Adam Baker - Outpost

‘You know what I mean. You guys should come over here. You, Punch, Sian.’

‘It would be a cosy little club, but if we let that kind of us-and-them situation develop things could get nasty pretty quick.’

‘So you’re going to leave me out here with Mal?’ ‘Lock a couple of doors if it creeps you out.’ Mal’s body had been brought back to Rampart prior to burial at sea. The guys took a vote. The rig had been his home. It seemed appropriate to stand between the great floatation legs of the refinery and commit his body to the waves.

‘Come back with me,’ said Ghost. ‘The staterooms are spectacular. The upper-echelon crew lived like kings.’

‘And thousands of lunatics the other side of the door.’ ‘It kept me awake nights at first. But this is our life now. Europe is overrun. If we get back home we will have to spend the rest of our lives behind castle walls, one way or another. Might as well get used to the idea.’

‘I can’t help feeling it is a honey trap, a gilded cage. We’ll fritter away our time. Get fat. Get drunk. Die out here at the edge of the world.’

Nail and Gus sat strapped in their seats as the DSV was lowered into the sea. Winch-judder made the flesh of their faces tremble. Nail hugged his bandaged arm.

Jolt and scrape as the submersible broke through the ice crust. Clunk of the winch release.

Nail and Gus unlatched their harnesses and sat forward.

Brief vent from the buoyancy tanks. Water bubbled past the portholes as the vehicle submerged.

Gus took control of the fly-by-wire control column and vectored forward and down.

‘Kick in the arcs.’

Nail flipped a switch and the arc light array at the front of the vessel lit incandescent. Blackness beyond the portholes was replaced by swirling sediment, and air bubbles rippling like globules of mercury.

‘Down fifty. Trim good. Forward point five.’

Gus checked an overhead screen. An acoustic beacon mapped their bearing from the rig.

Nail zipped his sweatshirt. He pulled on a woollen hat and fingerless gloves. Condensed breath trickled down the chilled metal of the pressure hull.

‘Heading hold.’

The sub ran on auto-pilot.

Gus sipped water. Nail swigged from a hip flask.

‘You’ve been hitting the sauce pretty hard these past few days,’ said Gus. ‘Better if you kept your head.’

Nail toasted him with the flask.

‘L’chai-im’.

‘Is it Mal?’ asked Gus. ‘Is that what’s eating you up?’

‘Fuck Mal.’

‘Is it Nikki?’

‘Just drive the fucking sub.’

‘You’re losing it. You’re out of shape. Yeah, you broke your arm. But you’re drunk all day, every day. The guys look up to you. They don’t give a shit about Jane and her little gang. They’re waiting for you to take a lead.’

‘Fuck you,’ said Nail. He took a long swig. ‘Fuck the lot of you.’

They monitored the system screens. They didn’t speak.

‘Damn,’ said Gus, breaking the silence. ‘Take a look at this.’

A slow pass of D Module.

Buckled walls. Empty windows. The DSV thrusters stirred swirling debris.

‘That’s my old room,’ said Gus. ‘That one there.’

Nail took another swig. Gus looked at him in disgust.

‘Jesus. Just sit back there, all right? Just keep out of the way.’

Jane and Ghost sat in Rawlins’s office.

‘Rampart to DSV, do you copy, over?’

‘Go ahead .’

‘How are you boys doing?’

‘Approaching Hyperion. We should reach it any minute .’

‘Can you give us a camera feed?’

‘Should be coming through now .’

Jane switched on the desk screen. Blue murk. Darting particles of sediment. They sat back and waited for the sub to reach Hyperion.

‘I’ll give you another reason to move to the ship,’ said Ghost.

‘What’s that?’

‘The ice around Rampart has reached the island. Those fucks from Hyperion are right beneath the refinery. We can’t zip back and forth between the rig and this ship without risking our necks. You’re marooned.’

‘All right. You sold me.’

Jane wanted to move in with Ghost, but she didn’t want to seem too eager. She wanted to be wooed.

‘DSV to Rampart.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘Big sonar hit. Coming up on Hyperion .’

Jane and Ghost leaned closer to the screen.

‘Well, there it is,’ said Ghost.

‘Jesus.’

A massive, bronze propeller, as high as a house, emerged from the sediment fog.

The DSV passed the length of Hyperion’s keel. Gus and Nail looked through the overhead porthole. Nail sipped black coffee from a flask.

Riveted hull plates. Nail held up a video camera. Additional footage for review when they got back to Rampart.

Gus checked range estimation. The ping of the Sunwest sonar increased frequency until it became a steady tone. Collision warning.

‘Here comes the rock wall.’

A jagged basalt cliff emerging from the gloom.

‘Full stop.’

Gus brought the sub to a standstill.

‘All right. Let’s take a look.’

Gus re-angled the arc lights so they could check for damage below the waterline.

‘There,’ said Nail. ‘A big split in the plates.’

Gus swivelled the thrusters and tilted the DSV to face the hull. Nail squirmed closer to the cockpit bubble and filmed the damage. Weld-seams had torn when Hyperion hit the refinery.

‘Get us closer,’ said Nail.

They approached the fissure. Plates peeled back like petals.

‘Can we get more light in there?’

‘Probably looks worse than it is,’ said Gus. ‘If this split ran the length of the ship we would be in trouble. Jane, are you getting this?’

‘Yeah, we see it. Looks like we lost a couple of compartments, but it’s still sound. If we wait until the spring thaw, then throw the engines in reverse, it might float free .’

‘What’s that?’ said Nail, pressing closer to the glass.

‘Where?’

‘Right there.’

Gus re-angled the arc lights.

‘Christ.’

Beyond the fissure, deep in the shadows of the flooded compartment, was a body. It floated, arms outstretched. A man in a boiler suit. Some kind of mechanic.

‘Drag him out the way,’ said Nail. ‘Let’s see how deep the damage runs. I’d like to check for structural issues.’

Gus shifted position and took hold of a joystick. He unfolded the starboard manipulator arm. The multi-jointed limb reached inside the hull. Titanium tweezer-claws swivelled and opened. Gus gripped the dead man’s head and pulled him through the fissure.

Gus brought the mechanic closer to the cockpit window. The dead man’s hair swirled in the current. His face was framed by steel fingers.

‘He hasn’t been dead long,’ said Gus. ‘I doubt he was killed when Hyperion ran aground. I bet he stumbled into the flooded compartment during the last couple of days.’

‘No sign of infection.’

The dead man opened his eyes and stared directly at Nail. Jet-black eyeballs.

Gus pressed Close. The claws scissored shut. The mechanic’s skull popped in a cloud of blood and brain tissue.

Nikki rode the swells. Seven days at sea. Seven days of perpetual starlit darkness. It was like sailing through space.

She had barely slept. Snatched moments of rest. She worried she would fall asleep at the tiller and quickly freeze.

The boat was frosted with ice. Fierce cold. Gentle waves. The weather had begun to turn. The brilliant dusting of stars was slowly eclipsed by cloud. Turbulence chasing her from the north, gaining fast. The boat was designed to survive a storm. As soon as bad weather hit, she could lower the sails and seal herself below deck. She would bob like a cork as the boat rode mountainous waves and troughs. If the bolts and welds held fast, she would survive.