"Should I open the parachute?"
Luke was grappling with a massive dilemma.
Under normal circumstances, at 3,000 meters, the automatic deployment device on his back would pop the parachute open.
But right now, nothing was happening.
In the howling wind of his free fall, Luke stole a glance at his watch: over three minutes had passed since he jumped from the plane.
By all accounts, he should've hit terminal velocity within six or seven seconds of jumping.
At a free-fall speed of about 3,000 meters per minute, he should already be down to around 2,000 meters.
The parachute should've opened by now, but there was no sign of it.
Was the pressure sensor busted?
Was the auto-deployment mechanism broken?
Or worst of all… was the parachute itself defective?
A grim thought flickered through Luke's mind.
He scanned his surroundings, but all he could see were thick, gray clouds blending sky and earth into one indistinguishable mess. In the dim night sky, he couldn't make out a thing, let alone gauge his altitude.
Was the parachute really broken?
If it was, he'd hit the ground with no chance of survival, reduced to a smear.
A sudden, overwhelming urge hit him:
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He wanted to manually pull the parachute now.
At least then he'd know if it was broken.
Live or die, he'd have an answer!
This uncertainty was pure torture.
No!
He couldn't pull it manually. In the next moment, Luke wrestled down the impulse.
In these brutal conditions, he had to trust the auto-deployment device, not his own panicked guesses.
Bob had checked the gear countless times. Even if the pressure sensor was damaged, the mechanical structure for auto-deployment was rock-solid.
It wouldn't just fail to open!
If he rashly pulled the chute early, the consequences could be worse than not opening it at all.
Opening the parachute too soon meant he'd be dangling in the air for far longer—maybe 40 minutes or more!
Without a sealed pressure suit, he'd be exposed to freezing temperatures, low oxygen, and decompression. There was no way he'd survive that long. He'd likely be dead before he hit the ground.
Luke chose to trust the auto-deployment system.
So, he pulled a tiny camera from his waist, struggling to secure it to his left arm, aiming it at himself to start recording.
If he was going through this hell, he might as well capture some epic footage. No point suffering for nothing!
"Man, everything hurts. I never want to go through this again," he thought.
In the roaring wind, with no face shield, he couldn't open his mouth to speak.
But Luke's Life as a Performance talent kicked in. A single glance conveyed his meaning, and he was sure future moviegoers would feel it.
Besides the tiny camera, there was another one mounted on his helmet.
From the moment he jumped, the helmet cam had been recording nearly everything from his point of view.
With these two cameras, plus the relay footage from multiple drones, they'd surely edit together a jaw-dropping sequence, right?
Luke was confident this scene would blow audiences away in theaters.
Pop!
After plummeting for another ten seconds or so, his body lurched, yanked upward as if something had grabbed him:
The parachute had finally auto-deployed.
"Down to 3,000 meters? Wait, something's off."
Even though the parachute had opened, meaning he wouldn't splatter on the ground, the air around him was still freezing, well below zero, and the pain from the low pressure was still intense.
Had it opened too early?
"Damn it! The pressure gauge malfunctioned and opened the chute too soon!" Bob slammed his fist on the dashboard.
"Easy! Break the equipment, and we're all screwed!" a C-17 crew member snapped.
"Sorry! We're just freaking out!" Director Cohen apologized on Bob's behalf.
"I get it. We're worried about Luke too. Opening the parachute this early… is he gonna be okay?" the crew member asked.
"What's his altitude now?" Cohen asked.
Bob glanced at the drone data feed and cursed, "Over 9,700 meters. Damn it!"
"How is he still that high? It's been minutes since he jumped!" Cohen exclaimed.
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Bob pointed at the screen, where a massive, dark cumulonimbus cloud loomed beneath Luke. "That storm cloud's way stronger than we predicted. It's the culprit. We thought it'd be a thin layer, but somehow it turned into this monster."
The crew members nodded, instantly understanding. Flying at high altitudes regularly, they knew exactly what Bob meant.
Cumulonimbus clouds pack intense updrafts, with vertical speeds of 20 to 30 meters per second, sometimes hitting 60—stronger than a hurricane.
Those powerful updrafts had slowed Luke's descent, which explained why the auto-deployment hadn't triggered earlier.
In massive cumulonimbus clouds, air pressure is typically lower than at the same altitude elsewhere.
The auto-deployment system relied on a pressure sensor to trigger the parachute.
So, this giant storm cloud had fooled Luke's sensor, causing the parachute to open not just on time but too early.
"I've heard cumulonimbus clouds are also called thunderstorm clouds?" Cohen asked.
"Yep, you nailed it," a crew member confirmed.
"So what's Luke facing out there?"
"Lightning, thunder, torrential rain, hail, crazy winds… every extreme weather phenomenon you can imagine. He's in for all of it."
"Fck!" Cohen swore for the first time.
Bob stared at the screen, where flashes of lightning flickered in the thick cloud below Luke. "All we can do is hope he gets lucky," he said grimly.
Luke, meanwhile, hadn't fully grasped the situation.
The howling wind in his ears, the bone-chilling cold, and the disorienting low pressure left his head foggy.
His parachute was open, slowing his descent to a few hundred meters per minute. Barring any disasters, he'd land safely in about ten minutes.
But as he looked down at the endless, towering black storm cloud below—resembling a jagged mountain peak—a sinking feeling crept back in.
Silvery lightning flashed like the menacing grin of a beast.
The icy crystal peaks of the cloud gleamed like the shaggy spine of a monster.
The churning, roiling cloud mass looked like the hungry, writhing gut of a giant creature.
The entire thunderstorm cloud was like a massive beast, jaws wide open, ready to swallow him whole.