Free Impact by Adam Baker Page B

rising night wind.
    ‘I feel bad,’ said Hancock. ‘Sitting here, watching you work.’
    She shrugged.
    ‘No point messing yourself up any further. Just add to my problems. Want to eat? We’ve got food.’
    ‘I’m okay,’ he said.
    ‘Let me know if you get hungry. I’ll fetch snack bars.’
    She tore tape with her teeth.
    ‘Reckon they’ll show up? Trenchman and his gang?’ she asked.
    ‘Only hope we got is that nuke,’ said Hancock. ‘The Joint Chiefs, whoever the fuck it was ordered this mission, will regard you, me, the whole damned crew, as an expendable asset. No point crying about it. Came with the uniform, right? The moment we tied our boots. But promise you this: no way will they shrug off the loss of a tactical nuke, just leave it lying in the sand. They are desperate to erase something out there in the desert, and we got the only warhead at their disposal. If they’re still alive, if they’re still down a bunker somewhere issuing commands, they will make our rescue an absolute priority. Help will come. Just got to sit tight and not panic ourselves into anything stupid.’
    A flicker in the sky outside. Pinprick, brilliant white, falling out of view.
    She squirmed from the plane, limped to a nearby dune and scrambled to the top. Hancock stumbled in pursuit.
    ‘What can you see?’ he asked, looking up at her from the foot of the dune. He tried to stand, but fell on his knees. ‘A searchlight? A chopper?’
    She waved hush and squinted at the distant horizon.
    A distant star shell slowly fell to earth.
    ‘A flare. Somebody else survived.’
    Hancock and Frost stood at the ridgeline. They looked out over moonlit desert.
    She flagged a Maglite back and forth.
    ‘Sure it was a starshell?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘How far?’
    ‘Couple of miles.’
    She continued to flag the light.
    An hour later:
    ‘Hey.’
    A voice calling from the desert darkness.
    ‘Who’s out there?’ shouted Hancock, hand on the butt of his pistol.
    ‘Noble, two-nine-five-five-six.’
    Frost trained the Maglite.
    A figure strode towards them across the sand. Noble. He wore a chute fabric headdress. He shielded his face with his hand.
    ‘Get that light out my eyes.’
    He climbed the dune to meet them.
    ‘Good to see you, Frosty.’ Back-slapping hug.
    She looked him up and down. No sign of injury.
    ‘You all right?’
    ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’m good.’ He gestured to the splint lashed to her leg. ‘How about you?’
    She waved the question away.
    ‘Glad you made it,’ said Hancock. Brief handshake. ‘Thought we’d lost you.’
    Noble checked out the bloody bandage wrapped round his head.
    ‘Looks like you both took a bruising.’
    They stood a while and contemplated the wrecked war machine.
    ‘Breaks my heart to see a bird like that in the dirt,’ said Noble.
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘Iraq. Afghanistan. Not a scratch.’
    ‘Hunk of metal,’ said Frost. ‘No earthly use getting weepy. Want some water?’
    He licked parched lips.
    ‘I want all the water in the world.’
    She led Noble down the side of the dune.
    She stumbled. Noble put an arm round her shoulder and helped her walk back towards the plane.
    The lower cabin. They sat cross-legged on floor plates.
    Noble gulped from the canteen.
    He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
    ‘We could put up flares. Fire them at intervals. You never know. If Early is out there, stumbling around the desert, it might lead him home.’
    ‘Not much point,’ said Hancock. ‘Judging by the direction of footprints, Early headed away from the plane, away from help. Maybe he panicked. Maybe his compass was fucked. Either way, the guy is almost certainly dead.’
    ‘We can’t give up on the kid.’
    Frost nodded.
    ‘It won’t hurt to send up a shell at the top of each hour.’
    Noble spread a map on the deck. Frost trained her flashlight on the chart.
    Miles of beige nothing. Shallow contour lines. Grid squares chequered with the legend:
dunes.
    ‘Hard to get a fix on our