Ice Station ss-1

by Matthew Reilly

  Tritonal 80/20 was a highly concentrated explosive poxy? a highly combustible liquid filler that was used in air-launched drop bombs. Tritonal wasn't nuclear, but when it blew, it blew big and it blew hot. One kilogram of the stuff? the amount contained in each of the canisters Schofield was now looking at?could level a small building.

  Schofield released Kirsty gently, put his glasses back on, and moved toward the compartment near the dashboard. He pulled one of the silver-and-green canisters from it.

  He came back to Kirsty. "Are you all right, now?"

  "Yeah," she said.

  "Good," Schofield said, sliding the Tritonal charge into one of his long thigh pockets. "Because I really have to get back to?"

  Schofield never saw it coming.

  The impact threw him off his feet.

  His whole hovercraft lurched suddenly to the left.

  He looked out through the gaping hole in the right-hand side of his speeding hovercraft and saw one of the two remaining British hovercrafts racing across the ice plain right alongside him!

  It rammed them again.

  Hard.

  So hard, in fact, that Schofield felt his hovercraft slide sideways, to the left.

  "What the?" he said aloud.

  He looked left and in a sudden terrifying instant he realised what they were doing.

  "Oh, no," he said. "Oh, no...."

  They were trying to ram him off the cliff.

  Schofield began to wrestle with the steering vane of his hovercraft, but it was no use.

  There was nowhere he could go.

  With no room to move?no room to get a run-up?he just found himself shunting the speeding British hovercraft ineffectually.

  The British hovercraft rammed them again, and Schofield snapped to look forward. He saw the cliff edge racing by less than ten yards off to his left. He caught a glimpse of tiny white-crested waves beyond it. They were a long way down.

  Then he looked out to his right, out through the hole in the side of his speeding hovercraft, and saw the black British hovercraft whipping across the ice plain beside him. He saw it widen the gap between the two hovercrafts and then suddenly rush back in at them.

  The two hovercrafts collided again and Schofield felt his hovercraft jolt farther toward the edge.

  Five yards to go.

  The two hovercrafts raced along the edge of the cliff top, three hundred feet above the churning white waves of the Southern Ocean.

  Schofield was still watching the British hovercraft alongside him.

  As it widened the gap between the two hovercrafts once more?like a boxer pulling his arm back in preparation for the next blow?suddenly Schofield saw another hovercraft materialize in the distance beyond the black British hovercraft.

  He blinked.

  It was the orange French hovercraft.

  The orange hovercraft? Schofield thought.

  But the only person in that hovercraft was ...

  Renshaw.

  Schofield saw the gaudy orange hovercraft pull alongside the speeding British hovercraft. Now there were three hovercrafts travelling side by side along the edge of the ice cliff!

  Suddenly the British hovercraft rammed them again and ihe skirt of Schofield's hovercraft jutted out over the edge of the cliff. Large chunks of snow were thrown off the edge. They became tiny specks of white as they disappeared into the churning foam of the sea three hundred feet below.

  "Come on." Schofield suddenly grabbed Kirsty's hand.

  "What are we?"

  "We're leaving," he said.

  Schofield pulled Kirsty over to the gaping hole in the right-hand side of his hovercraft.

  He saw the British hovercraft pull away from them again, preparing itself for the killing blow.

  Schofield swallowed. He would have to time this just right....

  He drew his Desert Eagle pistol.

  The British hovercraft rushed in toward them.

  The two hovercrafts collided, and in that instant Schofield leaped across onto the skirt of the British hovercraft, pulling Kirsty with him.

  They landed on the skirt of the speeding British hovercraft just as their own went careering off the edge of the cliff. The empty hovercraft rolled through the air for an instant before it plummeted three hundred feet straight down. It hit the water with a stunning impact and smashed into a thousand pieces.

  Schofield and Kirsty never stopped moving.

  They skipped across the roof of the British hovercraft, and as they did so Schofield pointed his pistol straight down and fired three quick shots into the roof beneath him, and then suddenly they were on the other side of the hovercraft and Schofield could see Renshaw's hovercraft in front of them.

