Exit Alpha

by Clinton Smith

  The green dazzle faded. Would he ever see again? Or had his goggles and the snow chopped the frequency? He blinked, helpless. Christ, his eyes!

  A laser rifle.

  Why not just kill him?

  Some vision came back. The same smudge near the runner. When in doubt, empty your mag. He fired again.

  Fighting the moment of shock, he moved forward, hugging the sledge. He was almost on top of the man before he could see what he’d done.

  The surgeon was face down. On the back of his pile jacket, a perforation extended from mid-chest to neck.

  Cain kicked him over, yanked off his goggles. Not Zuiden. The face lacked half a jaw and the wide eyes were silting with snow. He’d done his second-last mag on the sod.

  He examined the laser pistol. The man had an Ingram, too. So why the hell hadn’t he used it? He changed the mag on the M–4, slung the Ingram around him as well, ripped the mag pouch off the man’s lower leg and wrapped its Velcro tabs tightly around his own where its jungle camo pattern stood out like a stop sign. Both guns were chambered for 9mm but the mags were different. No time for frigging around. Zuiden could be steps away and ready to give him a tracheotomy.

  He waited, checking rear and side.

  Nothing.

  Whiteness.

  He held his glove at arm’s length from his face, testing his eyes. It wasn’t just his vision. The blizz was worse. Although the wind wasn’t strong, probing snow flew everywhere. The engagement was becoming a lottery in which the only thing that mattered was misfortune.

  A burst to his right. It sounded like Hunt. Adrenaline, as combat instructors indelicately put it, would now be running down her leg.

  He edged around the second sled, goggles riming, could see almost nothing ahead. Just the nearest runner and the vanishing lip of the tray. She’d be ahead of him now in the swirling grey. Where was her target?

  Laser guns? Made no sense.

  He moved ahead very slowly, knowing she might shoot him. The one thing more accurate than incoming enemy fire was incoming friendly fire. He gave the low whistle again.

  An answer with the right note pattern. Crude but practical. He got past the first sledge runner, squirmed under the tray and waited.

  Nothing.

  His body was shutting down and his starved drifting mind told him he was a restless wandering ghost, a fugitive like his namesake in the Bible. Told him he was a shot-up relic being hunted by a Grade Three assassin. Bailed up in the world’s worst environment with a femme dyke he felt sorry for. And trying to save the life of the 263rd pope . . . And that it didn’t come crazier than this.

  He now had the M–4’s stock unfolded and the stub barrel above the lip of the runner shoe. Without the protective overmitts, his gloved hands were turning to ice. He stared along the rudimentary sights.

  Zuiden. Could he cream the sod?

  Then — another break.

  Bunny boots.

  Yellow bunny boots padding past the runner — right in front of his face.

  They stopped. The man was stooping to check under the sledge.

  Cain waited till his pelvis was in sight and hit him with a burst.

  A bellow. The surgeon crumpled, thudded on the snow, his gun bouncing on his chest, writhed, kicked. Cain riddled him and stopped it.

  It didn’t look like Zuiden and he had no energy to check.

  A whistle.

  He returned the signal, crawled to the back of the sledge, saw nothing, got out from under, retreated back to the bunk van and climbed up.

  Nothing all the way.

  A cocoon of nothing.

  How many more were hidden in this soup?

  He edged to the front of the container. Hunt was still just visible in position behind the quad. She’d heard him coming, briefly turned. He pointed to the van, then the four-wheel bike, flung his arm wide.

  She acknowledged.

  He went in, gave the pair their marching orders. ‘You two on the bike. The two of us on the sled. Head straight along the sledges, then veer right and look for the blizz line. Go.’

  The two crewmen got in position on seat and rear rack of the bike. Cain and Hunt kneeled in the sled, covering opposite sides, ready to fire.

  The single cylinder four-stroke started.

  No attack.

  They churned to the end of the last line of sledges and headed into limbo. Duckworth, steering — hands and face freezing — put the 250-kilogram vehicle into a slide that almost capsized them.

  Cain cursed, ‘Slow up,’ and clung to the lip of the sled. Where was the bleeding blizz line? If they. . . .

  It was wrapped around Duckworth’s waist.

