The Black Knight

XVIII

Hannah fired her pistol at the onrushing ATVs as a shower of gunfire raked the ice before them. Warner’s pilot skilfully guided their own glider into the cover of the damaged machine, and the canopy opened as Ethan Warner jumped out and sprinted across to them.

‘Get back inside your glider!’ he yelled.

Hannah did not hesitate to obey, running for the cockpit as Del Toro looked at Ethan in amazement.

‘It’s useless!’ he shouted. ‘The engine’s shot!’

Ethan clipped a pair of rappel lines to the glider’s frame. ‘The parachute still works and the wind’s with us. Get inside and loosen the ‘chute now!’

‘One glider won’t have the power to pull us!’ Del Toro protested. ‘The enemy will capture four people instead of two!’

Ethan secured two more lines and then without another word he dashed past the SEAL and leaped into the glider in front of Hannah.

‘Fine, you run, I’ll stay with Ford!’ Ethan shot back.

‘Get the hell out of here!’ Hannah screamed at Del Toro.

The SEAL cursed and fired several more shots at the onrushing ATVs as they loomed closer, Hannah able to see the gunners manning the machine guns mounted on the rear of each vehicle, trying to aim as the ATVs bounced and skittered on the uneven ice.

The SEAL jumped into the cockpit of Riggs’ functioning glider and slammed the canopy down as Hannah heard the glider behind them roar as it accelerated away. Almost immediately the rappel lines were pulled taut as Ethan reached down and pulled a lever to release the parachute.

Hannah strained to look over her shoulder and saw the parachute billow outward once again as it filled with the frigid Antarctic wind. The combined force of the wind and the glider’s engine hauled their stricken vehicle into motion.

‘Damn,’ Hannah smiled, ‘not bad for a humble Marine, eh?’

Ethan grinned at her as he saw the parachute bloom against the sky behind them.

‘Now we’ve just got to hope that Riggs doesn’t cut us loose if we don’t move fast enough.’

‘We’re moving a damned sight quicker than we were before!’ Hannah pointed out, and then recalled Del Toro’s words. ‘How about you start shooting, or are you going to use those cannons as a peace offering?!’

‘Yes ma’am,’ Ethan saluted brusquely as he yanked the safety catch of the glider’s cannons off and opened fire on the ATVs, showering them with bullets that forced the formation to split up in chaos to avoid the incoming fire as the glider was hauled backwards across the ice.

Hannah looked over her shoulder to see Rigg’s glider accelerating, sliding this way and that as their momentum gradually began to build.

‘We need to slow them down,’ Ethan snapped as he fired another burst at their pursuers. ‘They’ll keep gaining on us otherwise!’

Hannah shook her head as she reached for the canopy lever.

‘No, we need to lighten the load a little!’ she replied as she forced the canopy open and unbuckled herself, holding on to the safety rails as she turned in her seat and reached for the baggage straps securing their weapons and equipment behind them.

‘You jettison that lot and we’ll be down on ammunition and supplies!’ Ethan shouted above the wind and engine noise howling around them.

‘If we get captured it’ll belong to the enemy anyway!’ Hannah shouted back. ‘You got any idea of a way of detonating this little lot?!’

Ethan fired another clattering burst of gunfire at the nearest ATV and then shouted back to her above the noise of the wind.

‘They might have remote detonators for C4 charges if we’re lucky! The charges are lit by electrical current, so if the SEAL team set the batteries into the charges then we can blow the crap out of the ATVs!’

‘And if they didn’t put the batteries into the charges?!’

‘Then we might as well hurl snowballs at them!’ Ethan replied. ‘Either way, it’s better than doing nothing!’

Hannah scrambled in her seat and opened the top of one of the SEAL’s ammunition baggage, rummaging inside until she pulled something out that looked like a long, metal stick.

‘What’s this?!’

‘It’s a thermite grenade!’ Ethan shouted as he glanced over his shoulder at Hannah. ‘Lodge it in there and the whole lot will burn. Only thing that won’t is the C4 charges!’

