Ice War
Authors: Brian Falkner
Allied Combined Operation Group, Recon Team Angel
IT IS WINTER OF 2033 AND RECON TEAM ANGEL IS ON ITS MOST DANGEROUS MISSION YET
.
ON LITTLE DIOMEDE ISLAND – THE CONTROL CENTRE FOR THE BERING STRAIT – SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT. TWO SEAL TEAMS HAVE VANISHED, AND RECON TEAM ANGEL HAS BEEN SECRETED INTO THE FROZEN LANDSCAPE TO INVESTIGATE
.
IN THESE SUBARCTIC WASTELANDS, THEY WILL NEED EVERY OUNCE OF THEIR COURAGE AND DETERMINATION. IF BZADIAN FORCES MANAGE TO CROSS THE STRAIT AND ENTER THE AMERICAS, THEN THE PLANET WILL BE LOST
.
WHO WILL WIN THE ICE WAR?
The achievements of 4th Reconnaissance Team (designation: Angel) of the Allied Combined Operation Group (ACOG) 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, from November 2030 through to July 2035, during the Great Bzadian War, are well documented by scholars and historians.
Less well known are the people behind the myth: the brave young men and women who earned the reputation, and the citations, for which Recon Team Angel became famous.
These are their stories, pieced together from Post-Action Reports and interviews with the surviving members of the team. The young heroes whose skills, daring and determination changed the course of history.
The members of this remarkable group changed over time, due to injury and death, as you would expect in a combat arena. By the end of the war, over seventy young people had served in the unit. They were ages fourteen to eighteen – small enough to pass themselves off as alien soldiers, but old enough and brave enough to undertake covert operations behind enemy lines.
Six “Angels” were sent on a high-risk midwinter mission into the icy wilderness of the Bering Strait.
ANGEL ONE:
Lieutenant Trianne (Phantom) Price –
New Zealand
ANGEL TWO:
Specialist Janos (Monster) Panyoczki –
Hungary
ANGEL THREE:
Specialist Retha Barnard –
Germany
ANGEL FOUR:
Specialist Dimitri (The Tsar) Nikolaevna –
Russia
ANGEL FIVE:
Specialist Hayden Wall –
United States of America
ANGEL SIX:
Private First Class Emile Attaya –
Lebanon
Many fought, and many fell, in pursuit of liberty for Earth. May their names live on in history.
Fighting an Ice War is like turning the military clock back three hundred years
.
In the frozen wastelands of the Bering Strait, high-tech equipment fails, high-tensile steel shatters like glass, communications are intermittent or non-existent
.
This is war at its most primitive
.
It is war at its most brutal
.
– General Harry Whitehead
[TRANSCRIPT OF RADIO COMMUNICATION BETWEEN US NAVY SEAL TEAM TWO (CODENAME ICEFIRE) AND MISSION CONTROLLERS AT ACOG HEADQUARTERS, FEBRUARY 15, 2033.]
[SCHEDULED RADIO CONTACT AT 0700 HOURS LOCAL TIME.]
ICEFIRE ONE:
Icefire Actual, this is Icefire One. How copy? Over
.
ICEFIRE ACTUAL:
Solid copy, Icefire One. What is your grid point reference? Over
.
ICEFIRE ONE:
Icefire Actual, we are in position at designated OP. Grid reference, Charlie November, four, three, five, niner, two, one. Over
.
ICEFIRE ACTUAL:
Clear copy, Icefire One. Do you have eyes on the island? Over
.
ICEFIRE ONE:
That’s an affirmative, Icefire Actual. Over
.
ICEFIRE ACTUAL:
Interrogative, Icefire One. Is there any sign of activity? Over
.
ICEFIRE ONE:
That’s also affirmative, Icefire Actual. Lights are on and there is movement inside. Over
.
ICEFIRE ACTUAL:
Can you confirm identity of the occupants? Over
.
ICEFIRE ONE:
Negative. It might be Goldilocks, or it might be the Big Bad Wolf. Over
.
ICEFIRE ACTUAL:
What about enemy activity around the island? Over
.
ICEFIRE ONE:
Ah, that’s also a negative, Icefire Actual. We got nothing on the scopes and nothing eyes on. Looks all clear, but conditions are challenging. Over
.
ICEFIRE ACTUAL:
What’s your visibility rating? Over
.
ICEFIRE ONE:
Visibility estimated at tango three. Lots of interference on the scopes also. We got a lot of bad TV here. Over
.
ICEFIRE ACTUAL:
Solid copy, Icefire One. You are cleared to move to grid reference Charlie November, four, three, five, niner, three, two. Over
.
ICEFIRE ONE:
Roger that, Icefire Actual. We are Oscar Mike to grid reference Charlie November, four, three, five, niner, three, two
.
Over
.
ICEFIRE ACTUAL:
Icefire One, hold position. I say again, hold your position. We have a transmission coming in from Overlord. They have had a break in the cloud cover and say they are picking up some kind of activity to your west. Over
.
ICEFIRE ONE:
What kind of activity, Icefire Actual? Scopes are still clear down here. Over
.
