Ice War (26 page)

Wilton powered up the control system and ran pre-flight checks on the missiles, and the craft’s only other offensive weapon, the forward-mounted machine gun.

His hands were shaking slightly, fatigue perhaps, or the after-effects of the explosion. He clenched them together to try to make the shaking stop. He didn’t need that if he was going into a battle zone.

It had been a six-hour flight and he had slept most of the way, but in that sleep had come dreams, always of the same thing. The face in the photograph. Clordon. He woke in a sweat, the face still vivid in his mind. It wasn’t a face you would remember. There was nothing distinctive about it. You could walk past this man in a corridor, then walk past him again a few minutes later and swear you had never seen him before.

But major traumatic events have a way of throwing memories into super-sharp focus, of highlighting tiny unimportant details that you would never remember otherwise.

And now Wilton was sure he had seen that man somewhere else.

It was the man who had entered the bunker, and then left, leaving behind an olive green briefcase.

His pilot, Captain Adrienne Anderson, arrived just as he was finishing pre-flight.

“Wilton,” she said.

It wasn’t a question, or an order. In fact, Wilton wasn’t sure what it was.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

“You can drop the ma’am straightaway,” she said. “It’s captain. Or Captain Anderson if you’re feeling extra polite.”

“Yes, captain,” Wilton said. “I’m looking forward to serving with you.”

“You’re looking forward to serving with me?” She clicked her tongue a few times. It was clearly a habit.

“Yes, captain,” Wilton said.

“You know what, Wilton?” she said. “I’m a professional soldier. Not like most of the ACOG conscripts. Eight years in the US Military before the Pukes arrived, and seven years of constant fighting since then. You know the problem with that? Most of the people I trained with are dead. They keep sending me replacements with three months training, and somehow we’re supposed to keep each other alive. You gonna keep me alive, Wilton?”

“I hope so, captain,” Wilton said.

“How old are you, Wilton?”

“Seventeen, but I’m …”

She cut him off with a wave of her hand. “I know who you are, and I know the Angels’ reputation. You’re supposed to be good with a gun, but the fact is you’re still a kid and you don’t belong here.”

“Sorry, captain,” Wilton said.

“Me too,” she said. “But I’m stuck with you. You do exactly as I say, and maybe we’ll both walk away from this.”

“Yes, captain,” Wilton said.

“All right.” She sighed. “Show me what you know. I’ll try to fill in the gaps.”

[MISSION DAY 3, FEBRUARY 18, 2033. 1015 HOURS LOCAL TIME]

[BERING STRAIT, ALASKA]

The hovercraft moved slowly away from the island. Monster found an ice ridge and kept close to it, reasoning that it would reduce their chances of being detected by radar or being spotted visually. It also cut down the wind which kept trying to blow them off course. Not that Price minded the weather. The blizzard was getting worse, and that meant they would be hard to spot, and harder to kill.

Added to the hammering winds and the driving snow were sounds like thunder and flashes like lightning from the battle raging between the light, fast ACOG hovercraft and the heavy tanks and rotorcraft of the Bzadians. That had started even before it was light and was now at full roar.

Bowden had stayed behind, saying she could do more good manning the station than as an extra man on the hovercraft.

“What’s our stealth profile?” Price asked.

“We’re getting bombarded with radar,” The Tsar said. “But according to the indicators we shouldn’t be returning a strong enough signal for them to detect. We’re invisible to them at the moment.”

“Perfect,” Price said. “Let’s try to stay that way.”

“No problem,” Monster said, at the controls.

“Okay, Wall, when we start our run, I want you up on the rear gun,” Price said.

“Won’t do much good against tanks,” Wall said.

“It’s not the tanks I’m worried about. They’re not effective against small fast targets. But you can bet they’ll send their rotorcraft after us. Snowmobiles and T-boarders too.”

Wall nodded.

“Barnard, you do what you need to do with the de-icing controls, and I’ll take the top gun,” Price said.

