Samantha’s face was pale, her hands clenched around her gloves.
Thor couldn’t blame her for being afraid. She was a scientist and didn’t have their training. She wasn’t accustomed to danger. She’d been asked to risk her life to solve a problem not of her making, and she had agreed.
He tried to reassure her but assumed that she was too smart to fall for platitudes or bullshit. “We’ll have a steep climb when we first take off, and the flight will be rough. I know this isn’t what you wanted, Samantha, but I admire your courage for agreeing to be part of this mission.”
“I regret it already.”
4
Samantha drew a breath, tried to calm her nerves as the plane accelerated down the skiway. She needed to be logical about this. Freaking out wouldn’t add a single moment to her life. The NSF and US government had sent people they believed were up to this task. She had to trust that they knew what they were doing. If she—
The plane lifted off, its nose pointing sharply skyward.
She gasped, grabbed Thor’s hand.
Warm fingers closed over hers, a strange awareness tingling through her. “Are you afraid of flying?”
Embarrassed and a little alarmed, she drew her hand away. “Only in the middle of austral winter.”
Get a grip!
None of the Cobra guys seemed nervous. From the impassive expressions on their faces, she could only assume that taking extreme risks was routine for them.
You can worry when they start to worry.
Unexpectedly, that thought helped to calm her.
She reached inside the inner pocket of her parka and drew out the schematics for the satellite, studying them to keep herself busy. It wasn’t the schematics that got her mind off her worries, however, but the fact that Thor was sitting beside her. She was oddly mindful of his presence. His long legs stretched into the aisle. His shoulders were so broad that they encroached on her space—not that she minded. His scent was pleasingly male. She even imagined she could feel his body heat.
You’re being ridiculous.
Sure, it had been a long time since she’d been with a man, but macho tough guys weren’t her type—even if she did find him attractive.
Focus.
She willed her gaze to meet the page. How she approached removing the components depended entirely on how the satellite had landed. For all she knew, the parts she needed to remove were too high off the ice for her to reach. Or perhaps they were buried in the ice as a result of impact.
While the plane jerked and bobbed through turbulence, she pored over the satellite’s design. The GPS and tracking components were surprisingly similar to the SPT’s GPS. Of course, there was always that chance that the crash had mangled the module, making the parts harder to remove. She could only wait and see.
The pilot’s voice came over the PA system. “We’ll be passing twelve thousand feet in a few minutes. I’m activating the cabin oxygen system.”
A mask dropped out of the overhead compartment just in front of Samantha. She did what flight attendants taught passengers to do, pulling the tubing down, slipping the strap over her head, and positioning the mask over her mouth and nose.
She studied the schematics for a few more minutes, memorizing the internal connections, then slipped them back into her coat pocket.
“So, it’s a piece of cake?” Thor’s words were muffled by his oxygen mask.
“I could do it with my eyes closed.” She looked up to find Thor watching her, and her pulse skipped.
He didn’t look away but seemed to study her, his gaze warm. “What made you want to become an astro… astrophys … astrophysicist. That’s hard to say.”
“How do you say it in Danish?”
“Astrofysiker.”
“I don’t know. That seems harder to me.”
“Danish isn’t easy to pronounce.”