Polar Quest

He checked his altimeter. It read 26,750 feet. Kilkenny calculated his distance to the ice sheet below to be little more than 15,000 feet, just under three miles. With a lift-to-drag ratio of five-to-one, Kilkenny knew he might squeeze roughly fifteen miles of travel out of his ram-air parachute before gravity finally brought him down. As far as he could see, there was nothing but an endless expanse of ice.

‘I’ll be damned if I’m going to die here,’ Kilkenny vowed. ‘Clear flight path display.’

The bright yellow line vanished.

‘Display map.’

The outline of Antarctica appeared on the heads-up display.

‘Zoom in thirty-mile radius of current position. Display all stations.’

The image on the heads-up display raced toward Kilkenny – a greatly accelerated version of his present descent – and stopped at the specified magnification. Two labeled dots appeared on the display, one to either side of the X that marked his position.

Not going there, Kilkenny thought, looking at the dot labeled LV on the right.

He shifted his gaze to the other side of the display; beside the second dot he saw the letters VOS: Vostok Research Station.

Kilkenny knew little about the Russian research station, other than that it was dilapidated and ran on a shoestring budget. He considered the possibility that the Russians might be responsible for shooting down Skier-98, but couldn’t think of a reason compelling enough for them to risk starting World War Three in Antarctica.

Even with the SEALskin suit to keep him warm, Kilkenny had no food or water and the nearest U.S. outpost was several hundred miles away. Eliminating a suicide march across Antarctica, Kilkenny’s list of survival options shrank to one.

‘Clear map,’ Kilkenny commanded. ‘Reset destination point to Vostok Station.’

The computer calculated a new flight path and projected it on the heads-up display.

‘Twenty-five miles to Vostok,’ Kilkenny read off the display. ‘I should be able to fly fifteen of it, but the last ten are going to be on foot.’

Kilkenny banked his chute sharply into a welcome tailwind. In the bright polar daylight, he raced over the nearly flat surface of stark white ice, quickly accelerating past forty miles per hour. The only sound he heard was the wind whistling around his body.

He quickly fell into a familiar pattern: checking his chute, the horizon, and his altimeter. Five hundred feet above the ice, Kilkenny pulled down on the right control toggle and gradually turned his canopy into the wind. As his speed dropped off, Kilkenny pulled down evenly on both toggles and studied the ground below. The ice was now rushing up toward him. His altimeter rapidly counted down his descent, quickly passing through two hundred feet.

At one hundred feet, Kilkenny momentarily eased up on the toggles. The chute surged forward and his rate of fall slowed. An instinct borne from experience took over, and, at precisely the right moment, he pulled the control toggles down as far as they would go, and gently touched down on the icy plain that covered Lake Vostok.

Quickly, before the wind grabbed it, he unbuckled his harness and deflated the ram-air chute. He stripped off his air tank and patted the knife sheath strapped to his right thigh.

In every direction, the landscape looked the same, and the sun’s peculiar path in the sky rendered it useless for navigation. Kilkenny turned around until the bright yellow line reappeared on his heads-up display, pointing the way toward Vostok Station.

He ran slowly at first, getting a feel for the terrain. The snow that covered the glacier was hard and fine like sand, and the wind sculpted it into rippling frozen waves. Kilkenny’s vision gradually narrowed, focusing only on the next thirty yards ahead and the holographic line that guided him.

Kilkenny pressed on at a deliberate pace, following his guideline and watching the distance readout count down the miles to Vostok Station. At 0.35 miles to go, Kilkenny was gradually able to discern man-made features in the Antarctic landscape. The GPS readout read at 78.5 degrees south latitude, 106.8 degrees east longitude.

The first structures that came into view were the antennas – a field of six to the left of the compound and a single taller one on the right. Closer to Vostok, Kilkenny came upon a small ridge in the snow that extended away in a straight line – a plowed runway.

‘Clear display,’ Kilkenny commanded.

Kilkenny glanced down the length of the smooth icy surface and saw some small drifts beginning to form. The few man-made ruts he saw in the runway looked like they had been there awhile, but he couldn’t tell just how long. He followed the runway until he reached the base of the tall antenna, then followed the plowed pathway into the station compound. Mounds of broken ice lay piled around the edges of the station, remnants of the Sisyphean effort by the Russians to keep their buildings from becoming entombed.

