And he and Sophia had ended up in the middle of it, slamming down on the ice and skidding into the surreal amphitheatre before crashing to a halt.
He staggered upright. The sled’s journey was over; one of its runners had been torn off, the frame bent around the lump of ice that had brought it to an abrupt stop and catapulted its passengers into the weird cave. He took a step, wincing at a sharp pain in his shin. The sled’s contents were strewn all around. He picked up the tripod to use as a makeshift crutch, its spiked metal feet digging into the ice as he turned.
‘Sophia!’ She was sprawled about twenty feet away in a pile of fragmented ice. He limped over to her. She was still breathing, little clouds drifting from her nose. Blood ran from a deep cut on her chin. ‘Sophia? Come on, wake up.’
‘Eddie, not now,’ she mumbled in complaint, before her eyes snapped open and she clutched at her jaw, her glove coming away with a Rorschach patch of blood on the palm. ‘Ow, oh God! My face, Eddie, you’ve wrecked my bloody face!’
‘If that’s all you’re bothered about, you’re probably fine,’ Chase growled. ‘You should put some ice on it.’ He looked at their frozen surroundings, then gave her a theatrical shrug. ‘Dunno where we’re going to find any, though.’ He smiled as he turned away from her look of fury and raised the walkie-talkie, hoping it had survived the beating. ‘Matt! Matt, it’s Eddie. Are you still there?’
Silence for a long moment, then: ‘Eddie! Christ, mate, you’re cutting it fine - your hour’s almost up! Where are you? Are you okay?’
‘We’re in the crevasse, where the drainage shaft came out. How long will it take you to get here?’
‘We’re about eight clicks away, so . . .’ A pause as he consulted Larsson. ‘About five minutes.’
‘We’ll be here.’
‘Okay, on our way.’
‘Make it quick. Out.’ He turned back to Sophia, who had scraped up some loose ice and pressed it to her face. ‘Think you can stand up?’
She jabbed both feet at him. ‘If you were any closer I’d kick your arse.’
‘For fuck’s sake, stop moaning,’ he said, lifting her. ‘I’ve had my face bashed up tons of times, and I never worried about it ruining my looks.’
‘Yes, but you were hardly starting from a high baseline, were you?’
‘Bloody hell, shallow much?’ They picked their way across the cave, using the tripod for support. ‘It didn’t bother you when we were married.’
‘I can only put that part of my life down to temporary insanity.’
‘What, as opposed to the permanent insanity you’ve got now? You’re not a bunny-boiler, you’re a bloody bunny-nuker!’
‘If you have such a problem . . .’ Sophia tailed off as they heard a low buzzing. ‘Is that the plane? That was quick.’
They emerged in the ice-slathered crevasse, the high walls casting everything into deep, cold shadow. ‘It’s not the plane,’ Chase said, looking south. The noise grew louder, echoing off the walls - revealing two distinct engine notes. ‘Shit! They’ve found us!’
A pair of gleaming black shapes swept over the top of the crevasse and wheeled round under their blood-red rectangular parachutes, heading straight for them.
Chase had seen similar machines before. Invented in New Zealand, home of crazy and dangerous leisure activities, the paracraft were a mutant combination of paraglider and hovercraft, the latter’s main fan used to inflate the fabric wing at takeoff and provide forward thrust like a propeller. The differences between a paracraft and an ultralight were that the former was larger, the squared-off, stubby wings protruding from its sides giving it much greater lift at low altitudes through ground effect - and that its hovercraft base meant it could not only take off and land on almost any terrain, but travel overland at speed by releasing the ’chute.
Making them ideal pursuit vehicles for the Antarctic wastes.
He saw two men in each paracraft: one pilot - and one gunner. The gunner in the lead paracraft was carrying a sniper rifle, while the man in the second aircraft had a Swiss SIG assault rifle.
Sophia started to back into the cave. Chase grabbed her wrist. ‘No, get between those.’ He pointed at several huge boulders of ice that had fallen from the ravine walls.
‘I don’t think we’ll be any better off,’ she said as they hurried down the slope.
