Choosers of the Slain

1

"Awake and about, woman! There's a hot plankton count to be done."

Captain Evan York peeled the covers off his first mate and applied a hearty slap across her bare bottom. She in turn responded with a squealed curse, yanked them back up over her head, and burrowed deeper into her corner of the double bunk. York smiled down at the curl of tousled blond hair that showed from beneath the heavy Hudson's Bay blankets. Roberta Eggerston had been sharing his life and bed for the better part of five years now and yet she maintained her own individuality. Among other things, she would never be a morning person,

"You know what you can do with your plankton count," she growled, "at least till the cabin is a decent temperature and the tea's ready."

"Shackleton never had to put up with this kind of sass from any of his subordinates."

"Shackleton never got to sleep with any of his subordinates either, at least not so's the history books mention" York smiled again, rolled out of the bunk, and reached for his clothes: thermal long Johns and a single pair of heavy wool socks, insulated jumpsuit, and the ubiquitous white plastic "bunny boots" of the Antarctic. He'd had his custom-made by Camtors of the Falkland Islands with full-length composite deck soles for shipboard use.

Topping off his outfit with a Day-Glo orange sea parka, he tucked a pair of mittens in his pocket. He left the master stateroom, heading aft along the narrow companionway to the wheelhouse. Presently, he would kick the main cabin heater up to day temperature and start the breakfast brew-up, but first, the young master of the Skua wanted a morning's look around.

The big motor-sailor had been born out of the love both he and Roberta had for sailing and their mutual fascination with the Antarctic. She was a seventy-five-foot ketch with a reinforced steel hull, designed specifically for long-range ice cruising. They had built her using a small inheritance York had received upon his graduation from Cambridge plus every other penny they had been able to earn, beg, or borrow.

It had been worth it. Basing out of Port Stanley, he and Roberta had sailed south with college-student crews for the past three seasons, chartering out as a research vessel to the British Antarctic Survey. It was a rare thing to successfully turn a dream into a viable way of making a living, but they had done it.

While York had a passion for the southern polar seas, he also had a profound and wary respect for them. Even while lying at anchor off the BAS's South Orkney base at Signy Island, he had maintained a round-the-clock deck watch. At the moment, said watch didn't look too happy.

"Morning, Geoffery. How's the new day?" York asked, stepping out into the cockpit.

"Bloody cold! That's how it is!" the younger day replied miserably, surrounded by the frost haze of his own breath. "I had to be a total loony to ever get involved in this. 'Excellent field experience,' my frostbitten ass!"

"Shouldn't worry," York said, stepping to the rail and eyeing the slushy pancake ice that had accumulated around the hull during the long, late-season night.

"That nip of frost in the air means that it's just about time for us to bugger off for home. Pack'll be closing in soon. Two weeks from now you'll be back in England, thrilling the ladies with your exploits."

"If they haven't frozen off by then," Geoffery replied, doing a little jig step to try to stamp some feeling into his feet. "At any rate, I was just going to shout you up. We've got company coming." "Oh, where away?"

"Just coming into the channel. I think she's that Argy."

The Skua was holding some fifty yards offshore in the little cup-shaped harbor on the southern coast of Signy Island. Now a ship was just rounding the western headland and was slowly nosing into the steel-blue waters of the bay. She was an icebreaker, wide-hulled and buff-bowed, her high-stacked military-gray superstructure clearly outlined against the snow-shrouded hills on the farside of the inlet.

"That's the Presidente Sarmiento all right, but what the blazes is she doing here? She doesn't have any more calls scheduled this late in the season."

Frowning slightly, York ducked back into the wheelhouse and lifted a pair of binoculars from the rack beside the hatch frame. Returning to the cockpit, he surveyed the new arrival, being careful not to let the chilled metal of the eyepieces touch his face.

Same old Presidente. The Argentine naval vessel wasn't listing, nor did she show any outward sign of storm or fire damage. Engine trouble? Or maybe they were just dropping in for a chat. York hoped that they might have a little fresh produce to spare.

Suddenly he stiffened. There was something different here. As the icebreaker came around fully broadside in the channel, York could make out the smallish boxlike structure that had been added to her foredeck. A turret, and from it protruded the slim, bell-mouthed muzzle of an autocannon.

"What the hell?" "Problem, Skipper?"

"The Presidente, she's mounting a bow chaser." "A what?"

"A gun, she's mounting a gun!"

"So?" Geoffery shrugged. "She's a navy ship and all that."

"So remember the treaty. Heavy military weapons aren't permitted south of the Antarctic Circle."

There was other movement out on the bay. York hadn't picked up on them at first in the thin, metallic light of the polar dawn. The icebreaker was being preceded by a flotilla of small craft; four big twelve-passenger Zodiacs were powering in toward the black-shale beach below Signy Station.

York brought his glasses up again, studying the forms huddling behind the low gunwales of the inflatables.