Hannah turned and jammed the thermite grenade down into the baggage, then hunted around among the medical supplies, ammunition and explosives until she found a detonator pack. She pulled it out and then re-sealed the baggage before turning and handing the detonator to Ethan as she slid back into her seat and pulled the canopy back down.

‘Is that it?’ she asked, her face numb from the cold.

A grim smile spread on Ethan’s face.

‘Oh yeah,’ he replied, ‘that’s it. Did you see any C4 charges? They’re about the size of house bricks, wrapped in…’

‘I know what they look like,’ Hannah replied, ‘and there are ten of them.’

‘Full power!’

General Veer’s voice boomed like a cannon across the ice, overpowering even the engines of the ATVs as they thundered across the rugged terrain in pursuit of the gliders.

The ATV on which he stood bounced and jerked this way and that, but Veer stood on long, strong legs that soaked up the bumps as he aimed the machine gun and opened fire on the stricken glider even as it was being towed away from them.

The gun rattled and shook as spent cartridges sprayed into the back of the ATV and across his boots. He could see his rounds churning the snow and ice around the glider but the shaking of the ATV was too intense to draw an accurate bead on them.

‘Encircle them before they get away!’

The ATVs at the outside of the formation began to accelerate, pushing ahead and trying to outpace the two gliders. Veer looked up into the sky ahead and cursed as he saw the remaining gliders pushing on toward their destination. He had hoped that they would turn about and defend their fallen comrades, but then he should have known better: the Navy SEALs would prioritize the success of their mission above all other considerations, even their own brethren. Veer would have done the same in their situation, but the presence of non-military personnel had swayed one of them to turn about and attempt a rescue. Veer knew that the key to success was to play the bleeding heart civilians against their military escort, and he already felt sure that he already had prisoners to play with.

‘They’re not moving fast enough!’ Veer’s driver yelled above the wind and the noise. ‘We’re gaining on them!’

‘Keep pushing!’ Veer roared in reply as he released the machine gun, knowing now that the enemy could not escape. ‘They can’t get away.’

He stepped aside from the machine gun and was about to prepare for close quarter combat with whoever was inside the gliders when he spotted a small, angular imperfection on the ice sheet before them. Nature did not create objects that were angular, and indeed rarely produced any kind of dimensional symmetry, a handy way of detecting man-made structures in the wilderness. He squinted at the tiny speck left in the wake of the fleeing gliders and almost immediately recognized it for what it was.

‘Break left!’

The ATV swerved hard left across the ice, but the other vehicles in the formation did not respond as quickly. Veer dropped down into a crouch and covered his head as he saw the tiny speck suddenly flare brilliantly as the square of C4 detonated directly in the path of two of his ATVs.

The blast ripped beneath one of the ATVs and hurled it into the air, smashed tracks and shattered glass blossoming out within the fireball as the vehicle was torn apart by the ferocious blast and hurled in different directions amid a roiling cloud of flame and black smoke.

Veer huddled against the wall of the ATV in which he crouched as metallic debris showered the vehicle. He squinted as he saw a second vehicle engulfed in flames career across the ice and slam into the wreckage of the first as it plunged back down onto the glacier, billowing clouds of smoke and flame blazing inside it as the driver and gunner burned alive.

A second detonation followed as another C4 charge exploded and shattered the chassis of another ATV, flame and smoke snapping from the vehicle as it rocketed along the glacier and crashed through an icy outcrop, the vehicle tumbling in a ball of flame as its burning occupants were hurled out onto the ice.

‘Fall back!’ Veer yelled.

The ATVs slowed dramatically and turned away from the chase as Veer stood up once more and roared in fury, one thick fist slamming down onto the roof of his ATV as he watched the gliders pull away and escape to the north.

Ethan pulled the canopy shut and huddled inside his Arctic jacket as he watched the ATVs fall away from them, the sunlit horizon smudged now with drifting clouds of black smoke from the burning wreckage of three ATVs.