Ahead, a tower jutted upward from the one-story building that hunkered around its base. The tower groaned as the wind pressed against the rust-brown steel panels that enclosed its steel frame. Kilkenny remembered the drilling tower from the photographs he’d seen of Vostok Station while being briefed on the Ice Pick project – the Russians had used it to pull almost two miles of core samples from the glacier. Edging his way along the metal-paneled wall of the tower building, Kilkenny reached a small window beside the door. The interior of the building was dark and appeared uninhabited.

He moved up to the corner of the building and carefully studied the remainder of the station compound – a collection of rectangular structures hunkered down against the ice, their shape more a result of quick modular assembly rather than any aesthetic design. The once brightly colored building panels looked faded, aged by six months of extreme sun each year and abrasion from wind-borne particles of ice. Vostok Station was over forty years old and looked even older.

In the distance, Kilkenny saw the striped dome atop a small square building: a radar shack. He worked his way around the perimeter of Vostok Station, carefully moving from building to building to stay out of sight. When he reached the radar shack, he unsheathed his combat knife and tested the door handle. It turned easily.

Kilkenny stepped through the doorway into a large room illuminated by sunlight pouring through a small window. There was no one inside. He glanced at a few printouts spread across a worktable and found telemetry tracking data for high-altitude weather balloons. The dates on the printouts were several years old. Kilkenny stepped back outside and closed the door.

A steady stream of smoke flowed from the metal flue pipe that penetrated the roof of the building closest to the weather station. Thick black cables ran from the front of the building out onto poles and eventually to the other buildings.

Power house, Kilkenny concluded.

He carefully approached the power house, keeping an eye on the two large buildings set near it. He crept in the shadows alongside the building wall until his face was near the edge of a small window near the main door. Inside, he saw a man towel off his body and begin dressing.

A moment later, the door opened and a bundled figure walked stiffly outside. A white cloud issued from his face, a mix of steamy breath and burnt tobacco. Kilkenny reached out and grabbed hold of the man’s collar, and threw him down onto the ice. The man’s cigarette struck the ground with a hiss.

Kilkenny pinned the man with a knee to his chest. Dazed and frightened, the man looked up and saw his own face reflected in Kilkenny’s helmet.

‘Vy govarite poangltyski?’ Kilkenny demanded, his voice dry and raspy.

‘Yes,’ the man replied.

‘Great, because that’s about all the Russian I know. How many people are here?’

‘Nine, including myself. We are winter crew.’

‘Any military?’

‘Nyet, civilian all.’

Kilkenny saw a bewildered fear in the man’s eyes – the Russian had no idea why he was flat on his back with a knife held to his throat. Kilkenny patted the man down and found no weapons.

‘What’s your name?’ Kilkenny asked. in a more diplomatic tone.

‘Yasha.’

‘What is your job here?’

‘I am crew leader.’

‘Okay, Yasha, I’m going to let you up. If you shout or make any sudden movements, I will kill you,’ Kilkenny said matter-of-factly. ‘Understand?’

The Russian nodded. Kilkenny eased off and pulled him to his feet. They stood in silence for a moment, Yasha taking his first good look at his attacker.

‘Where are the others?’ Kilkenny asked.

‘In the living quarters,’ Yasha replied, pointing to one of the larger buildings.

‘Let’s get inside and round up your people.’

Yasha led him through an air lock and into the building. Once inside, the lanky Russian stripped off his bulky gloves and coat.

Yasha motioned to the left. ‘This way.’

The building had the look and feel of a rundown industrial warehouse overrun by urban squatters. Every available bit of space held a steel drum or crate or a piece of equipment, and the recycled air reeked of machine oil and cigarettes. In the galley four men sat at a long table eating and watching a video on an old television.

‘Yasha, tell them to stay where they are and put their hands on the table,’ Kilkenny commanded. ‘Then get the rest of your crew in here.’

The four men seated at the table turned at the sound of an unfamiliar voice. Yasha translated the orders and the men complied. None took their eyes off Kilkenny.Yasha then walked through a door on the opposite side of the room, shouted, and returned a moment later with four more men. Once the entire crew was seated, Kilkenny sheathed his combat knife.

Standing at the head of the table, Kilkenny removed his helmet and peeled off his balaclava. His thick red hair lay matted against his head and his freckled skin was flushed. He then took a pitcher of water from the table and took a long drink.

