I jerked back to the present with a start. Dammit. I’d let my thoughts drift too far while I’d looked over my equipment, and I’d lost track of time so that it had taken longer than I’d intended. Why hadn’t Dinah or Leo or Sam come down to bang on my door to see what was keeping me? I slung a strap of my tank over a shoulder and headed out of my cabin toward the ladder.
Just as I took the first step, there was a grinding thud, and the Adelina shuddered, reminding me of the time she’d been caught in one of the sss’s eddies. Only this was so unexpected, so violent, my feet shot out from under me, and I landed on my tailbone.
“Ow. What the…?” Fortunately, the tank had flipped off my arm as I’d lost my footing, otherwise I could have fractured some ribs from the force of landing on it. I mana