ICEFIRE ACTUAL:
Querying that now, Icefire One. Over
.
[TRANSMISSION BREAK: 23 SECONDS]
ICEFIRE ACTUAL:
Icefire One, this is Icefire Actual. How copy? Over
.
ICEFIRE ONE:
Clear copy, Icefire Actual. What have you got for us? Over
.
ICEFIRE ACTUAL:
Ah, no further information, Icefire One. Activity has ceased. They could not get a visual on it and could not identify a heat signature. There is no indication of enemy activity. I repeat, no enemy activity. It could have been wildlife. Over. You are re-cleared to move to grid reference Charlie November, four, three, five, niner, three, two. Over
.
ICEFIRE ONE: [Garbled transmission, indeterminate noise]
ICEFIRE ACTUAL:
Ah, Icefire One, zero copy on your last. You are coming in weak and unreadable. Please repeat your transmission. Over
.
[TRANSMISSION BREAK: 16 SECONDS]
ICEFIRE ACTUAL:
Icefire One, this is Icefire Actual. How copy? Over
.
ICEFIRE ONE: [Garbled transmission, indeterminate noise, possible screaming]
ICEFIRE ACTUAL:
Icefire One, this is Icefire Actual. How copy? Over
.
[TRANSMISSION BREAK: 20 SECONDS]
ICEFIRE ACTUAL:
Icefire One, this is Icefire Actual. How copy? Over
.
[TRANSMISSION BREAK: 20 SECONDS]
ICEFIRE ACTUAL:
Icefire One, this is Icefire Actual. We are not receiving your transmissions. Please relocate to higher ground and resume radio traffic. Over
.
[TRANSMISSION ENDS AT 0707 HOURS]
The recording finished. The silence in the room was colder than death.
General Whitehead pushed the transcript away as if he was somehow offended by it.
General Jake Russell, ACOG, Bering Strait Defence Force, picked up his copy and folded it in half so he could no longer see the words.
They were paper copies, an anachronism in an electronic age, but at the end of the meeting they would be collected and incinerated. There was no risk of an electronic copy finding its way into cyberspace.
The room was oval in shape, as was the table in its centre. There were no windows. Here, deep in the heart of the Pentagon, security was far too tight for that. Nor were there air-conditioning ducts where microphones could be inserted. The room was swept every day for bugs.
The walls were plain and white, no photos or artwork. They were bombproof. The table resembled wood, although it was made of a bulletproof composite fibre.
Even the chairs, high-backed, comfortable and leather, had built-in airbags to deal with any sudden traumatic incident, like a missile attack.
The workstations around the outside walls, where subordinates sat in a variety of uniforms, had no such luxuries. Their desks were plain, and their seating simple low-backed, secretarial-type, swivel chairs.
Seated around the centre table were ten people, a mix of men and women. General Harry Whitehead, as head of ACOG, occupied pride of place at the top of the table. General Russell, second-in-command, was opposite him at the far end.
“They were the second team we sent in,” Russell said. “Navy Seals again. Seal Team Two, specialists in Arctic warfare. Frostiest sons of bitches I ever met in my life. These guys have ice cubes for testicles. Kick ’em in the nuts and you break your toe. They don’t just survive, they thrive in the coldest, bleakest places on Earth.”
“So where are they?” Whitehead asked.
“It’s a dangerous place this time of year,” Russell said. “And in the middle of a blizzard …”
Whitehead shook his head. “One team disappears, that could be a hole in the ice. Point man drags the rest of them in, bodies are never found. But two teams in a row …”
“What were they doing there in the first place?”
The speaker was Emily Gonzales, the new liaison officer from the ACOG Oversight Committee. Gonzales was a compact woman with bright blue eyes that shone with a glint of steel. The same steel was in her voice. “Why send in a Seal team, I’m sorry, two Seal teams, when you are still in contact with the station?”
“Your predecessor was fully up to date with all these details,” Russell said. “Do we really have to go over this again?”
Gonzales turned her head slowly and impaled him with those eyes. “If you want the approval of the oversight committee, you do,” she said.
General Whitehead looked as though he was about to say something to that, but thought better of it.
“I’ll answer the question,” Daniel Bilal said. A small, tidy man with a pencil-thin moustache, he had an air of calm, as though he was somehow removed from the tension in the room.
Gonzales raised an eyebrow.
“Daniel Bilal, Military Intelligence,” Bilal said.
Gonzales made a note on her smartpad.
“It’s a sensitive region,” Bilal said. “When the Pukes arrive, they’re going to come through the Bering Strait. And they’re going to come now, in midwinter, while the strait is frozen over. So if a butterfly farts in the strait at this time of year, we want to know what it had for lunch.”
“Thank you for that lesson in basic geography and biology,” Gonzales said. “But that still doesn’t explain the need for the Seal teams.”
Bilal was unfazed. “The commander of the station on Little Diomede was Jared Legrand,” he said. “A good man. Two days ago he fell into a crevasse. His body has not yet been recovered.”
“How did it happen?” Gonzales asked.
“He was checking sensors with one of the other crew,” Russell said. “It was an accident.”