BZRK: Apocalypse (BZRK 3)

Plath to Lear: Yes.

EIGHTEEN

The Antarctic weather came down like the wrath of God. Sixty-knot winds, subzero tempera

tures. Nothing was flying out of Forward Green.

It was on her third day there that Imelda Suarez decided to take a chance and see what was in the big hangar out to the south. She waited until the base boss—his actual title was Chief Executive Forward Green—had his birthday party.

Suarez had no difficulty starting up a Sno-Cat and driving off toward the south. No one saw her leave, which was not surprising in the whiteout conditions. The problem would come if for some reason she got lost or the Cat broke down. Then she would have to call for help and all hell could break loose.

In her forty-eight hours at the base Suarez had felt that this was a very different sort of place, very different from the usual Antarctic facility—even very different from Cathexis Base. The ice was a lonely and often boring place, so people tended to be friendly. People liked “new meat.”

But not at Forward Green. Here she had been treated politely, properly, but not welcomed. No one had plopped down next to her at table and struck up a conversation. This despite the fact that she was an attractive woman and the gender ratio on the ice was about seven to one.

Conversations in the dining hall tended to become quieter when she was seen. Everyone was trying hard not to seem secretive, but the end result was that they just seemed more so.

Maybe it was just that Tanner had warned her to expect that something strange was going on. Maybe she was seeing what she expected to see. But that said, it was weird. It was a very weird vibe, as her hippie mother would have said.

The Sno-Cat is a small, tracked vehicle, like a tiny two-person tank with big windows and no cannon. The heater was blowing noisily, rattling from something stuck in the vent, and the windshield wipers were ratcheting back and forth even more noisily, but visibility was still poor. It would be all too easy to drive right past the hangar and just keep going until the gas was used up. And then she’d quite likely freeze to death. The ice was unforgiving of recklessness.

But after an anxious half hour she saw the outlines of the building in between swipes of the wipers. She kept going—no point in being coy, she had to look like she had every reason to be here.

Before stepping out of the Sno-Cat she zipped her parka all the way up, flipped her fur-lined hood forward, and tugged at the drawstrings before pulling on her huge gloves. Her dark goggles were already in place.

Suarez climbed out of the warm cab and was almost knocked over by the wind. But she was a sailor, after all, and not unaccustomed to pitching decks and bad weather, so she avoided disgracing herself. She twisted the door handle, and, sure enough, it was unlocked.

The wind—which was a battering physical force outside—became just a howling noise.

The hangar was lit only minimally, but it was still bright enough to see. And what she saw were four vehicles like the ones in the video Tanner had shown her. Three were partially dismantled, with parts strewn across wheeled steel tables.

The fourth vehicle appeared to be intact. She walked to it, torn between fascination and caution.

It was about thirty-five feet long from tip to tail, and almost as wide. It was a sort of elongated oval, a hovercraft judging by the skirts, but otherwise like no hovercraft she’d ever seen outside of a Hollywood movie.

It had a tail, almost like something you’d see on a fighter jet, but there was no horizontal plane, just a shark’s fin bearing missile pods on each side. A quick count indicated six missiles total, three in each pod. She had no familiarity with the type of ordnance, but it was undoubtedly real and undoubtedly missiles and undoubtedly military in its purpose—and that fact shocked her.

Antarctica was the last place on Earth without nationalities or armies.

Before and beneath the tail was a hard plastic canopy—again like something from a fighter jet. There appeared to be two jet turbines mounted on either side, flush with the top, squat beside the canopy. The pilot would be able to see ahead and to either side by looking over the engine casings.

It was painted a marshmallow white with only a few blue accent notes here and there, plus the obligatory safety notices near the intakes and exhausts from the two jet turbine engines.

Suarez walked boldly to the hovercraft and peeked inside the canopy. The controls were more modern versions of those on her own LCAC.

“What do you think?”

The voice made her jump. It was male, high-pitched, curious not hostile. But when she turned to see its source, she was face-to-face with an assault rifle. Behind the rifle was a middle-aged man in white overalls. He was balding, had a red face and glasses. And he was not, she judged, used to pointing weapons at people.

“It looks fast,” she said, trying for a nonchalant tone.

“It is,” the man said with evident pride. “She’ll do one sixty knots with no wind and on smooth ice.”

“One sixty? And if it hits a bump?”

“Do I need to point this at you?”

She shrugged. “I’m unarmed. And I’m not up to anything. I came out here because I can’t find a three-sixteenth socket wrench to save my life. I’m Imelda Suarez. I drive an LCAC. They brought me in to work on … well, to be honest, I think they brought me in on a bullshit excuse.”