The buggy's front tyres dropped heavily onto the downward slope, giving it a kick forwards. Kate screamed as she realised the whole vehicle was on the move again. Slamming the brake down did nothing more than cause the front wheels to lock up and slide down the slope instead of rolling.
Now most of the buggy's weight was beyond the peak, the rear wheels kicked up and over the ridge, jolting the back of the buggy into the air. Once free of the top, it was free to accelerate down the downward slope, the locked-up wheels dragging loose stones and rocks on the way.
"Keep the buggy straight down the slope!" Chris shouted as the back of the buggy slid beyond his reach.
They watched helplessly as the buggy slid and bounced, rapidly accelerating down the uneven slope. Kate struggled to stay in the driving seat as each jolt and bounce threw her about wildly, whipping her long, dark hair around. The steepest part of the slope passed in moments. The buggy rode a low wave of loose rocks down to the shallower end of the slope. That finally allowed Kate's attempts to slow the buggy to have some effect.
The rear wheels, still locked up, swung out to the left, but the buggy finally stopped before it was in danger of flipping over sideways. Kate remained motionless in the buggy, still tightly clutching the steering.
"Fletcher, get the two-seater buggy as high up as you can this side, I'm going to check on Kate," said Chris.
He found Kate shaken but unhurt. They left the four-seater buggy where it rested and climbed back up the ridge to where the others were still trying to get the two-seater up to the peak. Anil was driving and the others pushing, but they were still a good three metres short of the top. Under more normal circumstances, the two-seater would be lighter than the four-seater but, because of its larger load area, it was carrying more supplies.
Fletcher called a stop to the entire operation and announced that he was going to try a fresh approach. After retrieving two of the ropes, he tied them both to the rear towing-hoop of the two-seater buggy. Next, he hopped in the driving seat of the flatbed buggy and drove that forwards until it was less than a metre behind. He tied one rope to each side of the flatbed's roll bar, leaving plenty of slack rope lying on the rocky floor.
"What's the plan here, Fletcher?" Chris asked.
"The flatbed's got more oomph than the two-seater, Commander. I'm thinking, if we use the flatbed to give it a shove, the two-seater will get over the top, then the two-seater can help pull the flatbed after it."
"Is the flatbed up to that? The pushing, I mean," Chris asked.
"Aye, it's got more powerful motors than the other buggies," he replied. "If any of them can do it, that's the one."
"Sounds like it's worth a try. We're not making the headway I'd hoped right now, anyway. You drive the flatbed, I'll drive the two-seater."
Before they began, Chris told Fletcher to tie the frayed ends of the seatbelt back together. He knew it would not be as strong as the intact belt, but it had to be better than nothing.
Fletcher soon discovered that the flatbed could not make any forward progress because of the steepness of the slope and the loose surface. He released the accelerator and let the buggy slowly roll back a few metres to where the slope was much shallower, using almost all the slack on the rope. As soon as the buggy stopped, he hit the accelerator, charging the buggy up the rocky surface as fast as its four motors could propel it.
The struggling wheels scattered loose rocks, but the buggy surged forwards with enough momentum to reach the back of the two-seater buggy and jolt it forwards. Chris already had the accelerator down a little but slammed it to the floor as his buggy surged forwards and upwards.
The front tyres skipped over the peak, dropping the tubular chassis onto the rock. The rear tyres still had a little grip but the flatbed buggy provided most of the impetus to grate the chassis over the rock at the top until the rear wheels swung up off the ground and the front ones dropped onto the downward slope and began to pull.
Providing that push had stolen most of the flatbed's momentum and it took a few moments of grinding on the metal underside of the two-seater buggy before it picked up speed. Finally, the rear tyres bounced over the top, removing the source of friction.
Chris continued to hold down the accelerator as he struggled to keep the buggy aligned with the steep, downward slope. The buggy rapidly gained speed, dragging the slack ropes behind it. As the rope got less steep, the wheels became more effective and Chris felt like he finally had some control. He gently eased off the accelerator, to maintain a constant speed down the slope.
He had enough control now to turn the buggy slightly away from the parked four-seater, ensuring they would not collide. He was still easing down the power when the ropes snapped taut, throwing him forwards in his seat and wheezing him against the repaired seatbelt.
The jerk of the rope flicked the buggy's back wheels into the air before smacking them back into the ground again. Chris tried to look around, but the buggy bounced and wallowed again, forcing him to concentrate on holding on and keeping it pointed straight down the slope. With the ropes still holding it back, the buggy fought to make progress but its spinning wheels did occasionally find grip on the rocky surface and the combined efforts of both buggies gradually pulled the flatbed buggy up onto the peak and bounced the front wheels over.
Chris did not know that the rest of the team had begun manually pushing the flatbed buggy to help get its centre of gravity over the edge. The metal tubes that made up its chassis made some highly unpleasant creaks and grinding sounds before the buggy, cargo and all, tilted forwards and picked up speed.
The weight of both buggies rolling down the slope popped the back wheels easily over the peak, ending the resistance and letting both speed up freely. Chris was already hard on the brakes when the flatbed buggy, sliding on the steeper part of the slope, shunted into the back of him, causing his buggy to slide out of control, pushing a wave of loose rocks ahead of it.
There was nothing he could do to stop the two-seater buggy smashing into the front wing of the parked four-seater, spinning it sideways, before all buggies came to a halt in a cloud of grey dust, each still in contact with the next.
"It worked!" Fletcher shouted happily.
Chris unclipped his seatbelt and climbed down to the ground. They may have successfully got all three buggies over the ridge, but he was keen to see if any of them had damage that would affect their onward journey.
"Fletcher, what do you think of this?"
