Adam Baker - Impact

Relief quickly soured to strength-sapping fatigue. She was tempted to shoot-up and sleep in the shade.

Better conserve morphine. Hold out until nightfall.

She stepped out of shadow. Sun hit with skin-blistering force. She flinched from harsh light like she had taken a slap to the face.

She walked the starboard side of the plane and headed back towards the nose.

She leant on the hull for support but snatched her hand away. Metal hot as a grill plate.

The starboard wing. Three thousand square feet of aluminium alloy shimmered heat. Ruptured tanks dripped fuel.

The aircraft’s remaining engine pod bedded in sand.

She ducked beneath the wing.

Dust saturated with JP8. A stinking, petroleum quagmire. Her boots bogged down, sucked like she was pulling them from deep mud.

She reached the nose.

She craned to see if someone were in the pilot seat. Dark, sand-occluded polycarbon.

A vertical rip in the aluminium skin of the plane. Popped rivets and buckled panels. She examined the fissure. A shoulder-width tear in the fuselage that would, with effort, allow access to the crew compartment.

She gripped torn metal and pulled herself inside.

The split-level crew compartment.

Lower cabin: navigator, radar navigator.

Upper cabin: electronic warfare officer, tail gunner, co-pilot, pilot.

Frost let her eyes adjust to the dark interior of the plane.

Low ceiling, tight walls. The place stank of smoke and cooked metal.

Multi-function displays seared by shorting electronics. Exposed circuits. Smashed scopes. Roped cable hung from a conduit.

The few sections of wall that were free of instrumentation were quilted with soot-streaked insulation pads.

No crew seats in the lower cabin. Both Frost and Guthrie had blown floor hatches and ejected from the plane.

Frost gripped the lip of her radar navigation console. An internal fire had caused the central sweep-screen to sag and melt bowl-shaped.

A silver coin tacked to the radar panel with gum. Kanji courage symbol on the obverse, ALWAYS ON THE BATTLEFIELD stamped on the back.

Membership token of an off-campus dojo she joined during her years at UA, Tuscaloosa. An austere fight-space above a laundromat. Crash mats. Punch bag.

A poster pinned to the wall. Jim Kelly throwing a high kick. And next to it, fourteenth century bushido text hung in a clip-frame:

It is related that a famous warrior known as the master archer used to have a sign on his wall with the four words he applied to everyday life: ‘Always on the battlefield.’ I note this for the edification of novice warriors.

She peeled the coin from the switch panel, rolled it finger to finger, and put it in her pocket.

The interior of the fuselage was furnace hot. Frost dropped her survival vest, carefully pulled off her boots, and squirmed out of her flight suit.

She took the authenticator lanyard from around her neck and dropped it into her boot.

Grey, PX-issue underwear.

She tipped a wall-mounted drop-seat. Vinyl padding hot against her thighs. She sat as still as she could, tried to slow her metabolism, allow a little yogic calm to lower her body temp.

She looked around.

Floor detritus. A packet of moist towelettes. Hand-wipes that used to hang in a wall pocket next to the plane’s fold-down urinal.

Desert dust wiped from her arms, shoulders and face.

She wrapped one of the towelettes round her little finger as an improvised Q-tip and cleaned sand from her ears.

A locker to her right. A folded flag. A couple of two-quart canteens.

‘Sweet mother Mary.’

She hurriedly unscrewed a cap and drank deep, panting between gulps.

That’s enough. No point guzzling everything you’ve got. Might trigger some kind of cerebral oedema.

She set the canteen aside.

A wall-mounted trauma bag, big as a parachute pack, to her left. The WALK: Warrior Aid and Litter Kit.

She flicked the release clasp. The bag hit the floor.

She slid from the seat, sat beside the kit and unzipped side pockets. Wads of sterile dressings. Airway tubes. Surgical tape.

Trauma shears.

She snipped the paracord lashed round her leg. Cord unravelled. The improvised splint fell away.

She let her leg rest a while.

Lying on slip-tread floor plate. Sun shafted through the fissure in the cabin wall. She watched light inch across the deck.

The fuselage creaked. Metal flexed and contorted as the wreck baked in merciless day-heat.

She cleaned her fingernails with the tip of her knife.

Maybe she should get some sleep. She set the knife aside and closed her eyes.

Thud.

Movement in the upper cabin.

She sat up.

‘Yo?’

Her voice hoarse and loud in the confined space.

Craning to look up the ladderway into the cabin above her.

‘Pinback? Hancock? That you?’

She tried to stand. Fierce pain. She winced and fell to the floor.

She dug into the trauma pack, found an immobiliser and clamped the stainless steel brace round her injured leg. Nylon tethers hung slack.

She put a webbing strap between her teeth and bit down.

Fuck it. Morphine.

Jab. Discard.

She took deep breaths and mouthed a silent three-count.

Brutal double-wrench. She pulled the splint-straps tight.

She crouched on the deck lost in white pain. It flooded her senses. Overwhelmed her vision like oncoming headbeams. A buzz-saw shriek in her ears.

She waited for the opiate to hit.

Knife-thrust agony diminished to a dull burn.

She grabbed the canteen and took a swig. She poured a splash of water over the back of her head.

She gripped the ladder and pulled herself upright. Knees and palms branded with the chevron tread of the deck plate.

She looked up through the hatchway into the flight deck above.

‘Anyone there?’

Pause.

‘It’s me, Frost. Anyone up there?’

No reply.

She pulled herself up the ladder, executed an arduous hop-climb to spare her injured leg.

The upper cabin.

She rolled onto deck plate, gripped the EWO situational display for support and got to her feet.

The blast screens had been lowered. Each curtain fringed by a halo of daylight.

Banks of dead instrumentation.

Scintillating motes of dust.

She looked up. Open sky. Sunlight shafting through vacancies left by two jettisoned roof hatches.

The back-facing Electronic Warfare chair remained in position. The seat rockets must have failed. Lieutenant Noble, the EWO, would have followed a well-drilled back-up procedure. He would have unhitched, slid down the ladder, dropped out a vacant floor hatch and been snatched away by the airstream.

The co-pilot seat had fired. Hancock propelled clear before impact.

The pilot seat was still in place.

She could see the arm and shoulder of a flight suit.

‘Pinback? Can you hear me?’

She released her grip of the Warfare console and limped towards the pilot seat.

Captain Pinback. Crazy bastard rode the plane during its terminal descent. Fought ’til the end. Stayed aboard the smoke-filled, depressurised flight deck. Didn’t want to abandon the aircraft, the weapon.

‘Captain?’

A gloved hand twitched and clenched.

She circled the seat, kept her distance, held the bracket rails of the now-absent co-pilot chair for support.

‘Cap?’

She reached for her shoulder holster, realised she’d left the pistol below.

Pinback sat slumped in front of inert, fire-streaked avionics, his face veiled by his visor and oxygen mask.

Frost tentatively reached forwards.

Pinback took a shuddering breath.

She jumped back.

A gasping, heaving convulsion.

‘Cap? Hey. Daniel. Can you hear me?’