Ice War, page 12
“I am Fezerker,” Wall said. “Not even the PGZ get to tell us what to do.”
Price thought back to Uluru and realised that he was right. Fezerkers outranked everyone, even the dreaded PGZ.
“We don’t have a lot of options,” Barnard said. “But delay him a few more minutes.”
“What are you thinking?” Price asked, and Barnard explained.
“Teranis squadron begin climb to attack altitude in three, two, one,” Watson said. “Climbing now.”
“How long?” Whitehead asked.
“A few minutes,” Hundal said.
“Come on,” Wilton said, and then realised he had said it out loud. It earned him a few glances but nothing more. Everybody was just as keyed up as he was.
Out over the ice, the unmanned aircraft were sacrificing ground speed for height, their engines straining to pull the craft up to the altitude from which they could launch their missiles.
“If we don’t get some kind of movement on the ground, get those drones out of there before the Pukes can get within range,” Whitehead said. “Have we got air cover up?”
“Yes, sir,” Hundal said. “A squadron of F-35s is lifting off as we speak.”
Price was the first out. She emerged from the tunnel under the tank and raised her hands to the back of her neck. She kept a close eye on the time ticking away on the inside of her visor.
Barnard and The Tsar followed her out.
Bzadian soldiers surrounded them, guns raised. Nokz’z and the Vaza watched from behind the line of soldiers. Wall too.
A small convoy of vehicles was pulling to a halt behind the soldiers. Low, squat, armoured transporters. They looked Russian. Other soldiers disappeared into the tank behind them and emerged dragging out the limp bodies of Zim and the others.
“Get on your knees,” the Vaza said.
Price ignored her.
Two minutes.
They were too close to the tank, Price thought. They had to get further away. She took a step forwards, then another. The Tsar and Barnard were right alongside her.
“That’s far enough,” Nokz’z said. “One more step and I will be forced to …”
He never got to say what he would be forced to do. His voice cut off abruptly and his eyes narrowed, as he listened to something on his radio. His eyes turned upwards, as did the eyes of most of the other Bzadians. The air of calm vanished, the Angels almost forgotten while he issued urgent orders.
One minute.
Price took another step.
Big Billy had a spear-thrower with a dart already hooked onto the end. The look in his eyes suggested he was never happier than when he was out here on the ice, hunting, especially when the prey was Bzadian. Nukilik also seemed to be in his element, lying between two jagged edges of ice as if he too was part of the icefloe.
The other Inupiat were lying along the ridgeline with rifles or standing below it with spear-throwers and quivers full of darts. Some of those on the ridge would act as observers for those behind it, indicating with hand signals where to fire the darts.
Monster tried to remain still, although it was uncomfortable on the cold ice. The Inupiat, he saw, were like statues. Movement attracted the eye.
Nukilik eased up alongside him. “We are running out of time,” he said.
“Why?” Monster asked.
“Big Billy says he can hear aircraft approaching,” Nukilik said.
Monster strained his ears, but could hear nothing over the rising howl of the wind.
“He’s sure?”
“Big Billy is never wrong,” Nukilik said.
“On my mark, hit the deck,” Price said.
“Don’t dive,” The Tsar said. “Fall.”
“What?” Barnard asked.
“If you dive, they’ll know something is up,” The Tsar said. “Act like you’re fainting. Collapse to the ground. It will confuse them.”
“Whatever you’re going to do, you’ve got three seconds,” Price said. “Two …”
She let her legs go limp and fell, feigning unconsciousness, to the ground. From the corner of her eye, she saw Barnard fall beside her. The Tsar added some theatrics, clutching at his throat as if poisoned.
Several of the soldiers moved towards the fallen Angels. The rest stood where they were, unsure.
Price played dead. The timer inside her visor ticked to zero. Nothing happened. Had the timer not worked? That wasn’t like Barnard. She was normally so precise. So efficient. So …
The thought died as the air around her was ripped apart by thunder and fire.
“These are the snowhills you were talking about,” Whitehead said.
“There’re a lot of them,” Bilal said.
The image from one of the drones was up on the main screen, showing the unusual mounds of ice stretching into the distance.
“Taranis three is picking up foot mobiles,” Watson said. “A group of them down by one of the mounds.”
The feed came up on the main screen as she spoke.
“What the hell’s going on down there?” Whitehead asked. “Get us in closer. We … Whoa! What was that? Did we do that?”
A ball of fire had just blossomed in the middle of the screen.
“Negative, sir,” Watson said. “We didn’t fire anything. But the operators on Little Diomede are reporting a large explosion to the south-west. That’s what we just saw.”
Wilton found himself on his feet, staring at the screen, his heart racing. What had happened?
A few people were looking at him and he forced himself to sit back down and act calmly.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” Bilal said, “but I don’t think those mounds are igloos.”
On the large screen, images from the drones showed the icepack clearly, with the little island to the north-east.
As Wilton watched, pinpoints of light appeared on the screen, making the ice sparkle like a Christmas tree.
“SAM, SAM, SAM,” Watson called. “Multiple in-bound surface-to-air missiles from the icefield.”