White! They were wearing white. On the ice, high-visibility Day-Glo colors were universal for outer clothing. In an emergency situation, you wanted to be seen, not concealed.

White could only mean camouflage.

"Geoffery, turn everyone out and get them into survival suits! You too! Then tell the first mate to get up here straightaway! Move!"

Startled, the younger man vanished below. York returned his attention to the events unfolding at the station, not disbelieving but not wanting to believe.

The Zodiacs had reached the shore and had ridden up over the dirty gray rime ice along the tideline. Disembarking swiftly and expertly, the troops they had carried sprinted upslope, unslinging their assault rifles as they ran. One figure dropped to his knee and began squeezing off precise three-round bursts at the green-painted huts of the Survey base.

For God's sakes, why shoot? York thought. The only weapon ashore was a single-shot.22 used for collecting bird specimens. As the sound of gunfire echoed across the bay, Roberta appeared at the wheelhouse hatch.

"Evan, what's happening?"

"It's the Argentines. Launch our Zodiac and the life rafts. Get everyone over the side."

"Why?"

"Don't ask questions! Go!"

Obediently, she dropped belowdecks. York ducked back into the wheelhouse and went for the communications console. He broke the seals on both of the Skua's emergency transponder beacons and activated them, then turned his attention to the powerful sideband radio set.

"CQ, CQ, CQ. This is BASK Skua, calling BASG South Georgia. Do you copy?"

He lifted his thumb from the microphone key and was rewarded by a high-pitched warbling squeal from the speaker. Evan York had never heard cascade jamming before, but he could guess what it was. He swore and started to punch in an alternate frequency.

Up forward, Roberta Eggerston ran her people through the often practiced, but never before needed, drill of abandoning ship. Because she was a skilled mariner in her own right, she followed procedure and refused to be flustered or panicked. Swiftly, she got the life raft, survival packs, and crew over the rail. With her duty accomplished, Roberta acted for herself. She hurried back aft along the deck to the ketch's wheelhouse, a small fearful figure swaddled in an orange foam survival coverall.

York still leaned over the sideband transceiver, glowering at it as it squalled in electronic agony.

"Evan, please, what is going on?"

"The damned Argentines are attacking Signy Base. They're jamming all the BAS frequencies. I can't get through to anyone!"

"What do they think they're doing?"

"I don't know. We can't get out of the bay past their ship, and they'll likely have a boarding party alongside us in a few minutes. We've got to get word out about what's happening here!"

The jamming warble from the speaker was cut off to be replaced by a calm voice speaking a mildly accented English.

"Motor vessel Skua, motor vessel Skua, secure your radio transmitters and make no further attempt at communications. I repeat, make no further attempt at communications or we will be forced to fire on you."

York wasn't listening. Instead he had started to flip feverishly through the pages of the radio log.

"We still might have something here, Bobbie," he said, not looking up. "The Yanks use a different block of frequencies than we do. We might be able get through to Palmer Station before the Argys can figure out what's up."

York began to key a new setting into the transceiver.

"Evan, if you transmit again they'll start shooting at us!"

"I know, I know!" York brought himself in check. "Look, we have got to let someone know what's going on out here. For our sake, and for the sake of the people at Signy."

The two could sense that the world they had so carefully built together was coming to its end. Their dream was suddenly going to hell around them, and they had only enough time left to speak as captain and first mate. All of the things they had to say as a man and a woman had to be said with their eyes in the few seconds they had left.

"Bobbie, you take the crew and head for shore. You'll be safer there. You'll have to surrender to the Argentines, but there's no other choice. Leave me the small life raft. I'll make one try to reach Palmer, then I'll follow you in. Get going now, everything will work out."

She was crying as she went forward. For a moment, York considered calling after her that he loved her, then turned back to the radio.

"CQ, CQ, CQ. BASK Skua calling USARP Palmer. Emergency, do you copy?"

On the farside of the bay, the bow turret of the Argentine warship indexed around and the gun barrel recoiled. Simultaneously with the flat crack of the cannon shot, a thirty-foot plume of water jetted into the air off of the Skua's bow.

"CQ, CQ, CQ. BASK Skua calling USARP Palmer.

Emergency, repeat, emergency! Do you copy?"

Dead air, unjammed but dead air, and then…

"BASK Skua, this is USARP Palmer. We read you four by four. What is your situation?"

He could hear the droning of the outboard motor of Skua's Zodiac and the sound of Roberta screaming his name. He could also hear the rhythmic coughing of the Argentine gun mount as it began to walk a stream of shells in on the anchored ketch.

"Palmer, this is Skua at Signy Station. The Argentines are landing here in force! I repeat, the Argentines are landing here in force! Armed troops are ashore at the station! It's a bloody invasion!"

York did not hear Palmer Station's reply. Nor did he hear the forty-millimeter shell that exploded through the side of the wheelhouse just inches from his head.