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section of wall.
    "Steady," Skyler warned, eyeing the young man closely in the dim light. "It's supposed to feel this way."
    "Yes, thank you," Flynn managed between clenched teeth. "I'm okay."
    "First time's always the hardest," O'Hara said soothingly. "Just take it easy and breathe through your nose."
    "I'm okay," Flynn repeated. "It just feels like—well, we are falling, aren't we?"
    "That we are," Skyler confirmed, watching the softly glowing altitude gauge. Another thirty seconds, he estimated. "But not for much longer."
    "After that it'll be time for fun with hang gliders and mountain air currents," Hawking put in.
    "Just remember that without a chute slowdown we're going to be coming in a lot faster than usual when we pop," Skyler warned. "The gliders are designed to take the extra speed and stress, but be ready."
    " I just hope Reger hasn't upgraded his security system since the last time we were there," Hawking muttered. "Dropping in on the man uninvited could prove hazardous to our health."
    "I thought you said you and Jensen installed the system," O'Hara said blandly. "How does one upgrade from perfection?"
    "Good point," Hawking said dryly.
    Skyler looked over at Jensen. But the other was gazing straight ahead, apparently lost in his own thoughts.
    A light on the altimeter flashed red. "Get ready," Skyler ordered, getting a grip on the release as he watched the gauge. "Five seconds ... three, two, one ."
    He squeezed the release; and with a violent jerk and an upward rush of icy air, the drop pod's floor disintegrated. The wall sections came apart at the seams, flinging the five men attached to them into the night sky.
    For a few seconds Skyler clung tightly to his straps, watching the stars and the dark ground tumble crazily around each other. Then, with a snap of spring-loaded connectors, the wings of his hang glider extended themselves from both sides of his pod wall section. There were a few more seconds of vertigo, and then the glider leveled itself and he found himself hanging beneath the stars and his own gray canopy, swooping through the frigid air.
    He took a deep breath, sternly ordering his stomach and inner ear to behave themselves as he looked around. He'd warned the others to expect a rough ride, but even he hadn't been quite prepared for just how rough it had been.
    But he could see four other dark silhouettes blacking out the stars. Apparently, they'd all come through it all right. "Report," he said into the mike curving around the side of his cheek. One by one, the others checked in. "Good," Skyler said when they were finished. "Everyone turn due east—"
    "Skyler?" Flynn cut in. "I think I've got a problem."
    "What kind?" Skyler asked, frowning again at the other silhouettes. One of them was definitely dipping beneath the others.
    "I'm not getting much lift," Flynn said. "I seem to be crabbing to the right, too."
    "I see you," Hawking said. "Looks like your glider didn't completely deploy." Skyler swallowed a curse. Five klicks over mountainous terrain was not the place for an equipment malfunction. "Can you get to him?" he asked.
    "I've got him," Jensen put in before Hawking could answer. "Hold as level as you can, Flynn."
    "Trying."
    Across the distance, Skyler saw one of the silhouettes make a tight curve and head back toward the sinking glider. "What are you going to do?" he asked.
    "I'll start with the whack-it-with-a-hammer approach," Jensen said. "If that doesn't work, we'll have to try something else."
    The two gliders had come together now, merging into one oversized shadow far below the others. Across the night breeze, Skyler heard a dull thud as Jensen slammed his nunchaku into the glider rib connectors. "Well?" O'Hara asked.
    "Nothing," Jensen said. There was another thud, then two more in rapid succession. "Not looking good," he said grimly. "I guess it's papoose time. Flynn, I'm going to come over you and hook us together."
    "You're not going to get much distance that way," O'Hara