Ice Station (31 page)

As they turned into the tunnel that led to the central shaft,
Schofield heard someone shout, “Wait for me!”

It was Renshaw. He was hurrying as fast as his little legs would carry
him, racing around the curved outer tunnel toward Schofield and
Kirsty. He was dressed in a heavy blue parka, and he was carrying a
thick book under his arm.

“What the hell were you doing?” Schofield said.

“I had to get this,” Renshaw said, indicating the book under
his arm as he ran past Schofield and headed for the central well.

Schofield and Kirsty followed. “What the hell is in there
that's so important?” Schofield yelled.

Renshaw called back, “My innocence!”

Outside the station, snow was flying horizontally.

It assaulted Schofield's face—bounced off his silver
glasses—as he emerged from the main entrance with Kirsty and
Renshaw by his side.

Eight minutes to go.

Until the SAS arrived.

The two white Marine hovercrafts were already parked outside the main
entrance to the station. Book and Rebound stood beside the two big
vehicles, hustling the residents of Wilkes onto Rebound's white
hovercraft.

Schofield's plan was simple.

Rebound's hovercraft would be the transport. It held six people,
so it would be used to carry all of the residents of
Wilkes—Abby, Llewellyn, Harris, Robinson, and Kirsty— plus
Rebound himself.

Book and Schofield would ride shotgun, defending the transport craft
as it raced eastward and attempted to outrun the SAS hovercrafts
speeding toward Wilkes Ice Station.

Book would drive the second Marine hovercraft, Schofield the French
unit's orange hovercraft. James Renshaw, Schofield decided, would
ride with him.

Schofield saw Rebound slam the sliding door of his hovercraft, saw
Book leap up onto the skirt of his hovercraft and disappear inside the
cabin. Book reemerged a second later with a large black Samsonite
trunk in his hands and hurled the big black trunk across the snow
toward Schofield. It landed with a loud thud.

“Pest control!” Book called.

Schofield hurried toward the trunk.

“Here,” he said to Renshaw as he ran. “Put this
on.”

He handed Renshaw the Marine helmet that he had picked up on his way
out of the freezer room. Then he quickly picked up the big Samsonite
trunk and headed for the French hovercraft.

The French hovercraft sat silently in the snow outside the main
entrance to the station. Unlike the two white USMC hovercrafts, it was
painted a bright garish orange.

Seven minutes.

Schofield leaped up onto the skirt of the French hovercraft and yanked
open the sliding door. He got Renshaw to pass the big Samsonite trunk
up to him, and he threw it inside.

Schofield hurried into the cabin and made for the driver's chair.
Renshaw jumped in behind him and pulled the sliding door shut.

Schofield keyed the ignition.

The engine roared to life.

The big seven-foot fan at the rear of the hovercraft began to rotate.
It got faster and faster until, like the propeller on an old biplane,
it suddenly snapped into overdrive and became a rapidly spinning blur.

Beneath the hovercraft's black rubber skirt, four smaller
turbofans also kicked into action. The big hovercraft lifted slowly
off the ground as the skirt inflated like a balloon.

Schofield brought the big orange vehicle around so that it came
alongside the two white Marine hovercrafts. They were all pointing
outward, away from the station.

Looking out through the reinforced windscreen of his hovercraft,
Schofield could see the horizon to the southwest. It glowed a haunting
orange.

Superimposed upon it were a collection of dark shadows. Small black
boxes with fat rounded bases that seemed to kick up a haze of dust
behind them.

The British hovercrafts.

Closing in on Wilkes Ice Station.

“All right, people,” Schofield said into his helmet mike,
“Let's get out of here.”

The ground raced by beneath them.

The three American hovercrafts whipped across the ice plain at
phenomenal speed, side by side. Book and Schofield were on the
outside; Rebound's transport was in the middle.

They raced east, in the direction of McMurdo. The three hovercrafts
kept to the coastline, skirting around the edge of a cliff that
towered above an enormous bay-like expanse of water. From point to
point, the bay was about one mile across, but to go around it
by land required a trek of almost eight miles. The mountainous waves
of the Southern Ocean crashed loudly against the base of the cliffs.

