by Jon Land
“Your leader. Bring him … to me.”
“I was just on my way to get him,” the doctor said, freeing himself from her grasp. “I’m sure he’s got some questions of his own.”
Danielle’s senses sharpened by the minute as she awaited the arrival of Outpost 10’s leader. The nurse maintained a constant vigil in the chair at the foot of her bed, and she assumed the doctor had made sure a guard was stationed outside the door as well.
Finally she heard voices in the corridor, and then the door to the small ward she alone occupied opened. Danielle saw the wheelchair before looking at the man occupying it. He had thick salt-and-pepper hair that showed only slight signs of thinning, and large brown eyes. The bulging bands of muscle in his arms and chest were offset by a pair of withered legs that dangled uselessly to the floor. Their eyes locked as he made his way over to the side of her bed, almost level with her head from his wheelchair.
“The name’s Farraday, miss. You can call me ‘Commander’ for short.”
“You’re in charge here, I assume.”
“Surprises you, doesn’t it? Surprised me, too. Hire-the-Handicapped Week, right?”
“I didn’t mean it that way. I just had to be sure before we talked.”
“The only thing you’ve got to be sure of, miss, is that you’re in one hell of a mess. This place isn’t supposed to exist, in case you didn’t realize.”
“Its existence is known to more people than you realize.” She paused. “What about the troops? Have you heard from them? Are they coming?”
Commander Farraday looked both puzzled and angry. “What troops?”
“You mean you haven’t …” Danielle stopped. Clearly there was no reason for her to complete the thought. It was just as she had felt all along: something had gone wrong on the Ferryman’s end, and it had become her lot alone to stop the Hashi from taking Outpost 10.
“I think you’d better tell me exactly who you are,” Farraday said.
“I’m someone who wants to see your installation saved, Commander.”
“What?”
“Can we talk alone?”
“Whatever suits you, miss. Neither of us is going anywhere for a while in this storm.” Farraday raised one of his muscular forearms to indicate that the nurse and doctor should leave. When the door was closed behind them, he spoke again. “If you know what this place is, you know the kind of trouble you’re in by coming here. We picked you up half dead after your plane crashed. Maybe we should have let you die.”
“It might not matter,” she said, almost too softly for him to hear. “Is your radio functional?”
“What? No. Wait a minute, what does that have to do with—”
“Then it’s just us against them.”
“Us against who? What in hell are you babbling about?”
Danielle lifted herself up to a sitting position. She was looking down at Farraday now. “This installation is about to come under attack,” she said flatly.
Farraday almost laughed. “In the middle of an ice storm? Miss, nobody is going to have any more luck getting here than you did.”
“Unless they come in a submarine.”
“Submarine? I’ve had just about all I can—”
“How far are we from the Ross Ice Shelf?”
“Seventy miles. But that’s over the Transantarctic Mountains. Hard for a sub to negotiate those babies.”
“Yes, they’ll have to come up through the shelf and find another way here.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
She looked at him harshly. “It’s a new Jupiter-class super-Trident, the prototype for an entire fleet. The people coming here hijacked it, along with its twenty-eight atomic missiles. They’re going to use them to destroy the Spiderweb pipeline, Commander. They’re going to blow it and the continent to hell from this very spot.”
Farraday wheeled himself closer. “Maybe I should get you a shrink. We’ve got real good ones down here. Lots of people need them. Might be the air, some say. I’m hoping your story can be attributed to that too.”
“What would you like to know about your installation, Commander?” she challenged him. “Would you like to know how many barrels of oil a day your vacuum pumps suck up along the pipeline? Would you like to know the locations of your storage dumps? Would you like me to point out your major drilling sites on a map? They compose something called Spiderweb, but unless we do something they won’t be there tomorrow.”
Commander Farraday was staring up at her in shock. “And you’ve come all the way out here to warn me?”
“Not just warn. Help.”
There was a long silence during which Farraday sat transfixed in his wheelchair, wondering what his next words should be.
“Accepting your help,” he said finally, “presupposes that I believe this incredible story of yours.”
“There’s more. I left out the details. I was only trying to get you to listen.”
“Tell me everything.”
Danielle’s tale was interrupted on several occasions by individuals needing Farraday for something or other. Not once was the commander short with his people, and Danielle could tell from their stares that their respect for this crippled leader was as intense as their love for him. She wondered how long a tour lasted for these people of the ultra-secret Outpost 10. A year? Maybe two? The longer it was, the more responsibility would fall on Farraday’s shoulders to maintain a pleasant atmosphere. Here at the bottom of the world she supposed tempers could run hot enough to keep everyone warm.
“My God,” was all Farraday could manage at the end. “I don’t know what to make of it all. I don’t know what to say.” He paused. “Assuming I believe you, what exactly do you expect me to do?”
“Defend your outpost, Commander. With no help coming from the outside, it’s our only chance.”
“I’d love for you to tell me what to defend it with.”
“This is a Defense Department installation, isn’t it?”
