The Thing: from the Depths of Hell (15 page)

Weaver gasped
considering the dangerous mission ahead, and gasped again at what
had occurred already! Certain things that had occurred interested
him greatly!

There was more
action than he could believe! What were the events that they were
on the trail of? Were the soldiers on the plane being intentionally
secretive or covering not knowing things for reasons? What had he
let himself in for?

He was to
masquerade as a soldier to get into the Antarctic ice station and
basically find out what was happening there without getting caught,
and to take any action if needed!

Sunlight
blasted through one of the windows of the plane, giving him some
warmth. The Antarctic conditions were slowly entering the plane and
digging deep into his body, and he gasped at the temperatures
recorded there and at the fact they were at such a height, which
increased it! Normally he did not mind the winter but he liked to
get use to low temperatures, and he had not been anywhere as cold
before!

So when the
plane door was opened for them to parachute and the winds hit them
he shuddered and put his helmet over his head!

He
automatically dived out with the others gritting his teeth!

He started
getting his body use to it, and could still hardly believe the
location below and that he would be trapped there without help if
anything happened! There was nothing for miles going into the flat
white horizon! They had not even seen anything below since they
passed the last ship over the sea.

He realized
that they had made a mistake! They had been too keen to enter the
mission and they had dropped down a greater distance away from the
ice station than they should have! And he could barely even see it
and only recognized it from the secret intelligence photos of the
highly confidential underground base.

The fact that
he had been a soldier and his military record and his keenest,
fitness, and record of successful spy missions for the intelligence
agency were the main reasons for him being chosen for the mission
and to infiltrate the soldiers to enter the ice station.

They had given
him little and he knew they had little to give! Basically they had
little of what was happening and he was to get information!

He discovered
little in what he had been told and really only knew that there
were deaths occurring all over the ice station, and most had been
killed by military weapons, which was why the soldiers were sent in
to stop, and he was put there by intelligence agencies to find out
more on.

Nothing added
up! Who wanted to kill anyone at such a place? It was basically a
military and scientist ice station and he could only think that
another country was behind it! Yet who had done it and why had they
been done it? There were no known cases like it on record, which
they or he could find, and he had also unsuccessfully searched for
comparisons!

Who could
profit from it? They clearly would replace the people killed, and
what good would it do for them! There had to be far more behind it!
Surely other countries would not have any reasons or be able to
profit from it with it being there.

It was there
to cover that region of the world if needed.

Someone that
he knew had been sure that they had discovered something and that
the military and scientists there that knew about it were being
killed, and if that was true he believed that he might be able to
find something or someone with something.

He gazed over
at the underground ice station gleaming with sunbeams and wondered
what the hell was there! The case was important and something had
to have occurred!

He recalled
the immense size of it below the ground as he watched the others
let out their parachutes, and he copied them and was left staggered
when his entire parachute shot straight upwards, and flew away into
the distance!

He gasped and
examined the straps and saw that they had been deliberately
cut!

He instantly
dived towards the only person directly below him, where he could
properly reach, and realized that the speed that he was traveling
at by diving might be too fast to do anything, and that he would
have only one chance and less than a second to grab hold of the
other parachutist to save his life!

As he shot
down he saw the plane vanish beneath the horizon and grasped the
full dangers and loneliness of the Antarctic, and again realized
the dangers!

He made
himself move over towards the parachutist below and swiftly and
powerfully grabbed his waist, and realized he could not hold on and
swiftly grabbed a strap from him and tied it to the other soldier’s
parachute straps.

Close to the
ground he rested and considered his chances of survival and gasped!
Someone clearly knew that he was there and had intended to kill
him!

Chapter 3

The Gun Battle

Behind them,
below the horizon, the sunlight vanished and the early Antarctic
night engulfed the soldiers and Weaver studied his surroundings
trying to explain why they had made such a mistake! The entire
mission had been planned down the smallest detail!

The ice
station was further away and the snow deep and terrain virtually
impossible to get quickly through! It was incredible that they had
actually not landed earlier than when the sun was going down. The
incident with his parachute had been a major incident and he knew
there was someone there against him and perhaps the mission, and he
wondered who had access to the parachutes!

When a loud
blast exploded out and a bullet hit and killed one of the front
soldiers, beside Commander Craven, Weaver was not fully surprised,
and realized that someone was attacking them!

It was lucky
there was cover and they rushed below two small hills as bullets
flew in hitting the snow all about them, and he realized that there
were at least six of them, and that they had made the mistake of
being too far away. The bullets were off and they had been lucky
that they had hit the soldier.

None of them
could see who was there though, and they were hidden away at
different locations and moved around, and they were unable to
recognize anything! Were they professionals and had planned the
whole thing well before they had arrived?

The whole
terrain was unfamiliar too them and they had the advantage over
them! How could they move forward and get to the ice station
without receiving many deaths?

He was unsure
if they could survive there the night! They had no proper food or
cover, and the temperature was dropping dramatically and none of
them had adapted to the environment.

He wondered if
they got lost if they could find the ice station there! The place
was very hidden away! It was lucky they had seen it from the air
and knew the direction.

