Chapter 57
Arctic
Kasey had confronted countless adversaries in recent days. The MSS in Hong Kong, a plane crash in the Arctic, the Russian Navy, and a rogue Chinese icebreaker. What she faced now was more formidable than any of those: bitter, bitter cold.
Every human had their limit, and she and Chen were approaching theirs.
The temperature had plummeted, and in spite of her layered clothing and heavy jacket, cold was assaulting every part of her body.
Only the warmth of her core was preventing her body from turning to ice.
Even beneath her hat, her ears were numb, and in her gloves her hands had grown weak.
She’d been forced to reconfigure her load, the Sky Fire case being too heavy to carry by hand.
She’d removed the sling from the rifle and attached it to the case, and it was now slung over her shoulder.
The rifle she had been able to sheath into the straps of the backpack.
It was awkward and unbalanced, but the only way she could haul all their essential gear.
Despite keeping a measured pace over the uneven surface, Chen was struggling.
He could barely walk unassisted. If his staggering worsened, he could be at risk for even greater injury.
To sprain an ankle out here, or to suffer even the tiniest of fractures, could quickly become a life-threatening situation.
“Should we stop and make contact with Langley?” he asked, his words plaintive and vaguely slurred.
Kasey wasn’t wearing a watch, but she guessed it had been nearly an hour since they’d last discussed it.
That was longer than she’d originally intended, but she desperately wanted to get away from the crash site.
Or at least, that’s what she told herself.
In truth, she had begun to question whether Langley could even come up with a plan that would save them before they froze to death.
The remoteness of this place, the lack of assets in the region, would have the agency scrambling for solutions.
Delaying contact with them, she’d reasoned, might provide more time for analysts to come up with something viable.
But she also had to consider Chen. The very fact that he was asking to stop was a message in itself.
“Okay, let’s do it,” she said.
She stopped and unloaded everything: the backpack, the rifle, the Sky Fire. She felt instant relief from having the weight off her shoulders.
While Chen powered up the system, Kasey looked back west. She saw no sign of smoke, no trace of anyone following them.
The world looked the same in every direction, a swirling curtain of white.
The only aberration was the twin tracks they were leaving in the thin snow.
With any luck, those they had left at the outset were already obliterated.
Sharpe had said he would try to erase them.
She turned to the east and regarded the horizon in that direction with far more trepidation.
A sector of dark sky in the distance portended possibly worsening weather.
Leads were another concern. The few they had encountered so far had been small, requiring only minor deviations.
She hoped that would continue to be the case, since their only recourse was to route around them.
The sound of Chen’s typing drew her attention. The tapping of the keys seemed frail in the brittle air, a reminder that Sky Fire was their lifeline, their sole connection to the outside world. It also dredged up another thought: Chen’s sabotage of Snow Dragon 2.
“I’ve been meaning to ask,” she said. “What exactly happened back there with the icebreaker?”
He paused his work. “I have been trying to understand that myself. I designed Sky Fire to receive tactical inputs from its human operator. The internal AI software then attempts to establish contact with the targeted hardware, and searches for weaknesses in its control systems. Once pinpointed, Sky Fire determines the best path to meet the objective.”
“What input did you give it?”
“I told it to search for weaknesses in Snow Dragon 2’s engine and navigation controls.
If any were identified, Sky Fire was supposed to disable her.
I never imagined it would go to such an extreme.
It must have calculated that striking the Aurora would do more damage than simply crashing the icebreaker into the ice sheet. ”
“Either that, or it realized it had two birds it could disable with one stone,” she mused. “That’s potentially some scary third-order thinking.”
Chen readdressed his keyboard and changed the subject. “I have a good signal,” he announced. “There’s one new message.”
They read it simultaneously.
Proceed to coordinates below for rendezvous. NOAA remote weather station there can provide shelter. No staff or provisions on site. Rescue team from USS Cheyenne enroute. Estimate team arrival at shelter 0630Z. Will escort you to exfil point. Suggest you make contact hourly for updates.
A latitude/longitude pairing was included at the bottom.
“Can you plot that fix on a map?” Kasey asked.
“Yes.”
Chen began typing and a map appeared. It seemed to be a military-grade chart, although without the terrain contour lines Kasey was familiar with. Because when you’re standing on a frozen ocean, there is no terrain, she thought. Their own position and the rendezvous point were displayed.
“Seven miles southeast of where we stand,” she said.
“Seven point two,” countered the engineer.
“Can you add the crash site to the map?”
“Of course.” Moments later a third reference point was shown.
“We’ve only covered three and a half miles so far,” she lamented.
Chen smiled wearily. “We’re making progress.”
“I like that attitude—glass half full. Can you handle it?” she asked.
“Do I have another choice?”
“Nope.”
His expression went to grim determination. “I can do it.”
Kasey looked out across the ice in the direction she guessed was southeast. As she did, a new problem came to mind. “Navigating to a precise point is going to be a challenge—Sky Fire is our only reference.”
Chen checked the corner of the screen. “The cold is starting to have an effect on the battery. We’re down to forty percent. We can’t leave it running continuously.”
It was yet another obstacle Kasey had never been trained to deal with.
Navigation with intermittent references.
Sky Fire could be used for occasional snapshots of their position, but nothing more.
If there was a mountain on the skyline, distant city lights—those could be used as a guide.
But here she had only one primitive reference for orientation.
“So we’ll take an initial bearing, then shut down Sky Fire and move.
If I keep the glow of the sun at my two o’clock position, we’ll be headed more or less in the right direction.
In an hour we’ll boot up, get any news from Langley, and update our progress.
As we get closer to the rendezvous point, we’ll check our position more often.
If we can get within a mile of this weather station, we should be able to see it.
At least, as long as the visibility doesn’t worsen. Does that make sense?”
“Yes.” Chen tinkered with the map, then gave her a precise course to the NOAA station. Kasey imagined herself standing on a compass rose and carefully noted the bright glow on her right, relative to her shoulder. It was a ballpark estimate, but hopefully it would be close enough.
Chen shut down the system and they shared another water bottle.
Kasey felt a cramp in her calf, and hoped the hydration would help.
The idea that a rescue team was inbound was reassuring.
But it was only part of the solution. Langley was going to take them out using a submarine.
But would they rendezvous later with an icebreaker or a helicopter?
She had no doubt every national asset was on the table, but in such extreme isolation even America’s considerable arsenal of military and intelligence strength could be stretched to the breaking point. Possibly beyond.
They set out again at a steady pace, temporarily invigorated by the brief rest and hydration.
But even more revitalizing for Kasey was that they had a destination.
And with it, hope of salvation. If they could reach the weather station, they could connect with the rescue team.
Exactly how it would play out after that was mere speculation.
Right now, she and Chen were in the homestretch.
But it would be the most demanding final dash of their lives.