by Greig Beck
Seconds passed, a minute, then more.
Aimee got down on her belly again. “Okay down there?”
They waited. Silence. The rope stayed slack.
“Yo, boss.” Rhino leaned out.
A bobbing light, far down appeared. “All good.” Casey’s voice repeated ever softer in an echo. “Plenty of ledges on the way down. Comin’ back up.”
The rope began to jerk, and in another few moments Casey was hefting herself over the side of the hole. She sucked in a single deep breath, and rolled her shoulders.
Aimee shook her head. That climb would have near totaled her, but the female HAWC barely broke a sweat.
“Steep to begin with, and no handholds. But then it breaks up and gets a lot rougher – lots of boulders and jutting ledges, before it bends slightly and the angle eases off. More a scramble over loose debris then.” Casey wiped her gloved hands together, dislodging some wet cave-slime. “It’s damper, and looks like it keeps going and going, all the way down.” She grinned at Aimee. “Maybe to that underground sea of yours, huh?”
Casey stepped back from the edge, and stared off into the tunnels behind the group for a moment. She snapped back. “Okay, people, form up. Let’s get this party started.”
*
Hank Rinofsky stood back and watched the team descend. Rhino kept one hand on the rope, just monitoring its tension. He continually turned his head, using his scope now to switch between thermal, night vision, and then back to light intense as he checked for anything above the grunts and heavy breathing of the team as they vanished into the chute.
When it came his turn, Rhino hovered at the lip for a few moments, contemplating his own descent. First he needed to untie and retrieve the rope. He laid his hand on the soft but extremely strong cord. From away in the darkness, there came a tiny sound from the cave they had just left. He paused, reaching up to switch his scope back to infrared, and then thermal – there was nothing.
“Hey, little tattoo guy, that you?” His voice was soft, but still carried in the dark silence. He squinted, trying to remember the word for hello that Blake had taught him. “Nín hǎo?”
He waited, but there was nothing but a prickling sensation on the back of his neck. “Nín hǎo?” This time softer, and again he listened for a response.
His hand went quickly to the rope. He knew he was skilled enough to climb down without it, and Franks wanted all the gear recovered. He picked up the knot, and then froze – there was a wet sliding noise and then a soft thumping, like something bouncing.
He pulled his huge weapon from over his shoulder. Come on, you motherfucker, he thought, as he braced huge legs.
The bouncing continued, and when it started to slow, it then sounded like it was being kicked along, sped up again to bounce some more. He waited, the grip on his gun so hard his knuckles were probably bone-white under his armored gloves. From out of the dark cave they’d just exited, came what he at first took to be a football. It ricocheted off the walls to bounce several more times, and then it rolled wetly to a stop.
Big Hank Rinofsky stared, open-mouthed. It was a human head, slightly flattened and the stump of neck ragged. In the few seconds he stared, time seemed to elongate – he took in every detail: the blood, the Asian features twisted in horror and pain, and on one side of the neck a dragon tattoo, with the reds, greens, and yellows still flaring hotly beneath the blood.
Little tattoo guy, that you? his mind yelled. Rhino snapped into action, raising his weapon and firing into the cave. His laser pulse cut into the dark, but hit nothing but stone. There was the smell of hot plasma in the air, and Rhino shut it off. He held his position. He could hear or see nothing, but every sense in his body screamed at him to run.
“Fuck this, I’m seeing things.” He left the rope tied off, and grabbed it, dropping down into the chute, jumping and bouncing down to the first landing fifty feet below. He quickly unhooked himself, and spun, pointing his gun back up the pipe, using the barrel-mounted light to scan its edges.
He stepped back a pace, and was about to turn away, when beside him, the rope wriggled, and then started to be pulled up. He watched it, his mouth open for a few more seconds.
“You’ve gotta be shitting me.” Rhino backed up, his gun ready. The massive HAWC was scared of no man, but this … this was something far different. He turned, almost sprinting, as he retreated over the tumbled boulders to catch up to the group.
