Now it was amazingly quiet.
“Check yourself first.” Jim was certain that his lips had moved, but he wasn’t able to hear any words come out of them.
Toes and feet and legs all seemed to be in place and functioning. Fingers and arms. Neck was very stiff with what felt a bit like a highway whiplash reaction. The restraining belts that crisscrossed his chest were still holding Jim in his seat, though he was hanging at a slightly crooked angle, head to one side, eyes tightly shut.
The voice behind him had fallen silent.
Finally he plucked up his courage and opened his eyes. The shuttle had cartwheeled along, shedding wings and tail plane as it did so. The remains had overtaken the fuselage and were scattered all around the nose, some of them glinting in the late-afternoon sunlight. Fresh air was coming in through the windows, every one of which was smashed.
There was a strong smell of fuel.
“Oh, no… Better move. Marcey,” he called, turning to his copilot.
She was still sitting in her seat… most of her was still sitting in the seat.
The enormous strain of the crash had burst the buckles on her restraints, so that she’d been tossed to one side. Her right arm had been caught in a window and torn apart at the elbow. Her left leg had snapped in mid thigh, and the two jagged ends of the femur were protruding through the bloodied cloth of her pants.
And her head was missing.
“Oh, Christ, Marcey…”
The front of the cabin was awash with thick arterial blood, splashed everywhere, including all over his uniform.
“Skip?”
“That you, Jed?”
“Yeah.”
“How is it?”
“Bad. I think I’ve sprained my ankle. Cut on the side of my head. Ribs bruised. Ligament strain in my injured knee.”
“The others?”
“Reckon Mike Man’s bought the farm. Looks as though his neck snapped. Hanging over, the back of his head sort of dangling between his shoulders. Looks kind of…”
“The others, Jed?” Jim was trying to loosen the buckle on his own seat belt with fingers that were slick with Marcey’s blood. Around his groin and thighs was a sensation of cooling wetness where he’d lost control of his bladder.
“Can’t see. You all right?”
“Yeah. Seem to be.”
“Marcey?”
“No.”
A short silence. “Can just see Ryan. Doesn’t look too good. He was moaning about his leg. Now he’s gone quiet.”
“Carrie and Steve. Pete. Mac and Kyle? How about them?”
Jed sighed. “Can’t see from where I am, Jim. Place is just smashed up to shit back here. Best come take a look.”
A muffled voice reached them.
“I’m here.”
“Mac?”
“Yeah. Got a seat on my head. Think it’s Carrie in it. Most times I’d have jumped at the chance to have her sit on my face. Now I’d like her moved off.” After a pause came the sounds of a struggle. “There. Strong smell of fuel back here, Jimbo.”
“On my way.”
Glass crunched under his boots as he moved. Jim had to lean on the arm of Marcey’s seat to lever himself up, and he nearly vomited at the sticky warmth of the pooled blood. The Aquila was tilted to port, and as he looked aft Jim realized how lucky it was that any of them had survived the crash.
At least he and Jed and Mac were alive and relatively uninjured.
As he stood there, resting his hand on the edge of the control-cabin door, Jim could see a tangle of limbs. Several of the seats looked as if they had come away from their moorings and been thrown, with their occupants, toward the rear of the vessel.
Steve had blood coming from his eyes, eyes fluttering as he started to come around.
“Can you read… read me… ?” he muttered.
Jim stooped and checked the pulse, finding it slow but regular.
“There’s a leak from the tanks, Steve. Got to get up. Now.”
“Yeah, sure. Get up. On my way. Read you, Jim. Ready or not, here I come.”
With a hand under the arm, the radio operator was heaved upright, where he stood swaying, looking around at the destruction.