Ice Station ss-1

by Matthew Reilly

  "Are you OK?" he said.

  "I got wet again," Kirsty replied sourly.

  "So did I," Schofield said as he spun around and saw Trevor Barnaby swimming frantically for the diving bell.

  Schofield looked up at the ice station above him. It was silent. There were no more SAS commandos left. It was only Barnaby now. And whoever Barnaby had already sent down to the cavern.

  "Get a blanket and stay warm," Schofield said to Kirsty. "And don't go upstairs until I come back."

  "Where are you going?"

  "After him" Schofield said, pointing at Barnaby.

  Trevor Barnaby surfaced inside the diving bell, where he was greeted by the barrel of Schofield's .45-caliber Desert Eagle automatic pistol.

  James Renshaw gripped the pistol with both hands, pointed it at Barnaby's head. He was holding the gun so tightly, his knuckles were turning white.

  "Don't fucking move, mister," Renshaw said.

  Barnaby just looked up at the little man standing inside the diving bell. The little man was wearing some really old kind of scuba gear, and he was clearly nervous. Barnaby looked at the gun in Renshaw's hand and he laughed.

  Then he brought his own gun up from under the water.

  Renshaw pulled the trigger on his Desert Eagle.

  Click!

  "Huh?" Renshaw said.

  "You have to chamber a round first," Barnaby said as he raised his own pistol at Renshaw.

  Renshaw saw what was coming, and with a short squeal he jumped down into the water next to Barnaby?scuba gear and all?and disappeared underwater.

  Barnaby climbed up into the diving bell and made straight for the dive controls. He didn't waste any time. He blew the ballast tanks immediately. The diving bell began to descend.

  Up on E-deck, Schofield saw the ballast tanks blow.

  Shit, he's going down already, he thought as he came to a halt next to one of the rung-ladders. He had planned to go up to the winch controls on C-deck and stop the diving bell from there?

  And then at that moment, there came a monstrous noise from somewhere up above him.

  Snap-twangggg!

  Schofield looked up just in time to see the cable that held up the diving bell?frozen solid by the liquid nitrogen?contract and crack for the final time.

  The frozen cable snapped.

  The diving bell submerged.

  Schofield's mouth fell open. Then he ran.

  Ran as fast as he could. Toward the pool. Because now this would be the last trip the diving bell would be making to the underwater tunnel and it was the only way to get to the cavern and if Barnaby were to get there and the Marines down there were already dead, then the British would have the spaceship and the battle would be lost, and Schofield bad come too fucking far to lose everything now?

  Schofield hit the edge of the deck running and dived high into the air, just as the diving bell disappeared under the surface.

  After penetrating the water, Schofield shot downward.

  And then he swam. Hard. With strong, powerful strokes, chasing the descending diving bell.

  Now free of its winch cable, the diving bell began to sink fast and Schofield had to use all of his strength to catch it He came close, reached out, and... grabbed the piping that ran around the exterior of the diving bell.

  Inside the diving bell, Barnaby holstered his gun and pulled out his detonation unit.

  He checked the time. 8:37 p.m.

  Then he set the timer on the detonation unit. He gave himself two hours, enough time to get to the underground cavern. It was crucial that he be down there when the ring of Tritonal charges surrounding Wilkes Ice Station went off.

  Barnaby then pulled his Navistar Global Positioning System transponder from his pocket and hit the transmit button.

  Barnaby smiled as he put the GPS transponder back into his pocket. Despite the loss of his men up in the station, his plan?his original plan?was still on track.

  When the eighteen Tritonal charges went off, Wilkes Ice Station would float out to sea on a newly formed iceberg. Then, thanks to Barnaby's GPS receiver, British rescue forces?and British rescue forces alone?would know exactly where to find the iceberg, the station, Barnaby himself, and, most important of all, the spaceship.

  The diving bell fell downward through the water?fast?with Shane Schofield clutching onto the piping on top of it.

  Slowly, hand over hand, Schofield made his way down the side of the falling diving bell. The big bell rocked and swayed as it careered downward through the water, but Schofield held on.