CHAPTER 38
McMurdo Base, the surface
Sam Reid waited in the snow. It was heavier now, the wind having eased back so it fell in sheets, long curtains of white that piled up, obscuring much of the McMurdo Base, and also turning the soft mounds into growing hills around him.
Jack Hammerson had kept them up to date on the small boats that had arrived on the Antarctic shoreline, dispatched by the Kunming, to immediately birth a half dozen high-speed snow skis that had powered furiously over the ice and snow towards them.
A few miles out, they had stopped, and Sam knew what that meant. Their visitors had taken to foot. Stealth was their objective now, and therefore the attack was imminent.
Sam stretched, growing bored. He flicked ice crystals from his face as he stood waiting, like a colossus in the snow. He was six feet, eight inches tall and as wide as two men. He was by far the most powerful HAWC in Jack Hammerson’s arsenal, bar Alex Hunter, but Sam liked to think his strength and skill was natural, so that put him in front.
He rolled massive shoulders, not feeling the bitter cold inside the Advanced Combat Suit’s military grade exoskeleton. On Sam, the synaptic electronics were a molded framework that was built on, and into, his body. A metal bracing belt fit around his waist, and comprised a power-pack and supportive base for the banded ribbing up the back, with needle-like nodes pressed into his spinal cord, basically making the suit’s mechanics part of his nervous system.
The titanium hyper-alloy composite exoskeleton framework was enhanced for full combat mode, with molded ceramic armor plating that had a density nearly off the Mohs hardness scale. Sam, the HAWC, was now a mobile heavy weapon.
His scanners beeped, letting him know that his visitors were now at the perimeter’s line of snow mounds, and were probably taking up flanking positions and readying their attack. He deployed the helmet shield and a full-face mask telescoped up and over his face in an armadillo plating structure, just leaving a clear panel for vision.
A digital readout above Sam’s brow showed him the time they had left until the two navies were head to head: 16 hours, 21 minutes, and 45 seconds, 44, 43 … Events were accelerating.
He grinned, ready. What would they make of him? A giant, made more giant by the suit. He turned slowly, switching to thermal. He could see the white-clad bodies, flaring red, each easing forward, undoubtedly seeing him, but unsure if he was really a man or not. He counted twelve, and detected lots of metal – lots of weapons.
Sam spoke calmly. “Targets acquired. Status?”
“Ready, all grids,” came a soft reply.
“On my word.”
First, the olive branch, he thought. He held up one huge hand, and switched to external speaker.
“This base is designated territory of the United States of America. You will not advance any further.” He translated: “Zhège jīdì pī zhǐdìng měilìjiān hézhòngguó de lǐngtǔ. Nǐ bù huì tíchū rènhé jìnyībù de.”
Sam waited, but the men continued to edge towards him. Last chance, he thought. “Go home, boys!”
The first few bullets that struck him came out of the snow line and were noiseless – standard automatic rifles, each with a sound baffler, and each hit his chest with a dull thud that barely marked the armor plating of his suit.
The next was something more – a high velocity slug that hit his face dead center, compressing the armor and punching his head back. Sniper rifle, big caliber, M99 probably, Sam thought, and it fucking hurt. He felt blood on his lips, and he growled through gritted teeth.
He
roared into his mic. “Take ’em down.” Sam lifted his huge arm, and along the forearm a barrel was attached. He pointed at one of the three figures coming at him fast, and immediately a shotgun blast roared from the barrel. Boom after boom, the rubber-nosed slugs found the approaching PLA soldiers and kicked them off their feet. Without body armor, the big rubberized slugs would break bones, or render even a big man unconscious.
Three men went down, and the approaching soldiers immediately split their attack. Several more men looped rapidly towards Sam, zigzagging, and others peeled off left and right to try and enter the camp from behind him.
“Okay, three down, three more coming to party, that leaves six trying to gate crash from behind. Take ’em out, people.”
The snow moved, and HAWCs materialized close to the attacking soldiers. Even bigger and faster warriors suddenly confronted the PLA commandos. Very few shots were fired, as hand-to-hand engagement was executed quickly and efficiently.
