by Richard Dusk
Garrett's eyes widened as Pace gave him a seed that immediately grew into the vivid picture in his mind.
"You are genius, Pace," he said eagerly. "Kaiden!"
"Thanks, but-" said Pace confused, but Garrett waited for no response.
"Can you lower the deck at full speed?" said Garrett.
Kaiden wrote something on the keyboard, but red flashing words Operation Unavailable appeared on the screen.
"The program won't allow me. Why do you want it?"
"Damn," said Garrett displeased. He couldn't believe that a simple program will be a cause of their defeat. "If we could lower the deck just above the surface, the wings would spread, giving us better stability, and maybe we could go over it. Also, we'll have to shed all unnecessary cargo to reduce the load. We will drive straight up the wave and direct the jet, which helps us to control the heave and slow at the top if we'll be going too fast."
"You can't do this at full speed. The system forbids it according to safety rules. Those people who programmed it knew what they were doing," said Kaiden, and Vince unbuckled himself and walked to them.
"Believe me, I also considered my calculations flawless until it showed otherwise," said Garrett, thinking of the hole he made when tested CHED in the lab. "It's our only chance. The longer we talk, the closer it gets."
"Override to the manual, and I'll reprogram the values. It can't be that hard," said Vince. He took the keyboard and began writing, but the words disappeared immediately. "I need a password," he said to Kaiden, who hesitated about the rationality of the action.
"Come on. We don't have much time. It's almost here," Garrett urged him.
"If it kills us before the wave does, I'll personally beat you to death," said Kaiden to Garrett and searched in his PCA.
"If it kills us, it won't be bothering me anymore," said Garrett.
"Password is papa-kilo-five-six-two-zero-nine-four. I'll finish it, Vince. Go with others and get rid of all the equipment we won't need."
"Guys, follow me," said Vince, and they ran into the cargo area. "Lower the back ramp, and don't let it touch the surface," he looked at all stuff they carried.
The ocean moisture immediately filled the space in the second when Hodge opened it, and tiny droplets of water crashing on both wings got sucked by underpressure inside and unpleasantly landed on the skin. The loud noise made by the turbine above the ramp forced them to yell to hear each other.
"What do you suggest we'll throw away?" shouted Garrett covering his ears the same as others because he heard nothing through the earpiece.
"We're heading to Greenland. It would be foolish to expect that we'll need equipment for deserts or forests. There will be no trees or sand. And even if there are, I'm sure we can manage with the gear we have now and some arctic equipment. We can get rid of these two for sure," Vince pointed at crates marked DES and FOR.
They released fastening and pulled them towards the edge. Each of these weighted at least nine hundred pounds.
"What's inside?" Jillian panted and pushed the FOR box with Lex and Pace.
"Weapons, tents, food, and other stuff," said Lex.
"Don't forget all the electronics. With this, you can build a temporary camp for four people and survive at least two months till food runs out," said Pace.
As the boxes fell on the water passing below the ship, they rolled until their own weight pulled them under the surface to disappear forever.
"Throw these away as well," Vince pointed to four medium-sized creates under the cargo net.
"When did we load them? What's inside?" Pace unhooked the mesh.
"SRPI mines. They detect the enemy by his movement and radiated heat. You just have to walk around to activate it, but if you have IR beacon then it won't set off," Vince grabbed the first crate and threw it away.
"Have you ever used them?" Jillian threw away another one.
"Last time with Supernova, which Lex told about. We needed the enemy to come as close as possible to the truck because we had no visual contact with that part of the tunnel," said Vince and let Lex and Hodge throw away the remaining crates. He looked around for any other box and pulled the lever to close the ramp.
The wave got less than a minute away from them when they finally returned to the bridge. The height by which deck lowered down made them feel even smaller against the wave.
"It's done. Now it's in your hands," Vince tapped Kaiden's shoulder and went to sit to Lex.