  And then, at last, he came to the base of the bell and swung himself under it.

  Schofield burst up inside the diving bell.

  He saw Barnaby right away, saw the detonation unit in his hand.

  Barnaby whirled around and drew his gun, but Schofield was already launching himself out of the water. Schofield's fist shot up out of the water and slammed into Barnaby's wrist. Barnaby's gun hand popped open in a reflex and the gun flew out of it and clattered to the deck.

  Schofield's feet found the deck of the diving bell just as Barnaby crash-tackled him. The two men slammed into the curved interior wall of the bell. Schofield tried to kick Barnaby away from him, but the British commander was too skilled a fighter. Barnaby crunched him against the wall and let fly with a powerful kick. His steel-capped boot connected with Schofield's cheek, and Schofield flailed backward and felt his face slam up against the cold glass of one of the portholes of the diving bell.

  At that moment?and for just a split second?Schofield saw the glass of the porthole in front of him, saw a thin crack begin to form in the glass right in front of his eyes.

  But he didn't have time to ponder that. Barnaby kicked him again. And again. And again. Schofield fell to the deck.

  "You never give up, do you," Barnaby said as he lay the boot into Schofield. "You never give up."

  "This is my station," Schofield said through clenched teeth.

  Another kick. The steel cap of Barnaby's boot slammed into the rib that Schofield had broken during his fight with the SAS commando in the hovercraft earlier. Schofield roared in agony.

  "It's not your station anymore, Scarecrow."

  Barnaby kicked at Schofield again, but this time Schofield rolled out of the way and Barnaby's boot hit the steel wall of the diving bell.

  Schofield kept rolling until he came up against the metal rim of the pool at the base of the diving bell.

  And then suddenly he saw it.

  The harpoon gun.

  The harpoon gun that he had taken from Little America IV. It was just lying there on the deck, right in front of his eyes.

  Off-balance, Schofield reached for the harpoon gun just as Barnaby leaped down onto the deck in front of him and let fly with a brutal side-kick.

  The kick connected and Schofield fell?harpoon gun and all?off the deck and into the small pool of water at the base of the diving bell, and suddenly he found himself outside the falling diving bell!

  The diving bell plummeted past him and Schofield reached out with his left hand and caught hold of a pipe on the side of it as it rushed past him and suddenly he was yanked downward.

  Schofield kept ahold of the harpoon gun as he wrapped one of his legs around the exterior piping of the falling diving bell. He could only guess how deep they had fallen.

  A hundred feet? Two hundred feet?

  He peered in through one of the small round portholes of the diving bell. This porthole also had a thin white crack running across it.

  Schofield saw the crack and suddenly he realized what it was. The liquid nitrogen that had splattered against the diving bell up in the station was contracting the porthole's glass, weakening it, causing it to crack.

  He saw Barnaby inside the diving bell, saw him standing on the small metal deck, saluting at Schofield, waving his detonation unit at him, as if it were all over.

  But it wasn't over.

  Schofield stared at Barnaby through the porthole.

  And
then, as he looked at Barnaby from outside the diving bell, Schofield did a strange thing, and in an instant the smile vanished from Barnaby's face.

  Schofield had raised his harpoon gun?

  ?and pointed it at the cracked porthole.

  Barnaby saw it a second too late and Schofield saw the British general step across the diving bell and scream, "No!" just as Schofield pulled the trigger on the harpoon gun and the harpoon shot straight through the cracked glass of the diving bell's porthole.

  The result was instantaneous.

  The harpoon shot through the cracked glass of the porthole, puncturing the high-pressure atmosphere of the diving bell. With the integrity of the diving bell lost, the immense weight of the ocean pressing in all around it suddenly became overwhelming.

  The diving bell imploded.

  Its spherical walls came rushing inward at phenomenal speed as the colossal pressure of the ocean crushed it like a paper cup. Trevor Barnaby?Brigadier General Trevor J. Bar-naby of Her Majesty's SAS?was crushed to death in a single pulverizing instant.

