*
Dr Flist screamed as a rat sank its teeth into his neck. He ripped it away and flung it out of the tractor. It landed amongst a thousand other rats all trying to get on board. They were running at phenomenal speeds and the rocky ground was preventing him from picking up the speed necessary to shake them. He had already pushed the tractor through a number of bumps that had sent his heart into his mouth. This was no place to break down.
There was crying behind him. Flist would have ignored it if only it hadn’t been accompanied by the smell of shit. He glanced over his shoulder at the eclectic mix of kids in the backseat. There were the offspring of scientists, scouts, and soldiers. And the one grown up amidst them was an environmentalist, Jackie Kaur. ‘Everything is going to be alright,’ he said in as reassuring a voice as he could manage - which was not very reassuring with his neck having been ripped open by a rat. It certainly didn’t stop the crying. He took the hunting knife from the vacant front passenger seat and handed it to the young girl directly behind him. ‘Use this if you like.’ She took it, but it was almost bigger than she was. Jackie Kaur promptly snatched it away with a disparaging glance Flist’s way. Flist mostly just noticed the empty seat. It was even more so with the hunting knife gone. Carlisle should have been sitting there. Why couldn’t he have just left that stupid dog alone? Flist wondered if he should have gone after him in his tractor, but dismissed that thought in an instant: there was only one place to be with a marauding army of rodents in pursuit, and that was amongst the greatest concentration of weapons available.
At last the tall wire fence of the Marine base was coming into view. Flist gathered all his attention upon it, hitting hard the embankment leading in. ‘Get ready,’ he called out to his passengers. ‘I’ll park alongside the fence and we’ll climb into the base from there.’
‘Are you crazy?’ cried Kaur. ‘The kids will never make it.’
Flist glanced at her in the rearview mirror. Her eyes were wide open and bloodshot. Flist recalled first being introduced to her – he had been busy collecting ice samples at the time and had barely even looked up. Now he could see how dangerous she was: an ardent conservationist who would place principles above her own skin - not a good idea when the rats had such a taste for it.
‘They’re not about to open the gates for us,’ he yelled pleadingly, ‘not with the uninvited guests we’re bringing along. And if I smash down the gate that will defeat the purpose of having come here in the first place.’
‘Don’t you see it won’t matter what we do,’ Kaur cried back at him. ‘Nothing is going to stop those little buggers. Including that fence. It isn’t even electrified.’ She pointed to where the fence was wilting precariously as the rats piled on top of each other all the way to the top. ‘They can climb. And you can bet that they dig.’ She strained to see beyond the rats to the military base beyond the fence. ‘It is presumptuous anyway to think anyone would be alive in that base unless they are in a nuclear bomb proof bunker. And if they’ve got one of them, I doubt we will be invited. The only thing that’s certain is that on this side of the fence we get eaten sooner.’
Flist frowned. ‘Alright, damn it. Let’s just hope the Marines don’t mistake us for one big rat.’ He veered the tractor sharply into the fence, crushing a whole section under its wheels. The manicured lawns of the base, genetically modified Tennessee blue grass, were instantly inundated by the rats, swarming in and out of the tractor wheels and veering away as an even stronger scent of human propelled them in a different direction.
Major Emsly was watching the breech from his position by the flagpole. He sucked in a calming breath through gritted teeth. As the rats poured into the base, he turned his attention to the defensive perimeter of soldiers, realising now against what standard it had to be measured. Thirty soldiers heavily armed in a tight circle to take on thousands of rats. He had no idea if it could be done. This was not the kind of battle he had analysed at Quantico. But perhaps one day it would be, and his name would be at the forefront. ‘Do you want me to smoke that damned tractor too, sir?’’ cried on of his soldiers, aiming his rifle.