Sam grunted, and held his arms wide, as the men sprinted at him. Handgun fire pelted into his torso. Finally, Sam moved – the suit’s hydraulics moving his muscles at a blistering speed. First, he shot forward, faster than any normal man, to lower a shoulder and strike one of the white-clad PLA commandos square in the chest. The soft flesh and bone was no match for the two-legged truck that ran into him, and the man bounced away to lay still.
Sam then spun, finding his next target, and flinging out an arm that caught a second man across the back, smashing him into snowdrift. The third and final soldier put his head down, and sprinted hard, ignoring Sam and instead heading towards the line of snow-covered buildings of the McMurdo base. His head was tucked down, and his hands were working furiously on something clutched to his chest. Sam had a sinking feeling and exploded into action, running the man down, grabbing him and lifting him in the air.
The man turned and screamed something, and Sam immediately saw the package in his hands. Numbers were already counting down, and he could see the soda can-sized cylinders of different colored fluids – it was a chemical incendiary device, and a large one.
“Bomb!” he screamed, and like a hammer thrower, he began to spin with the man in one arm and when he had enough centrifugal force, he released the PLA soldier. The ACS suit gave Sam’s already phenomenal strength a super powered boost, and the man was flung into the air to travel fifty feet up and over the rise, falling behind a large snow bank.
“Fire in the – ”
The immediate explosion that erupted staggered the huge HAWC, and even though he raised an arm and planted trunk-like legs, the hydraulic pistons struggled to maintain his balance.
Sam had crushed his eyes shut, and when he opened them, he was shocked to see that most of the snow around them had melted from the heat. Sonofabitch, he thought, imagining the devastation that it would have inflicted on the base’s population.
“Sound off.”
His HAWC team rose up among the sludge and debris, each counting off, most holding one or more PLA bodies, now looped at the wrists and ankles. In the closest McMurdo cabin, Sergeant Bill Monroe stood in a doorway, grinning and giving Sam a thumbs up.
Sam nodded to him, and then sent an information squirt to Jack Hammerson.
“Storm passed, McMurdo is still ours.”
“Acknowledged.” There was no joy, surprise, or even satisfaction in Hammerson’s voice. The older warrior was just moving his pieces on the board, and there were more moves yet to come. “Proceed to next engagement. Over.”
“On my way.” Sam turned back to his team and circled a finger in the air. The HAWCs began to drag their captors into the McMurdo camp. Sam turned back to the snow drifts, smiling. Time to pay our Brit friends a little visit.
The mountainous HAWC, encased in the armored suit, began to plow through the snow to the Ellsworth base, picking up speed as he went.
*
“It was premature.” General Banguuo’s eyes followed Chung Wanlin as the smaller man paced, his face near purple. “Sending a PLA team to McMurdo was premature, obviously anticipated, and now neutralized.”
The minister stopped and spun, his eyes narrowed. “At least I had the courage to act.” He grinned, but it was more like a death’s-head grimace. “It is true, I am not a soldier … but are you?”
Banguuo smiled and got slowly to his feet. The general was a veteran of border skirmishes, and was a formidable man compared to the slight bureaucrat. “Be careful you do not leave this room with your expensive teeth in your pocket, dear minister.” He came slowly around his desk, his eyes drilling into Wanlin.
Wanlin started to back towards the door. “I will inform the general secretary …”
“The general secretary has been fully briefed … by me.” Banguuo kept the man pinned with his gaze. “Your bullishness has forced us into a situation that neither we, nor the Americans, wish to find ourselves in.”
Banguuo stood over Wanlin. “The cost of a war right now would break us. The cost of a war with America, could annihilate us.” The general pushed down an urge to beat the man senseless. He inhaled deeply, and then let it out slow. “But now, if we just turn around and go home, the loss of face in front of our greatest rival and competitor would be unthinkable.”
Wanlin straightened slightly. “We would never back down.”
