"You know what will happen if we hit rapids?" MacArthur sputtered. As he uttered those words, his ears detected a faint noise—a rumble. Rapids! Rapids were coming!
"Get your ass in the river!" MacArthur screamed. "You hear that?"
MacArthur's side of the raft slapped into the water as Chastain' s bulk slid off opposite. The big man thrashed his legs and flailed his free arm wildly; the raft turned in a circle.
"Slow down!" MacArthur shouted, but Chastain could not hear; white water noise drowned his words. MacArthur sensed the current accelerating. The surface of the river dipped sharply, as if the torrent was running over a shallow, irregular bottom—over big rocks!
"Hang on, Jocko!" MacArthur yelled. His foggy brain tried to think, but the roar of broken water dominated his senses. The river narrowed, the constricted waters piling current upon current, forming a tortured pattern of choppy waves. The raft pitched and bucked in the troubled waters. A ghostly phosphorescence surged from the darkness. The raft sucked toward the wet glow and was jerked downwards behind it, the reflected upwash spinning the raft and ejecting it onward.
They were on smooth waters again, gently revolving, the crashing noises slowly subsiding behind them. MacArthur took a deep breath and held his face up into the relentless rain. The drops felt warm compared to the chill of the river. He shivered.
"We made it! We made it, didn't we?" Chastain exulted.
"Yeah," MacArthur replied, not wanting to tell him they had navigated a small set of rapids. He tried to match Chastain' s stroke, the raft still spinning in the current. "Keep the river coming from the same direction, and don't burn yourself out," he admonished, his lower jaw trembling with cold.
They paddled diligently, the effort warming their bodies against the bone-chilling waters. Both shores were invisible, the darkness complete, the lightning long past. Heavy raindrops splattered around them, a whispering curtain of water. MacArthur wondered how far downriver they had been carried and how many hours of hiking would be added to their trek. They talked little, the chattering of teeth making conversation untenable. A low rumble flirted on the edge of their senses, cutting in and out of the rain's hiss and the splashing of their arms.
"Shh! H-Hold it!" MacArthur gasped. He strained, trying to detect a noise he did not want to hear. There it was, clearer now—a deep-throated blend, far off. MacArthur uttered an expletive. "Harder, Jocko," MacArthur shouted. They pulled vigorously, backstroking; the ungainly raft plowed across the hardening current.
"I hear it, Mac," Chastain gulped. "A big one, ain't it?" "Oh, yeah," MacArthur said.
They paddled desperately, splashing and gasping, but the noise encompassed them, dominating all other sounds. The river flowed firmly and smoothly, the current a living thing, a flexing muscle. The noise increased to a full-fledged, bellowing din, rivaling the sound of a rocket engine at full power. The pain in MacArthur's shoulder was eclipsed by panic.
The river fell from under them. Raft and crew soared into a black void. MacArthur screamed at the top of his lungs and separated from the raft. It was a short drop, but in the blackness it lasted an eternity. A maelstrom rose to meet them, and into it they were swallowed, jerking end over end, helpless, for eternal seconds. And as suddenly as they had been swallowed, they were ejected, flushed to the surface of the turbulence. MacArthur felt yielding contact; it was not a rock. A bull-strong fist grabbed him by the back of his coat and hauled him bodily to the raft. Half-drowned, spewing water, MacArthur grabbed onto the smooth wood with both hands and pulled his chest onboard. He felt Chastain' s great arm across his back, holding him against the bucking forces. Water washed over them. They struck hard, jolting and careening in circles, spinning into the wake of foaming granite islands, and all the while violently bouncing and plunging. Plunging and bouncing, the raft spun and galloped, more underwater than atop it.
The raft was no longer rigid; the bindings had loosened. A massive rock loomed from the darkness. The hapless craft struck solidly and held fast to the sheer upstream face of the monolith, pinched mightily by the overwhelming weight of an iron current. Magnificent pressure crushed them, pinning them helplessly to the raft, which was itself held in tight bond to the rock. MacArthur felt the raft flexing and warping, its bindings working looser. With gut-wrenching swiftness the lines unraveled, and the greater portion of the raft, including their packs, separated and carried away down the left side of the rock. Chastain' s iron-strong fingers dug desperately into MacArthur' s arm as the remaining portion of raft broke loose to the right of the rock, returning the sodden Marines into the crashing cascade. Within seconds, their meager raft was reduced to a single log. Both men, clinging helplessly to each other, grasped the splintered wood, the focus of their entire being.
Chapter 11. Last Landing
"Commander, this sorry excuse for an orbit ain't going to last," Rhodes reported from engineering. Holding his breath, Quinn dared to exercise the main engines one more time, all but stopping the closure rate. The power plant, vibrating insanely, threatened to explode. Orbital decay alarms brayed continuously.
"Hang on, Virgil," Quinn responded, nursing the thrusters. "She's in grappling range in ten minutes. The maneuvering jets can do the rest."
The EPL was no longer a point of light in the distance; it had shape and color. Red, white, and blue strobe lights flashed with irritating brilliance. Quinn eased the forward vector with axial thrust, diminishing the rate of closure. He turned off the corvette's strobes, and the lander pilot answered, extinguishing her own.
"Coming up on you, Sharl," Quinn announced over the radio.
"Roger, Commander. Best approach I've ever seen," she answered.
Quinn played the vernier thrusters delicately, setting the approach vector. The lander drifted down his starboard side.
"Piece of cake," Quinn mumbled. With visual reference no longer available, he concentrated on the docking display. Despite excursions caused by orbital drag, he brought the corvette to a halt relative to the lander and moved the huge ship within range of the gantry. After some touchy jostling, the lander was secured in its bay and the hanger doors sealed.
"Too easy," Quinn transmitted. "Initiate boost when she's clear."
"Roger that," Rhodes responded from the lander bay. "Should be quick, the bay has repressurized. Okay, the hatch is opening. She's back."
Quinn acknowledged and returned to setting up the next boost. Buccari glided onto the flight deck. Her features were drawn and fatigued, but she favored him with a supernova smile, green eyes glinting in the white light of sunrise.
"Thanks for picking me up. Sorry about the short orbit," she said.
"Welcome back. Let's just say we appreciate your effort," Quinn replied. "And besides, we didn't have anything else to do."
She floated to her station, replaced her helmet, and plugged her umbilicals into the console. "Where are you?"
Quinn brought her up to speed, and she was immediately absorbed in the flight deck situation. Orbital decay was past critical. Quinn was constantly maneuvering the wallowing craft. Air temperatures in the corvette had risen uncomfortably.
"Phew, I thought it looked bad before!" Buccari said, checking the instruments. "This power plant is really chewed up. Virgil, whatever did you do to these engines?"
"Begging the lieutenant's pardon, but we used 'em to come get you," Rhodes came back over the intercom.
"Well, I guess they look fine then," Buccari replied.
Quinn laughed. He was excited, for good reason. They were going to pull it off. A short boost to a safe orbit, refuel the lander, and they could all safely return to the planet.