CHAPTER 13
Dawn Launch
NOLAN
The first competitive morning began with everyone pretending the cold was temporary.
At four thirty, headlamps moved across the launch field like low stars. Burners coughed alive. Inflation fans growled. Coffee steamed from paper cups and vanished into the high-desert dark.
Nolan stood beside First Light and studied everything that was not yet wind.
Flags along the eastern fence hung loose.
A helium pilot balloon rose nearly straight for forty feet, then leaned south.
Dust from a chase vehicle drifted toward the mountains and settled.
The surface temperature had fallen three degrees in twenty minutes, but the inversion above them was weakening faster than forecast.
Avery’s tablet showed a green launch band.
“Window opened at five twenty,” she said.
“It opened on the model.”
“Field team released two pilot balloons.”
“I watched them.”
“Then what are we waiting for?”
“The flags at the irrigation road.”
She looked across the dark field. The flags were barely visible.
Kira walked past carrying a burner hose. “Good morning to the newlyweds.”
“We are not—” Avery began.
“Arguing like this before sunrise counts as a ceremony where I am from.”
Sam rolled between them with the weather board strapped to his chair. “Northeast station just jumped from two to six knots.”
Avery checked her display. “The packet is two minutes old.”
Nolan watched the eastern horizon. The first gray light revealed a line of cottonwoods beyond the irrigation ditch. Their crowns moved while the launch-field grass remained still.
“Hold inflation,” he said.
Around them, six teams began cold inflation. Fabric swelled across the ground. Marisol’s voice came over the event radio, reminding pilots that launch remained at individual discretion.
Avery stepped closer. “If we miss the scoring window—”
“We miss it.”
“Windline says the surface layer is stable.”
“The surface layer ends at the trees.”
“Then we fly under it.”
“In a balloon?”
Her eyes flashed. “That was not what I meant.”
“I know.”
The crew waited. Nolan felt their attention without looking at them. Five years ago, people had trusted his decisiveness. After the crash, every pause felt to him like evidence that decisiveness had been a disguise for arrogance.
He made himself stay with the present.
The eastern flags snapped once.
Then again.
A wash of air crossed the field. Two partially inflated balloons rolled at their crowns. Crew members ran to secure lines. One pilot shut down the fan and ordered deflation.
Avery watched the gust pass through her tablet several seconds after it crossed their faces.
“Sensor lag,” she said.
“Not failure.”
“I know.” She took a breath. “How long?”
“Until the layer mixes or drops.”
The scoring launch window had twenty-two minutes remaining.
They waited eighteen.
At five forty-three, the cottonwoods eased. Smoke from a test burner climbed almost vertically. Sam released another pilot balloon, and it rose, paused in a small westward drift, then curved gently south.
Nolan looked at Avery.
She checked the sensors, then the trees, then the smoke.
“Launch,” she said.
He nodded. “Inflate.”
The crew moved.
First Light filled in the growing dawn, blue and copper emerging from gray. Nolan entered the basket, completed the fuel checks, and watched Avery secure Windline where it would not obstruct the blast valve, vent line, or emergency access.
She caught him checking her work.
“You can say it,” she said.
“What?”
“That the mount is acceptable.”
“The mount is acceptable.”
“Try not to sound overcome.”
Kira called the crown clear. The balloon stood.
For one second Nolan’s body forgot the date.
The field became the old field. The basket became the old basket. Sam was standing beside him, laughing at the gloves Nolan had bought because they made him look like a serious pilot.
Then Avery touched his sleeve once.
Not gripping. Not asking. A point of contact he could choose to follow.
“Nolan.”
He saw the present again.
“Passenger briefing,” he said.
“I know it.”
“Tell me anyway.”
Avery recited landing position, line hazards, burner clearance, and instructions to stay in the basket until directed. Her voice steadied as she spoke.
“Crew,” Nolan called. “Hands off on my count. Three. Two. One.”
The ground released them.
First Light rose into dawn.
The sensation was not freedom. Nolan distrusted that word in flight. It was responsibility made weightless only from a distance.
At fifty feet, the launch field spread beneath them in bright fabric and running crews. At one hundred, First Light moved south. Nolan gave a short burn and climbed toward the westward layer the pilot balloon had revealed.
Avery tracked the route on her screen. “Target Alpha is seven point two miles southwest.”
“We are moving west-northwest.”
“At one eighty, yes. Climb to three hundred and the model predicts southwesterly flow.”
“What does the smoke say?”
“The smoke is below us.”
“What do the other balloons say?”
Three balloons launched before them were spreading at different altitudes. One at two hundred feet moved west. Another higher up had begun sliding southeast.
Avery studied them. “There is a narrow southerly layer between.”
Nolan climbed slowly.
At two seventy, the track turned.
Avery smiled at the screen before remembering she was irritated with him.
“South-southwest,” she said. “We can make Alpha.”
For twelve minutes, they did.
Then the sun cleared the mesa.
Warm air rose from the dark volcanic ground. The smooth layer broke into uneven currents. First Light climbed without burner input, then descended. Nolan adjusted, reading the hills, the movement of grass far below, the changing spacing of balloons around them.
Windline redrew the route every few seconds.
“Target confidence forty-eight percent,” Avery said.
“Landing options?”
“We still have the target field.”
“It is narrowing behind that ridge.”
“There is a road beyond it.”
“And power lines beside the road.”
She zoomed in. “Alternate field two miles west.”
“Fenced.”
“Field three.”
“Cattle.”
“Field four.”
Nolan looked. A broad rectangle of fallow ground lay northwest, away from the scoring target.
“Clean approach,” he said.
“It costs the navigation score.”
“It buys a landing.”
Avery’s jaw worked.
The balloon descended into the lower westward layer.
The target flag slid away to their left.
“Field four,” she said.
Nolan looked at her.
“Do not make me repeat a good decision,” she added.
He smiled despite himself. “Field four.”
First Light left the competition line and drifted toward the empty ground.
Behind them, a balloon chasing the target climbed hard, overshot the layer, and disappeared beyond the ridge.
Avery watched it go.
“Safe miss,” Nolan said.
“Still a miss.”
“Both can be true.”
The field grew beneath them.
For the first time since signing the agreement, Avery stopped watching the scoring display and looked at the horizon.