by Greig Beck
His comm. link pinged. “Captain, come in.”
It was Jennifer Hartigan, his onsite medical officer. She was smart, wholesomely attractive, and could hold her own in field exercises, stitching a wound, or on the dance floor. He smiled, and guessed this message was going to be about the fancy dress party they were organizing this Saturday night to farewell the day-trippers. He squeezed the comm. link at his neck to connect.
“Monroe. Go ahead, Hartigan.”
“Bill, got a message coming in from HQ, high priority. You need to take it.”
“Can you patch it?” He frowned at her tone.
“No can do, sir, coded squirt. Not to be delivered over this frequency, or any frequency. You’re going to have to be in the chair for this one.”
What the hell? he wondered. “Okay, coming back in. See you in twenty.”
He took one last look over the snow plain. The shadows were long, the sun just a weak orb sitting on the horizon. Winter coming, party’s over, he thought. He threw a leg back over the snowmobile and turned it around, quickly lifting the machine to eighty miles per hour, and shooting a rooster tail of white into the air behind him.
Within thirty minutes, Monroe had taken the urgent call from a Colonel Jack Hammerson, acting on executive orders. He was told to expect a Special Forces soldier – no name, no rank – but he was to do everything the guy said without question. Bottom line, he was to link up the soldier with the British scientific team over at the Ellsworth project base.
Cate Canning and her team of Brits were under Monroe’s support umbrella, but to date they had pretty much kept to themselves – fine with him – no noise, no trouble. Until now.
As if I don’t have enough to damn well do, he thought, as he waited out in the cold for the soldier, getting more pissed off by the minute. He was told to wait, but he forgot to ask, how long?
“Who is this guy?” Ben Jackson stamped huge boots beside him, trying to get circulation into his long legs.
Monroe was a fair sized man, but the big soldier trying to stay warm beside him looked down on everyone. He liked Jackson, and if some hardass was going to show up, who better to have standing with him than the local giant? Monroe grinned confidently.
“No idea who he is. But we’ve been ordered to meet him, get him sorted out, and then push him towards the Brits.” He turned. “And now you know as much as I do.” He looked up at the leaden sky. “He’s too late anyway. With the storm coming in, we won’t be going anywhere till it passes on.”
Jackson grunted, and lifted huge arms to hold a pair of fieldglasses to his eyes. “Bill, incoming; one o’clock.”
Monroe lifted his own glasses, seeing the snow plume kicking in the air. Where could he have come from? he wondered.
Then it hit him – shit, he thought, as the soldier powered up to them on a high-speed military snowmobile that was more like a torpedo. He wore some sort of armored wetsuit, with full-face shielding … and he was frozen, really frozen, with an ice crust over his shoulders and arms. The lunatic must have come from the water – how was that even possible? It was an unbelievable 120 miles of exposed granite, loose snow, and ice crevasses.
“Holy shit.” Ben Jackson scoffed. “The ice man cometh.”
The soldier stepped off the sled and rolled his shoulders, cracking ice that fell from him in large flakes. He flipped his faceplate up. Any thoughts Bill Monroe had about chewing the soldier out vanished immediately. Though the guy had sort-of handsome features, there was something about him that set alarm bells ringing. Perhaps it was the iron-hard physique, or the sense of menace behind those gray-green eyes, that hint of explosive violence barely held in check. Every time that stare alighted on Monroe, it seemed to cut right through him. Frankly, Monroe thought, he’d be happy when this guy, and his secret mission, was just a memory.
The soldier held out a hand, and Monroe grabbed it, shook it, and quickly introduced himself and then Ben.
“Thank you for meeting me, Sergeant.” The soldier turned and nodded briefly to Ben, but then immediately turned back to Monroe. “I’ll need a chopper and a pilot.”
Monroe nodded. “I can fly you,” he said, while watching him carefully. “Is there anything else you need? Hot coffee, a few minutes to gather your shit together? If you’ve …”
“No. Just to get going.”
