Ann and
Kimball arrived at the kite hatch. The kite was just a large sail to be
deployed when they sailed at a run, or as an emergency sail for the cockpit if
the rest of the ship was lost. Ann and Hank had carefully replaced the kite
while in the last system, putting in her windsurfing board and sails.
“We’re at
the hatch,” Kimball relayed.
“Copy,”
Flynn said. “opening the hatch.”
Ann felt
the hatch lift under her gloves, and she reached in to grab the hand bar on her
mast. It was a single, triangular sail set on a pivot inserted into a board.
Everything was made from sailcloth, which caught the wind. Already she could
feel the wind threatening to tear the sail and board from her grasp. Only the
anchoring line to the ship kept it from flying out into the stars.
Ann
attempted to mount the board, which was anchored in the kite compartment by
gravnets. It took some fiddling to get the anchoring straps locking her boots
to the board. Tethers on her wrists attached her to the hand bar for the sail,
though these would slide along the bar, allowing her to adjust her grip
whenever necessary.
A hand
patted her on the head.
“I’m
secure,” she relayed.
“Copy,”
Flynn said. “XO, final checks?”
“Green.
We’re ready.”
“All right,
Ann. It’s your show,” Flynn said.
“Pay me
out.”
“Releasing board
locks and paying out the line, 10cm per second.”
Ann’s mind
wanted to jump down a list of what to do in any given circumstance, to always
plan for the contingency. That was what they had drilled at the academy.
Procedure after procedure and a checklist of things to do that robbed flying of
all joy. But she had to admit that it made for safer flying. And now that she
was about to attempt the most dangerous kind of flying imaginable, she wanted
something she could latch onto, some way to increase her odds of coming back
alive, of not being blown through the galaxy at the wind’s mercy.
Step one: Breathe. Step two: don’t care.