  He freed himself, swung them left, headed through the void. Except for the slender line on their right, vision was nil. The bike’s high-flotation tyres sprayed the sled with snow. As they approached the tower, they heard, above the racket of the quad, the welcome sound of engines from the ship.

  Duckworth stopped them at the foot of the tower, which vanished up into nothing. Reilly, still crouched by his radio, pointed toward the noise. Duckworth turned the bike and went forward in low gear until the darker smear of the ship curved down to hang above them.

  They reached the hatch, a shuddering lighter square in its belly with a crewman peering down. The winch-line hung from it, a metal triangle attached to the hook. Duckworth killed the bike, got his foot on the metal stirrup, grasped the wire and was hauled up.

  Cain stood back to back with Hunt, gauntlets still off. His body was sluggish with cold and his hands felt like dead meat. Swirling snow and droning engines.

  Last act, he thought.

  The wire came down again and Snodgrass stepped into the stirrup.

  Hunt pointed to the pouch on his leg. ‘Got more nails?’

  ‘Wrong mags.’ He gave her the half-used mag from his Spectre, tossed the gun and got ready with the Ingram.

  They stood back to back, ready to engage.

  Flynn’s face staring down, a handset held near his mouth. ‘What’s happening?’

  Cain called, ‘They’re not after your men. They’re after us and the pope.’

  ‘Merciful heavens.’ Although Snodgrass was on board, he was letting the cable down again. ‘You’d better come up.’

  Cain sent Hunt first.

  Sporadic amplified crew-calls from above.

  ‘Switching to manual.’

  ‘Buoyancy?’

  ‘Equilibrium.’

  ‘Flippers?’

  ‘Elevators neutral and stern ballast control standing by.’

  Hunt was up there and the cable coming down.

  ‘Clear away aft.’

  ‘Reporting clear.’

  ‘And reverse thrust.’

  ‘Slow astern.’

  ‘Release clamps.’

  ‘Ten. Twenty. Forty.’

  ‘Bow thruster and half left rudder.’

  As he got his own foot in the stirrup, the shuddering above him ceased and the solid ice beneath him fell away. The huge envelope, no longer moored, was drifting astern and rising.

  Flickers below. The surgeons had reached the tower, were firing up at the ship. Then he was too high to see anything but whiteness and the welcoming square of light above.

  ‘Clear.’

  ‘Forward thrust. Up ship.’

  ‘Twelve degrees.’

  He was winched from the freezing slipstream into the bay. The hatch beneath him shut.

  Calm — and the low-revving engines’ now muffled drone.

  He stepped onto the vibrating floor of a cargo hold with surprisingly vertical walls and central carbon fibre web-struts travelling through floor and ceiling. Pallets secured at the rear. Doors fore and aft. Warm air wafting through floor vents. His ears popped. He felt light-headed.

  Hunt stood in snow slush, holding onto a strut, her hood, mask, goggles off. She looked bushed and he wasn’t much better, couldn’t coordinate his movements.

  Flynn said, ‘Welcome to Baby.’ />
  ‘You can say that again.’ He felt a sense of expansion, freedom. Oxygen deficiency? The symptoms were lack of self-criticism, euphoria. ‘They were firing up at us. You could have holes.’

  A wave of frozen air as Snodgrass and two other men came through the rear door. They wore portable oxygen sets with small nose-masks.

  Flynn said, ‘Keel officer and sparks — on damage control. You’re checking cells for bullet-holes.’ Snodgrass and one man went back out through the aft door. Flynn said to the remaining crewman, ‘Chief, sort these stowaways, will you. I’ll be on the flight deck.’ He hurried forward.

  Cain presumed the remaining man was the airship’s engineer, asked him, ‘Will we lose much gas?’

  ‘No. It’s not under any pressure. We’re not bothered by small arms fire. And we carry instant patches. The hard part’s crawling around the catwalks and the frame in freezer suits.’ He hung his parka on a hook. ‘You’re going to need breathing gear. Get your kit off and come into the saloon.’

  Hunt tried to shed her outer gear, too exhausted to work the zips and tabs. She said, ‘I’ve died and gone to heaven.’

  The chief said, ‘Yes, Baby’s very comfortable — until she hits a storm.’

