Tobias Buckell - Arctic Rising

“Commander, someone cleared the Kosatka in Greenland, and I’m starting to think that was so that none of our spotters would think to give it a second scan for radiation,” she said. “I should have thought to try and get to a computer with clearance to follow that piece of the paper trail, before I went to Resolute. And then there’s the fact that my scatter camera data shows the radiation, but the readings backed up by satellite in the main UNPG database say something different. And then, tonight, someone tried to kill me for that scatter camera data.”

Claude sat for a long moment.

“Look,” Anika said, holding up her arms and raising her shirt under the jacket. “I didn’t just wipe out on my bike, someone tried to kill me tonight.”

“So you want me to help you find out who cleared the Kosatka ?”

“That’s it, then I leave.”

He held up his hands. “If you’ll let me stand up and get to my laptop, I can look up who cleared the ship for you. But you realize what you’ve done here? There is no more UNPG for you. This will be reported to the police.”

“I can’t trust anyone right now.” Anika pointed to his hands. “I won’t be untying you.”

He shrugged. “I’m a hunt-and-peck typist anyway.”

The laptop was in a leather satchel, and Claude carefully set it up on a small table in the middle of the kitchen.

It hurt to stand, Anika thought. She leaned against the table as Claude slowly logged in, typing with both hands bound and one finger extended.

“Do you have any painkillers?” she asked.

“Left drawer, facing the microwave.” Claude’s face was underlit by the bluish glow of the screen.

She turned to look in that direction and Claude jumped at her. He knocked the gun aside with his clubbed fists. It smacked the tile floor of the kitchen and skittered across the floor.

He shoved her back against the fridge, and Anika felt raw panic. Stupid mistake. He was going to kill her. He hadn’t been interested in looking anything up, he’d just been buying time.

Anika kneed him in the groin, and as he collapsed, she fought free. But he recovered and tackled her feet. Her cheek slapped the tile as she fell, dizzying her.

The kitchen briefly contracted to a point in her vision, and she sucked air as she tried to yank away.

“Don’t fight, damn it, Anika,” he grunted as she kicked him in the face.

She didn’t waste air on words, but grabbed the edge of a cabinet to pull herself onto the carpet. This was another fight-or-die situation. She was going to fight.

He yanked her back onto the tile by her feet. She was too bruised, too tired, to really stop him. She reached deep into her physical reserves, but all she could do was jab at his throat as he yanked her around and into a choke hold.

She flailed and kicked to get free, but his arms were bound. Once he had them around her, all he had to do was hang on.

He was going to kill her in much the same way she’d killed that other man tonight.

Slowly, Anika stopped kicking his shins.

And then, the stale air in her lungs overwhelming her, she slipped off into the painless dark.

It felt good, in that last second, to stop fighting and just surrender. She’d never done that before.

The smell of ammonia bubbled, then ripped through Anika’s sinuses to sledgehammer her awake.

She gasped and sat up, coughing and spitting, her eyes watering, shoving the small capsule someone had underneath her nose away with her hands.

Both her hands, she realized muzzily, because they were handcuffed.

A Polar Guard MP unwrapped a blood pressure cuff from her upper arm and folded it back into a small emergency medical kit he had on the floor of an SUV.

“Where am I?” Anika asked, her voice husky. She put her handcuffed hands up to her throat, feeling the bruising and tenderness where she’d been choked.

She took a reflexive, deep breath of cold, sweet air, and watched it puff out with all the apparent satisfaction of a smoker hitting a first puff early in the morning.

“On this fine morning, you’re on your way to lockup,” the MP said. Anika realized that the vehicle was in motion. She sat up with a grunt. All those bruises and pulled muscles screamed at her.

The road underneath changed from paved road to gravel. A familiar-enough transition. Anika could see the tips of base housing units.

“You’re getting court-martialed, at the least,” Claude said from the front of the SUV.

Anika pulled herself a bit higher, using the backs of the seats. “What about the attempt on my life for the data?” she asked. “And Greenland? Did you find out who cleared the Kosatka ? I don’t care what happens to me, just please don’t drop this.”

The MP driving the car looked over at the commander. “Damn. She sounds sincere, sir.”

“I know.” Claude’s voice sounded tired.

“Do you want to wait and let the big guys toss her place, or you still want to check it out?”

“Keep driving,” Claude said, and he pointed out the window. “There.”

They turned down the road and slowly approached Anika’s home, gravel crunching under the tires, and then stopped.

“What are we looking for?” the driver asked, as he opened the door.

“I don’t know.” Claude glanced back at Anika, then stepped out. “But we need to make sure she isn’t working for someone, or with someone.”

Anika rubbed her face. What was Claude up to? If he was genuinely not interested in killing her, then all this made sense. Or it could be he was looking for the scatter cam data.

She’d already made so many mistakes. She needed to think darkly, to assume the worst. And to plan for the worst.

What if he were planting something, and trying to get her locked up to get her out of the way?

And what was she going to do about any of it from the back of the SUV with handcuffs on?

Michel Claude and the driver opened the back of the SUV. “Come on, Addison,” Claude grunted, waving out the MP who’d acted as her medic. They kept their distance, and they had their guns in hand.

It wasn’t like Anika was going to be able to fight her way out through three armed men.

Particularly not in her current shape.

She watched the MP crawl out and stretch as he stood on the gravel, and saw the driver hand him his gun back. They were being very careful around her.

They shut the car door on her and walked off.

There were no handles on the inside to open it. Anika looked out. The three men were spreading out, one going around to her back door. Commander Claude and the driver approached her front door, guns ready.

Anika crawled out of the back of the SUV over the rear bench seat, grimacing in pain with every movement, and checked the doors. Unsurprisingly, no latches again. And there was a metal grid bolted behind the front seats.

On her back in the seat, she thought for a second.

If she escaped, or tried to escape, it made her look guiltier.

But then, she didn’t know whether her commander was trying to lock her up for life or just following the book.

She gritted her teeth and kicked at the window.

Nothing happened.

Again, she tensed and kicked with her heels, and thought she heard a faint cracking sound.

She took a deep breath, and as her feet struck the glass again the world exploded in pieces of glass as every window in the vehicle blew out.

For a split second she didn’t understand. Then the waves of heat roiled through the vehicle and debris started raining down, plinking off the roof of the car like a spatter of hail in a quick, brief storm.

When she sat up she saw the fiery frame of her house slump slightly. Debris smoldered, scattered out onto the road and several rows of houses back. Shattered windows slumped in frames, some tinkling to the ground well after the explosion.