xp_logs | Lost and Found, epilogue: Finish Line

The mission comes to a close when a very, very drugged Haroun manages to land the Blackbird safely, even if he does give Scott some gray hair in the process.

He had a certain sense of deja vu here, Scott thought, staring up through the open roof of the hangar, waiting tensely to hear the roar of the Blackbird's engines. Of course, the last time, he'd been the one in the pilot's seat, and it had been the plane that had been in bad shape, not the pilot...

"Talk to me, Haroun," he said through his headset. "What's your status?"

Haroun, doped up to the gills and feeling absolutely no pain, flicked on the radio with a grin. "I'm here, Chief. Bird's doin' just fine - a lot better than us poor fucks inside of it. Got a full house in here, and everyone's locked down." he said in a rush. "Am I cleared to land?"

Oh, this didn't sound good. Haroun sounded decidedly off. Scott bit his lip, wondering if it was too late to grab Illyana or Clarice and see if they could get him up there. Surely one of them could hit a moving target? But then he heard the roar of the engines, and realized that yes, it was too late.

"Cleared to land," he said, trying to sound confident. "Slow and steady wins the race, remember."

Haroun cheerfully flipped the bird to Scott, confident that A) he couldn't see the gesture anyway and B) his arm didn't hurt. It should have, as that's the one that got burned by the flame-wielder, but right now he just didn't _care_. He could do -anything- he wanted! "Yeah, yeah. VTOL set to landing position, passengers are buckled in, and the tray tables have been stowed in their full upright position. This bus is COMING HOME!" he yelled cheerfully.

Scott was suddenly very, very glad that he'd cleared the hangar floor. "Coming in a little too fast, watch it," he warned, already making a mental note to send a third pilot along whenever there was a chance that Hank would be too busy being a doctor instead of a pilot.

Haroun goosed the throttle, slowing his rate of descent to back within safe limits. "Landing gear deployed." he said, as he flipped the switch to make that happen. "Prep Medical for immediate evac - we've got some fairly badly hurt people here."

"Already taken care of," Scott assured him. "You just get that plane down in one piece. Or I'm never going to let you live it down."

"I don't get this plane down in one piece, you're going to have to castigate my corpse." he said with a death's head grin. "Starting final descent. Wings are fixed, thrust is solid, speed within normal parameters. I'm comin' home!"

"And straight into a medlab bed, you lunatic," Scott muttered, holding his breath as the Blackbird eased down into the hangar.

"I heard that." he said with a laugh. "I'm waaaay too wound up to go to bed, Boss! Allah akbar!" he shouted as the plane touched down, a mite roughly, on the landing pad. "And we're down. Throttling down the engines." he said, suddenly far, far more tired than he was fifteen seconds ago.

Scott let his breath out on a sigh. "Good job," he said quietly. "You sit tight," he went on, signaling the others that it was safe to come in and help with the evac. "We'll have you all out of there momentarily."

All that came over the radio was the hiss of an open channel, and very, very labored breathing.

"Damn," Scott said, pulling off his headset and starting for the Blackbird at a rapid jog, even as the hangar doors opened and the evac team joined him.