“Not sure that’s a good idea. There’s a storm coming in, and I strongly …”
“Now.” The man’s eyes never seemed to blink.
Ben Jackson held up a hand. “Sir, Sergeant Monroe is right, down here the storms can …”
The soldier turned to Ben, and the big man’s mouth snapped shut.
So much for my big scary backup, Monroe thought. Fine, you want to go to hell, well then, be my guest.
Monroe thumbed over his shoulder. “This way.”
*
The helicopter descended towards the five figures standing on the snow. All were wearing thick clothing with hoods up and goggles over their faces, making them look like chubby clones of one another. Alex saw that the Ellsworth base wasn’t large – one fair sized silo-shaped building and then mostly a temporary set of shelters designed to accommodate the scientific staff while they went about their technical work. Just off to one side stood a structure that looked like a round elevator shaft, rising several dozen feet into the air.
“You know about the Kunming?” Alex asked.
Monroe nodded.
“I knocked out their communications. Sooner or later they’ll figure out how to get it back online. Once they do, they may decide to pay you or the British team a visit.” Alex turned to Monroe. “An unpleasant one.”
Monroe nodded. “We don’t have the manpower or ordnance to repel a coordinated attack.” He smiled grimly. “But we don’t intend to surrender the base, or anyone under our protection.”
“I know you won’t. But you’ve got the USS Texas in your front yard, and they’ve got a squad of SEALs onboard. Just try not to start a war until I get back.” Alex grinned, and then looked to the figures on the snow. “Good luck, Sergeant Monroe.”
Alex grabbed his kit bag and leapt free before the chopper had settled on the ground. He jogged to the figures sheltering from the swirling snow. One of them, slightly shorter than the rest, stuck out a hand.
“Mr. Hawk?” The voice was authoritative and female.
Alex grabbed the hand and shook it. “That’s right. And you must be Professor Cate Canning.”
She nodded and waved him towards one of the small shacks. Inside it was warm, but the floor was wet. Cate and the men started to peel off clothing and boots. One by one they stopped and stared at Alex.
He wore his armored caving suit that would also be his diving gear. It was compression fitted over his frame, from fingertips to feet, the Kevlar thread worked through a polychloroprene material. There were also thin molded sheets of a mottled biological looking material over the biceps, thighs, and chest plate. It made him look like a cross between an assembled robot, and some type of superhero. It also had shielding over the hands and knuckles, and tight against his back was a flattened air tank that contained compressed oxygen.
“That’s some suit you got there. You planning on diving or bloody cage fighting?” said one of the youngest bearded men, brows raised.
“That’s enough, Sulley.” Cate Canning smiled tightly, and then pointed at each of the assembled men in turn. “Doctors Bentley, Timms, Schmidt, and the one with the sense of humor is Sulley.” Each nodded, their bearded faces far from humorous. Alex guessed none were happy to see him.
That was fine, he didn’t expect a welcoming committee, and in fact was already expecting some sort of passive resistance. He didn’t blame them; no one likes to have a huge boot stuck right into the middle of their project, especially one that the scientists had been working on for five years, that he could potentially sabotage. Hammerson would have had to pull a helluva lot of strings, and fast.
Cate walked down a small hallwa
y in the shack and into a larger room, where one entire wall was covered in banks of equipment. “Sulley, get the kettle on. You’re on tea duty.” She turned. “Or is it coffee for our American friend?”
“Neither.” Alex could feel the tension in the room. “Just a briefing, and then I’m ready to go. Time is extremely short.”
Cate stared for a moment, her jaws clenching.
“This is crazy,” Bentley said, pulling at his long thin nose and then folding his arms. “Even though this position has the thinnest ice coverage for fifty miles, it’s still a mile-and-a-half thick layer of super compressed ice, over a skin of solid granite.” He turned to Cate, his palms up. “We know, we know, there’s a gap between the ceiling and the water below, but what we don’t know is just how big a gap. The drill will end up falling into space, and the impact on soft tissue alone could …”
“Flipper made it. Orca will too,” Cate said, clicking her fingers and pointing Sulley to the kettle.