  Shane Schofield just hung there in the water as he watched the remains of the diving bell sink into the darkness.

  Barnaby was dead. The SAS were all dead.

  He had the station back

  And then he had another thought and a wave of panic swept over him. He was still a hundred feet below the surface. He would never be able to hold his breath long enough to get back up.

  Oh, Jesus, no.

  No....

  At that moment, Schofield saw a hand appear in front of his face and he almost jumped out of his skin because he thought it must have been Barnaby, that Barnaby had somehow managed to escape from the diving bell a second before it had?

  But it wasn't Trevor Barnaby.

  It was James Renshaw.

  Hovering in the water above Schofield, breathing through his thirty-year-old scuba gear.

  He was offering Schofield his mouthpiece.

  It was 9:00 p.m. when Schofield stepped back up onto E-deck.

  It was 9:40 by the time he had searched the station from top to bottom, searching for any SAS commandos who might still have been alive. There weren't any. Schofield picked up various weapons as he went?an MP-5, a couple of nitrogen charges. He also got his Desert Eagle back from Renshaw.

  He also looked for Mother, but there was no sign of her.

  No sign at all.

  Schofield even looked inside the dumbwaiter that ran between the different decks, but Mother wasn't inside it either.

  Mother was nowhere to be found.

  Schofield sat down on the edge of the pool on E-deck, exhausted. It had now been more than twenty-four hours since he had last slept and he was beginning to feel it.

  Beside him, Renshaw's scuba gear from Little America IV lay dumped on the deck, dripping. It still had the long length of steel cable tied to it?the cable that stretched back down through the water, down under the ice shelf and out to sea, back to the abandoned station in the iceberg about a mile off the coast Schofield shook his head as he looked at the ancient scuba gear. Behind him on the deck sat one of the British team's sea sleds?a sleek, ultramodern unit. The exact opposite of Little America IV's primitive scuba gear.

  Renshaw was upstairs in his room on B-deck, getting some bandages, scissors, and disinfectant to use on Schofield's wounds.

  Kirsty was standing on the deck behind Schofield, watching him, concerned. Schofield took a deep breath and shut his eyes. Then he grabbed his nose and?craaaack?his broken nose went back into place.

  Kirsty winced. "Doesn't that hurt?"

  Schofield grimaced and nodded. "A lot."

  Just then, there came a loud splash and Schofield spun around just in time to see Wendy burst up out of the water and land on the metal deck. She loped over to him and Schofield patted her on the head. Wendy immediately rolled over onto her back and got him to pat her on the belly. Schofield did so. Behind him, Kirsty smiled.

  Schofield looked down at his watch.

  9:44 p.m.

  He thought about the breaks in the solar flare that Abby Sinclair had told him about earlier.

  Abby had said that breaks in the flare would be passing over Wilkes Ice Station at 7:30 p.m. and 10:00 p.m.

  Well, he'd missed the 7:30 break.

  But there were still sixteen minutes until the last break passed over the station at 10:00 p.m. He'd try to get on a radio then and call McMurdo.

  He sighed, turned around. He had some things to do before then, though.

  He saw a Marine helmet on the deck. Snake's, he guessed. Schofield reached over and grabbed it, put it on his head.

  He then positioned the helmet's microphone in front of his mouth. "Marines, this is Scarecrow. Montana. Fox. Santa Cruz. Do you copy?"

  At first there was no reply; then suddenly Schofield heard, "Scarecrow? Is that you?"

  It was Gant. "Where are you?" she said.

  "I'm up in the station."

  "What about the SAS?"

  "Killed 'em. Got my station back. What about you? I saw that Barnaby sent a team down there."

  "We had a little help, but we took care of them without any losses. Everyone's accounted for. Scarecrow, we have got a lot to talk about."

  Down in the ice cavern, Libby Gant looked out from behind the horizontal fissure.

