Mai and Pete had just left the flight deck to suit up when the comms sounded. Mark was sitting at the main control panel and looked up as Tom’s face appeared on the screen in front of him. ‘Tom. What’s happenin’?’ ‘I don’t want to worry anyone unduly, but we have a problem.’ Mark stared at him, saying nothing. ‘Josh and Steph haven’t made their last two designated call-ins.’ Mark looked down at the control panel and ran a hand over his cropped hair. ‘You checked with BigEye?’ ‘No sign of them. The last comm was from Josh a while after taking off from Polar Base. He sent through their flight plan. That was almost an hour ago.’ ‘And the flight plan was pretty clear?’ ‘Yeah. What you’d expect – a course almost directly east and then south, avoiding anything controversial.’ Mark stared at the flight plan Tom had sent over and ran calculations through his head. ‘I take it Josh was flying.’ ‘Yep.’ Mark sighed. ‘You thinking what I’m thinking?’ ‘Probably, dude.’ Mark sighed again, heavily, then brought his hand down hard on the plastic panel, making Tom flinch.
