Icehole

by Kiera Dellacroix

Immediately bristling, Corky’s irritation rose sharply at the sound of Clovis’s quickly stifled chuckle. She simmered silently as she watched the Commander poke the food experimentally with a fork, her face twisted in disgust. Finally, she raised a portion to her mouth, grimacing painfully.

  “Oh, my God,” Malory exclaimed, her mouth full. “It tastes like barbequed shit,” she added with a gag, letting the food slowly dribble out of her mouth to land with a moist splat back in her plate. “Jesus, I wouldn’t allow a pig to swill in this,” she said in revulsion, backing away from the counter with a shudder and finally turning to stride from the room.

  Clovis watched the entire spectacle, his jaw clenched tightly to keep from laughing. He had seen Corky start to pale and had noticed her mouth drop open slightly in horror as the Commander let the food fall nauseatingly out of her mouth. He turned wary eyes on her as Lovecraft left the room and noted that the little doctor was so pissed off it was a wonder that her hair wasn’t standing on end.

  “That miserable cunt,” she finally rasped, reaching out to grab the tray of food the Commander had left behind and storming off after her.

  It was his first thought to stop her before she did anything foolish, but Clovis suspected that the Commander knew what she was doing. Instead, with Corky safely out of the room, he finally let out the laughter that had been strangling him.

  ———

  Corky stomped through the halls, her anger growing with every step. As she rounded the last corner, she caught sight of her target heading for her quarters and fury threatened to burst from every pore. The bitch was skipping! Fuckin’ skipping! I want her dead. I want her family dead. I want her house burned to the ground...

  Malory entered her office and kicked off her boots playfully, a huge smile plastered on her face. Suddenly sensing a presence behind her, she turned to find Dr. Rivers standing in the doorway.

  “You forgot your goddamn dinner,” Corky growled and hurled the heaping tray of food with a deadly accurate overhand throw.

  Malory didn’t have time to do anything but bring her hands up to protect her face as the tray hit her elbows and coated her from the neck down in Mexican cuisine. She peeked out from behind her hands to see the doctor breathing so heavily in the doorway she was practically snarling. She couldn’t help it, she laughed. She laughed so hard she doubled over.

  The Commander’s hilarity was just too much for Corky to handle. She rushed into the room, raising a hand with every intention of slapping the dumbfuck smile off the woman’s face. Anger transformed the intended slap into a from behind the back haymaker by the time she was within range, and she let it fly with all of her strength. She was stunned when the blow was stopped short with a deceptively powerful grip around her wrist. Startled, she looked up to find pale blue eyes appraising her amusedly. Abruptly, two crimson eyebrows waggled at her suggestively.

  “Gimme some sugar, baby,” Malory rumbled sexily and darted forward to place a kiss on the flummoxed doctor’s lips.

  With a gasp, Corky backed up a step and tore her wrist from the woman’s grip. “You horrid bitch,” she said clearly and was so fast with her slap that it darted past the Commander’s defenses and impacted her cheek painfully.

  “Wow,” Malory said after a stunned second. “I kinda liked that. If I kiss you again will you slap the other cheek?”

  Corky gaped at her. “You’re fucked in the head.”

  Malory shrugged. “Are you afraid of me?”

  “No!” Corky said fervently.

  “You’re shakin’ like a dog shittin’ peach pits,” Malory observed offhandedly.

  “Maybe I’m just pissed off.”

  “Wanna take a shower with me?”

  “I gotta get out of here,” Corky exclaimed, spinning hastily and running from the room.

  Malory watched her go with a smile, bringing a hand up to rub her stinging cheek. “Gotcha,” she said with satisfaction.

  04/27/02 - 1500 hours

  Corky spent the next month in constant fear of another confrontation with the Commander, being left suspicious and confused after every encounter that was met with a polite nod or greeting. The woman baffled her to no end. Having apparently succeeded in her mission to incite a riot between them, the Commander was now very cordial, no longer going out of her way to ignite any emotion or response from her, granting her both distance and respect. Corky wasn’t sure if the woman didn’t have a doppelganger. Yet, she would die before letting her guard down again, having often considered the notion that the woman had some sort of grand scheme to slowly drive her insane.

