Unless…unless…the thought struck him slowly, kindly. Unless he were really dead. Unless this were dreaming, unless this were a twilight zone where knowledge and a sense of being linger for a moment between the state of life and death.
Johnny's voice was small, very small and very far away.
"Ash."
"Yes, Johnny."
"The engines, Ash. The engines."
He fought his body out of the pilot's chair, stood on weaving legs.
He could scarcely see…just the faded, blurred, shifting outline of the shape of metal that enclosed him. His feet were leaden weights that he could not move…that were no part of him at all.
He stumbled, staggered forward, fell flat upon his face.
Shock, he thought. The shock of violence, the shock of death, the shock of draining blood, of mangled, blasted flesh.
There had been strength, a surge of strength that had brought him, clear-eyed, clear-brained, to his feet. A strength that had been great enough to take the lives of the two men who had killed him. The strength was vengeance.