Ice Station

the cavern.

The underwater ice tunnel no longer led to the depths of the ocean. Now it led upward. Now it led to the surface.

Schofield maneuvered the Silhouette so as to avoid the cascade of water pouring out of the ice tunnel. After a good twenty seconds, the rush of water abated and he pulled back on his stick. The Silhouette responded by rocking backwards in the air and pointing itself up at the wide hole in the ceiling.

'All right, Kirsty, now!'

Kirsty jammed down on her trigger.

Immediately the Silhouette's wings spewed forth a devastating burst of tracer fire. The relentless wave of bullets disappeared inside the hole in the ceiling and assaulted any icy crags or outcroppings that dared to jut out of the walls of the ice tunnel.

At that moment, Schofield hit the thrusters and the Silhouette shot up into the tunnel, just as, behind it, the ceiling of the enormous cavern spectacularly collapsed in on itself.

The wing-mounted guns of the Silhouette blazed away, blasting at any imperfections in the ice tunnel as the big black plane flew upward through what had once been the underwater ice tunnel.

Schofield guided the sleek black plane up through the tunnel, shooting through puffs of white cloud, rolling the big plane onto its side when the tunnel narrowed, praying to God that the tracer bullets were clearing the way.

Up and up the Silhouette went, blasting away at the tunnel in front of it. Explosions boomed out all around the big black plane. The sound of its wing-mounted guns firing away was deafening.

And then suddenly the tunnel behind the Silhouette began to collapse at a phenomenal rate.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

 Massive chunks of ice began to rain down from the ceiling of the tunnel behind the speeding plane. The Silhouette raced upward through the tunnel, blasting away at the walls of the tunnel in front of it while at the same time outrunning the collapsing tunnel behind it.

Through the cockpit canopy it looked like some kind of video-game thrill ride. The tunnel swept past Schofield at phenomenal speed, and occasionally the world nipped upside-down as he rolled the big plane to avoid falling chunks of ice.

Schofield watched as the barrage of tracer bullets decimated the walls of the tunnel in front of him, widening it, smoothing it, and then suddenly?voom!?the walls of the ice tunnel vanished and in a single, glorious instant he saw the sky open up in front of him.

The Silhouette burst out of the iceberg and flew up into the clear open sky.

The Silhouette shot up into the air, almost vertical, and Schofield looked back over his shoulder and saw that the ice shelf that had held Wilkes Ice Station within it was indeed no longer an ice shelf. It was now an iceberg.

An absolutely massive iceberg.

It had flipped over and Schofield saw the eroded underbelly of what had once been the ice shelf?the thin, icy stalactites, the glistening-wet mountain peaks?rising like spires above the new berg. He also saw the jagged black hole through which the Silhouette had blasted out of the berg.

And then suddenly movement caught his eye: a thin white object racing over the ocean, heading toward the newly formed iceberg.

The missile.

And as the Silhouette roared into the sky, Schofield watched in silent awe as the nuclear-tipped missile slammed into the iceberg and burrowed into it. There was about a three-second delay ...

And then the nuclear device detonated.

Armageddon.

The white-hot flash of the nuclear explosion?directly beneath the Silhouette as it shot up into the sky?was absolutely blinding.

Solid cliffs of ice were turned instantly to powder as every side of the iceberg containing Wilkes Ice Station and the underground cavern blew out with the blast wave.

The blast wave shot underwater, vaporizing everything in its path, creating huge waves of water that expanded out from the coast, rocking the massive icebergs that lined the cliffs as if they were a child's bath toys. Truth be told, it wasn't a large nuclear blast?three kilotons, with a blast radius of half a kilometer. But then again, there really was no such thing as a small nuclear explosion.

But it wasn't over yet.

Suddenly a monstrous black mushroom cloud began to form, shooting up into the air at incredible speed, chasing the Silhouette as it shot skyward.

Schofield went vertical, tried to outrun the burgeoning mushroom cloud. The mushroom cloud rushed upward. The Silhouette screamed into the sky, its engines roaring, and just as the mushroom cloud began to engulf it the cloud peaked and the Silhouette shot up and away to safety.

Schofield banked the plane sharply and headed out to sea.

The Silhouette shot across the ocean, heading north. It was dark, eternal twilight. The gargantuan mushroom cloud had just dipped below the horizon to the south of the big black plane.

Schofield found the autopilot, engaged it, then went back into the missile bay to check on Gant.

'How is she?' he asked Renshaw. Gant was lying on the floor of the missile bay, looking seriously pale. Her skin was clammy, her eyes were closed.

'She's lost a lot of blood,' Renshaw said. 'We have to get her to a hospital fast.'

At that moment, Gant's eyes popped open. 'Did we win?' she asked.

Schofield and Renshaw both looked down at her. Schofield smiled. 'Yes, Libby, we won. How are you feeling?'

'Terrible.' She lay back, shut her eyes again.

Schofield sighed. Where could he take her? A ship would be the best option, but which?

The Wasp. Romeo had said that the USS Wasp was out here somewhere. It was Jack Walsh's ship. A Marine ship. It would be safe.

Schofield was about to hurry back to the cockpit when suddenly he saw the diary sticking out of Gant's breast pocket.

He grabbed it and headed forward into the cockpit.

Once he was seated in the pilot's chair, he keyed the Silhouette's radio. 'USS Wasp. USS Wasp. This is Scarecrow. I repeat, this is Scarecrow. Do you copy?'

There was no reply.

He tried again. No reply. He looked down at the diary in his hands. It had some looseleaf sheets of paper folded inside it. Gant must have found some documents and put them in the diary.

Schofield grabbed one of the loose sheets. It read:

Design Parameters for the B-7A Silhouette

 The Principal desires an attack aircraft with total electronic and conventional invisibility, STOVL capabilities through a retrograde thruster system, and multiple-launch BVR medium-to-long-range (200 nm) air-to-air/ air-to- ground missile launch capabilities as expressed in the tender lodged by General Aeronautics, Inc., and Entertech Ltd. in response to the Principal's Invitation to Tender No, 456-771-7A, dated 2 January 1977.