by Kevin Tinto
He pushed the left stick forward and the drone accelerated away from the platoon in a flash. Grigoriy increased power and the drone gained altitude. He brought it up to 100 meters above ground level, the HD camera giving him a magnificent view of the pressure ridge and the horizon ahead. It had an effective range of between two and five kilometers but needed a line-of-sight connection between the drone and the transmitter for Grigoriy to maintain control. If the drone lost contact, it would simply go into a standard hover.
No matter, he thought. In a matter of seconds, we’ll see exactly what lies beyond that pressure ridge.
Chapter 66
Beckam was holding down on the drone with his MP5 as it flew up the center of the crevasse toward their position. The drone pilot had dropped altitude and speed as he homed in on the crevasse.
Beckam sighted on the drone through his scope; an easy shot flying straight at them at less than a fifty-meter altitude. When it got within sixty meters of their position and on line to overfly them, he opened-up with a short burst. The drone exploded into a shower of plastic and aluminum.
“Nice shot, Boss!” said Liam.
“If they had the camera pod aimed forward,” Beckam said, “they already made us and our strength. From the angle of the camera, it appeared to be scanning the crevasse straight down. For all they know, we’ve got an entire company of SEALs lined up in here, ready to charge out like the light brigade.”
“How long will that slow them down?”
“Wouldn’t slow me at all if we had our guys and our weapons. I’d just set up a couple of light mortars, standoff half a mile away and lay down a line of fire on the crevasse.”
Before Liam replied, the whistle of an incoming Russian mortar round signaled the Russian’s thinking was close to his own. The first round went fifty meters long and a hundred meters to the left of their position.
Beckam was right. He’d shot down the drone before the Russians were able to make their position, strength, and capability. That bought them a couple of minutes before the commander got a bead on the crevasse and then walked those mortars laterally in both directions, killing them before they had a chance to return fire.
“Get me the extra coils of line.”
Liam grabbed two coils of line hooked up on the wall of the crevasse.
“Clip onto the line through a pulley and drop the line down to the bottom of the crevasse. We’re going to rappel down as far as we can go.” Beckam unwound the line. “The chance of hitting us with the mortars are zero. We’ll see how long it takes for the Russians to get curious and take a peek into the crevasse.”
“Love it, Boss. What did Schwarzenegger say in the Predator movie? ‘Dug in like an Alabama tick’?”
“Jesse Ventura, but the analogy is dead-on. We’re gonna make ourselves a real pain in the ass to dig out.”
Chapter 67
Grigoriy crouched behind the snow machine, the Swarovskis pressed against his eye sockets, watching the mortars detonate as the team worked the range until they were hitting the crevasse. He watched two rounds in a row drop inside. “Progulki vlevo i vpravo.”
The mortar team did as they were instructed, walking rounds left and then right, hoping to kill everything pinned down inside the crevasse.
Grigoriy didn’t leave the cover provided by the snow machine but lifted up a bit in order to get a scan of the target zone. A thousand meters might seem safe, but an expert sniper could blow his head off even at that range.
Even with the mortars, he’d be lucky to eliminate the SEALs. They’d need a direct hit on their position, and even then, a smart commander would have his platoon spread out, working the natural terrain features inside the crevasse, providing cover from the mortar shrapnel. There’d been no return fire from the American position. Aside from one or perhaps two snipers with rifles and spotters looking over the lip of the crevasse, the commander had the balance of his guys dug in, saving ammunition, waiting for Grigoriy to tire of the mortars and move up to take on the soldiers directly.
If only we had a ‘crocodile,’ he thought. Five minutes with that and we’d flush them all out.
Crocodile was a term Russian soldiers used for a lethal ground-attack helicopter: The M-24. The heavily armed gunship would make fast work of anyone, crevasse, or not, with a combination of machine guns and rockets.
If this were the deserts of Syria, Grigoriy could leisurely continue mortaring, while sipping hot coffee and munching sugar cookies. Down at the bottom of the world, they carried a total of thirty mortar rounds. The temperature hovered around minus twenty Celsius, at last check. And they only had food for another five days, ten if they went on half rations.
