They should be drifting down slowly, held up by the billowing parachute. Instead, they’re moving sideways, as if the wind has caught them, tossing them like a leaf.
“Too fast, too fast, too fast,” Carver says, as if that alone will be enough to slow them down. He speaks more to himself than to anyone else, but Prakesh can still hear him over the rushing air. The man opposite him is praying audibly now, invoking Shiva’s name, Vishnu’s, Buddha’s.
It occurs to him that they might not make it. It’s all too easy to see the pod slamming into the Earth at hundreds of miles an hour, vaporising on impact, turning everyone inside to burning dust.
“Listen up!” It’s the pilot, shouting back over his shoulder. “We’re coming in over the water, and we’re coming in hot. There’s going to be one hell of a bang, so everybody—”
Prakesh doesn’t hear the rest, because that’s when he sees the water. Whatever they’re above–a lake, a river, the ocean for all he knows–fills the cockpit window, glittering in the distantly setting sun. It’s rushing past at an impossible speed.
Okwembu turns her head away, tensing in her straps. Prakesh does the same, holding on tight, thinking of Riley, picturing her in his mind, but all he can hear is Carver screaming, “Fuuuuuuuuuuuuu—”
The impact lifts Prakesh out of his seat, ripping his head back. The whiplash takes him, snapping his head forward. A bright stab of pain lances through his neck.
They’re airborne again, moving above the water. He can hear the rushing air above the screams from the pod’s passengers. How are they still in the air? He remembers video footage he saw once, archival stuff: a stone skipping across a pond. Get the angle and the velocity right, and that stone could skip for a hundred yards.
But the pod is no stone. Prakesh has half a second to realise that they’ve flipped upside down, that he’s hanging awkwardly in his straps, and then they hit the water again.
The impact this time sounds muted. It’s a whooshing thud, vibrating up through the pod. Prakesh fights to stay conscious, to not let the pain in his neck and head overwhelm him. He opens his eyes–it feels like it takes him days, but he does it.
The pod is still moving, but much more slowly now. It comes to a rocking halt, still upside down. Prakesh can hear rushing water. He raises his eyes to where the ceiling of the pod should be, down below him, and sees why.
The water is coming in. As Prakesh watches, one of the panels shears off and a fist of water hits the man opposite him. The man chokes and splutters, his eyes wide with shock.
We have to get out of here.
The thought comes to Prakesh from a great distance. He wants to shout it to everyone, but his vocal cords have stopped working. His fingers move on their own, finding the strap release buckle on his chest.
He has the presence of mind to take a single, deep breath. Then he clicks the catch open, and drops.