‘Refrain,’ replied Emsly forcefully. ‘They are survivors from the polar bear sanctuary. American citizens under attack. We are Marines. We will defend our wounded, our flag and any citizen that needs our help.’ He fired a flare to guide the tractor and turned to Robbie Dean, the garrison’s sniper. ‘Keep the rats off that vehicle, sniper. And try not to shoot anyone inside.’
‘Yes, sir,’ replied the Dean raising his rifle. ‘But it will be hard concentrating on the target if there are rats running up my trousers.’
‘Noted, soldier.’
Dean started picking rats off the tractor’s windshield and doors. Even from a hundred metres away his aim was unfailing.
Dr Flist’s reaction from behind the wheel was one of panic. ‘They’re shooting at us!’ he screamed as rat blood spattered the windscreen. He lowered the driver’s side window and frantically waved his white handkerchief. A rat promptly ran along his arm and sank its teeth into his hand. Flist screamed in pain and furiously tried to shake it off, but it took a sniper’s bullet to end its feasting, the shot only leaving its head behind, protruding from his arm.
‘They’re not shooting at us,’ Kaur declared. ‘They’re protecting us.’ She looked down from the flare at the smoke billowing from the base and the circle of Marines surrounding the flag out on the parade ground. ‘Can you see them?’
‘Yes.’ With both hands on the steering wheel, Flist made the turn. The environmentalist reached forward and extracted the rat’s head still dangling from Flist’s arm.
‘Take it easy,’ she said. ‘If you run down a Marine, they really might start aiming at us. Not that we could easily tell the difference at this rate.’
Flist took in a deep breath and nodded. ‘Their base has been blown up and it wasn’t by rats.’
‘My God, is this another war?’
They watched through the bloodied glass the Marines firing en masse upon the converging rats. It was a deafening, blindingly bright, awe-inspiring display of firepower. The rats were being pulverised into mounds of steaming meat and still they kept coming. Some were getting through the cordon of gunfire, leaping with demented fury at the necks of the Marines. The razor sharp teeth were able to tear out throats with ease and Marines began to fall in writhing agony. Once on the ground their fates were sealed, for bullets were no longer a defence against the weight of numbers, unless to put soldiers out of their misery. As the realisation dawned upon those soldiers still on their feet, their fighting grew every bit as manic as the rats, turning the military base into a seething cauldron of laser-acid fire.
Major Emsly remained steadfast at the fore, decimating wave after wave of airborne rats as they leaped off the fast growing mounds of dead in desperate throat-high lunges.
By the time the first drones arrive from Anchorage, only half the thirty Marines remained standing and had been pushed back against the wall, having left behind anyone immobile to their truly nightmarish death. The Marines cheered as one as the drones strafed the parade ground with laser-acid fire before incinerating the mounds of dead rats with napalm.
It gave Emsly the chance for his first breather since the onslaught began. ‘Hope you’re hungry, Marines,’ he cried and gestured to the burning mounds. ‘Dinner is served.’
‘It’s just what we’re used to,’ came a reply and there was wired laughter from amongst the group.
Emsly’s roving eye came upon Jackie Kaur and the petrified children she had taken under her care. ‘Welcome to Camp Alabama. Was your sanctuary hit hard?’
‘As hard as this,’ replied Kaur, ‘and without the means to defend ourselves, I have no reason to believe there are any survivors apart from ourselves.’
‘We will send a search party the first chance we get.’
‘Thank you,’ murmured Kaur halfheartedly.
‘Major,’ said Dr Flist, ‘we w
ere wondering if this is the start of another Arctic War.’
Major Emsly looked at him probingly. ‘I imagine the President and the Pentagon are asking that very same question as we speak.’ He noticed a rat feeding on a dead Marine at his feet. He flicked it into the air with his foot and shot it to pieces. ‘The people I sent for to answer those questions are not yet here.’ He looked to the towering Marine beside him. ‘Sergeant Hex Carter, where is my tank?’
