Page 12 of Igniting Her

Cassie made the calculation. Station 12 had the training, the equipment, and a conscious patient in a deteriorating position. Waiting would not make the cliff more stable. “We lower now.”

Ridge looked toward the north side of the edge. “Captain, the fall line puts Teak directly above him. There’s loose material between them.”

Cassie had seen it. The alternate edge twenty feet south was cleaner but would force Teak to traverse the face to reach the patient. More time on rope, more uncontrolled movement. “We’ll lower short and assess the path,” Cassie said. “Jamie, call every change in the face. Teak, if the rock moves, you come up.”

“Even if I’m having fun?”

“Especially then,” Cassie quipped.

Teak grinned and clipped in. Cassie performed the final system check herself: independent lines, anchor connections locked, descent devices loaded correctly, edge attendant secured, communications clear. She put one hand on Teak’s shoulder. “Slow over the edge.”

Teak’s grin settled. “Yes, Captain.”

Jamie crouched at the rail. The haul team took Teak’s weight. On Jamie’s command, she leaned back into the harness and stepped over open air. The wind caught her first. The lines tightened through the aerial tip, humming softly. Jamie guided them over the protected edge while Mo and Ridge operated the system in matched increments. Teak descended five feet, ten, boots finding the cliff whenever the face allowed it.

“Rescuer at twenty,” Jamie called.

Teak looked down. “Patient responsive. Shelf is undercut on the north side. I’m moving three feet south.”

“Approved,” Cassie said.

Ridge’s gloved hands stayed on the control line. She watched the ropes, not Teak. Every few seconds she checked the aerial tip and the angle back to the anchor as though the whole system existed in her peripheral vision. “Rescuer at thirty.”

Teak’s boots touched a narrow seam in the face. She shifted her right foot, testing.

The cliff made a sound like a plate breaking. “Rock!” Jamie shouted.

A slab tore loose above Teak’s left shoulder. She flattened against the face. Smaller pieces struck her helmet and spun away. The rope system caught her as both feet disappeared. For one second, she hung clear. Then the slab hit the seam beneath her. Teak’s left leg snapped sideways, and her body stopped hard. Her cry came over the radio before the rocks reached the water.

“Stop!” Cassie’s command crossed Jamie’s. Mo and Ridge locked the system. The lines went rigid. Dust swallowed Teak. When the wind cleared it, she was half-seated on the narrow seam with her left boot trapped between the slab and the cliff. The rock had pinned her above the ankle. Her harness carried most of her weight, but the angle twisted her hip toward the face.

“Teak, report.”

Breathing. A sharp curse. Then, “Left ankle pinned. I can feel my toes.”

Cassie forced air into her own lungs. “Any head or back injury?”

“Helmet took it. No loss of consciousness. Back is clear.” Teak shifted one shoulder. Gravel rattled below. “Do not haul. It tightens the pin.” The patient lay twelve feet beneath her. He had curled both hands around a scrub root that would not hold him long.

Cassie turned the scene over in her mind. Raising Teak on the current fall line would drag her trapped leg upward. Lowering would increase the load against the slab. A second rescuer on the same path risked another fall directly onto her. The county unit was still nine minutes away.

“Captain.” Ridge had moved to the edge, clipped into Jamie’s safety line. She pointed south. “Give me a lateral pull from the clean ground. Separate anchor, three-to-one, attached to Teak’s right hip. We shift her center six inches south and take the twist out before we raise.”

“The south rail is in bad soil.”

“Not the rail. The rated anchor point on the officer-side outrigger, then a redirect through a pulley at the south side of the aerial tip. It stays inside the quint’s rescue load and gives us a thirty-degree vector.”

Cassie saw the system as Ridge spoke. A third line, not life support but controlled movement. Both tensioned lines would remain loaded. The lateral haul would change Teak’s angle without forcing her leg up against the rock. It wasn’t Station 12’s standard evolution. Their procedure called for a second rescuer and a patient transfer under this kind of entrapment. Procedure assumed stable rock and time.

“We’ll need a load-release hitch at the redirect,” Mo said.

“Already in the blue bag.” Ridge pulled it open. “Mo, lateral anchor. Priya, give me the haul kit. Jamie, I need a messenger down to Teak.”

The crew moved before Cassie gave the order. “Ridge.” Cassie’s voice stopped her. The crew stopped with her.

Ridge looked up, a coil of line over one forearm. Dust blew across her face. “The numbers work.”

That was not the problem. The problem was that Cassie believed her before she finished the sentence. Trust arrived without caution or permission, as cleanly as if it had been built over years instead of days. Cassie hated the ease of it. She checked the quint’s aerial load, the proposed angle, Teak’s position. No part of the solution depended on hope. Ridge had been technically insubordinate, and she was also right. Interrupting now would only cost them time. Cassie stepped beside her. “You give assignments through me.”