Polar Quest

‘Are all systems ready?’ Duroc asked.

‘All systems are green and ready to go.’

‘Good. Bring them in a little closer.’

‘Five minutes,’ the pilot called out.

‘Roger,’ Kilkenny answered. ‘Switch homing beacon on.’

The voice-activated computer strapped to his chest began transmitting a signal that would allow the plane to locate him in the event of an emergency.

‘We are receiving a strong signal,’ the copilot said. ‘Everything looks A-okay for the jump.’

Kilkenny ran through a final inspection of his rip cords and chute containers. He patted his thigh and found his combat knife strapped right where he wanted it – insurance in case the main chute failed and he needed to do a quick cut away before deploying the reserve.

‘Gauges on,’ Kilkenny commanded.

A bar strip of information appeared to float in front of him; the face shield of his helmet served double duty as a heads-up display. Kilkenny studied the compact image that displayed his heading, altitude, airspeed, longitude, and latitude – all gleaned from the constellation of Global Positioning Satellites orbiting the planet.

‘Fifty-five kilometers and closing,’ the radar operator said to Duroc.

‘Two minutes,’ the pilot called out. ‘Sergeant Boehmer, open the door.’

‘Door opening,’ Boehmer replied.

A blast of frigid air roared into the cargo bay and the low rumbling of the Hercules changed in pitch as the pilot slowed the aircraft down to 135 knots. Kilkenny grabbed hold of the steel anchor line cables and stepped up to the side door.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ Boehmer shouted over the wind, ‘but why are you doing this?’

Behind the tinted visor, Kilkenny smiled. ‘Do you know what NAVY stands for, Sergeant?’

‘Beg your pardon, sir?’

‘Never Again Volunteer Yourself.’

The red caution light blinked off and the jump light flashed green.

‘Those are words to live by,’ Kilkenny shouted. ‘See you on the ground.’

Kilkenny leapt into the turbulent slipstream behind the plane and felt an immediate jolt of acceleration as gravity pulled him downward. With arms and legs outstretched, he sailed through a 6,000-foot free fall. The altimeter on his heads-up display quickly counted off his descent. Beneath the altimeter, a digital readout clocked his rate of fall approaching 140 miles per hour.

His heart pounded in his chest. Adrenaline flooded his bloodstream as his body reacted instinctively to the unnatural sensation of falling. Kilkenny felt the dull sting of air-borne ice particles impacting against his body through the SEALskin, but thankfully the navy’s new miracle suit was performing as advertised.

‘Range to aircraft is twenty-five kilometers.’

‘Lock on target,’ Duroc ordered. He then scanned the light blue sky for the aircraft he could not see but knew was there.

At 29,000 feet, Kilkenny pulled his main rip cord. Looking over his right shoulder, he watched the rectangular parabolic wing unfurl and catch the air. The heads-up display showed his altitude at 27,250 feet and his airspeed nearly zero. The deafening roar of wind that accompanied his free fall was gone, and Kilkenny’s ears rang in the silence.

‘Display flight path to target.’

In response to Kilkenny’s voice command, the computer calculated the straight-line distance from his current position to the known coordinates of LV Station and projected a bright yellow line on the display that graphically showed the most direct flight path. The imaginary line, which was updated several times a second, appeared to run from the center of Kilkenny’s chest to a point several miles in the distance.

He reached up, grasped the control toggles for the right and left risers, and pulled to release the brakes. The ram-air chute surged forward in full flight mode, rapidly picking up speed. The design of the canopy allowed Kilkenny to control his flight with great precision. Given the right wind conditions, he could stay aloft for hours. Below, an undulating sheet of white spread out in each direction toward the horizon.

‘Target lock is established.’

‘Fire,’ Duroc ordered.

A new line appeared in front of Kilkenny. This one was white and arcing upward from LV Station.

‘What the hell?’ Kilkenny blurted out, recognizing the launch of a surface-to-air missile.

‘COM on,’ he commanded. ‘Ice Jump One to Skier-Nine-Eight. Take evasive action! You have a missile inbound. Repeat, you have a missile inbound! Do you copy? Over.’

Static and feedback filled his ears. Faintly, buried beneath the electronic noise, he heard the pilot of Skier-98.

‘Say again, Ice Jump One. We’re not – ‘

The missile homed in on the heat radiating from the Allison engines. It approached at supersonic speed, easily running down the lumbering Hercules. As the missile struck the number three engine, its high-explosive war-head detonated with concussive fury. Hot metal fragments shredded Skier-98‘s aluminum skin and ignited the wing tanks.

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‘COM off,’ Kilkenny commanded angrily, the range on his communications gear too short to reach anyone but the people who’d fired the missile. The static that filled his ears immediately vanished.

A black smudge marked the spot in the sky where Skier-98 had exploded, and smoky trails followed the descent of the burning wreckage to the ground – ominous stains on an otherwise perfect expanse of blue. Tilting his head toward the ground caused the bright yellow line of his flight path to reappear on the heads-up display.

He checked his altimeter. It read 26,750 feet. Kilkenny calculated his distance to the ice sheet below to be little more than 15,000 feet, just under three miles. With a lift-to-drag ratio of five-to-one, Kilkenny knew he might squeeze roughly fifteen miles of travel out of his ram-air parachute before gravity finally brought him down. As far as he could see, there was nothing but an endless expanse of ice.

‘I’ll be damned if I’m going to die here,’ Kilkenny vowed. ‘Clear flight path display.’

The bright yellow line vanished.

‘Display map.’

The outline of Antarctica appeared on the heads-up display.

‘Zoom in thirty-mile radius of current position. Display all stations.’

The image on the heads-up display raced toward Kilkenny – a greatly accelerated version of his present descent – and stopped at the specified magnification. Two labeled dots appeared on the display, one to either side of the X that marked his position.

Not going there, Kilkenny thought, looking at the dot labeled LV on the right.

He shifted his gaze to the other side of the display; beside the second dot he saw the letters VOS: Vostok Research Station.

Kilkenny knew little about the Russian research station, other than that it was dilapidated and ran on a shoestring budget. He considered the possibility that the Russians might be responsible for shooting down Skier-98, but couldn’t think of a reason compelling enough for them to risk starting World War Three in Antarctica.

Even with the SEALskin suit to keep him warm, Kilkenny had no food or water and the nearest U.S. outpost was several hundred miles away. Eliminating a suicide march across Antarctica, Kilkenny’s list of survival options shrank to one.