Matthew Reilly: Ice Station

Inside the radio room behind Sarah sat Abby Sinclair, the station's resident meteorologist. For the past two hours Abby had been manning the satellite radio console, trying without success to raise an outside frequency.

The intercom crackled. Austin's voice answered, " Control, we are still proceeding up the ice tunnel. Nothing so far ."

"Roger, divers," Hensleigh said. "Keep us informed."

Behind her, Abby keyed her talk button again. "Calling all frequencies, this is station four-zero-niner?I repeat, this is station four-zero-niner?requesting immediate assistance. We have two casualties, possibly fatalities, on hand and we are in need of immediate support. Please acknowledge." Abby released the button and said to herself, "Somebody, anybody."

The ice tunnel was starting to widen.

As Austin and the other divers slowly made their way upward, they began to notice several strange holes set into the walls on either side of the underwater tunnel.

Each hole was perfectly round, at least ten feet in diameter. And they were all set on an incline so that they descended into the ice tunnel. One of the divers aimed his flashlight up into one of the holes, revealing only impenetrable inky darkness.

Suddenly Austin's voice cut across their intercoms. " OK, people, stay tight. I think I see the surface ."

Inside the radio room, Sarah Hensleigh leaned forward in her chair, listening to Austin's voice over the intercom.

" The surface appears calm. No sign of Price or Davis ." Hensleigh and Abby exchanged a glance. Hensleigh keyed her intercom. "Divers. This is Control. What about the noises they mentioned? Do you hear anything? Any whale song?"

"Nothing yet, Control. Hold on now: I'm coming to the surface."

Austin's helmet broke the glassy surface.

Icy water drained off his faceplate. Austin lifted his Princeton-Tec dive light above the water's surface. The exposed halogen bulb cast a wide flood pattern over the area around him, illuminating it to its farthest corners.

Slowly, Austin began to see where he was. He was hovering in the middle of a wide pool, which was itself situated at one end of a gigantic subterranean cavern.

He turned in a complete circle, observing, one after another, the sheer vertical walls that lined every side of the cavern.

And then he saw the final wall.

His mouth fell open.

" Control, you're not going to believe this ." Austin's stunned voice broke over the intercom.

"What is it, Ben?" Hensleigh said into her mike.

"I'm looking at a cavern of some sort. Walls are sheer-sided ice, probably the result of some kind of seismic activity. Area of the cavern is unknown, but it looks like it extends several hundred feet into the ice."

"Uh-huh."

"There's, ah... there's something else down here, Sarah."

Hensleigh looked at Abby and frowned. She keyed the intercom. "What is it, Ben?"

" Sarah ..." There was a long pause. " Sarah, I think I'm looking at a spaceship ."

It was half-buried in the ice wall behind it.

Austin stared at it, entranced.

Completely black, it had a wingspan of about ninety feet. Two sleek dorsal tail fins rose high into the air above the rear of the ship. Both fins, however, were completely embedded in the ice wall behind the ship?two shadowy blurs trapped within the clear, frozen wall. It stood on three powerful-looking landing struts, and it looked magnificent?the aerodynamics sleek to the extreme, exuding a sense of raw power that was almost tangible.

There came a loud splash from behind him and Austin spun.

He saw the other divers, treading water behind him, staring up at the spaceship. Beyond them, however, was a set of expanding ripples, the remnants, it seemed, of an object that had fallen into the water....

"What was that?" Austin said. "Hanson?"

"Ben, I don't know what it was, but something just went past my?"

Austin watched as, without warning, Hanson was wrenched underwater.

"Hanson!"

And then there was another scream. Harry Cox.

Austin turned, just in time to see the slicked back of a large animal rise above the surface and plow at tremendous speed into Cox's chest, driving him underwater.

Austin began to swim frantically for the water's edge. As he swam, his head dipped below the surface and suddenly his ears were assaulted by a cacophony of sound?loud, shrill whistles and hoarse, desperate barks.

The next time his head surfaced, he caught a glimpse of the ice walls surrounding the pool of water. He saw large holes set into the ice, just above the surface. They were exactly the same as the ones he'd seen down in the ice tunnel before.

Then Austin saw something come out of one of the holes.

"Holy Christ," he breathed.

Hideous screams burst across the intercom.

In the radio room of the ice station, Hensleigh stared in stunned silence at the blinking console in front of her. Beside her, Abby had her hand across her mouth. Terrified shouts rang out from the wall-mounted speakers:

"Raymonds! "

"He's gone!"

" Oh, shit, no ?"

"Jesus, the walls! They're coming out of the fucking walls!"

And then suddenly Austin's voice. " Get out of the water! Get out of the water now! "

Another scream. Then another.

Sarah Hensleigh grabbed her mike. "Ben! Ben! Come in!" Austin's voice crackled over the intercom. He was speaking quickly, in between short, shallow breaths. " Sarah, shit, I... I can't see anybody else. I can't... They're all... they're all gone ...." A pause, and then, " Oh, sweet Jesus... Sarah! Call for help! Call for anything you ca ?"

And then a crash of breaking glass exploded across the intercom and the voice of Benjamin Austin was gone.

Abby was on the radio, yelling hysterically into the mike.

"For God's sake, somebody answer me! This is station four-zero-niner?I repeat, this is station four-zero-niner. We have just suffered heavy losses in an underwater cavern and request immediate assistance! Can anybody hear me? Somebody, please answer me! Our divers?oh, Jesus?our divers said they saw a spacecraft of some sort in this cavern, and now, now we've lost contact with them! The last we heard from them, they were under attack, under attack in the water. . . ."

Wilkes Ice Station received no response to their distress signal.

Despite the fact that it was picked up by at least three different radio installationss.

FIRST INCURSION

16 June 0630 hours

The hovercraft raced across the ice plain.

It was painted white, which was unusual. Most Antarctic vehicles are painted bright orange, for ease of visibility. And it sped across the vast expanse of snow with a surprising urgency. Nobody is ever in a hurry in Antarctica.

Inside the speeding white hovercraft, Lieutenant Shane Schofield peered out through reinforced fiberglass windows. About a hundred yards off his starboard bow he could see a second hovercraft?also white?whipping across the flat, icy landscape.

At thirty-two, Schofield was young to be in command of a Recon Unit. But he had experience that belied his age. At five-ten, he was lean and muscular, with a handsome creased face and closely cropped black hair. At the moment, his black hair was covered by a camouflaged Kevlar helmet. A gray turtleneck collar protruded from beneath his shoulder plates, covering his neck. Fitted inside the folds of the turtleneck collar was a lightweight Kevlar plate. Sniper protection.

It was rumored that Shane Schofield had deep blue eyes, but this was a rumor that had never been confirmed. In fact, it was folklore at Parris Island?the legendary training camp for the United States Marine Corps?that no one below the rank of General had ever actually seen Schofield's eyes. He always kept them hidden behind a pair of reflective silver antiflash glasses.