“That’s it!” Whitehead said. “That’s confirmation. Engage those SAM batteries with the drones and get those cruise missiles in the air.”
“We haven’t seen a tank yet,” Russell said.
“Those SAM batteries are not there guarding empty ice,” Whitehead said. “Hooper?”
Admiral Hooper, who was already on the phone to her staff, nodded and gave a thumbs up. “Missiles away,” she said.
From the ten submarines that lay south of the icefield, twenty Tomahawk missiles exploded up out of the water, ejected by gas pressure, before rocketing to three hundred metres on the shiny tail of a solid-fuel booster. The wings unfolded and the air-scoops deployed as the turbofan engines kicked in.
The Tomahawks plunged to barely ten metres above the sea, dropping off radar screens, hugging the ocean, then the icepack, as they raced in to the attack.
“Launch, launch, launch!” Watson called out. “Multiple tangos lifting off from bases across the Chukchi Peninsula.”
“It’s going to be close,” Whitehead said.
The air burned. The armour on Price’s body burned. Even the ice burned.
The Bzadians were scattered, blown off their feet, dazed and shocked, or worse.
The Vaza was the only one who had reacted in time. Knowing something was wrong, she had twisted around in front of Nokz’z, protecting him from the brunt of the explosion. Now she lay unconscious on top of him.
Price pushed herself up off the ice and looked to see if the others were okay. Barnard was already on her feet and collecting coil-guns from the downed Bzadians. The Tsar was sitting back on his haunches, gathering his wits.
Barnard tossed Price a coil-gun, then threw one to The Tsar, who caught it deftly, despite his dazed condition.
“Let’s get out of here,” Price said. One or two of the Bzadians were already starting to stir. Nokz’z was conscious and struggling to get out from under the weight of the Vaza.
“Help me,” Barnard shouted. She had her hands under Wall’s shoulders.
“Leave him,” Price said.
“No way,” Barnard said. “He saved our lives.”
“He’s Fezerker,” Price said.
“Either way, we take him,” Barnard said. “We need to get him back to ACOG so they can interrogate him.”
“He’ll slow us down,” Price said, but The Tsar already had Wall’s feet and was running with him towards one of the transporters.
The transporter’s windows had been shattered by the explosion and the driver was leaning, unconscious, against the door. Price opened it and hauled him out roughly.
The stunned Bzadians were recovering quickly and coil-gun rounds sparked off the armoured sides of the transporter as Price gunned the engine. The tracks of the machine bit into the ice and the machine lurched into a tight turn, away from the smouldering wreckage of the SAM battery.
Price found herself heading to the west, back along the tracks that the transporters had already made. It was the wrong way to go; they needed to go east, but a high ice ridge to the north, and a deep crack in the ice to the south, were forcing them into a narrow funnel.
Heavy machine-gun bullets were thudding into the transporter, and in her rear-view mirrors she could see at least one of the other transporters giving chase. The fifty-calibre top-mounted machine gun was spitting fire in their direction.
“Someone get on the fifty,” she yelled.
She pressed the accelerator to the floor and the machine surged forwards.
“I have three vehicles heading west at high speed,” Watson announced.
“Running like dogs,” Russell said.
“Light ’em up,” Whitehead said.
Already, hits were coming in from the battlefield. Some of the icebreakers were getting through; others were being shot down by the concentrated surface-to-air defences of the Bzadian invasion force.
As Wilton watched, an icebreaker landed, disappearing into the ice with what looked like no more than a puff of smoke.
It wasn’t smoke, he knew that. It was pulverised ice. That’s what the icebreakers did. They didn’t have to hit their targets. Their job was to fracture the icefloes, weakening them. A succession of them would turn the floes into crushed ice, dumping anything on them into the sea. There was little to see from above, because all of their energy was directed into the ice itself.
Another icebreaker landed, but more and more were exploding in midair above the ice. The Taranis drones too were falling from the sky, victims of a vicious response from the ice below.
Wilton had seen too much.
He had heard nothing from Monster. That meant the Angels had not got out. They were somewhere down there. Right in the middle of the kill zone.
AMBUSH
[MISSION DAY 2, FEBRUARY 17, 2033. 1130 HOURS LOCAL TIME]
[BERING STRAIT, SOUTH-WEST OF LITTLE DIOMEDE ISLAND]
“Icebreakers!” Monster yelled, picking himself up from the ground.
The entire icefloe had just shuddered as if the world itself was breaking apart. A plume of snow and ice had erupted, somewhere to the south-west.
“Get down! Here they come,” Nukilik said.
The first transporter appeared from behind one of the mounds.
“Any second,” Nukilik shouted.
The vehicle’s top-mounted machine gun was firing a constant stream of high-calibre bullets at the transporter behind it, which was returning the fire.
“Why are they shooting at each other?” Nukilik asked.
“Angels!” Monster said.
It had to be! But they were heading right for the trap that he and Nukilik had laid.
He leaped out from behind the safety of the ridge, yelling and screaming at the transporter.
The transporter made no attempt to slow. The tracks of the machine hurled ice in the air. At the last minute, the driver must have realised that something was wrong and the tracks jammed, the DT-30 slewing sideways as it hit the pool of slush.