“The suicide position,” Monster commented.

“Someone’s got to take it,” Price said. “You’re our best driver and I need Tsar on the scopes. Who does that leave?”

“I’m going to test the de-icer,” Barnard said. “Can you run her up to thirty klicks?”

“Okay,” Monster said, and a moment or two later, “Steady at thirty klicks.”

Barnard pulled the cords that connected to the de-icing unit. After a few metres she said, “Okay, circle back. I want to see how that worked.”

Monster looped the craft back to where they had started the run. Barnard slid over the edge of the rubber cushion and ran to the wet patch on the ice. She checked the time then plunged an aluminium rod into the water, testing the depth.

The Tsar gave her a hand back up on deck.

“All good?” he asked.

She said nothing, working on some calculations in her head.

[MISSION DAY 3, FEBRUARY 18, 2033. 1030 HOURS LOCAL TIME]

[FORWARD OPERATIONS BASE, TIN CITY, ALASKA]

Wilton sat silently on a hard plastic folding seat.

The briefing centre was a prefabricated metal hut. A large screen on the wall showed icons representing the various human and Bzadian elements involved in the battle.

This was different to an Angel mission. There was tension and nervousness before those, but it was a different kind of tension. On Angel missions they were undercover, trying their best to avoid conflict, to stay out of harm’s way. Here, they were preparing to head into the thick of it. To get right in harm’s way.

People were dying out on the ice, and there was a good chance that he would be one of them.

The squadron leader, Major Jaylen Gerrand, waited silently while the rest of the pilots and gunners filed in.

“This is not going our way. It looks like we’ll lose the Northern Ridge,” Major Gerrand said. “The Pukes have mounted a major offensive; they’ve committed over two hundred tanks to this, with heavy support from their rotorcraft and snowmobiles. However, that opens a window of opportunity for us. They have had to weaken their defences to the south. We’re going to try to exploit it. Third reserve Viper squadron are going in after their SAM batteries. We’re their escort.”

“How, sir?” Anderson asked. “We’d have to pass through the front lines. We’d get eaten alive.”

“We think the Pukes have pushed too far forwards,” Gerrand said, pointing to a large jagged line on the screen. “They’ve ignored this southern crevasse. Our plan is to move the Vipers up the eastern fissure. The ice is nearly two-metres high there. We’re going to creep along below their radar until we reach the crevasse. Then we’ll accelerate to attack speed and pop up behind the main battle lines. We’ll still have to contend with their flank guards, but by the time they see us, we’ll be past them and in among the SAM batteries. The Vipers will take them out with spiderwebs, while we keep the Puke rotorcraft and snowmobiles off their tails.”

“How do we get out?” another pilot asked.

“Any way you can,” Gerrand said. “Any further questions?”

There were none.

This was it, Wilton thought. Time to find out if those hours of training against robotic targets had done him any good.

[MISSION DAY 3, FEBRUARY 18, 2033. 1100 HOURS LOCAL TIME]

[FORWARD OPERATIONS BASE, TIN CITY, ALASKA]

There was a slight shifting of weight as the engine started and the air cushion filled, lifting the craft off the concrete of the landing pad. Ahead and behind, Wilton could see the rest of the squadron also rising up.

They began to move in single file, ice flying from beneath their skirts as they slid easily down the ramp and out across the storm-tossed waters of the bay. The ice-covered tundra slipped quickly past and then the white cliffs of the icefloe emerged out of the curtain of snow and flying ice.

Ahead, Wilton saw Gerrand, the squadron leader, disappear into a gaping crack in the cliff face. The fissure. It seemed barely wide enough for his craft, but Anderson manoeuvred the little spitfire expertly into the gap.

They moved slowly, the sound of the propeller no more than a soft hum behind them.

The fissure was not straight, but zigged and zagged, ending in a sudden right turn into the much wider crevasse. Still they crept along at minimum speed, although Wilton could hardly bear the waiting. They were almost in the heart of the enemy formations; surely, someone would see them soon?