“No, no, we cannot. Thanks to you, we have the tiger by the tail, and dare not let go.” Banguuo turned to walk to his window. “The aircraft carrier will be there soon.” He turned. “Pray they blink before we do.”
CHAPTER 39
Comrade Liu Yandong continued to work his way along the dark river bank. He silently prayed that there were no more crossings necessary, as he didn’t think his nerves could bear it. The pressure, the darkness, and the lack of food – he hoped – were all making his stomach jump and twist. The cave stream had gotten wider, and in turn the shoreline had shrunk. In addition, the water appeared to be slowing. It could only mean one thing – an obstruction.
Liu rounded the bend and his shoulders slumped. It was as he suspected. The river cave ended with a wall of tumbled rocks, totally blocking any further progress. He moved his flashlight over the wall; some of the boulders were no more than the size of a bread loaf, but others were car sized. There was no army on earth that could shift them without moving equipment. He approached the stones and looked up. The barrier went all the way to the ceiling, not even leaving a gap at the top, and the rocks were slime coated, and in some places looked welded together from the countless ages they had rested upon one another. This was an ancient fall.
He breathed out his frustration and waited, knowing that Captain Yang was a man who often shot the messenger. He grimaced as he felt his stomach roil again, and then felt the pain drop lower, to force pressure on his bowels. He needed to shit … now.
Liu looked around quickly. The rest of the squad was still a few hundred feet back – he had time. There were a few small places close to the cave walls and he strode into one, already loosening his belt. He dug a small hole in the dark sand, switched off his light and squatted over it.
There was no explosive gas as he expected, but instead a thick stream that fell heavily to the sand. As well, there was little stink, more just an odor he had experienced once when he had been on his father’s farm. His father had slaughtered a pig, and the air had filled with a hot, coppery, offal smell.
His anus itched madly afterwards, and as he had no paper, he had no choice but to pull his pants back up, grimacing at the unpleasant wetness between his cheeks.
He looked back down the cave, and only just made out the glow of the approaching group. They’d be around the bend soon. Liu tightened his belt, his gut feeling slightly better, and went to step away when a tiny sound caused him to pause. A sticky wetness, a movement like dying fish flip-flopping in a puddle. He turned back, knowing where the sound was coming from, and with a rising sense of fear, he lifted his flashlight and flicked it on, pointing it down at where he had moved his bowels.
“Ah no, no, no.” Liu backed up, feeling his stomach contents threaten to explode up and over his lips. The brown red mush puddle was a mass of glossy black threads, some no thicker than hair, but others pencil thick. The things were shiny, eyeless, but coiling and twisting, sliding through his feces as if searching for the warm flesh that they had just been expelled from.
“Eeyaa!” He looked back down the cave tunnel and saw the outline of his squad now appearing. His first instinct was to tell his leader, Captain Yang, but he remembered how he had dealt with Han Biao. Infected, was all Yang said, treating the man like a dog, and calmly putting a bullet in his brain.
His throat tickled now, and the crawling coiled within him from the back of his nose and inner ears right down to feet. Infected, infected, infected.
He made a soft mewling in his throat, knowing that he now had limited choices. Getting out was not his concern anymore, but all his life he had abided by a code of honor. He would not go out like a dog.
He hated them, then. The things inside him that had invaded his body and had won the battle without him even knowing there was a fight. Anger and frustration energized him. He wanted to kill them all … and he would.
He dropped his pack, quickly searching for the small tin of cooking kerosene. He found it, and then fumbled again in his kit, finding his second item. He straightened.
Liu crushed his eyes shut, held an image of his parents standing there, waving, proud of him for attaining his rank in the Special Forces.
No, he would not die like a dog. He would die like a true soldier. He held the image of his parents as he unscrewed the tin’s lid, and in a single motion, brought it to his lips and drained the liquid.
He grimaced as the scalding chemical made its way down his throat and into his belly, stripping the lining as it went. Before he lost his nerve, he opened his mouth, held the lighter to his lips and spun the wheel.