“Only as far as funding is concerned, miss. If we’re found out here, we’ve got another cover prepared entirely, and to make sure it holds, our weapons cache is well within limits set by the Antarctic Treaty. We’ve got approximately fifteen guns: six sidearms, six M-16s, and three shotguns—if they’re all functioning, that is. The only soldiers here are six Marines who do a nice job of breaking up fights and maintaining a presence for the one hundred and twenty-five workers we have at anytime at the outpost.”
“Seven soldiers, Commander. You mentioned you were in the Army as well.”
“Sorry, miss. Corps of Engineers going back to Nam. Never did see real combat. I volunteered for this command because it was mostly administrative and far enough from the rest of the world to help me forget a little about all the things I can’t do anymore.” He gazed down at his useless legs. “Drunk driver crossed the center line six years ago.”
Danielle kept her mind on the subject at hand. “What about calling McMurdo for reinforcements?”
“Even if we could get through to them in the storm, they would never be able to get help out in weather like this. I’ve seen storms last a week this time of year, and this one’s barely a day old.”
Danielle put it together in her head. “Fifteen weapons against a force I would estimate as at least four times that number.”
Farraday wheeled himself closer. “With a nuclear sub you really figure they’ll try and take us assault-style?”
“They haven’t got a choice. They’ve got to take the installation intact, but they’ll be expecting their attack to take us totally by surprise. We can make that work for us.”
“With fifteen guns, miss?”
“There’s more, Commander. It’s just a question of finding it.”
Farraday wheeled himself down the long corridor that connected the one-story wing housing the infirmary to the main three-story complex. Danielle walked by his side, still fighting to shake off the effects of her extended stay in the bitter cold.
&n
bsp; “The complex seems too small for all that has to be done here,” she commented.
“That’s because most of the living quarters and recreation areas are underground, within the ice. Helps for insulation and makes it so we don’t stick out too much.”
Above them the corridor was lined with windows shaped like portholes which showed the signs of being battered by the ice blizzard raging beyond. Every time the wind gusted the whole building seemed to tremble as the cold made its best effort to penetrate the walls.
“I’ve got ideas for some things we can do,” she told him. “But I don’t know how to implement them.”
“If they’re good enough, I’ll take care of the implementation. We’re an engineering outpost, remember? We’re pretty good at creating things out of nothing fast.”
“I’ve got to see the outside. I need to have an overview of the layout to see if the things I’ve got in mind will work.”
“You can see better from the inside looking out.”
Danielle followed Farraday into an elevator which took them to the third floor of the main building. Once out of the elevator, the commander led the way down another hall and around a single corner, which brought them to the complex’s observation deck, featuring a wall formed of insulated glass two feet thick. There was some distortion as a result, but with the storm Danielle wasn’t able to see much anyway. The front of Outpost 10 was as white and thick as the rest of the landscape.
“What have you got for heavy equipment?”
“Besides the Snowcats, plenty of loaders and dozers, all made especially for our lovely climate. It means that about half of them are malfunctioning at any given time.”
“Half will be enough.”
“For what?”
But Danielle’s mind was already moving on another track. “The oil does come through here from the wells en route to the storage dumps, doesn’t it?”
“Of course. Why?”
She looked out at the dead white beyond the window: it was perfect camouflage. In her mind she was getting her bearings straight and trying to figure out the most logical route of approach for the Hashi after they cleared the mountains. They’d be best off moving with the wind instead of against it, which meant a frontal assault. All that stored away, she turned back to Farraday.
“We need to set up lines of defense utilizing the skills and resources available to us. For the first line of defense, we’ll have the element of surprise on our side. For the others, the enemy will have regrouped and will be expecting a fight. That means we’ve got to get plenty of them fast while we save our best cards for last. It’s our battle. We’re the only ones who can win it. Commander, how fast can you assemble all installation personnel and have them ready for duty?”
“About the same time it should take you to explain to me what exactly they’ve got to do.”
“Ah, Mac, how good of you to join us,” Jones said when the trio of guards led McKenzie Barlow up to the bridge.
Mac had been sitting behind his desk when the door to his quarters opened minutes before. He had started to reach for the knife but pulled his hand back when he saw the guards enter instead of Jones. No sense in trying to smuggle it out. And sure enough the bastards searched him thoroughly before escorting him up to the bridge.
“We’ve arrived at our destination, Commander,” Jones continued happily. “I thought you might be interested in witnessing the final stage of our journey.”
“Where are we?”
“Steaming beneath the Ross Ice Shelf. Almost to its northern rip. Vertical sonar is looking for a light spot we can pierce through with our sail.”
“And then what?”
“We surface.” Jones came closer. “And then you and I will have a little trip ahead of us.”
Not if I can stop you, you bastard, Mac almost said, but he focused instead on containing his own rage. He wondered if he could kill Jones with his bare hands here and now. He’d been trained to do so often and well, and even though his skills in this regard weren’t battle tested, he felt certain he could do it. What stopped him from trying was the realization that a dozen men would be upon him before he could land a single blow.
“Thin ice above, sir,” reported the sonar man.
“Ahead slow,” Jones ordered.
“Ahead slow,” a voice came back.
“Drifting speed. Hold us steady.”
“Aye, Captain. Steady as she goes.”
“Thin ice, sir,” came the sonar’s voice again.
“Thickness?”
