Leslie Lee lugged her drenched medical satchel. It was not designed for hiking in the rain; nor was she. Gravity punished her back and legs; her breathing was heavy, and she alternated between perspiring and shivering. She collapsed on the heavy bag, wiping water from her eyes. The poncho was too large, and the hood flopped over her face. Whenever she moved, she needed to push the hood back in order to see. Sitting on the equipment to rest, she pulled the hood over her head, failing to first empty the reservoir of accumulated rain water. It ran cold and wet down her neck, wracking her short frame with shivers.
She turned to search for Fenstermacher. Despite his bad arm, the boatswain had stubbornly helped her lug the equipment from the cave. She heard him slogging toward her, his form appearing in the murky downpour. She shined the flashlight beam on the ground, watching raindrops slap the surface of the lake.
"Anything new?" she asked.
Fenstermacher, carrying two flares, splashed up and sat heavily on the bag, making contact with his skinny hips against her round ones. She moved to make room, and he slid over, again making contact along their thighs. She had run out of room, so she just sat there, not minding. It was warmer, and she actually liked Fenstermacher. Strangely, everyone liked Fenstermacher.
"Nothing," he answered, short of breath. "They must be inbound. O'Toole will help with your first aid kit. I'm not much good with this broken arm."
"Nonsense; you helped getting it here. You should have stayed in the cave with Rennault. You have a long way to go before you're back to normal. Not that you were ever normal."
Fenstermacher uncharacteristically let the jab pass. "Hope they make it," he gulped in despair, putting his chin in his hands.
Lee looked at him and then put her arm around his narrow shoulders. Both of them returned their stares to the small circle of light of the flashlight beam.
The bearing indicator on the head-up display moved from the stops and settled. The lander had drifted north. Buccari reset her approach track, and the bearing indicator adjusted. Distance readouts commenced. Her landing window was good, but there was no margin for error. The EPL was flying. She gently wiggled the sidestick.
The large moon, in its first quarter, cast faint light on the cloud deck. The lumpy small moon was full but contributed less illumination than the dense constellations of stars. Ridges of dark peaks rose above the silver clouds, giving reference to her velocity. Marching away, far in the distance, rising above the mountains, lines of towering cumulonimbus flickered magically.
She verified that the remaining fuel had been dumped. Precious fuel, it was worthless because of the damaged nozzles. Only enough fuel to ignite the hover blaster remained, and she retrimmed for a no-fuel approach. Her scan narrowed. She debated whether to keep the autopilot engaged. The computer could fly the approach better than she could—if it worked. The autopilot had only shown problems on final. No, she could no longer trust the systems; too many things had gone wrong. She swallowed, half to clear the building pressure in her ears and half to push her doubts back into her being, and then she switched off the auto-controls.
Trailing double thunder, the glinting lander descended for the cloud deck. Buccari banked smoothly, airspeed dropping in the turn. She steadied on a truncated base leg and watched the timer count the seconds. Airspeed and altitude bled off rapidly and thefirst tendrils of cloud obscured her forward vision with ghostly wisps of cotton. The lander skimmed deeper into the silky vapors. Her view of the stars flickered and was gone.
Shannon jerked at the sonic booms. Rain fell across his face. He returned his vision to the ground, wiping the water from his eyes.
"Five minutes! Turn on flashlights—white beams." he shouted into his helmet radio. The Marines had traded their cloth hats for helmets. "Acknowledge!"
The Marines responded. Everyone was ready, but for what? If Buccari missed the lake to the right, she would kill his people. If she got lucky and landed in the water, then what?
Shannon reached down and touched the inflated raft. Shannon could swim well, but he had a deep-seated fear of the water. He did not look forward to pushing out onto the black, rain-spattered lake. He checked his watch; it was time to ignite the flares.
"Light 'em off!" he commanded over UHF. In the distance a bright red flare erupted into life, followed by another, and yet another, until a necklace of red sparklers pierced the drizzle, illuminating and defining the shoreline. He reached into the raft, took out the powerful search torch, and turned it on, pointing it into the skies.
The lander rolled onto final and dropped sub-sonic, the black fuzziness of clouds still obscuring forward vision. Raindrops vaporized against the viewscreen. Buccari concentrated on the head-up, noting her radar altimeter coming on line. She would be dragging it in; there was no excess airspeed. A good thing—she did not want to force the EPL down on the lake; but did she have enough energy to make it?
She checked distance to the beacon, made an alignment adjustment, pushed her nose down for airspeed, and armed airbrakes and spoilers in the unlikely event she stayed fast. The glide slope indicator moved steadily to center. In quick succession she activated wingtip fences and leading-edge slats, dropped the first increment of flaps, and armed hover blasters. She was ready; only flaps and blasters to go. Rhodes's voice droned steadily as he reported altitude and distance to the beacon for Quinn's benefit. Buccari concentrated on holding lineup and glide slope. Airspeed was good. She dropped the next increment of flaps. At thirty-four kilometers from the beacon, the radar altimeter abruptly decreased by a thousand meters—the plateau's edge.
Ten kilometers to go. On glide slope and on course. Attitude trimmed a bit fast, the nose not quite high enough, but that was the side on which to err—plenty of time to correct. She tapped the rudder and eased stick pressure to port; the lander corrected an incipient drift. Five kilometers; she added flaps; the nose ballooned slightly. Buccari compensated, holding the slope. Three kilometers. Where were the bottom of the clouds? She checked altitude, pushed the nose down, and added the last increment of flaps.
Red flares! She saw flares strung in a ragged line to the right of her nose. Airspeed approached stall. The radar altimeter indicated ten meters. She eased back the nose and held wings level using only rudders. Impact was seconds away! She forced herself to hold attitude—no jerky movements. With startling immediacy the tail of the lander met the water, and simultaneously—more luck than timing—Buccari fired the hover blaster, offsetting the impact and keeping the nose from slapping forward. She yelled for Rhodes to eject.
And found herself screaming hysterically into the wet night, a living projectile being rocketed violently out of the crashing craft below. Before she could comprehend the fact, she was swinging into the water, deadweight at the end of a pendulum, her canopy having opened just enough to retard impact. The reality of freezing water snapped disjointed thoughts into focus. She surfaced clear of the chute and fumbled for the disconnects, but they had been pulled high on her shoulders by the yanking deployment. Frantically treading water, she at last located the fittings and disengaged her harness from the enveloping shrouds. Panic struck as she felt snaking nylon wrapping around her ankles. Fighting to stay calm, she submerged and worked to separate herself from the tangle. Excruciatingly slowly, one by one, the clinging lines fell away. She surfaced and weakly frog-kicked onto her back.