the

descent rate increased, the swirling lessened, the suit moving at approximately the rate of the current. He started stabilizing himself, fending himself away the next time he swung toward the wall.
“Michelle, adjust the winch to maintain a tension of ten pounds regardless of rate of descent, up rate of descent to ten meters per second.”
“Lieutenant O’Neal, if you strike a serious obstacle at ten meters per second, it could cause serious damage. Regulation maximum uncontrolled movement is seven meters per second.”
“Michelle, I wrote that spec, and it’s a good spec, I like it. But there are times when you have to push the specifications a little. Let me put it this way, what was the maximum gravities sustained by a mobile survivor of the fuel-air explosion under Qualtren?”
“Private Slattery sustained sixty-five gravities for five microseconds and over twenty for three seconds,” answered the AID.
“Then I think I can take hitting concrete at an itty-bitty thirty or forty feet per second,” Mike answered with a smile.
“Nonetheless, his suit systems indicate some internal bleeding,” protested the AID.
“Is he still functioning?”
“Barely.”
“ ’Nuff said.”
Her silence was as good as a sniff of derision to Mike after so much time in the suit. He had amassed over three thousand hours before this little adventure and he, the suit and the AID were now a smoothly running team. This was again proven when Michelle started flashing an unprompted warning as the waypoint appeared. Restrained by her programming, she could not override his rate setting but she could communicate the need to start slowing down quite pointedly. He sometimes wondered where she had picked up so much personality. Most of the other AIDs he dealt with tended to be flat. He decided to tweak her nose a bit and let the rate setting ride until the last moment. Playing chicken with an AID, what would he do next?
As the waypoint loomed up through the haze he thumbed the manual winch control. The descent braked