Within minutes of attaining orbital velocity her engines starved. The EPL was now an unpowered satellite in extremely low orbit—too low! She verified that her identification beacon was emitting. Fifteen minutes later her transponder was interrogated. The corvette had located her.
She came up: "Harrier One, lander's up. Come in, Harrier One."
Commander Quinn responded, his relief apparent. "Okay, Sharl, we got you. You're low and ahead of the 'vette. Real low! Can you elevate?"
Buccari was elated to hear his voice. "Sorry, Commander. I'm dry as dirt. You'll have to come get me. Sorry for the inconvenience."
"Sit tight, Sharl. We'll catch you in about an hour."
As the orbiting ships slipped into the planet's shadow, Buccari realized she had less than two hours of air remaining.
On board Harrier One Quinn choked back the lump in his throat. No one had ever executed a manual landing to a one-gee planet and still retained a fuel balance sufficient for returning to orbit. Buccari had performed a miracle—well, almost. The corvette still had to retrieve the EPL. Buccari would go down in pilot history…if they were ever rescued.
"Main engines ready to answer," Rhodes said. "But I sure wish we could get to her with the maneuvering jets."
"Me, too, Virgil, with all my heart, but it would take about two weeks. She might get a little impatient withus." Quinn started the main engine ignition checklist, proceeding carefully. He had absolutely no confidence in the wounded power plant.
The pre-ignition checklist complete, Quinn keyed the microphone. "Sharl, Quinn here. We have to fire the mains. You know what that means. We don't need much, but it's hard to tell what will happen. I thought you should know, in case you see us screaming by."
"Rog', Commander. I'll throw out a net," came Buccari's stolid reply.
The two men proceeded deliberately through the remainder of the checklist, rechecking and verifying. Quinn monitored the engine instruments, trying to interpret the myriad danger signals the engine instruments were throwing back at him. His professional tools were a mess, but his objective was clear. They were doomed to die in their respective orbiting coffins unless they could unite and combine assets. The corvette could not enter the atmosphere; it was a large space vehicle with no aerodynamic controls. It had fuel, but its engines were crippled. The EPL, their planetary lander, was adrift in orbit, capable of penetrating the atmosphere and landing on the planet but trapped in orbit without the fuel required to initiate a deorbit burn, much less enough fuel to land safely.
"Mighty low orbit, Commander," Rhodes interrupted the checklist.
Quinn looked up from his console. They were already in a rapidly decaying orbit.
"Yeah…low," Quinn said. "So we pick up the apple and boost back to orbit, where we load it with a full bag of fuel and head for the deck, to live happily ever after. If that song breaks down, we'll have to come up with a new verse."
"I'm ready to sing," Rhodes replied tensely.
Quinn took a deep breath and commenced the countdown. It was only a two-second burn with one percent power—a pat on a baby's ass.
"…three…two…one…zero." Quinn hit the ignition switch. The engines fired and held for two seconds, and then extinguished as programmed. Both men screamed in delight.
Quinn hit the transmit button. "We're coming, darling!" he shouted.
After a pause Buccari responded, her voice theatrically stiff: "Excuse me, Commander, but were you addressing yourself to me?"
The soft rumbling had grown steadily over the past kilometer, sometimes eclipsed by the gravelly cacophony of the individual streams, but never completely lost. It was a distinct noise—a vibration, a loud, crashing background ambiance. MacArthur crested a gravel bar to gain a vantage point. He peered into the misty gloaming and saw the river—the real river. Its primary channel spread before him, perhaps three hundred meters across, moving smoothly and with obvious power. Upstream and downstream MacArthur saw white water—cascades of turbulence bounding over and around large boulders—the source of the ambient roar that had been haunting them.
It was their last hurdle; the bank opposite rose steeply, and the foothills beyond were tantalizingly close. The men moved across the bar, curious to approach their challenge. MacArthur stopped at the edge, his confidence slipping. The river churned and roiled, moving swiftly to their left. Downstream, surging white waves seasoned with crystalline humps of green-black water crashed and rattled over a spectacularly rugged section of rocks.
"Let's walk downstream. If we cross here and don't make it, it'll be a rough ride." MacArthur had to repeat himself because of the noise.
They hiked over slippery rocks, past angry sections of chewed-up water crashing around jagged pinnacles. The noise was deafening, the air thick with mist. MacArthur' s apprehension grew. He began to doubt their ability to make it across at all, much less before nightfall. They confronted a barricade of debris, an accumulation of bleached-out limbs and logs impeding their progress, but as they worked through it MacArthur registered an idea. Wood! They would make a raft of driftwood. It would be ungainly, but if they could find a calm stretch of river, they could make it. It would not have to be a big raft, just enough to take their weight.
"Jocko, start collecting wood," MacArthur ordered. Grimacing, he slid straps from his aching shoulders and deposited his load on the rocks. Feeling suddenly and deceptively springy-legged with the lightening of his load, he stretched his back and shoulders. They were reasonably high above the water. If he could not find a likely spot to cross the river, they would camp here for the night. "Try to find some large pieces. Couple of meters long. Enough for a raft. I'll check out the river." Chastain shucked his immense pack onto the rocks with a crunching thud.
Gloomy dusk was fast surrendering to impatient night. MacArthur scanned the river downstream, searching for telltale spumes of luminescence indicating rocks and rapids. The crescendo of the tortured water abated; he could hear the torrent at his feet, and the river flowed more gently, still with good speed but without the urgency associated with turbulence. He walked farther; the loudness receded. The river melded into darkness, but the low cliffs of the far bank gave him a dim perspective of distance. He slowed his pace. The river could be crossed with a raft. He stopped and stared one last time into the darkness—the decision made.
As he peered into the murk, clouds to the south pulsated with flickering blue light. A low rolling cannonade of thunder echoed up the river valley. He turned and headed back, leg-weary, stumbling over loose river rock.
Council chambers echoed with clicking talons. The hunters were ushered before the elders, unusual at this late hour—the elders fatigued easily. But the explosions from the sky, louder even than thunder, had reached the cliff dwellers' deepest fears. It had started again! The elders were frightened. The hunters lined up before the council, and Braan moved into the dock. For once he waited to be addressed, as was proper.
"I bid brave warriors welcome. Braan, leader-of-hunters, of clan Soong, please speak," said Koop-the-facilitator politely.
"Long life, excellency, I am humbled," Braan said with unusual ceremony. A cool breath of air fluttered through the chamber, causing spirit lamps to gutter and dim. The storm rolling up the river valley was a severe one—brilliant threads of lightning had guided the hunters' flight down the cliff face. Raindrops had pattered on them as they approached the portal of the grand assembly. An angry night.
"Braan and his hunters have returned," the facilitator said, his expression intense, "and the mysterious thunder plagues us still. What news of its source?"