Out into daylight. She straightened up. A backwards glance. The mid-wing spoiler panels were raised. Air-brakes deployed to create maximum drag. Someone had tried to slow the plane at the moment of impact.
She reached the rear of the aircraft. Ripped and ragged metal where the tail had been torn away.
Twisted spars. Trailing cable. Fluttering foil insulation. Central crawlway crushed flat.
A crash trench behind the plane. An avenue of raked sand flecked with wreckage.
The foreground: an undercarriage quad bogie ripped from a wheel well. Four huge balloon tyres on aluminium hubs. The stumps of piston actuators. Frayed hydraulic line.‘Anyone?’
Oppressive silence.
Maybe she was the sole survivor. Maybe the rest of the crew died on impact, or expired as they wandered, lost, through the desert.
Sudden, gut-punch anxiety. A child’s pre-verbal fear of abandonment. What if the rescue team had already come and gone? Picked up survivors and returned to base, leaving her marooned in the desert.
Frost, LaNitra. Written up MIA presumed KIA.
Shrill note of panic in her voice:
‘Can anyone hear me?’
Dear God, don’t let me die here alone.
…above all, use you head.
She thought it through.
No footprints.
The dunes surrounding the plane were pristine. The rotor-wash of a heavy rescue chopper would have churned a shitload of sand, left a visible LZ.
And the body of the plane was pretty much intact. If a TRAP team had touched down at the crash site, they would have cut open the central fuselage to retrieve the warhead.
Liberty Bell had sat neglected, silent and still, since the moment she hit the ground and came skidding to a halt.
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?’