When he really thought about it, having no attack helicopters was likely the least of their problems.
Chapter 68
Beckam and Clay had wedged themselves more than ten meters down in the crevasse, backs pressed against one wall, boots braced against the opposite side. The six mortar shells so far had bracketed them on the left, right, front and rear. Wedged this far down in the crevasse, it would have to be a perfect shot to kill them.
“They can’t keep this up long, Boss. I think we got ’em right where we want them.”
Beckam grunted. “Either they think we’re dead or wounded.”
“What’s their best play, Boss?”
“They’ve got to keep moving. Getting side-tracked by us, running through their supplies and ammo in sub-zero temperatures…. If roles were reversed, I’d first try and eliminate or injure them, then cripple their ability to travel—wave bye-bye on my way to Amundsen-Scott. But we have no transportation. Pointless to waste ammo when the Antarctic will do the job for them.”
Beckam heard the snow machines cranking up before moving off, quickly picking up speed and giving the crevasse a wide berth.
It wouldn’t take long for the Russians to pick up Lenny and Danny’s tracks. Hopefully pinning the Russians down for six hours had given the boys a solid head start for Amundsen. That wouldn’t solve their problems, unless air support miraculously appeared or American troops had already made their way to Amundsen and set up a forward command post.
He’d have to leave it up to Lenny to come up with inventive ways to defend Amundsen if the civilians had not been evacuated.
“Oh, hell yeah, Skipper!” Liam was celebrating. “We kicked their ass! They’re tucking tails and running.”
Beckam grinned. “Yeah, we really kicked their ass, Frog. One problem.”
“What’s that?”
“We dumped the Taigas into the crevasse. No way we can winch snow machines up after wedging them in the ice, thirty meters down.”
Liam was so stoked; he couldn’t be deterred. “Couple of meat-eaters like ourselves—we’ll walk to Amundsen Scott. We don’t need no stinking snow machines.”
Beckam nodded. ‘I’m climbing up, take a look see.”
When he got to the edge of the crevasse and was able to look out on the horizon, the Spetsnaz were already moving out of sight. Probably picked up Lenny’s trail already.
“Okay, Frog. Have it your way. Let’s walk it.”
“Shit, yeah!” hollered Liam from down blow.
“Once you get up here, pull up one of those toboggans. We take all the gear we can on the sled, fix up a couple of harnesses, and get to it.”
***
One hour later, with a light breeze blowing, and the remaining gear and ammo salvaged out of the crevasse, Beckam was ready to go. He’d used climbing line to configure a waist harness system that allowed the two SEALs to pull the sled.
Beckam glanced over at Liam, who was fitting an MP5 over his harness.
“I’m all set, Boss.”
Beckam nodded. He paused for a second, still wondering how the boys ahead were doing. He hoped the crevasse stand-off showed the Spetsnaz that SEALs had teeth and would bite, re
gardless of the situation. A bit of caution on the Russians’ part might be the small advantage Lenny and Danny needed to get to Amundsen. Once there, though, a whole new set of problems would arise.
One problem at a time, Beckam reminded himself.
“Any parting words, boss?”
Beckam grinned. “Embrace the suck, Frog.”
Liam nodded, pulled a balaclava up over his nose, and took off at such a fast pace, Beckam had to jog to keep up.
Three or four hundred kilometers to Amundsen-Scott.
We’re SEALs—piece of cake.
Chapter 69
Leah woke to a light shake on the shoulder. Captain Hutchinson knelt next to her. “We’re ready to refuel, Dr. Andrews. I thought you’d want to watch this from the cockpit. It’s an amazing sight.”
Leah nodded, then stretched and glanced at her watch. They’d already been in the air eight hours. She stood and twisted around, taking in a view of the Ancients. Most of them still slept. Appanoose, who remained wide awake and standing, had been silent so far.