“Damnit, Cate, that’s just it. Flipper was in a titanium and steel armored sleeve. We designed the shielding to protect the submersible and its electronics – not flesh and blood.” He thumbed at Alex. “He wants to hitch a ride? Fine, but he’ll be dead even before Orca is launched.” Bentley’s face was growing red. “This is crazy. Crazy!”
“Might be possible for someone to survive. Orca’s gyros will stabilize it, and it’s padded to kingdom come,” Timms said, looking to Bentley who now glared at him and shook his head. He grinned. “I mean not someone like you, Bent. You’re basically ninety percent tea and crumpet, but look at this guy.” He thumbed towards Alex. “He looks like he’s made of iron.”
Sulley snorted. “Nah, the cold, the heat, the pressure; it’ll be suicide.” He handed Cate a small mug of steaming tea. “But Yanks love that sort of stuff, right?” He shrugged. “His body will give Orca some more padding.”
“Happy to assist,” Alex said without humor.
Cate looked from her team to Alex. He noticed her features were attractive but severe, and her eyes were like shards of diamond. Alex could tell she was weighing something up in her mind.
Bentley exhaled through clenched teeth. “If he damages the probe, we’ll end up with nothing. This is a one-off, one-way deal. We can’t even recover the probe to repair it, and it’s supposed to explore the lake for the full ten months of its powerpack life. If he buggers it up, it’s over, and we’ll never get more funding for another try.”
“Arkson.” Cate smiled at Bentley. “I’ve devoted my life to this glimpse of another world, I think …”
“Yes, you do need to think. If he damages Orca, it’ll be a forty million dollar piece of junk sitting on the bottom of a sunken sea.” The nostrils of his long nose flared, looking like tiny wings. “Cate, you know what’s at stake here.”
Cate bared her gritted teeth. ‘Don’t get all self-righteous with me, Arkson. The project’s funders basically ordered us to assist. They could shut us down a lot quicker than this guy.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder at Alex.
Bentley straightened. “Unlikely. Cate, I know there’s more at stake than …”
Alex had heard enough. “You know what’s at stake? I know what’s at stake; it’s you people who don’t.”
The room quietened as if a switch had been thrown. Alex looked at each of their faces. “You don’t know a lot.” He tried to keep the menace out of his voice, but knew his stare was already making some of the men ease back. “I’m not here to ask or to apologize. But you need to know a few things, fast.”
The group waited, and Cate nodded at him to continue. Alex placed his hands on his hips. “Did you know the Chinese have lost contact with their Xuě Lóng Base? Did you know we have a Chinese warship off the coast because they probably think we had something to do with it? Right now, there’s an American sub keeping it at bay. But soon there’ll be more ships, and then one false move, and there could be a nuclear war. I can potentially stop it, but I need to be down below the ice, fast.”
“Did you?” Bentley asked, lifting his gaze to Alex’s face. “Did you have something to do with them losing contact?”
“No,” Alex said.
“Would you tell us if you had?” Sulley asked from behind Bentley.
“What’s down there that’s so interesting to you?” Cate asked, tilting her head.
“That’s classified,” Alex responded.
“Of course it is.” Bentley snorted his disdain.
“Something else I don’t understand,” Cate said. “Since when did your relationship with the Chinese government get so bad? When did you stop talking and start deploying warships?” She frowned. “Something’s not right here.”
Alex felt his frustration start to coil inside him. “Look, there are … other factors in play. I’m not authorized to tell you, and you’re not authorized to know.”
“Not helpful.” Sulley’s voice rose again from behind Bentley.
Alex exhaled, looking from Cate to the scientists. “I know, to you, your project is important. But we are nearing a conflict tipping point, and I’m sure you don’t want World War Three starting on your doorstep.” He stared hard at Arkson Bentley, and the man held his gaze. “I’m sorry, but in relation to that, your work is to be temporarily commandeered.”