  The orange hovercraft swung in closer just as Schofield and Kirsty leaped off the skirt of the British hovercraft. They landed safely on the skirt of Renshaw's craft, and it instantly peeled away from the black British hovercraft.

  Schofield looked back at the British hovercraft?saw a star of blood on the forward windshield. Someone inside the hovercraft was still moving, clambering forward in an attempt to grab the steering vane.

  Schofield figured that he must have hit the driver and now whoever was still in there was desperately trying to regain control of the?

  Too late.

  The British hovercraft looked like a stunt car leaping off a ramp as it shot off the edge of the cliff. It sailed through the air for a moment?soaring high?before gravity took its course and the hovercraft began to arc downward. Schofield caught a fleeting glimpse of the man inside it as the hovercraft dropped below the edge of the cliff top and disappeared forever.

  Schofield turned to see the sliding side door of the orange hovercraft open in front of him and he saw Renshaw's smiling face appear.

  "Can I drive this thing or what?" Renshaw said.

  Now there was only one British hovercraft remaining. Outnumbered now by two-to-one it kept its distance.

  Schofield grabbed Renshaw's Marine helmet and put it on. He keyed the helmet mike. "Rebound, you still out there?

  "Yeah."

  "Is everyone OK?"

  "More or less."

  "What about the hovercraft?" Schofield asked.

  "She's a bit beat up, but she's OK. We've got full power again," Rebound's voice said.

  "Good," Schofield said. "Good. Listen, if we take care of this last guy, do you think you can get a head start and make it to McMurdo?"

  "We'll get there."

  "All right, then," Schofield said as he looked down at Kirsty. "Stand by. You're about to get another passenger."

  Schofield got Renshaw to pull his hovercraft alongside Rebound's transport. He wanted to put Kirsty on the transport and then send it on its way to McMurdo while he and Renshaw took care of the last British hovercraft.

  The two speeding hovercrafts came together.

  Both side doors slid open.

  Book appeared in the side door of Rebound's transport raft. Schofield stood with Kirsty in the door of the orange French hovercraft opposite him.

  The last British hovercraft hovered ominously behind them, two hundred yards astern.

  "OK, let's go," Book's voice said in Schofield's earpiece.

  Schofield said to Kirsty, "You ready?"

  "Uh-huh," she said.

  They stepped out onto the skirt together.

  In the cabin of the transport craft, Rebound was keeping a wary eye on the British hovercraft.

  It just seemed to sit there, watching them.

  "What are you doing, you son of a bitch?" Rebound said aloud.

  Book yelled, "OK, send her over!"

  Schofield and Kirsty edged forward, toward the edge of their hovercraft's skirt The wind buffeted them relentlessly.

  On the other skirt in front of them, Book reached for Kirsty's outstretched hands. Schofield held her from behind. The transfer was almost complete?

  And then suddenly Rebound's voice burst across their helmet intercoms: "Oh, fuck! It just launched!"


  Schofield and Book both snapped around at the same time.

  They saw the smoke trail first.

  It spiraled through the air. A thin white vapor trail.

  And in front of it... a missile.

  Its source?the last British hovercraft.

  It was another Milan antitank missile, and it stayed low, close to the ground. It rocketed through the air, covering the distance between them fast, and then suddenly, with shocking intensity, it slammed into the back of Schofield's orange hovercraft and detonated.

  The hovercraft jolted ferociously with the impact, and Schofield lost his grip on Kirsty and fell back into his hovercraft's cabin. As he fell backward he looked up, and the last thing he saw before he hit the floor of the cabin was a fleeting glimpse of Book?lunging forward, off balance? desperately trying to get hold of Kirsty's hands as she fell down in between the two speeding hovercrafts.

  Book and Kirsty fell.

  The black rubber skirt of one of the hovercrafts filled Book's field of vision as he tumbled down between the two hovercrafts.

  He held Kirsty by the hand, and as they fell he pulled her close to his body and rolled in the air so that when they hit the ground he would take the brunt of the fall.

  And then suddenly, concussively, they hit the speeding ground.

