ATLANTIS

After the Crash: Ariana

“Mitch, are you all right?” Ariana asked as she leaned over him. 

Hudson opened his eyes. “My legs.” 

Ariana looked down. The sharp edge of a receiver had cut through his flight suit. Blood was oozing from torn flesh. Ariana grabbed the metal and strained but it didn't budge. Then she tried his chair, but the sharp intake of breath as soon as she moved it a fraction of an inch told her that it might be better to leave him motionless for now. 

“Let me get some help.” 

Hudson weakly nodded, closing his eyes. 

She went back to the console area. Ariana tried to remember but the last thing her mind played back to her was giving the command for everyone to lock in and prepare for crashing. She grabbed Mark Ingram's shoulder and shook him. Soon he was blinking, looking about. 

“What happened?” he asked as he unsnapped his harness and stood up. 

“I don't know,” Ariana answered. “We're down but we seem to have made it all right.” 

Ingram unbuckled and stood, looking about. “The pilot's must have managed to make it to a landing strip somewhere.” Then he spotted the body under the jacket. 

“It's John. He's dead,” Ariana said. “Mitch is pinned against a console up front. He's hurt.” 

Others were standing up now, stretching, trying to get oriented, thankful to be alive. She directed two men to the front to help Hudson. 

George Craight, a camera tech moved toward her and Ingram. “Where are we?” he asked. 

Ariana had been thinking about Ingram's comment that they'd made it to a landing strip. If that were the case, why weren't rescue personnel cutting their way in? For once she wished they had windows in the bay. Given their location when the trouble had started, she knew there were no landing strips marked on the map within a hundred kilometers. The last thing she remembered was the pilot shouting, but he’d made no sense. 

Ariana turned toward the front of the plane. “Let's find out.” 

Ingram and Craight followed her as she passed through her office into the communications area. Hudson’s legs had been freed and he was carried to the rear to be bandaged. Ariana grabbed the latch that led from the commo area to the cockpit. It was reluctant to give way, then turned with a sudden snap as Craight added his strength to hers. A gust of thick air blew in. Ariana took an involuntary step back as she saw that the top half of the cockpit had been cut out, leaving exposed metal edges and wiring. Beyond, a thick yellow-gray mist was swirling about. She thought she could see what appeared to be the faint outlines of some very tall trees in the fog just in front of the plane, but it was hard to make out. Ariana remembered the scene the forward video camera had showed her just before it went dead--the same fog. Her eyes lowered to the seats. 

“Oh God!” Ariana staggered back another step. The pilot's body was still strapped in; what was left of it. The top half was gone, leaving just legs and the beginning of a torso ending in a red, gooey mess where the stomach should have continued. Loops of entrails trailed from the body to the torn out metal and disappeared over the edge. The co-pilot's seat was empty, but the cloth was covered with bright red splashes of blood. The seatbelts ended abruptly. 

Craight and Ariana tentatively stepped forward into the cockpit, Ingram edging up behind them. Ingram mutely pointed to the right. The navigator wasn't in his seat. Ariana followed the line of Ingram's finger. The navigator must have tried to get away from whatever had happened to the other two in the cabin. His body was crammed under the console holding the plane's flight radios. One arm was wrapped around a stanchion, the fingers rigid. The other arm and half his chest was gone, cut off smoothly as if by a surgeon's knife. His face was contorted with a look of pure terror.