Chapter 1
Guard your reserves!” The spotter shouted after he’d clambered from the cockpit, over all of the smokejumpers, and finally reached the back door of the roaring DC-3 jump plane.
Krista Thorson slapped her hand over her reserve parachute to make sure it didn’t accidentally deploy when he popped open the door. A glance down the line assured her that all twelve smokejumpers in the flight were awake and doing the same.
A DC-3’s cabin wasn’t that cramped, until you piled wildland firefighting gear secure behind heavy cargo nets
down one side, and a dozen fully geared up smokejumpers
prone like beached whales down the other. They’d been trying to finish their night’s sleep after the dawn call-to-fire, but the wildfire was so close to base that a catnap was all any of them had got
