Aurora is 26 feet wide, 16 feet long, weighs 800 pounds, and is currently flying a pattern at 1500 feet MSL and 70 mph. It's designed in a "delta pusher" configuration, which means the wings and the propeller form a capital letter "A" with the horizontal line being the propeller, pushing it from the back. The telephoto lens on the gimbal on its underside is currently trained on a 40 foot catamaran. It was docked at the cannery an hour ago and is now sailing up past Constantine Bay towards the open ocean. This part of the bay wasn't particularly well charted even when the charts were getting updated regularly, so Skye considers this to be a pretty risky thing to do, maybe even reckless.
Skye starts shaking the mixture of MRE chocolate hazelnut protein drink and rip it she currently has in her thermos. "Mmkay," she says to herself as she gets ready to take a sip. "Nice", she says, "needs cheeto dust though." She figures there must be bottled water on the base somewhere but she hasn't found it yet, so for the moment her body is getting its water entirely from energy drinks.
The catamaran turns to port, sits in one spot for a while, and then starts noticeably listing in that same direction. A figure dressed in black slithers out of the boat's interior and heaves itself like a sea lion up onto the starboard hull, the one that isn't sliding down beneath the waves. Skye figures the boat must have hit a rock, or maybe a piece of debris on the ocean floor. It's not that cold out, maybe 60 degrees fahrenheit, but the water is absolutely frigid so whoever this is needs to get to shore quickly or they risk hypothermia.
Part of the equipment Aurora carries on its underside is an autonomous powered liferaft that it can drop from the air for exactly these kinds of rescue situations. Skye instructs it to do so next to the sinking boat's location. It doesn't have a camera but it does have a GPS unit so Skye can see where it is as it motors to the mysterious figure's location. It's basically a paddleboard with handles at the edges so it can be hauled around like a stretcher and small electric jet propellers hanging off the sides that allow it to move through the water on its own. It motors over next to where the figure is laying.
From its built-in speaker, Syke hollers: "Ahoy! You look like you could use some help! Are you hurt?"
"I think I have a broken leg," the figure replies. A man's voice, clearly, but not a harsh one, especially given the circumstances. Skye can't quite place the accent. Australia? Hong Kong? Singapore?
"If you can manage to get over onto this raft I can get you to shore," she says. "I'll send a vehicle over to meet you."
"And then what? A vehicle to take me where?"
"To a medical facility. We have everything that's needed to set your leg and we also have wound care and antibiotics if you need that. You also need a change of clothes or you'll die of hypothermia."
Skye isn't lying. Near the base's entrance is a clinic with the standard complement of trauma care supplies, hypothermia wraps, blankets, etc. And she does have a vehicle to send his way. JACKSKELLINGTON (all the effectors are spelled as a single word) is a 10 ft long and 5 ft wide tank-looking thing with a pair of caterpillar treads and a flat bed in the middle where the actual tank would be if this were a tank. It's a multi-purpose device that's used for a number of jobs depending on what attachments you put on the front. If you need to clear a minefield you can attach a set of spinning chains that trigger the mines before it runs over them. If you need to clear a roadblock you can stick a bulldozer shovel on the front. If you want to rescue a casualty you can load a stretcher into the bed and strap it down with the integrated set of ratchet straps, and this is the configuration that Skye intends to use it with. Skye directs it to move to the position on the coast that's closest to the sinking boat with all available speed.
The liferaft should be right next to the man now. "You getting on or what?", Skye says. "Or do you want me to leave you here to freeze to death?"
Through Aurora's telephoto Skye can see the man with enough detail to tell that he is doing a sea lion slide over and on to the raft.
"Okay," Skye announces, "you're going to have to strap yourself in. There are straps on either side that buckle together like seatbelts. Can you see them?"
"Yes," says the man, "I've almost got them done up... There."
"Great. I'm going to bring you to shore now, alright?"
"Yes, go ahead."
Skye instructs the liferaft to travel to the same spot where Jackskellington is headed. Sir Jack of Skellington can do 60mph over light terrain and the liferaft can do maybe 5mph, so even though there's a big difference in distances they should get to the same spot at about the same time.
Skye takes another sip of the protein brew. The taste isn't really what she would describe as good, but it feels restorative, a caloric tonic.
"Right," she says, "unfortunately there isn't going to be anyone there to load you onto the vehicle, so you're going to have to do it yourself. How's your arm strength? Can you do a pull-up?"
"Yes," he chokes. Skye realizes she has no idea what she would have done if he had said no and feels silly for asking.
"Okay, great. There's a ramp on the front of the vehicle that's going to pivot down. What you have to do is grab the pair of handles on either side and pull yourself and the raft up into the bed. I'm going to try to get it to put the ramp into the water so you don't need to drag the raft along the beach, but you're still going to have to slide up the ramp about a foot or so. At the top of the ramp should be a hook that's attached to a winch. Attach the hook to the front of the raft and it will pull you up the rest of the way. You think you can do that?"
