CHAPTER 14
Chase Lights
NOLAN
A balloon landing ended when the envelope was packed, the landowner thanked, the equipment counted, and every crew member returned to the road.
Nolan had once treated those details as the unglamorous part after flight. The first stage reminded him that the ground was where consequences lived.
Kira drove the chase truck through ranch roads while Sam navigated. Avery sat in the back beside Priya, replaying the route on Windline. The target they had missed remained a bright circle on the screen.
“Stop punishing the map,” Sam said.
“I am checking the forecast divergence.”
“You have checked it six times.”
“The sixth check could contain insight.”
“It contains the same ridge.”
Nolan watched her in the mirror. He understood repetitive review. After the crash, he had replayed the landing video until individual frames felt like places he could enter and change.
“Save the raw data,” he said. “Review after food.”
Avery looked up. “Pilot order?”
“Crew request.”
She closed the tablet.
The ranch road ended at a locked gate. Kira called the landowner, who had given them the combination but reversed two digits. While they waited, Priya found a burr embedded in First Light’s skirt bag. Nolan helped remove it and checked the fabric for damage.
Avery came beside him. “You inspect after every landing?”
“Every pack.”
“Even clean ones?”
“Especially clean ones. People relax when the story feels finished.”
She absorbed that.
The gate opened. Dusk gathered as they reached the highway. One by one, the chase lights came on behind the truck: event vehicles, other teams, ranch traffic moving home.
Nolan’s phone displayed a missed call from his father.
He did not return it.
His father would ask whether flying felt like before. Nolan had no language yet for a return that was neither triumph nor collapse.
Avery noticed the screen. “You can call. We are forty minutes from camp.”
“He will want an answer I do not have.”
“You can tell him that.”
Nolan looked at her. “Do you tell your mother when you do not know?”
Avery glanced toward the closed tablet. “Not efficiently.”
“Then we are both excellent advisers.”
At a roadside diner, the team ate burgers beneath fluorescent lights. No one discussed the score until Priya asked whether ninth place meant they were failing.
Sam answered. “It means thirteen stages of opportunity were reduced by one. We have data, a balloon, a crew, and no injuries.”
“Twelve stages,” Avery corrected.
“See? Already improving.”
Nolan called his father from the parking lot afterward.
“How was it?” his father asked.
“We landed safely.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Nolan watched Avery through the diner window, listening to Priya explain the viral clip.
“I do not know yet,” he said.
His father was quiet.
Then: “Good. Call when you know more. Or when you still do not.”
The answer left Nolan standing beneath the diner sign with relief he had not expected.
Behind him, Avery came outside.
“Did uncertainty survive the conversation?” she asked.
“Apparently.”
She nodded toward the truck. “Ready?”
Nolan looked at the line of chase lights waiting on the road.
“Yes,” he said. “For the next part.”