  After the short-lived battle with the British dive team, she and the others had retreated to the fissure, not to get away from the SAS commandos?they were all dead?but rather to get away from the giant elephant seals that had begun to prowl around the cavern after gorging themselves on the SAS troops. Right now, Gant saw, the seals were clustered around the big black ship, like campers gathered around a campfire.

  "Like what?" Schofield's voice said.

  "Like a spaceship that isn't a spaceship," Gant said.

  "Tell me about it," Schofield said wearily.

  Gant quickly told him about what she had found. About the "spaceship" itself and the keypad on it, about the hangar and the diary and the earthquake that had buried the whole station deep within the earth. It looked like a top-secret military project of some sort?the secret construction by the U.S. Air Force of some special kind of attack plane. Gant also mentioned the reference in the diary to a plutonium core inside the plane.

  Then she told Schofield about the elephant seals and the bodies inside the cave and how the seals had cut down the SAS troops as they had emerged from the water. Their viciousness, Gant said, was shocking.

  Schofield took it all in silently.

  He then told Gant of the elephant seal that he had seen earlier on the monitor inside Renshaw's room, told her about the abnormally large lower canines that protruded up from its lower jaw like a pair of inverted fangs. As he spoke, an image formed in his mind?an image of the dead killer whale they had seen surface earlier; it had had two long tearing gashes going all the way down its belly.

  "We saw a couple of seals with teeth like that, too," Gant said. "Smaller ones, though. Juvenile males. The one you saw must have been the bull. From what you're saying, though, it seems like only the males have large lower canines."

  Schofield paused at that. "Yes."

  And then at that moment, something clicked inside his head. Something about why only the male elephant seals had abnormally large lower teeth.

  If the spaceship really had a plutonium core inside it, then it was a good bet that that core was slowly emitting passive radiation. Not a leak. Just passive ambient radiation, which occurred with any nuclear device. If the elephant seals had set up a nest near the ship, then over time the passive radiation from the plutonium might have had an effect on the male seals.

  Schofield remembered seeing the infamous Rodriguez Report about passive radiation near an old nuclear weapons facility in the desert in New Mexico. In nearby towns, there were found to be unusually high instances of genetic abnormality. There were also found to be strikingly higher instances of such abnormalities in men than in women. Elongated fingers was a com
mon mutation. Elongated dentures was another. Teeth. The writers of the report had linked the higher incidence of genetic abnormalities in men to testosterone, the male hormone.

  Perhaps, he Schofield thought that was what had happened here.

  And then suddenly he had another thought. A more disturbing thought.

  "Gant, when did the SAS team arrive in the cave?"

  "I'm not sure, somewhere around eight o'clock, I think."

  "And when did you arrive in the cave?"

  "We left the diving bell at 1410 hours. Then it took us another hour or so to swim up the tunnel. So I'd say about three o'clock."

  Eight o'clock. Three o'clock.

  Schofield wondered when the original team of divers from Wilkes Ice Station had gone down to the cave. There was something there, something that he couldn't quite put his finger on just yet. But it might have been able to explain ...

  Schofield looked at his watch.

  9:50 p.m.

  Shit, time to go.

  "Gant, listen; I have to go. There's a window in the solar flare coming over the station in ten minutes and I have to use it. If you and the others are safe down there, do me a favor and look around that hangar. Find out everything you can about that plane, OK?"

  "You bet."

  Schofield clicked off. But no sooner had he done so than he heard a voice from somewhere high up in the station.

  "Lieutenant!"

  Schofield looked up. It was Renshaw. He was up on B-deck. "Hey! Lieutenant!" he shouted.

  "What?"

  "I think you better see this!"

  Schofield and Kirsty entered Renshaw's room through the square hole in the door.

  Renshaw was standing over by his computer.

  "It's been on all day," Renshaw said to Schofield, "but I only looked at it just now. It said I had new mail, so I brought up my e-mail screen and had a look. It came in at 7:32 p.m. and it's from some guy in New Mexico named Andrew Wilcox."

  "What's it got to do with me?" Schofield said. He didn't even know anyone named Andrew Wilcox.

  "Well, that's the thing, Lieutenant. It's addressed to you."