Kaiden entirely focused on the oncoming fight, ignored his words. The turbine spun at maximum revs, pushing them straight towards the dark, massive wall. They didn't see the sun anymore, just sparkling water with tiny flashes of reflecting light.
Ten, nine, counted Garrett inside his head but couldn't go on anymore.
His mind emptied, and nails sunk into the gray leather of his seat. He glanced at others but mainly at Jillian. They held eyes wide open, filled with fear, but not she. Her face strangely reflected her heart. She looked frightened but reconciled with everything happening around. As if came a moment which every second is worth to be remembered because it will never happen again.
"Here we go," shouted Kaiden at the trough of the immense beast.
Manta quickly inclined and jolted as the wings cut into the wave. They climbed up the steep, coal-blue mountain covered with freshly fallen snow on the ridge. The wave became a new ocean plane for them, and the sky above turned into an endless horizon. Garrett felt the gravity pulling him against the seat and resistance of water rapidly slowing the ship down.
"Watch out!" yelled Garrett.
Giant wreckage of old nuclear submarine burst out from the wave, splashing water all over the ship. Antenna broke off the sail and smashed Manta's windshield, forcing them to cover their faces from the mixture of cold, salty water and shattered pieces of plastic glass. Submarine's hull, holed by a blast of torpedo years ago, squeakily broke in the middle as the front got into the air and pulled down the back part of its torso. Without a single scratch, they slipped between rudder and stern plane and avoided half-broken blades of the propeller. Hull plunged down from a few hundred feet height, noisily hitting the water and bursting it all around. It immediately disappeared, swallowed by massive swell approaching the coast. Garrett didn't see the rigs but knew that the wave quickly dragged them towards platforms. By the time now, he expected to be over the top of it already.
"Faster!" yelled Garrett at Kaiden wiping the water off his face.
"I'm breaking the lever already!" he yelled back as the strike of antenna slowed them down.
The crest began to break and dangerously tilted to them across the wave. The way to avoid the soon coming lip sweeping them down to the trough and overturning the ship began to close in front of their eyes. The crest of wave spilled forward and hurtled towards them from both sides. Garrett saw silhouettes of other ships emerge as they neared to the surface. Cruisers and frigates burst out from the wave wall and heavily dumped in the water below. Lips coming from both sides caught up with them in the last moment when their ship left the wave at once and flew freely in the air.
Kaiden pulled joystick to direct the jet and tilted the ship to balance it forward. For a short moment, the time slowed down for them while they flew in the air above the vast ocean with the sun on the horizon climbing up the sky. Warm rays shining on their wet faces poured a trifle of life into Garrett's veins again. The flow of energy rushing through his body made him want to push forward and see this task done. As the ship began to fall, they've lost the view. A fight arose between seat belts pulling them down and their innards pushing themselves out against gravity. The ship landed on the backside of the wave and hurtled down to the ocean level. Kaiden pulled the lever back to slow down.
"Is it over?" gasped Hodge.
Kaiden nodded at first, but he stopped when he spotted an uncountable amount of dark spheres floating on the surface ahead of them.
"What is that? What do you see?" said Garrett.
The closer the
y got, the more distinctive the outlines became. Black rotating spheres glistened under sunlight with dangerously long sticking thin spikes moving towards them.
"Naval mines," said Kaiden, regaining speed with the ship.
He elevated the deck and halfway down sharply turned left to sail right at the wave's back.
"We're going back towards rigs where they'll surround us," said Vince, almost falling off his inclined seat.
Kaiden angrily shook head and rose a hand, "See it?" he pointed towards an empty skew line that appeared among mines. "Our way out of here," he turned to descend from the wave.
Mines followed them as if they dragged them in a fishing net hooked on Manta's tail. The ride among the first mines resembled a roller-coaster when Kaiden turned with the ship from side to side to avoid them. His hands and reflexes acted quickly, but not fast enough. They felt and heard a nerve-racking screeching strike hitting the left hull.
"Damn!" Lex gasped.
