Adam Baker - Outpost

Ghost gave a thumbs up and passed out.

‘Let’s get him out of here,’ said Rye. ‘Get him back in front of that fire.’

C deck. Jane lifted floor grates. Fire had spread through the conduits carried by melting insulation. The cables were burned.

Jane glimpsed Nail at the end of a corridor. He was carrying a sheet of aluminium. She quickly shut off her flashlight. She followed him to the pump hall.

Ghost lay with his back to the yellow hull of the submarine. He took occasional Heliox hits from a SCUBA tank.

‘You look better,’ said Jane.

‘A little less dead.’

‘Doing okay?’

‘Dr Feelgood and her magic pills.’

‘Jesus, you are tripping your brains out.’

‘Ask for the pink ones. Seriously.’

‘Nail is building something next to the pump hall. Know anything about that?’

‘A boat. You saw it. I was going to carry you off into the sunset. Sketched a few plans. I suppose Nail and Nikki found them and decided to finish the job.’

‘I’m not sure I can be bothered to intervene.’

‘Let them go. Nobody will miss them.’ ‘You’re staying?’

‘I’m not in much shape to embark on a long voyage,’ said Ghost. ‘Besides, I can’t ditch these lads.’

‘No?’

‘You and me. We’ll get them home.’

‘Want to shake on it?’

Ghost held out his hand.

‘Last men off?’

‘Last men off.’

Jane visited Punch and Sian in the observation bubble. They had invited her for dinner. Mushroom risotto. They ate from mess tins.

‘So you cook for yourself now.’

‘The men have stoves,’ said Punch. ‘They’ve got pasta and sauce. They’ve got dried figs. They aren’t helpless.’

‘Cosy little den.’

‘All this doom and gloom. You don’t resent a few snatched moments of comfort, do you?’

‘The guys are jealous. You can’t blame them.’

Sian looked over Jane’s shoulder out to sea.

‘See that?’ she said, pointing at the horizon.

‘What?’

‘Look west. The stars are going out.’

‘Christ.’ Jane threw her mess tin aside and stood up. ‘That’s a serious cloud bank.’

‘It’s coming fast.’

‘God just keeps on shitting on us.’

They zipped their coats and ran outside. Sian and Punch carried the radio case between them.

Jane climbed the distillation tower. She hauled up the radio on a rope, hand over hand as quick as she could. She set up the tripod. She crouched on the roof and shouted into the handset.

‘Rampart to Raven, over. Rampart to Raven, do you copy, over?’

No reply.

‘Rampart to Raven, come in.’

No reply.

‘Raven. Come on, guys. Tell me you haven’t taken to the rafts yet.’

No response. A fog bank approached from the west propelled by a bitter wind. A moonlit wall of mist. Jane collapsed the tripod and slammed the case, anxious to quit the tower before cloud eclipsed the moon and left her in absolute dark.

Jane got some sleep then looked for Ghost. He had joined Sian in the observation bubble. They were sipping tea. Sian brewed a mug for Jane.

‘Feeling better?’

‘Restless,’ said Ghost. ‘Been lying on my back for days.’

He unzipped his coat and fleece. He lifted his shirt. A surgical dressing taped over bruised skin.

‘Feels like she broke most of my ribs.’

‘Rye saved your life. Battlefield surgery. She kept calm. I don’t know how.’

‘She’s a tough person to thank.’

‘You’re not going to get all distant on me, are you?’ said Jane.

‘Why would I do that?’

‘It’s happened to me countless times. I help people through their midnight hours. Later on, they won’t look me in the eye. They associate my face with hard times.’

Ghost gave her a hug. She tentatively hugged back.

‘Mind the ribs.’

Jane took the GPS unit outside. She and Ghost stood on the big red H of the helipad and studied the screen. They were searching for the Raven lifeboats, scanning for a clear TACOM contact.

A winking signal at the top of the screen.

‘Damn,’ said Ghost. ‘The Raven guys. There they are.’

‘How long has it been? Four, five days at sea? Poor bastards. Let’s bring them home.’

Ghost steered the zodiac. Jane sat in the prow. They had left Rye shivering at the refinery railing, ready with a spotlight to guide them home.

Jane hunched over the GPS screen. An intermittent signal to the north.

‘Left. More left.’

She shone her torch into the darkness and fog. The beam of her flashlight lit nothing but broiling vapour.

‘We’re getting close. They should be around here somewhere.’

Ghost shut off the engine. They rode the swells. Jane scanned black water.

‘I don’t get it. They should be right here.’

A blinking TACOM signal at the centre of the screen.

Jane shouted into the dark.

‘Hello? Is anyone there?’

Nothing.

Jane took a flare from her coat pocket. She popped the cap and pulled the rip-strip. A red star-shell shot skyward.

‘How long do you want to wait?’ asked Ghost.

‘It would be tragic if they are floating out there and we miss them.’

They took turns to shout.

‘Two more minutes,’ said Jane, ‘then we call it a night.’

‘There,’ said Ghost. ‘See that?’

A faint strobe blinking in the fog. It was hard to judge distance. Ghost gunned the engine and headed for the flashing light.

The TACOM beacon was a cylinder the size of a Thermos flask. It floated in the water attached to a ragged strip of red rubber. The remains of a raft.

‘So they didn’t make it,’ said Jane. ‘Lonely place to die.’

‘We needed that cable. Guess it’ll be at the bottom of the ocean.’

‘Over there.’

More ripped rubber. Jane undipped a paddle from the side of the zodiac and dragged the punctured raft closer. A boot. She lifted the edge of the tattered raft. A body in a red hydro-suit. A bearded man, floating face up. Marble-white skin. Open eyes.

‘Was that him?’ asked Jane. ‘Ray. You said you met him once. The guy I’ve been talking to these past couple of weeks.’

‘Maybe. Hard to tell. Want to say a prayer?’

‘No.’

They headed back to the rig. Neither of them spoke. Jane switched off the redundant GPS and sealed the case.

Ghost suddenly swerved the boat. He struggled to avoid a sheer white wall that confronted them through the fog. Jane was thrown to the bottom of the boat.

‘Jesus,’ said Ghost. ‘Fucking berg.’

He killed the engine.

‘That’s no berg,’ said Jane. She shone her flashlight across the white cliff face. Rivets. Weld seams. Steel plate. She looked up. An anchor the size of a bus.

HYPERION.

Jane ran up the steps to the observation bubble. ‘Punch, wake up.’

She unzipped the tent. Punch and Sian sat up, shielding their eyes from the flashlight glare.

‘Fuck’s sake,’ muttered Punch.

‘Get up. Grab your coat. We just got lucky.’

They hurried to fetch rope from the boathouse.

‘It’s drifting,’ said Jane. ‘A superliner. Fucking big. Dead in the water. No running lights. We’ll have to be quick. It’ll pass out of range in a few hours. We have to get aboard and take control. This is our ticket home.’

‘We should get the lads together. Ferry everyone across.’

‘No time. Ghost is upstairs pulling the legs off a chair to make a grappling hook. Where’s Ivan? We’ll need him too.’

‘Why him?’

‘Ghost is running round like he has fully recovered. I need you two to help him out, slow him down. We don’t want to provoke a relapse.’