Ice Hunt

Jenny held his hand, fingers tight, palms damp.

Then Matt felt the shift under his legs, a slight rolling of his stomach. He turned to Kowalski and Tom, trusting the Navy men’s senses more than his own.

Tom confirmed his hope. “We’re rising.”

Jenny’s fingers squeezed his. They were heading back up.

Murmurs of relief echoed among the others.

But Kowalski’s face remained tight. Tom did not look any more relieved.

“What’s wrong?” Matt asked.

“There’s no way to alter our buoyancy,” Tom answered.

Kowalski nodded. “It’s an uncontrolled ascent. We’re going to keep climbing faster and faster.”

Matt understood, remembering Tom’s earlier analogy. The sub was like a cork shoved deep into the water. It was now back on its way up, gaining speed, propelled by its own buoyancy. Matt’s gaze drifted up, picturing what would happen.

Once they reached the surface, the speed of their ascent would be deadly. They’d strike the underside of the polar ice cap like a train wreck.

“Back into the mattresses?” Matt asked.

“That won’t do much good,” Kowalski said. “It’ll be pancake city once we hit the surface.”

Still they had no other recourse. The party fled back to the padding and security of the mattresses. Matt pushed in next to Jenny. He sensed their rate of ascent accelerating. He felt it in his ears, a popping sensation. The incline of the sub grew steeper as it rose.

Jenny sought him with her hands. He curled into her, not knowing if this would be his last chance to do so. His hands reached to her cheeks. They were damp.

“Jen…”

She shook in his arms.

“I love you,” he whispered. “I always have. I never stopped.”

Her body quaked with silent sobs, but still she reached him with her lips, seeking his mouth. She kissed him deeply, hugely. She didn’t have to speak. She answered with her entire body and soul.

They clung to each other, shutting out the world, the terror. Here, in this moment, there was only forgiveness and love and simple need. One for another. How could they have forgotten something so simple?

The moment stretched to a crystalline eternity.

Then the sub hit the surface.

9:23 P.M.

ABOVE THE ICE…

The moon was full, a bright coin breaking through the storm clouds. Its light cast the Arctic stillness into silver, shining off the ice. The only blemish was a half-mile-wide dark hole, still smoldering and smoking. The rest of the world remained a perfect plain of sterling silver.

But it was not to last. Perfection never did.

A mile from the hole, something smashed through from below, a black whale breaching from the water. It thrust itself high into the air, leaving the seas fully behind. It hung in the air until gravity claimed it again.

The length of iron and steel crashed, belly first, to the sea, vanishing under the ice for a moment, then rolling back up, sloshing and rocking in the slush.

9:24 P.M.

RUSSIAN I-SERIES SUB

Matt lay in a tangle with Jenny. In the darkness, pressed between mattresses, it was hard to say whose limbs were whose.

A moment ago, they had struck the surface. They must have. Locked in each other’s arms, they had been thrown upward, held weightless for a long breath as if they were flying. Then they were inexplicably falling again.

The crash jarred them back to their berth, landing them in a pile.

Cries of surprise reached them from the others.

The sub rolled and canted.

Matt extracted himself from Jenny and helped them both from their nest. His feet were unsteady—or was it the rocking sub? Matt kept one hand clutched to the frame of his berth. “What just happened?” he asked.

Kowalski scratched his head with his flashlight. “We should be dead. Crushed.” He sounded oddly disappointed, his firm faith in the physics of buoyancy and ice betrayed.

“Well, I’m not complaining,” Matt said, gaining his balance as the sub settled. “Let’s see where we are.”

Keeping a firm grip on Jenny’s hand, he led the party back to the center of the boat. The inner hatch was unlocked. It dropped open, drenching Kowalski with water.

“Crap,” he swore. “Why am I the one always getting soaked?”

Matt climbed the ladder to the top of the boat’s sail, cracking the upper hatch of the conning tower. He threw it open with a clang. Cold air swept over him. He had never felt anything more wonderful.

He climbed out to the flying bridge to make room for the others below. As he stood, he gaped at the sight beyond the submarine.

The storm had broken. Moonlight turned the world silver.

But it wasn’t solid silver.

The submarine lolled in a sea of slush. Ripples spread out from the rocking boat. A hundred yards away, the gentle waves lapped against a shore of solid ice. It marked the boundary between two worlds—one of regular ice and one of decomposed slush.

Matt stared out. A huge black hole separated these two worlds.

Jenny joined him, slipping her hand back into his. “What happened?”

“The Polaris Array did what it was supposed to do,” he said, waving a hand over the vast sea of slush and broken ice. “But it was only half a success. It looks like the other half of the array didn’t blow.”

“Was it the Polar Sentinel?”

Matt shrugged. “Who else could it be?”

Kowalski echoed Jenny’s words. “The Polar Sentinel.”

Matt glanced to him. He was pointing out into the slushy sea. A black bulk shoved upward, shedding ice as it rose. The submarine’s large eye, aglow from the lights inside, stared back at them, as if surprised to see them alive.

Matt pulled Jenny under his arm, recognizing how well she fit against him, two becoming one once again.

He had to admit, he was surprised, too.

Epilogue

ONE YEAR LATER, MAY 14, 6:34 A.M.

BROOKS RANGE, ALASKA

It was too damn early.

Matt burrowed under the worn quilt comforter, refusing to forsake the warmth beneath the thick down. Though it was already spring, mornings in the Alaskan high country were as cold as any Midwestern winter. He sought the warmest spot in the bed, next to his wife’s naked body.

He spread his length next to Jenny, spooning against her, skin to skin, nuzzling her neck, legs entwining.

“We already had your honeymoon last night,” she murmured into her pillow.

He grumbled but was unable to squash his smile. He had not stopped grinning like a love-addled teenager since he had spoken his vows beside the river yesterday afternoon. It had been a small ceremony. A few friends and family.