The mine didn't go off, and the ship swung from it. They rode deep into the deadly zone, followed by hundreds of mines behind them and a thousand others around. They moved like a bishop hunted by a queen across the chessboard, avoiding black squares. The empty line narrowed to shut their escape route, and they became slowly but surely trapped among mines.
"This is not going to work!" shouted Kaiden when spikes struck the hulls again, ripping the metal plates.
"Give me that!" Vince jumped from the seat, grabbed the controls, and accelerated to full thrust.
They caught several more strikes as he steered, trying to run away through another empty line, but mines blocked it all. His eyes probed the ocean, moving fast as if he tried to track a fly in front of his nose. He changed the direction almost every ten mines they whizzed above until he finally led them out to the safety of the open ocean. It felt like a new chapter in a book with no sign of anything that happened seconds ago. Just calm water with the clear, bright blue sky above.
"I can't do this anymore," Pace angrily threw the belt aside and walked away.
"Hey, no one said it'll be easy," shouted Hodge at him and walked away too.
Their grumbling and cursing spread from the corridor until they disappeared behind one of the doors. Garrett and the other four stayed sitting on seats, panting with hearts violently beating inside their chests.
"I can't imagine the rest that awaits us," Garrett rubbed his face.
"You've heard him. No one said it will be easy," Jillian stood up to walk off the adrenaline rushing inside her. "Where did they come from? And why they didn't go off?" she looked out of the window but couldn't see the mines anymore.
"Yeah, that would make it certainly better," said Lex grumpily. "Please, don't wonder about it. At least not aloud."
"Okay," Jillian paced the room up and down to calm herself.
"They came probably with some ship that sunk and then duplicated or triplicated," Garrett picked bits of shattered glass from his hair. "Maybe these were just empty shells with no charge inside."
"That doesn't explain why they followed us," said Lex irritated. "So, what's the plan?"
"We have to check damages, and then we'll eventually go on," said Kaiden.
He pulled down the lever to reduce the speed and turned the ship around. They expected to see the oil rigs and mines still coming at them, but only the wave that almost swept them down headed to the coast.
"Where is all of it?" Kaiden frowned.
"Gone," said Garrett. "I guess the mines followed us because we became an anomaly in the local field, and they got attracted to us. Also, they disappeared because they apparently disintegrate within a certain period. Like that storm. It appears, lives for a few minutes, and then ceases to exist."
"Is this still the same world I was born to? Because this doesn't seem to be real at all," said Jillian.
"It is," said Garrett pensively. "It's a nightmare you can't wake up from until you destroy it."
"Yeah, and our chances are like-" Lex whistled to imitate plane falling to the ground.
The ship finally stopped, and Kaiden lowered the deck again. He left them and walked outside to take a look at the wings and hulls.
"Vince, what do you plan?" said Garrett. "I've got a feeling that Kaiden is becoming clueless, and we are building everything out of nothing."
"I don't know. What do you want to hear? Look outside. It's like playing cat and mouse," Vince sighed. "I'm blind in this too. Nothing makes sense anymore. We're not ready to fight something like this at these conditions. I presume it's gonna be harder and harder."
"Consider what Rosefield said about the first team, Vince. They were much better prepared and look at how they ended," said Lex.
"What else do you know about it? How do we get in there?" said Garrett.
"Nothing for certain," Vince zoomed in the hologram of their route. "Our info isn't updated with the current status. Greenland base has a secret harbor where we'll switch from sea to land," he said to team grouping around him. "We unpack the stuff, and then we'll head to the Sigma research station. Or whatever left of it. It's the main one of the six stations that oversaw the whole project while it was operative. If Greenland is still the same, then it's about twenty-five miles long drive in a sharp, freezing wind. If we manage to get there, then we'll descend into the caves beneath. The entry is directly inside the station. All the way through the caves we'll go on foot. And that's the last thing I know."
"How can this harbor be a secret?" Jillian examined its projected internal structure. "Everyone sailing around must have seen it."
"Because it's hidden below the surface. You'll see for yourself," said Vince.
