Arctic Rising

6

Resolute hadn’t changed much in the last three months. It was still a mess of boxy prefab mini-skyscrapers. They all cluttered around the sloping gravel leading to the harbor, which jutted out of the boundary of rock and sea.

Another port deep in the Arctic Circle. Another island detached from the mainland of Canada, like Baffin. Just farther west. Most of these places were barely presences at the turn of the century. Forty years later, they were bursting with prefabs and activity. When the ice left, the Canadian North opened up. Once-tiny towns exploded, particularly once shipping traffic began to stream through the Northwest Passage, and ports rapidly built themselves up. Places that were actually on the Canadian mainland, like Bernard Harbour, Coppermine, Gjoa, and Taloyok, had become powerful economic and demographic engines that made Canada the lead of the so-called “Arctic Tiger” nations that benefitted from the warm polar oceans. The megalopolis Anchorage turned into had made Alaska one of the more powerful states in the U.S.A.

Anika stood for a moment on the helicopter deck on the back of an old U.S. Navy destroyer. Her blue UNPG flight suit kept her warm against the bitter wind.

She spotted the familiar bulk of the Kosatka at anchor among four other larger ships.

Her lips quirked. There it was. Like a shark hoisted out of water. She remembered why she feared it, and she remembered the attack. But now it was just this inert, still thing. It was nothing more than a ship at anchor.

The two very serious-looking UN Polar Guard special agents that she’d flown out to Resolute paused as they noticed her looking. Yves and Anton. French and Russian. Mirrored sunglasses. And not a smile between the two.

“Real fucking mess, no?” Anton said, taking off his glasses to reveal bright blue eyes.

Anika nodded. “Can we go inside to see them now?” Standing up here stewing about what happened wasn’t what she wanted to do. She needed to keep moving and to keep busy. To not think about Tom. Not think about Jenny, sitting on that bench in the hospital.

Yves pulled a cell phone down and pointed to a pair of uniformed Americans waiting for them. Yves, Anton, and Anika had been let aboard the destroyer, but in the time it had taken to fly out here, the whole thing had become some sort of jurisdictional mess, and they were stuck on the helicopter deck as everyone tried to figure out if they were allowed belowdecks.

The Americans had found the Kosatka trying to hide in the harbor. But the Canadians said it was their port the Kosatka was inside, and that the men should be handed over to them for charges. And of course, the UNPG wanted a piece. After all, it had been Anika and Tom shot of the sky.

Her special agents, usually used to internal investigations and smuggling prosecution, had spent the whole flight out making calls and arguing with people on the other side, trying to penetrate the international layers of bureaucracy involved.

“We can go in,” Yves said, nodding at the Americans. “We can interrogate, we can record. We cannot move prisoners.”

Anton swore in Russian, then gently grabbed Anika’s elbow. “You can stay out here, if you like. You don’t have to come inside. But it would be helpful for our cause if you ID them.”

He looked hopeful, but understanding at the same time. Giving her space to come to a decision of her own. No pressure here, said his body language. And yet, there was some tension. He was angry and keyed up. The attack on Anika was an attack on him.

Brothers in arms. The uniformed tribe. Anika suddenly had a lot of pissed off fellow guardspeople in blue wanting to lash back at whoever had done this.

Anika turned toward the pyramid-shaped stealthed superstructure of the destroyer and nodded. “I’m ready.”

A short man with a silvering mustache stepped out and waved them through. “Captain Martinez,” he said, introducing himself and quickly shaking hands. “Glad you were able to get out here. Come with me.”

Then it was down into the tight confines of the corridors. Everything gleamed: polished and clean. Shipshape navy. Hardly a speck of dirt, grease, or anything of the sort.

Anika stepped sideways past a seaman on his hands and knees, polishing a kickplate on a bulkhead door. Salutes were exchanged between the Americans in passing, and the group continued on through the metal warren, footsteps echoing on down ahead of them.

“My superiors view this as a justification of our presence,” Martinez was explaining to Anton. “Critics aren’t happy about diesel-burners chewing up fuel rations for force projection up here in the Circle, they think the fuel’s better kept in reserve. In case we ever do end up in a major conflict, we can’t afford to use it up.”

“That is what UNPG is for,” Anton grumbled.

“Yes, and the Canadian Guard, and Navy.” Martinez grinned back at us. “But brass thinks you guys are undermanned and the Arctic is a real Wild West sort of area: Northern Europe and Russia to Canada and Alaska smuggling, new drug trade routes, loosely monitored offshore drilling operations, ecoterrorists.”

“So your brass thinks, Alaskan coast is not enough, no?” Anton said. “Wild, Wild West gets your attention?”

“Yee-haw,” Martinez agreed.

“And you, what do you think?” Yves asked the captain.

Martinez scratched his beard and slowed down. He looked back at them. “I’m just trying to explain to you why you had such a hard time getting permission to come aboard and talk to the Kosatka’s crew. One sailor shot at is just the same as any other to me, understand? I’m glad to burn fuel and hunt for the bastards, after what they did.”

Then Martinez narrowed his eyes and stabbed his finger to make a point. “But I want to make sure you understand that this is also a PR coup for the people who gave me the orders to go hunt for the vessel. They’re trying to justify keeping ships like mine operational. Normally a ship like this, we coast around, trying to sip fuel as best we can and patrol some area. We usually leave the fast-moving interception and hunting to nuke-powered steamers and the sailships.”

And, Anika wondered, was that also a sign of the Americans overcompensating for the unexpected rise of Canada’s strength throughout the polar region, and as a result of those riches, the world?

There were Americans rioting about the cost of their military. And the American naval fleet would be testing combined maneuvers soon with other G35 navies as a way to possibly make cuts in its fleet. No wonder this captain’s superiors wanted the usefulness of their ships proved. It’d get that much harder for the UNPG to keep order in the North if the Americans started drawing down from the Alaskan bases because of the cost of the Polar Fleet.

Maybe Canada would step up.

Anton nodded. “We just want to talk to the sailors of the Kosatka. No pissing match, Captain. We won’t try to take them back with us.”

Martinez smiled sadly. “It’d be nice if we could prove the value of keeping these ships around, enough to justify the expense of converting them to nuclear power.”

Anton and Yves nodded sympathetically. They were both former sailors, now deskbound. They understood a captain’s desire to work hard to keep a ship going.

Martinez stopped in front of a locked room with two men on guard outside of it. “I doubt they’ll tell you much more than we found out already. We already passed on everything they said.”

“Yes,” Anton replied as he waited for the door to be opened. “But it’s always best to do your own interrogation, I feel. Look into their eyes and see what is there, yeah?”

The thick metal door swung open.

“Knock yourselves out,” Martinez said.

Six grubby men sat on a long bench, their backs to the gray-painted metal bulkhead. Two of them had their faces in their hands, elbows on their knees.

Anika locked eyes with the man wearing the blue woolen cap.

“That’s the man who fired the rocket at me,” she said.