Dark Lightning (Thunder and Lightning) Read Free

your back, a few inches square, where your hand just will
not
reach.
    Luckily, this spot was not stationary, but moving as the wind increased, twirling in a circle that brought it almost within my reach every few seconds. I timed it, determined to wrench my shoulder out of its socket if that’s what it took. I lunged, hearing the tendons crack . . . and I caught it.
    With a great feeling of relief, I yanked on the handle. The bright orange sheet unfurled, the tiny pinlights on the edges began to blink. The radio would be sending out a distress signal.
    And the chute snarled in the wreckage of my flycycle.
    Well, there really wasn’t much else that could go wrong now. I was going to hit the ground. The only question was would I land on my feet, my ass, or my head.
    The head seemed like the best idea, since it didn’t seem good for much else.
    I have always maintained that if you manage to kill yourself on a flycycle, it’s because you did something wrong. No excuses. I didn’t doubt that when they unwrapped the wreckage from my lifeless body, they would find a weak spot on the frame that I hadn’t noticed—but should have—when I put it on. After all, how often do flycycle frames come apart in the air? I couldn’t recall the last time it had happened.
    Right then, though, it seemed to me that the only mistake I had made was allowing that gosh-darn Cheryl Chang to sneak up behind me.
    Okay, girl, get a grip. A fall from almost a mile wasn’t necessarily fatal, not in
Rolling Thunder
. I couldn’t recall at the moment just what terminal velocity was, theoretically, but it’s not as high as it would have been on Mars or Earth. Of course, hitting the ground at sixty or even fifty miles per hour is no joke.
    Also on the bright side, the wind resistance of my remaining wing elements and the flapping remnants of my chute should slow me down some, sort of like a bird hit with a shotgun doesn’t quite drop like a stone, it flutters some. I’d better start seeing what I could do to make sure I
didn’t
land on my head. Because though my head may be hard, my neck was the weak point. I didn’t want to break it.
    Trouble was, I just didn’t have that much control over my attitude. I was hoping to get oriented feet downward, figuring I could deal with broken ankles and legs a lot better than a broken spine or skull. Yet every time I thought I had it, the wind would catch another part of me and twist me around again.
    During one of those rotations I thought I saw something I didn’t dare hope for. I thought I saw another flycycle, nose down, and a flash of gold. But I didn’t see how that was possible.
    The ground was very near now. I made one more effort to get my feet under me, and for a while I had it. Then I felt myself starting to drift again.
    That was when a hand grabbed the back of my jumpsuit and I jerked like a fish on a line, or really more like a felon at the end of a hangman’s noose. All the air went out of me and my neck popped. The ground was still rushing up, but it was slowing. I heard the hummingbird whir of a flycycle rotor. Then the hand slipped, and I was falling again.
    “Shit,” somebody said. I knew that voice.
    “Cassie!” I shouted.
“Help me!”
    “What do you think I’m trying to do, you idiot?”
    I was as helpless as a baby bird falling from the nest; even more helpless since I didn’t even have little wings to flutter.
    Now I was falling facedown. It was dark down there, I couldn’t see much, but I knew it had to be less than a hundred meters.
    Cassie’s hand grabbed me again, this time by the ankle. All the blood flowed to my head, and my hair came loose from its bun—somewhere in there I had lost my helmet, and I didn’t even remember it. All I saw was long blonde locks streaming in front of me.
    My cycle-shoe came off in Cassie’s hand. I don’t know how she did it, but she managed to grab my bare foot. I felt my ankle pop, and I howled.
    Suddenly, there it was. The