Robert Doherty - The Citadel

"Precomputer days," Tai noted.

Unit D1 was a dispensary with enough equipment to outfit a minor surgery. The shelves were stocked with numerous drugs.

C1 was an indoor greenhouse. Large banks of lights lined the ceiling, and trays filled with frozen soil were held in racks. There were lights on the bottom of the racks on down to the floor. Someone had spent quite a bit of time making every inch of space functional in the small room.

The west tunnel was blocked halfway up between B1 and B2 by the buckling of the ice ridge. Unit B1 itself was crushed halfway through. It appeared to be another bunk room.

Vaughn went back out into the main center tunnel. They'd been in all the units except A1, which was blocked. He now turned his attention to the set of large double doors on both ends of the main tunnel. He and Tai pulled open the set to the west. A large dark tunnel appeared. Groping inside the doors, Vaughn found a lever, which he pulled down. Sparks sputtered out of the ceiling, and then nothing. Using their flashlights, they probed the darkness, only to be met by the same wall of buckled ice that blocked off Unit A1. It had cut across the base diagonally and continued on through here.

"Let's try the other side," Vaughn said, led the way down the main cross tunnel and opened the doors there. He threw the lever, and large arc lights went on, revealing a massive tunnel burrowed out of the ice, extending almost two hundred meters straight ahead. There was a clear central passageway, but the rest of the twenty-meter-wide tunnel was crammed with mountains of supplies.

"Geez," Tai muttered as she took it in. "They were ready for a long stay."

Vaughn moved down the aisle, checking the labels on the boxes. Most of it was food. The last fifty meters of the storage tunnel housed a dozen snowmobiles, a bulldozer, a backhoe, several snow tractors of various sizes, and two large cabins on skis that looked like they could be hooked up to the back of the larger tractors.

The tunnel ended at a metal grating that ramped up and ended in the ceiling. "What do you make of that?" Tai asked.

"I think that's how they planned on getting these vehicles out of here," Vaughn replied. He pointed at sections of the metal grating stacked to the side. "They probably planned on running the bulldozer up the ramp and putting down the grating as they went until they reached the surface."

Tai looked at her watch. "Let's go to the mess hall and get some of that food."

They retraced their steps back to the east tunnel and turned right until they got to the shaft. When they entered the mess hall, Burke was ladling something into Logan's bowl.

"What did you find?" Vaughn asked Logan.

He looked up from his bowl. "I went down the access shaft to the reactor, but it was blocked by ice about fifty meters in. I assume the reactor is out that way another hundred meters or so."

Tai had the binder out and was paging through it. "The reactor is five hundred meters straight-line distance from the power room. Southwest," she said. "As you guessed, the rods aren't in. They were supposed to be brought in and put in place when the base was activated."

Everyone turned and looked at her. "You found the instruction book for this Tinkertoy set?" Vaughn said.

Logan got up and looked at the binder, flipping some pages. "Hydroponics!" he exclaimed, studying the diagram of the base and the label for Unit C3. "I knew I'd seen that somewhere before. They have a setup like that at UCLA."

"What's hydroponics?" Burke asked.

"It's the cultivation of plants in water rather than soil. They set aside Unit C3 to grow food just like the greenhouse in C1, except this one uses water instead of dirt." Logan shook his head. "But I don't understand why they needed to dedicate two units of their base to growing food when they have all the supplies in the ice storage tunnels." He pointed down at the diagram. "The one blocked ice tunnel to the west looks as if it's as large as the one to the east. That's a hell of a lot of food and supplies."

"It doesn't look like they thought they could count on a resupply," Vaughn remarked as looked at the pages. The binder listed the location of equipment and supplies along with instructions for the use of various equipment, but it didn't say anything about the purpose of the base or who was supposed to use it.

"Look at how far off they offset the reactor," Logan commented. "Over a quarter of a mile away. With all that ice in between, that made a very effective shield from the main base."

Vaughn's eyes focused on the one unit they hadn't been able to look at it. "Check out what Unit A1 is labeled: 'Special supply and armory.'" He looked up at Tai. "We have to get into that. It will be where the bombs are."

Tai nodded, reached into her pocket and pulled out a letter. "I also found this."

Vaughn handed her a pocket-nife with the blade open. She slit the top of the letter and pulled out a one-page handwritten note.

"Read it aloud." Logan said.

Vaughn cleared her throat and began reading.

"21 December 1956

To Whom It May Concern,

I have no clue who will read this letter or if it will ever be read.

You might be here trying to find out the truth.

You might be here in a desperate last stand against unknown enemies or threats.

Since I don't know who is reading or what the circumstances are, the less said, the better. Make of this place what you will.

David Lansale"

"The bastards set up a survivalist base down here," Logan said.

Vaughn shook his head. "No. It appears that way, but if you think about what Lansale wrote, he had no idea who would be the next people to come in here. And why they would be coming. This place was his ace in the hole for several different possibilities."

"Well," Logan said, "this place sure is set up to be a refuge in case of all-out nuclear war. Considering the time frame in which it was built and restocked into the mid-fifties, that was a pretty big concern. There are no worthwhile targets in Antarctica for a nuke, the winds off the coast would keep fallout to a minimum, and we've seen how the cold and lack of humidity would keep things preserved."

"Great place to live," Smithers muttered.

"It's also about as remote as you can get in Antarctica," Logan added. "Due north of here is the South Pacific Ocean-a spot on the middle of it is the world's farthest point from dry land. Without having an intermediary base like McMurdo, a direct flight here, especially back when this was built, is almost impossible."

Everyone turned as Brothers stomped back in, shaking snow off his coat. "I just poked my head out the door, and the weather's finally gone to crap. We won't be flying anywhere for a while."

South Pacific

"Why have you kept me alive?" Araki demanded of Fatima.

They were alone in the freighter's small galley, trying to get some food down as the ship lurched through the waves, pounding its way south. Fatima had a cup of coffee cradled in her thin hands, as much to keep them warm as to drink.

"So you can tell your superiors the truth," Fatima said. "You were tracking Nishin for a reason. To learn more, correct?"

"Yes."

"Are you learning?"

"Yes."

"Then that is why you are still alive." Fatima took a sip of her coffee. "The world is at war, yet no one really seems to know what the sides are or who is fighting who. The more information everyone has, the clearer things will become."

Indonesia

"I have prepared the plane to fly 9,700 kilometers, sir." Captain Hyun stood underneath the massive nose of his plane.

"How?" No congratulations. Min didn't believe in them.

"Normal range is 6,500 kilometers. If we also use the one-hour reserve fuel supply, our possible range is extended to 7,125 kilometers. We will make the additional 2,575 kilometers using three of the fuel bladders here at the airfield. I have loaded them on board, and we will hand pump the fuel from the bladders to the main tanks as we progress."