As his hovercraft sped across the ice plain, Schofield looked behind
him. He saw the British hovercrafts approaching Wilkes Ice Station
from the west and the south.

“They must have landed at one of the Australian stations,”
he said over his helmet intercom. Casey Station, most likely, he
thought. It was the nearest one, about seven hundred miles due west of
Wilkes.

“Fucking Australians,” Rebound's voice said.

Five miles away, in the silent interior of a black American-made Bell
Textron SR.N7-S hovercraft, Brigadier General Trevor J. Barnaby stared
impassively out through the reinforced glass windshield of his
hovercraft.

Trevor Barnaby was a tall, solid man, fifty-six years old, with a
fully shaven head and a pointed black goatee. He stared out through
the windshield of his hovercraft with cold, hard eyes.

“You're running, Scarecrow,” he said aloud. “My,
my, you are a clever one.”

“They're heading east, sir,” a young SAS corporal
manning the radio console next to Barnaby said. “Out along the
coast”

“Send eight crafts after them,” Barnaby commanded.
“Kill them. Everyone else is to proceed to the station as
planned.”

“Yes, sir.”

The speedometer on Schofield's hovercraft edged over eighty miles
per hour. Snow pounded against the windshield.

“Sir, they're coming!” Rebound's voice
shouted over Schofield's helmet intercom.

Schofield's head snapped right and he saw them.

Several British hovercrafts had broken away from the main group and
were heading toward the three escaping American hovercrafts.

“The others are going for the station,” Book's
voice said.

“I know,” Schofield said. “I know.”

Schofield whirled around in the driver's seat. He saw Renshaw
standing in the back section of the cabin, looking slightly ridiculous
in Mitch Healy's oversized Marine helmet.

“Mr. Renshaw,” Schofield said.

“Yes.”

“Time to make yourself useful. See if you can open that trunk on
the floor there.”

Renshaw immediately dropped to his knees and flipped the latches on
the black Samsonite trunk that lay on the floor in front of him.

Schofield drove, turning around every few seconds to see how Renshaw
was faring with the trunk.

“Oh, shit,” Renshaw said as he opened the trunk and
saw what lay inside it.

At that moment, there came a sudden booming sound from outside and
Schofield snapped around again.

He knew that sound....

And then he saw it.

“Oh, no...,” he groaned.

The first missile slammed into the snow-covered ground right in
front of Schofield's speeding hovercraft.

It left a crater ten feet in diameter, and a split second later
Schofield's hovercraft screamed over the edge of the crater,
exploding through the dust cloud above it.

“Incoming!” Rebound's voice yelled.

“Get inland!” Schofleld called back as he caught sight of
the cliff edge about a hundred yards to his left. “Get away from
the edge!”

Schofield's head snapped around again as he spoke. He saw the
cluster of British hovercrafts behind him.

He also saw the second missile.

It was white and round, cylindrical, and it cut through the driving
snow in front of the lead British hovercraft, its spiraling smoke
trail looping through the air behind it. A Milan antitank missile.

Renshaw saw it, too. “Yikes!”

Schofield floored it.

But the missile was closing in too quickly. It angled in toward his
speeding hovercraft, fast.

Too fast.

And then suddenly, at the last moment, Schofield yanked hard on the
steering yoke of his hovercraft and the whole craft swerved
dramatically to the left, toward the cliff edge.

The missile shot across the bow of the speeding hovercraft and
Schofield instinctively swerved back right and the missile slammed
into the snow off to his left, exploding in a spectacular shower of
white.

Schofield immediately swung back left, just as a second missile
slammed into the snow-covered earth right next to him.

“Keep swerving!” he yelled into his helmet mike.
“Don't let them get a lock on you!”

The three American hovercrafts all began to swerve as one as they
rocketed across the flat Antarctic landscape, the hailstorm of
unguided British missiles slamming down into the snow all around them.
Deafening explosions filled the air. Massive gouts of snow and earth
erupted from the ground.

Schofield fought desperately with the steering yoke of his hovercraft.
The hovercraft screamed across the ice plain, a juggernaut out of
control, ducking and swerving as it avoided the missiles that rained
down all around it.

“The trunk!” Schofield yelled to Renshaw.
“The trunk!”

