"Is the pilot dead?" Adrian asked.
"We are still looking for signs of ejection…"
"Can it be detected by radar?" he asked again.
The operator didn't answer right away. His eyes stayed locked on the display as he adjusted the filter settings, isolating smaller returns from the debris cloud.
"Yes, sir," he said after a second. "If the chute deploys, we should see it."
Adrian stepped closer to the console.
"Then find it."
"Working."
The radar display shifted slightly as the system filtered out high-speed fragments still falling from the intercept. Most of them were fading now, burning out as they lost altitude.
Then—
"Contact," one of the operators said.
A smaller return appeared off to the side of the debris field.
"Possible parachute signature," he added.
"Confirm it," Adrian said.
The operator tightened the tracking box, refining the return. The system recalculated the object's descent rate, matching it against known parameters.