She was shocked to find Colonel Kelleher hard asleep in the seat next to her. Then she remembered that Jane West had been tapped to command the refueling maneuver. Leah worked her hands along the seat tops, making her way toward the cockpit. The sun was about to set to the west, the last rays reflecting off the waves of the endless Atlantic Ocean below.
Major West was in the command pilot seat. Leah looked forward, expecting to find a refueling jet ahead, but the horizon was clear. The two jump seats at the rear of the cockpit were empty, so Leah slid into one of them.
“Hutchinson said you were refueling,” Leah said. “I don’t see a flying gas can.”
West turned. “We’re still thirty minutes north of the tanker. The weather is clear, light to zero turbulence—should be a piece of cake.”
“Trust me when I say, I’m bad luck,” Leah said wearily. “If anything can go wrong, it will.”
“As pilots, we pretty much live with Murphy day and night. It’s never the first thing that goes wrong that will kill you—it’s when Murph decides he’ll throw a few at you, all at once. We call that the Cascade to Hell.”
“In my case, he threw me in an elevator and cut the cables. Cascaded my ass into a free-falling elevator.”
Major West smiled, and Leah couldn’t help but laugh.
“Can I ask you a question, Dr. Andrews?”
Leah expected the pilot wanted more detail about the operation in Antarctica—past and present. That was fine. Leah had already decided that everyone aboard deserved to know the whole truth.
“Sure—and just call me Leah.”
When West turned, she flashed a sly smile, not exactly what Leah had been expecting. “So—your hostage—Captain Hutchinson. Is he single? Not for me, of course—but Captain Ross…. Char’s just a wee bit smitten.”
Charlotte nodded. “I’d like to have him as my hostage—for a month in Tahiti.”
The pilots burst out laughing. Leah felt the galaxy-wide divide between her reality, an endlessly looping horror movie, and the ‘normal’ life these young military women were still enjoying.
“On a serious note,” Major West said, apparently noting that Dr. Leah Andrews hadn’t laughed, “we’re coming up on this refueling and both Char and I will be super busy. But, we’d love to have you sit up front, and after the refueling, tell us everything. Colonel Kelleher said something about ‘compartmentalized intelligence’ and national security, then clammed up.”
***
As it turned out, Leah slept through the entire refueling. When she woke, the tanker was a series of blinking lights in the distance. Captain Hutchinson was sitting in the starboard jump seat, headset on, regaling Captain Charlotte Ross with tales of flying for the Genesis Settlement.
Leah found herself grinning, despite the situation. The grin evaporated when she thought how much Jack would have loved to jump into this conversation.
Major Jane West said, “Leah—we’ve got time. Anything you’d like to share on the Genesis Settlement and the discovery in Antarctica—that would be awesome.”
“Okay,” Leah said. She glanced over at Hutchinson. “This will take a while. How about if you gather coffee and food for me and the ladies. Check on Kelleher—wake him if he’s still sleeping.”
“Belay that order, Captain,” West said. “Leave sleeping dogs lie.”
“Isn’t Kelleher flying the approach into Antarctica?” Leah asked.
“Oh, hell no,” West said with conviction. “First off, he’s not our boss. We just happened to be flying through Holloman. Second, all he’s flown outside of a desk for the last however-many years is a T-38 around the pattern, a few hours per month to stay current. Third, I’m responsible for this aircraft, not Colonel Kelleher. This plane’s signed out to me; I fly it nearly every day. No one takes this bird onto the ice but Char and me.”
West and Ross high-fived, as if they’d planned it. Then West said, “I let Kelleher fly the first leg, as a courtesy. You know, allow the Base Commander a chance to blow off some testosterone. After two hours, he was already nodding off.” She turned in her seat, dead serious. “I hope you read me on this, Leah.”
“Got it, and I got your back. Besides, I’ve already landed on the ice with guys flying the plane. I can tell you first-hand—total nightmare.”
The pilots laughed and high-fived again, and even Hutchinson had his hand in on this one.
