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by David Clements, Christmas Day 2000
Boswell stood up from the equipment and streatched. His polar suit cramped his movement, but he just about managed to get the crick out of his neck. He always hated these maintenance runs. A small crew travelling round the remote stations to fix what had broken during the long dark. This particular experiemtent had proven to be a real pain, but it was now at least approximately working. He looked round at the rest of the crew.
They were on the coast about 100 miles from McMurdo. The helicopter was idling some distance away, keeping the turbines from freezing up. The pilot was louging on the landing skid, smoking, while the co-pilot kept everything cozy inside. Lucy them. The other three from the maintenance team were working on a weather station that had got well and truly beaten by the winter storms. They were probably going to have to fly some spares in. Boswell reakonned they didn't need his own particular expertise at the moment, so he could rest a bit and admire the view.
He never tired of the southern ocean. The pack ice was pretty well broken up at this stage in the spring, and he had a view of clear sea water not far from the shoreline. A few penguins could be seen on one of the nearby floes, basking in the sun. It was the sun that really gave him problems this time of year. There was just too much of it. The insomnia kicked in around the middle of November, and didn't let go until February. Twenty two or more hours of full daylight is enough to scramble anyone's circadian rhythms. He'd been taking the doc's potions, as usual, but they didn't work properly. And last night had been bad. Half waking dreams of things moving beneath the ice, of some nameless darkness reaching out of the centre of the continent to meet with itself on the other side of the world. A real doozy. Could probably sell the script to Hollywood and become the next Stephen King! At least he wasn't getting the halucinations he got the first time he was suffering from bright-eye.
He lay back into the soft snowpack, making himself a nice comfortable lounger until the other guys spotted him goofing off. He gazed into the middle distance, and then thought he had got the hallucinations after all. "That can't be", he thought to himself. "A plane, heading this way? No, must be one of the base helicopters coming to check up on us."
He reached for his binoculars.
"Christ!", he shouted to himself. He thumbed his radio on. "Guys, emergency, emergency! Look directly offshore! Looks like a civilian 747 heading in here. They've got to be in one fuck of a mess to try a landing here!"
***
"How do you know whats fucking going on?", demanded Torsten, pistol raised to threaten another beating.
Carsten looked on giving his leader muscular support.
"Because its what I do," replied Hardigan.
"You know how this plane got from the middle of the Atlantic to some snow-covered wilderness?"
"No, I just know that its the kind of thing that can happen. In certain very special circumstances."
"So vy do you use de bus?", muttered Carsten in some attempt at humnour.
A glance from Torsten told him this was not the place and that he should pipe down.
"What is happening?", demanded Torsten again.
Hardigan looked away from him, out of the window, towards the chill blue sea speckled with ice floes.
"I think we're coming in for a landing," he replied, still looking out of the window. "And it'll probably be a rough one. You should tell the flight attendents still alive to get the passengers into a brace position, I would think. And you might want to strap your own men down."
He looked back at Torsetn, fixing the man with his eye. "When you come into a forced landing at 150 miles an hour, people who aren't strapped in have a habit of dying messily."
Torsten moved as if to hit Hardigan, but glanced out of the cockpit and saw that the ground was looming closer.
"Sheisse", he muttered, and then started barked orders.
***
The plane came in smoothly, with gear down and full flaps out. The ice sheet provided a good flat surface for the forced landing. Boswell had been told emergency teams were already on their way from McMurdo, and his own helicopter was already trailing the plane to provide immediate help wherever it stopped. The belly of the 747 moved ever closer to the snow, and then disappeared in a blast of snow as the wheels touched down. Nothing was visible for several moments.
Boswell glenched his hands into fists, as far as the mittens would allow, hoping, praying that he wouldn't see the orange flash and black smoke of a fire. If that happened, the chances for anyone aboard were low. Still, the plane must be flying on fumes now, so they might be lucky.
The snow cleared. The plane was canted to one side, as one set of landing gear had collapsed, but it was still in one piece. They must have a good pilot. As the helicopter spiralled closer, he saw emergency hatches open, and bright yellow escape slides sprouted.
Passenegrs were soon sliding down them to the snow. Hypothermia's going to be a big problem, he thought.
"Here comes the help", said the pilot over the intercom, pointing to the west. Hardigan could see a Hercules transport and Chinook helicopter closing fast.
"Thank God for the cavalry!", he said.
***
Torsten's troops had been first out of the slides. They stood beside them, guns at the ready, getting the cold and frightened passengers lined up. Hardigan had been kept with Torsten and Carsten.
"So who are in these helicopters, then?" he demanded.
"No idea." replied Hardigan, as the twin prop Chinook and a smaller helicopter touched down. A group of four mean lept from the smaller craft and ran towards them. They were dressed in bright polar gear and carrying first aid boxes. A larger plane buzzed the growing crowd.
"Kepp them quiet!," Torsten shouted. He's beginning to lose his grip, thought Hardigan. Things could get dangerous now.
The team from the first helicopter were now running up to them. Torsten aimed his machine gun above their heads and squeezed off a burst of fire.
"Stop there! Hands on your heads!"
The men halted, looked perplexed at each other, then dropped their boxes and raised their hands.
"What the fuck is going on here!," shouted Boswell.
"This plane is under my command!," replied Torsten.
"Like shit," muttered Hardigan, "we're in the hands of something else altogether."
The Chinook hovered near the first helicopter, like a vulture seeing if the kill was safe to eat. Then a vast voice exploded from it.
"DROP ALL WEAPONS AND RAISE YOUR HANDS. COMPLY IMMEDIATELY!"
Carsten laugned, and raised his gun towards the Chinook. Several of the other Germans pointed guns at the cowering passengers.
There were several bursts of fire.
Carsten's head vanished amid a spray of blood. He pirouetted, his arms flung wide, and he pitched into the snow. A spreading red stain seeped into the ground from the ruin of his face. Most of the other terrorists had been similarly felled.
Torsetn looked at Hardigan, shrugged, then raised his hands.
From behind the plane the arctic camoflaged troops dropped by the Hercules slowly emerged.
"Does anybody here know what the fuck is going on?" shouted Boswell.
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