ATLANTIS

Cambodian Special Forces

CHAPTER NINE 

“You can go one of two ways,” Hudson said. 

Ariana looked from the communications man to Mansor, who had just climbed down from the small opening, his mission to find a break in the cable unsuccessful. The three of them were gathered around a small table on which were spread the schematics for the plane. 

Other than Mansor’s mission, the last hour had been uneventful, for which Ariana was grateful. No more beams of light had gone through the plane. Nor had there been any noises outside of the plane but none of that helped the atmosphere inside much. The bodies of Daley and the engineer killed in the crash were in the rear of the plane, covered in blankets, reminders of their perilous situation, as if they needed any. 

Ariana looked across the table. Mansor was layered with dirt, grime and grease and looking none too happy. It had taken over an hour for him to traverse the crawl space to the base of the two stanchions that held up the rotodome. The SATCOM cables had been intact the entire way and disappeared up into the right stanchion, out of sight. Ariana was running out of options; that left going outside to check the rotodome. For all she knew, the entire system might have been sheared off in the crash and the satellite dish lost. 

“You've got the emergency overwing escape door or the emergency overhead hatch,” Hudson pointed out the two doors on the chart, one opening onto the right wing, the other onto the roof of the aircraft just behind the pilot's cabin. 

“Do you think the overhead one might have been damaged with the cockpit?” Mansor asked. 

Ariana remembered the way the metal had been cut. “I don't think so. The opening ended before the back of the cockpit.” 

“What about the beams?” Ingram asked. “What if they're being aimed by someone outside and once they spot you--” he stopped, the others knowing the end to the sentence. 

“We're not in a stable situation here,” Ariana said. “We have to act and act quickly. My father would have sent a rescue party as soon as he lost contact with us. It’s long past the time for such a party to have reached us, so we have to assume we’re going to get no outside help. I don’t know why, but that’s the situation. And the message we received told us we had only twelve hours. We’ve already wasted some of that. 

“The first step is to try to get satellite communications and see if we can contact someone. If that doesn't work, then I’ve made the decision we're going to have to leave the plane. I say we try the radio first.” 

Given those choices, the others nodded their heads. Mansor stood, shaking some of the dust off his clothes. 

“I'll go with you,” Ariana said, grabbing a mini-mag light and sticking it into her pocket. 

“There's no--” Mansor began, but he was silenced by the flash in her eyes. 

“Let's do it. We'll go out the top hatch,” Ariana decided. “That way we won't have to climb up from the wing.” 

Mansor held up a reel of co-axial cable. “I'm ready.” 

Ariana turned and walked toward the front of the plane. The emergency overhead access door was in the ceiling of her office. They unhooked her heavy metal desk and pushed it underneath. Mansor climbed up, after tying off one end of the coaxial cable to a leg of the desk. He grabbed the emergency latch and twisted it. With a loud popping noise, it opened inward, swinging down, revealing a pitch-black rectangle. There were no stars visible, nothing but utter blackness. He glanced down. “Ready?” 

“Ready,” Ariana said, climbing on top of the desk and crouching next to him. 

Mansor pulled himself into the darkness. He disappeared for a second, then his arm reappeared. Ariana grabbed his hand and he pulled her up and out of the plane.