Allan Ashinoff - The Vostok Revelation

“We are not the creative ones! It was our ancestors who were creative!” Xi’s voice echoed again in the vaulted meeting chamber. “Our ancestors had the heart and spirit we lack. We are merely living off their ingenuity, following a routine that they created. They built those fantastic ships, the incredible devices we depend on for everything we do, and the towering cities we live in today. They created the fabrication machines and provided the blueprints for the interplanetary transmitter. Think about it Ka’Na, what have we really done? What have we added to this grand project… nothing! And yet we take pride in doing maintenance? In pushing buttons and waiting? Can you not see the danger this path holds?”

“What I see,” Ka’Na began, noticing that the council chamber door had opened slightly behind his former colleague, “is an incredibly smart megalomaniac who has rationalized the taking of lives and the application of terror in a desperate attempt to validate his argument. You are sick Xi Bharata. In your sickness you have murdered thousands of innocent people. You have dishonored yourself and your family. You have become a butcher, a murderer, a terrorist, and a tyrant. Surely, you will be executed for all you have done.”

As Ka’Na finished his assessment and before Xi could respond, a dozen palace guards in full riot gear, each wielding a fully charged stun baton, burst into the chamber and rushed toward the armed intruder. Surprised, Xi turned with a ferocious grin to face his assailants. As he began to assume a defensive posture, the tip of a stun baton touched the blade of his sword, sending a jolt of electricity racing up his arm, knocking him unconscious. Ka’Na watched as the guards collected Xi’s limp body and dragged him from the council chamber.

Alone again, Ka’Na disabled the force barrier. He crouched to study the horror frozen in the vacant eyes of Re’Na Tan, the elderly security guard who had watched over the entrance to the Crystal Palace for the last fifteen years. Sadness overtook him. He and Xi, both knew this man. Yet, Xi took the old man’s life without cause or reason.

Nothing about Xi’s assault on the Committee Council Chamber made any sense.

Vostok Station, Antarctica (78°27′ S 106°52′ E). February 24, 2014. 1300 Hours.

Peering through a window from the warmth of the storage shed, Artur Solovyov watched as the blue Kamov helicopter descended slowly toward the area of compacted snow, which acted as the stations landing pad, roughly forty-five meters from where he stood.

This helicopter was the last before the winter season set in. It was to deliver much needed supplies for the thirteen people who would remain at Vostok Station throughout the winter season and extract the remaining twelve who were headed home. At the behest of the Russian Academy of Science in Moscow, the crew’s departure would be delayed up to seventy-two hours to accommodate the delivery and deployment of the stations newest asset — a swimmer mini-drone specifically engineered to overcome the unique obstacles presented by Lake Vostok. Accompanying the new drone was the device’s mechanical engineer, an attractive woman from the Russian Academy of Science at Irkutsk named Elena Babanin. Apparently the RAS believed that her drone and the information it could provide outweighed the risk of potentially stranding twenty-five people in Antarctica for the winter with provisions designed to sustain only a twelve-man crew.

Artur watched the helicopter gently set its tires on the landing pad. Instantly, the side door opened and three androgynous figures bundled in orange parkas, thick black pants, mid-calf black boots and mittens stepped out into the frigid Antarctic environment and quickly began making their way toward the storage building. Behind them, Artur could see two more people, clothed in dark blue parkas, exit the helicopter and begin offloading the supplemental supplies that would help to carry the station’s skeleton crew through the winter.

“Elena,” Artur said to himself, eying the orange-clad shape that was dragging a large metallic suitcase across the compacted snow with some degree of difficulty. A winsome smile spread across his bearded face as he recalled the picture of Elena Babanin from the Academy of Science at Irkutsk’s website. According to her online profile, Babanin was an accomplished mathematician and mechanical engineer credited with designing several highly successful drones and probes for Russia’s deep drilling projects in the Arctic Circle and near the island of Cuba. But it wasn’t her intelligence that made many of the men at the remote station look forward to her arrival. After four months of looking at the same two-dozen weatherworn faces, the combination of the woman’s high cheekbones, shoulder length jet-black hair, and hazel-gray eyes helped to overlook some of the risk of lingering so close to the departure deadline.

Artur could no longer see the orange parkas as they drew closer to the storage building. He began toward a certain stack of boxes placed near storage bay’s far wall. He navigated the labyrinth of columns formed by the many pallets of supplies, keeping an eye of the three yellow lights above the chamber door. The first light was already lit — the external door had been opened. By the time he reached the boxes and withdrew the stations final bottle of зеленая марка (green mark) vodka the first bulb had been extinguished and the second bulb, the one indicating that the party was in the buffer room removing their heavier outer garments, had lit. Artur knew there was only seconds remaining before the third light would come on and the party would enter the warehouse. He hurried back through the maze of palleted boxes to welcome the new arrivals.

“приветствовать (welcome) to Vostok Station! I am Artur Solovyov, Vostok Stations chief electrician and secondary diving officer.” Artur said with a wide smile that, because of his thick brown beard, made him look more like a bear than a man. Without hesitation he leaned forward to relieve Elena Babanin of her heavy suitcase. But Elena Babanin, with an icy glare, jerked the suitcase away from his hand.

“I’ve been told the window to deploy my drone is somewhat erratic. It is better not to waste time,” She said flatly. “Let us go inside.”

“Very well,” Artursaid in a tone more serious and professional than he’d used in many months. “I’ll take you to Commander Lebedev at once.”

“No, take me to the drill tower,” Elena Babanin said authoritatively. “Inform the Commander that we have arrived and where we will be.”

“Very well,” Artur replied.

“I will need you to help Losif attach my drone to a redundant power source,” Babanin commanded Artur as he led them through the narrow corridors. “After power is established, Anton will need the assistance of your communications officer to attach the drone to the station’s satellite up-link. The faster these things are done, the faster we can all leave this place and the sooner I can conduct my work.”

“Understood,” Artur replied.

In under an hour Elena Babanin, having traveled nearly nine-thousand miles in less than a week, was standing in cramped quarters of the Vostok Station drill chamber, unpacking her swimmer mini-drone and preparing it to be lowered into the five-inch, two-mile deep, kerosene and antifreeze filled bore hole that took her country more than two decades to complete. Now, two years after the lake had been breached there was still very little data despite four drone deployments. Although its initial water samples had been taken to Moscow for analysis, there was still insufficient information about what may have created the largest sub-glacial lake on the subcontinent. Aside from theories, Lake Vostok was as much a mystery today as the day it was breached. It was for this reason that Elena pushed for her drone’s immediate deployment. If she, as an engineer, could succeed where others had failed, she would no longer be denied the respect she deserved from Ministers at the Russian Academy of Science.