Reborn: Book 1 The McKensie Chronicles

Chapter 6: New Arrivals.

 We broke camp as the first sun rose. We loaded the gear and a few small salvage items we had left to bring down to the valley and boarded the scout. Connor quipped that the little ultralight was archaic for the millionth time. I simply replied "It works. If it ain't broke don't fix it!"

I powered the plane down the hill towards the drop-off as I always did on takeoff from here. Uncharacteristically, there was a downdraft just beyond the ledge. When the scout dropped like a rock, I squealed like the little girl I am while forcing myself to push the stick forward for air speed even as the ground came up fast. We gained lift at the last second, the wheels dragging in the underbrush of the ravine as I pulled back just enough to halt our descent. The scout climbed slowly out of the ravine and before long we were well on our way to the valley below.

"That ever happened before?" Connor asked after I had us on a safe flight path.

"Only once: I had half the load then, so it was easy to pull out of it. You are too damned heavy!" I shot back smiling. "Truthfully, I wasn't sure we were not going to crash for a moment."

"I had faith in you, Kinsey," Connor said seriously. "Where do you think that updraft you used to pull us out came from?"

"Dunno, but I'm glad it was there. "

"Thermals; you can manipulate them." It was a statement, not a question. I pondered it, reviewing my memory of the incident for a while as we flew steadily toward my home. I did remember a good updraft countering the sink at just the right time, but I was sure it was just the air currents on the mountain.

We landed in the valley at midday. After unloading the scout, I tied her down while Connor made a simple lunch. Once we'd eaten, we sorted the salvage and began assembling the cable lengths so we could get deep enough to recover the little ship Connor came here in. It was a gamble. Not even an educated guess as I had no idea how deep the lake was. In the end, the 350 meters of cable we assembled wasn't enough. We spent two more days assembling another 300 meters of cable.

After a week of attempts, Connor was able to swim down to his ship. He was guided only by the faint beacon signal that he'd activated when he originally landed. Connor secured the cables and literally walked the bottom up to the shoreline. Once he surfaced, he began to pull. That didn't work out but, we had enough spare cable that we rigged a block-and-tackle type deal and pulled it out. It took another day and a half, but finally, the vessel was out of the lake. Connor set it to dewatering that evening, and we settled in for the night.

*******

Connors log:

McKenzie is a pretty powerful little lady. That and she seems to have the soul of a man I once called brother. She helped me get the cables together more than she realized, I think. Once we had a few hundred meters assembled I dived down. The lake water was cool at the surface, but past 100 meters it started to get downright cold. Good thing this modified android chassis can handle the cold of deep space. The fish in the lake were curious. Something like a bass lives at the bottom as it slopes past 300 meters. It was at this point I realized I didn't have enough cable. I continued down to the ship which was resting at 375 meters near the edge of a shelf. I have no idea how deep the lake is beyond that shelf, but I couldn't see the bottom. After I surfaced, we put together another couple hundred meters of cable. This was enough for me to reach my ship and pull it out of the depths. Of course, it took some old-school techniques McKinsey showed me from her time in the Navy to give me enough leverage to drag it up on the bank.

Once the ship was on shore, I opened up the hatches and set it to dewater. It's a pretty rugged little ship, more of a missile on steroids really, with a coffin-sized chamber that supports life. Most of the systems were still functioning once I turned them on. No damage from the water thankfully, but the crash certainly didn't do her any good. I lost my port gun turret when I clipped the mountaintop on my way in.