‘That’ll learn them,’ Hannah said triumphantly.

Ethan shook his head.

‘They won’t stop there,’ he assured her. ‘Majestic Twelve will have paid them handsomely to finish their mission. They’ll regroup and continue to pick us off one by one until they get what they want.’

He keyed the microphone.

‘Lieutenant Riggs, our tail is clear for the time being. How much farther?’

‘We’re within a couple of miles,’ Riggs replied. ‘Combat spread, go!’

The ice gliders flying ahead and above them descended gently toward the ice sheet and landed, their parachutes billowing behind them for a moment until their pilots spilled the wind from them and drew them in.

The gliders began to spread out on the ice, just like an infantry unit would when approaching an enemy position to prevent that enemy from taking out entire platoons using mortar fire or grenades. Ethan looked across to his right and saw an identical glider, its driver focusing intently ahead as they gradually closed in on what looked like a low ridge of hills protruding from the endless ice sheets. It took almost fifteen minutes to reach the edge of the hills.

‘No visual,’ Riggs reported as he surveyed the ridgeline. ‘We’ll have to go in on foot — those slopes are too rough for the gliders and we don’t know what’s on the other side.’

Ethan peered out to his left and right. ‘No way we can send a couple out to the sides, see around the edges first?’

Riggs’s reply was adamant.

‘This feature extends for miles, and with MJ-12 right behind us we don’t have enough time for an extensive recon’ of the area. We go in here and now.’

Ethan said nothing more as the glider coasted to within a hundred yards of the low hills, and from his vantage point he could now see that the hills were in fact a ridge of loose boulders of snow and ice, as though a gigantic hoe had torn through the surface of the ice sheet and churned it over.

Riggs guided the ski glider alongside the rough edge of the mound and then allowed it to slide to a halt as he shut down the engine, Ethan and Hannah’s glider likewise sliding to a halt. Ethan pulled the headset from his ears, grateful to get it off his head as he saw the remaining ski gliders pull in at various spots down the length of the ridge, canopies opening and billowing clouds of warm vapor puffing from their interiors onto the frozen air in the golden sunlight.

Ethan unlocked the canopy and pushed it open, felt the fierce bite of the cold against his skin as he stood up in his seat and climbed out. Hannah jumped out onto on the ice with him and stretched her legs as the SEALs jogged to the edge of the ridge, their weapons at port arms as they began scaling the unstable slopes.

Doctor Chandler emerged from his glider, and Ethan looked about in alarm. ‘Where’s Amy?’

Riggs shook his head. ‘Porter’s glider went down with Amy,’ he informed Ethan. ‘We lost a few good people already and we haven’t even found Black Knight yet.’

Ethan found himself mourning the spirited young scientist’s loss, but he knew that they had no time to grieve. Majestic Twelve would catch up with them again soon enough.

‘Is that the impact crater?’ Hannah asked as she looked at the ridge.

‘I guess so,’ Ethan replied, ‘Black Knight is about the only thing that’s crashed down here.’

It was the voice of a scientist behind them who corrected Ethan.

‘It’s not something that’s come down,’ he replied, ‘it’s something that’s come up.’

Ethan peered curiously at Doctor Chandler as together they began clambering up the slopes of the ridge until they reached the top, broken chunks of glacial ice embedded in mounds of loose snow.

Ethan moved alongside two of the SEALS, who were lying prone on the ridge top with their weapons held before them as they looked at something. He heard their voices just before he reached them.

‘We’ve got a problem.’

Ethan rested alongside them and looked down and his heart leaped into his mouth.

Opposite the ridge was another similar ridge, and below them plunged a deep chasm of glowing blue ice, a canyon ripped into the glacier as though a giant’s sword had plunged down from the heavens and sliced into the continent for miles.

Hannah looked at the wrecked gliders, the vast freezing wilderness and the plunging chasm, and then at Ethan. ‘I bet you ten bucks we don’t make it out here here alive.’