Two minutes falling led into six slowly drifting to the earth below.

The wind still roared all around Fives, whipping her clothes back and forth under the canopy of the parachute.

Far below she could see the Captain land, roll to a stop, and cut off the straps to his own chute. He packed it up quickly and tied the cordage around the bundle before tossing it aside.

It was then that she realized how small the landing zone really was—just a narrow strip of a flat field surrounded by tall and closely packed trees—and how she was about to drift right into the forest on the right.

Fives instinctively grabbed at the pulleys above her head that dangled from the parachute’s risers and yanked them to the left, steering herself back towards the middle of the field.

The ground was coming up beneath her faster and faster now, and before she knew it the Captain’s reassuring voice had returned to her earpiece.

“Bend your knees and roll onto your side, if you try to land on your feet you will damage your legs!” he spoke clearly, describing the way she had just seen him land moments ago.

The treetops rose up around her and turned into brown blurs as she picked up speed towards the ground. She pulled her legs up and held on to the parachute’s taut risers, bracing as best as she could.

Fives remembered her own weight just a few seconds too late. Her feet hit the dirt and she threw herself to the side, rolling in midair and smacking into the hard ground face first.

The Captain was with her immediately, stomping her chute flat and bundling it up behind her. She rolled onto her back and rubbed the dirt from her eyes, sprawling out on the grass in some vain attempt to combat the intense spinning sensation between her ears.

Fives stayed like that until the Captain grabbed her by the harness straps and pulled her to her feet. He helped her out of the harness, tied it around the rolled-up fabric of her chute, and tossed it onto the ground next to his own. He rubbed his palms together expectantly, then laid a warm hand on her shoulder.

“That was a rough landing, but you’re still in one piece.” He said, looking her up and down carefully. “A few scratches, maybe… but that was going to happen eventually.” He let go of her and stepped away, kneeling on one knee. He loosened the straps on his backpack and tossed it over his shoulder, off of his chest at last. Fives could see his weapons laying in the grass just a few feet away.

“That… That was…” she stammered, trying and failing to put the experience into words. “Just… Just how often do you do that, Captain?!” her voice held equal parts excitement and terror.

Captain Breslin slung his shotgun over his shoulder and took up the rifle in his hands, motioning for Fives to follow him as he started walking to the edge of the field. They could still hear the helicopter moving into the distance, though it was already too far away to see.

“Much less now than I used to. You certainly seemed to enjoy it, though.” he smiled at her one last time before his face settled back into that stoic expression she’d become so used to.

“Are you kidding? That was the most thrilling thing I think I’ve ever experienced!” she practically bounced beside him. “Will we ever do it again?” she asked with a slightly more tempered tone of voice.

“I don’t know.” He replied honestly. “Should the stars align and give us a reason to, I suppose we might.” He shook his head sympathetically. It was the best part of the job he had, before.

“About that…” she began, “Why did we jump? There was plenty of fuel left in the helicopter, and enough space to land back there.” She asked, scrunching her face up thoughtfully.

The Captain nodded, then spoke.

“Vehicles are easily tracked. They would have found out where we landed, and dispatched more of their teams to intercept us.” He threw an open palm to the sky. “Now, when they find their helicopter eighty miles south of here? The window for catching up to us will have closed.”

“I guess that makes sense…” Fives said slowly. “But won’t they notice the missing parachutes?”

“They will realize that we jumped. But they will have no way of knowing when we jumped. They would have to search the entire flight path with a microscope to find us now.” He said without a hint of doubt.

They followed the edge of the forest to the northern end of the field about a mile away from where they landed, eventually meeting railroad tracks that ran from east to west.

Before they set off to the east, the Captain stopped and handed his rifle to Fives, setting the shotgun against a tree so that he could take off and open his backpack.

From it he retrieved a thick orange shemagh, black leather gloves that pulled up to his elbows, and a half-mask chemical respirator.

“We are close to a few known yellow zones. According to K.C.C.O. satellite reports from earlier in the year, our path to the east should be completely clear of exposure—we are about fives miles south of the nearest irradiated region, but there may be zones that are yet unknown.” He explained as he secured the respirator over his mouth and nose and then wrapped the shemagh around his face over top of it.

“Where are we? Aren’t all of the exposure zones in the middle of nowhere?” Fives asked, watching him slip the long gloves over his arms.

He nodded.

“We are twelve miles to the south-west of a place called Pripyat. It was abandoned long before the Beilan Collapse due to a nuclear reactor meltdown… but it has since been re-occupied. We will be safe there, at least for a while.” He finished, standing and putting his pack back on.

Fives handed the rifle to him and he picked up the shotgun, slinging it over his shoulder again before setting off east along the railroad tracks. The sun was getting low now, and daylight was starting to fade.

They'd have to find somwhere to sleep, and soon.