‘Who speaks English?’ Kilkenny asked, his throat less hoarse.

Several of the men turned to Yasha for a translation.

‘Only Mati, our radio operator, and I speak English,’ Yasha replied. ‘The rest speak only Russian.’

‘Then you two will have to translate for the others. My name is Nolan Kilkenny. Which one is Mati?’

‘I am,’ said a man with bushy black hair and spectacles.

‘Have there been any transmissions from LV Station in the past few hours?’

‘Just one. I overheard a report to McMurdo that the transport plane arrived.’

‘It didn’t,’ Kilkenny said bitterly.

‘What?’ Mati asked.

‘The transport that was to have picked up the crew at LV Station was destroyed not far from here by a surface-to-air missile.’

‘Not possible!’ Yasha shook his head. ‘International treaty bans all military weapons in Antarctica. Bringing missiles here would be insane.’

‘Apparently, someone doesn’t give a shit about the treaty,’ Kilkenny replied.

As soon as Mati translated what Kilkenny had said, the men at the table panicked and excitedly shouted questions at Yasha.

‘Hey!’ Kilkenny yelled, his voice booming over the others.

The Russians quieted, looking warily at Kilkenny.

‘What’s the problem?’ Kilkenny asked.

‘You are,’ Yasha replied. ‘You are an American soldier. When Mati tells them American plane was shot down, they think that maybe your country blames Russia and you’ve come to kill us.’

‘First, the missile was fired from LV Station and, from what I’ve seen of this place, you had nothing to do with it. Second, I’m here because this was the nearest shelter I could find. And third, I once was a soldier, but I’m a civilian now, and I won’t kill anyone – unless I have to.’

‘What you tell us makes no sense,’ Mati said. ‘How do you know that the plane was shot down? McMurdo believes it landed at LV Station. I heard Collins make the report.’

‘When a transport from McMurdo comes here, who reports its arrival?’ Kilkenny asked.

‘The pilot, but the aircraft that landed at LV had radio problems. That’s why Collins radioed in.’

‘I’m betting someone had a gun to his head while he was doing it.’

‘But how do you know the plane was shot down?’ Mati insisted.

‘Because I saw it. I was on the plane up until a few minutes before the missile was launched.’

‘What do you mean you were on the plane? How did you get off?’ Yasha asked.

‘Parachute. I was testing some new equipment, but that’s not important right now. The six other people on my plane were killed and someone has seized control of LV Station.’

‘Bozha moi,’ Yasha said, shocked. ‘These people, do you think they will come here?’

Kilkenny shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I have no idea who they are or what they’re after.’

Mati looked skeptically at Kilkenny. ‘So you flew in from McMurdo and just before your plane is to land at LV, you jumped out of it, yes?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Then how did you get here? LV is over sixty kilometers away.’

‘When I jumped I was only twenty-five miles, about forty klicks, from here,’ Kilkenny explained. ‘It was a high-altitude jump – I flew most of the way and covered the rest on foot with GPS. Finding my way across the ice wasn’t a problem.’

‘What you’re saying sounds crazy,’ Yasha said. ‘How do we know you’re telling us the truth?’

‘You don’t,’ Kilkenny fired back angrily. ‘But try to come up with a better explanation for how I got here.’

Kilkenny locked eyes with the station leader. He was tired, hungry, and irritable – a combination that left him dangerously close to punching the doubting man in the face.

‘If what you’ve said is true,’ Yasha said more diplomatically, ‘shouldn’t we contact McMurdo?’

‘No. If Mati overheard a radio message from Collins reporting that the plane landed safely – ‘

‘That is what I heard,’ Mati interjected.

‘Then,’ Kilkenny continued, ‘whoever did this is trying to maintain a fiction that nothing has happened. We have to assume that they’re monitoring communications, so if you contact McMurdo to report the downing of Skier-98, they’ll know their cover’s been blown. And that might piss them off enough to bring them here.’

‘How did they get a missile to LV?’ Mati asked. ‘Could they have smuggled something like that through McMurdo?’

‘McMurdo is not the only way into Antarctica,’ Yasha said.

‘The weapon they used wasn’t one of those small, shoulder-fired units,’ Kilkenny said. ‘My plane was shot down about twenty-five kilometers away from LV. To hit a target at that range requires some very serious hardware.’

