than a minute. A long line of cars and humans stood in front of the burning, destroyed gate, and Muir the train blew his whistle desperately. We immediately moved in. Windlifter dumped his load of retardant first, snuffing out the flames of the destroyed gate; Dipper moved along the side of the cliff, extinguishing the fire threatening to come up over the ridge; Dusty moved in last, aiming for the flaming trees blocking Muir's path. Dusty swooped in and dropped the retardant, hitting his target directly and allowing Muir to push through the burnt wood to continue on. The Smokejumpers deployed from Cabbie, hurriedly clearing a pathway for the rest of the campers. Ol' Jammer began encouraging the campers forward, and the civilians all began moving at a steady pace through the charred debris. Several of them thanked the Smokejumpers on the way out, and everyone smiled warmly as the aircraft of the team and us girls began making our way back to base. We were already pushing it by flying out at night in the first place; the longer we stayed out, the greater our chances of someone crashing. But we couldn't help feeling proud of what we did. We saved the lives of the campers, just as we were trained to do, and we could all go back and plan our attack on the fire at first light.
Or so we thought.
"Windlifter, do you copy?" Patch called hurriedly.
"Go ahead, Patch." Windlifter responded.
"We've got two old RVs trapped in Augerin Canyon." Patch reported.
"Oh no." Dusty understood and he pulled ahead to fly alongside Windlifter. "That's Harvey and Winnie! We met them earlier. They're looking for the place they had their first kiss."
"Augerin Canyon?" Windlifter said. "That's at the other end of the park."
"I can get there the fastest. The girls can help me." Dusty said.
"The canyon will be engulfed in flames and you have no retardant." Windlifter protested.
"I'll scoop off the river. There's a clear stretch of water." Dusty countered.
Windlifter said nothing, a contemplating gaze in his eyes. He stared at each of us in turn.
"Windlifter, we can do it." Dusty assured. This time, there wasn't a hint of cockiness or desperation. Just pure confidence.
Windlifter finally answered after a long pause. "Go. And be safe."
Dusty took off, the three of us shooting into the fire. Dusty looked to his torque. He was already pushing into the yellow at this speed. We shot off over the trees, finally reaching Augerin Canyon and diving down into it. Windlifter wasn't joking; the entire canyon seemed to be on fire, especially the bridge near the falls. Winnie and Harvey were resting right in the middle, the area around them unburned for now. They shouted for help, and Dusty tilted a wing in response before shooting off again. He turned hard, diving down to the river at the bottom of the canyon.
Dusty pulled up sharply, barely missing the flaming log. But when he went down to scoop, he had to jerk up again and his pontoons clipped another log in the river. Dusty swerved as flaming trees fell past him. He shot forward, doing a barrel roll as us girls tightened our grip so we did not fall off and to avoid the falling rocks. We swerved through falling debris and the still standing rocks in the canyon, trying to imagine it was just another training session with Blade. He gasped as we cleared the smoke to find a horrifying scene before us. The bridge had begun to collapse, and Winnie was half-hanging off the edge of the platform with Harvey keeping a tight grip on her wheel.
Suddenly, the sound of helicopter blades could be heard over the crackling of the fire, and Dusty looked up thinking he'd see Windlifter coming in. But instead, a familiar, still beat-up AgustaWestland burst through the smoke.
"Blade!" I called happily and partly surprised.
Blade shot down the waterfall, not looking fazed by his still-healing injuries. He spun around and hovered in the air over the bridge, his hoist hatch opening. He threw the hook and cable, catching Winnie and holding her from the edge. Blade grit his teeth a bit, using all his strength to stay hovering in the air.
There was only one way to refill now.
"Hold on tight girls" Dusty said.
Crow and I readied ourselves. "Right."
Dusty shot off. He ducked under the flaming bridge and then pulled up sharply, running parallel with the waterfall. Dusty lowered the scoops to his pontoons, dipping the gear into the waterfall. His body shook from the water hitting him and filling his pontoons, but he stayed firm.
