Scavenger's Mission, book 1, a snippet

Sometimes trouble can be a good thing...  A change in the weather caused Alisha's catcher to deflate at 5,000 feet. For any other flyer, this would have meant floating the chute like a parachute into the Cully River only to be devoured by meateaters, but Alisha deflates her chute entirely and rides the winds, focused on the bank. Only to survive the impact, she will need to re-engage the chute to act like a break before she hits the ground. (She's never tried this before, but it's the only chance she has at surviving.)

Alisha focused on her desired landing site, estimating her speed and mentally calculating the time she’d need to open the chute. Trusting her intuition, fifteen feet above land she pulled the toggles to reopen the catcher.

Within less than a second, she felt the jerk of the harness as the chute opened and slowed her descent. Unfortunately, the catcher was pulling her back toward the river.

Damn it! I opened it too soon.

Collapsing it again, she stretched toward the shore and hit hard on the soft, marshy edge of grass.

The grasses softened her impact, but it still took a few moments to regain her senses. She lay precariously on the riverbank with her feet dangling over the edge. Careful not to wiggle her legs or feet, lest she entice a meat-eater to jump from the water for a tasty morsel, she reached out, grabbed the bottom stalks of the tough river grass, and slowly pulled her body forward.

***

“Flyer in trouble,” the old toll-taker yelled, pointing into the air. “One of yours?”

“Damn well better not be,” Logan said as he watched the flyer with a collapsed catcher soar at an angle over the Cully River, heading toward the left bank. Logan saw no way this would end well. Yet through some incredible manipulation of the collapsed catcher, the flyer actually landed on the edge of the bank. Unfortunately, his legs dangled over the water.

“Poor fool,” Logan muttered, knowing the inevitable tragedy about to occur. At the first wiggle of those legs, the meat-eaters prowling this section of the river would break the surface and pull him under.

Logan watched in amazement as the flyer slowly pulled himself onto the bank without seeming to move at all. Only when his legs were two yards inland did the flyer stand. Logan followed the direction of the flyer’s attention and saw his catcher had fallen on the east side of the river.

“Damn lucky fool,” Logan declared as he hurried to the catcher.

Only later does he realize the 'fellow' is a young woman....

The SkyRyders Series

Sci-Fi Romance

Scavenger’s Mission

Scavenger Falters-coming 2017

Scavenger Vanishes-coming 2017