  In another galling development, Lovecraft was becoming ever more popular with the staff. Often spending time in the mess hall laughing lewdly with the men, obviously sharing coarse jokes and tomfoolery. It left Corky feeling somewhat ostracized, considering that they were the only two women in the compound. To add insult to injury, her best friend Clovis was unable to hide the fact that he adored the fucking woman. It made her want to vomit every time she saw him make goo-goo eyes at the bitch.

  She slammed her coffee mug down on her desk, her eyes narrowing thoughtfully, thinking, not for the first time, that she should just call the Commander to the carpet and force her to admit the details of her insidious plan. So lost in her thoughts, she almost screamed in surprise when the alarm klaxon went off suddenly.

  “Dr. Rivers, PO’s Percy and Coy and all military personnel report to excavation immediately,” McNeely barked over the PA system. “Move it, people!”

  “Oh boy,” Corky said out loud before leaping to get her gear.

  Five minutes later she was sprinting down the corridor, pausing as she passed through a heavy fire door to wiggle into a safety harness and strap spikes to her boots. The metal tiles of the hall abruptly gave way to ice only a few feet past the door and she clamped onto the guide rope that led down the icy tunnel to the excavation site.

  The corridor made for slow going, being completely carved from the ice and leading down at a forty-five degree angle for close to a quarter of a mile. One slip and it would be a long slide on her ass to the bottom before she was called up short by the safety rope. She moved along as quickly and as cautiously as she could, becoming aware of others making their way down the tunnel behind her.

  Almost ten minutes later, she reached the end and emerged into the circular chamber of the main dig site. The room was a little over a hundred yards both long and wide. A shelf about fifteen yards wide ran the circumference of a gigantic hole in the ice that spiraled downward for another quarter of a mile. One reached the bottom by way of a rather narrow pathway cut from the ice that wound down the interior to the floor of the pit.

  Upon entering she was assaulted by an unimaginably foul odor, so strong it made her eyes water. “Where’s the fire?” she yelled to get everyone’s attention, relieved when Clovis emerged from the crowd.

  “Stand by, Doctor,” Hanson said as he rushed by.

  “What’s going on, Clovis?” she asked.

  “We hit a pocket in the ice,” he explained worriedly. “The bottom fell out.”

  “Oh God,” Corky said in horror. “Anyone down there?”

  “Just Mark, he was the only one in a bad spot when it happened,” Clovis explained. “He’s trapped, we couldn’t reach him.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “Seems okay but if he slips, he won’t make it,” Clovis said grimly. “The pocket looks to be about forty or fifty yards deep.”

  Corky broke away from her friend and pushed through the spectators to see for herself. She looked over the side to see that the cave-in had taken a good portion of the walkway with it, making it impossible to get to the bottom. Where unfortunately, Mark clung desperately to the ice, precariously close to the edge of a nasty drop.

  “I’m going over, start feeding me slack,” the Commander’s voice barked over the radio in Reynolds hands. “Get everybody on the ropes, he’s gonna be heavy from this distance.”

  “We’re on it,” Reyno
lds replied. “Slack to come slowly,” he added and turned to start barking orders at the men working on a series of ropes that Corky belatedly noticed.

  She gasped quietly when she realized what was happening and turned a closer look over the edge, following the path of the ropes to the figure in a black sombrero dangling from the end. Anxiously, she watched the Commander level a rifle across the void directly at Mark, instead of a bullet, it fired a bolt and cable that shot across the distance between them and buried itself in the ice about three feet away from Mark’s head.

  Corky chewed on her lip nervously as she suddenly let go of the side and started pulling her way across, an exercise that took almost ten minutes before she reached the other side and got a harness and rope onto the man.

  “I’m not convinced the bolts will hold both of us, I’m sending him across first,” Malory’s voice came over the radio. “Is Dr. Rivers there? Mark fell several meters and took a beating. Be gentle with him.”

