He’d had a feeling the whole time like he wasn’t getting enough air, a claustrophobic, strangling sensation that had bugged the hell out of him.
Worse, in a way, was the sweat that formed inside the mask. It tickled like hell and he desperately had wanted to pull the mask away and wipe at it. But if he did that, everybody would have to start the pre-breath all over again. One gulp of “real” air reset the whole thing.
Pain in the ass didn’t begin to cover it but now it was show-time.
The loadmaster stood in front of him and reached down to her waist, miming pulling something forward. All the cute had disappeared behind the oxygen mask, helmet and heavy clothes.
Vanner, for the third time, checked to make sure that the chute was “armed” and the safety-pin had been removed from the AAD. In the event that a jumper was knocked out, either by the O2 failing or from some impact, the arming system would automatically open their chutes at 700 feet above ground level or 700AGL.
Now, in the case of the team, that was adjusted to 700 AGL above their planned DZ or right at 13,000 feet. If the jumper was unconscious he or she probably wasn’t going to hit anywhere near the DZ. And almost everything around the DZ was higher than the drop zone meaning that they were probably still going to splat into the ground at a high rate of speed. It also, mostly, was vertical. He’d pointed this out to the team and also pointed out that not passing out, for any reason, nor failing to track to the DZ nor failing to pull their chutes on time were all very good things.
Frankly, Vanner had on the ascent come to the conclusion that the Kildar, he barely could think of him as “Mike Jenkins” anymore, was insane. The Kildar, whoever he really was, whatever he’d done before he turned up in Georgia, was clearly highly-trained in HALO. He had, after all, trained them and done it in record time. Which means he had to know what a shot-in-the-dark insanity it was to send five totally green HALO jumpers and drop them into some of the worst conditions ever created by man for airborne operations: alpine mountains with a drop zone the size of a postage stamp. Just fitting all five of them onto it was going to be interesting.
Vanner tried to show none of that as he lurched to his feet and waved to the other four.
The lurch was necessitated by their gear. Besides their clothing, bulky and heavy enough, they were all wearing combat harnesses, their chutes, helmet and oxygen mask and last, but most certainly not least, their rucksacks which were slung forward and down, making it nearly impossible to walk. The long, and heavily packed, rucksacks dropped very nearly to the ground in the case of the two women. They simply had to be helped by Jeseph and Ivan as the fivesome shuffled towards the ramp.
Currently the ramp was still up and that was just fine by Vanner. It had, however, been cracked to depressurize the cabin and the sound of the rushing wind filled the interior of the aircraft making communication, already difficult with the oxygen masks, nearly impossible.
Which, of course, was what hand signals were for.
Vanner slapped the front of his harness and then gestured for the two pairs to check each other’s equipment. He carefully ensured that they followed the memorized checklist then had Olga check his. As well as any of them could tell, everything was good to go.
Equipment checked they shuffled towards the rear of the bird as the load-master, who was suited up in a similar manner but tied off with a safety-rope, lowered the ramp.
This occasioned even more roaring but very little actual wind movement. Vanner had expected the strong circulation they’d experienced during training but the air inside the bird was strangely calm. He could only think it was due to the entire rear of the plane being open instead of just side doors.
Vanner paused at the edge of the ramp and looked over at the load-master. She, in turn, pointed to the red light mounted by the door which was solid. Blinking meant more than five minutes from the drop. Solid meant less than five.
The loadmaster gestured with her right arm straight out, palm up then bent it and touched the top of the helmet. Thirty seconds. Time to move to the ramp.
Vanner shuffled forward as Olga grabbed the top of his chute from behind. The entire party then followed, shuffling towards the edge of the ramp but bound together in case one of them slipped.
The loadmaster had moved to the base of the ramp on the far right and was now on her stomach, looking down and forward. She hit the ramp with a closed fist then raised it. Stand by; the DZ was in sight.
Green light.
Vanner stepped forward and then threw himself outwards. Strangely enough, it was easier than it had been in training. Part of that was that it was dark. There was nothing to give perspective, even the clouds below them were far enough away they didn’t look like clouds.
Fear of heights is all perception.
He took a box-man formation and counted to ten then looked over his shoulder. Everyone was out with Olga and Julia delta tracking to get in better position. The team was spread out in more or less a v formation. Nobody was trying to hold a solid position, just trying to both keep out of each other’s airstream and keep an eye on Vanner.
Which told him it was time for a position check. He looked at his GPS and banked right towards the DZ. Another check over his shoulder and everyone had followed the turn, still keeping spread. He went back and got a better fix on their position and the position of the DZ then had to wonder. They had been slightly north. They were still slightly north but closer, in vertical they were barely two hundred meters north. He wasn’t positive, but he thought they’d moved about thirty meters in a thousand feet of drop.
Which meant there was, like, no wind. Which didn’t make sense. There was always wind at altitude. Always.
The clouds below did have the DZ obscured which was really gonna suck. He didn’t know if they even broke at all; they could go all the way to the ground. They seemed kind of broken though… As he thought that they broke up enough so he could see the DZ. And it was right there, the tiny silver of the stream shining in a brief flash from the moon.
They were right on top of it, there wasn’t any wind. Something was bound to go wrong!
He took up a creep position, though. They might overshoot just a bit. He looked back and signaled with his thumbs to creep back then checked his position again. The clouds were breaking up a bit more and the DZ was like looking at a darkened sat-shot. Everything was there.
He signaled to stop the creep, checked their position, checked the team — still with him — and then looked around. The cessation of wind finally made sense. To their north there was a wall of clouds. Sometimes in advance of a front, just before it hit, the winds dropped to absolutely nothing, even at altitude. “The calm before the storm.”
Of course, that much “calm” often meant one hell of a storm.
He looked back and realized that the ground was suddenly rushing at him, seemingly faster than a train. And there were mountains all around, by trick of optical illusion apparently rocketing into the sky. He signaled for the team to spread out, waited one second and then pulled.
After he felt the canopy open, right on time, he looked up, grabbed the control toggles, did a quick check and then looked around. Five chutes, one, Julia he was pretty sure, just opening. She’d pulled so that she was barely four hundred feet off the ground by the look of it. Damned close. High altitude, low opening indeed. But even as he watched she banked east and then north, lining up for a landing. Banked and lined like she’d been doing it her whole life. She’d barely corrected before she back-filled and her feet touched the ground. He saw one side of the chute flutter away as she popped her riser then she was waddling off to the side, getting out of the way, in no more than two seconds. Olga came in right behind her.