Ice Station

'Pest control!' Book called.

Schofield hurried toward the trunk.

'Here,' he said to Renshaw as he ran. 'Put this on.'

He handed Renshaw the Marine helmet that he had picked up on his way out of the freezer room. Then he quickly picked up the big Samsonite trunk and headed for the French hovercraft.

The French hovercraft sat silently in the snow outside the main entrance to the station. Unlike the two white USMC hovercrafts, it was painted a bright garish orange.

Seven minutes.

Schofield leaped up onto the skirt of the French hovercraft and yanked open the sliding door. He got Renshaw to pass the big Samsonite trunk up to him, and he threw it inside.

Schofield hurried into the cabin and made for the driver's chair. Renshaw jumped in behind him and pulled the sliding door shut.

Schofield keyed the ignition.

The engine roared to life.

The big seven-foot fan at the rear of the hovercraft began to rotate. It got faster and faster until, like the propeller on an old biplane, it suddenly snapped into overdrive and became a rapidly spinning blur.

Beneath the hovercraft's black rubber skirt, four smaller turbofans also kicked into action. The big hovercraft lifted slowly off the ground as the skirt inflated like a balloon.

Schofield brought the big orange vehicle around so that it came alongside the two white Marine hovercrafts. They were all pointing outward, away from the station.

Looking out through the reinforced windscreen of his hovercraft, Schofield could see the horizon to the southwest. It glowed a haunting orange.

Superimposed upon it were a collection of dark shadows. Small black boxes with fat rounded bases that seemed to kick up a haze of dust behind them.

The British hovercrafts.

Closing in on Wilkes Ice Station.

'All right, people,' Schofield said into his helmet mike, 'Let's get out of here.'

The ground raced by beneath them.

The three American hovercrafts whipped across the ice plain at phenomenal speed, side by side. Book and Schofield were on the outside; Rebound's transport was in the middle.

They raced east, in the direction of McMurdo. The three hovercrafts kept to the coastline, skirting around the edge of a cliff that towered above an enormous bay-like expanse of water. From point to point, the bay was about one mile across, but to go around it by land required a trek of almost eight miles. The mountainous waves of the Southern Ocean crashed loudly against the base of the cliffs.

As his hovercraft sped across the ice plain, Schofield looked behind him. He saw the British hovercrafts approaching Wilkes Ice Station from the west and the south.

'They must have landed at one of the Australian stations,' he said over his helmet intercom. Casey Station, most likely, he thought. It was the nearest one, about seven hundred miles due west of Wilkes.

'Fucking Australians,' Rebound's voice said.

Five miles away, in the silent interior of a black American-made Bell Textron SR.N7-S hovercraft, Brigadier General Trevor J. Barnaby stared impassively out through the reinforced glass windshield of his hovercraft.

Trevor Barnaby was a tall, solid man, fifty-six years old, with a fully shaven head and a pointed black goatee. He stared out through the windshield of his hovercraft with cold, hard eyes.

'You're running, Scarecrow,' he said aloud. 'My, my, you are a clever one.'

'They're heading east, sir,' a young SAS corporal manning the radio console next to Barnaby said. 'Out along the coast'

'Send eight crafts after them,' Barnaby commanded. 'Kill them. Everyone else is to proceed to the station as planned.'

'Yes, sir.'

The speedometer on Schofield's hovercraft edged over eighty miles per hour. Snow pounded against the windshield.

'Sir, they're coming!' Rebound's voice shouted over Schofield's helmet intercom.

Schofield's head snapped right and he saw them.

Several British hovercrafts had broken away from the main group and were heading toward the three escaping American hovercrafts.

'The others are going for the station,' Book's voice said.

'I know,' Schofield said. 'I know.'

Schofield whirled around in the driver's seat. He saw Renshaw standing in the back section of the cabin, looking slightly ridiculous in Mitch Healy's oversized Marine helmet.

'Mr. Renshaw,' Schofield said.

'Yes.'

'Time to make yourself useful. See if you can open that trunk on the floor there.'

Renshaw immediately dropped to his knees and flipped the latches on the black Samsonite trunk that lay on the floor in front of him.

Schofield drove, turning around every few seconds to see how Renshaw was faring with the trunk.

'Oh, shit,' Renshaw said as he opened the trunk and saw what lay inside it.

At that moment, there came a sudden booming sound from outside and Schofield snapped around again.

He knew that sound....

And then he saw it.

'Oh, no...,' he groaned.

The first missile slammed into the snow-covered ground right in front of Schofield's speeding hovercraft.

It left a crater ten feet in diameter, and a split second later Schofield's hovercraft screamed over the edge of the crater, exploding through the dust cloud above it.

'Incoming!' Rebound's voice yelled.

'Get inland!' Schofleld called back as he caught sight of the cliff edge about a hundred yards to his left. 'Get away from the edge!'

Schofield's head snapped around again as he spoke. He saw the cluster of British hovercrafts behind him.

He also saw the second missile.

It was white and round, cylindrical, and it cut through the driving snow in front of the lead British hovercraft, its spiraling smoke trail looping through the air behind it. A Milan antitank missile.

Renshaw saw it, too. 'Yikes!'

Schofield floored it.

But the missile was closing in too quickly. It angled in toward his speeding hovercraft, fast.

Too fast.

And then suddenly, at the last moment, Schofield yanked hard on the steering yoke of his hovercraft and the whole craft swerved dramatically to the left, toward the cliff edge.

The missile shot across the bow of the speeding hovercraft and Schofield instinctively swerved back right and the missile slammed into the snow off to his left, exploding in a spectacular shower of white.

Schofield immediately swung back left, just as a second missile slammed into the snow-covered earth right next to him.

'Keep swerving!' he yelled into his helmet mike. 'Don't let them get a lock on you!'