Ice Hunt

Matt swung to face the contorted, pained figures in the ice. “Are you saying that these people are still alive?”

Before anyone could answer, a pounding sounded from the door, determined, stolid. Everyone went silent.

A hard voice called out to them. “Open the door immediately…if we have to cut our way through, you will suffer for our troubles.”

From the dead tone of the other’s voice, it was no idle threat.

The wolf was at their door.

2:04 P.M.

AIRBORNE OVER THE POLAR CAP

Jenny fought the gale pounding at her windshield. It blew steady, but sudden gusts and churning winds kept her fingers tight on her controls, eyes glued to her instruments. She had not even bothered to glance out the windshield for the past ten minutes. What was the use?

Though she couldn’t see anything, she still wore her snow goggles. Even with the blizzard, the midday glare shot through the windshield. It made her want to close her eyes. How long had it been since she’d slept?

She pushed these thoughts away and watched her airspeed. Too slow. The headwind was eating her speed. She tried to ignore the fuel gauge. The needle pointed to a large red E. A yellow warning light glowed. Empty. They were flying on fumes into a blizzard.

“Are we sure about this?” Kowalski said. The seaman had given up trying to raise anyone on the radio.

“I don’t see we have much other choice,” Jenny said. “We don’t have enough fuel to reach the coast. We’d be forced to land anyway. I’d rather land somewhere where we had some chance of living.”

“How far out are we?” Tom asked from the backseat. Bane lay curled on the seat beside him, tail tucked around his body.

“If the coordinates you gave me are correct, we’ve another ten miles.”

Kowalski stared out the windshield. “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

Jenny ignored him. They had already debated it. It was their only choice. She struggled to eke out a bit more speed, taking every lull in the wind to surge ahead, lunging in spurts toward their goal. The controls had grown more sluggish as ice built on the wings and crusted on the windshield. They were slowly becoming a flying ice cube.

They traveled in silence for another five minutes. Jenny barely breathed, waiting for the props to choke out as her greedy engines consumed the last of her fuel.

“There!” Tom suddenly blurted, jamming an arm between Jenny and Kowalski. Bane lifted his head.

Jenny tried to follow where the ensign pointed. “I don’t see—”

“Ten degrees to starboard! Wait for the wind to let up!”

Jenny concentrated on where he indicated. Then, as the snow eddied out in a wild twist, she spotted a light ahead, glowing up at them. “Are you sure that’s the place?”

Tom nodded.

“Ice Station Grendel,” Kowalski moaned.

Jenny began her descent, studying her altimeter. Without fuel, they needed a place to land. They couldn’t go back to Omega and to touch down in the wasteland of the polar cap was certain death. There was only one other place that offered adequate shelter. The ice station.

It was risky, but not totally foolhardy. The Russians would not be expecting them. If they could land out of direct sight, Tom Pomautuk knew the layout of the station well enough to possibly get them into one of the exterior ventilation shafts that brought fresh air down to the buried station. They could hole up there until the Russians left.

And besides, their dwindling fuel situation left them little other choice.

The Otter lurched as the portside engine coughed. The prop skipped a beat, fluttering. In a heartbeat, the Twin Otter became a Single Otter. Flying on one engine, Jenny fought to hold the plane even while dropping her flaps. She dove steeply. “Hold tight!”

Kowalski had a death grip on both armrests. “I got that covered.”

There was no sight line to the ice fields below. Jenny watched her altimeter wheel down. The winds continued to fight, grabbing the plane, trying to hold it aloft.

Jenny bit her lower lip, concentrating. She tried to fix the position of the station’s beacon light, now gone again, in her mind’s eye. A map formed in her head, fed by data from her instruments and her own instinct.

As the altimeter dropped under the two-hundred-foot ceiling, she focused on her trim, fighting both the wind and the dead engine to hold herself level. The snow became thicker, not just from the sky but now blowing up at her from the ice plain below.

She intended to descend from here as gradually as possible. It was the only safe way to land blind. Slow and even…as long as the last engine held. She watched the altimeter drop under a hundred…then seventy…then—

“Watch out!” Tom called from the backseat.

Her gaze flicked up from her focus on her instruments. Out of the storm ahead, the winds parted in places to reveal a wall of ice ahead of them, broken and thrust up into jagged teeth, misted with blowing snow. It lay less than a hundred yards ahead. She thought quickly, weighing options in a heartbeat. She plainly didn’t have the engines to make it over them.

Beside her, Kowalski swore a constant string, his version of a prayer.

Jenny gnashed her teeth, then jammed her stick forward, diving more steeply. Screw it, she thought, I’m sticking this landing. She dropped the plane the last fifty feet, sweeping out of the sky, plunging toward the peaks of ice.

The ground was nowhere in sight.

Kowalski’s prayer became more heartfelt, finishing with “I really, really hate you!”

Jenny ignored him. She concentrated on her instruments, trusting them. They promised the ground was down there somewhere. She completely dropped her flaps; the plane dipped savagely.

It was too much for her last engine. The motor gasped, choked, and died. In that moment, they became a frozen rock with wings, hurtling earthward.

“Fuuuucccckkkk!” Kowalski cried, hands now pressed to the side window and dash.

Jenny hummed. The momentum of the glide continued to hold—barely. The needle on the altimeter slipped lower and lower, then settled to zero. There was still no sign of the ground.

Then her skis hit the ice, soft and even.

She punched up her flaps to brake their speed. They had landed at speeds much faster than she liked.

As the Otter continued to race over the slick surface, side winds threatened to topple it over on a wing, attempting to cartwheel them off to oblivion. But Jenny worked her flaps, plied the Otter with skill, and adjusted their course to keep the wings up.

“Ice!” Tom called from the backseat.