Tobias Buckell - Arctic Rising

“I thought you flew normal patrols,” her father said. “I don’t understand. I thought you had taken on a less dangerous job. This isn’t the Sahara.”

The phone beeped. Anika looked at the incoming call. Commander Michel Claude, the phone blinked. “I thought so, too. But I have to go,” Anika said.

“You should call your mother,” he said quickly. Anika sat, letting the words roll past. “You are close enough to visit her. Whatever our pasts, she will have heard the news story. She will want to know her daughter is safe.”

Anika pursed her lips. “It was good to hear your voice. But my commander is calling. I have to go.”

“Well, be careful, Anika,” her father said. “And think about it.”

“I will,” Anika promised. Then she switched to the incoming call. She took a deep breath. “Commander?”

Michel sounded tired, his voice scratchy from lack of sleep. “Anika … I’m very sorry about this.…”

Anika’s stomach lurched. This couldn’t be good. “Commander?”

“I know you were just with him, but Tom passed. I’m so very sorry.”

Anika closed her eyes and bent over on the side of her bed. “I was just there. He seemed okay to me. He made jokes.”

“I saw him as well, Anika. But it happened.”

She gripped the phone and heard a piece of plastic in the case crack. There was no going back to bed. No time for curling up and waiting to process what had happened. “We need to hunt down these assholes who did this to us, Commander. They need to pay for what they did. I want to come in and do something; I don’t think I can sit here by myself.”

Michel paused for a moment. “You sure about that? You up for flying out to Resolute?”

Anika sat up. “What’s in Resolute?”

“They’ve found the Kosatka, trying to hide in the harbor with other ships. The U.S. Navy has a patrol boat there, and the local police have the crew in custody. Can you fly our Investigations Unit guys out there to participate in the interrogation? They might use you to ID any of the guys. If you can.”

“Of course I’ll do it.” She stood up.

“There’s a light jet being fueled up right now,” Michel said. “They’ll be waiting for you.”

Resolute hadn’t changed much in the last three months. It was still a mess of boxy prefab mini-skyscrapers. They all cluttered around the sloping gravel leading to the harbor, which jutted out of the boundary of rock and sea.

Another port deep in the Arctic Circle. Another island detached from the mainland of Canada, like Baffin. Just farther west. Most of these places were barely presences at the turn of the century. Forty years later, they were bursting with prefabs and activity. When the ice left, the Canadian North opened up. Once-tiny towns exploded, particularly once shipping traffic began to stream through the Northwest Passage, and ports rapidly built themselves up. Places that were actually on the Canadian mainland, like Bernard Harbour, Coppermine, Gjoa, and Taloyok, had become powerful economic and demographic engines that made Canada the lead of the so-called “Arctic Tiger” nations that benefitted from the warm polar oceans. The megalopolis Anchorage turned into had made Alaska one of the more powerful states in the U.S.A.

Anika stood for a moment on the helicopter deck on the back of an old U.S. Navy destroyer. Her blue UNPG flight suit kept her warm against the bitter wind.

She spotted the familiar bulk of the Kosatka at anchor among four other larger ships.

Her lips quirked. There it was. Like a shark hoisted out of water. She remembered why she feared it, and she remembered the attack. But now it was just this inert, still thing. It was nothing more than a ship at anchor.

The two very serious-looking UN Polar Guard special agents that she’d flown out to Resolute paused as they noticed her looking. Yves and Anton. French and Russian. Mirrored sunglasses. And not a smile between the two.

“Real fucking mess, no?” Anton said, taking off his glasses to reveal bright blue eyes.

Anika nodded. “Can we go inside to see them now?” Standing up here stewing about what happened wasn’t what she wanted to do. She needed to keep moving and to keep busy. To not think about Tom. Not think about Jenny, sitting on that bench in the hospital.

Yves pulled a cell phone down and pointed to a pair of uniformed Americans waiting for them. Yves, Anton, and Anika had been let aboard the destroyer, but in the time it had taken to fly out here, the whole thing had become some sort of jurisdictional mess, and they were stuck on the helicopter deck as everyone tried to figure out if they were allowed belowdecks.

The Americans had found the Kosatka trying to hide in the harbor. But the Canadians said it was their port the Kosatka was inside, and that the men should be handed over to them for charges. And of course, the UNPG wanted a piece. After all, it had been Anika and Tom shot of the sky.

Her special agents, usually used to internal investigations and smuggling prosecution, had spent the whole flight out making calls and arguing with people on the other side, trying to penetrate the international layers of bureaucracy involved.

“We can go in,” Yves said, nodding at the Americans. “We can interrogate, we can record. We cannot move prisoners.”

Anton swore in Russian, then gently grabbed Anika’s elbow. “You can stay out here, if you like. You don’t have to come inside. But it would be helpful for our cause if you ID them.”

He looked hopeful, but understanding at the same time. Giving her space to come to a decision of her own. No pressure here, said his body language. And yet, there was some tension. He was angry and keyed up. The attack on Anika was an attack on him.

Brothers in arms. The uniformed tribe. Anika suddenly had a lot of pissed off fellow guardspeople in blue wanting to lash back at whoever had done this.

Anika turned toward the pyramid-shaped stealthed superstructure of the destroyer and nodded. “I’m ready.”

A short man with a silvering mustache stepped out and waved them through. “Captain Martinez,” he said, introducing himself and quickly shaking hands. “Glad you were able to get out here. Come with me.”

Then it was down into the tight confines of the corridors. Everything gleamed: polished and clean. Shipshape navy. Hardly a speck of dirt, grease, or anything of the sort.

Anika stepped sideways past a seaman on his hands and knees, polishing a kickplate on a bulkhead door. Salutes were exchanged between the Americans in passing, and the group continued on through the metal warren, footsteps echoing on down ahead of them.

“My superiors view this as a justification of our presence,” Martinez was explaining to Anton. “Critics aren’t happy about diesel-burners chewing up fuel rations for force projection up here in the Circle, they think the fuel’s better kept in reserve. In case we ever do end up in a major conflict, we can’t afford to use it up.”

“That is what UNPG is for,” Anton grumbled.

“Yes, and the Canadian Guard, and Navy.” Martinez grinned back at us. “But brass thinks you guys are undermanned and the Arctic is a real Wild West sort of area: Northern Europe and Russia to Canada and Alaska smuggling, new drug trade routes, loosely monitored offshore drilling operations, ecoterrorists.”

“So your brass thinks, Alaskan coast is not enough, no?” Anton said. “Wild, Wild West gets your attention?”

“Yee-haw,” Martinez agreed.

“And you, what do you think?” Yves asked the captain.

Martinez scratched his beard and slowed down. He looked back at them. “I’m just trying to explain to you why you had such a hard time getting permission to come aboard and talk to the Kosatka ’s crew. One sailor shot at is just the same as any other to me, understand? I’m glad to burn fuel and hunt for the bastards, after what they did.”