Adam Baker - Impact

Noble picked up one of the energy bars.

‘This all we got? Meal bars?’

‘Least of our worries. Die of dehydration long before we get hungry.’

The cabin lights flickered.

‘How long will that power cell last?’ asked Hancock.

‘Longer than us,’ said Frost.

‘Any luck with the radio?’

‘I would have mentioned it.’

‘Nothing at all?’

‘A weak signal. Some poor bastard calling for help. We can’t reach him, he can’t reach us. Pretty much the state of the world. So yeah, we’ll keep transmitting an SOS. But it looks like we’ll have to help ourselves.’

Noble pushed aside canteens to make space for the map. He moved the water pouches as carefully as he could. If one of the plastic envelopes snagged on a floor-bolt and tore, they would have to get down on their knees and lap moisture from the deck like a pack of dogs.

He shook open the chart and laid it on the floor.

He contemplated featureless terrain. Saltpans and washes.

‘Every time I look at this damn map I hope to see something I missed,’ said Noble. ‘A water hole. A Park Ranger station. Something that might save our asses. It’s like I’m working through Kübler-Ross. I’ve done denial and anger. Now I’ve moved onto bargaining. Been pleading with God, in my head. Each time I open the chart, hoping to find a symbol magically appeared. He hasn’t obliged so far.’

He tapped the red grease-pencil circle at the centre of the map.

‘Like I said. Pretty sure that’s our grid. Might be a little further north-west, but it doesn’t make a whole lot of difference. Several days from any roads, any habitation. A true country mile any direction we take. In this heat? We’d tap out pretty quick. We’d be crow bait within hours.’

‘It can be done,’ said Hancock. ‘Weaker men have overcome tougher odds. Just got to set our minds. Sleep by day, walk by night. It’s not like we have a whole lot to carry.’

‘Last resort,’ said Frost. ‘But I guess we’ve already reached last resort territory.’

‘There is another option,’ said Noble. ‘You’ve cracked your head, and Frost has messed up her leg. Neither of you are in much condition to undertake a long desert trek. But I could go. I’m in good shape. I could cover a lot of ground on my own. Move at my own pace. If I climbed the mountains and reached blacktop road, I could summon help.’

‘How much water would you be looking to take on this expedition?’ asked Hancock.

‘I’d need to cover twenty miles each night. That’s a punishing pace.’

‘So how much water?’

‘A bunch.’

‘Yeah. That’s what I thought. If it’s all the same to you, we’ll stick with a straight three-way split.’

The debris trench.

Scattered wreckage half submerged in sand.

Frost held a flashlight while Noble crouched and dug. He slowly excavated a massive tyre.

Frost helped him heave the wheel upright. Chest-high, white aluminium hub. Part of the aircraft’s forward quad-bogie, ripped from its wheel-well during the crash.

Frayed rubber. The tyre abraded by countless runway touchdowns.

‘Jeez,’ said Frost. ‘Virtually no tread. Damn thing is as smooth as an egg. When was the last time this plane got an overhaul?’

Noble shook his head.

‘Pinback was right. Should have aborted take-off and put her back in the hangar.’

He rolled the wheel hand over hand back towards the plane. Frost walked beside him, trained the flashlight.

They ducked as they rolled the tyre beneath the wing.

‘Keep going,’ said Frost. ‘Want to get well away from the fuel before we light her up.’

They rolled the tyre fifty yards in front of the nose.

‘Here’s good.’

Noble kicked the tyre. It toppled flat.

Frost limped back to the plane. She fetched a wad of pages from the flight manual.

A wing reservoir leaked fuel. She held the paper beneath the leak, let steady drips of JP8 soak into the pages, stain them translucent.

She returned to the tyre and scattered the sheaf of papers.

She took a Zippo from her pocket. Burnished brass. Ranger insignia.

‘That belong to your father?’ asked Noble.

‘Yeah. Three tours.’

‘And that old knife?’

‘His too.’

‘Did he make it?’

‘Yeah, he got home.’

She crouched.

‘Stand back.’

She held the Zippo at arm’s length, flipped the lid and sparked a flame. Fuel vapour combusted with a thud. A mini-mushroom cloud blossomed into the night, lit the crash site flickering red.

Paper blackened and crisped. The tyre began to smoke and melt. Ethereal blue flames.

‘Burn a long while,’ said Frost. ‘Won’t smell too pretty, but it’ll put out a shitload of smoke. Visible for miles during daylight. If Early is out there, he’ll see it.’

Noble covered his mouth and nose.

‘Man, that stinks.’

‘Should be okay as long as we sit back from it. Tell Hancock to get over here if he wants to keep warm.’

Frost climbed a dune and put up another flare. The white starshell screamed skyward. She stared into distant darkness in case, miles away, Early put up a reciprocal shell to alert them he was alive.

The flare lit the crash site cold white, lit Hancock dragging a Peli trunk towards the fire.

Frost descended the dune to meet him.

He had a balled-up parka beneath his arm. He threw it to Frost.

‘Thought you might be cold.’

Frost threw it back.

‘Thanks. But I can’t walk around snug while everyone else shivers.’

‘There aren’t enough coats for us all.’

‘Then I guess we just sit and look at it.’

Hancock flipped latches and opened the trunk.

Frost craned to see inside. Comms gear. A folded tripod antenna.

‘What the hell is this?’

‘Uplink to STRATCOM. Back-channel authentication for the bomb.’

‘Why the fuck didn’t you mention it earlier?’

‘The digital equipment in the aircraft, the CSELs, the onboard, rely on the same satellite network as this thing. If the plane couldn’t get a lock on the command net, I doubt the spectrum analyser on this kit will pick up a signal. Truth be told, I’m booting it up because we’ve got hours to kill and nothing to do.’

He unfolded the dish antenna and planted it in the sand facing east. He ran cable to the uplink.

Boot sequence. Flickering loading bars. A brief function menu, then the screen hung at ACQUISITION.

They watched the screen a while. A clock glyph cycled as the terminal tried to raise a response from a low orbit milsat.

‘There’s got to be someone out there,’ murmured Hancock as he studied the screen. ‘The entire US military. Got to be someone left alive.’

Frost turned away. She sat on the sand and massaged her leg.

Rubber bubbled and popped like gum. A column of filthy smoke rose into the night sky.

‘Can you navigate off the stars?’ asked Hancock. ‘Appreciate it’s been a long time since Basic. If we had to walk out of here, could you orient yourself?’

Frost shrugged.

‘I can find Polaris easy enough. Truth is, doesn’t matter much which direction we go. Desert and mountains on all sides. Same quotient of suffering, all points of the compass.’

She looked at the surrounding dunes, a dark ridgeline against the stars. She thought about the bleak, pre-human wasteland surrounding the plane, the journey that might lie ahead. Dunes seared by merciless sun, scoured by freezing night wind.

She stared into flames and heard herself say:

‘We’re all going to die out here.’