He even
wondered if it was the people from the ice station actually firing
on them! If they had not known of their arrival and the situation
there was worse than stated they could believe that they were being
attacked!

He considered
the region and what must be one of the most desolate regions of the
world. They had not seen anyone since they had flown over the
Antarctic sea, and was sure planes even avoided flying there.

What was
staggering was that they were taking on so many soldiers! What did
they actually intend to do? They surely could not expect to kill
the entire group of soldiers, and if they had been informed about
them they would have realized how trained they were! Yet could they
be trying to scare them away? Yet that was absurd also, as they
would have to go there! There was no where else out there to go
to!

The mission
now seemed flawed! Why had they not brought far more soldiers and
more powerful weapons? The soldiers were shooting away unable to
hit anything and their hidden enemy was ignoring it!

Yet they had
put together a good team of everyone needed to carry out the
mission at the ice station, and if they had landed next to it as
planned nothing would have gone wrong! He wondered if it had been
the captain of the plane who had landed them there or if it had
been a mistake as it had looked at the time?

The adventure
brought him back to life after such a long length of inactivity and
lack of anything of interest. At times he still could not believe
that there was anything out in such a desolate region, and that
anything worthwhile existed there!

It was winter
and deep snow shrouded everything around them, and he realized
again that they would have to camp there. And having not slept
outdoors in winter he gasped at sleeping in such thick cold snow,
and considered if they would find his remains there one day, and
wonder why they had done it. There had been accounts in history of
vast drops in temperature and entire groups of soldiers and others
being found frozen solid and dead! What if temperatures hit far
lower than had been recorded, with there being no recorded proof or
witnesses left alive!

The snow
landscape was untouched by humans everywhere, and at times empty
and hollow with no sound, and had a deep haunting silence that he
had only heard before in thick winter snow landscapes. It reminded
him of another world! An empty lost world absence of life with
faint mists surrounding regions.

What was
shocking was how easily they had trapped them, and he was unsure if
they even knew how they could avoid any large amount of deaths. If
only they had taken a small landing airplane
, and kept
it there, but they could not have traveled there with the amount of
soldiers and at that distance!

There was
nothing to recognize anywhere, and he watched some of the men
attempt to use communication devices to the ice station, and when
they failed they tried to see if there was anything to pick up on
it!

Another
problem was that they had experienced a long exhausting day and had
got more exhausted wading through the deep snow, and a peculiarity
he noticed was a distant hum, similar to a distant engine whirling,
out at an unknown place, and it started to drive him insane trying
to identify it.

It was no
surprise that Commander Craven eventually made them blast them with
as many well aimed rounds to force some form of reaction, but they
seemed to ignore it, and he knew that they would have to hit them
with something or force them away!

It was
incredible when thick snow piled down, and he knew that they could
use it as it was virtually impossible to see through in the dark,
and he realized he had a thermal weapon sight in his equipment and
he used it to see what he could find through the darkness and
blizzard! Yet they were too good at hiding!

“
What are we going to do
...?
”
one
of men finally spluttered, fighting for air, furious that they had
been put in a situation.

Commander Craven
stopped checking their
weapons and showed how annoyed he was at his reply and at the way
things were going, and walked towards him.

“
We better agree to something
...
”
he
shouted, giving glances about at things and realizing the mess of
his expedition, and decided not to continue.

“
Where can we go?
”
a soldier named Reeves
continued, who was near Weaver, and Weaver had become close to as
he was his most trusted person as he had been able to check him out
more than anyone else there, which he had done before the mission,
as he checked them all as much as possible to find out anything
that he should know, and he had checked for the people that he
could most depend on.

“
Well I
’
ve an idea!
”
Weaver forced himself to reply,
seeing that nothing was going to happen, and watched Commander
Craven gasp and look like he knew something about him, and he
realized that even though he could know something that he was still
reacting to what had happened with his damaged parachute and his
way of saving himself.

“
Do you think we should attack them
then!
”
Commander Craven answered firmly.

“
I
’
ve been monitoring them with my
thermal weapon sight!” he
swiftly replied. “None of them show themselves! So I reckon we
could easily surprise some of them!”

“
Good idea! But dangerous! You have to
wade through that bloody blizzard and not be seen! Can you do it
then?
”

“
Yes!
”
he answered.
“
Anyone want to join me? We
can
’
t stay
here all night!
”

Weaver was surprised that nobody but Reeves
agreed with carrying it out, and he realized that they never
thought much of the idea! Yet he did see their point and that he
would only be able to get one or two, and risk putting them in
further danger. Yet deep down he really wanted to know who was
there, and capture one and question him.

“
So you
’
re going?
”
Commander Craven
laughed.

“
Yes!
”
he replied firmly, and started
fixing himself up and preparing himself, and watched their blank
faces examining him.

Once he and Reeves were ready he examined
the region around his front and they rushed out and sneaked along
regions that they would be unseen in.

He wondered why they had stopped firing
anyway. Yet he realized they had probably realized that they were
well armed and capable of killing them! How could they attack and
beat them with them being so heavily armed? Then as he properly
examined the area around where they were he realized that they were
capable of attacking them at places that they were not hidden
in.