The Black Knight

XIV

General Andrei Veer stood in the cavernous rear of a C-130 Hercules transport aircraft and surveyed the men seated before him. There were one hundred of them in total, each crammed onto the narrow seats lining the fuselage of the gigantic aircraft, and between them were rows of tightly packed ATVs — All Terrain Vehicles, each with four am-tracks and rear-mounted machine guns, and each capable of transporting two armed men across the ice at high speed.

Veer was a giant of a man and stood with his arms folded across a barrel chest, his face half concealed by a thick, dark beard. Cold gray eyes that seemed a reflection of the bitter Antarctic continent far below them scanned the faces of his men and saw neither hubris nor doubt in their gazes.

‘We deploy in ten minutes!’ he boomed, his thick Slavic accent loud enough to be heard above the roar of the Hercules’ four massive turboprop engines. ‘Our target is in the north of Queen Maud’s Land and the Totten Glacier, and we know that an armed force of unknown origin has been deployed to prevent the United States of America from achieving its objectives. It’s our job to ensure that they do not succeed!’

A roar of Hoo-Rar filled the interior of the aircraft as the soldiers, a mixture of former Marines, Army Rangers and other highly skilled units clenched their fists as one and punched the air. Dressed in white Arctic camouflage and with M-16 rifles clutched to their chests, they were heavily armed and well suited to the task at hand.

‘Our primary mission is to recover a highly classified military satellite that is descending out of orbit prematurely toward the glacier,’ Veer shouted above the roar of the engines. ‘The enemy is made up of scientists and soldiers of unknown allegiance but we should not underestimate them: they will be well armed, highly paid and highly motivated, just like all of us. The difference is that the satellite belongs to our country, and we will get it back from them!’

‘Hoo-Rar!’

Veer pointed to the ATVs and the aircraft around them.

‘Expect hostile action! Deploy with full and lethal force! If there are no survivors from the enemy team, then our President will not have to explain to the world what happened up here and the security of our country will remain inviolate!’

‘Hoo-Rar!’

Veer reached for a face mask that lay on the rear of an ATV beside him. He prepared to don the mask and then shouted:

‘Thirty seconds, open the doors!’

The C-130’s loadmaster punched a series of large buttons attached the fuselage wall, and instantly a huge ramp at the rear of the aircraft began to slowly lower and provide a vertiginous view of the world below. The sky above was a deep indigo blue flecked with stars, and behind the aircraft’s massive turboprop engines swirling vapor trails glowed gold in the sunrise as they billowed into the distance in the aircraft’s wake.

The air was cold enough to take Veer’s breath away, ice clinging to his eyebrows and beard until he donned the mask. Oxygen flowed from the mask, allowing him to breath in the bitter cold and the high altitude, low pressure air as he strode to the ATVs. His men lined up on either side of the aircraft’s fuselage, where two hatches were manned by the loadmasters.

A red light high on the fuselage wall suddenly turned green, and the loadmasters opened the hatches to allow a freezing gale to flow through the aircraft as Veer roared into his microphone.

‘Go, now, now, now!’

The troopers deployed one after the other, hurling themselves out of the open hatches either side of the aircraft into the frigid air thirty thousand feet above Antarctica. Veer turned and watched as the loadmasters, all of them protected by masks and Arctic survival clothing, began pushing the ATV’s out of the Hercules.

The vehicles fell away behind the craft one by one, large parachutes deploying behind them and billowing out to slow the vehicles’ descent toward the ice far below. Veer watched for a moment longer as his men poured from the Hercules into the void, and then he sprinted down the fuselage, running faster than the ATVs rolling off the back of the aircraft as he reached the point of no return and hurled himself off the back ramp of the Hercules into the abyss.

Antarctica was sprawled below him, a vast continent of ice bathed in an orange glow from the rising sun behind Veer as he plummeted away from the Hercules. The roar of the aircraft’s engines faded swiftly into memory as he reached terminal velocity, following the black specks of his men as they rocketed in freefall down toward the barren, frigid wastes far below.

The Antarctic coastline demarked clearly the mouth of the Totten Glacier to their south, the glacier tiger-striped with long dark shadows from ridge lines and ranges of hills spreading for miles across the empty, desolate continent.

The roar of the Hercules’ engines was replaced by the scream of wind rocketing past Veer as he plummeted ever downward. He checked his altitude and then squinted down at the icy wastes far below, seeking any sign of their quarry. Within a few moments he spotted a series of glowing streaks, perhaps twelve trails or plumes churned up by vehicles travelling far below them on the surface. On his visor, a small blinking red light marked the location where the signals his employers had detected from what they called Black Knight had been.

Veer spoke into his microphone, loudly enough to be heard over the roar of the wind buffeting past him.

‘Enemy seen, deploy between them and the target. Repeat, cut them off!’

Veer tucked his arms and legs in and tilted his body down, accelerating as he sought to catch his men up and be the first to touch down on the Antarctic wastes. His massive body raced downward and he plummeted past some of his men, who quickly accelerated along with him as they plunged through thin veils of cirrus cloud, the surface of Antarctica increasing in detail below them. Veer could see the vehicles’ plumes more clearly now, the machines heading north toward the same spot marked on his visor with the red icon.

A last glance south revealed the presence of a fairly large ship many miles away, anchored near the coast. Veer grinned inside his mask, knowing that the team on the ice would believe themselves the only people even aware that Black Knight even existed.

They won’t know what’s hit them.