‘If they land and trap us in the cave, we’re fucked. At least this way we’ve got some room to manoeuvre.’ The paracraft were three hundred feet away, closing fast. The lead paracraft dipped its nose, descending into the canyon. Good, Chase thought - in the relative confines of the walls, they wouldn’t have enough room to turn, meaning it would take them time to swing about and make another pass.
Assuming they missed on the first one.
‘Down!’ Chase yelled, dropping the tripod and pulling Sophia behind the fallen boulders. The SIG’s harsh bark filled the crevasse, a three-shot burst blasting chunks from their cover. But the bullets didn’t penetrate it, the millennia-old blue ice compressed almost as densely as stone.
‘Come on!’ He crawled into a narrow gap between two larger blocks. Another burst of gunfire, ice cracking and splintering. He pushed Sophia under the overhang, peering upwards as the rasp of the first paracraft’s engine grew louder - and part of the ice above exploded, hit by a high-power bullet from the sniper rifle. Fist-sized chunks of ice bombarded him. The paracraft roared overhead, a flash of black. The second followed a few seconds later, another burst of bullets pounding their hiding place.
‘Wait there,’ Chase told Sophia, shaking off the shattered ice and scuttling along the narrow passage until he reached a spot where he could see down the crevasse. Keeping low in case the sniper was still aiming back at him, he looked out. The second paracraft, higher up, was rising to breach the top of the crevasse and turn about for another attack, while the first had been forced to continue flying along the ravine.
It wasn’t trying to gain height, though. Instead it was descending rapidly. ‘One’s landing!’ he called to Sophia.
‘I don’t know why you sound so happy about that.’
‘Because as long as they’re in the air, we can’t touch ’em. If they’re on the ground, at least we’ve got some chance of fighting back.’
‘With what? Snowballs?’
The lead vehicle touched down in a cloud of spray, having inflated its rubber skirt just before landing. The parachute collapsed, a huge red flag drifting to the ground as its lines were released. The second paracraft, meanwhile, had reached the top of the ravine, briefly disappearing from sight before swinging round.
Chase quickly unfastened his coat and shrugged it off, ignoring the numerous aches in his upper body. Sophia watched, puzzled. He found a chunk of ice the size of a football and stuffed it into the coat’s hood, bundling the rest of the garment up tightly and holding it below the neck.
Another glance down the crevasse. The first paracraft was making a great skidding turn with a huge feathered trail of ice crystals blowing out behind its main fan. The second dropped towards him.
He ducked back into cover. ‘Okay, stay under there until it goes overhead!’ he shouted. ‘Soon as it’s gone past, throw me the tripod!’
‘The tripod?’ Sophia asked, looking at the metal frame lying nearby. ‘What for?’
‘Just do it!’ Still holding his coat, the cold already biting through his damp clothes, Chase turned back to the opening. The engine note grew steadily louder. Keeping himself behind the frozen boulder, he raised his coat, slowly moving it into the open . . .
The hood blew apart in an eruption of pulverised ice and shredded quilting. Chase yanked the ruined coat out of sight, shaking out the ice and pulling it back on.
The paracraft roared overhead, rasping back up the crevasse. ‘Now!’ Chase shouted, but Sophia was already tossing him the tripod. He grabbed it, then looked down the valley. The first paracraft was racing along the icy surface. Thirty seconds away, less—
He leapt up
, jamming one spiked boot against the ice boulder opposite and ascending the narrow gap in a rapid chimney climb until he reached a jagged ledge. Another scramble over a broken outcropping and he was almost at the top.
Engine noise from two directions. The second paracraft had also landed, dumping its parachute. Its gunner thought he had made a kill, and was eager to see the results of his marksmanship. Ahead, the first paracraft was closing. Chase hefted the tripod. He had only one chance, and even that was a long shot. If he failed, then the only weapon he would have really was a snowball.
Closer, closer, the sniper aiming at the base of the boulders, closer—
Now!
Chase sprang up and hurled the tripod like a javelin.
It arced through the air, spearing down over the top of the paracraft’s windscreen - and hit the driver, the spiked metal feet stabbing into his face.
He screamed, clawing at the tripod. His hands off the controls, the paracraft charged onwards at full speed, heading straight for the giant boulder. The gunner tried to grab the throttle lever, but by the time he reached the control it was too late.
