My three lieutenants were in the three other landers. Our plan was to hit four drop zones in a relatively clear flatland, consolidate our four squads, and then start to assemble the matter transceiver while establishing a defensive perimeter around the site.

It was a night landing. That made no sense to me, since enemy sensors could detect us just as easily in darkness as in daylight. It made things more difficult for us, not the enemy. But the upper echelons had dictated a night landing for reasons that they did not deign to share with the landing force.

So we buckled on our flight packs, tightened our harnesses and helmet straps and lined up for the jump. I was at the hatch, the first to go.

“Jump zone in ten seconds,” said the voice in my earphones.

The hatch slid smoothly open. A howling wind slammed at me, almost forcing me back a step. Automatically I pulled down the visor of my helmet. It was too dark out there to see anything with the unaided eyes, but the sensors in the visor lit up the scene quite well.

What I saw was not encouraging. A canopy of massive trees was whipping by, almost a blur at the speed the lander was maintaining. To jump into that jungle would be suicide.

“Jump!” rang in my earphones.

I jumped.

The flight pack vibrated against the small of my back, and suddenly I was hovering almost motionless in midair, falling slowly, floating almost. With my visor’s sensors I could see the unbroken carpet of the jungle canopy coming languidly toward me, countless arms of countless trees. Where was the clearing we were supposed to land in?

I was drifting, the energy sphere generated by the flight pack resisting both gravity and inertia but not quite overcoming them, so that I sank slowly, like a leaf drifting to the ground. It was almost a pleasant sensation. But no matter how languid my fall, I was still falling, and if I crashed into those thickly intertwined trees my chances of reaching the ground uninjured were dim.