Kelvin wrestles the controls but it’s useless. He’d hoped to turn the jet around, land it somewhere near the coast. That will not happen now. His eyes flick to the altimeter. Three thousand, eight hundred feet and falling fast. The nose drops again and the jet picks up speed.
The Galaxy shudders and metal tears. It’s a terrible sound. Kelvin knows it means a wing has detached, the airframe not designed to travel at this speed. The jet rolls around its axis and noses down again, almost vertical now. Beside him Nico closes his eyes.
Kelvin stares out the windscreen as the blue-green water rushes up to greet him. Maybe he should have crashed into that herd of cattle after all. The irony is he’d wanted to die somewhere in the Pacific, he just never thought it would be in the Pacific.
Above the passenger compartment the fuselage rips open. Buffeted by the wind, Martie sits with the rest of Henri’s crew and looks through the jagged tear in the fuselage above. She has no regrets. She will see her mother again soon.
The Galaxy hits the ocean travelling at 700 knots and blows apart.
Judd doesn’t watch. He has other things on his plate, like trying to work out where to land this spacecraft.
He tips Atlantis into a steep right turn, can see the Australian coast in the distance but knows they won’t make it. The shuttle has no engines, so there’s no way to throttle up and fly it back to land, and it’s not much of a glider either, which, of course, is Teddy Kennedy’s fault.
Where can he land it? He searches the ocean. An island would be good. Even a reef would be better than open water, but that’s all he can see.
He glances at the altimeter. Two thousand, seven hundred feet and dropping like a stone. He turns to Rhonda beside him. She stares, her eyes unfocused.
‘You need to hold on.’
She can barely nod.
Dirk stares down at the Galaxy’s wreckage, spread wide across the surging ocean, and feels sick to the stomach. The people he’d spent the better part of two decades with, friends and workmates, all gone.
Through his headset he can hear Big Bird berate him in German, his voice laced with a pain and invective Dirk’s never heard from his countryman before. What he’s saying is true. It is Dirk’s fault. He should have been more careful when he fired at the Loach.
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. The words were tattooed across Dirk’s back yet he’d failed to heed their message. His obsession with killing the astronaut destroyed his crew and yet Judd Bell is still alive. Dirk saw him tip into one of the shuttle’s viewports, which was somehow missing its glass panel, just before Atlantis separated from the Galaxy.
Dirk locks eyes on the spacecraft. ‘Get closer.’
Big Bird works the controls and the chopper surges towards the shuttle.
A man’s head pokes up through Atlantis’s open viewport. It’s not Henri.
Dirk speaks into his headset: ‘Commander, do you read?’
There’s no response.
‘Henri, do you copy?’
Nothing.
He aims the Top Hawk helmet at Atlantis. A tone beeps as the targeting grid skips across the sky.
‘What are you doing?’ Big Bird’s frantic voice buzzes in Dirk’s headset. ‘The commander’s on board.’
‘Why doesn’t he respond?’
‘He could be injured, he — the radio could be out.’
‘No. It’s over.’
A long pause. ‘What do we do?’ Big Bird’s voice is small, his question not just about this moment but their future.
‘We destroy the shuttle, land this thing, go home and rebuild the crew.’
Dirk can’t imagine doing anything else. So he will start again. He has the resources, almost seventy million in various bank accounts scattered around the globe, and three major assignments already contracted for the next year.
Big Bird speaks again. ‘I will be 2IC.’
‘I wouldn’t have it any other way.’ Dirk doesn’t know if Henri’s alive or not. Maybe Big Bird is right, maybe he’s just injured or the radio is out, either way he can’t take a risk. The astronaut knows who Dirk is and so must die.
The targeting grid finds Atlantis, the tone turns solid.
‘I’m sorry, Henri.’
Dirk blinks.
50
The missile blasts away from the black chopper.
Corey sees it, shouts into the cabin: ‘Missile! On the way!’
‘Okay!’ Judd wrenches Atlantis into a steep right turn. The missile alters direction and follows, grey exhaust vapour trailing behind it.
Corey watches it close in. It’s so fast there’s no way they can outrun it. He thinks about Spike, wonders who’ll look after him. ‘I’m sorry, mate. .’
Shards of white light streak across the sky, slam into the missile.
It detonates in a ball of fire.
‘Got it!’ Disser grins, tips the Harrier into a hard right bank.
Behind him Severson’s eyes are squeezed shut, his face drained of colour. His voice is little more than a whisper. ‘Great.’
Disser holds the Harrier in the bank, searches the sky for the aircraft that launched the missile.
‘There!’ Disser pinpoints a black chopper. He drags the targeting sight towards it but he’s too slow. The black chopper’s cannons blaze.
Bullets rip into the Harrier’s fuselage. Severson’s eyes spring open. ‘Oh Jesus!’ A bullet ricochets around the cabin. He prays it doesn’t hit him.
‘Ahhh! Christ!’ It hits Disser.
‘You okay?’
The marine’s voice is weak. ‘Hit — in the — arm.’
‘Oh, man. Are you going to be able to land this thing?’
Disser’s breathing is laboured. ‘Stupid — question. Take out — that chopper.’
‘What?! I can’t do that.’
‘Don’t be — a pussy —’
‘I can’t do it! You need to rally.’
There’s no response.
‘Disser! Are you rallying?’
He is not.
The Harrier shudders and falls out of the sky. Mortified, Severson stares at the vibrating control stick between his knees. His eyes flick to the altimeter, which spins down. He wishes he’d never answered the damn phone.
Corey watches the Harrier drop into a cloudbank and disappear. He looks up and locks eyes on the black chopper. It surges towards Atlantis again.
‘What’s going on back there?’
Corey hears Judd’s question. What does he tell him? That there’s no way out of this? That they’re all about to die? Is it better if that kind of information comes as a surprise? He doesn’t answer, just watches the black chopper approach.
Dirk focuses on Atlantis. ‘As close as you can.’
‘Copy that.’ Big Bird pushes the Tiger towards the spacecraft.
Dirk flicks the switch from cannons to missiles and aims the Top Hawk helmet at Atlantis for the last time. The tone beeps as the targeting grid skips across the sky. It locks on and the tone turns solid, like the ECG of a flatlining patient.
He blinks.
The black chopper explodes in a vivid fireball.
‘Severson Burke, you magnificent bastard!’ Severson grips the Harrier’s control stick so hard his hand is numb. Yes, he’s petrified, but it beats the hell out of the alternative, a horrible death on the ocean below.