Above, the captain maneuvered his ship with apparent difficulty into the courtyard. The portion of the crew representing the away team watched through the open personnel hatch as the dimly lit ground slid by. Each crewmember was loaded down with whatever equipment they felt they might need, along with as many empty sacks as they could carry, and they’d tied additional equipment into bundles and chained it along the length of a rope.
Captain Mack angled the ship such that the hatch was in shadow, giving them the maximum cover but minimum visibility. He then lowered the ship dangerously close to the ground and prepared the seldom-used anchor.
“We go one at a time. Standard land evacuation methods.”
“Wait. I don’t know the standard land evacuation methods,” Nita said.
“He just means jump. And try to roll when you hit the ground,” Coop said. “Hope it doesn’t bust my stitches.”
“This sounds like the sort of thing I should have practiced,” Nita said.
“No time like the present!” Lil said. The frightening sound of the anchor dropping onto the cobblestone of the courtyard rang out. “Follow my lead, and make sure you don’t lose your mask!”
Lil braced her mask to her face with one hand and dropped through the hatch, plummeting five or six feet. She landed feet first, pitching forward into a shoulder roll and ending up on her feet and running. Coop kicked the bundles of equipment out, then followed them. He didn’t have quite the same level of grace, but he nonetheless landed without a scratch. Next, it was Nita’s turn. She held her mask tight and jumped.
Coop and Lil had made it look easy, but it wasn’t until she was in the air that Nita realized if there was a knack to it, she hadn’t worked it out. She hit the ground hard, tipping forward into more of a tumble than a roll. When she finally slid to a stop she was a bit bruised, a few of her tools went clattering across the ground, and her ankle made a worrying crack, but she was still in one piece.
Lil made her way to Nita at a low run, helping her to her feet and gathering her lost tools. The three of them snagged the fallen equipment bundle.
Gunner opted for a different exit, dangling down from the edge by his hands to shorten his fall. His plan was somewhat foiled when the anchor finally bit into the courtyard, causing a sudden and violent end to the Wind Breaker’s drift and dislodging him before he was ready. He fell to the ground and landed hard on his back. Despite only falling a few feet, he seemed utterly shocked.
“You okay, Gunner?” Lil whispered as she and Nita helped him to his feet.
“Easy, easy,” he said insistently.
“Oh, calm down. It was barely a fall. I jumped twice as far as you, and you don’t see me getting all twitchy.”
“But you aren’t strapped with firearms and explosives.”
“Good point.”
“Quit fooling around back there,” Coop said. “Let’s get moving before they notice us down here.”
The group moved as swiftly and silently as they could, heading due north. Once they were out of the dim halo of light cast by the ships, they found themselves stumbling in inky blackness. Only the remote glow of a second ship far in the distance broke up the tapestry of midnight purple around them. The heavy, dense fumes seemed to deaden sound as well, swiftly muting the noise of the ships and leaving them with nothing but their own footsteps and labored breaths. When she felt they were far enough to escape notice, Nita pulled her trusty gas lamp from her belt and sparked it to life. The group huddled around the circle of light.
“Who’s got the compass?” she asked.
“Right here,” Coop said. He pulled it out. “We’re headed in the right direction.”
“Are we sure? I can’t see anything. This place is pitch black. I don’t know how he could possibly navigate down here.”
“Trust me when I tell you, the cap’n could make the whole trip to Caldera and back with his eyes closed. He wouldn’t be the cap’n otherwise.”
“Well, let’s keep moving north then,” Nita said. “Everyone keep your eyes peeled for something it looks like they don’t want us to break into.”