Breaking the Beast
Page 26
“Is that so?” asked Dr. Tashi with a raised eyebrow.
Placing his glass of tea on the table while poking around at his tray for the next bite of food, Dr. Hunter responded, “Let’s just say Erebus doesn’t give up its secrets without you having to earn them.”
“I don’t envy you for that,” Dr. Tashi replied. “At IceCube, all we have to contend with is the cold.”
“Well, gentlemen,” Mason said as he pushed himself back from the table with a satisfied look on his face. “I’m gonna grab dessert. Can I get anyone something while I’m up?”
“Frostyboy is down again,” Dr. Tashi said in a tone of frustration, referring to the cafeteria’s famous soft-serve ice cream machine.
“No! Ah, damn it,” Mason said, exasperated by Dr. Tashi’s news.
Patting Mason on the back, Dr. Hunter laughed and said, “Don’t fret about it. By next week, you’ll be getting yourself a scoop at Cold Stone Creamery from that cute blonde who has her eye on you back at NMT.”
With that, Dr. Hunter stood and said, “It was great seeing you again, Raj. Are you coming back next summer?”
“That has yet to be decided,” Dr. Tashi replied. “If not, keep in touch. I’m sure we’ll cross paths again. We may not be in the same field, but science is a small world.”
Shaking his hand, Dr. Hunter smiled and said, “You take care. And yes, yes, it is.”
Chapter Two
Mount Erebus Volcano Observatory
As the helicopter touched down near the Lower Erebus Hut, snow and ice crystals swirled around them as the twenty-five-mile-per-hour wind gusts pounded the craft. Shoving open the door and holding it against the violent winds, Mason signaled for Dr. Hunter to exit the still-running helicopter. Once Dr. Hunter was clear and on his way to the Lower Erebus Hut, Mason shut the door firmly and signaled to the pilot that they were clear. Before the two men reached the door of the facility, the helicopter pilot had lifted off and was on his way back to McMurdo Station and the comforts it provided.
Closing the door securely behind them, Dr. Hunter looked around the room and asked, “Where is Linda?”
Looking up from his work of packing up some of the team’s sensitive data-recording equipment, Ronald answered, “Linda? Oh, Dr. Graves. She and Brett went back up on the mountain this morning just after the two of you took the helicopter out to McMurdo.”
“I hope they hurry. It’s getting late. There isn’t much daylight left as it is,” Dr. Hunter said with a noticeable uneasiness in his voice.
“They’ll be fine,” Mason replied. “Brett is a top-notch mountaineer. I wish I had just half of his climbing skills.”
“You find your way around the mountain pretty well,” Dr. Hunter said as he walked over to the coffee maker.
“I’m an outdoor junkie, but I’m your average outdoor junkie,” Mason replied with a thankful smile. “But Brett—he’s hardcore. That’s why I know they’ll be fine. Besides, Dr. Graves is a fitness freak. She can scurry up a vertical ascent and be looking down at us from the top, while the rest of us are stopping to catch our breath a quarter of the way up.”
With a chuckle, Ronald added, “And Doc, you know better than to let her catch you uttering words of concern about her. She’ll rip you a new one.”
Smiling as he took a sip of hot, black coffee, Dr. Hunter said, “You’re right about that, Ronald. She’s not one to tolerate a male counterpart’s acknowledgment that she’s a lady.”
~~~~
Opening her eyes and seeing nothing but darkness around her, Dr. Graves realized she was lying flat on her back. With her head pounding from the impact, she paused for a moment before she attempted to move when she heard Brett yelling down to her from above.
“Dr. Graves!” he shouted. “Dr. Graves, are you okay?”
With his words echoing off the walls throughout the ice cave, it was disorienting and difficult for her to tell from which direction his shouts were coming. Sitting up, she felt herself become dizzy and light-headed as she replied in a weak, shaky voice, “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine—I think.”
“I can barely hear you!” he shouted. “Are you okay?”
Mustering the strength to shout back, she yelled, “Yes! Yes, I’m okay!” She instantly regretted her efforts as the intensity of her throbbing headache increased with each word she uttered, as if the words were bouncing around inside her head.
“I’m coming down!” he shouted.
Struggling to get to her knees, Dr. Graves reached for her headlamp, only to find that it had been irreparably damaged in the fall. Pulling her hand-held flashlight from her pocket, she flicked it on, only to discover in amazement that the walls of the cave around her contained traces of grayish microorganisms, unlike anything she had ever seen.
Hearing a rope bounce off the wall behind her, she turned and pointed her hand-held flashlight skyward and into the small, tubular vertical fumarole shaft from which she had fallen into this previously undiscovered chamber deep beneath the ice. Seeing Brett’s climbing rope, she shouted, “I’ve got your rope. Come on down. I’ll belay you from here.”
Within a moment, Brett Thompson, the MEVO research team’s professional mountaineer, appeared above her with his feet dangling as he descended into the dark chamber. Brett, still an Alaskan at heart, had been in and around large mountains his entire life. Standing six-foot-two with a slim build and sandy brown hair, Brett had always been popular with the ladies. However, his heart belonged to the extreme environments created by the mountains.
After working as a guide on Denali since his mid-twenties and having climbed the likes of Everest, Kilimanjaro, and the Matterhorn, Erebus seemed like the next logical place for his mountaineering career. It had yet to disappoint him in that regard.
Dropping into the chamber in front of Dr. Graves, he said, “You scared me half to death. That fumarole has to be at least one-hundred and fifty feet nearly straight down.”
“Thank goodness for helmets,” she said, tapping her gloved knuckles on her head. “That, and I tried to ball up the best I could to create drag on the sides of the ice tube to slow my descent. That way, it wasn’t really a fall so much as it was a slide—at least until I reached the opening in the ceiling here. That part was a free-fall.”