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
We ignored it. The three of us shot up, up, up, higher and higher, and cleared the top of the falls. The momentum carried us up past the smoke a little ways, allowing us to see a clear night sky. Then, Dusty fell back and looped down low, speeding right past Blade's hoist cable and dropping the water he gathered across the flaming bridge. Blade tugged on the hoist, helping Harvey and Winnie up onto the bridge. The two RVs sped off, making it into the stone tunnel just as the bridge collapsed behind them.
Crow and I cheered loudly, and slap hi-five. "Yes! Yes, yes, yes! We did it!"
"Dusty, girls!" Blade called as we passed him. We glanced to the fire chief, who actually smiled at us. "Good move, partners."
Dusty smiled, feeling pride well up inside of him. He did it. He saved lives, like a true firefighter, and he earned the respect of Chief Blade Ranger. Best of all, Dusty's gearbox didn't—
SCREECH!
Dusty's propeller jerked to a halt, a horrible grinding sound coming from his engine and smoke streaming into his face. Dusty heard alarms blaring and red lights flashed across his panel, pain radiating throughout his entire body.
"Girls!" Dusty gasped, pain choking his voice.
Dusty suddenly took a nosedive. He hit the trees, branches slapping him repeatedly.
"Crow jump NOW!" I yelped as we leaped off his wings and landed hard on the ground badly scratched up.
Blade flinched at the sound of the crash, and when it became silent once more he hurriedly searched for a place to land. Finding a small opening amongst the trees, the AgustaWestland carefully yet quickly lowered himself down to the forest floor. "Dusty! Girls!" He shouted, rolling forward in the direction of his fallen comrades. He finally saw a spot of white and orange through the trees and he rushed over. But when he saw Dusty, Blade couldn't help wincing in sympathy. The poor racer looked like someone crumpled him up like a piece of paper and then lengthened him out again, his prop destroyed beyond repair, and one of his pontoons ripped off.
"Dusty?" Blade gave the plane a gentle nudge, hoping he didn't cause more damage.
Dusty gave a pained moan, and he wearily blinked his eyes open. At least, they opened halfway. "Blade?"
"Hey Champ." Blade sighed in relief. "Just hang on. You'll be all right."
Dusty coughed a bit. "Where are the girls?"
"We are fine" Crow called as we ran up to where Blade and Dusty were.
Dusty's eyes closed.
"Dusty? Dusty! Champ, hey!" Blade gave the plane a few nudges, but Dusty didn't move. Blade listened closely, relieved to hear Dusty still breathing. "Just hang on." Blade murmured, turning on his radio. "This is Ranger 301 to base. Somebody come in."
After a moment of static, Maru's infuriated voice came over the radio. "Blade Ranger you little sneaky creep!"
Blade rolled his eyes, unsure what exasperated him more: Maru using his full name or that rather unusual insult. "Maru—"
"Do you have any idea how worried I was?" Maru screamed. "When I said 'stay put and let the others handle it,' that was not your cue to take off when my back was turned for two seconds! You had better not have crashed or I'll…"
"MARU SHUT UP AND LISTEN. DUSTY CRASHED" I yell over my radio cutting him off.
Silence. "What?" Maru's voice was only a whisper.
"He saved the lives of two campers, but then his gearbox failed and he crashed with the girls." Blade explained hurriedly. "He's hurt really badly, Maru. You gotta get Windlifter out here ASAP."
"Rule about no flying after sunset aside, there's no way Windlifter can find you right now." Maru said. "He and the others are scanning the park for any stragglers, and by the time they get back it'll be way too dark to see anything. They're going to have to come straight back to base. Dusty is gonna have to hang on until it gets lighter."
"Copy that" Blade sighed.
Blade looked into the distance, where the fire still raged. It was almost on top of us now and Blade did not have his retardant tank. There was only one thing to do. I had to use my curse mark.
Blade move in front of us to protect us but I suddenly cut in front of him activating my curse mark. Blade jaw dropped as a large wave of water shot from my hands and smothered the flames. I felt the urge to look behind me. I turned and when my eyes met Blade's an image appeared in front of me. It was a Hughes 500D helicopter and it seemed to be looking for something. That was when I realised what my curse mark had been trying to tell me. Nick was still alive. Then everything went black and I hit the ground.