  Cain dragged his gloves off to check his hands. Anything was better than the ice.

  STORM WARNING

  They struggled up the sloping deck toward the door ahead, grabbing for the wall-rails as the ship began to roll.

  Hunt’s exquisite face, fine-drawn now and sallow, looked more than saintly enough for what she’d done. Cain decided she was quite a woman. She said, ‘Does our moving around affect things?’

  ‘Not when we cruise under power,’ the engineer told her. ‘The computer compensates for weight-shifts.’

  ‘I think I’m going to chuck.’

  ‘Means you’re seasick. This isn’t a plane. It’s a high-performance ship — same roll and pitch.’

  The expansive saloon, probably designed for tourist travel, was stripped, utilitarian. Rime-rimmed windows flanking it revealed slowly drifting cloud. Although it wasn’t cold, Cain panted, starving for air. He lurched between alloy work benches used for mechanical and electronic repairs then got to a broad area, bare except for six canvas chairs. They were on braked swivel-mounts and positioned either side of a low table. A mural on the forward bulkhead showed a duck, rooster and a sheep. Its significance escaped him. Stairs rose to a second deck.

  The pope was strapped in a chair, breathing mask on, air bottle on his chest. As he raised a hand in greeting, the hull shuddered as if hit by a gust from the side. Hunt staggered, fell into a chair.

  ‘We’re climbing,’ the engineer said, ‘and you’re a minute away from mental shut-down.’ He got AVIOX sets from a locker and showed them how to put them on.

  As Cain took deep breaths, he felt his mind start to function again. ‘The Resurrection of the Body.’

  The pope nodded. ‘Wonderful just to breathe.’

  A change in the tone of the engines.

  ‘Have to go,’ the chief announced. ‘Belt up.’ He left by the stern door.

  The hull lurched again, tail swaying, gave a stomach-dislodging bounce.

  ‘Oh God.’ Hunt scrambled for something to be sick in.

  Slowly they came back on course. Cain, thankful for the AVIOX, just wanted to flop, to sleep. He listened to the unobtrusive engine drone, felt the sluggish movement.

  Hunt stared into a bag she’d found in the back of her chair. ‘They’ll radio Alpha, track us.’

  ‘But they’ll need their other chopper,’ he said, ‘to get the bodies and their squad back. So they can’t come after us yet.’

  ‘They’ll still catch us up. This thing’s so slow.’

  ‘But it has huge endurance — because it doesn’t have to hold itself up. So once we’re out to sea, the chopper’s stuffed.’

  ‘We’re still a long way from . . .’ She gagged.

  The pope said, ‘The toilet’s upstairs.’

  She unbelted and headed for it.

  The rolling was less now and they’d levelled off. Cain unbuckled and limped to the forward door, wanting to find out their heading.

  The flight deck was in a pod that projected like a half-gondola. It was surprisingly quiet and a mixture of old and new. It had work stations for comms, nav and two forward seats for the pilots. Through the big windows he saw a flotilla of approaching storm clouds. Handling-lines dangled from the nose of the craft which curved above them far ahead.

  Flynn and Duckworth sat up front in World War II bomber pilot-style masks that covered their noses and mouths. Glowing displays in front of them showed multiple readouts for airspeed, rate of climb, altitude, pitch, yaw, roll. These were flanked by simple flight instruments that might have come from a light plane — artificial horizon, turn and bank . . . An overhead panel appeared devoted to gaseous concerns — humidity, purity, temperature, pressure, altitude, ambient light . . .

  As he watched, one VDU switched to a skeleton-form of the hull showing numbered frames and longerons outlined in different colours that indicated shear-loads.

  Duckworth was flying, if that was the word, threading them between ramparts of clouds that drifted past so slowly the ship seemed barely moving.

  Cain asked, ‘Can you get above this crud?’

  Flynn glanced up from a weather radar display, pulled the mask half off to speak. ‘We’re considering that now.’

  ‘Is it a problem?’

  ‘Everything’s a trade-off. You don’t just decide to climb. The higher we go, the more the helium expands. We only have so much cell expansion before we reach pressure height. If we vent, we lose lift when we descend, and have to compensate by dumping ballast. Then sun on the envelope gives a temperature effect. Not as bad as a rubber cow, but significant.’

