Outpost

Ghost tried his radio. Waterlogged. Dead. He threw it aside.

He closed the bunker doors.

He didn’t have time to dry his clothes. He poured water from his boots then held them directly in the flames. Water fizzed, boiled and steamed. He wrung his coat, balled it and held it in the fire until it smoked.

He dressed.

Ghost took a burning stick from the fire, held it above his head and set off down the dark tunnel mouth.

Sian left the cab to fetch a flask of coffee. Kill time, she told herself. Do something ordinary. Kid yourself everything is fine.

She boiled a kettle in the canteen kitchen. Silent corridors. Empty rooms. What if Jane and Ghost didn’t make it back? Drifting for thousands of miles in the dark and derelict refinery. She was terrified of isolation.

She returned to the cab, unscrewed the Thermos and poured coffee. She let the metal mug warm her hands. The windows steamed up. She wiped away condensation. The island was receding. The wreck of Hyperion was a distant, ragged silhouette against the Arctic twilight.

She put her cup on the cab floor and uncapped binoculars. She looked south. She could clearly see the edge of the ice-field. The point where snow gave way to heavy black waves.

She estimated Jane, Ghost and Punch had less than three hours to make it back to Rampart before the refinery reached open sea and they were left behind. Sian took out her radio.

‘Rampart to Jane, can you hear me, over? Jane, do you copy?’ Static.

‘Jane? Ghost? Can you hear me?’

Jane stood at the open doors of the bunker.

A weak voice: ‘Jane, do you copy? Jane, do you copy, over?’ Jane took out her radio. ‘Sian? Sian, can you hear me?’ Nothing but feedback. Weak LED. Dying batteries. The campfire was lit. She crouched and examined sticks of burning furniture. A recent fire. Someone was here moments ago.

She examined a discarded flashlight. It belonged to Ghost. Weeks ago, she had watched him bind it with duct tape to seal a crack in the case.

Ghost had travelled from the rig. He must have headed straight for the bunker and reached it ahead of her. ‘Ghost?’ No reply.

Jane aimed her flamethrower down the dark tunnel. Flame- roar. She glimpsed concrete walls receding deep underground. Jane checked her watch.

41:54

She shone her flashlight on the tunnel floor. Scuffed boot-prints led into shadows.

She hitched the flamethrower, gripped her flashlight and followed the footprints downward into the dark.

The Pit

The damp tunnel floor betrayed the thick tread of snowboots. Jane crouched. Multiple tracks. Big prints, old and new, and a set of smaller feet. Probably Nikki.

Jane followed the tracks, flamethrower primed. She triggered puffs of fire at each junction.

The slope-shaft led downward into bedrock. The air got colder. The walls sparkled with pyrite and silica.

Silent passageways and galleries. She paused every couple of minutes and listened to hear if she was being followed. No sound but distant tunnel drips, her breathing, the gentle hiss of the flamethrower igniter flame.

She leaned against the tunnel wall. A sudden wave of hearthammering fear. Her legs felt weak. Every instinct told her to turn and run back to the refinery. Rampart was floating away, and she was about to be left behind. It wasn’t too late. She could still make it home.

She closed her eyes for a moment. Giddy with adrenalin. Memories came, vivid and immediate like a fever dream.

‘Courage, like all personality traits, is essentially a habit,’ explained Jane’s old English teacher. Mr Stratford. Young, anxious to think himself inspirational. It was Jane’s turn to read a poem at assembly. Byron. She would have to stand in front of the entire school. Stand at a lectern during chapel. She was terrified. ‘If you act brave every day, adopt a confident posture, adopt a confident tone, eventually it becomes innate,’ explained

Mr Wilson. ‘Yes, it’s phoney. Utterly bogus pretence. But if you fake any trait long enough it becomes an essential part of you, like your fingerprint. So there’s no point telling yourself not to be scared. You can’t control your thoughts and emotions. But you can control your actions. In the end, we are the sum of what we do.’

Jane had spent the past few months trying to save the crew of Rampart. And here she was. Transformed. Lean. Super- weapon strapped to her back. A stranger to herself.

Jane kept walking.

She used to read books of Chinese philosophy. Bushido. The Samurai code. Her young, fat days were dominated by fear. She was terrified of school, scared to walk round town on a busy day. ‘ Fat bitch.’ ‘Porker.’ ‘Cow.’ The world was a war zone. It took warrior courage to leave the front door.