Caliphate

Flight Seven Nine Three, 24 Muharram,

1538 AH (4 November, 2113)

The first thing Hamilton noticed when he entered the cockpit and stood beside the pilot was that Ling (he knew, at some level, that Ling was being teleoperated but still thought of the body as Ling's) was crying, tears coursing down her cheeks in an endless flood. Retief was sitting next to the pilot in the copilot's chair.

"I'm sorry if—"

—"I need you to set me down," Hamilton answered. "There's one of our team still on the ground, at an-Nessang."

"Not going to happen," the pilot answered. "I've lost so much lift that it's—no pun intended—up in the air as to whether I'll be able to make it across the lake to Switzerland. If I waste the altitude I've got I won't make it across."

"Fuck!" Hamilton exclaimed. "Parachutes?"

"Civilian airliners don't carry chutes," Retief answered. "Bad for passenger morale, don't you know."

"I've got to get on the ground," Hamilton insisted. "If things had gone according to plan I'd have driven away from the castle—"

"Things never do," the pilot said.

Retief thought about that for a moment, then said, "There is a way but—"

"What is it, man?"

"We've got the winches to hold the ship down when it's landed and the winds are high. But they don't have much cable to them."

"How much is 'not much'? Can they reach to the ground?"

"What's our altitude over ground?" Retief asked the pilot.

"About three hundred feet. It's staying pretty stable for now, since the ground is descending slightly."

"Not enough," Retief answered. "Can you make a thirty or forty foot jump?"

Shit, my knees.

"Not a lot of choice," Hamilton answered.

"Not a lot of time, either," The pilot commented, looking at the map on his navigation screen. "I'm having to balance lift from speed with loss of buoyancy from air pressure forcing lifting gas out. It's a bitch! Then again, I am the best. An-Nessang in . . . call it . . . oh, about five minutes . . . a little less."

"Fuck it," Hamilton said to Retief. "Let's do it."

"Any particular direction from the town you want to be dropped off?" the pilot asked, as Hamilton and Retief exited the cockpit.

"Right over it, if you can," Hamilton answered over his shoulder. "Maybe I'll luck out and find a soft roof about twenty feet below."

"Stand on the hook," Retief said.

Hamilton looked at the thing dubiously. Not that the hook didn't look strong; it was huge and solid. Rather, he was thinking of what it would do to his head if it ever connected on a free swing. Still, it was the only way down. Hamilton took off his armor—he was going to hit with more than enough kinetic energy as was; to allow that piece's weight to add to it was borderline suicidal—and passed it over to Retief. He then stepped off of the deck, placing one foot, and then another, on the hook. His hands wrapped around the cable. The cable was so thick that his fingers didn't touch his thumbs.

Hamilton threw his head back, then slammed his chin down to his chest, knocking the night vision goggles over his eyes.

"Let me down," he shouted to Retief, even as the latter opened the hatchway below to allow the hook to be lowered. Hamilton had to shout as the inrushing air drowned out normal sound.

The winch started with a squeal and a shudder. Fortunately, the Boer Republic of South Africa, whatever its other flaws, did maintain its equipment. After that initial shudder, the machine operated smoothly, lowering Hamilton into the blast. Unfortunately, however, the hook was free spinning to allow fixing at any angle on the ground. Hamilton spun and swayed without control. This was bad, very bad, as he needed to see ahead to mark his landing spot. The spin threatened to make him ill. It absolutely made him want to close his eyes but that would never do.

Fuckfuckfuckfuck. How do I control this?

Experimentally, and not without a certain feeling of terror, Hamilton took one hand off the cable—the hand opposite the direction of his spin—and thrust that arm outward. The spin reversed itself.

Oh, oh. Too much. He pulled the arm partway in, reducing the cross section. There; that's better. And there's the town and . . . ohhh, shit, we're moving faster than I thought.

Hamilton put both hands back on the cable and lifted his feet off of the hook. He began to scuttle his hands down the gable. After three such releases and regraspings, his left hand lost its hold and he fell.

"Ohhh . . . shshshiiittt!"