Approaching steps sounded from the corridor, and Kaiden entered the bridge.
"Slashes are deep, but it will sail," said Kaiden. "We'll have to slow down, losing time again."
"Let's just move away already," said Lex. "I'm not thrilled to say hello to another wave."
"She's right," said Garrett. "The sooner we leave, the better we do."
Chapter 22 - White Ice
The next hours of sailing passed surprisingly peacefully with no sign of imminent threat. Only ocean water with calm, little, wind-driven waves all the time, spreading into a distance and disappearing with a cut of sky through the horizon. A feeble breeze blew through their hair when they stopped and went outside to check the ship. Every heartbeat intensified the sense of freedom ruling this part of the world. The cold air made them feel the warm blood running through their veins carrying life. Sun gradually shone stronger through tatters of gray clouds lingering in heights. The world seemed to be resting and gathering strength after the giant wave sent at them and preparing itself for the moment when its power will be fully regained.
"Guys, we're finally here," said Vince to crew sitting around the table, eating and drinking coffee, and talking about the wave that almost crushed them a few hours back. His skin turned red, and eyebrows and beard got lightly covered with frost. "Come, take a look. You won't have a chance to see this again."
They left the unfinished meals and followed him to the freezing bridge. Temperature substantially dropped during the last thousand miles sailed, but the speed of the ship made the air much more biting. They replaced the three broken windshields with a thick transparent foil, but coldness quickly found its way through the gaps at this speed. The weak tape didn't resist the air pressure, and foils fluttered in the wind most of the time. Everything inside got coated with a white rime, but Kaiden sat there relaxed, not bothered at all. A thin cable, running down from his PCA and plugged in ship's socket, powered the heating system in his suit.
The fact of nearing to the Greenland shores was indisputable. Not only that the ocean water changed to cobalt blue, but massive icebergs made of crystal white ice floating on the water gorgeously contrasted with the gloomy surface. Different sizes and shapes reminded rough outlines of ruined medieval castles built upon hills and destroyed during long sieges that ended with tremendous defeat. They symbolized
giant protectors of Greenland against wild invaders. When they came closer, the rigid texture showed. Smooth contours, rubbed down by the strong wind and polished by freezing water, continuously passed into sharply cut, torn-alike lines of eroded ice.
They felt like crawling ants. A simple folk admiring the strength of Titan Atlas. As they passed by them, floating fragments of crumbling icebergs appeared, roughly the same size as Manta. The tiny ones with the greenish-colored bottom floated just below the surface and lightly scraped both hulls. The bigger ones, made of glacial ice, let the sun rays shine through and light up their tortoise blue, glass-like structure covered with a layer of snow and crust on the top. Seeing all the light scattered inside and reflecting on the glittering snow offered them a spectacular view. The towering mountain peaks of dark gray granite emerged in the distance, far away from cliffs hidden in the mist pouring down to the sea, veiling the coastland in mystery.
"Say goodbye to the ocean. We're heading to twenty miles long fjord," said Kaiden to the astonished crew and finally slowed down.
As they passed deeper, the valley widened, and high steep cliffs moved farther away from calm water, letting rocky shore rose up above the surface filled with floating drift ice. The layers of fallen snow became thinner, and the melting ice poured down from cliffs in numerous waterfalls.
"I know it sounds foolish, but I want to take a picture of it," said Jillian.
"There's nothing foolish about it," said Garrett. "Now, you can see how fragile our planet really is."
Jillian utterly fascinated looked at the subtle rainbows made by mist waterfall. Even though the fjord remained almost all the same by the whole length they passed, she enjoyed every single bit of it. She smiled as they went through entirely new sceneries, but sad at the same time because she regretted the fact that this is probably the only chance in her life to see it.
"Kaiden, step on it!" shouted Pace standing by the windshield on the left side. "It's the naval mines again," he pointed, and everyone gathered around him, looking at the long spikes sticking out from the water. "Will we ever get rid of them?" he watched several more spikes emerge.