26 Storm at the weather station
The weather station was a simple concrete block-shaped building housing a satellite tower and was fenced in by tall razor wire. It was located on a barren windswept bluff on the east coast of the island, far enough away from the Marine base that the raging gun-play was just a distant crackle. Private Murley was wrestling with pangs of frustration as he sat with Kaptu and Clorvine in the fast speed tank idling at the front gate and he murmured, ‘No sign of battle here. Not so much as a solitary mouse.’
‘Is it usually this quiet?’ replied Kaptu suspiciously. ‘There are guard towers but no sentries in them.’
‘Like I said, I’ve never been here before. The people in charge pass through the base from time to time, but they never stay or have much to say about what they get up to here.’
‘Are they tough looking sorts? They might be special forces.’
‘In the Marines, even the cooks look tough.’
A green light began to flash on the communications panel.
‘That’ll be base wondering where we are,’ said Murley, flicking the line open.
‘Private Murley reporting.’
‘Where the hell is my tank?’ came Major Emsly’s voice blaring over the speaker.
‘I’ve picked up the Hurt World personnel, sir,’ said Murley, stiffening. ‘They insisted we come to the base weather station. We are out the front right now.’
There was a long pause, which Murley fully expected to end with thunderous demands for him return to base. The voice that came, however, was disquietingly subdued. ‘Are there sentries at post?’
‘No, sir. There is no one.’
‘You’d better check it out. Keep me informed. And be careful of the rats. There are a lot of them.’
The call finished and Murley looked to Kaptu. ‘Alright then.’
Kaptu stared. ‘Before we go, what is the biggest gun in this tank?’
‘The London Cannon. It can knock down an entire building. It won’t be much good against an army of rats, though.’
‘That’s not what I have in mind.’ He looked to Clorvine. ‘If anything is launched from the weather station, I want you to blast it. Give it everything.’
‘Even if it has an American flag on the side?’
Kaptu nodded. ‘Any flag should be considered a bullseye.’
Murley tapped out a quick code on the tank’s control panel and a periscope lowered from the ceiling. ‘It is a thought activation firing system.’
Clorvine peeked into it at the weather station and murmured self-consciously, ‘This is three generations newer than what I’d get back in the Congo, but I’ll manage.’
Kaptu picked up his rifle. ‘Come on, Private Murley. Let’s go get the latest forecast.’
The Hurt World technician and the US Marine left the tank with their guns poised at the hip and their eyes aflutter.
‘I’ll go ahead,’ said Murley. ‘The uniform might stop them shooting first and asking questions later.’ He pushed on the front gate and it opened without resistance.
‘That’s strange,’ said Kaptu.
‘Well, it’s only a weather station.’
‘Do you really still believe that?’ Kaptu looked over the multitude of locks evenly spaced from top to bottom, seeing no sign of them being forced. But there was no reason for them to be open either, especially when it was more than clear the island was under siege. He studied intently the four level concrete block of a building along the gravel path beyond the gate. The entrance door was slightly ajar, the darkness beyond carried all the way to the scattering of windows and gave no hint as to what may have transpired there. But Kaptu knew it was something. It was a twenty metre long path to the building’s entrance, flat and with no cover. As Murley started down it, Kaptu said, ‘Keep your eyes open. This is a kill zone.’
Rats came rushing from the front door, heading straight for Murley. They were enormous and their faces were dripping in blood – it was a gruesome spectacle that had Murley going to his scatter gun in the grip of panic. Bullets ripped up the gravel path and its surrounds, but somehow the rats were making it through. Kaptu stepped in to assist, picking off rat after rat with his rifle on single fire mode. An instinct, however, suddenly yanked his eyes to the window, just in time to see a sniper rifle taking aim upon him. He dived aside as bullets cracked through the air, but with rats converging he had no option other than to concentrate his immediate fire on them, shooting the closest almost right off his neck.
