Alex looked at her for a few seconds, weighing up whether he should lie, and then made a decision.

“Dr. Weir, Aimee, look around.” He paused as she briefly looked over both shoulders. “Over thirty people came into this hole over the last seven days. What do you see?”

Aimee looked around again and saw the crashed plane, rock debris and impenetrable darkness leading off to both the left and right of them. She looked back at Alex. “OK, so where are they all?”

“This is not a rescue mission. I don’t think there are any survivors to rescue. There are no bodies, no remains, nothing on the motion sensors or heat scanners. It’s just us down here. Primary mission objective is unchanged; we are to support your work and then evac in, now, twenty-three hours.” Alex paused a moment to let this sink in. “Secondary objective is determine location of initial party and the reason for communications breakdown. But there will be no remains or body retrieval, unless required as forensic samples for further investigation. I’m sorry.”

Alex could see the anger building in Aimee’s eyes. Here it comes, he thought.

“We are not leaving Tom or anyone else down here in this godforsaken cave. You said yourself, they could simply be trapped by a rockslide. This area is still geologically active, you know. If he or anyone else is alive that would be murder.”

As she turned to storm away, she bumped into Alex’s elbow and knocked the coffee cup up and out of her own hand. The cup fell to the ground, spilling a long stream of coffee as it descended. Alex’s reflexes overtook his commonsense; he just saw the girl about to fall or cover herself in hot liquid and acted. In a single smooth motion he picked the falling cup out of the air and scooped the stream of liquid back into it. With his other hand he caught her by the elbow and kept her on her feet.

Damn, he thought. He remembered the Hammer’s directive for being allowed back onto active HAWC duty: “No unnecessary displays of physical capabilities unless to avoid or deflect harm to himself or immediate team members.”

He handed the cup back to her. “Phew, that was lucky.”

Alex could see Aimee staring at him in amazement and doubted she believed snatching the cup from the air was just good fortune. He needed to be more careful. She opened her mouth to say something just as his men appeared at his side to deliver their field reports.

“Don’t worry, Aimee, if he can be found, we’ll find him.” Alex held her gaze for a few seconds more then released her. He excused himself and led his HAWCs a short distance away.

Johnson was the first to speak. “No bodies, no remains. The plane shows signs of significant collision scarring as you would expect from a crash at velocity. There is some evidence of cranial blood spray in the cockpit from impact trauma, but once again no bodies or even flesh debris.”