“Here we go,”
Gerrand said, the first words since they had left the base, the first breaking of radio silence. That no longer mattered.

Water churned in front of them and propellers spat ice particles as the hovercraft squadron powered up to attack speed.

“Arm your weapons,” Anderson said, clicking her tongue. “As soon as we jump, it’s weapons free.”

“Weapons armed,” Wilton confirmed the instruction. His heart was racing; his mouth was dry. From now on every fraction of a second was life and death.

The spitfire’s nose came up and it lifted off the water, on the tail of the machine in front of it. The wind lashed viciously at them as they rose up out of the fissure, flying, for a few metres at least, as the craft cleared the two-metre-high cliff and rocketed across the ice – right between two Bzadian battle tanks. One tank flashed by, then another, then they were through the flanks of the formation and racing across the ice towards row after row of SAM batteries. There were foot mobiles everywhere, mostly on T-boards, and they were quick to react. Bullets were already smashing off the armoured glass of the windscreen. It was small arms fire, and shouldn’t worry the spitfire, but Wilton engaged them with the front gun as they spread out with the other hovercraft, racing towards the SAM units.

In the thick of the battle, in the thick of the storm, it was like driving in a heavy fog, with giant battle tanks suddenly appearing out of nowhere.

One of the spitfires turned sharply to avoid a rotorcraft that materialised in front of it, veering right into the path of another spitfire. There was a ball of flame as the two craft collided.

The SAM batteries looked like the Bzadian tanks, although slightly smaller. There were at least a hundred of them.

He ignored them. The sidewinder missiles would not penetrate their thick, spinning hulls. He concentrated on their defenders, the rotorcraft and snowmobiles that buzzed around them in the storm.

“Target acquired,” the gunnery computer told him. Wilton pulled the trigger. A sidewinder leaped off the right wing and left a smoky trail in the air as it closed in on a rotorcraft. Another sidewinder from another spitfire was on the same trail. There was a flash, followed immediately by another as the missiles struck. White lightning occupied the place where the rotorcraft had been. One of the missiles had hit the ammunition store inside the vehicle.

Wilton whooped with excitement. His first rotorcraft kill.

“Concentrate!” Anderson said. “There’s plenty more where that came from!”

The gunnery computer found another target but lost it almost immediately, then found a third. Wilton squeezed the trigger a second time, and saw the missile miss by a metre and go spinning off into the distance. Another target, another missile, and this time success.

“Rotorcraft, three o’clock,” Anderson said.

“Got it,” Wilton said.

He pinged it with the target acquirer and was rewarded with a steady tone. He fired just as the enemy craft let loose two missiles.

The sidewinder spiralled towards the rotorcraft as their spitfire leaped into the air, using height to evade the Bzadian missiles that scorched through underneath. The sidewinder streaked into the rotors of the enemy craft and exploded. The craft shimmied in midair, then dropped onto the ice.

“Couple of snow-mos on our tail!” Wilton yelled. Two snowmobiles were right behind them, trying to line up shots as Anderson jigged the spitfire around, in between Bzadian tanks.

“Take a deep breath,” Anderson said. “Stay calm. Drop a couple of mines. I’ll reverse flick at the same time.”

She straightened to give Wilton a good line. He punched out two landmines. Anderson cut the power to the propeller and spun the hovercraft a hundred and eighty degrees, sliding backwards over the ice at seventy kilometres per hour.

The first snowmobile ran straight over one of the landmines, which sprang up off the ice, magnetically attracted to the hull of the machine. There was an explosion and the snowmobile erupted in flames.

The second machine swerved around the first and kept on coming, until Wilton took off its right ski with the machine gun. It flipped violently and smashed into a mound of ice.

“Nice shootin’,” Anderson said, spinning them back around and gunning the engine just in time to avoid a collision with a SAM battery.