In addition to a scuba tank and flippers, each team member also carried their own gear and a canvas bag of equipment. The trek through the forest was going to be grueling.
"Let me have your airtank," Archangel said. They hadn't brought one for her, but each undersea sled had both an emergency tank and a regulator built in, and all had re-breathers to eradicate the telltale bubbles. "It'll lessen some of the weight while you bring the other sled."
Skater didn't argue.
A cocky grin was on Trey's face. "I guess we'll all gather at the river, then? How pagan." He took off, closing distance with the others quickly.
Skater reached into the hold and hefted out one of the bodies. Duran was busy beating the access panel off the engine area. Once he had it open, the ork knelt down with a broad-bladed knife in his fist. The smell of fuel quickly blotted out the odor of death that had been trapped in the hold.
The ground around the impact area was rocky and hard. The scars from the crash cut deeply into it, revealing shattered white rock.
Skater shoved the first corpse into the cockpit, then followed it with the second in short order. By then the leaking fuel was already making pools on the ground.
"Ready?" Duran asked.
Skater nodded and hoisted the undersea sled over his shoulder. It was constructed of composite materials, mainly polymers and ceramics, and weighed thirty-two point seven kilos. At a meter and a half long and two meters across and triangular in shape, it wasn't hard to lift and carry, but getting it through the forest was going to be slotting tricky. He started toward the river as Duran twisted the cap off a flare.
The fuse lit, and bright, hard scarlet fire burned the night away. He pitched the flare into one of the fuel puddles.
Yellow and blue alcohol flames jetted up from the pool nearly a meter away. They seemed to pause for an instant, then raced toward the broken amphibian.
Flames engulfed the Fiat-Fokker as more of the ordnance did increasing damage. Fiery comets spewed into the air in all directions, and flaming bits of the wreckage hung in the trees and against the hillside.
Despite the terrain and the weight, Skater and Duran made the river in less than five minutes. The first of the Border Patrol helos were closing in on the burning pyre of the amphibian further up the slope. The ground troops wouldn't be far behind.
The other members of the team were already in the cold water. Wheeler was jacked into the sled, the datacord for the machine's on-board computer plugged into his temple. The packs all had buoyancy bladders to keep them from floating or sinking, and Archangel was lashing the last one to the undersea sled. She'd already changed into the black thermal wetsuit Skater had packed for her against the chance that she might change her mind.
"Let's go," Skater said as he dropped his sled into the water. He keyed the ignition, and the electric motor started at once. After punching in the rest of the sequence and pushing the sled further out into the cold water, it sank and sat docilely in one place, using the dog-brain and negating the current automatically.
Wheeler tied onto the first sled, while Trey and Elvis tied on in succession after him, each with a longer piece of line. The dwarf walked them out into the river till the water closed over their heads.
After pulling the thermal lined hood over his head. Skater sealed it and grabbed the undersea sled's control bar. The goggles he wore had infrared and low-light capabilities, duplicating what his eyes could do and more, but providing protection from the water and corrections against the depths.
He slid them on and flicked the menu to IR. Archangel tied on after him, followed by Duran.
The roar of ground-based vehicles was in his ears as he walked out into the water. He shoved the regulator into his mouth and switched on his airtank, then handed the regulator for the emergency tank to Archangel.
She took it, but Skater thought she looked more distant and withdrawn than he'd ever seen. With the fear in her eyes and the uncertainty about what she was doing, she was too human.
Too easy to care about. Skater realized. The distance he'd always maintained to get him through a run was no longer there. They weren't pieces of a chess game anymore.
The knowledge hit him and stripped some of his confidence as he waded out into the water. The current of the river pushed at him as it closed over his head. Oozing silt sucked at his feet. He kicked out of his boots and slid his flippers on. After threading a line through his boot loops and tying them to his belt, he glanced back to make sure the others were ready.
"Do it," Duran said, and Archangel echoed him. Skater accelerated the sled smoothly, gradually taking them all into motion. Peering back toward the bank, he could see the flames of the burning amphibian and the lights of the helos and the ground units through the meter of water that separated him from the surface.
Turning his attention back to the sled's controls, he increased the power again and took them deeper. The cold seeped in to claim him even through the thermal wetsuit. The thought that he might not be able to get the others out of this jam he'd gotten them into made him even colder.
Memory came to Skater as the water glided past him. It was something from one of the last camping trips he'd taken with his grandfather. The old man was sitting across the campfire from him, a rabbit roasting on a spit that he had Skater turning. The firelight illuminated the old man's Craggy face and held back the blush of the stars.
"I want you to think about something." Daniel Ghost-step had said then. "There won't be an answer now or in the morning, or maybe for years." He'd reached down and pinched a bit of the rabbit's flesh off, tasting to see if it was done enough. "Keep turning and listen to this: A man is foolish and yet made strong of heart because he lives with one foot in the past and one foot in what is yet to be. If he does not do these things, he is only the wind and never rooted. When the time comes, and I hope that it will, you'll have to make the decision about being a man or just being the wind."
Skater hadn't understood then. Many Amerinds of the time were trying to figure out their history, piecing it together from half-remembered folk tales and books. In a way, they were as bad as the elves, forging a new past and calling it the Old Way.
But now Skater thought he understood at last. A man lived with his regrets and cherished his dreams, and made peace with life the rest of the time. The wind just blew wherever it went, never remembering, never caring, till it died away.
Inside the Tir, hanging onto the undersea sled like part of a human kite's tail. Skater knew he wasn't the wind anymore.
And he wasn't sure if he ever would be again.
Forty-seven minutes later, chilled to the bone, Skater released his hold on the sled and left it tethered in the water. He swam upward and joined Elvis and Trey at the mouth of a drainage tunnel spewing an impressive deluge of water into the river. The rain brought in by the storm had calmed, but hadn't completely gone away. Thunder still boomed occasionally.
"This it?" Elvis asked, standing in water up to his waist.
Skater swam to where he could stand up, then took the regulator out of his mouth and peered at the markings made on the collar holding the plascrete drainage pipe. "Yeah."
The drainage tunnel was almost two meters up the steep riverbank, and was three meters in height. It jutted out over the river at least another three meters.
The river twisted around them, turning more southerly. The opposite bank was filled with wooden and concrete docks as well as more modern plascrete ones. But the docks way outnumbered the boats. Lights tried to cut through the fog overlaying the river and the banks, but they were only half-hearted attempts.
Archangel surfaced behind Skater, pulling his pack as well as her own. Duran was next, followed by Wheeler.