‘Mati and I were at LV two days ago for a farewell meal with Philip and Nedra,’ Yasha said. ‘No one else was there and we saw nothing unusual. They must have flown this missile launcher in – a traverse from the coast would take too long. But why would anyone do this? LV has no strategic value, no precious metals or natural resources. It’s a scientific research station.’

‘It does have one thing of value – the Ice Pick probe. It’s jam-packed with exotic technology, and right now it’s all crated up and ready for the trip back to the States. This is the perfect time to steal it.’

‘But why did they shoot down your plane?’ Mati asked. ‘Why not just come in, take the probe, and leave?’

Kilkenny considered the question for a moment. ‘Because they don’t want anyone to know the probe was stolen. That message you overheard was to make McMurdo think my plane arrived safely. McMurdo will probably get another message about the time we’re scheduled to take off, and that’s the last anyone will hear of Skier-98. When the plane doesn’t arrive, they’ll assume it crashed somewhere on the way back.’

‘And the weather is getting too cold to search for survivors,’ Yasha added. ‘We battle all winter long to keep our buildings from being swallowed by the ice. By next October, they won’t be able to find any trace of your plane’s wreckage.’

Kilkenny envisioned the debris field left by Skier-98 on the polar plateau slowly disappearing into the ice. Had Kilkenny been aboard when the missile hit, the search teams wouldn’t know where to start to look.

‘What about Nedra and Philip?’ Mati asked. ‘What will happen to them?’

‘My guess is they’ll be killed as soon as the people who took LV Station are ready to leave.’

‘Those are good people,’ Mati said to Yasha. ‘We must tell McMurdo what has happened.’

‘You can’t,’ Kilkenny said sternly. ‘If you do, you’ll erase any usefulness Philip and Nedra may still have to their captors. And even if you could contact McMurdo quietly, there’s no time to bring in anyone to deal with this. My plane was scheduled to take off from LV in less than six hours.’

‘This is madness!’ Mati said angrily.

‘Yasha, you said that you and Mati were at LV Station two days ago. How did you get there, snowmobiles?’ Kilkenny asked.

‘No, those are too difficult to keep running here. Mati and I sail iceboats. We race them back in Russia. Here, we just practice. Why?’

‘There’s a chance we can get Philip and Nedra out of this alive, but I’ve got to get to LV Station fast.’

7

Yasha led the way toward one of the support buildings, followed by Kilkenny and Mati. When he grasped the lever handle and pulled, a brittle veneer of ice shattered as he opened the door.

‘Inside, please,’ Yasha said urgently.

The wind slammed the door behind them, knocking Yasha back. He flipped the switches by the door and a dozen fluorescent tubes flickered on. The building housed a large machine shop used to service the station’s equipment.

Yasha studied Kilkenny for a moment. ‘How much do you weigh? About eighty kilos?’

Kilkenny did the math in his head. ‘About that. Why?’

‘The masts and planks on our iceboats are designed to bend under our weight. You and Mati are about same weight and build. You should use his boat.’

‘It will bring you luck,’ Mati said. ‘It’s good Estonian boat. Everybody knows best iceboaters come from Estonia.’

Near a large overhead door, Kilkenny saw a pair of thirty-foot-long iceboats. The sleek, carbon-fiber hulls – fully enclosed with clear Plexiglas bubble canopies – looked more like F-18s than watercraft. From the stern of the iceboats, a broad plank sprang like an outrigger, ten feet to each side, at the ends of which were fixed runners. A third runner mounted on a pivot stood beneath the tapered nose of each iceboat, providing a means to steer the agile racers.

‘They are beautiful, no?’ Yasha said proudly as they approached the iceboats.

‘Very,’ Kilkenny replied. ‘I was expecting a DN boat.’

Yasha shook his head. ‘No, it’s too cold here for open cockpit. These are Skeeter Class.’

‘You know about iceboats?’ Mati asked with some surprise.

‘A little. I helped my grandfather build a few DN boats when I was a kid, but I sailed on water.’ Kilkenny ran his hand over the hull’s glossy white surface. ‘How fast?’

Mati grinned. ‘On smooth ice with a good wind, two-hundred-and-fifty kilometres per hour. Here, we sail on mix of rough ice and snow, so we have to use hybrid blade/ski runners. It’s not as fast as back home.’

‘Show me what I need to know.’