“Seventy-five feet. Fifty … Thirty … “
“All stop!”
“All stop.”
“Take us up.”
“Coming up, sir. One thousand meters … Five hundred … Two-fifty … One hundred …”
Seconds later the Rhode Island rocked slightly as its sail impacted against the layer of ice above. She seemed to be stuck in her tracks for a brief moment before a slight grinding sound came and she began to surge quickly upward.
“We’re through, sir.”
Jones allowed himself a smile. “The door’s open, people.”
He gazed at Mac as if expecting praise for a job well done. What he got was a stare as cold as the sea above.
“That takes care of the shelf,” the commander snapped. “But if that mass I notice on radar is a storm, there’s no way you’ll be going anywhere else.”
“You’ll see,” was all Jones replied.
The beauty of Danielle’s plan lay in its simplicity. There wasn’t time to erect anything elaborate, and even if there had been, she had to keep in mind that these were engineers she was dealing with, not soldiers. She had explained her proposals for three separate lines of defense to Farraday and the former Corps of Engineers soldier in him rose to the challenge. Now, four hours later, they were outside supervising the work and surveying what had already been completed.
At the start, Farraday had hailed his people over the PA system. “Now hear this,” he announced. “Don storm gear and assemble in the briefing room in twenty minutes. We’ve got ourselves more than just a blizzard to fight off today.”
When they had assembled as ordered, he told them an enemy force was coming to overrun the installation. Murmurs passed through the crowd, but no one bothered interrupting for questions, though several noticed the stranger seated just behind him. It was up to them to save themselves, he continued, and it could be done so long as everyone pulled their share. The personnel were broken into teams and sent to various stations, where the work commenced almost instantly. Now, four hours later, they were still at it, though into the home stretch. The raging storm and fifteen-below-zero temperatures forced them to work in shifts which rotated with the sounding of a horn every twenty minutes. This had the added effect of keeping the workers fresh and constantly renewed in their resolve and enthusiasm. They couldn’t see a foot in front of themselves in the storm, but everyone could see the fear on the face of the fellow closest to him, even through the woolen ski masks that were part of the storm gear.
Farraday was the only one to stay out for virtually the entire duration, permitting himself only ten minutes inside per hour and that only to warm and oil his wheelchair fittings so he could move it about as needed.
“Dead legs come in handy for something,” he told Danielle. “Heart doesn’t have to work as hard getting blood down there. It can focus its energies instead on keeping the rest of me warm.”
For her part, Danielle could only stay out until the dizziness started to overcome her every twenty-five minutes or so. Each trip outside brought numbing pains to her chest and a light-headed feeling, and only her sense of urgency gave her the strength to avoid collapsing. Venturing back out into the storm with the four-hour mark just past, she had trouble finding Farraday. She pulled herself along the tow line that had been erected all over the complex at the start to make sure the workers had something to fall back on if their bearings deserted them. People had been known to freeze to death ten yards f
rom a door in this kind of storm.
She found the commander at last beyond the camp line at the outer perimeter, where the finishing touches were being put on the first line of defense.
“We do have those six Marines,” she had told him at the outset, “and it would be foolish not to utilize their skills. Question is how to get close enough to the enemy to make a difference with their guns in this storm.”
“We could camouflage them.”
“You mean dress them up in white?”
“So to speak.”
What he had meant, Danielle saw now, was a series of layered mounds which were being finished off so smoothly as to seem a part of the natural landscape. The white-clad Marines would take cover behind them and poke their rifles through a slot carved in the snow-ice blocks for them. The only thing that might alert the nearing enemy to their precise location would be the orange bursts that came with each shot fired. But if they were lucky the storm would hide enough of that.
As soon as the opposing forces scrambled for cover following the initial barrages, the Marines would pull back to the complex to serve as an additional line of defense if the next two failed to finish the job.
“What do you think?” Farraday asked her, having to yell to make his voice carry over the biting wind.
“Looks great. Can’t be sure until I see the men in position, though.”
She could tell that beneath his mask the commander was smiling. “They’re already in position, miss.”
Danielle smiled back at him through hers.
Together they moved back to the second line of defense. The snow had caked up on Farraday’s wheels, and Danielle went about the task of pushing him, quickly out of breath but stubbornly shoving on.
“We’ve got to make use of those loaders,” she had told him hours before, stunned by the size of them. Three were absolutely monstrous; perhaps a ton of snow and ice could be carried or pushed by their shovels. Chains were wrapped around their specially constructed tires to provide traction.
Again Farraday’s engineering background supplied the answer. The problem here, too, was one of camouflage, of making sure the enemy didn’t know the loaders were there until it was too late, even though the fact that they were in for a fight had been made known to them by the Marines. Snow mounds big enough to conceal the loaders would stick out too much and might impede their rush. The solution he came up with was to drape snow-encrusted tarpaulins over the huge machines, with their shovel assemblies dangling straight overhead. That way, as soon as the shovels were lowered, the tarps would be swept away. From there the drivers could use the loaders to attack the invaders by overrunning them. Even at their relatively low speed, it was certain they could outpace men weighted down and slowed by huge, heavy boots in the storm.