The paracraft smashed into the wall of ice. The tripod had ended up wedged between the dashboard and the driver’s chest; he was instantly impaled upon it as he was hurled forward by the sudden stop. The gunner fared no better, whiplashing face first through the windscreen. The engine kept running despite the crash, blindly grinding the vehicle against the ice.
Chase slithered down the frozen mass, landing beside the paracraft and reaching in to pull back the throttle. The engine note dropped to a dull rasp, just enough to keep the skirt inflated. ‘Sophia, come on!’ he shouted as he dragged the two bodies from the vehicle. ‘I’ve got us a ride!’
Sophia emerged from the boulders. ‘The other one’s still coming.’
‘Yeah, but we’ve got guns now - that should even things up a bit.’ The scope of the sniper rifle had been broken in the crash, but the driver’s weapon, a SIG SG-551 assault rifle, seemed undamaged. ‘It’s not like hunting pheasants, but you remember how to shoot, don’t you?’
‘Yes, but I may be a little rusty - for some strange reason, they never let me use the practice range at Guantánamo.’ Chase pulled the floating craft round to face down the crevasse. ‘Do you know how to drive this thing?’ she asked.
‘Not really. You?’
‘Not at all.’
‘In that case, I’ll drive, you shoot.’ He climbed into the driver’s seat, the paracraft wallowing with the extra weight. The steering column dipped as he brushed it, hinged to act as a flight control. Sophia sat beside him, hefting the SIG. Over the engine’s grumble, they could hear the buzz of the other paracraft. ‘Ready?’
‘Hardly, but—’
Chase rammed the throttle forward.
The engine screamed, a freezing backblast whipping round them from the wall of ice behind. The paracraft leapt forward, slewing almost sideways before Chase managed to redirect the steering vanes behind the fan and straighten out.
‘—I doubt that makes any difference,’ she finished.
Chase looked back, his view partly obscured by the cloud of ice particles the paracraft was kicking up in its wake. They were leaving the boulders behind with surprising speed - but their new ride was already showing its weaknesses. Hovercraft had very little grip at the best of times, only the friction of the thick rubber skirt against the ground, and on newly frozen ice it was practically zero. ‘Jesus!’ he gasped. ‘It’s like trying to steer a bar of soap along the bottom of the bath!’
‘They don’t seem to be having any trouble,’ Sophia said. The second paracraft had rounded the barricade and was sweeping after them in a long, carefully controlled drift.
‘Bloody show-offs!’
They burst out into the sunlight, the crevasse’s walls falling away as they reached an ice plain. In the distance, Chase saw the tilt-rotor heading in their direction. Holding the wheel with one hand, he raised the radio. ‘Matt! We’re moving - we’re in a hovercraft!’
‘Hovercraft, huh?’ Trulli’s voice crackled. ‘You know, nothing you guys do surprises me any more. I see you.’
‘But we’ve got company - hold back until we get rid of them!’
‘How’re you going to do that?’
Chase gave Sophia a pointed look. ‘Shooting at them would be a good start.’
‘I was waiting for a decent shot,’ she sniped. ‘But I can just hose them with bullets if you like. It’s not as though I only have one magazine or anything.’
‘Just shoot them!’
Sophia fired, keeping the SIG on single-shot to improve her aim. It didn’t make much difference, the buffeting of the paracraft throwing both her shots wide.
The new threat spurred on their enemies, however. The gunner fired back - on full auto, bullets cracking the fan’s fibreglass casing. Sophia gasped and ducked. ‘Shit!’ Chase yelped as a piece of debris spun past him. He looked over his shoulder to see the other paracraft change course and fall in behind them - so that Sophia’s line of fire would be blocked by the fan.
He tried to bring the vehicle back into her view. The paracraft turned - too fast, spinning round its centre of gravity while still racing across the ice field in a straight line. He attempted to compensate, but they had already made a half-turn so that they were facing their pursuers . . . and with the fan pointing backwards, they were rapidly slowing.
‘Oh, nice driving!’ Sophia sneered as she squeezed off a pair of three-round bursts at the approaching paracraft. She and Chase both ducked as the gunner returned fire. The windscreen shattered, bullets plunking through the hull. There was a flat whap! and a shriek of escaping air as the skirt was punctured, the paracraft’s nose dipping as the bullet hole widened and split the rubber.
