Arctic Rising

24

Rotor wash whipped Anika’s hair about as she climbed the steps back onto the helicopter pad. Lars joined a second later, staggering up with five cases in his hands and a duffel bag over a shoulder. His jacket flapped wildly as he leaned into the gust.

Anika helped him get the cases in, and once they were all inside, Chandra grabbed Roo and yelled, “Are you sure all of those things are out of the air?”

Bish leaned forward. “Should be, there’s no reason for them to wait anymore.”

“Anyone else on board?” Chandra asked.

“It’s on autopilot, just us.”

Chandra looked out around the entire helicopter, hunting to see if more of the spheres were around, then, satisfied, lifted off the helipad and pitched them toward the open sea.

“Stay as low as you dare,” Roo reminded him.

Chandra nodded. He was still glancing around, looking for threats. Anika looked out the windows as well. They were skimming along just over the tips of the waves, spray even slapping the windward side of the helicopter.

It looked like the helicopter’s skids could kiss the waves at any second. Anika really had to admire the piloting. This was old school, fly by wire, brain and muscle and twitch reflexes all working together.

Chandra was something else.

“You really think they will do something to the mist boats?” Lars asked Roo and Bish. He reached into his duffel bag and pulled out another beer.

“Four years ago the U.S. Army got ready to launch a test orbital mirror,” Roo shouted. “They were thinking it would allow them to focus solar energy down on a solar engine. They could power an army, no need for oil, with a beam of concentrated solar light anywhere in the world. China got all threatened, said that beam could be directed anywhere. Flash vaporize an army, see? They said it weaponizing space, and was a treaty violation. Said they would attack it with anything they had. Everyone backed down. So now Gaia’s weaponizing the upper atmosphere. There’ll be consequences.…”

Chandra slammed the helicopter sideways, throwing around everyone inside it. Anika slapped into the side of the door, feeling it shake as her shoulder smashed against the handle.

Lars and Bish smacked into her ribs, dizzying her with the familiar pain.

And with her face smashed against the glass, Anika saw the long, dark shape of a cruise missile gliding mysteriously toward them just over the wave caps. It dodged, violently arcing around them with a quick burst of several adjusting jets.

They were not its target.

Anika sat up to look out the other side of the helicopter just in time to see the cruise missile silently fly into the side of the ship, a mile behind them. A split second later a fireball gushed out of the side, then broke out of the holds, sending the massive steel hatches spinning up into the air.

Secondary explosions visibly rippled the hull, vomiting debris and surviving clouds of spheres that rose above the conflagration in slow motion.

As they stared the funnels toppled over, striking the heaving seas and breaking apart.

More explosions ripped through and, slowly, the mist boat began to settle deeper into the water.

“Jesus,” Bish muttered.

Lars didn’t say anything; he had one of his cameras held tight in his hand and was filming. A trickle of blood ran down his temple, but he didn’t seem to notice.

The cabin reeked of spilled beer.

Anika flinched as the other two mist boats in the distance exploded.

“Were the other two ships fully automated?” Roo asked.

“There was a maintenance crew,” Bish said. “They cycled between the Arctic mist boats. They might have been aboard … I don’t know.”

Chandra circled around looking for survivors as the ships burned and slowly sank.

“Roo…” Anika pointed out another gliding missile in the distance, curving through a roiling column of smoke. Another metallic shark, hunting for something.

Light abruptly split the sky as tens of thousands of mirrors scattered in the air turned their attention to one single point in space. But the missile easily danced away. The beam of light boiled water on the surface of the ocean for a moment, then faded away, leaving nothing but a wisp of steam to show it ever existed.

“Jesus.” Roo shook his head. “That’s just one hold’s worth of those floating things. It’s not quick enough to fry a missile, but whoever controls it was trying.”

Finding no more targets, the cruise missile splashed down into the ocean and sank. The floating mirrors rose above the clouds, and they were left alone circling the destruction.

Oil coated the frothy sea, as did tens of thousands of now-dead spheres. They had to keep upwind; Chandra couldn’t risk any low-floating spheres hitting his blades or getting sucked into the motor.

But no bright red suits waved for help, and no emergency boats had been launched. No rafts. Nothing.

For fifteen minutes they whirled around the mess, until Chandra shouted, “We’ll run out of fuel before Paradise Island if we don’t leave now!”

“Let’s go,” Roo told him, barely audible.

Chandra banked away, and slowly the burning ships disappeared behind the waves and horizon.

Lars turned his camera off and packed it back away. They all sat quietly, lost in their own thoughts, sobered by the sight.