The machine’s nose completely disappeared, all the way back to the driver’s door, water spraying up in all directions. Then came a judder that Monster felt through the ice as the vehicle hit a solid wall on the far side of the pool.
The articulated DT-30 jackknifed vertically. The connecting rods snapped with an explosive crack and the trailer bounced up over the cab, landing on the other side, first with one track, then the other, sliding a dozen metres before flipping onto its side, wedged against a projecting slab of ice. The second vehicle locked up its tracks and slid across the ice, ramming into the now vertical tracks of the first vehicle and pushing it over onto its roof.
Half a second later, there was a streak of light from the sky: a lightning bolt that struck the ice just a few metres in front of the vehicle. A fountain of pulverised ice shards sprayed into the air. If not for the pool of slush stopping the DT-30 in its tracks, it and anyone on it would have been vaporised.
The third vehicle skidded to a halt well clear of the jumble of twisted metal.
Monster was already running, leaping down the jumbled slope of the ridge. Nukilik was right behind him.
Price lay on the ice, struggling for breath. She had seen the ice shimmer in front of her as she’d had driven the machine down the slope and had known that something was wrong. But there was no time to do anything about it, no time to stop, no way to change direction.
The transporter had slammed into a brick wall. At that point things got confused. She remembered hurtling through the windscreen, already smashed by the explosion of the SAM battery. She seemed to be flying briefly then the ice had come up to meet her and there was a moment of blackness.
Now there were vague shapes around her, whirling and turning in the wind. Animals. No, humans in animal furs.
Shouts drifted to her as one of the shapes helped the other Angels out of the wreck of the transporter. She strained to catch their words but heard only scraps because of the wind and the buzzing in her ears.
She tried to lift herself up, but the ice clung to her, refusing to let her go.
One of the fur-clad shapes slid to a halt beside her and she was lifted up. She heard gunfire but couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Bullets kicked up puffs of ice around her and sparked off the side of the wrecked vehicle.
There was a roar overhead and she glanced up, catching a glimpse of a blur of black metal. The ice thundered, not far away, and she was back on the ground, the man lying across her. He was a native of the area, she realised. An Inupiat.
Her strength started to return and as the man stood, she pushed away his hand and stood on her own, a little wobbly but okay.
The firing had stopped with the explosion of the missile and the other Angels were already running for the safety of the ice ridge.
The man shouted “run” in her ear. Was there something familiar about his voice, or was that her imagination? He pulled her with him, running after the others.
There were more gunshots now, but they didn’t seem directed at the Angels. When she glanced around she saw the Bzadians firing at the ice ridge. As she watched, a barrage of small spears came flying over the ridge.
Then she was climbing up among the jumbled ice rocks of the ridge itself, and over, to cover, to safety.
[MISSION DAY 2, FEBRUARY 17, 2033. 1540 HOURS LOCAL TIME]
[OPERATIONS COMMAND CENTRE, THE PENTAGON, VIRGINIA]
Wilton could not take his eyes off the main screen, switching between cameras on different drones. The screen was full of smoke, fire and bursting pinpoints of light. And somewhere beneath that were his friends.
“We are facing intense SAM activity,” Hundal said. “Whatever they’ve got on that icefloe, they sure want to protect it.”
“If they want to protect it, then we want to destroy it,” Whitehead said.
“The invasion force is much larger than we thought,” Russell said. “Based on the SAM activity, it spreads a long way to the south and the west.”
The picture on the main screen was not encouraging. The icefloes near the islands were crushed and broken, a large dark area amid the white of the sea ice.
But the dimpled effect of the mounds that hid Bzadian tanks spread far to the east and the south.
“If every one of those hills is a Bzadian battle tank, then that’s got to be over half the Bzadian army, right there,” Whitehead said. “This is the invasion we’ve been waiting for.”
“Most of our Taranis drones are down,” Hundal said. “Taken out by SAMs, or by the Type Ones. I’m pulling the other ones back.”
“How about the Tomahawks?” Whitehead asked.
“A good percentage of the first strike got through,” Hooper said. “By the time the second strike got there, the Type Ones were on station and they’re knocking them down as fast as we could fire them.”
“F-35s coming into range,” Hundal said. “That’ll draw off the Type Ones for you.”
“It had better,” Hooper said.
“We either stop this right here, right now, or it’s all over,” Whitehead said. “As soon as those Type Ones are engaged, I want you to blanket that entire area with the cruise missiles. Smash that icefield to pieces.”
“We’ve already committed over a third of our inventory,” Hundal said.
“That won’t matter if we can turn this attack around,” Russell said.
“Let ’em have it, Jack,” Whitehead said quietly.
“Let them have what?” Hooper asked.
“Everything,” Whitehead said. “Those tanks are not getting through. Not on my watch. Not this winter.”
“Angels, get out of there,” Wilton murmured to himself, “before it’s too late.”
But he had a bad feeling that it was already too late.
Monster helped Wall up a low section of the ridge. The Angels were not in good shape, dazed and bloodied by the crash. Wall seemed to have come off the worst and the front of his armour was blackened and burned. Monster put his arm under Wall’s shoulders and helped him climb.