Chase steered one way, the Covenant driver the other as the two paracraft whipped past each other. Sophia tracked the other vehicle, still firing and scoring hits - but only to the bodywork, not its occupants. She glanced at the SIG’s magazine, which was made from a translucent plastic, showing how many bullets she had left. It was half empty. ‘Running low!’
‘So make ’em count,’ was the only advice Chase could offer her as he fought with the controls. The damage to the skirt had made the paracraft even more unwieldy, the nose pitching downwards. ‘Get in the back. I need to balance this thing!’
The other paracraft turned with considerably more grace, performing a sweeping ballet across the ice compared to his duck-on-a-frozen-pond manoeuvring. He searched for anything that might help him. The BA609 was circling, holding back out of rifle range. There were some ice ridges that might provide partial cover, but everything else was smooth and glossy where the lake water had frozen over the past day.
There had been a hell of a lot of water, though. The plain wasn’t that big - some of it must have drained away elsewhere . . .
Sophia dropped on to the rear seats, the shift in weight raising the paracraft’s nose slightly. She reacquired her target and fired another burst, this time hitting only ice. Chase clutched the radio. ‘Matt! I need a spotter - can you see any crevasses or cliffs?’
‘Yeah, about ten o’clock from you,’ came the reply. ‘There’s a cliff - a big cliff.’
‘Thanks!’ He changed course, making a quarter-turn to the left to see the cliff edge in the distance, a thin bite out of the horizon. Quickly getting closer.
He adjusted his heading, the second paracraft disappearing behind the fan. The spray would obscure its view of what lay ahead, hopefully until it was too late. He looked over the paracraft’s other controls, finding a lever that might prove helpful . . .
‘They’re catching up,’ Sophia warned.
‘Get down,’ Chase told her, reducing the throttle. The paracraft’s engine, mounted beneath the fan, would give them both some protection. But not much.
‘Why are you slowing down?’
‘I need to get them closer.’
‘Closer?’
‘I’m g
oing to turn so they’ll come round on our left.’ The cliff was now clearly visible ahead, the absence of any landscape beyond it suggesting quite a fall. ‘Shoot if you get the chance - otherwise just hold on tight!’
She braced herself across the rear seats as Chase kept driving. One hand on the wheel, the other on the control lever, he readied himself for the inevitable gunfire. The Covenant men were gaining fast, moving in for the kill—
Shots hit the back of the paracraft, splintering the bodywork and ripping into the engine bay. Chase flinched as a bullet whipped past him and punched through the dashboard. The engine noise became raw, ragged.
More shots—
‘Now!’ Chase shouted, slamming round the wheel.
The paracraft spun - and Sophia blindly fired the SIG’s remaining bullets on full auto as it swept round. The gunner was hit in the shoulder, blood and shattered bone spraying into the air. He fell back, screaming.
Chase’s paracraft kept spinning, pirouetting about in a half-turn—
He pulled the lever.
The paracraft switched from ground to flight mode, all power being transferred to the main propeller as the smaller lift fans under the body were shut off. The rubber skirt instantly deflated, dropping the paracraft down hard on to the ice. It grated along, the combination of friction and the rearward blast from the fan rapidly slowing it. The other paracraft shot past, zooming out of the obscuring spray to see the cliff edge dead ahead—
Chase’s paracraft ground to a stop less than two feet from the drop. The other vehicle wasn’t so lucky, shooting over the edge of a vast frozen waterfall and arcing towards the ground hundreds of feet below.
Chase watched it fall, Sophia sitting up behind him. ‘Nice of them to drop by, eh?’
She made a disgusted noise. ‘Eddie, even Roger Moore would think that joke was—’ Her eyes widened as the plunging paracraft sprouted a second parachute, the scarlet canopy snapping open to arrest its fall. Engine roaring, it spiralled back up towards them. ‘—premature!’
Chase revved his own engine, yanking the lever back to re-inflate the skirt. The paracraft slithered away from the cliff. ‘Matt!’ he said into the radio, seeing the tilt-rotor changing direction. ‘It didn’t quite work out like I’d hoped - how long’ll it take you to land and pick us up?’