  “She’s here,” Reynolds replied. “And will do.”

  The crowd watched as Mark spent almost twenty minutes pulling himself across the cable to the other side. Once he got there, Reynolds turned to bark at the men on the ropes. “Pull him up but go easy, he’s injured.”

  Corky looked over the edge trying to assess the man’s injuries from a distance; she turned to get Percy’s attention. “Did we bring a stretcher?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he replied and she nodded in approval.

  “I’m headed across,” Malory said over the radio.

  “Understood,” Reynolds replied. “Watch the Commander’s ropes, she’s moving,” he ordered.

  By the time Mark was pulled over the edge, the Commander was three-quarters of the way across the cable. Percy and Coy rushed forward to assist the man and Corky’s eyes again fell to the figure still below, watching with horror as the bolt on the far side broke free from the ice. “She’s falling!” she yelled.

  “Brace!” Reynolds yelled at the top of his lungs.

  Corky covered her mouth with a hand as the Commander tried to get her feet in front of her to soften the impact. She was only partially successful and was slammed against the wall with stunning force; the men on the ropes grunting with the effort of her falling weight.

  “Get her up here now, move it!” Reynolds yelled, dropping his radio onto the ice and running over to grab a spot on the rope.

  Every available man rushed over to lend their strength to the effort and Corky nervously watched the figure below for any signs of life, surprising herself with the relief she felt when the Commander lifted an arm and spoke into the radio.

  “I’m okay, go easy,” she said.

  Shoulders slumped in relief and Reynolds clapped Clovis on the shoulder before getting up and retrieving his radio. “Good to hear,” he said.

  “Dr. Rivers,” Percy said. “Isaaks has a broken arm, other than that, just a few scrapes and bruises.”

  “Let’s get him to Medical, I’ll be along shortly,” she said distantly.

  “Right away.”

  Corky loitered for a few minutes, feeling it her duty to hang back and see if the Commander needed any attention, or at least, that was what she kept telling herself. Presently, the men rushed forward to help her over the edge and she stood shakily, leveling a grin at everyone present and sparing a quick smile in Corky’s direction.

  “Fuckin’A, that hurt,” she exclaimed boisterously, receiving a round of relieved laughs and chuckles.

  “Chief Reynolds,” she barked after they had subsided.

  “Commander,” he said coming to attention.

  Malory studied him carefully, again struck by the Chief’s uncanny resemblance to a younger Sean Connery; a man she harbored a secret attraction to. “Tomorrow you’ll explain to me why the people working down here didn’t have radios, forcing someone to run all the way to the compound to raise the alarm.”

  “Yes, Commander,” he replied easily.

  She walked over and clapped him on the shoulder. “Well done,” she complimented and looked around. “All of you, very well done. Is Mr. Isaaks okay?”

  “A broken arm, he’ll be fine,” Corky said. “I’d like you to report to Medical at your earliest convenience.”

  “Alright,” she agreed and Corky turned to begin the climb back to the compound.

  “I want to speak to everyone tomorrow at 0900 in the mess hall, excavation is put on hold until I make some decisions and this area is off limits until that time.”

  A few faces appeared to protest but she cut it off quickly. “No exceptions,” she warned. “Mr. McNeely, a word, please.”

  ———

  Malory walked into Medical close to an hour later feeling bone tired. Dr. Rivers was still working on Isaaks so she slumped into a chair by the door and waited. She could hear Corky talking to the injured man in low tones behind the divider and her eyelids started to grow heavy. She thought about just going back to her quarters but her shoulder was screaming at her to stay put. Reluctantly, she acquiesced to the demands of her body and leaned her head back against the wall, closing her eyes.

  When Corky emerged, she was surprised to find the Commander asleep, her stupid fucking sombrero sitting in her lap. After much consideration, she decided to let her be and quietly summoned Coy to help Mark back to his quarters.

  It was the arrival of the young Petty Officer that woke Malory and she suffered a few seconds of disorientation, regaining her bearings as Mr. Isaaks was being ushered past. He stopped in front of her and held out a hand, she stood to take it.

