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sloshing against the ragged metal edges and up onto the cabin floor. Half in, half out of the opening, a man floated face down, his body rising and falling with the tide. The passenger next to Jack, who he'd been talking to a few minutes earlier, was still strapped into his seat; head gone, just a splinter of spinal column protruded from the wet stump that was his neck. A moan sputtered from within the mangled fuselage. Across the aisle, a woman wailed away her final breaths. She tried to move, but the seat in front of her had catapulted against her on impact, crushing her legs like an accordion. She kept crying, "My legs... my legs." Jack wanted to help her, but for the first time in his life, he was too paralyzed with fear.
    * * *
    Captain Eric Hammond lay motionless, taking stock of his internal signals. He was bruised and battered, but as far as he could tell, nothing was broken. Opening his eyes, his thoughts were slow to focus. Everything seemed softer here... quieter. For a split second, he thought he saw a dog running into a thicket of bamboo. Hammond found a small bottle of vodka in his uniform pocket, unscrewed the top and gulped the contents in one swallow, savoring the analgesic effect on his already numb senses. He had little doubt that he was a lucky man. The reinforced cockpit had saved him any substantial trauma.
    Focusing, Hammond saw the area was beach and jungle. He looked around for signs of civilization, or a rescue party. The twisted pieces of debris scattered all around him was all he saw. No buildings, no rescue party.
    Not yet. Soon, probably.
    Now, raising his head, Hammond could hear the sounds of the ocean. Painfully, he tried to stand up, but his legs felt feeble. He grabbed a tree branch and heaved. After the earth steadied itself beneath his feet, the pilot staggered through the surf, slowly at first, then crashing through the waves, his mind coming alive with the realization of what had actually occurred.
    I lost my plane.
    And, to top it all off, he couldn't remember them making radio contact with anyone before the crash. He wasn't sure, but he doubted it.
    They may have no idea that the jet crashed. Eventually, they would realize the plane was missing. But would they know where to look? He had no idea where he was. He could only hope that the transponder was still able to send a signal.
    He turned back to the shoreline and surveyed the wreckage. The small hope he had for the transponder dissipated with the spray of the wave that crashed over him. As he was pulled under the surface, he felt the urge to just go with it. Just open my mouth and let the salty brine fill my lungs.
    * * *
    Jack unbuckled himself and managed to climb out of the twisted plane. The miracle of his survival became more apparent when he got out and surveyed the broken hull.
    The pilots had managed to ditch the plane in the ocean, keeping the front fuselage more-or-less intact until they ran out of luck and water, hitting a rocky outcropping a hundred yards shy of the beach. The plane then cart-wheeled before breaking into three pieces. The middle section sank, the rear section landed in the surf, and the cockpit and first class section catapulted onto the island.
    A deep gash at the water's edge marked this point. Further up the beach, the twisted remains of the front landing gear were half-buried, torn off when the remainder of the front fuselage began its breakup.
    Jack walked to the sheared-off right wing, laying a good twenty yards from the plane's body. Circling the broken airfoil, he silently thanked the pilots for emptying the fuel tanks. The fact that the plane didn't become a fireball was the only good thing about the crash.
    Jack made his way to the nose of the aircraft, wedged between two giant teak trees that finally stopped them. He surmised the front fuselage snapped in two just before this piece began its slide into the jungle, leaving rear passengers' half--his half--floating in the surf. Had this not been