Chris pointed at the front wing of the four-seater buggy. Fletcher jogged across to him and studied how the curved plastic wing had bent downwards until it was pressing against the front tyre. The bodywork of the buggies was formed almost entirely from bolt-on plastic modules that were light, easy to replace and highly resilient to damage. The other reason that form of construction was how easy they would be to manufacture in the new colony, when required.
"The frame underneath is bent. We just need to bend it up awee, Commander."
Before Chris could say anything, Fletcher slid both his gloved hands under the bent wing and heaved it gently upwards. Initially, it barely moved, but then the fold in the supporting frame gave up and bent back in the opposite direction, leaving the wing a little distorted and noticeably higher than its unbent counterpart.
After checking for the other damage and untying the two ropes, the party climbed back onto the buggies and set off toward Command Module. Chris led the way in the four-seater buggy and was immediately glad that navigation was going to be easy due to the highly visible ridge to their left. Driving in a straight line, however, was impossible because of the many large rocks strewn across the uneven surface.
He paused every so often to scan the rocks ahead for a route that the buggies could traverse. There were rocks of every size, some taller than the buggies, but most were less than a metre across. Several times he discovered the path he had chosen was impassable and was forced to reverse up a distance. Eventually, he ordered the other buggies to hold back a hundred metres to avoid them all having the reverse repeatedly.
They picked their way across the terrain, making painfully slow progress, frequently backtracking and occasionally getting partially stuck. All leaping out of their buggies to roll small boulders out of the way, push a buggy or pile small rocks under a wheel to get it out of a crevice, became a practised routine.
Parts of their improvised and adapted on-the-fly route took them hundreds of metres away from the ridge, but Chris always brought them back towards the landmark. With such slow progress and so much effort being spent, he did not want to risk overshooting the Command Module and tire them out unnecessarily.
It annoyed him that their destination was the only intact module which did not have a working beacon. Its approximate location was marked on the navcom but they would have to do the final few hundred metres by eye.
"How long have we been doing this?" asked Kate as they climbed back onto the buggy for the umpteenth time.
Chris pulled out his tablet. "Over three hours how, and I still can't see the Command Module."
"We must have done three or four times as far as the distance we'd have done in a straight line."
"At least," he sighed. "We're still a few hundred metres away from the ridge, so I'm guessing the Command Module must be somewhere over there."
He waved slightly over to the left before gunning the motors to get over some small rocks. They both held on tightly as the buggy jerked one way and then the other.
"Do you reckon we can squeeze between those two?" he asked, pointing at two boulders ahead with less than two metres between them. Both were taller than the buggy. "It looks like there's a flat area beyond them that's actually heading in the right direction."
"I don't know. You're the driver!"
"Let's try it."
It was hard to be precise on the uneven and somewhat loose surface, but he did his best to line up with the gap, slowing down at the last moment to pass between them. They both watched the boulders pass within centimetres of the sides of the buggy, but nothing made contact until it was almost clear. A loose rock on the ground caused the buggy to jolt and twist for a moment, swinging the back into one of them. The buggy kept moving onwards, unaffected by the impact.
"I think it's getting dark," Kate announced quietly.
"We were late leaving the supply module, it took us the best part of an hour to get over the ridge, and now we've wasted three hours getting through these rocks. There's barely an hour until the sun goes down. Plus, it's on the other side of the ridge, so we're in the shadow."
"And we still can't even see the Command Module," she sighed, "What do we do?"
"Keep going, he said matter-of-factly.
"Even if it goes dark?"
"What's the alternative? We haven't got a shelter!"
"So, we keep going?"
"We keep going. It can't be much farther."
Three more dead ends and two more sessions of freeing stuck buggies left them in a position which had halved the distance to the Command Module but they still could not see it. The air was noticeably colder now and Chris wished that the buggies provided any kind of shelter from the temperature.
He was putting off switching on the headlights, the ultimate admission that night was falling, but he needed them to see the terrain ahead. He hit the button and the buggy's front and rear lights immediately burst into life. Somehow the brilliant beams of light made everything look more jagged and harder to cross. He had no choice but to press on anyway.
What remained of the daylight faded surprisingly quickly and, in the space of twenty minutes, it was almost fully dark apart from the lights on the three buggies. As the temperature dropped quickly, the icy air needled his face, making the skin tighten. Relying on the headlight beams made it tricky to assess what would make a viable route ahead.
Avoiding the urge to drive faster, too dangerous in the circumstances, he pressed on. Every so often, one of the two following buggies would inadvertently sweep its headlight beams across the rocks ahead, momentarily improving his view. He was unsure whether the terrain was improving or he was developing a feel for negotiating it, but they were making fewer diversions off to the sides and keeping up more efficient progress.
His heart sank when the headlights illuminated a pile of rocks, two-thirds as tall as his buggy, stretching off to each side beyond the width of the headlight beams. Chris drove cautiously closer to it and then stopped two metres from it. He knew acutely that the temperature was getting too low for them to tolerate for much longer. Just breathing was already hurting his lungs.
Saying nothing, he unclipped his seatbelt and dropped onto the ground beside the buggy. Kate handed him a torch. He switched it on and shone it quickly along the mound of rocks. It reached further than the beam to his right, and seemed to get taller that way, and all the way back to the base of the ridge to his left. Driving over it was obviously impossible, so he considered if they could move enough of the rocks out of the way to make a road onward. He did not fancy trying to do that while the temperature continued to drop.
"We're here!" Kate shouted excitedly, making him jump,
"Here?"
"Shine your torch over there!"
She arrived beside him and pointed into the blackness ahead. He swung his torch beam where she pointed and it reflected brightly off a smooth, curved surface.