  "Book is down! Book is down!" Rebound's voice yelled loudly in Schofield's earpiece. "The little girl fell with him!"

  Schofield's hovercraft shot across the ice plain, totally out of control.

  The missile's impact to the rear of the hovercraft had destroyed its rear fan and half its tail rudder, causing the hovercraft to fishtail wildly and shoot left?and head straight for the cliff edge.

  Renshaw grappled desperately with the steering yoke, but with its tail rudder half-destroyed, the hovercraft would only turn left. Renshaw heaved on the steering yoke, and gradually the hovercraft began to turn in a slow, wide arc so that it was now careering across the cliff tops back toward Wilkes Ice Station!

  "Rebound!" Schofield yelled into his helmet mike, ignoring Renshaw's efforts to keep control of the hovercraft.

  "What?"

  "Get out of here!"

  "What!"

  Schofield said fiercely, "We've been hit bad over here! We're fucked; our game's over. Go! Get to McMurdo! Get help! You're the only chance we've got!"

  "But what about?"

  "Go!"

  "Yes, sir."

  At that moment, Renshaw said, "Ah, Lieutenant..."

  Schofield wasn't listening. He was watching Rebound's hovercraft as it sped away in the other direction, into the driving snow.

  Then he looked out through the side window of his destroyed hovercraft and saw in the distance a small dark lump on the ice plain.

  Book and Kirsty.

  "Lieutenant..."

  Schofield saw the last British hovercraft approach Book and Kirsty, saw it slow to a halt beside Book's doubled-over body. Black-clad men got out of the hovercraft

  Schofield just stared. "Damn."

  Beside him, Renshaw was wrestling with the steering yoke. "Lieutenant! Hold on!'

  At that moment, as Renshaw pulled on it, the steering yoke snapped and broke and suddenly the hovercraft spun laterally to the left and performed a slingshot, and in an instant Schofield and Renshaw were traveling backward again.

  "What the hell are you doing!" Schofield yelled.

  "I was trying to avoid that!' Renshaw yelled as he pointed out through the destroyed rear end of the hovercraft?the end that was now their leading edge.

  Schofield followed Renshaw's finger and his eyes widened.

  They were hurtling?in reverse?toward the edge of the cliff.

  "Why can't this fucking day just end," Schofield said.

  "I think it's about to," Renshaw said flatly.

  Schofield shoved Renshaw out of the driver's seat and slid into it. He began to pump the brake pedal.

  No response.

  The hovercraft continued to rush toward the edge.

  "I tried that!" Renshaw said. "No brakes!"

  The hovercraft raced toward the cliff edge, traveling backward, totally out of control.

  Schofield grabbed the broken steering vane. No steering either.

  They would have to jump?

  But the thought came too late.

  The cliff edge rushed toward them, too fast.

  And then all of a sudden they ran out of ground and Schofield felt his stomach lurch sickeningly as the hovercraft shot out from the cliff top and flew out at incredible speed into the clear, open sky.

  SIXTH INCURSION

  16 June 1635 hours

  The hovercraft fell through the air, rear end first.

  Inside the cabin, Schofield snapped around in his chair to look out through the shattered forward windshield of the hovercraft. He saw the cliff edge high above him getting smaller and smaller as it got farther and farther away.

  In the seat beside him, Renshaw was hyperventilating. "We're gonna die. We are really gonna die."

  The hovercraft went vertical?its tail pointing down, its nose pointing up?and suddenly Schofield saw nothing but sky.

  They were falling fast.

  Through the side window of the hovercraft, Schofield saw the vertical cliff face streaking past them at phenomenal speed.

  Schofield grabbed his Maghook and put his nose in Renshaw's face, silencing him. "Grab my waist and don't let go."

  Renshaw stopped his whimpering and stared at Schofield for a second. Then he quickly wrapped his arms around his waist. Schofield raised his Maghook above his head and fired it up through the destroyed forward windshield of the falling hovercraft.

  The Maghook shot through the air in a high arc?its steel grappling hook snapping open in midflight, its rope splaying out in a crazy, wobbling line behind it.

