Operation Antarctica

- 9 -

Hynd stood by the meters and gauges when Banks walked away from the saucer.

“Do you have the slightest fucking clue what this shite is, Cap? Like, how it works, what the fuck they were trying to do here?”

Banks jerked a thumb back at the saucer.

“They were trying — succeeding if those photographs are to be believed — in flying this thing using power they’ve got from Churchill’s messed-up plan. My guess would be it was to be another V-weapon — which would be fucking ironic if we found any actual rat-munching wee green men. But, somehow, and thankfully, they fucked up and it all went quiet.”

“Until we came and fucked it up again?”

“Exactly. Now the best thing we can do is keep our hands off and wait for the boffins. I hope to fuck they know how to deal with it, for I don’t have a fucking clue.”

“And in the meantime?”

“We hold the line. We stand. What else can we do?”

They were given another ten minutes grace, just long enough for Hynd to have a smoke, then Parker called out from the barricade.

“We’ve got incoming. The bastards are on the move.”

Banks didn’t have to give an order. As if they’d all been waiting for this moment, the squad moved to take their places, every man with rifle already unslung and ear-plugs being pushed into place.

There was only enough room for four of them to stand abreast behind the makeshift barricade. Parker, Wiggins, McCally, and Hynd lined up first, with Banks holding back alongside Wilkes and Patel, ready to step forward when anyone needed to reload. Banks saw Wilkes wince when he hefted his rifle.

“You going to be okay with that arm, lad?” he asked. Wilkes smiled grimly.

“I’ve going to have to be, Cap. I owe these fuckers payback for Hughes if nothing else.”

Banks was grateful to see there was no questions forthcoming from the squad, no pondering about the reality of what was in front of them. They were trained to face whatever turned up, whether it was Afghan hill guerillas, Mexican drug gangs, or a horde of fucking Nazi ice zombies.

At least this lot won’t be shooting back at us.

He expected no less from McCally and Hynd, as they’d both been with him among the high weirdness on the Russian boat off Baffin Island, but he was glad to see that the newer recruits to the team were as calm and controlled as he could wish for.

He looked between Parker and McCally, over the top of the upturned tables. He didn’t have his night goggles on, so it was dark down the far end of the tunnel, but not so dark that he couldn’t see the approaching figures. Once again, the tall oberst took the front, and even at a distance of twenty yards, his pale eyes stared deep into Banks’ soul. The German officer raised his left hand and pointed up the tunnel then led the rest of the dead forward, all of them walking in perfect step at the same slow, measured pace as before. Again, Banks was reminded of a parade ground drill. Then another, more apt, analogy came to him.

They’re no more than puppets. But who is the puppeteer? And where is he?

“Go for head shots, lads,” Banks said. “And short, concentrated bursts. I only brought that fucker down last time by putting the barrel right up against his head. So wait until they’re close enough that you’re sure of a target, then hit them hard. We’ve got your back, so duck out the way if you get in trouble. Plugs in — this is going to get noisy.”

Banks pushed his own earplugs all the way in, and just had time to note that they also served to lessen the vibration rising from the saucer. He hadn’t really noticed it until there was an absence of it, but suddenly his thought processes felt sharp again, less clouded by the dance of the darkness and stars. He pushed the thought away, something to be considered later, if there was a later.

The dead Germans moved up to within ten yards of the barricaded doorway. Banks had a good long look at the oberstleutnant. His eye, and the chunk of flesh around his ear, had apparently regenerated, and there was no sign of any damage to his uniform, although Banks clearly remembered the black hole in his jacket, the hole he had put there himself. Not only did these fuckers come back from the dead, their clothes came back too, repaired as good as new.

I think we’re in trouble.

“Fire at will,” he shouted, and the crack of gunfire echoed loudly around the hangar.

Banks’ squad picked their targets well, each taking the dead man directly in front of them. Banks counted sixteen of the dead, in four ranks of four. The first rank ate up bullets as the four men fired volley after volley, the icy dead still walking forward at the same steady pace.

Five yards now. They’d be at the barricade in seconds. The oberst looked Banks in the eye. His mouth, gray lips little more than a fish-like slit, never moved but Banks had a distinct impression that the bugger was smiling.

“The officer. Put the fucking officer down,” he shouted. “You saw how they stopped the last time.”

Hynd and Parker both moved their aim at the same time and concentrated on the officer. Banks and Patel stepped forward to aim between them at the men’s original targets.

Six rounds hit the oberstleutnant in the face in less than a second, and this time the tall figure teetered, like a tree about to fall. Banks swung his own weapon round and added his effort to the rest.

Four yards now, soon to be within grabbing distance.

Nine rounds hit the German officer in the head, and this time he did fall, going down with a solid thud that sent a vibration through the floor. Banks felt it thrum in the soles of his feet even through his boots.