Mati slid the canopy forward along its tracks. Then he stripped off his parks and lay down on his back inside the cockpit of his dark blue iceboat. Mati’s body filled most of the long narrow cockpit, his shoulders almost touching the sides. ‘You steer with your feet to turn the front runner at the end of the springboard.’

‘Push left to go right?’ Kilkenny asked.

‘Yes.’ Mati grabbed the joystick mounted near his right hand. ‘Instead of lines, this operates electric winches for adjusting sail and stays. Push forward to let out sail and slow boat down; pull back to trim sail and increase speed. Pushing right will loosen the stays. This will allow mast and plank to bend more – good for acceleration. Pull joystick to left to tighten the stays – it will help point closer to wind. Doing this may also cause you to hike boat up on two runners, so be careful.’

‘Hiking boat is fun,’ Yasha added, ‘but you run risk of capsizing. Not good thing to do on ice.’

‘Joystick is spring-loaded,’ Mati continued, ‘so once you make adjustment, you can let go and the sail will stay where you set it. The art of iceboating is tuning mast and sail to match the conditions. Here, on left side, is small steering wheel. You use it to steer the boat when you run alongside, pushing boat to get it moving. You can also use wheel as a backup, if the foot-pedal steering fails.’

‘If it handles anything like my Windrunner, I should be fine.’

‘Our boats are equipped with small electric heater and GPS unit.’ Mati tapped a small, flat-display panel mounted beneath the front edge of the cockpit opening. ‘Yasha and I have made trip to LV several times over summer; route is programmed into the GPS.’

‘You will encounter cracks in the ice – don’t try to run parallel or you risk dropping runner into crack and wrecking boat,’ Yasha advised. ‘Just sail over them, perpendicular to the crack.’

‘How do I stop?’ Kilkenny asked.

‘Pull on this,’ Mati replied, pointing to a black T-shaped plastic handle mounted to the upper hull above his right leg. ‘Pull and hold. The brake drops from underside of boat and drags across the ice. When you let go, the brake will spring back up.’

Yasha crouched by the front runner. Near the tip of the combination blade/ski, Kilkenny saw a square metal hoop pin connected to the top of the runner. ‘Once you stop, point the boat into wind and set this brake in place.’ Yasha flipped the metal hope over the front of the runner. ‘It will keep boat from blowing away.’

Kilkenny and Yasha assisted Mati in preparing the ice-boat for a sail. Mati fine-tuned the seat to accommodate Kilkenny’s six-foot frame. Ten minutes later, they opened the overhead door on the leeward side of the building and carried Mati’s iceboat out into the Antarctic night. They then installed the thirty-foot fiberglass mast and unfurled the Dacron sails. When the boat was rigged, Yasha and Mati gave it a quick visual inspection.

‘You’re ready to go,’ Mati said.

‘Great. Mati, you’re my backup. Keep monitoring the radio for transmissions from LV. If you hear anything that sounds like a routine departure, that means I failed. Notify McMurdo immediately about what really happened.’

‘I understand. Good luck.’

‘Thanks for your help.’

Kilkenny climbed into the iceboat and pulled the bubble canopy over his head, then signaled that he was ready to go. Mati and Yasha began pushing the iceboat forward, the wind blowing a steady twenty knots from Kilkenny’s right. Beyond the protection of the building, Kilkenny’s sail fluttered as it filled with air. Once the sail caught hold of the wind, the Russians let go. Kilkenny quickly pulled away from Vostok Station, the bow aimed at the first way point.

As Kilkenny became more comfortable handling the iceboat, he trimmed the sail to pick up speed. The composite runners attacked the rough surface, alternating between gliding over and slicing through the granular particles of snow and ice. He was amazed at how quickly the sleek craft accelerated, and the zigzag pattern of his tacks kept him on course while using the wind to his advantage. Then, ahead, he caught sight of a small white cyclone forming on the ice.

‘Oh, shit!’ Kilkenny cursed.

The snow devil raced toward him, its turbulent winds snapping his sail wildly. The iceboat shuddered violently as the snow devil struck it broadside just behind the canopy. The collision broke the grip of the rear runners on the ice and threw the craft into a broach. Kilkenny’s shoulder slammed into the hull as the craft lurched into a spin. White rooster tails sprang from each of the runners as their honed edges scraped sideways across the ice.