“Either way, I’m amazed you're up and walking,” he said, scanning the chamber with his headlight.
“Hand me one of your sample containers,” she said, reaching out to him as she began to look closely at the life-forms that appeared to be thriving on the chamber walls. “We’ve stumbled across something special here. It’s hard to tell exactly, given the conditions, but I don’t think we’ve documented microbes such as these before.”
Handing her the container with the lid removed, Dr. Graves took it and immediately began collecting specimens with her Zero Tolerance brand folding pocket-knife, a gift from her brother that she carried with her at all times. “These walls are almost wet to the touch. What temperature is it in here?”
“I’m showing thirty-three,” Brett replied, looking at his thermometer with his headlamp. “It’s almost warm enough to remove a few layers of gear.”
“Don’t,” she quickly replied. “These chambers have all sorts of gasses flowing through them, and we don’t have any O2 with us. We may find ourselves having to egress in a hurry, and you won’t have those few precious seconds to spare.”
Screwing the lid back onto the container, Dr. Graves said, “Turn around. Let me put this in your pack, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course,” he said, allowing her to stow her precious sample safely in his pack.
“Do you hear that?” she asked.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she replied with amazement. “It’s so quiet down here. Everything is so still. In most of the caves and tunnels created by the fumaroles, you can see the light shining through the walls and ceiling from the sun above. You can hear the wind pounding the mountain. But here, there’s nothing. It’s silent.”
&
nbsp; Looking around, he said, “Amazing, isn’t it? I’m not sure we’ve ventured this deep before.”
“Of all the trips we’ve made into the ice caves, I’ve never noticed that particular vent.”
“The one you fell into?” he asked.
“Yeah. It’s like it simply appeared.”
“The heat from the mountain mixed with the cold ice above can do some crazy things,” he said. “Helo Cave, and others like it that are close to the surface, appear steady to us because they have the cold to keep them solid. This far into the volcano, though, who knows what hot gasses come and go, cutting a swath through the ice only to have it fill in and refreeze later before we’ve had a chance to discover it.”
Walking over to Brett’s climbing rope that dangled into the chamber, Dr. Graves asked, “Do you have your ascenders?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied.
“Get them set up while I take a few more samples. We’d better get going. Who knows when the next blast of hot gasses will come rushing through.”
~~~~
Looking impatiently at the clock that hung on the wall in the Lower Erebus Hut, Dr. Hunter began to speak when the door opened, allowing a rush of frigid arctic wind to enter, blowing papers off the table in front of him. “Linda, so glad you two are back. How did it go?” he asked, attempting to mask his concern.
“It’s a long story,” she confessed, “but it’s one you’ll want to hear.”
****I hope you enjoyed this free preview of Erebus. To continue the story, click here****
A Note from the Author
Thank you very much for reading Breaking the Beast: The Redemption of Joe Branch. Writing this book was truly a labor of love for me, and I hope it provided you with hours of pleasurable reading as well.
Though this book is a work of fiction and presents an unlikely scenario, I’m sure I’m not alone when I see the possibilities of collusion and conspiracy throughout both business and government. It’s the nature of the beast, and it’s something that reminds us of its presence on a regular basis, and you don’t have to be a tinfoil hat-wearing conspiracy theorist to see it.
Joe’s saga represents one that many people have undoubtedly faced throughout history when governments, tyrants, and dictators have chosen to use their own citizens to serve them, while carrying out dastardly deeds against their fellow countrymen. And like Joe, I’d imagine there are countless stories out there that we will never hear, about those who chose to draw a line in the sand and say, “no more!” This story is a tribute to them, the ones who stopped merely following orders and stood for something greater than themselves, with most of them paying the ultimate price as a result.
Again, thank you very much for reading, and I wish you all the best in life and every endeavor you pursue. God bless.
Respectfully,
Steven C. Bird
About the Author
Steven Bird was born and raised in the Appalachian coal town of Harlan, Kentucky, where he grew up immersed in the outdoors. After graduating high school, he joined the Navy and moved to the Seattle area, where he served on active duty for eleven years, eventually retiring out of the reserves at just over twenty years of service.
Upon leaving active duty, Steven began working as a charter pilot and a flight instructor. Eventually finding his way into a turbo-prop airline, and then on to a jet airline, he acquired thousands of hours of flight experience before leaving the airline industry to fly for one of America’s largest cellular retailers.
Steven’s writing career didn’t start off with a degree in English and a background in literature. It was during his time with the airlines that inspired his writing with his first book The Last Layover, which was written mostly on an Android smartphone. Since then, Steven has published twelve additional books and has discovered writing as his true calling.
Steven and his wife, Monica, live on a farm/homestead in rural Tennessee on the Cumberland Plateau with their three children, Seth, Olivia, and Sophia. They raise cattle, horses, donkeys, sheep, chickens, ducks, and turkeys, in an effort to be as self-sufficient as possible, while exposing their children to the real world that surrounds them.
Steven’s passion for the concept of individual liberty shines through in all of his works, as it does in his daily life. Join him in the stories he weaves through the following books and series.
The New Homefront Series:
The Last Layover: The New Homefront, Volume One
The Guardians: The New Homefront, Volume Two
The Blue Ridge Resistance: The New Homefront, Volume Three
The Resolution: The New Homefront, Volume Four
Viking One: A New Homefront Novel
The Society Lost Series:
The Shepherd: Society Lost, Volume One
Betrayal: Society Lost, Volume Two
The Tree of Penance: Society Lost, Volume Three
Them: Society Lost, Volume Four
Erebus: An Apocalyptic Thriller
Jet: Dangerous Prey
The Edge of Civility