  The hook came down hard on the edge of the cliff top and then slid quickly backward toward the edge, its claws digging into the snow.

  The hovercraft continued to fall through the air, rear end first. The grappling hook found a purchase on the cliff top and suddenly it snapped to a halt and held, and its rope went instantly taut?

  ?and Schofield and Renshaw, at the other end of the rope, suddenly shot up out of the falling hovercraft.

  The hovercraft fell away beneath them?fell and fell? before it smashed loudly against the white-tipped waves one hundred and fifty feet below them.

  Schofield and Renshaw swung back in toward the cliff face. The hovercraft had launched itself a good distance from the cliff, so they had a long way to swing back, and when they hit the cliff face they hit it hard.

  The impact with the cliff jarred Renshaw's grip on Schofield's waist and he fell for an instant, grabbing Schofield's right foot at the very last moment.

  The two men hung there for a full minute, halfway down the sheer vertical cliff-face, neither one of them daring to move.

  "You still there?" Schofield asked.

  "Yeah," Renshaw said, petrified.

  "All right, I'm going to try and reel us up now," Schofield said, shifting his grip on his launcher slightly so that he could press down on the black button that reeled in the rope without collapsing the grappling hook.

  Schofield looked up at the cliff edge high above them. It must have been at least a hundred and fifty feet away. He figured they must be hanging at the full length of his Mag-hook's rope?

  It was then that Schofield saw him.

  A man. Standing up on the cliff top, peering out over the edge, looking down at them.

  Schofield froze.

  The man was wearing a black balaclava.

  And he was holding a machine gun in his hand.

  "Well?" Renshaw said from down near Schofield's feet. "What are you waiting for?" From his position, Renshaw wasn't able to see the SAS commando up on the cliff top. "We're not going up any more," Schofield said flatly, his eyes locked on the black-clad figure at the top of the cliff.

  "We're not?" Renshaw said. "What are you talking ab
out?"

  The SAS commando was looking directly down at Schofield now.

  Schofield swallowed. Then he glanced down at the smashing waves a hundred and fifty feet below him. When he looked up again, the SAS commando was pulling a long, glistening knife from its sheath. The commando then bent down over the Maghook's rope at the top of the cliff.

  "Oh, no," Schofield said.

  "Oh, no, what?" Renshaw said.

  "Are you ready to go for a ride?"

  "No," Renshaw said.

  Schofield said, "Breathe all the way down, and then at the last second, take a deep breath." That was what they told you when you jumped out of a moving helicopter into water. Schofield figured the same principle applied here.

  Schofield looked up again at the SAS commando at the top of the cliff. He was about to cut the rope.

  "All right," Schofield said. "Let's cut the crap. I'll be damned if I'm gonna wait for you to cut my rope. Renshaw, are you ready? We're going."

  And at that moment, Schofield pressed down twice on the trigger of the Maghook.

  At the top of the cliff the claws of the grappling hook responded immediately and collapsed inward, and in doing so they lost their purchase on the snow. The hook slithered out over the edge of the cliff, past the bewildered SAS commando, and Schofield, Renshaw, and the Maghook fell? together?down the cliff face and into the crashing waves of the Southern Ocean below.

  In the silence of the ice cavern, Libby Gant just stared at the semi-eaten bodies that lay draped over the rocks in front of her.

  Since they had arrived in the cavern about forty minutes ago, the others?Montana, Santa Cruz, and Sarah Hensleigh? had barely even looked at the bodies. They were all totally engrossed in the big black spacecraft on the other side of the underground cavern. They walked around it, under it, peered at its black metal wings, tried to look in through the smoked-glass canopy of its cockpit.

  After Schofield had informed Gant of the impending arrival of the British troops and his own plan to flee, she had set up two MP-5s on tripods, facing the pool at the end of the cavern. If the SAS tried to enter the cavern, she would pick them off one by one as they broke the surface.

  That had been half an hour ago.

  Even if the SAS had arrived at Wilkes Ice Station by now, it would still take them another hour to lower someone down in the diving bell and a further hour to swim up the underwater ice tunnel to the cavern.