For the Dreamer and the Dream

Rex and Doc hurried off the plane to the waiting chopper to take them to the ship miles off the coast. The plane taxied to the runway and took off climbing to thirty thousand feet before they leveled off. The pilot called back and let them know it was thirty minutes to the drop point. Harry got everybody up out of their seat to help get the parachute mounted on top of the car. They lifted the large heavy package and gently lowered it in place. Harry went over and shook their hands. “You show them what you got! Hoorah?”  Harry looked at Davis and gave him the nod. “Hoorah” the three of them shouted, then got in the car. Pete and Dick were stowing the gear as Jet handed it to them. The back seat was full but not over crowded. Davis closed the doors and filled the seals with compressed air. Jet walked around the car with Harry and attached the harness. Jet took a last look around the car and gave them a thumbs up after he pulled all the safety pins out of the charges. Then he and Harry sat down, strapped in and put their oxygen masks on. Davis was starting to get nervous sitting in the car just waiting for the cargo door of the C130 to open. He ran through the check list one more time before the drop coming up in five minutes. He checked the status of all readouts and double checked the collision safety system to be sure it was off. It wouldn’t do to have the air bags inflate in his face when he hit the water. Harry turned to the control panel and dimmed the cabin lights, then started to lower the back ramp. The only lights showing were the ones coming from the car’s instruments. Davis tighten up his safety straps and said a little prayer as he watched the clock count down. When it reached zero, he gave it the gas, and drove the car off the back ramp. At first he wasn’t sure the drogue chute had opened. The car had to fall with the nose tilted up and the car pointed backwards so when the main chutes opened, and they landed in the water, the jolt would throw them back into their seats. There had been some concern about the car tumbling end over end during free fall. If the main chute opened while the car was upside down, the gyros would have kept the car that way. But it wouldn’t matter too much anyway because hitting the water upside down would have knocked out a window at least. He double checked the dome camera and saw the drogue chute up and in front of him fully deployed.  He tried to scan the horizon, but there was nothing out there but black. There were no lights visible on the ground and the cloudy night hid all the stars. It was like being in a sensory deprivation tank and it was giving him a touch of vertigo, making his stomach queasy. He concentrated on the timer counting down the minutes before the main chutes opened to keep his mind off of getting sick. A minute and a half before the main chute opened. He thought of  briefly flipping through the channels on the radio to see what kind of music they have around here when the buzzer went off  reminding him to brace himself. When the chute opened, it was like getting rear ended in a bumper car. Now it was just less than fifteen seconds before hitting the water. At least his vertigo was gone.  When he hit the water, it wasn’t like getting hit by a bumper car, it was more like a mac truck doing sixty. The landing was much harder than expected and it almost knocked the wind out of him. He looked down half expecting to see all the computers off, but they survived the impact. He felt the explosive bolts blow the harness off and saw the rocket ignite and carry the chute clear of the back of the car. The car immediately started to sink. Jet had told him to wait before deploying anything in case the shroud lines were still around the car, and that the weights would pull them clear. With three guys and all that gear they were sinking fast. The depth rate meter was up there, it showed in a minute they would be approaching crush depth. Davis’s heart was pounding out of his chest. “Damn think!” he thought to himself. He couldn’t wait any longer and deployed the props and the dive planes and then he remembered the pontoons.