‘That’s not one of ours,’ cried Murley, stepping into space, grateful to have a bigger target than rats; he gave the weather station a ferocious burst of gunfire. Windows were decimated and chunks of the walls were blown away. Return fire still came all the same, and with expert precision. Murley screamed in agony as both his legs were hit. He collapsed into a fast expanding pool of blood. His eyes widened with horror as he watched the oncoming wave of rats. He lifted his gun at them only for his arms to be shot as well. He was rendered helpless. The rats sprung upon him, running up his chest for his throat.
Kaptu drew his side pistol to have a gun in each hand and sprung up onto one knee in a perfectly balanced firing position. All in the same moment, he shot rats off Murley, those converging upon him and the anonymous sniper taking cover in the weather station. Clorvine’s London Cannon joined in with the assault upon the weather station, hammering relentlessly until whole sections of walls began to crumble. Kaptu hurried to Murley, who had toppled onto his back.
‘Are you alright?’ Kaptu asked, brushing dead rats off him.
‘That was some shooting,’ muttered Murley through teeth gritted with pain.
‘Are you talking about me or the sniper who shot your arms and legs?’ Kaptu pulled the wound sealing spray from the Marine’s utility belt and gave the can a shake. Suddenly he realised the ground was shaking too. In the centre of the weather station grounds a giant surface hatch was opening revealing a deep, dark vent below. Kaptu applied the spray haphazardly onto Private Murley’s wounds and hurriedly scooped him up onto his shoulders. The tank smashed through the gates as Clorvine rushed to pick them up. She flicked the switch to open the rear door and hit the blazing building with another burst of artillery. ‘Get in!’ she screamed.
Kaptu sprinted with Murley up the ramp of the rear entrance. There came a tremendous roar and shuddering that sent his knees buckling and Murley flying off his shoulders into a wall of the tank. Amidst a fireball that flushed the tank’s outer skin with flame, a missile was launched from the underground silo. Kaptu clambered his way to the side of Clorvine and put on the noise-cancelling communications headset to block out the excruciatingly loud roar of the rocket.
‘Shoot it down,’ he cried.
Clorvine was gazing up at the monitor screen filled with the rocket flame. ‘We’ll have to wait,’ she replied. ‘The shells will explode inside the London Cannon at these temperatures.’
‘The missile will be out of range before the flames have dissipated. You’ll just have to risk it.’
‘Well, where will I aim? I can’t see anything.’
‘Just shoot at the flames.’
Clorvine braced herself and opened fire. The discharge of the London Cannon barely registered amidst the immense forces of the missile’s rocket exhausts. The tank was being pushed sidewards, rivets popping from its joints with the velocity of bullets.
After what seemed an eternity, the flames subsided and the bone-cracking shuddering began to ease. Kaptu took Clorvine by the arm
. ‘You can stop firing now. It will be out of range. You’ve either hit it or you haven’t.’
Clorvine looked at him with perspiration dripping down her forehead. ‘And what if I haven’t? A war is a hard thing to carry on your shoulders.’ She was shaking with the adrenaline.
Kaptu patched through onto the tank’s main screen the live feed from the Hurt World’s North American satellite directly above. The missile was black and red striped and was as large as a three storey building. Apart from the flame and smoke gushing from the tail rockets, there were secondary smoke trails emanating from a side rupture.
‘Looks like a hit,’ he said. ‘But let’s see how close it makes it to Russia before we get too excited. Any closer than a hundred kilometres and we are going to have some problems, and I mean by that the next Arctic War. It’s a Toppaz nuclear missile. Accurate, big and nasty. The Arctic War treaties explicitly prohibit their deployment anywhere within the Arctic Circle, so it will be no good apologising and crying sabotage.’
‘Which means if I have missed, thousands and maybe millions of people will likely die.’
‘You came closer to stopping it than anyone else.’ He watched the screen carefully. ‘It’s losing altitude.’
Clorvine’s spirits rose. ‘Are you sure?’
Kaptu hurried to the driver’s seat. ‘We need to get to higher ground. It’s dropping alright and we’re not even close to a hundred kilometres away.’