Matthew Reilly - Ice Station

The British pilot looked at his missile light?it was blinking. He had already preset the coordinates of Wilkes Ice Station into the guidance computer of his AGM-88/HLN cruise missile.

The designator letters on the missile said it all.

AGM stood for air-to-ground missile, H for high-speed, and L for long-range. N however, had a special meaning.

It stood for nuclear .

Thirty seconds expired. Still no word from Barnaby.

"General Barnaby! This is Backstop! I am launching the eraser... now /" The British pilot hit his trigger, and a split second later the nuclear-tipped cruise missile attached to the end of his wing streaked away from his plane.

The missile only just got away, for a bare two seconds later?just as the British pilot was reaching for his ejection lever?the American AMRAAM missile slammed into the back of the E-2000 and blew it and its pilot out of the sky.

The American pilots saw the bright orange explosion on the night horizon, saw the blip on their scopes disappear.

A couple of them cheered.

The squadron leader smiled as he looked at the orange fireball on the horizon. "SEAL team, this is Blue Leader. The bogey has been eliminated. I repeat, the bogey has been eliminated. You are free to enter the station. You are free to enter the station."

Inside the SEAL hovercraft, the squadron leader's voice echoed through the speaker: " You are free to enter the station. You are free to enter the station ."

The SEAL commander said, "Thank you, Blue Leader. All units, be aware. SEAL team is switching over to closed-circuit channels for the assault on the station."

He clicked off his radio, turned to his men.

"All right, people. Let's go fuck somebody up."

Out over the Southern Ocean, the F-22 squadron leader continued to look out through his canopy at the remains of the British E-2000. Thin orange firetrails descended slowly down to earth like cheap fireworks.

Consumed as he was with this sight, the squadron leader didn't notice a new, smaller blip appear on his radar screen? a blip heading south, toward Antarctica?until almost thirty seconds later.

"What the hell is that?" he said.

" Oh, Jesus ," someone else said. " It must have got a missile off before it was hit !"

The squadron leader tried to raise the SEAL team again, but this time he couldn't get through. They'd already switched over to closed-circuit channels for their assault on Wilkes Ice Station.

The main doors to the station exploded inward and the SEAL team stormed inside with their guns blazing.

It was a textbook-perfect entrance. The only problem was, the station was empty.

Schofield looked at his depth gauge: 1470 feet.

He pushed on and a few minutes later, he emerged from the narrow shortcut tunnel and found himself inside a wider, ice-wafted tunnel.

He knew where he was instantly, even though he had never been here before.

On the far side of the underwater ice tunnel he saw a series of round ten-foot holes carved into the tunnel walls. Sarah Hensleigh had told him about them before. And Gant had mentioned them as well, when she had approached the cave. The elephant seals' caves. He was inside the underwater ice tunnel that led up to the spacecraft's cavern.

Schofield breathed a sigh of relief. Yes !

They swam out into the underwater ice tunnel. Beside him, Schofield saw Kirsty let go of Wendy's harness, saw the little seal dart off toward the surface. Schofield, Kirsty, and Renshaw followed, swimming quickly upward, eying the holes in the ice walls around them nervously.

Although the sight of the holes in the walls made him uneasy, Schofield felt fairly certain that the elephant seals would not attack them. He had a theory about that. So far, the only group of divers to have approached the underwater ice cave unharmed had been Gant's group?and they had all been wearing LABA tanks, low-audibility breathing gear. The other groups to have gone down?the scientists from Wilkes and the British?hadn't. And they had been attacked. The way Schofield figured it, the elephant seals hadn't been able to hear Gant and her team when they had approached the cavern. And so they hadn't been attacked.

At that moment, Schofield caught sight of the surface and his thoughts about the elephant seals were forgotten.

He looked at his depth gauge: 1490 feet.

Then he looked at his watch. It had taken them all of eighteen minutes to get here. Very quick time.

And then suddenly a low whistle cut through the water.

Schofield heard it, tensed.

He saw Wendy hovering in the water above him, saw her body whip around suddenly. She had sensed it, too.

Suddenly a second whistle answered the first and Schofield felt his heart sink.

The seals knew they were there....

"Go!" Schofield said to Renshaw and Kirsty. " Go !"

Schofield and Renshaw broke out into swift strokes, heading for the surface. Renshaw was closest to Kirsty, so he just pushed up against her LABA tanks, pushing her up through the water, forcing her to swim faster.

Schofield looked at the surface above him. It looked beautiful, glassy, calm. Like a smooth glass lens.

The whistles around them became more intense, and then suddenly he heard a hoarse bark cut across the underwater spectrum.

Schofield spun in the water, looked about himself, then snapped up to look at the lens-like surface again.

And at that moment, the lens shattered.

Elephant seals plunged into the water from every side. Others roared out of the submerged holes in the walls and charged at Schofield and the others. Their shrieks and barks and whistles filled the water.

Kirsty and Renshaw broke the surface first, right near the edge of the pool. Renshaw?still in the water?pushed hard against the underside of Kirsty's tanks, forcing her out of the water.

Kirsty stumbled frantically up onto dry land, slipped and fell, flat onto her face, and turned just in time to see Renshaw get one arm out of the water and begin to haul himself out when? yank ?Renshaw was suddenly wrenched violently under the churning surface.

Kirsty screamed but cut herself off when she saw an enormous shape rise up out of the water in front of her.

She dived away from the water's edge just as one of the elephant seals launched itself out of the water and crashed down onto the ice in front of her. Kirsty staggered and stumbled away from the edge, turned, and saw that the giant seal was loping across the flat floor of the cavern, chasing her!

Kirsty clawed at the icy ground, lost her footing, slipped, and fell.

The elephant seal charged. Kirsty lay sprawled on the floor of the cavern, totally exposed, staring up at the gigantic demon bearing on her and?

And then suddenly boom ! the elephant seal's face exploded in a fountain of blood and the big seal went crashing headfirst to the ground.

Kirsty stared in awe as the elephant seal dropped to the floor, revealing behind it: Schofield, hovering in the pool thirty feet away, with his pistol extended.

He had just shot the seal through the back of the head!

Kirsty almost fainted.

Under the surface, James Renshaw was absolutely panic-stricken.

One of the seals had pulled him under and now it had him, had his foot in its mouth!

Renshaw looked down in desperation, and then suddenly he frowned. The seal that had him looked smaller than the others, and it had those distinctive lower fangs that he had seen on the larger male before.

A juvenile male ? Renshaw thought.

And then another thought hit him.

If it's young, you might have a chance to get out of this.

So, with his spare foot, Renshaw kicked the small seal hard in the snout.