“Like bullshit it is.” Bentley’s eyes narrowed. “No American spook is going to march in here and say, how are you? By the way, I’m taking over your project because we pissed off the Chinese.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re not going near our probe.”
Alex looked along the faces, speaking now through clenched teeth. “Do you really think I care about your fucking probe?” He took a step towards Arkson Bentley, feeling a knot of fury start in his belly. The man went pale behind his beard. Alex’s eyes blazed, and without even realizing it, the hand he held up had curled into a fist. “I need to get down there, fast. Your probe is the only chance I have to do that.”
Alex waited, but most of the men had stopped looking at him, not wanting to meet his eyes. Only Cate was still staring, and her gaze was quizzical. Alex shrugged at her. “All I can promise is, I’ll do my best to protect your probe.” He scoffed. “And stay alive.”
Silence hung in the small room for a few more moments before Schmidt held up a hand.
“Ah, Mr. Hawk, protecting the probe is not the issue. It is certainly possible you can fit yourself into the capsule, we have left the rear mostly vacated for cushioning and to act as a buoyancy tank for when the drill canister is in the water. It must be suspended nose down for smooth release of the probe. But …”
“But …” Bentley spoke without looking away from the floor. “On the way down, there will be enormous changes in temperature. To begin with, it will be well below freezing, as it drills into the top layers of snow and ice. But once it strikes the hard ice, the dark ice, the heating units are designed to kick in to soften it. The exterior of the probe will rise to four hundred degrees, and the interior, we estimate, will be near two hundred. You will not survive. All we will succeed in doing is depositing a broiled body, in a dark sea, several miles down.”
“Your concern is touching.” Alex never blinked. “You just concentrate on getting the probe down there, I’ll worry about my comfort level.”
Cate snapped her fingers. “Hey Sulley, we have thermal sheets that are temperature controlled. They could help.”
Alex shook his head. “Like I said, you let me worry about my own safety.” Alex lifted his kit and dropped it on a table. He unzipped the bag, revealing several sets of goggles, fins, and a single slim backpack, which he looped over his shoulders.
Cate peered into the bag and reached for one of the other sets of goggles, turning it over in her hands.
“How long will it take … until I make the water surface?” Alex asked.
“The entire penetration?” Schmidt shrugged. “Test sinkings have taken up to seven hours. But we have increased both the power of the drill and the thermal displa
cement unit. Our estimates are a drop of sixty-seven minutes of high speed ice coring, and then a slower descent through the granite mantle. There’s about a hundred feet of dense, orbicular granite. Going to be one bloody rough ride.”
“And getting there isn’t the only danger.” Cate’s brows were drawn together. “You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into.” She crossed to one of the computer screens and flicked it on. She opened a file, and started the video footage, and then turned the screen towards him.
“There’s life down there, you know, and not just blind shrimp, or bacterial clumps. There are predators – huge, we think.” She stopped the film at an immense eye filling the screen. It was lidless, round and white-rimmed, and its pupil was a goat-like slit.
The eye seemed to stare into Alex’s soul. He was momentarily transfixed, and felt his mouth go dry. “Yes.” He found it hard to look away, as monstrous memories came rushing back. “I know what to expect.” He tried to smile at her, but felt his mouth fail to fully comply. “Unfortunately, I’ve been there before.”
Bentley scoffed. “Yeah, right.”
Cate stared at him for several more moments, but there was something in her expression that was more assessing than disbelieving.
Bentley’s grin split his face, rising on both sides of his long nose. “Like I said, if the heat doesn’t kill you, the vibrations will certainly loosen your teeth … and then you wait until you meet whatever it was that took Flipper out.” He finished with a snigger.
“Let’s get started,” Alex said.
Cate folded her arms. “Listen, Mr. Hawk, or whatever your real name is, I don’t care who you think you are, or how many politicians’ arms you twisted to get here. Without my approval, you’re not going anywhere.” She paused, her gaze direct. “Unless.”
Alex waited, seeing something building behind her eyes.