“Right!” Renshaw said. He lifted a compact black tube out of
the Samsonite trunk. It was about five feet long.

“All right,” Schofield said as he yanked hard on the
steering yoke to avoid another screaming British missile. The
hovercraft rocked sharply as it swung hard to the right. Renshaw lost
his balance and fell against the wall of the cabin.

“Lock the tube onto the gripstock!” Schofield yelled.

Renshaw found the gripstock in the trunk. It looked like a gun without
a barrel—just the grip and the trigger and a stock that you
rested on your shoulder. The compact cylindrical tube clicked firmly
into place on the top of the gripstock.

“All right, Mr. Renshaw. You just made yourself a Stinger missile
launcher! Now use it!”

“How?”

“Open the door! Put it on your shoulder! Point it at the bad
guys, and when you hear the tone, pull the trigger! It'll do the
rest!”

“OK...,” Renshaw said doubtfully.

Renshaw yanked open the right-hand sliding door of the hovercraft.
Screaming Antarctic wind instantly invaded the interior of the craft.
Renshaw struggled against it, forced his way toward the open door.

He rested the Stinger on his shoulder, shuffled it so that his eyes
settled into its sights. Through the night-sights, he saw the lead
British hovercraft from head-on, caught between a pair of crosshairs.
The British hovercraft glowed green—

And then suddenly Renshaw heard a dull buzzing sound.

“I hear the tone!” he yelled excitedly.

“Then pull the trigger!” Schofield called back.

Renshaw pulled the trigger.

The recoil of the Stinger sent Renshaw flying back onto the floor of
the cabin.

The missile shot forward from its launcher. The back-blast—the
sudden explosive burst of fire that shoots out the back of a rocket
launcher when it is fired—shattered the windows behind Renshaw.

Schofield watched as the Stinger spiraled through the air toward the
lead British hovercraft. Its smoke trail looped gracefully through the
air behind it, revealing its flight path.

“Good night,” Schofield said.

The Stinger slammed into the lead British hovercraft and the
hovercraft exploded instantly, shattered into a thousand pieces.

The other British hovercrafts continued relentlessly forward, ignoring
their fallen comrade. One of the rear ones just shot straight
through the burning remains of the exploded lead hovercraft.

“Good shot, Mr. Renshaw!” Schofield said.

In the cabin behind Schofield, Renshaw awkwardly got to his feet. Once
he had regained his balance, he looked out through the side door of
the hovercraft and saw the fiery remains of the British hovercraft he
had destroyed.

“Yikes,” he said softly.

The seven remaining British hovercrafts closed
in.

“Book!” Rebound's voice yelled. “I
need help over here!”

“Hang on! I'm coming over!” Book yelled as he yanked on
the steering yoke of his LCAC.

Book's hovercraft swung right—around and behind
Rebound's transport—and slammed hard into the side
of the first British hovercraft. Both crafts bounced wildly off each
other as they careered across the ice plain.

Book pushed open one of his side windows with the barrel of his MP-5
and was about to fire on the black hovercraft racing alongside him
when suddenly it filled with light and every one of its reinforced
glass windows shattered as one and blew out of their frames.

Book watched in amazement as the British hovercraft exploded into
flames and fell away behind him. Then he looked over his shoulder and
saw Schofield's orange hovercraft sweep around behind him. The
smoke trail of a Stinger still lingered in the air in front of it.

“Thanks, Scare—”

“Book! Watch your left!” Schofield's voice
shouted.

The impact knocked Book sideways through the air and the world tilted
crazily as his hovercraft was lifted off the ground by the stunning
impact, and then suddenly—whump— the big
hovercraft thudded back down to earth without any loss of speed.

Book was totally disoriented. He was trying to climb back into the
driver's seat when another smashing impact rocked his hovercraft
again, this time from the right.

“Scarecrow!” he yelled. “—I'm in
a lot of trouble here!”

“I see you, Book! I see you! I'm coming!” Schofield
peered out through the snow-streaked windshield of his own speeding
hovercraft.

He saw Book's hovercraft, racing forward across the ice plain in
front of him. On each side of it was a black British hovercraft,
taking turns ramming it hard.