Matthew Reilly - Ice Station

They needed a plan.

And so they'd posed as scientists, concerned neighbors. Presumably with the intention that they would earn the Marines' trust and then kill them while their backs were turned. It was as good a strategy as any for an impromptu force of inferior strength.

Which left one further question: how were they going to get the spaceship out of Antarctica ?

Schofield decided that that question could wait. Better to tackle the battle at hand. So we ask again:

What is their objective?

To eliminate us and the scientists here at Wilkes.

How are they going to achieve that?

I don't know.

How would you achieve that?

Schofield thought about that. I'd probably try to flush us all into the one place. That'd be much more efficient than attempting to search the whole station for us and pick us off one by ?

"Grenade!" Gant yelled.

Schofield was jolted back to the present as he saw a small black grenade sail out over the A-deck railing and arc down toward him. Six similar grenades went flying down from A-deck and into the three ice tunnels that branched off into B-deck.

"Move!" Schofield said quickly to Gant as he ducked back inside the doorway and slammed the door shut.

He and Gant moved to the far side of the room just in time to hear the grenade bounce up against the outside of the thick wooden door.

Clunk, clunk

And then the grenade exploded. White splinters shot out from the inside of the door as the pointed tips of a hundred jagged metal shards instantly appeared in their place.

Schofield looked at the door, stunned.

The whole door, from floor to ceiling, was littered with tiny protrusions. What had once been a smooth wooden surface now looked like some kind of sinister medieval torture device. The whole thing was covered with sharp, spiked pieces of metal that had almost managed to rip right through the thick wooden door.

Other, similar, explosions rang out from the level above Schofield and Gant. They both looked up.

B-deck , Schofield thought."

I'd probably try to flush us all into the one place.

"Oh, no," Schofield said aloud.

"What?" Gant asked.

But Schofield didn't answer. Instead, he quickly yanked open the destroyed door and looked out into the central shaft of the ice station.

A bullet immediately rammed into the frost-covered door frame next to his head. But it didn't stop him seeing them.

Up on A-deck, five of the French commandos were on their feet, laying down a suppressing fire over the whole of the station.

It was cover fire.

Cover fire for the other five commandos who were at that moment abseiling down from A-deck to B-deck. It was a short, controlled ride, and in a second the five commandos were on the B-deck catwalk, guns up and heading for the tunnels.

As he saw them, Schofield had a sickening realization. Most of his Marines were on B-deck, having retreated there after the second French team had charged in through the main entrance of the station.

And there was another thing.

B-deck was the main living area of Wilkes Ice Station. And Schofield himself had sent the American scientists back to their quarters while he and his team had gone to meet the newly arrived French hovercraft.

Schofield stared up at B-deck in horror.

The French had flushed them all into one place.

On B-deck, the world suddenly went crazy.

No sooner had Riley and Hollywood rounded the bend in the ice tunnel than they were confronted by the frightened faces of the residents of Wilkes Ice Station.

The instant he saw them, Riley suddenly remembered what B-deck was.

The living area.

Suddenly a stream of submachine-gun fire raked the ice wall behind him.

At the same time, Schofield's voice came over Riley's helmet intercom: " All units, this is Scarecrow. I have a visual on five hostile objects landing right now on the B-deck catwalk. I repeat, five hostile objects. Marines, if you're on B-deck, look sharp ."

Riley's mind went into overdrive. He quickly tried to remember the floor plan of B-deck.

The first thing he recalled was that the layout of B-deck differed slightly from that of the other floors of Wilkes. All of the other floors were made up of four straight tunnels that branched out from the central well of the ice station to meet the circular outer tunnel. But because of an anomalous rock formation buried in the ice around it, B-deck didn't have a south tunnel.

It only had three straight tunnels, meaning that the outer, circular tunnel didn't form a complete circle as it did on every other floor. The result was a dead end at the southernmost point of the outer circle. Riley remembered seeing the dead end before: it housed the room in which James Renshaw was being held.

Right now, though, Riley and Hollywood found themselves in the outer tunnel, caught on the bend between the east tunnel and the north tunnel. With them were the scientists from Wilkes, who had obviously heard something going on outside but had dared not venture beyond the immediate vicinity of their rooms. Among the frightened faces in front of him, Riley saw a little girl.

Jesus.

"Take the rear," Riley said to Hollywood, meaning that part of the outer tunnel that led back to the north tunnel.

Riley himself began to move past the group of scientists, so that he could take up a position in view of the east tunnel.

"Ladies and gentlemen! Could you please move back into your rooms!"

"What's going on?" one of the men asked angrily.

"Your friends upstairs weren't really your friends," Riley said. "There's now a team of French paratroopers inside your station and they will kill you if they see you. Now could you please get back in your room."

" Book! Grenade !" Hollywood's voice echoed down the corridor.

Riley spun to see Hollywood come charging around the bend toward him. He also caught a glimpse of a fragmentation grenade bouncing into the tunnel twenty feet behind him.

"Oh, fuck." Riley turned instantly, looking for cover in the opposite direction?in the east tunnel, ten yards away.

It was then that he saw two more grenades tumble out of the east tunnel and come to rest against the wall of the outer tunnel.

"Oh, really fuck ." Riley's eyes went wide. There were now fragmentation grenades at both ends of the tunnel.

"Get inside! Now !" Riley screamed at the scientists as he began to throw open the nearest door. "Get back in your rooms now."

It took the scientists a second to grasp what Riley meant, but when they did get it they immediately dived for their doorways.

Riley hurled himself inside the nearest doorway and peered back out to see what Hollywood was doing. The young corporal was running for all he was worth down the curved tunnel toward Riley.

And then suddenly he slipped. And fell.

Hollywood went sprawling?clumsily, head first?onto the frost-covered floor of the tunnel.

Riley watched helplessly as Hollywood frantically began to pick himself up off the floor, looking anxiously back at the fragmentation grenade in the tunnel behind him as he did so.

Maybe two seconds left.

And in an instant Riley felt his stomach knot.

Hollywood wasn't going to make it.

Right in front of Hollywood?in the only doorway he could possibly get to in time?two of the scientists were desperately trying to get into the same room. One was pushing the other in the back, trying to get him to move inside.

Buck Riley watched in horror as Hollywood looked up at the two scientists and saw that he had no chance of getting into that room. Hollywood then swung back round to look at the fragmentation grenade thirty feet down the curved corridor behind him.