“Team confirm. and home on Ssah’s beacon.”
“Mahz confirms.”
“Ahk confirms.”
“Zur confirms.”
I waited for a few moments. Kor did not confirm.
“Zur, Mahz, you are closest to Kor’s sextant. Relay message or confirmation.”
“I have her confirmation, Commander,” came Mahz’s reply.
With the order acknowledged throughout the team, I wheeled my flyer over and made for Ssah’s beacon. Traveling at maxspeed, I soon had the cave in sight. The opening was low, with only a little over ten feet clearance, but more than wide enough to accommodate the flyer’s wingspan. I saw two of the team, Ahk and Mahz, dart their flyers into the cave’s mouth as I began my approach.
I cut power and leveled my glide two feet off the ground, I had to assume the cave was deep enough that I wouldn’t have to worry about plowing into the flyers ahead of me. If it was not, the others would have warned me.
The entrance loomed before me; then I was through. The sudden change from early morning light to the utter blackness of the cave temporarily robbed me of vision. My sonic sensor screens, however, told me I had flown through an opening at the top of a wide cavern, about forty feet deep. I could make out the other flyers, four of them, grounded at the bottom of the cavern. I steered for them, wondering who the missing flyer was. I prepared for landing, taking a deep breath and exhaling it slowly. Even though my current glide speed felt slow compared to my earlier power-flight, the ground was coming up fast, and our flyers were not adapted for ground landings. My flyer touched down, jarring me with the impact, and slid along the cavern floor, the bubble making painful sounds against the rock. I ignored it.