The Kingmaker

“The landscape looks different every day,” David says from beside me, his forearms leaned on the ship’s railing.

“That’s part of what makes it so unpredictable,” Grim adds. “Glad we got some good work in before conditions changed.”

“The birds were my favorite part,” Peggy inserts with a laugh, chewing on her ever-present unlit cigar.

She worked with our seabird specialist to get population counts for various species, which will be compared with previous data, helping to identify any potentially endangered populations. They’ve been able to perform a thorough penguin census and collect blubber from the seals in the area. We also gathered several mud samples that will be analyzed and hopefully give us information on how carbon may be trapped under ice.

“I think Larnyard may wish he’d listened to you,” Grim says, hitching his chin toward the sky. “Look at those clouds.”

I recommended we make camp on shore for a few days and spend some extra time collecting much-needed data since it had taken so much time and effort to even access the area. Dr. Larnyard had disagreed and wanted to get back on the water for the next leg of our expedition.

Sailing through ice is a treacherous, exhilarating prospect. The Chrysalis is ice-capable, but no vessel guarantees safety if you clip a ’berg the wrong way or get trapped out on the water in one of the Antarctic’s volatile storms. The clouds looming over our ship promise storms. We’re hundreds of miles from shore, thousands of miles from civilization, and a hairsbreadth from catastrophe.

“I don’t like what the sky’s telling us,” David says, his brows rouching over concerned eyes. “Iceblink.”

There are only a few places in the world where the phenomenon of iceblink, glaring white near the horizon reflecting light from ice, is even possible. Antarctica is one of them. Polar explorers and sailors have been using iceblink to navigate arctic seas for centuries. In contrast, water sky projects open lanes of water onto the clouds, showing how to avoid hazardous ice floes that could lock up a ship for days or even weeks. Hell, for months.

When I saw water sky, it was the first time I could articulate the exact color of Lennix’s eyes. Dark, stormy gray, and seeing far. Seeing things no one else did.

“What I wouldn’t give for a water sky,” I say softly, only giving the situation half my focus. What I wouldn’t give to see her. To tell her I was a fool to think I could walk away from eyes like that.

“Right,” Grim says, frowning at the gathering clouds. “We need open water. You see all this ice crowding around the ship?”

He’s right. Even just an hour ago, our path was clear, but now tessellations of ice have interlocked around the ship, a tundra jigsaw puzzle that, if not navigated skillfully, could strand or even sink our ship. Beyond skill, we’ll need a lot of luck.

That night, I fall into a dead slumber after all the work we’ve done over the last few days. It’s not a loud boom or crash that jolts me out of my sleep. It’s another sound that sends a shiver down my spine.

Absolute silence.

The engine of The Chrysalis is quiet. The steady throb that’s become so much a part of the ship’s environment is gone.

David and Grim jerk up in their bunks, too, and we stare at each other for a few seconds absorbing the quiet together before, leaping out of bed and dragging on our sweats and down jackets.

On the bridge, there’s a forced calm to the energy as the captain and crew study satellite feeds and maps. They say for every iceberg, the visible ice comprises only ten percent of the whole. The other ninety percent lies below the surface. That’s what this is. The ten percent the captain shows us is controlled, but an icy panic rules the atmosphere from beneath. Dr. Larnyard sits on a bench with his head buried in his hands.

“What’s happening?” I ask Captain Rosteen, a former Australian naval officer who has negotiated this planet’s roughest seas for decades.

“We’re locked in,” he answers, deep lines around his mouth and eyes showing distress from the typically unruffled Aussie. “Rudder’s blocked by ice.”

“What’s that mean?” David asks.

“Means we aren’t in control of this ship,” Grim says with a dark frown. “We got no steerage, right, Cap? The ice is steering us.”

“Right.” Captain Rosteen gives a terse nod. “According to our satellite projections, a powerful storm’s coming, blowing westerly winds.” He pulls up an image on one of the radar screens.

“What’s that big blue thing?” David asks.

“An iceberg,” Dr. Larnyard answers, his voice muffled behind his hands. “It’s on the move and headed for us.”

“Dammit!” I link my hands over the tensed muscles behind my neck. An iceberg of eighty thousand tons will easily break through the ice floes that have us trapped and crush our ship.

“Should we evacuate?” Peggy asks. “We have enough lifeboats to get off before the ’berg hits.”

“That storm that’s coming,” Captain R

osteen says, shaking his head. “Being caught in a lifeboat in the middle of that with no land for miles could be as much a death sentence as a sinking ship.”

“We’ll call for help,” I say quickly. “Planes should be able to get in now that winter’s over.”