The other attackers stopped in their tracks, as if their driving force had been unplugged.

We got the fucking puppetmaster.

“Put them down. Put all these fuckers down,” Banks shouted.

The corridor became a shooting gallery. Banks was dismayed at how much of their ammo they had to expend just to put one of the things to the ground, and all of the squad had to step back to reload at least once before he was able to call a cease-fire.

Thin smoke hung above them, and his weapon was hot in his hands. Spent shells lay all around and despite the protection of the plugs, his ears rang with slowly fading echoes — he knew it would be many minutes before his hearing would be anything approaching normal.

The sixteen bodies lay in a heap in the corridor, and although Banks stood there for long minutes watching, none of them moved. The tall officer lay, partially pinned, beneath two civilians, and it was him that Banks watched most particularly, ready to fire again at the slightest provocation. But there was no sound, no movement.

Behind him he heard, as if in the distance, Parker and Wiggins loudly congratulating each other on a job done, but Banks wasn’t ready yet to join in any celebration. He’d put the German officer down before, put a hole in the dead man’s chest, taken out an eye, and still hadn’t slowed him much.

Just because the oberstleutnant had been put down again didn’t mean this was over, not by a long way.

Once he was sure the dead were really down this time, he let the men break off for a smoke while he and Hynd stood at the barricade, looking back along the corridor. He felt heat come in waves at his back from the saucer, but kept his gaze forward as the sergeant spoke.

“How long until the relief team get here, Cap?”

The man’s voice echoed as if coming up from out of a deep well, but Banks understood him well enough.

“Too fucking long,” he replied. He only half paid attention — he was considering going over the barricade and pounding the oberstleutnant’s head with his rifle butt until there was nothing left but slush. The trouble was, he still wasn’t sure that would be enough to keep the dead man down. Somehow, this was all due to that fucking saucer.

I turned it on. Now I wish I knew how to turn the bloody thing off.

He forced his attention back to the sarge.

“We have to stand,” he said. “I can’t think what else we can do — unless you’ve got any bright ideas?”

“I suppose flying yon thing out of here isn’t an option?” Hynd said, jerking his thumb at the saucer.

“Don’t even think of it,” Banks replied, thinking again of the dark and the seductive dance in the stars. “I’m getting no closer to that fucker than I need to. None of us should.”

Hynd was about to reply when they heard a metallic clang, far off, away down the corridor and coming from the living quarters beyond.

“I counted sixteen here,” Hynd said quietly.

“Aye, me too. We both know there were more than that the first time we came in. And we don’t ken how many more in total.”

Hynd echoed Bank’s earlier thought back at him.

“This isn’t over, is it, Cap?”

Banks didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

Another clang echoed through the base.

He stayed at the barricade for ten more minutes, watching the corridor. None of the bodies on the ground moved, and it didn’t look like they were going to. They melted, having encroached into the zone of heat being washed through the hangar by the gold circles on the floor. A trickle of dirty fluid ran away down the corridor toward the living quarters from underneath the pile of dead. Within the space of only two or three minutes, the bodies were little more than rounded boulders of ice, nothing left of the men they had been. Even more disconcerting, if that were possible, every part of them melted down, bone and hair, skin and muscle — including their clothing, everything impossibly turned to dirty water. A stream ran, snaking, away down the corridor into the darkness, as if fleeing from the heat and light coming from the hangar.

Hynd arrived at Banks’ side and looked over the barricade. He stood there watching the melting bodies, silent, for a long time before turning around.

“Maybe we shouldn’t tell the lads about this, Cap,” he said quietly. “They’re all good men and are keeping it together, but this shite is nae doin’ their nerves much good.”

“Mine neither,” Banks replied. “But at least these icy fuckers have buggered off for now.”

“But for how long?”

That was another question for which Banks didn’t have an answer.

Another thought struck him, and he turned quickly to where they’d left Hughes’ body against the wall. He didn’t know whether to be relieved or not to see that the corpse was still sitting in the same position where they’d left him and hadn’t melted away like the others.

But that’s not to say it still might happen.

“See if you can find something to wrap Hughes in,” he said to Hynd. “We’ll be taking him with us when we go.”

“We’re going?”

It wasn’t until the sergeant asked that Banks realized he had made his mind up some time ago.

“I think that’s the best idea,” he replied. “Yon saucer creeps me out about as much as those fucking ice zombies. I’d rather take our chances outside in the hut.”

“I think the lads will agree with you there, Cap,” Hynd said, and left Banks to go to talk to the men.

Banks turned back to the barricade, pulled on his night vision, and tried to see into the darkness at the far end of the tunnel, but all he saw was the stream of dirty water running away into the black.