“What about once we land?” Samuel said.
“We’ll go over that after our last trial run,” Ashton said. “We need to fit in as much practice as we can. Basically, you’ll just be taking off your chute, finding some place to hide it, and then figuring out how to find Anna and get out of there.” He looked at all of us severely. “It is still your decision, Samuel. I recommend fully not going through with this.”
“We need to find her,” Samuel said. “We need to exhaust every option before moving on. Let’s at least learn how to do this. If all three of us can land in the town, then we can take care of the rest. We can fight any individual guard that crosses our path.” Samuel smiled. “They’ll never know what hit them.”
“I hope so, Samuel. So, you do want to proceed with this?”
Samuel nodded. “Yes.”
“Alright,” Ashton said. “Makara, strap yourself in. Within thirty minutes, all of you will back on the ground. I spotted a field nearby that is far enough away for our purposes.”
Normally, this would be a tandem jump, since it was our first. However, there wasn’t time for that with so much on the line.
Gilgamesh hovered over the green, forested Earth. A thin layer of misty cloud somewhat obscured the surface, but I could see the field we were to land in, almost directly below us.
The ship was in hover mode, standing still above the clouds. Amazingly, Gilgamesh made little noise — had it been using conventional fuel, the sound of that energy expenditure would have been deafening. But, the fusion reactor kept the energy flowing smoothly, steadily. The thrusters below the ship glowed a steady blue. When we did our drop tonight, they would not hear the ship. Hopefully, the clouds could obscure the blue glow Gilgamesh’s thrusters would produce.
Ashton stood behind us. “Wind speed is minimal. If it weren’t for those clouds, conditions would be near perfect.”
“Those clouds may be a blessing in disguise,” Makara said. “No one has a chance of seeing us just hovering up here.”
“That is true,” Ashton said. “Remember — you will reach 2,500 feet after about 45 seconds.”
With the parachutes, Ashton had also brought us all digital watches. We each set the stopwatch for 45 seconds.
“Try to space yourselves out, that way there’s no chance of hitting one another.”
“We know,” Makara said. “We’ve already been over all this.”
Makara’s face was tense as she looked outside the open blast door. It was a long, damn way to fall.
“You first, Sparky,” she said, pushing me toward the door.
I yelped. I had nearly forgotten that.
“Sparky?”
“Yep. We had a deal.”
Samuel smirked. “What are you waiting for?”
“Alright,” Ashton said. “Whenever you’re ready, Alex.”
I was really doing this. I paused a moment, looking at the world below. In my head, I went over everything Ashton said. Wait 45 seconds. Pull the drogue at 2,500 feet. Try not to pass out. I took a deep breath. Then, I fell out, lying flat on my belly.
I was falling. The air pummeled my body and ripped cold past face as I raced faster and faster toward the surface. I sailed through the cloud, fear and exhilaration coursing through my veins. This was fun.
10 seconds.
I glanced above, unable to restrain a whoop. Both Makara and Samuel were small above me, falling at about the same speed. I had reached my max speed of 120 mph, maintaining equilibrium with the air resistance below me. I exited the cloud layer, and lost my breath seeing that green ground rushing up to meet me, closer than ever. There was nothing but green, and jagged peaks to my right, lost in cloud — no signs of civilization. It felt incredible, like the whole world was mine.
I had twenty seconds until I had to open my chute. The ground rushed up to me, faster and faster. Was I really supposed to wait this long before releasing the pilot chute?
I looked at my digital clock. It was time. I pulled out the pilot chute. It shot above me, pulling lines and popping the pin. The rest of canopy filled up, cell by cell, and I felt myself shoot upward. I felt afraid that I might hit one of the others. But nothing happened. I felt myself lifted up, slowing from 120 mph to a mere 10 mph. I was floating down to Earth, not too far from the green field that was our target. I felt my heart pounding like crazy.
To my either side, I grabbed the toggles with shaky hands. It was time to experiment with these controls. I pulled my left toggle slightly, feeling myself turn down and to the left. I tried the right. It had the opposite effect.
I pulled on both slightly, feeling myself lift up a bit. Butterflies flew in my stomach.
A gust of wind blew, veering me to my left. I pulled the right toggle to compensate. This was easy.
Except, the clearing wasn’t approaching fast enough. I would hit the trees below before I ever made it. Crashing into one of those things would be painful, and not to mention tricky to get out of. If I were unlucky, the consequences might be even worse.
Afraid, I veered right, hoping to catch a draft of wind that would send me further ahead. The treetops were closer, reaching for me. I was going to crash into them before making the clearing. There was one tall tree in particular I was on a direct course to hit. I pulled up on the toggles, right before hitting the tree. I cried out, feeling myself lift above it, my feet scraping its top branches. I had made it. The clearing was ahead, and allowed myself to sink toward the tall, waving grass. Right before I touched down, I pulled on both toggles, like Ashton had instructed me. I landed, rolling on the ground as my chute enveloped me.
I untangled myself, unstrapping my pack. As soon as I was free, I saw Makara land a few feet away, as nimbly as a cat. Samuel swung in from above, landing a good fifty feet away. It was a textbook landing, and this was only our first go. If we could have anywhere near this level of success tonight, then I felt more confident about this rescue than ever.
“Close call, Alex,” Samuel said.
“Yeah,” I said, my voice shaky. “I’ll have to release the drogue a bit sooner next time.”
“Did you set your watch alright?” Makara asked, walking up. “Samuel and I released about the same time as you, and we spaced our jumps by about five seconds.”
“I think I did,” I said, looking at my watch. “Maybe it didn’t start on time.”
“Make sure it’s working properly next time,” Samuel said. “We were lucky.”
Maybe things hadn’t gone as swimmingly as I first supposed. “I will.”
From the sky, the shape of Gilgamesh descended from the clouds, still about 5,000 feet above.
It was time for takes two and three.
That afternoon, we did our second jump. My watch worked fine; I must have hit the pause button in midair, and hit it again somehow. At least, that’s what I decided. Who knows what really happened.
The nerves were still there for this jump, but they were easier to ignore. We landed in the clearing again, and this time there were no killer trees. By evening, we did our final jump. This time, though, Ashton told us to pull the release on the main canopy, in order to get used to the reserve being shot out. This was a little scary, because releasing that canopy meant that the reserve was our only lifeline — and unlike the main chute, the reserve had no toggles — although, by the time we were instructed to release our main canopy, we were told to be safely over the clearing.
We did get rid of our main chutes when the time came, and as we were told, the reserves deployed automatically. It wasn’t easy pulling that release.