  “Thank you, Commander,” he said sincerely. “That was a brave thing you did.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said with a tired smile.

  “Commander, would you join me back here, please?” Corky asked.

  “I’ll let you get to it,” Mark said with a smile, releasing her hand. “Thanks again.”

  “Anytime,” she said pleasantly, watching Coy lead him out of the room before turning to face the doctor.

  Corky stared at her for a long moment. “Are you injured?” she finally asked.

  “Yes,” Malory said honestly.

  Corky chewed on her lip. “Come have a seat,” she said and gestured to the exam table behind her.

  “Would you summon, Mr. Stokes first?” she asked tiredly. “I was going to do it but I fell asleep.”

  “I think if you’re hurt we’ve put it off long enough,” Corky said hesitantly.

  “Please.”

  Another long stare, this one of a curious nature. “Alright,” she said and moved over to the phone to summon Clovis.

  They waited in an uncomfortable silence, fidgeting uneasily until Clovis stuck his head in.

  “What’s up, Corky?” he asked curiously, his eyes lighting up when he noticed the Commander. An action that didn’t go unnoticed by the doctor and she felt a twinge of jealousy.

  “Actually, I wanted to speak with you,” Malory said. “At the meeting tomorrow I want you to explain to me, as if talking to a child, exactly what it is you expect to find under the ice.”

  He looked at her confusedly. “You weren’t briefed?”

  “I’m not one for deciphering scientific texts, Mr. Stokes,” she said quietly. “That’s why I want you to explain it to me tomorrow, in Fisher Price terms.”

  A scathingly insulting comment was perched on Corky’s tongue but with an effort she swallowed it before it could be voiced. She could plainly see how tired the woman was and it occurred to her that she was vastly overmatched in the bitch department if hostilities were to flame anew.

  “Alright,” Clovis said slowly.

  “Thank you,” Malory said. “That’s all, Mr. Stokes.”

  He knew a dismissal when he heard one. “Goodnight, ladies,” he said with a departing smile.

  Corky waited until the door closed behind him to speak. “You ready now?”

  “Alright,” Malory agreed, walking over to the table to take a seat.

  Corky mov
ed to follow her but was called up short.

  “Lock the door, please,” Malory requested.

  “Why?”

  “Just do it, please,” Malory said softly.

  Corky pursed her mouth thoughtfully and did as she was asked. “Alright, what’s the story?”

  “My left shoulder.”

  Corky moved forward. “Let’s lose the jacket and shirt so we can have a look.”

  “You’ll have to help me,” Malory admitted. “I can’t raise my arm more than a few inches.”

  “Jesus,” Corky whispered. “Why didn’t you tell me something earlier?”

  “Because I was needed and there was another in worse shape.”

  Corky shook her head and gently helped her out of her parka. “I’ll have to cut off the sweatshirt if you think it would be too hard to lift over your head.”

  “Cut it off,” Malory answered quickly.

  Soon the sweatshirt was reduced to a rag and Corky examined her quickly, noting the surgical scars discreetly placed along her collarbone and shoulder. “What happened here?” she asked curiously.

  “Old injury,” Malory said quietly.

  “I see, well you have a hell of a bruise on your shoulder, I’d like to x-ray.”

  “Okay.”

  Twenty minutes later, Malory was lying down on the examination table, staring up at nothing and waiting for Corky to deliver the bad news. She could hear her grunting over the x-rays and had come back to the table once to poke and prod her aching shoulder, with what she suspected, was a little more force than absolutely necessary.

  “Well, Commander,” she suddenly exclaimed, walking back to the table and hovering above her. “It would seem to me...”

  “You can call me Malory,” she interrupted softly.

  Corky blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “You can call me Malory.”

  “Why would I want to do that?” Corky asked curiously.

  “Because its my name?”

  Corky looked at her thoughtfully. “I think I’ll stick with Commander.”

  Malory sighed. “Sorry to hear that.”

  “Uh huh,” Corky said suspiciously. “You ready to hear your diagnosis?”