  ‘Can’t you compress the gas back into pressure bottles?’

  Flynn shook his head. ‘Helium’s the hardest gas to compress and the most difficult to liquefy. No one’s developed a practical way to conserve helium for airships by repressuring. But we have a limited propane system for heating air inside the envelope.’

  ‘You get lift from hot air too?’

  ‘Not much. It has a third the lift of helium. But we use it to warm the air around the cells and expand the helium when that’s needed. But at these temperatures you have to insulate and preheat the tanks.’

  ‘Sounds a whole new world.’

  ‘It is. An airship’s unique. It’s part plane, part balloon, part ship.’

  He watched the ragged clouds ahead as they discussed a multitude of things — diverting around the weather, crosswinds, down-draughts, shear-loading, cubic metres, ice caps, moisture freezing the valves . . .

  Then Flynn called the damage detail. ‘We need to get above the weather. Your situation?’

  An intercom cut in. ‘Bridge, sparks. Cells two and three affected. Five holes located and patched. Estimated three sites to go. But locating and reaching’s a worry. And we’re pretty useless now with the cold.’

  ‘Received. We’ll be venting anyway. Come back in and get warm.’

  Cain clung to a stanchion as they began to climb again. He was surprised to find how slowly the ship responded to the controls. They rose into sun-glare to hang just above a sea of cloud.

  Duckworth checked the manometers. Cain could hear his muffled comment. ‘Pushing pressure height. Starting to vent.’

  Flynn scowled.

  ‘And we’re down to 50 knots. The diesels aren’t efficient in this thin stuff.’

  ‘Better than bashing her around in the clag.’ Flynn punched coordinates into the flight computer. The untended controls gently cycled as the autopilot made fine adjustments.

  Duckworth looked at his watch. ‘Two more hours of daylight. Then she’ll cool.’

  ‘Yes. We can’t maintain this at night and we’ll need the burners or we’ll be dropping too much ballast. But if we can get past this cloud, we’re set. The plateau’s fa
lling all the time now. ETA?’

  ‘With this wind, fifteen hours.’

  ‘So we’ll be over the Brun ice shelf in the morning.’

  Cain didn’t know the area. ‘Where are we heading?’

  Flynn glanced back, half-lifted the mask. ‘Chile. Our last stop’s a mother ship off the shelf.’

  It clicked. The icebreaker with the tower he’d seen on the Herc flight down. ‘How far to the ship?’

  ‘Around 760 nautical miles.’

  He knew the range of the remaining Sikorsky would be around 500. But it could do better with extra tanks, and Alpha could have fuel dumps. ‘We could still be attacked with a chopper. They’ve got one left.’

  Flynn said, ‘Have to find us first. We look big but our radar signature’s small.’

  ‘They’ll find us.’

  ‘Maybe. But I can’t worry about that now.’

  Cain left them to their calculations and retreated to the saloon. Late sun now bathed the deck, turning the bare area into a futuristic stage set.

  He asked the pope if Hunt was still upstairs.

  ‘Yes, poor thing.’

  ‘What’s up there?’

  ‘A small kitchen and cabins with bunks. Odd to have all this space. Can you believe we’re suddenly above it all? Warm. Able to breathe.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Life never stops playing with us. I thank you for this, Ray.’

  ‘Just confabbed with the helium-heads. They’re taking us to Chile. With luck, I’ll get you out of this.’

  The old man shook his head. ‘Not important. I don’t have long to go. My legs, my heart . . . the thing’s worn out. Just look after the manuscript if you can. It’s all I ask.’

  ‘I can’t lose you yet. I’m still hopeless.’

  ‘Yes. All that thinking, feeling, activity. All that life energy pouring to waste. How to bring the three together so that you ARE? You know, I AM that I AM is the closest statement of the truth. How to BE. But to be NOTHING. Do you see it?’

  ‘The presence of absence?’

  ‘In a way. I have to be completely naked — on the pinions of the wind, as Eckhart put it. The Kingdom of God is within — and for none but the thoroughly dead. But while you struggle with all that, remember the essential first step. Attention connects everything. Be — here — now. Present to your inner life.’