"I do."
"Good because you're almost in position. Maybe another minute or two."
Skye tries to find a word to describe the taste other than vomit. Melange? Potpurri? She burps and it tastes like chocolate covered raisins.
Skellington of Jacks and the liferaft are both indicating that they're stopped, so they must both be in position. Skye looks through the tank rover's camera and sees the raft several yards in front. She instructs the ramp to deploy, and it does. Then she instructs the raft to travel actually through the middle of the ramp and the platform behind it, so it makes its way as far up the ramp as it can before getting wedged. There is then a terrible racket while the raft flops onto the front of the bay, then slides backwards after the winch is attached.
Once all is quiet Skye says, "Okay, now strap yourself in. The straps on the sides go in the loops on the sides of the raft. They're are the main thing stopping you from sliding to the back and breaking your other leg so make sure they're tight. Tell me when you've done that."
After a minute of fumbling, "Done.", says the man.
"Okay, I'm going to raise the ramp back up. Are you absolutely sure you're out of its way?"
"Yes."
She orders the ramp to raise back up into its stowed position, and it does.
"There should be a pack to your right that has an emergency blanket in it."
It takes him a few seconds to grope for it, undo the zipper and pull the blanket out.
"I found it," he says.
"Okay. I'm going to have it go slow so you don't get bumped around too much, so it'll take about half an hour for you to get here. I'll be off comms for most of that so the next time you'll hear from me is when you arrive."
She directs Skellington to return to the entrance of the base at 10mph, gets up and heads to the other end of the base where the clinic and the main entrance are and starts rummaging around for the supplies she thinks she'll need, checking the computer periodically to see where Skellington is, until it's close enough that she can see it on the base's surveillance camera system. She walks outside for the first time in two days.
Once her eyes adjust to the sunlight she sees Jackskellington and on it a man, maybe six feet tall, under a highlighter orange blanket, his black hair strewn about the back of his neck, shivering. She jogs up, pushes the button next to the ramp to lower it, and it does so. She helps him undo the straps. He has some cuts and bruises but the leg isn't obviously pointing at an angle it shouldn't.
"You said your leg is broken. How's your other leg? Can you stand on it?"
He starts trying to get up on his good leg and Skye wraps his other arm over her shoulders. He's a half a foot taller than she is so he's almost perching on her shoulder with his lower arm. They stumble inside, into the clinic, and she drops him on the sort of exam table back against the wall. She grabs a portable space heater and points it at him.
"Take your shirt off," she says while she starts undoing his black jeans. He yelps as the soaking wet denim slides down over his bad leg. Skye does her best to avoid touching it but it's unavoidable. She then pulls off his soaking wet boxer briefs similarly. In his body's attempt to protect its core temperature from the frigid water it's compressed and shriveled his gonads so that they look like a walnut.
She gathers all the willpower she can to focus on the task at hand, setting his leg. It's heavily bruised but still pointing in the correct direction. She gets a pair of the splints she prepared for this job, puts them in position and wraps them tight with bandages.
The man has already found the antiseptic and liquid stitches Skye set out and is treating the cuts and scrapes he has on his arms and chest. He's thin, one might say wiry, with visible muscles on his arms but not really on his chest. Skye notices that at the back of his straight black hair, which extends down to where his neck meets his shoulders, is a small ponytail.
"Here's a change of clothes for you. It'll probably be easier to put them on now before I put your leg in the walking brace," she says. She hands him a pair of underpants and a gray jumpsuit of the style mechanics wear in the navy. She pulls the underwear up around his legs, careful to avoid the splint, and he pulls them up the rest of the way. Then the same with the jumpsuit. It's both way too short and comically too large around the waist and it falls around him like a tent. He zips up the jumpsuit and she installs the boot.
Skye takes a few steps back to admire her handiwork as he gathers the jumpsuit's excess fabric and starts trying it into a roll around his waist like a sarong. "I don't believe I've introduced myself," she says, "I'm Skye."
"I'm 張橫."
"Zhang Heng."
"No, 張橫."
"Zhang Heng?"
"Hank. Call me Hank."
"Well hello Hank. You're lucky to be alive. I don't know where you're getting your charts from but with my charts I definitely would not have been sailing where you were, for reasons that should be obvious."
Hank doesn't respond.
"You were leaving the cannery, right? How do you know Arnold?"
Hank doesn't respond to this, either.
"Well," Skye sighs, "I really have business I should be attending to right now that I got pulled away from saving you from drowning and all. I should be getting back to it. There's food here if you need it." Skye gestures to a six pack of rip its and three or four MREs. "If you need anything there's an intercom next to the door. Uh, talk to you later."
She exits the clinic, closing the door behind her and bolting it from the outside.