“I’m on the food,” Hutchinson said. “Should I have Gordo knock out the Colonel with a Sleeping Beauty?”
Leah chuckled at his use of ‘Gordo’ instead of Dr. Gordon. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear that Marko Kinney had been reincarnated into Hutchinson—with a few…well, more than a few…upgrades. Something about that filled her, at least momentarily, with a sense of well-being. “Sure. Tell Gordo to go short on the sedative, though.”
Hutchinson was gone in a flash.
“Oh. Yeah,” Charlotte said. “He’s a keeper. Didn’t even try to ‘mansplain’ why we shouldn’t drink coffee while flying the airplane.”
Leah couldn’t hold back a momentary grin. “You ladies mind if I ask you a question?”
“Shoot,” said West. “We’re an open book.”
Leah said, “I’ve pretty much hijacked this aircraft, forcing you to fly on what we all agree is a hazardous mission. Not to mention, we’re right on the cusp of the greatest crisis for mankind, with unimaginable cultural, hyper-technology, and power shifting consequences, even a war with Russia, and yet, you two seem pretty calm and cool.”
Charlotte looked at Jane West, and then nodded, like she should answer.
West said, “Remember we’ve been at war, mentally, since our first day at the Academy. We’ve never known peace time, as military officers. Char and I have been flying into and out of combat zones our entire careers. We’ve had to run ass-over-teakettle for the bird, when an Afghan farmer, oh, I mean ‘Taliban Fighter’ sets up a mortar in order to take a pot shot at a big juicy Globemaster, maybe ten minutes after unloading a hundred-thousand-pounds of One-Five-Five artillery destined to pound Taliban targets out at Camp Wilderness.” West hesitated. “We’ve medevaced wounded to Ramstein, who are then rushed to Landstuhl Medical Center, more times than I’d care to count. That goes double for the KIA we’ve flown back into Dover.”
West glanced over at Charlotte Ross. “Honestly, Leah, our biggest worry is what happens when we punch out of our flying jobs and have to return to civilian life. Neither one of us can wait at a green light for more than three seconds before screaming a string of four-letter greetings to the Prius that takes ten seconds to move its ass.”
When West turned to look at Leah, the stress was written across her face. “We’ve gotten so numb—we’d just go on like it’s another day at the office. We had a few, well more than a few shots one night, and Char and
I decided, regardless if the world is going to hell in a handbasket, that wouldn’t keep us from enjoying every day we’re alive and in one-piece.”
Hutchinson was back minutes later, loaded with coffee, sandwiches made by the mess hall, plus cookies and waters. When everyone had something to eat, Leah told them the whole story, starting at the beginning….
***
An hour later, Leah had finished, and the facial expressions on Major West and Captain Ross had dramatically changed. Gone were the easygoing pilots who’d seen it all and were sure they’d faced worse in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their expressions had turned sober and serious. Even Hutchinson had fallen quiet.
Major West broke the silence. “Your husband’s missing somewhere in Turkey—all your friends: KIA. Our government: taking a cue from North Korea on how to get rid of adversaries. I’d say it sucks, except that doesn’t even come close. It makes the whole, alien part of the story seem meaningless—and that should be impossible to do…. So, what’s your plan—once we land at Murdo?”
“Yeah…still working on that part,” Leah said.
“And everything is based upon these visions you had while going all Timothy-Leary in the sweat lodge?”
Leah slumped back into the seat. Suddenly she felt like an idiot.
Had manipulation by the shaman, her fatigue, and the devastating deaths of Garrett and Marko damaged her psyche enough that she’d led herself down a delusional path? Was Wheeler right? Was she certifiably crazy?
Before she could respond, Major West said, “We are processing a situation way beyond our ability to understand. The technology is thousands, perhaps millions of years ahead of our own. It seems totally reasonable, to me, that this shaman was subject to ‘special programming,’ especially if he’s supposed to lead them somewhere else. This visions in the sweat lodge—it was completely different than anything you’ve experienced, even using peyote buttons?”
